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OGEL Call for Papers: Special Issue on "The Energy Union in the Next Decade"

9 August 2018

Update June 2019: The OGEL 3 (2019) Special Issue on The Energy Union in the Next Decade was published in June 2019, table of contents and free excerpt here www.ogel.org/journal-browse-issues-toc.asp?key=81 

Prof. Giuseppe Bellantuono and Dr. Kaisa Huhta will be editing a Special Issue of Oil, Gas & Energy Law (OGEL, ISSN 1875-418X, www.ogel.org) on "The Energy Union in the Next Decade".

The political agreement on the Clean Energy Package could be hailed as the world's most ambitious effort to speed up the low-carbon transition. The assessment of its wide-ranging lines of interventions will keep legal and non-legal scholars busy for many years. But before embarking on detailed analyses of the new provisions, it is useful to step back from the most immediate implementation concerns and try to gauge the meaning of the Package for the Energy Union strategy. The good news about the higher 2030 targets were to some extent obscured by other, less positive developments. The most recent assessments of progress made on the 2020 targets show that many Member States are lagging behind. No less troublesome is the start of the implementation process for the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, shortly before the EU mustered its political agreement, average monthly levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit the new record of over 410 parts per million, thus confirming that the Earth is on track for more than 3°C of global temperature increase by the end of the century. These conflicting signals are not surprising in the most complex energy transition the humankind has ever faced. Though, they suggest a need to locate the Package within broader trends. From a practical point of view, a clear understanding of those trends should help identify the most effective implementation measures. From a theoretical point of view, reflecting on the legislative process that led to the adoption of the Package should allow to test the robustness of current approaches to the transition.

More specifically, for this special issue we are interested in papers that address one or more of the following questions:

1. How radical is the Energy Union Strategy? We are running out of time to tackle climate change. Can we see in the Clean Energy Package the signs of the fundamental (legal and non-legal) transformations we need in the Anthropocene? Or is the Package another instance of gradual change? Which aspects of the new provisions could be foreseen to produce the deepest modifications to the EU energy regulatory systems?
2. How credible is the Energy Union Strategy? Credibility usually entails the willingness to address the inter-temporal trade-offs between short-term costs and long-term benefits. Is the new Governance Regulation going to ensure such a long-term commitment? Does the Regulation provide the right mix of rigidity and flexibility? Can the Package exploit synergies with parallel developments in the agricultural sector, the Digital Single Market Strategy, the Strategy for Low-emission Mobility and the Circular Economy Action Plan? How likely is a high degree of coordination with the implementation of the Paris Agreement and of the Sustainable Development Goals? Should we expect the Package to produce a significant impact on the dynamics between the EU and Member States? In which direction?
3. How 'just' is the Energy Union Strategy? The attempt to put the five dimensions of EU energy policies under the same roof was meant to address the multiple trade-offs among competing goals. But creating winners and losers is unavoidable. To what extent does the Package help reduce the distance between these competing goals? Are any of the multiple concepts of justice currently debated in the energy and climate fields reflected to some extent in the Package? What is still missing?

These questions can be addressed from a plurality of disciplinary perspectives. We welcome contributions addressing the legal dimensions of the Energy Union Strategy, as well contributions from all disciplines aimed at integrating legal and non-legal perspectives, or engaging in a dialogue which shows similarities and differences in how legal and non-legal scholars interpret the Energy Union Strategy. No less important is to assess the impact of the Energy Union Strategy beyond the EU borders. Scholars from outside the EU are invited to provide an external point of view on the meaning and the effects that the Energy Union Strategy has in their home country, to compare EU and extra-EU transition policies, as well as to identify and assess channels for mutual influences.

Editors

Feel free to circulate this call for papers amongst friends, colleagues and other people who you think may have an interest in this topic.

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