Governance is a concept that is used to describe how societies, organisations and networks are collectively steered and governed. Different from government it emphasises steering enacted in cooperation and deliberation between public authorities and private actors. It includes energy and climate policies, and policy integration, but also the forms and rationalities of steering, e.g., by money, orders, or talk. A low-carbon society is one in which carbon emissions are below what is required for long-term stabilisation of greenhouse gases. Transition governance for a low-carbon society includes all purposeful mechanisms and measures aimed at steering social systems towards making the transition.

The High-Level Workshop delivered a set of significant observations and ideas focused on nine governance issues.

• How can long-term goals be reconciled with short term priorities?

• How can the transition to super-smart-grids be governed and what barriers will be encountered?

• What is the trade-off between efficiency and democracy, or between control and stakeholder engagement?

• What can be the role of the state in the transition?

• How can the rate of energy efficiency improvement be accelerated?

• What is the role of information, education and R&D in making the transition? • How can land-use in a low-carbon society be governed?

• By what mechanisms can public support for CCS be enhanced?

• What will be the role of leadership and pioneers in making the transition?

The fruitful debates between representatives from university, industry, media and policy makers, inspired cross-cutting discussions. Below you will find the recommendations and thoughts agreed by the participants as key in the transition to a low-carbon society. These thoughts are exploratory and cover many issues, but there are five main overarching themes that are recurring.

- The first regards the importance of information, education and communication and the need for an appealing vision or narrative of a better and low carbon life and future.

- The second revolves around the topic of equity and rights within and between current and future generations; this debate also raises important questions concerning responsibility of all actors at all levels of society.

- The third issue regards the development of carbon pricing in a global market and the need to reinforce the underlying structure with mechanisms that create stability and dynamic consistency in prices and policy in the long term (for example, through a “central carbon bank”).

- Fourth, there is also a need for new and appropriate policies and institutions related to the specific mitigation options (energy efficiency, renewable energy, and carbon capture and storage) in order to maintain momentum in the transition but also to handle conflicts and unintended side-effects.

- Lastly, integration across different policy domains is important to ensure that a multitude of large and small barriers are addressed and a multitude of large and small enabling conditions are created.

Key Messages

- We need an appealing narrative with essential features of a low carbon future. This can then serve as a framework for all societal actors. For policy-makers and regulators the narrative can guide the development of instruments that enable short-term decision-making by society to be aligned with the long-term goals. For citizens the narrative can make the efforts that are required worthwhile.

- Super Smart Grids are necessary to facilitate large-scale integration of variable power sources, distributed generation and demand response options. For this purpose, transmission and distribution systems need major investments and institutional reforms.

- Governments should set up long term visions, provide directions, set targets and create opportunities and framework conditions for change. The state must also provide regulations and incentives for superior environmental performance. The efforts should aim to price CO2, correct other market failures, stimulate innovative experiments and management, and promote green procurement and sustainable consumption.

- Knowledge as a key resource and learning as a strategic process to facilitate system change for an energy transition requires a multi-level, multi-actor, system-oriented policy mix, with transparency and accountability as attributes of both public and private activities. Permanent exchange of information among all the actors will provide opportunities for broad participation and partnership fostering policies will ensure greater stakeholder engagement in the transition to a low-carbon society.

- Realizing the full potential and multiple benefits of energy efficiency along the entire energy value chain requires new appropriate institutional and organizational arrangements for coordinating efforts by public and private stakeholders. Governments need to create enabling conditions through promoting information dissemination, awareness, strong legal frameworks and other incentive structures for removing risk aversion of common investors and fostering energy efficiency.

- Innovation and learning are central in achieving forms of transitions towards a low carbon society that have combined environmental, economic and social benefits. Successful co-evolution of technologies, markets and institutions poses new challenges to the way innovation policy is organised and implemented.

- Governing a large-scale expansion of bioenergy will require both demand side policies (e.g., certification) and supply side policies (e.g., comprehensive pricing of all greenhouse gases, biodiversity and water conservation measures, and increased land tenure security in developing countries) to assure that it occurs in a environmentally and socially acceptable way.

- Elected governments need to show leadership in establishing long term legally binding ambitious reduction targets. In order to make such politically difficult decisions stick they may be isolated from electoral politics e.g. by giving specialized and democratically appointed agencies the authority to enforce the targets.

- The advantages to have more leadership in low carbon business activities are tremendous for society but risky for the individual market actors. Leaders need to be supported by encouraging companies and citizens out of their comfort zone and creating an entrepreneurial spirit.