Multiscalar governance of urban energy transitions in Australia: The cases of Sydney and Melbourne

Abstract

Sustainable energy transitions-broadly described as moving away from fossil fuels toward renewable resources and reducing energy demand-are emerging across the world, albeit in uneven ways. Scholarship on energy transitions has highlighted the importance of how these transitions may be facilitated or impeded by both governance and politics, and the influence of urban dynamics and histories on these transitions. Using an emphasis on multiscalar governance, this paper analyses emergent energy reconfigurations in Australia, with two purposes. The first is to understand more richly the dynamics that are differentially reworking possibilities for more sustainable energy infrastructure and energy demand in a fossil-fuel dependent nation. Second, we focus on the role of cities, considering the workings of urban energy transitions, most especially through governing the materiality of urban commercial space. Drawing on empirical examples from Australia's two largest cities we suggest that the urban is a crucial nexus through which energy transitions are instigated, manifest and contested. We conclude by confirming that the strategic pursuit of political-economic interests of the urban, in partnership with other state and nonstate actors, creates opportunities for energy transitions rendered difficult by institutional and material obduracies.

The evolving borderland of energy geographies

“…Nature-society geographers have engaged both Marxist-inspired political economy and poststructuralism theories/concepts to (separately) evaluate how energy projects are assembled (Bouzarovski et al, 2015;Yenneti, Day, & Golubchikov, 2016), financed (Baker, 2015;Hall, Foxon, & Bolton, 2016;Knuth, 2018;Merme et al, 2014;Newell & Phillips, 2016;Schmidt & Matthews, 2018), constructed, and discursively framed (Hommes, Boelens, & Maat, 2016;Kuchler & Bridge, 2018) and how these practices impact processes such as governance (McCarthy, 2015;Muinzer & Ellis, 2017) and urbanization (Bulkeley, McGuirk, & Dowling, 2016;Dowling, McGuirk, & Maalsen, 2018 (Baka, 2017a;Rignall, 2016;Yenneti et al, 2016). In contrast, work on energy systems in the Global North have largely focused on the political economic logics of developing and operating energy and emissions trading markets (Bridge & Bradshaw, 2017;Carton, 2017;Kama, 2014).…”

A Comprehensive Planning Method for Low-Carbon Energy Transition in Rapidly Growing Cities

“…For example, Frantzeskaki et al [18] believe that civil society, composed of citizens, community organizations, industry associations, and other groups, is also a main driver of urban LCET and an important guarantee to meet social needs and solve social conflicts. In addition, Dowling et al [5] stressed the importance of social governance led by government institutions in an urban energy low carbon transition. It is believed that local governments, as key participants in urban governance, will inevitably become a part of urban LCET.…”

“…Previous studies of urban LCET focus more on developed cities, while the attention to rapidly growing cities is insufficient. For developed cities, such as New York [4], Sydney [5], and Aalborg [6], their economic development has tended to be stable. They are basically in the process from postindustrialization to informatization, and their dependence on energy for urban development has gradually weakened.…”

Transitioning to renewable energy in Sydney: Relational and co‐evolving energy geographies

“…Community energy groups have entered the solar garden space to address "energy justice issues: the idea [is about] ... having solar power for everyone regardless of where they live and their home arrangements; acknowledging that people are locked out of solar [as] the proportion of people in apartments in Sydney is only increasing" (Interview 7). While still in the early stages of development, if solar gardens are constructed, this more inclusive model guided by community energy advocates will likely be a significant contribution to Sydney's changing energy economy and add to the ways in which cities are opening new pathways for transition (Dowling et al, 2018).…”