| 1. |
- Blicharska, Malgorzata, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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The water–energy–food–land–climate nexus : Policy coherence for sustainable resource management in Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental Policy and Governance. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1756-932X .- 1756-9338.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The concept of a ‘nexus’ across issues regarding the management of natural resources has gained increasing academic attention in recent years, but there is still relatively limited research on the application of the nexus approach for evaluating policies. This study analyses coherence among the main goals of five policy areas (water, energy, food, land, and climate) in Sweden, drawing upon a desk review, expert assessment, and interaction with stakeholders. The main objective is to enhance understanding of opportunities and challenges posed by such a nexus, understand policy interactions in Sweden, and provide insights into the use of policy coherence analysis as an integral part of resource nexus assessments. The analysis reveals synergies and conflicts between policy goals. For example, Sweden's environmental quality objectives (EQOs) regarding land and all the goals regarding water are either synergistic or neutral. Likewise, climate policy goals are well aligned with the goals regarding energy and ground water quality. On the other hand, the key goal for agriculture, which is food production, is the least coherent with those of the other policy areas. There are conflicts between the EQOs and goals regarding agricultural and forestry production. Stakeholders also indicate that climate goals are treated with higher priority than the goals of other policy areas. Notably, some interactions between policy goals are synergistic or conflicting depending on the context or their interpretation. Implementation of existing goals depends on relevant stakeholders' interests, priorities and interpretations, and on existing prevailing discourses in society, often supported by higher level policies.
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| 2. |
- Apler, Anna, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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The Anthropocene in the northern Baltic Sea – the case of contaminated fiberbanks and implications for sustainable development
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The epoch of humankind, the Anthropocene, is usually characterized by the global gaze, which places its focus on global environmental phenomena i.e. global warming and ocean acidification. In this article we argue that the Anthropocene could be better understood with a cross-scalar perspective and present the case of anthropogenic contaminated “fiberbanks” as an example. We present a geological example of the Anthropocene in a Swedish river estuary in the northern Baltic Sea, which hosted nine P&P mills along its’ shores and received large amounts of metal containing wastewater during the 20th century. As a result of the great acceleration and an increased national and global demand for pulp and paper products these fiberbanks formed in shallow waters. As artificial seabed features these thick deposits of contaminated organic-rich material negatively affect the adjacent aquatic environment. By constructing a chemostratigraphy based on sediment cores from accumulation areas and a metal pollution index we show how the aquatic system has recovered from metal pollution. We note, however, that the established stratigraphy fails to identify the fiberbanks, which remain in the shallow zones and are contaminant hotspots. In Sweden, there is an insufficient knowledge of contaminated sediments for a sustainable water and marine management. This knowledge gap in combination with human induced climate changes that may chemically and physically affect sediments and thus, alter dispersion of imbedded pollutants, results in poor understanding and long-term perception of the risks of contaminant dispersion from fiberbanks. We claim that these gaps of knowledge must be filled in order to reach an effective conservation at the same time as a sustainable blue growth in the northern Baltic Sea.
