IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v41y2009i10p2342-2356.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Complexity, Entanglement, and Overflow in the New Carbon Economy: The Case of the UK's Energy Efficiency Commitment

Author

Listed:
  • Gareth Douglas Powells

    (Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, England)

Abstract

I use ideas about the complexity of economic and sociotechnical relations, drawing especially on the work of John Law and Michel Callon, to consider domestic energy efficiency in a landscape in which governmental interventions attempt to reduce carbon emissions while also tackling fuel poverty. Policy responses to energy efficiency in the UK largely framed by ‘the market’ go on to perform the market in interventions such as the Energy Efficiency Commitment. The way that the Energy Efficiency Commitment has been designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions while performing a welfare function and the multiple effects of calibrating it in such a way are explored in the paper. In particular, I suggest that attempts to order and govern energy networks struggle to contain the generative effects that stem from climate change and fuel poverty being hardwired to the same technical and social phenomena such as homes, energy technologies, and energy users.

Suggested Citation

  • Gareth Douglas Powells, 2009. "Complexity, Entanglement, and Overflow in the New Carbon Economy: The Case of the UK's Energy Efficiency Commitment," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(10), pages 2342-2356, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:41:y:2009:i:10:p:2342-2356
    DOI: 10.1068/a40347
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a40347
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a40347?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J Murdoch, 1995. "Actor-Networks and the Evolution of Economic Forms: Combining Description and Explanation in Theories of Regulation, Flexible Specialization, and Networks," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 27(5), pages 731-757, May.
    2. Donald MacKenzie, 2006. "An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262134608, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rosenow, Jan, 2012. "Energy savings obligations in the UK—A history of change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 373-382.
    2. Walker, Gordon & Day, Rosie, 2012. "Fuel poverty as injustice: Integrating distribution, recognition and procedure in the struggle for affordable warmth," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 69-75.
    3. Marchand, Robert & Genovese, Andrea & Koh, S.C. Lenny & Brennan, Alan, 2019. "Examining the relationship between energy poverty and measures of deprivation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 206-217.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthew Zook & Michael H Grote, 2017. "The microgeographies of global finance: High-frequency trading and the construction of information inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 121-140, January.
    2. Luis Suarez‐Villa, 2009. "The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community – By Stephen A. Marglin," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 533-541, September.
    3. Leonard Goke & Jens Weibezahn & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2021. "A collective blueprint, not a crystal ball: How expectations and participation shape long-term energy scenarios," Papers 2112.04821, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    4. Johnstone, David & Havyatt, David, 2022. "Sophistry and high electricity prices in Australia," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Möllering, Guido, 2009. "Market constitution analysis: A new framework applied to solar power technology markets," MPIfG Working Paper 09/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Pierpaolo Andriani & Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, 2015. "Transactional innovation as performative action: transforming comparative advantage in the global coffee business," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 371-400, April.
    7. Philipp Heimberger & Jakob Kapeller, 2017. "The performativity of potential output: pro-cyclicality and path dependency in coordinating European fiscal policies," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 904-928, September.
    8. Aspers, Patrik & Darr, Asaf & Kohl, Sebastian, 2007. "An economic sociological look at economic anthropology," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 9(1), pages 3-10.
    9. Brett Christophers, 2017. "The performativity of the yield curve," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 63-80, January.
    10. Schinckus, Christophe, 2018. "Pataphysics of finance: An essay of visual epistemology," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 57-68.
    11. Nick Bernards, 2019. "Tracing mutations of neoliberal development governance: ‘Fintech’, failure and the politics of marketization," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(7), pages 1442-1459, October.
    12. Pollock, Neil & D’Adderio, Luciana, 2012. "Give me a two-by-two matrix and I will create the market: Rankings, graphic visualisations and sociomateriality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 565-586.
    13. Elena Battaglini & Nicoletta Masiero, 2015. "Sviluppo locale e resilienza territoriale. Un?introduzione," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(3), pages 5-22.
    14. Christian Walter, 2018. "The leptokurtic crisis and the discontinuous turn in financial modelling," Post-Print hal-04560385, HAL.
    15. Stewart Russell & Nils Markusson & Vivian Scott, 2012. "What will CCS demonstrations demonstrate?," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 651-668, August.
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f5vtl5h9a73d5ls976m3igpqi is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Bill Pritchard, 2000. "The Transnational Corporate Networks of Breakfast Cereals in Asia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(5), pages 789-804, May.
    18. Keith Breckenridge, 2020. "Capitalism without Surveillance?," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 51(3), pages 921-935, May.
    19. M. Fourcade & E. Ollion & Y. Algan, 2015. "The Superiority of Economists," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 7.
    20. Emre Tarim & Arie Gozluklu & Gulnur Muradoglu, 2023. "The American spirit: The performativity of folk economics in global financial markets," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(8), pages 1906-1927, November.
    21. Katrin Hirte, 2020. "Das doppelte Reflexionsproblem in der Oekonomik," ICAE Working Papers 115, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:41:y:2009:i:10:p:2342-2356. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.