Driving Climate Breakdown: The barriers to decarbonising the automobile sector in the UK and Germany

Transport is the only sector in the global economy for which emissions continue to rise, with automobiles contributing substantially to this increase. Electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as a key part of the strategy to address automobile emissions, becoming a central feature of the Paris Agreement. The transition to EVs and the barriers to decarbonising the automobile sector remain underexplored in the literature. To address this gap, I focus on the UK and Germany to examine the unique characteristics of their EV transitions, and how they compare. I develop a novel, synergistic theoretical framework that draws upon the Multi- level Perspective (MLP) from the Socio-Technical Transitions literature and Ecological Modernisation, to establish a robust theoretical framework in which to situate EV transitions. By combining these approaches, I reconceptualise the MLP by continuing its recent political turn. The work is underpinned by an original qualitative dataset of 65 semi- structured interviews and extensive primary and secondary documentary analysis. I argue that decarbonising the automobile sector requires a break from the orthodox neoliberal capitalist logic that has defined the state's role and capacity in the contemporary political economic paradigm since the 1980s. I show that the UK is attempting to couple the EV transition with a modernisation of its economy and industrial capacity. In contrast, I find that Germany, which is typically portrayed in the literature as a coordinated polity, has become markedly uncoordinated during the EV transition. Overall, the thesis contributes a detailed analysis of EV transitions in two national contexts, highlighting the political and economic tension that has been created by states pursuing environmental objectives whilst also attending to the economic interests of automobile manufacturers. The thesis identifies key barriers to decarbonising the automobile sector and suggests ways in which those barriers may be addressed.