The Politicization of Low-Carbon Technologies

Achieving climate change targets requires the rapid adoption of low-carbon technologies (LCTs). Many LCTs, such as solar PV and wind turbines, have experienced major cost reductions. However, their adoption is impeded by high politicization: meaning their salience and polarization in political and public debates is strong. Interestingly, while the climate issue is divided along ideologically lines, it is puzzling that this is not the case for LCTs. To date, the drivers and impacts of LCT politicization remain poorly understood. PolTech addresses this gap by asking: What drives LCT politicization, and how does it impact policies, adoption, and industry development around LCTs? Drawing from political science and innovation studies, PolTech develops a new theory of technology politics. It argues that inherently different LCT traits – such as complexity, adverse effects, or user visibility – shape how symbolic and material costs and benefits are distributed across groups over time. These dynamics interact with institutional contexts, explaining cross-country differences in LCT politicization and its impacts. Adopting a comparative mixed method design, PolTech covers 44 OECD and G20 countries, responsible for 80% of GHG emissions: 1. PolTech constructs a politicization index for 15-20 key LCTs by applying natural language processing to media and parliamentary speeches; 2. PolTech uses machine learning to generate new datasets on LCT policy design and econometrics to study how politicization shapes LCT policy, adoption, and industry trends across countries. This is complemented by case studies on green industrial policies in the EU, US, India, and China; 3. PolTech assesses with quasi-experiments how LCT investments feed back into later politicization, voting behaviour and policy design. In sum, PolTech develops a novel theory of technology politics, testing it with new datasets and comparative analyses, to derive context-specific strategies for accelerating LCT adoption.