Disruptive climate policy from wells to wheels: Integrating demand- and supply-side climate governance in oil-producing states

Abstract

Fossil fuel-producing states occupy a paradoxical position within climate governance. Many have adopted increasingly ambitious climate policies, including net-zero commitments, renewable energy deployment strategies, and transportation electrification programs. Yet many of these same jurisdictions continue to expand fossil fuel production and export infrastructure. As a result, climate ambition and fossil fuel dependence increasingly proceed in parallel. This tension raises a critical governance challenge: how can fossil fuel-producing states accomplish deep decarbonization while simultaneously reducing their economic, political, and institutional dependence on oil and gas? This dissertation examines that question through three interconnected manuscripts that explore the relationship between demand-side and supply-side climate governance in fossil fuel-producing states. Situated within global environmental governance and drawing on comparative political economy, carbon lock-in, and sustainability transitions scholarship, the dissertation applies an analytical framework centred on institutions, interests, and ideas to examine the political conditions that enable or constrain deeper transitions away from fossil fuels, particularly oil.

The first article, published in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics in 2024, examines Denmark’s emergence as a global first-mover in supply-side climate governance through its decision to phase out future oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. The analysis addresses the political, institutional, and ideational conditions that enabled an explicit fossil fuel phase-out policy to emerge in a fossil fuel-producing economy. The findings show that supply-side climate governance is politically feasible and emphasize the role of national first movers in shaping emerging forms of global fossil fuel governance.

The second article, accepted with revisions at Energy Research & Social Science in June 2026, explores the demand side of climate governance through a comparative examination of transportation electrification in Norway and Canada. The findings show that ambitious demand-side decarbonization can substantially reduce emissions, boost technological change, and build durable political support for climate action. However, transportation electrification does not automatically reduce fossil fuel production. Rather, the analysis shows that demand-side transitions can create important political, economic, and institutional conditions for broader transition while remaining compatible with continued extraction under existing political-economic arrangements.

Building on these findings, the third article, accepted with revisions at The Extractive Industries and Society Journal in June 2026, examines Canada’s challenge of integrating demand-side and supply-side climate policy within a deeply carbon-intensive federal political economy. Drawing on insights from Denmark and Norway, the analysis demonstrates how institutions, interests, and ideas persist to reproduce fossil fuel dependence while identifying pathways for aligning both sides of the climate policy “scissors” within a broader decarbonization strategy.

Collectively, the dissertation argues that deep decarbonization in fossil fuel-producing states requires more than reducing emissions or constraining fossil fuel production in isolation. It requires transforming the institutions, interests, and ideas that reproduce fossil fuel dependence and politically integrating demand-side and supply-side climate governance. In doing so, the dissertation contributes to scholarship on carbon lock-in and transition politics by shifting attention from explaining the persistence of fossil fuel dependence toward understanding the political conditions under which fossil fuel-producing states may begin to move beyond it. The findings further suggest that demand-side transitions may create political and economic conditions that increase the feasibility of future supply-side climate governance, pointing toward a potential sequencing dynamic in pathways toward deep decarbonization.