Llewelyn Hughes

Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change Concern

This paper examines whether experience of extreme weather events—such as excessive heat, droughts, flooding, and hurricanes—increases an individual’s level concern about climate change. We bring together micro-level geospatial data on extreme weather events from NOAA’s Storm Events Database with public opinion data from multiple years of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to study this question. We find evidence of a modest, but discernible positive relationship between experiencing extreme weather activity and expressions of concern about climate change. However, the effect only materializes for recent extreme weather activity; activity that occurred over longer periods of time does not affect public opinion. These results are generally robust to various measurement strategies and model specifications. Our findings contribute to the public opinion literature on the importance of local environmental conditions on attitude formation.

Protecting Solar: Global Supply Chains and Business Power

ABSTRACT Governments invested substantially in renewable energy industries in responding to climate change, while seeking to promote economic growth. They also engaged in a series of major trade disputes, notably in the solar photovoltaic and wind sectors. The European Union (EU)–China solar dispute is one of the largest such cases. In 2013, the European Commission (EC) announced duties on imports of solar products from Chinese manufacturers. This decision was at odds with the fact that the majority of the European solar industry opposed tariffs. We propose that the decision was affected by a shift in negotiating power between business and the EC. We suggest that the rise of global supply chains undermined the structural power of industry by dividing manufacturers over trade policy and by fragmenting the information conveyed to policy-makers. This provided an opportunity to the Commission to engage in ‘interest shopping’ by selecting an industry position that matched its own interest. Evidence from a comparative case study on EU and German responses to solar imports supports our argument. The findings suggest that the globalisation of production can strengthen the negotiating power of policy-makers, and implies that policy-makers face new trade-offs at the intersection of manufacturing and climate policy.

Low-carbon technologies, national innovation systems, and global production networks: the state of play

The chapter reviews research on public policy in low-carbon technology industries with a particular emphasis on the implications of an important change in the structure of global production – the rise of global production networks (GPNs). It argues that GPNs in low-carbon technologies have particularly important implications for a core concern within the field of IPE: how do policies implemented by national governments interact in a global economy characterised by profound interdependence? This question takes on particular importance because markets for low-carbon technologies are highly dependent on government intervention. The chapter shows that the characteristics of the underlying technologies – such as solar photovoltaic and wind turbines – help explain the patterns of global production in low-carbon technologies, and to what extent public policies influence GPN formation.

Renegotiating Japan’s Energy Compact

In this chapter, Hughes argues that Japan and Germany are taking divergent paths toward shifting the mix of fuels used in the energy system. This difference has emerged despite the similar goals announced by the German and Japanese governments of reducing the role of nuclear power in the energy mix, and increasing the role of renewable energy sources. Hughes argues that the structural power of Japan’s power utilities—while not absolute—has resulted in a slower uptake in the renewables, placing limits on Japan’s own energy transformation.

Energy, Coercive Diplomacy, and Sanctions

Analysis of energy markets has long focused on the concern that fossil fuels might be used as instruments of coercion. In this chapter, we review the state of knowledge on the relationship between energy, coercion, and sanctions. We argue that historical concerns in the major energy-importing countries regarding the potential for coercion have largely been misguided: the structure of energy markets makes it difficult to use the fossil fuels that form the basis of our energy system as instruments of coercion or to enforce changes in target states’ behavior. We suggest there are nevertheless a number of important questions that remain amenable to further research. First, more research is needed to understand the implications of energy supply chains in which production, transportation, refining, and distribution are no longer handled by the same companies or dominated by the same countries. Second, recent sanctions efforts suggest that oil consumers may gain leverage vis-a-vis producers, yet the effectiveness of sanctions against energy exporters remains poorly understood, including sanctions that target the financial activities that underpin their ability to settle trades in oil and gas. Third, scholars interested in energy could also profitably study the relationship between the energy sector and interest groups politics, both in targeted countries and those seeking to impose costs through the manipulation of energy markets.

Globalizing Solar: Industry Specialization and Firm Demands for Trade Protection

Governments are investing billions of dollars in low-carbon energy technologies in order to address climate change. Recently governments have also adopted protectionist measures in low-carbon energy technology sectors. In the solar photovoltaic industry, governments in both Europe and the United States responded to a rise in Chinese module exports through the imposition of tariffs, voluntary export restraints and other measures. The government in Japan, however - another major solar market - has not done so. We hypothesize that the position of firms in global value chains shape their preferences vis-a-vis trade protection. Our findings show the policy positions of the majority of firms align with expectations. In doing so we provide evidence that industry specialization shapes firm demand for trade protection in a major green industry. More generally, our research suggests the globalization and fragmentation of supply chains creates important trade-offs for governments by pitting industrial interests against upstream and downstream firms and environmental interests seeking to maximize market penetration of renewable technologies.