to discuss the visions for and activities related to overcoming and coping with global warming. A main issue is energy, where consumption of oil, gas and coal is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Theme
Presently, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is perhaps the most prominent strategy to curb CO2 emissions – characterised by Norway’s Prime Minister as “a moon landing project”. This statement is an indication of the challenges and risks involved, but also of the potential gain in terms of being able to continue to produce energy from carbon-based sources.
Increasingly, a different agenda is emerging, with a focus on the possibilities of a transition from carbon-based energy sources to new renewable energy. Some characterise the long-term goal to achieve a ‘hydrogen economy’ or a ‘hydrogen society’, but also the label of ‘post-carbon society’ is gaining popularity, maybe because it is less focused on one set of technologies while reminding us about the underlying concern for global warming and increased CO2 emissions.
The workshop is meant as an occasion to explore what ‘post-carbon societies’ might mean, and what forces of and strategies for transformation that are present, drawing on the ideas and concepts from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). We particularly invite contributions that focus on the present situation with respect to the production and consumption of energy, about new and/or established energy technologies, political and scientific strategies to support new renewables, the phenomenon of CCS and the involved political, economic and scientific activities, and the role of social sciences – including economics – in shaping present ways of understanding energy. Another set of important issues concern global warming as a historical and cultural phenomenon and the way government, industry and science is preparing (or not) for the consequences of a changing climate.
To explore the notion of ‘post-carbon societies’, it is important also to unpack the diverse meanings that may be given to the concept and how this relates to the broader agenda of sustainable development. ‘Hydrogen society’ has looked much like a slogan to achieve economic support for the technologies needed to produce, store and produce energy from hydrogen. Is the idea of ‘post-carbon societies’ in a similar vein basically a technical fix, that carbon-based sources of energy just are to be replaced by new renewable sources, or does the idea also involve more fundamental transformations of modern life, for example related to the development of less energy-demanding lifestyles? Or should we stop rehearsing the traditional critique of technical fixes and rather focus on what is needed to make technical fixes work?
We invite papers to the workshop that analyse, describe and discuss such problems and concerns.