In person icon The geopolitical turn in the clean energy transition: New interventionism and green industrial strategy

Abstract

Speakers: Anna Herranz-Surrales, Maastricht University Paula Kivimaa, Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) Morena Skalamera, Leiden University David Criekemans, University of Antwerp ‘Clean tech’, designed to combat climate change, has become a strategic sector marked by increasing levels of state intervention. Now seen as central to ensuring national economic competitiveness in a net zero world (Scholten, 2018), technologies such as solar, wind and batteries have become subject to reshoring policies and green industrial strategy (Alfaro and Chor, 2023, De Backer et al., 2016). States deliberately intervene in clean technology supply chains so as to enhance their security, resilience and to deliver economic growth and value creation at home. Thanks to its China 2025 strategy, Chinese companies have assumed clear leadership in many areas of clean tech production. They now represent 80 percent of global manufacturing capacity in solar, 60 percent in wind turbines, and 75 percent in batteries (IEA, 2023). China also plays an outsized role in the value chains of critical materials needed to manufacture them (Goldthau 2024). As a response, the US adopted the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) along the Reshoring American Manufacturing Act of 2021 as well as other measures. The new Trump administration may add an even more isolationist policy layer to existing US efforts with an emphasis on green tariffs. The EU followed suit with the Net Zero Industry Act of 2024, the Critical Raw Materials Act and a new Commission putting economic security first on its policy agenda. Following concerns both related to the war initiated by Russia in Ukraine in 2022 (Kuzemko et al. 2022) and the declining competitiveness of the EU against China and the US (Draghi, 2024), the EU has increasingly pursued ‘open strategic autonomy’ and ‘technology sovereignty’ in its energy and industrial policies. Such developments suggest that green industrial development has become both a new frontier in global economic relations and a core challenge to economic globalisation and liberal internationalism. It is important, then, to explore in greater depth how clean energy transitions are shaping international economic and political relations. The roundtable will discuss the geopolitical turn facing the clean energy transition. Drawing from the ECPR Research Network on Energy Politics, Policy and Governance the roundtable will bring together four distinguished speakers to explore scholarly and policy implications. With this, it speaks to broader ECPR audiences, including in International Political Economy, Security Studies, European Integration and Environmental Politics.