Green energy clusters and socio-technical transitions: analysis of a sustainable energy cluster for regional economic development in Central Massachusetts,USA

As the societal benefits associated with transitioning to more sustainable, less fossil fuel-reliant energy systems are increasingly recognized by communities throughout the world, the potential of creating ‘green jobs’ within a ‘green economy’ is attracting much attention. Green energy clusters are increasingly promoted throughout the world as a strategy to simultaneously promote economic vitality and stimulate a sustainable energy transition. In spite of their emerging role in regional-scale sustainability planning efforts, such initiatives have not been considered within the sustainability transitions literature. This paper explores the development of one such regional sustainable energy cluster initiative in Central Massachusetts in Northeastern USA to consider the potential for such cluster initiatives to contribute to socio-technical transition in the energy system. Since 2008, a diverse set of stakeholders in Central Massachusetts, including politicians, universities, businesses, local citizens, and activists, have been working toward facilitating the emergence of an integrated cluster of activity focused on sustainable energy. Through interviews with key actors, participant observation, and document review, this research assesses the potential of this cluster initiative to contribute to a regional socio-technical transition. The empirical details of this case demonstrate that sustainable energy cluster initiatives can potentially accelerate change in entrenched energy regimes by promoting institutional thickness, generating regional ‘buzz’ around sustainable energy activities, and building trust between multiple and diverse stakeholders in the region. This research also contributes to emerging efforts to better ground socio-technical transitions in geographic space.     

Climate change,sustainable water management and institutional adaptation in rural sub-Saharan Africa

Much current work on climate adaptation options vis-à-vis water management in rural sub-Saharan Africa has tended to focus more on technological and infrastructural alternatives and less on institutional alternatives. Yet, vulnerability to climate variability and change in these contexts is a function not just of biophysical outcomes but also of institutional factors that can vary significantly at relatively finer scales. This paper seeks to contribute towards closing this gap by examining institutional options for sustainable water management in rural SSA in the context of climate change and variability. It explores challenges for transforming water-related institutions and puts forward institutional alternatives towards adapting to increasingly complex conditions created by climate change and variability. The paper suggests revisiting the Integrated Water Resources Management approach which has dominated water institutional debates and reforms in Africa over the recent past, towards actively adopting resilience and adaptive management lenses in crafting water institutional development initiatives.     

Competition gives way to cooperation: rethinking Sino-Indian relations in climate change negotiations

In global climate change politics, China and India have worked closely with each other, representing two big emitters from the developing world. This article reviews Sino-Indian cooperation during four UN climate change negotiations from 2009 to 2012. Their collaboration echoed the perception of neorealism in international relations (IR) studies that states will seek “external balancing” for maximizing national “relative gains”. China and India are expected to continue their cooperation on climate change issues when sharing the same structural position as big economies and big emitters, the same pressure in carbon emission reductions, and the same goal of improving living standards for their citizens. Encountering the devastating impacts of climate change and the deadlock in responsibility division in current global climate change governance, this work seeks to shed light on the evolving multilateral governance environment and its complex implications for Sino-Indian relations from an IR perspective.     

Distribution of improved cook stoves: analysis of field experiments using strategic niche management theory

Close to three billion people globally and over 800 million in India are dependent on direct combustion of unprocessed solid biomass fuels in inefficient traditional mud stoves. Current cooking practices, besides causing serious health problems, are also being linked to emissions of climate change and pollution agents such as black carbon and ozone precursors. In India several initiatives have been taken up to tackle the problem but the present trajectory of limited technical and social change in cooking energy use is nonetheless persistent in rural areas. In order to develop and scale up alternative cooking technology options, we have analyzed, using the principles of strategic niche management, two projects implemented by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in nine villages in India. The assessment, while highlighting reasons for stability of the current cooking regime, also points to triggers that can destabilize the regime. The focus is also on assessing the influence of protection in the form of subsidies on the process of transition. User preferences relating to social and technical aspects have been analyzed, pointing to forced draft cookstoves as the preferred option notwithstanding cost reductions to address affordability concerns. The assessment indicates that while it is critically important to understand and address the preferences of users and to improve the technology, scaling up will depend on stove cost reduction through further research. Creativity in effective financing schemes and support structures put in place by fostering public–private partnerships are also needed.     

