At a time when climate-change deniers hold the reins of power in the United States and international greenhouse gas negotiations continue at a slow crawl, what options are available to cities, companies, and consumers around the world who seek a cleaner future? Scott Victor Valentine, Marilyn A. Brown, and Benjamin K. Sovacool explore developments and strategies that will help fast-track the transition to renewable energy. They provide an expert analysis of the achievable steps that citizens, organizational leaders, and policy makers can take to put their commitments to sustainability into practice.

Empowering the Great Energy Transition examines trends that suggest a transition away from carbon-intensive energy sources is inevitable—there are too many forces for change at work to stop a shift to clean energy. Yet under the status quo, change will be too slow to avert the worst consequences of climate change. Humanity is on a path to incur avoidable social, environmental, and economic costs. Valentine, Brown, and Sovacool argue that new policies and business models are needed to surmount the hurdles separating the current consumption model from a sustainable energy future. Empowering the Great Energy Transition shows that with well-placed efforts, we can set humanity on a course that supports entrepreneurs and communities in mitigating the environmental harm caused by technologies whose time has come and gone.

Scott Victor Valentine is professor and associate dean of sustainability and urban planning at RMIT University. His books include Wind Power Politics and Policies (2014) and, also with Brown and Sovacool, Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy: Fifteen Contentious Questions (2016).

Marilyn A. Brown is a Regents’ and Brook Byers Professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she directs the Climate and Energy Policy Lab. A former utility regulator, she is a corecipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for the IPCC Report on Mitigation of Climate Change.

Benjamin K. Sovacool is professor of energy policy at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, where he serves as director of the Sussex Energy Group and of the Center on Innovation and Energy Demand. His publications include Global Energy Justice: Problems, Principles, and Practices (2014).