The rise of phase-out as a critical decarbonisation approach: a systematic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract ‘Phase-out’ is increasingly mobilised in research and policymaking as an approach to catalyse the gradual decline of technologies, substances and practices that compromise environmental sustainability objectives. This trend is particularly pronounced in the context of climate change, demonstrated by the accumulation of a vast body of scholarship over multiple decades. Our work provides the first systematic review of the state of this knowledge, mapping out how phase-out is studied and employed as a policy tool for mitigating climate change. We systematically review over 400 publications, spanning three decades (1990–2021) and diverse scientific fields. Our review asks: how has scholarly work discussed phase-out as an approach to mitigate climate change, and how has this changed over time? We tackle this question from five perspectives: (a) elements targeted by phase-outs, (b) policy instruments, (c) affected industries, (d) geographic context, and (e) benefits besides climate change mitigation. Results reveal that phase-out has widely proliferated as a decarbonisation approach, developing into a bridging concept that links diverse communities of contemporary science and practice. This is reflected by engagement with manifold phase-out targets—stretching well beyond the usual suspects related to fossil fuels and end-use technologies—as well as discussion of a growing diversity of industries, policy instruments and geographies in the literature. This global proliferation of phase-outs is propelled by expectations of diverse co-benefits. Aside from gains for the environment, economy, society and health, we find widespread acknowledgment that phase-out can drive innovation and systemic change beyond the mere substitution of problematic technologies and materials. Our study also identifies several underdeveloped and underrepresented directions meriting further study. These notably include phase-out activity beyond Europe, North America and China, hard-to-abate industry sectors and non-fossil fuel targets. We conclude by carving out broader implications for scholars and practitioners to inform future research directions and climate mitigation efforts.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.059 | 0.201 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.017 | 0.016 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".