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| 3. |
- Barney, Andrew
(författare)
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Energy planning for islands : Guiding island energy transition and decision-making
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The importance and benefits of transitioning away from fossil fuel based energy systems is becoming ever clearer. The transition is especially crucial for geographic islands that typically have limited, or no, access to mainland energy networks. This limited access means that they must rely on costly, economically and environmentally, imported fossil fuels for energy production. This isolation and reliance on imported fuels makes islands particularly energy insecure, which is only expected to worsen because of climate change. At the same time, much of the current guidance and policy developed to help plan for islands’ energy transition is based on the conditions and circumstances present on the mainland or on energy planning that focuses primarily on technical or economic parameters. To plan for a smoother, more successful transition away from fossil fuel based energy production on islands, more data is needed about islanders themselves and their local circumstances as well as planning guidance flexible enough to fit the variable needs of island planners that goes beyond a techno-economic focus.In this PhD Thesis and in response to these transition issues, an energy planning platform, REACT-DECARB, has been developed to specifically address the needs of island energy planners. This platform seeks to be holistic in its approach to facilitate the island energy transition planning procedure by considering typical island characteristics and energy transition processes while also including key technical, social, environmental and economic dimensions and granting planners flexibility in how they incorporate them. Additionally, surveys and interviews with island residents are conducted to gain an understanding of islanders’ motivations, priorities and awareness in relation to energy and energy transition as well as to determine if these can be of guidance to island energy transition planners.The applications of the REACT-DECARB platform on geographic islands representing eight different countries from around the EU with varying populations, land areas and climates identified energy transition opportunities and obstacles specific to the islands where the platform was applied as well as to other islands seeking to transition their energy systems. Moreover, these applications of the planning platform demonstrated its ability to help island planners in the development of holistic energy transition paths. The platform takes island energy transition planning beyond a focus on techno-economics by including a wider range of planning dimensions allowing them to decide the methods best suited to their island’s needs. Further, the interactions with island residents demonstrated that their relationships to energy could be informative in the development of energy transition plans as well as likely being critical to their success. Islanders’ understandings, motivations, priorities and awareness were found to be not only directly useful in guiding planners during the designing of island energy transition plans but can also serve to inform planners in how best to educate local residents about and engage them in local energy transition projects. Ultimately, the work in this Thesis contributes to the efforts to make sure islands’, and islanders’, needs and perspectives are considered and included as a part of the wider energy transition.
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| 4. |
- Barney, Andrew
(författare)
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Integrated regional energy planning for islands : Development of a decision-aiding methodological framework and application
- 2022
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Clear and inclusive planning guidance for island planners seeking transitions away from traditional fossil fuel based energy systems is currently needed. At present, the guidance from the scientific community has largely been provided piecemeal and with significant focus on the specifics of single islands and, more often than not, on proposed energy systems’ techno-economics. To address these gaps in applicability and encourage a more balanced energy project analysis the REACT-DECARB integrated energy planning and decision-aiding platform has been developed. REACT-DECARB seeks to work as a comprehensive planning platform for island energy transition and this thesis investigates the ability of the platform to provide the support to planners needed to facilitate their transition planning. To do so the core concepts, descriptions and applications of decision making as well as a number of energy planning tools are presented. The platform is then described and its individual steps are applied to eight geographic islands within the EU. These applications of the platform identified key opportunities for the islands, such as significant RES potential, while also finding potential obstacles, such as land use conflicts. Further, it highlighted the high economic cost of seeking full electricity autonomy and of using substantial battery capacities. The platform additionally identified the importance local preferences can potentially have on the ranking of future energy scenarios as well as the impact lifetime project environmental costs can have on overall system environmental impacts. In summation, the REACT-DECARB platform is found to be an effective tool in directing island energy decarbonisation efforts by guiding local energy planners in what should be included in their planning and how these key elements can be incorporated in the decisions made. Further, the platform is found to be flexible enough to be applied to more than the specific circumstances of a single island and allows planners to adjust their approaches to its different steps as needed and to better match their capabilities.
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| 5. |
- Blicharska, Malgorzata, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Steps to overcome the North-South divide in research relevant to climate-change policy and practice
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nature Climate Change. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 7, s. 21-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A global North-South divide in research, and its negative consequences, has been highlighted in various scientific disciplines. Northern domination of science relevant to climate change policy and practice, and limited research led by Southern researchers in Southern countries, may hinder further development and implementation of global climate change agreements and nationally appropriate actions. Despite efforts to address the North-South divide, progress has been slow. In this Perspective, we illustrate the extent of the divide, review underlying issues and analyse their consequences for climate change policy development and implementation. We propose a set of practical steps in both Northern and Southern countries that a wide range of actors should take at global, regional and national scales to span the North-South divide, with examples of some actions already being implemented.
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| 6. |
- Kama, Kärg, et al.
