Government and Renewable Energy Industry Leadership in Energy Transition – A Comparative Study between Australia and Taiwan

• In Event: Climate Technologies and Unintended Consequences 2

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between the government and (the corporate) renewable business sector and its impact on energy transition in Australia and Taiwan. In 2015, Conference of the Parties (COP) organised by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), carbon emissions reduction targets had been set out by country representatives in climate negotiations in Paris. Transforming resources into biomass and renewable energy through the development of innovation and technology has growing significance for countries including Australia and Taiwan as a major mechanism to reach their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). In Australia, developing renewable energy in a coal-exporting reliant and market based economy becomes a left and right wing political debate. Griffiths (2007:420) suggests the inherent policy development risks is embedded in high plurality between different government levels and influence between interest groups. This policy vacuum potentially hinders innovation and energy investments. On the contrary, Taiwan’s strong corporatist social market popularises links between businesses and government, it also means the country’s renewable policy direction is prone to changes in time of a shift of political power. In the two cases, it not only shows the important role political dynamics plays in renewable energy transition, as Patashinik (2008:3) have argued, a supportive institutional environment also promotes the likelihood that those renewable energy policies will endure. By comparing the two fundamentally different countries in normative and socio-political contexts, this paper draws upon the themes and contributes to existing research for addressing challenges of renewable energy policy deployment and energy transition.

Author

• Yu-Chieh Lin, School of Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney