TY - JOUR A1 - Tiedemann, Silvana A1 - Müller-Hansen, Finn T1 - Auctions to phase out coal power: Lessons learned from Germany JF - Energy Policy N2 - This study assesses the extent to which auctions for compensation payments are a suitable policy instrument for ending coal-fired power generation at minimum cost and thus achieving national climate targets. Germany is the first country to apply such a market-based mechanism. Evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the auction, we find that the first five of seven auction rounds will retire 10 GW of coal-fired capacity at a cost of 68 ± 5 EUR/kW, corresponding to an additional carbon price of 2.4 ± 0.2 EUR/tCO2. The possibility of administratively shutting down power plants from 2024 and a decreasing ceiling price have ensured that average compensation payments are well below the ceiling price, and low compared to other policies, even though there was no competition in two of five auction rounds. As the government cancels the freed emission allowances, the policy will result in lower emissions, even though the carbon intensity of the German coal power fleet increased slightly by 2%. Thus, the German auctions can serve as a model for national phase-out strategies in countries with similar institutional frameworks and provide a reference case for integrating conflicting policy objectives into auctions. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113387 VL - 174 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Callaghan, Max A1 - Banisch, Lucy A1 - Doebbeling-Hildebrandt, Niklas A1 - Edmondson, Duncan A1 - Flachsland, Christian A1 - Lamb, William F. A1 - Levi, Sebastian A1 - Müller-Hansen, Finn A1 - Posada, Eduardo A1 - Vasudevan, Shraddha A1 - Minx, Jan C. T1 - Machine learning map of climate policy literature reveals disparities between scientific attention, policy density, and emissions JF - npj Climate Action N2 - Current climate mitigation policies are not sufficient to meet the Paris temperature target, and ramping up efforts will require rapid learning from the scientific literature on climate policies. This literature is vast and widely dispersed, as well as hard to define and categorise, hampering systematic efforts to learn from it. We use a machine learning pipeline using transformer-based language models to systematically map the relevant scientific literature on climate policies at scale and in real-time. Our “living systematic map” of climate policy research features a set of 84,990 papers, and classifies each of them by policy instrument type, sector, and geography. We explore how the distribution of these papers varies across countries, and compare this to the distribution of emissions and enacted climate policies. Results suggests a potential stark under-representation of industry sector policies, as well as diverging attention between science and policy with respect to economic and regulatory instruments. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00196-0 SN - 2731-9814 VL - 4 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Müller-Hansen, Finn A1 - Lee, Yuan Ting A1 - Callaghan, Max A1 - Jankin, Slava A1 - Minx, Jan C. T1 - The German coal debate on Twitter: Reactions to a corporate policy process JF - Energy Policy N2 - Phasing out coal is a prerequisite to achieving the Paris climate mitigation targets. In 2018, the German government established a multi-stakeholder commission with the mandate to negotiate a plan for the national coal phase-out, fueling a continued public debate over the future of coal. This study analyzes the German coal debate on Twitter before, during, and after the session of the so-called Coal Commission, over a period of three years. In particular, we investigate whether and how the work of the commission translated into shared perceptions and sentiments in the public debate on Twitter. We find that the sentiment of the German coal debate on Twitter becomes increasingly negative over time. In addition, the sentiment becomes more polarized over time due to an increase in the use of more negative and positive language. The analysis of retweet networks shows no increase in interactions between communities over time. These findings suggest that the Coal Commission did not further consensus in the coal debate on Twitter. While the debate on social media only represents a section of the national debate, it provides insights for policy-makers to evaluate the interaction of multi-stakeholder commissions and public debates. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113178 SN - 0301-4215 VL - 169 PB - Elsevier BV ER -