(författare)
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Geo-Metrics and Geo-Politics : Controversies in Estimating European Shale Gas Resources
- 2019
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Ingår i: Political Geology. - Cambridge : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783319981888 - 9783319981895 ; , s. 105-145
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter explores the relationship between geoscientific knowledge production and geopolitical agencies in the making of new subsurface resources, specifically unconventional fossil fuels. Focusing on recent controversies surrounding the assessment of potential shale gas resources in Europe, we analyse the ways in which highly speculative and contested resource estimates have come to inform the geopolitical imagination of many EU states and, in turn, provided a new impetus for geoscientific inventories and exploration of shale formations. In the first part of the chapter, we engage with recent volumetric accounts in political geography and cognate disciplines to conceptualize these epistemic struggles of resource-making as a case of “subterranean geo-politics”. The empirical analysis in the second part then traces the geo-politics of shale gas prospecting in Poland and the UK, describing how volumetric projections of resource abundance have become undermined by diverse materialities and socio-political constructions of the subsurface. This is evidenced by the difficulties of translating knowledge across geo-economically disparate sites of resource development, notably the failure to apply the US-based expertise to the European context. Finally, we document more recent efforts by the European Commission and other epistemic authorities to overcome the deficiency and incompatibility of local resource estimates by developing standard, EU-specific geo-metrics for shale energy assessment.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Kuchler, Magdalena, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Bioenergy as an empty signifier
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This article scrutinizes the bioenergy concept in the context of the three challenges of energy insecurity, climate change, and the agricultural crisis that, borrowing from Gramsci, constitute a “global organic crisis”. The analysis, based on theoretical concepts developed by Laclau and Mouffe, explores assessments, reports, policy papers, and other central documents from three influential international organizations, i.e., IEA, FAO, and IPCC, in the areas analysed. We argue that, as a floating signifier in a given field of discursivity, the bioenergy notion loses its unfixed ability to occupy specific positions and convey different meanings within the three overlapping discursive areas of energy, climate, and agriculture. These three discursive formations are “sutured” around the notion of bioenergy, where a hegemonic thread of capitalist economics, fixated on economic growth and presupposing the necessity of cost-effectiveness, results in internal contradictions within the signification, transforming bioenergy into an empty signifier.
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| 9. |
- Kuchler, Magdalena, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Bioenergy as an Empty Signifier
- 2016
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Ingår i: The Review of Radical Political Economics. - : SAGE Publications. - 0486-6134 .- 1552-8502. ; 48:2, s. 235-251
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article provides insight into the contemporary international bioenergy debate and scrutinizes how the idea of biofuel production as a win-win-win solution to energy insecurity, climate change, and agricultural stagnation came into being, what discursive forces bind such a conceptualization, and where dislocations arise. Based on critical assumptions of discourse theory developed by Laclau and Mouffe, the analysis explores assessments, reports, policy papers, and other central documents from three influential international organizations—the International Energy Agency, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization—that provide an entry point to the global debate on biofuels. We show that the bioenergy concept occupies specific positions and conveys different meanings within the three overlapping discourses of energy, climate, and agriculture. These three discursive areas are further “sutured” around the notion of biofuel production, where a hegemonic thread of the capitalist market economics, fixated on economic growth and presupposing the necessity of cost-effectiveness, results in internal contradictions and dislocations within the win-win-win conceptualization, emptying bioenergy of any content.
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| 10. |
- Kuchler, Magdalena, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Challenging the food vs. fuel dilemma : Genealogical analysis of the biofuel discourse pursued by international organizations
- 2012
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Ingår i: Food Policy. - : Elsevier. - 0306-9192 .- 1873-5657. ; 37:5, s. 581-588
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper looks critically at how food and agriculture-, energy security-, and climate change-oriented international organizations have consolidated and modified the biofuel discourse in relation to the agricultural system. Using Foucault-based genealogical analysis of discursive formations, the paper traces the last 20 years of institutions’ biofuel debate in relation to rural production. We find that the prevalent motive is an aspiration to combine the agriculture and energy markets into one, which prompts structural changes and challenges in the rural sector. This has implications for the future role and shape of global agriculture and – contrary to the food vs. fuel perspective – calls for re-conceptualizing the biofuel debate as the food vs. food dilemma.
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