Research seminar | Accelerating net-zero transitions encounter obstacles and headwinds: A global analysis of technologies, business, and politics - 16 Oct 2025

Abstract: While climate impacts, resistance and retrenchment dominate the news headlines, net-zero transitions are accelerating globally, especially in electricity and auto-mobility systems. This presentation aims to make sense of the confusing current state of net-zero transitions, assessing both positive and negative developments in Europe, China and the US. Using the Multi-Level Perspective from socio-technical transition studies, the presentation will empirically analyse interactions between 1) green niche-innovations (like solar, wind, and electric vehicles), 2) locked-in fossil fuel regimes (coal, oil, gas), and 3) wider context developments (such as COVID-19, Putin’s war, inflation, and geopolitical struggles between great powers). The presentation will identify continued drivers of change (like learning curves, cost reductions, and investments) as well as headwinds (like populist politics and green backlash) and new obstacles (like electricity grid access, money, and minerals).

 

About Frank Geels

Frank Geels is Eddie Davies Professor of Sustainability Transitions at the Alliance Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester. Prior to his current appointment, he held positions at SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit) at the University of Sussex (UK), the Brunel Business School at Brunel University (UK), and Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands). He holds a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Stockholm School of Economics from July 2025 to June 2026. Geels is a world-leading scholar on socio-technical sustainability transitions, which involve deep transformations in energy, mobility and agri-food systems resulting from interactions of new technologies, policies, business strategies, public debates and consumer behaviour. Geels’s work combines insights from innovation studies, evolutionary economics, institutional theory, and political science. He is particularly well-known for his conceptual and empirical work on the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) and Strategic Niche Management (SNM). He has analysed a dozen historical transitions as well as contemporary low-carbon transitions in multiple domains and countries.

For more about Frank’s bio, click HERE