How do we assess vulnerability to climate change in India? A systematic review of literature

In countries like India where multiple risks interact with socio-economic differences to create and sustain vulnerability, assessing the vulnerability of people, places, and systems to climate change is a critical tool to prioritise adaptation. In India, several vulnerability assessment tools have been designed spanning multiple disciplines, by multiple actors, and at multiple scales. However, their conceptual, methodological, and disciplinary underpinnings, and resulting implications on who is identified as vulnerable, have not been interrogated. Addressing this gap, we systematically review peer-reviewed publications (n = 78) and grey literature (n = 42) to characterise how vulnerability to climate change is assessed in India. We frame our enquiry against four questions: (1) How is vulnerability conceptualised (vulnerability of whom/what, vulnerability to what), (2) who assesses vulnerability, (3) how is vulnerability assessed (methodology, scale), and (4) what are the implications of methodology on outcomes of the assessment. Our findings emphasise that methods to assess vulnerability to climate change are embedded in the disciplinary traditions, methodological approaches, and often-unstated motivations of those designing the assessment. Further, while most assessments acknowledge the importance of scalar and temporal aspects of vulnerability, we find few examples of it being integrated in methodology. Such methodological myopia potentially overlooks how social differentiation, ecological shifts, and institutional dynamics construct and perpetuate vulnerability. Finally, we synthesise the strengths and weaknesses of current vulnerability assessment methods in India and identify a predominance of research in rural landscapes with a relatively lower coverage in urban and peri-urban settlements, which are key interfaces of transitions.     

Forest plantations, water availability, and regional climate change: controversies surrounding Acacia mearnsii plantations in the upper Palnis Hills, southern India

Plantation forests not only impact carbon and water cycles, but also affect biodiversity, livelihoods, and shape regional economies. Each of these impacts differs across varying scales of analysis. This paper illustrates how forest, climate change and hydrology debates play out in the context of the forest plantations of Australian black wattle (Acacia mearnsii) in the upper Palni hills of southern India. We outline the contradictory perspectives of different local groups regarding the impact of plantations on catchment hydrology and water availability, and examine these in relation to changes in the regional economy and rainfall patterns. Our analysis indicates that changes in these two factors have played a more significant role than existing wattle plantations in affecting local and regional water availability. We suggest that ongoing debates regarding forest plantation–hydrology–climate change relationships need to broaden their scope to include changes in regional rainfall patterns and shifts in regional economic activity. This approach is likely to provide a more realistic assessment of plantation forests in a dynamic regional context, and offer more resilient strategies for regional landscape and catchment management under conditions of high variability in rainfall patterns.     

The scientific challenge of bridging the gap from the local to the earth system level: lessons from the study of mangroves and people in North Brazil

This article aims to address the challenges of sustainable earth system governance from a multi-scale level perspective. The local to regional system level reviews findings from a social–ecological system approach of a mangrove ecosystem in North Brazil. Seven challenges (Glaser et al. in Mangrove dynamics and management in North Brazil. Ecological studies series. Springer, Berlin, pp 307–388, 2010) that could provide relevant knowledge to society were identified. Their respective justification and recommendations are presented here. Further, these “challenges from the field” are linked and discussed with those challenges on earth system level elaborated by the International Council for Science in 2010. There it was stressed that sustainability problems are increasingly caused by drivers from multiple spatial and institutional levels in a single global human–nature system. The comparison between the global and local to regional challenges shows that most of these are reappearing disregarding the level of analysis, indicating that there is a universal core of global change problems. However, there are gaps visible which hamper the effective connections across the different spatial levels. These pertain to the subjects of knowledge generation and stakeholder inclusion. The final section elaborates on these recognized gaps and their science–policy dimensions. The article closes with the identification of a number of factors which currently impede global sustainability efforts: shortcomings in inter- and transdisciplinary research practice, lack of consistent structures for earth system governance and shortcomings in dealing with upscaling challenges whilst remaining locally relevant. A blueprint for a globally focused but regionally informed social–ecological analysis framework remains to be worked out.     

How might adaptation to climate change by smallholder farming communities contribute to climate change mitigation outcomes? A case study from Timor-Leste,Southeast Asia

The agriculture industry is significantly exposed to the impacts of climate change, and is also responsible for contributing extensive greenhouse gas emissions. As a way of responding to both adaptation and mitigation challenges within the industry, this article examines how community-based climate change adaptation initiatives might provide mitigation outcomes in the agriculture sector in Timor-Leste. Beginning with an exploration of nation-wide institutional responses to climate change, the study utilises interviews, field observations and document analysis to examine an extensive community-based adaptation program in two districts in Timor-Leste focused on increasing the resilience of the agriculture sector and the livelihoods of poor rural farmers. Analysis of this program reveals a largely synergistic relationship between adaptation measures focused on land and water management and agriculture and their corresponding greenhouse gas mitigation potential, including co-benefits such as soil/atmospheric carbon sequestration, reduced emissions, soil nitrification and reduced use of inorganic fertilisers. Community-based adaptation programs in the agriculture sector have a significant influence on mitigation outcomes, which is often overlooked in community-based programs. The adaptation program in Timor-Leste has provided useful insights into the inter-relationships between adaptation and mitigation at the community level, which could be further supported and scaled-up in other Southeast Asia countries and elsewhere.     

