Abstract for: Sunset and sunrise industry strategies shaping national energy transitions pathways

The interplay between sunset (incumbents) and sunrise (new entrants) industries is a recurring, yet under-researched tension in national decarbonisation policy decision-making. The first are mostly high-carbon, well consolidated, dominated by large state actors which have attracted stable flows of investments for decades. They deal with large financial, human and infrastructure assets and have generally high levels of political connections. By opposition, sunrise industries are mostly linked to renewables, can struggle to attract steady investments despite potential for rapid growth, and are not yet well-organised to engage with politics and civil societies.This projects injects political economy into the techno-economic focus traditionaly given to industrial decarbonisation strategies to unveil a better understanding of socio-political interconnections and dynamic forces affecting national energy transition pathways.Particularly adapted to adress this interdisciplinary and complex issue, a system thinking analysis and multi-stakeholder approach to modelling will aim to highlight unintended system behaviours,causes to policy resistance and find leveraging options to ensure the long-term efficiency of decarbonisation strategies.