Can capital markets drive 'brown-to-green' transitions for fossil fuel incumbents? We argue that investor pressure alone is insufficient to overcome a hold-up problem in decarbonization: fossil firms can hold up future value held by their stakeholders by not mitigating climate-related risks. Using a novel NLP technique applied to 21 years of SEC 10-K filings (2000-2022) across all publicly listed U.S. oil and gas firms, we classify climate strategies based on SEC and TCFD standards. Exploiting the September 2020 SEC Rule 14a-8 amendment as an exogenous shock to shareholder power, we find that while the rule change led to more shareholder resolutions, its effects on firm climate strategies are limited. For almost all measures, there is no distinguishable difference in climate strategies between firms exposed to increased shareholder pressure and those not exposed. Policy will have to play an important role for brown-to-green transitions to occur.

This article examines the role of digital technologies in accelerating the global energy transition. We analyze how digitalization affects energy efficiency, renewable energy deployment, and grid management across OECD and developing countries. The findings suggest that digital tools can significantly reduce transaction costs in energy markets and improve the integration of variable renewable energy sources.

This paper examines how youth-led organizations in Russia contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals through both non-profit and for-profit solutions. We survey organizational practices, identify key challenges, and document emerging trends in youth-driven sustainability initiatives.

This paper traces the political origins of Section 45Q, the U.S. carbon capture tax credit, to the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) industry that has operated since 1972. I argue that the distinctive output-based, per-ton design of 45Q was shaped by pre-existing EOR infrastructure and its political constituencies, not by climate policy entrepreneurship. Using original data on 139 EOR projects, EPA greenhouse gas reporting, and CO2 source analysis, I show that the top 5 EOR operators account for over 70% of production and that 97% of CCUS lobbying expenditure (2005-2024) came from fossil fuel interests. The Section 43 input-based EOR credit (1990) served as a legislative predecessor even though 45Q adopted a fundamentally different output-based structure. This early industrial policy for fossil fuel firms created path dependencies that continue to shape U.S. carbon capture policy through the Inflation Reduction Act and beyond.

Community engagement has become central to carbon capture and storage (CCS) governance, yet researchers know little about what concerns the public raises during permitting and whether these fall within regulatory authority. We analyze 320 public comments from five Class VI carbon storage projects to examine which issues commenters prioritize and whether EPA can formally address them. Using natural language processing, we classify concerns as falling within ('in-scope') or outside ('out-of-scope') EPA's regulatory authority. We find that both supporters and opponents raise out-of-scope concerns: supporters mention environmental justice and procedural transparency concerns almost half the time, while opponents focus disproportionately on permitting-related issues and transparency. The in-scope/out-of-scope boundary functions as a recognition filter determining which concerns influence permitting decisions, effectively manufacturing acceptance by misaligning regulatory authority and public concerns.

Despite shared geological storage capacity, fossil fuel industries, and stated climate commitments, advanced democracies have adopted strikingly different policy regimes for carbon dioxide removal (CDR). This paper asks: why do CDR policy regimes vary across countries in their instrument design, durability, and technological scope? The answer lies in the interaction among three factors: inherited industrial infrastructure, coalition structure and strategic state capacity, and institutional context. CDR sits at the unique intersection of innovation policy and climate policy, requiring both cost reduction incentives to build new technological systems and regulatory structures for legal oversight of long-term storage. Using structured focused comparison across the US, Canada, Norway, and Australia, I show that countries vary independently on these two dimensions, producing distinct CDR trajectories that existing theories of either environmental politics or innovation policy alone cannot explain.

This paper estimates the causal impact of the Section 45Q carbon capture tax credit on CCS project deployment across U.S. states. Using staggered difference-in-differences methods and exploiting the 2018 FUTURE Act expansion and 2022 IRA enhancement as policy shocks, I examine whether and how much the per-ton credit incentive drove new project announcements, permit applications, and operational capacity. The analysis leverages the IEA CCUS Projects Database alongside state-level panel data on EOR infrastructure, Class VI permitting, and political variables.

What are the environmental and energy impacts of data centers in the United States, and how do stakeholder incentives interact with political institutions to shape data center siting outcomes? In H1 2025 alone, investments in computing infrastructure accounted for approximately 92% of GDP growth, while the presidential administration positioned data centers as strategic assets and advanced NEPA categorical exclusions to expedite permitting. Yet bipartisan local pushback has blocked or delayed $64 billion in data center projects. Using a novel dataset linking every identifiable U.S. data center to county-level outage records, EPA environmental justice data, and socio-political variables, we show that counties with data centers have higher percentages of non-whites, more EPA air pollution facilities, and higher concentrations of criteria air pollutants. U.S. federalism shapes data center siting by conditioning business power: firms site where they face weak political resistance, either through state preemption of local opposition or absence of opposition due to low political awareness.

Why do some U.S. states consistently generate higher volumes of climate-related innovation while others lag? Using a county-level panel dataset (2000-2024) combining USPTO patent data (CPC Y02 classification), wind and solar deployment databases, gubernatorial election data, and state policy variables, I examine how partisan control affects clean energy patenting and renewable deployment. I find that Democratic governors promote clean energy innovation only when paired with a split (divided) legislature, not with unified Democratic control — increasing patents by approximately 20%. This split government effect exists only before political polarization intensified around 2010. The findings suggest that divided government creates policy credibility that encourages private investment in clean energy innovation, but rising polarization has eroded this mechanism.

This paper examines the distributional consequences of changing energy prices across U.S. communities. We analyze how energy price shocks differentially affect communities based on income, race, and geographic location, finding that lower-income and minority communities bear disproportionate burdens from energy price volatility.