1. How States Build Sustainable Energy Capacity

Mitigating the effects of man-made global warming entails reshaping the sectorial structure, changing consumer culture, accelerating technological innovation, and raising public environmental awareness; and, most importantly, the task requires substantial political support for policy leaders so that they may secure immediate, feasible mitigation resolutions to implement long-term climate strategies. Such political support has been considered as needing to be formulated on the basis of a democratic decision-making process in which widening public participation is assumed non-negotiable if legitimately secure agreements are to be reached among various stakeholders to tackle environmentally sensitive problems (OECD 2002; Bulkeley and Mol 2003; Stevenson and Dryzek 2014). As part of climate mitigation strategies, the development of sustainable energy has occurred under a universal cognition that is profoundly dependent on democratic political support. The strategy that has been implemented thus far in many industrial countries has been established through a mode of governance that explicitly requires the strengthening of local public participation; otherwise, it is deemed impossible to contribute accountably to improving environmental policy outcomes (Van Tatenhove and Leroy 2003; Few et al. 2007; Andrews-Speed 2012; Devine-Wright 2012). This assumption is also embedded in an emerging consensus regarding an environmental policy template—sustainable development—that entails central government giving up power to local-level governments and creating a new partnership with non-governmental actors in the formation of environmental policies (WCED 1987; Baker 2005). This has become a dominant policy template adopted by an increasing number of states (Hajer 1997).