The path to sustainable energy supply in Germany
The path to sustainable energy supply in Germany
The federal governmant in its energy policy faces constraints both with respect to party interests, lobby groups and media agendas on the national level as well as regarding international climate policy agreements. This decision-making framework was represented within the Public-Choice theoretical setup, including model variables for party and voter behaviours as well as interest group and media influences. The initial procedure was to address the respective partial aspects, and only later to be integrated in a more comprehensive overall scheme. National level decision-making processes were exemplified by various national-level negotiation settings from the past (the German Energy Consensus Talk, international climate agreements, the German industry´s self-prescribed climate protection agenda), providing the evaluation background for a previously conceptualised model of media influence. In terms of international climate negotiations it was to be determined to what extent major impact developing nations such as India and China could be found to benefit from international co-operation with industrialised countries such as Germany, and how their historically observed positions on climate co-operation could be factored in. The overall envisioned comprehensive agent-based model was, based on this project, accepted by the German Science Foundation (DFG), after having been submitted as part of the local research group on "Institutionalisation of International Climate Negotiations".