Masahiro Suzuki defends his PhD and receives two scientific awards

We are happy to share that POLET member Masahiro Suzuki has recently defended his PhD summa cum laude from Central European University (CEU). His dissertation research on political acceleration in energy transitions has also received the CEU Best Dissertation Award 2024, as well as the Early Career Scientist Award 2024 from Energy Research & Social Science.

Masahiro’s research addresses the question of whether and to what extent climate policies accelerate energy transitions, thereby contributing to the scientific debate on the feasibility of climate change mitigation. To answer this question, he developed a novel framework to compare energy transitions across countries and time periods, and investigated how the recent developments in the electricity sector in the G7 and the EU under climate policies compare to their historical trends. He also assessed how these developments as well as their planned transitions align with the requirements for keeping the global temperature increase below 1.5°C.

Masahiro Suzuki receives the CEU Best Dissertation Award 2024 from the CEU President and Rector, Shalini Randeria.

The research finds that climate policies have not accelerated energy transitions beyond historical trends and rates in the G7 and the EU, despite the implementation of more than 2,000 policies over the last few decades. To meet the 1.5°C target, these countries need to immediately accelerate the pace of their transitions multiple times. Although the G7 and the EU have politically committed to achieving such acceleration, Masahiro also finds that none of these countries has yet developed concrete plans to make it happen. In spite of these gaps in relation to the 1.5°C target, his research also highlights several precedents of low-carbon technology growth or fossil fuel decline comparable to what is needed for the 1.5°C target. For example, France and Sweden rapidly developed nuclear power in the 1970s and 1980s, and the U.K. has swiftly reduced fossil fuel use in electricity generation in recent decades. There are also some signs of acceleration in some European countries in response to the Russo-Ukrainian War (see also POLET's earlier article). These cases are historically the fastest transition examples from which we can perhaps learn best about political acceleration in energy transitions.

Masahiro will join Chalmers University of Technology as a postdoctoral researcher in Fall 2024 and continue his research on the feasibility of rapid energy transitions to mitigate climate change.

A representative work from his dissertation research can be found on the POLET publication page, as well as below:

Masahiro Suzuki, Jessica Jewell & Aleh Cherp. (2023). Have climate policies accelerated energy transitions? Historical evolution of electricity mix in the G7 and the EU compared to net-zero targets, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 106, 103281. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103281