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Josephine Semb

"For me, the Energy System Transition means the restructuring of energy production and the associated way of life towards a social and just society."

Contact:
josephine.semb@rl-kolleg.de

Josephine Semb

In her dissertation, Josephine Semb focuses on the democratising potential of the restructuring of the society and the economy towards a climate neutral. In this context, she researches varying forms of public participation in the heating transition and tests how those can strengthen justice and acceptance. Examining individual, economic and communal forms of participation aims at furthering the understanding of the process in which green bottom-up projects soften backlash effects and consequentially reduce costs.

Her dissertation is supervised by Prof. Dr. Pao-Yu Oei from the Department of Energy- and Environmental Management at the Europe University in Flensburg. There, she also works as a researcher in der FossilExit Research Group.

She was awarded a graduate degree in political science from Columbia University in the City of New York (USA). During her degree, she specialised herself in the socioeconomic aspects of energy politics and the conditions of a just transition.

  • Diesing, P., Scholz, J., Semb, J., Oei, P.-Y., Breyer, C. and Blechinger, P. (forthcoming)

    ‘Defossilising non-metallic mineral industries: Developments in high-temperature heat hard-to-abate emissions and policy implications.’ Berlin, Germany.

  • Eckes, M., Partzsch, L. and Semb, J. (forthcoming)

    ‘The German Building Alliance: Environmental Power in Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation’. Berlin, Germany.

  • Semb, J. and Blohm, M. (forthcoming)

    ‘Stranded assets as hidden barrier in heat transitions: Hydrogen as attempted mediation in the transition of fossil fuel infrastructure.’ Berlin, Germany.

  • Semb, J., Bäuerle, L. and Sagvosdkin, V. (forthcoming)

    ‘System-induced transition inertia in the transformation of the German heating and housing sector’. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5406252

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  • Stognief, N., Koeppchen, M. and Semb, J. (forthcoming)

    ‘Towards care-full landscape justice in the Lusatian coalfield, Germany’. Berlin, Germany.

  • Sagvosdkin, V., Bäuerle, L., Semb, J. and Preatorius, B. (2026)

    ‘To build or not to build? Sustainability narratives between growth-oriented “eco-markets” and regulative “sufficiency” in Germany’s heat transition’, Energy Research & Social Science, 131, p. 104527. DPI: 10.1016/j.erss.2025.104527.

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  • Bäuerle, L., Barkey, M., Sagvodskin, V. and Semb, J. (2025)

    ‘“We need long-term thinking, predictability, and reliability.” Imagined futures of the German heating and housing transition’, Futures, 175, p. 103736. DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103736

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  • Walk, Paula, Isabell Braunger, Josephine Semb, Carolin Brodtmann, Pao-Yu Oei, and Claudia Kemfert (2021)

    Strengthening Gender Justice in a Just Transition: A Research Agenda Based on a Systematic Map of Gender in Coal Transitions" Energies 14, no. 18: 5985. DOI: 10.3390/en14185985

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  • Semb, J. (08./09.10.2025)

    „Technologische Geister in der kommunalen Wärmeplanung: Wie Wasserstoff als Mediator des Wertverlustes im Zuge der Wärmewende fungiert.“

    INFRATRAIN der Fakultät VII der TU Berlin zu Wirtschaft- und Infrastrukturpolitik

  • Semb, J. (08.10.2025)

    „Stranded assets as hidden barrier in heat transition: Hydrogen as attempted mediation in the transition of fossil fuel infrastructure.”

    DVPW-Konferenz: Die Wärmewende 

  • Katharina Prehn und Josephine Semb (24./25./26.09.2025)

    „Fossil infrastructures as transitory glass-ceilings: The development of Municipal Utility Companies and the German gas-grid transition.”

