International energy governance: opportunities and challenges for democratic politics

Energy is critical to all societies and in the last few decades, energy-related issues have become more complex and more interconnected. Worldwide, policy makers and citizens are faced with an “energy trilemma”—addressing climate change, energy access, and energy security (e.g., Falkner, 2014). Decarbonization and decentralization are important trends in many regions of the world often in tandem with yet another “D” trend—digitalization. This intricate set of challenges is linked to the global, regional, national, and local scales and involves a variety of agents, such as governments, inter-governmental bodies, local authorities, business organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. Given the stakes and an increased awareness of these challenges across the world, energy governance has become hugely important to understand.