Agricultural livelihood transition in the southern Yucatán region: diverging paths and their accompanying land changes

Land change science has demonstrated that rural livelihoods around the world both drive and reflect changing environmental regimes and political economic/structural transformations. This article explores the relationship between increasingly globalized rural livelihoods and in-place land change, assessing results from social surveys of smallholding households in the southern Yucatán region. We examine evidence for a transition in agricultural livelihood strategies as smallholders adjust to changing political economic and institutional conditions, and link these transitioning strategies to land use changes. Based on household surveys in 1997 and 2003, we comparatively assess both changes in the selection of livelihood strategies and in the land use and cover impacts of those strategies. Our results indicate that although impacts of given strategies have changed little over this period, there are increasing proportions of households pursuing two divergent adjustment paths—one of agricultural withdrawal and one of agricultural intensification and commercialization. We investigate what sociodemographic characteristics differentiate the groups of households following distinct livelihood strategies. Our findings point to the possibility of simultaneous and contradictory land change outcomes as smallholders adjust in different ways to their intensified incorporation into global economies.     

Adaptation to climate change as resilience for urban extreme poor: lessons learned from targeted asset transfers programmes in Dhaka city of Bangladesh

This paper aims to identify how targeted asset transfers help to build adaptive capacity and adaptive actions of the urban extreme poor to climate change phenomena. This paper explores the theoretical debates of community-based adaptation approach and failure of such approach to address urban extreme poor. The empirical evidence of these theoretical debates will be drawn from two informal settlements of Dhaka city, where a targeted asset transfer project has been implementing since 2009. This paper explains that urban extreme poor usually work as unskilled labour and lack different livelihood capitals; and climate change is an increasingly important influence exacerbating an already vulnerable livelihood context. There is growing recognition in the literature that poor urban people and communities are adapting to climate change in physical and behavioural terms. But, in the case of urban extreme poor these adaptation approaches are delivering short-term survival strategies disregarding the notion of wellbeing in the medium to long-term perspectives. It is also evident that community level initiatives structurally reproduce the exclusion of the urban extreme poor. However, poverty literatures acknowledge that poverty-centred approaches could help to reduce vulnerability. As urban extreme poor are significantly more resource constrained, it is reasonable to assert that targeted asset transfers could be a poverty-centred adaptation approach in a changing climate. Targeted asset transfers approaches are the outcomes of recent social protection revolution that especially consider accumulation of physical, financial, human, and social capital in order to build adaptive capacity of the urban extreme poor. This adaptive capacity of the extreme poor may facilitate adjustments in assets, livelihoods, behaviours, and technologies in order to reduce future climate vulnerability. In this context, this paper seeks to answer whether targeted asset transfer approaches can be considered as effective poverty-centred adaptation approaches for the urban extreme poor or not.     

The influence of carbon emissions disclosure on company financial value in an emerging economy

Few studies have been conducted on the impact of carbon emissions disclosure on firms’ financial performance in emerging economies. Furthermore, comparison between accounting-based measures and market-based ones remains limited. This article examines the effect of carbon emissions reporting on the financial value of South African companies for the period 2010–2015. Using panel regression approaches, the findings show that, in most cases, carbon emission disclosure generates a positive relationship with ROA (an accounting-based indicator) but a negative association with MVA (a market-based indicator). The article concludes that accounting-based indicators offer more explanatory power for corporate greening initiatives.     

Between Guilt and Obligation: Debating the Responsibility for Climate Change and Climate Politics in the Media

ABSTRACT

The “common but differentiated responsibility” of developed and developing countries to mitigate climate change is a core principle of international climate politics—but there is disagreement about what this “differentiated responsibility” amounts to. We investigate how newspapers in developed countries (Australia, Germany, United States) and emerging economies (Brazil, India) covered this debate during the UN climate summits in 2004, 2009, and 2014. Newspapers in both types of countries attributed more responsibility to developed than to developing countries. In line with social identity theory, however, media in developed countries attributed less causal responsibility (blame) to other developed countries than media in emerging economies. The latter countries’ media, in turn, attributed less responsibility to other developing countries than media in developed countries. At the same time, in line with the “differentiated responsibility”, media in developed countries attributed more responsibility to their own countries than media in emerging economies.     

