Multi-problem challenges for a renewable future: empirical studies on competitive disadvantages from electricity price differentials and mineral supply risk in an open economy world

The Paris Agreement is the first-ever universal globally binding treaty on climate change mitigation. This dissertation examines the need to deal with newly observed problems arising within its decentralised climate change policy architecture: how higher electricity price differentials across countries contribute to eroding the net FDI inflows, in spite of individual government's policy choices to correct for distortions on national levels; how the stovepiped approach to climate change policy increases reliance on low-carbon technologies in energy mix without considering the implications for minerals used for their production; and how heterogeneous national mineral strategies, often pursuing competing priorities, adversely affect global supply chains. In this respect, this dissertation argues for a three-dimensional coordination of bottom-up climate change mitigation processes: within national policies, across national policies and beyond sectoral policies. It thus proposes a multilevel and polycentric governance mechanism, advocating an integrated approach to low-carbon energy transition rather than focusing on energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in isolation.