Biofuelling the energy transition in Nordic countries: explaining overachievement of EU renewable transport obligations

Jon Birger Skjærseth (), Per Ove Eikeland () and Tor Håkon Inderberg ()
Additional contact information
Jon Birger Skjærseth: The Fridtjof Nansens Institute
Per Ove Eikeland: The Fridtjof Nansens Institute
Tor Håkon Inderberg: The Fridtjof Nansens Institute

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 2022, vol. 22, issue 4, No 9, 825-842

Abstract: Abstract Following the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive, Finland, Norway and Sweden have overachieved their 10% renewable transport fuel obligations by 2020, mainly by increasing biofuel consumption. This seems puzzling from explanatory perspectives focused on EU adaptation pressure and changes in domestic politics. These perspectives can partly explain implementation, but the policy context—actual and potential biofuel industry development and ‘green growth’ opportunities—appears central for explaining overachievement of EU obligations. Moreover, the composition and explanatory power of the three perspectives differ. In Norway, the combination of EU adaptation pressure, changes in domestic politics and potential industry development promoted overachievement; by contrast, actual industry development and supportive domestic politics, as well as new opportunities from EU policies, proved more important in Sweden and Finland. These findings speak to the literature on EU implementation, energy policies and leadership.

Keywords: EU; Energy policies; Implementation; Biofuels; Nordic countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10784-022-09587-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ieaple:v:22:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s10784-022-09587-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10784

DOI: 10.1007/s10784-022-09587-2

Access Statistics for this article

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics is currently edited by Joyeeta Gupta

More articles in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().