    EAEPE 2025 an der Universität Athen

  • Prof. Dr. Pao-Yu Oei und Josephine Semb (5/6/7.09.2025)

    „Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des deutschen Gasmarktes und seine Akteure.“

    Einladung zum Vortrag und zur Leitung eines Workshops auf dem Klimacamp auf Borkum 

  • Semb, J. (01/02/03.09.2025)

    „Technologische Geister in der kommunalen Wärmeplanung: Wie Wasserstoff als Mediator des Wertverlustes im Zuge der Wärmewende fungiert.“

    Jahrestagung der Jahrestagung AK Geographische Energieforschung an der BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg

  • Josephine Semb (08.05.2025)

    “Technological ghosts in planned realities: How techno-optimism towards hydrogen affects communal heat planning in Germany” 

    Einladung zu einem 60-minütigem Vortrag im Rahmen des Brown Bag Energy Lunch an der University of Oxford

  • Philipp Herpich und Josephine Semb (13.11.2024)

    „Einfluss geltender Klimaschutzverpflichtungen auf die Stromerzeugung im Braunkohlerevier der Lausitz.“

    Einladung zu einem 15-minütigem Input beim parlamentarischen Abend mit den neu-gewählten Abgeordneten des sächsischen Landtags im im Dachsaal des Kulturforums, Wachsbleichstraße 4a, 01067 Dresden

  • Ilka Hoffmann, Dr. Marina Blohm, Josephine Semb (28.10.2024)

    „Rolle von Wasserstoff in der kommunalen Wärmeplanung in Schleswig-Holstein. (mit rechtlicher Einordnung)“

    Einladung zu einem 60-münitgen Vortrag im Rahmen der Webinarreihe ENERGIEWENDE.KOMPAKT der EKSH - Gesellschaft für Energie und Klimaschutz Schleswig-Holstein GmbH
        

  • Semb, J. (September 26, 2024)

    "Heated Debates: Narratives, Technologies, and Imagined Futures of the German Heat Transition" 

    Annual Conference of the Society for Socioeconomic Education & Science, Cologne

  • Semb, J. (27.06.2024)

    "Die Entwicklung von Narrativen in Nichtregierungs-organisationen in Momenten des politischen Wandels.“ 

    CFA-Abschlusstagung des Soziologieinstituts der TU Berlin

  • Semb, J. (April 17, 2024)

    "Hydrogen in the Building Heating Sector"

    Symposium on Municipal Heat Planning of the Energy System Analysis Research Network, Berlin

  • Semb, J. (September 20, 2024)

    "The Role of Hydrogen in Municipal Heat Planning in Schleswig-Holstein" 

    2nd Northern German Heat Conference, Hamburg

  • Semb, J. (09.05.2023)

    „Caring for a just future: multi-dimensional remediation of post-mining landscapes in Lusatia, Germany“

    Vortrag bei der STS Graz 2023

  • Maya Eckes

    "Power for a Sustainable Energy Transition: The Building Alliance in the Context of the Just Transition"

    submitted at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin

  • Blohm, M., Hoffmann, I., Semb, J. and Braunger, I. (2024)

    Wasserstoff in der kommunalen Wärmeplanung. Lessons learned aus Schleswig-Holstein. Europa-Universität Flensburg.

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  • Herpich, P., Semb. J., Oei, P.-Y. and Kemfert, C. (2024)

    Tagebauverläufe in der Lausitz zur Einhaltung der 1,5°-Grenze. Berlin: FossilExit Forschungsgruppe.

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  • Herpich, P., Semb. J., Oei, P.-Y. and Kemfert, C. (2023)

    Klimaschutz in der Lausitz zur Einhaltung der 1,5-Grad Grenze. Studie im Auftrag von Beyond Fossil Fuels und Fridays For Future. FossilExit/Europa-Universität Flensburg und DIW Berlin.

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  • Semb, J. (February 22, 2025)

    Expert interview on the energy transition in the Spanish RTVE newspaper, titled "Impulso a las renovables y respuesta de emergencia a la guerra: el 'ambivalente' legado energético de Scholz"

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