THE Clean Development Mechanism: Making it Operational

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a facility for trading `certified emission reductions (CERs) between developing and developed countries, thus saving non-renewable carbon emissions by promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency and/or carbon sequestration projects in LDC's. The purpose of the CDM is to help these latter countries meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol while at the same time promoting “sustainable” development in the former countries, thereby reducing the build-up of greenhouse gases (GHG). This paper examines the progress in achieving a workable CDM in time for the first commitment period (2008–2012), and the kinds of initiatives that can be pursued in the agricultural, land-use and forestry sector in tropical countries. The critical element for the success of the CDM is the participation of a broad cross-section of buyers (ultimately from developed countries) and sellers (from developing countries) of CERs. Trading is the final step, which starts with project formulation, through successful implementation and then certification. This paper lays out a market-based framework for promoting CDM transactions between private sector project developers and traders and public sector policy makers, with regulators, governed by CDM rules, overseeing the smooth running of the CDM. However, as there are numerous players; it is proposed that trial CDM projects be demonstrated with the support of National/International bodies to iron out the problems and come up with practical solutions so that carbon trading can become a reality. Most rules for the CDM were clarified at the 7th Conference of Parties (CP) in October/November of 2001 in Marrakesh. An executive Board (EB) was appointed and this EB is in charge of proposing workable ground rules to promote the CDM. These have to be submitted for approval by the 8th CP in late 2002. Three broad kinds of projects qualify for the CDM, these are: renewable energy projects that will be alternatives to fossil fuel projects; sequestration projects that offset GHG emissions; and energy efficient projects that will decrease the emissions of GHG. It is possible to have a combination of these initiatives. A fourth type covering GHG reduction is omitted. As elaborated in the text, in order to qualify for the CDM, the proposed projects may have to have additional costs when compared to the alternative(s). Two time frames have been agreed for CDM projects to qualify for the first commitment period, namely 7 years (with an option of two 7-year renewals) and 10 years. Also, for land-use, land-use change and forestry projects only afforestation/reforestation initiatives are recognized as being permissible for the first commitment period. These rules seem rather shortsighted, as forestry and/or renewable energy projects usually require more than 21 years to be fully effective. Also, the major cause of deforestation is clearing land for agriculture, not harvesting wood. Therefore, improving agricultural productivity may be the best way to reduce deforestation and its subsequent release of GHGs. These conditionalities should be re-examined when rules for the second commitment period are decided. However, various agricultural and land-use projects are discussed under the existing guidelines which could qualify as CDM projects in the first period.     

Strategies for coastal ecosystem management in India

Present paper highlights various coastal issues and management strategies in India for effective environmental management for the sustainable development. The priorities for coastal management were selected based on the available date and material related to various international and national conferences. On the basis of secondary data, various strategies are suggested for the prioritized issues. These strategies include institutional strengthening, capacity building, policy plan, management plans for areas highly degraded, education and awareness; all these issues are discussed under the ecosystem-based management framework which gives better direction and is crucial for India??s costal management.     

Against the current: rewiring rigidity trap dynamics in urban water governance through civic engagement

This paper investigates how the agency of local residents can affect persistent and unsustainable practices in urban water supply governance. Using a case study from Bangalore, India, we analyze a social–ecological trap which developed after a shift to external water provision paired with rapid urbanization. The reluctance of forsaking initial investments in infrastructure and competence, and the subsequent loss of the local network of lakes built for harvesting rainwater, reinforced dependence on external sources while undermining groundwater levels in the city. These feedbacks made water scarcity a structurally persistent feature of Bangalore. This situation started to change when local residents recently started organizing to preserve and restore Bangalore’s lakes. By entering collaborative management agreements with municipal authorities, these lake groups have restored and established effective protection of five lakes. Through a case study of this civic engagement we show that the lake restorations have the potential to counteract trap mechanisms by restoring ecological functions, and by reducing water scarcity as groundwater levels rise and authorities are relieved from maintenance and monitoring tasks. Importantly, these lake groups have also created opportunities for over a dozen similar groups to form across the city. This demonstrates that social movements can be an important source of change in social–ecological traps.     

Human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) in Nova Scotia,Canada

Photosynthetically fixed energy from the sun, in the form of net primary production, ultimately supports the majority of life on earth. Given the importance of this energy source, we calculate the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) for the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. We find that over 25% of potentially available production is appropriated by humans through harvest (forestry and agriculture) and land cover change. The level of appropriation in Nova Scotia is close to the global average, when methodological differences between studies are taken into account, but substantially less than in Austria and India where detailed surveys have also been conducted. Furthermore, HANPP is not distributed evenly throughout the province, but is instead concentrated in the north-central counties, where appropriation reaches 50%. We discuss the implications of these results, and the novel method used to obtain them, in the context of biophysical assessment and the species-energy hypothesis.     

