Dr. Adam Doering, University of Otago

Dr. Rebecca Ford, Victoria University of Wellington

Energy Transitions in Transport:

Moving towards a more efficient NZ(?)

Energy Transitions in Transport (ETT)

1. NZ context and the need for change

2. Transitional thinking: An innovative focus?

3. Transport in transition

4. Patterns, problems and lessons learned

5. Moving forward: From innovation to purposeful transition?

NZ context & the need for change

New Zealand’s current transportation energy culture is highly dependent on

road transport and a car culture driven by fossil fuels.

Transitional thinking: An innovative focus?

Transport system [now]

TRANSITION Transport system

[future]

Transitioning towards what and whose future: • What does not doing business-as-usual mean?

• How do we think transformational rather than incremental or

reformative transition is going to happen?

Ex. Chapman 2008:

Transitioning to a

low-carbon form in

NZ

Political ideologies

Societal values

Macro-economic

Exogenous-beyond

our control?????

ETT in NZ:

Innovations

Source: Geels, F. W. (2012)

Transport in Transition

Phase 4: Moving Forward

What can be learnt for future interventions?

Phase 3: Case Study Analysis How were the changes produced? (trends/drivers/barriers)?

Phase 2: National Stocktake of ETT based on Case Studies Who is currently engaging with ETT initiatives in NZ?

Phase 1: Identifying Potential Transitions What lower carbon transportation transitions are available in NZ?

ETT Characteristics

Nationwide Stocktake:

85 cases covering 132 niche-innovations

• Regional/Local: 60% of initiatives were designed for local development

• Emergent: 75% of the cases identified a start date of 2006 or later

• Privately operated: Nearly 50% of the cases were private enterprises

4 distinct transitional clusters:

Private sector: Practise

NGO & community advocacy

Private sector: Material

Local/Regional modal shifts

Dri

vers

fo

r C

ha

nge

0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00

Financial

Performance

Security

Regulatory

Policy

Environmental

Community

Social

Opportunity

Image

% of cluster

Local government initiatives Private sector material

Community and NGO advocacy Private sector practice

Distribution of motivations across the clusters

Drivers for Change by cluster

Private sector: Practise

NGO & community advocacy

Private sector: Material

Local/regional modal shifts

1. Financial

2. Environmental

3. Community

1. Environmental

2. Niche market

3. Financial

1. Environmental

2. Community

3. Resilience/energy security

1. Regulatory strategies

2. Social (health/quality of life)

3. Financial (Gov’t funding)

Market-driven

Socially directed engagements

Patterns, problems & lessons learned

1. Environmentally sustainable transport discourse

2. Rhetoric-reality gap

3. Silos of innovation

4. Low hanging fruit are BAU

5. Limits of visioning?

“Have you ever seen a revolution where no one got hurt?.. In the green revolution

we’re having, everyone’s a winner, nobody has to give up anything… That’s not a

revolution. That’s a party.” (Friedman, T. 2009: 150)

Moving forward: Society in pursuit of…

• Transitional visioning • Not only a utopian end-point vision, but imagining and supporting the

potential, now, for a thousand little transitions, decenterings, interruptions, and forceful cuts that interrupts BAU and mobilises society to move in another direction.

• Diversity • No more “silver bullets” and only fund the innovative transitions that are

“worthwhile pursuing”. Diversity as resilience means supporting and even funding uncertainty.

• Connectivity & holistic frameworks • Continue to seek out ways different innovative transitions can become

interconnected.

The critical questions today are…

• Who, or what, will “coordinate” this transition?

• Who, or what, directs the socio-cultural landscape? • The overarching exogenous political ideologies, societal values,

and macro-economics of the socio-technical perspective?

An purposeful & transformational transition?

• Struggle

• Transformative transitions are taken; not organically unfolding

over time or driven by an invisible-hand.

• “Coordination”

• Refers to the importance of centralised forms of governance.

• Politics

• The problems and solutions of sustainable transport are political

ones. Government intervention will become increasingly

critical; what government style is necessary?

• Opportunity

• Transportation as a tool to reengage our attention to the

commons, public not private ownership, issues of social equality,

and on what and how much to consume and produce.

Thank you!

Auckland 2000, (Bernard Roundhill,1956) in Idealog September/October 2006, p. 114.