Overcoming Contradictions Between Growth and Sustainability:Institutional Innovation in the BRICS

The recent accelerated growth rates or efforts to emulate countries that have achieved a rapid pace of economic growth are widely acclaimed as means to uplift millions from poverty. In so doing, however, this rapid economic growth is most likely to coincide with unsustainable levels of consumption, place excessive pressure on life support systems and terrestrial sinks and foreshorten options for the future. Rather than pursuing the "Environmental Kuznets Curve" (EKC) hypothesis that higher income will bring with it the means to reduce the impacts of greater consumption, ecological economists assert that buying our way out of future scarcity with fast growth is indeed contradictory with sustainability. To better understand these contradictions and explore potential institutional innovations that may enable developing nations to better confront them (in effect, "tunneling under" the EKC), this article refers to recent experience in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Beginning with a brief comparative summary of major development and environmental indicators, pressures on resources and society in each of the BRICS are discussed, followed by identification of institutional and policy frameworks each country has evolved to confront the challenges of growth and sustainability. The article closes with general conclusions for further research and information sharing among developing nations.     

Energy efficiency in the automotive industry evidence from Germany and Colombia

This paper presents an analysis of energy efficiency performance in the automotive industry from evidence of Germany and Colombia in order to show important features in energy use between countries with the different income between 1998 and 2007. We found that the automotive industry improved its energy efficiency in each country. In order to understand the driving forces behind these trends, the concept of the production function is used to obtain the elasticities of substitutions and the relationships between several variables and energy efficiency performance in German and Colombian motor vehicle industries. In both countries, we found that the variables of energy prices and sizes of companies each have a positive influence on the efficiency of the gross production/energy ratio. These results show that, in the motor vehicle industry, energy efficiency performance depends on different factors. Hence, variables such as energy prices, energy taxes, economies of scale and technology changes have played a crucial role in the improvements in productivity and rational energy use.     

Rural change and multidimensional analysis of farm’s vulnerability: a case study in a protected area of semi-arid northern Nicaragua

This paper presents an empirical research in a protected area of northern Nicaragua, aimed at: (a) classifying predominant narratives surrounding present and future pathways of the local rural system, drivers of change, features of livelihoods’ vulnerability; (b) understanding current functioning of local metabolic patterns of rural systems by developing a typology of farms and (c) comparing types’ vulnerability to current drivers of change. To achieve these objectives, we integrated qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches. The different visions of rural spaces, which emerge from the analysis of the narratives, and the five types of farms, characterized by specific land-time budget and energy and monetary flows, suggest two emerging dynamics of local restructuration in protected areas: (1) a dominant land re-concentration process which is generating increasing inequality in access to resources and a progressive marginalization of the self-sufficient economy of landless and subsistence households; (2) an emergence of a paradigm of ‘environmentalization’ of rural spaces together with a valorization of small and medium-scale diversified economies. Moreover, the vulnerability assessment focuses on multidimensional features of types’ sensitivity to crisis, i.e. risk unacceptability, production instability, economic inefficiency, food and exosomatic energy dependency, as well as capacity to buffer and adapt to change, i.e. access to assets, including labour for men and women, social safety nets and degrees of economic diversification. The discussion highlights the occurrence of trade-off between the solutions adopted by farms within different development paths, suggesting the relevance of the proposed framework of analysis at the interface between science and policy.     

Managing Watershed Externalities in India: Theory and Practice

Watershed development is the focus of poverty alleviation programs in rural India. Watershed projects aim to solve problems of externalities, but they also create their own externalities, which cause uneven distribution of costs and benefits that undermine project objectives and harm the poor. Numerous approaches exist to internalize externalities, including awareness creation, moral suasion, investment subsidies, regulatory limits and fines, indirect benefits, mergers, and recent innovations like payment for environmental services and cap and trade. These can be judged on several criteria; the best approach would solve the problem cost effectively and help or at least not hurt poor people. Watershed projects in India were examined to identify the approaches taken to internalize watershed externalities. Investment subsidies and indirect employment benefits are the least effective approaches theoretically, but they are the most commonly applied, most likely because they are easy to administer and bring popular short term gains. Some theoretically favorable approaches that have been used elsewhere, such as payment for environmental services, may not work as well in India due to high transaction costs. However, one key innovation that easily could be applied in India is to make investment subsidies contingent on performance. Legal support and property rights reform would be needed for other favorable approaches.