| 11. |
- Islar, Mine, et al.
(författare)
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Feasibility of energy justice: Exploring national and local efforts for energy development in Nepal
- 2017
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Ingår i: Energy Policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-6777 .- 0301-4215. ; 105, s. 668-676
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The energy justice framework serves as an important decision-making tool in order to understand how different principles of justice can inform energy systems and policies. The realization of the urgency of providing modern energy technology and services particularly to rural areas has prompted both the Nepalese government and development institutions to focus on community-run renewable energy facilities. It is argued that off-grid and micro-scale energy development offers an alternative path to fossil-fuel use and top-down resource management as they democratize the grid and increase marginalized communities' access to renewable energy, education and health care. However, Nepal's energy development is also heavily influenced by demands from the fast-growing economies of neighboring countries such as China and India. As a result, this article evaluates the Nepalese national energy policies by applying the key aspects of the energy justice framework and showing the feasibility constraints due to geopolitical and biophysical factors to the implementation of energy just policies in this developing country context. The empirical evidence is derived from interviews during a one-month fieldwork in the Lalitpur and Katmandu districts of Nepal, site-visits, discourse analysis of expert statements, government policies and newspaper articles as well literature review on peer-review articles.
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| 12. |
- O Byrne, David, et al.
(författare)
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Points of contestation in the biofuels debate: Perspectives from selected international organizations in the post 2007/08 food price crises
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The 2007/08 food price crisis brought unprecedented international attention to the relationship between food and biofuels, and their competition over land. In this article we sought to understand how the international policy framing of the nexus of food, fuel and land has developed since the food price crisis. We undertook an analysis of major reports, since the crisis, by three international policy prescriptive organizations representing food security, energy security and climate change concerns: the FAO, IEA and UNEP respectively. We analysed the contents of these reports under three categories: the policy/normative outlook, policy measures, instruments and technology, and scenarios and predictions. We found that while the IEA has remained optimistic about the potential of biofuels to contribute to both climate change mitigation and energy security, relying particularly on second generation fuels supported by government subsidies to reduce competition with food for land resources, both the FAO and UNEP appear to be growing increasingly skeptical particularly in relation to rural development. Both the FAO and UNEP show concern growing over the period since the crisis, firstly that second generation fuels with not deliver on the promise of reduced competition and secondly that biofuels production is causing problems related to local land rights in the global south. Scenarios predicting biofuel market share showed increases shortly after the crisis but have levelled off. Scenarios predicting future land use change due to biofuels firstly became less precise and later this parameter was no longer modelled. We discuss what implications the divergent and uncertain discourse around biofuels from these organizations has for the future of biofuels as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels at the international level.
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| 13. |
- Varumo, Liisa, et al.
(författare)
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D 2.2 Mapping of forest ecosystem services and institutional frameworks : Final report
- 2019
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Promoting or upscaling governance and business innovations requires an understanding about the conditions and contexts that support a particular innovation. Indeed, context can importantly condition the emergence of new ideas as well as their stabilization and system-level uptake. Ecosystems and the services they provide can be considered this kind of context for innovations because they vary across the landscape. Furthermore, the ways in which ecosystem services (ES) are governed can importantly condition the emergence and up-take of new ideas. These institutional, structural and procedural conditions vary across different administrative units, for example countries or regions. As both ecological and institutional context matters for innovations in the forest sector, we capture these variations and provide a basis for a more context-relevant analysis of innovation evolution, which potentially supports replication and upscaling of innovations. In general, there is a good spatial understanding of Europe’s forest ecosystem services (FES) but ecosystem service supply and demand have been matched only as rough estimates of scarcity. What is missing so far is a thorough analysis of the societal demand for FES, as expressed in policy, and the combination of biophysical and institutional mapping. We propose that societal demand can be derived from formal goals and argumentation in public strategies and laws, as these are the results of processes engaging societal actors and expertise. In the past years, several European policies have gradually taken up the notion of ES, and the European Forest Strategy fares well in its reference and integration of ES. However, what is missing is an analysis of the extent and the ways in which national forest related policies recognise FES and how this recognition coincides with ecosystem service supply at the spatial scale. By analysing how different EU, national and regional policies address forest ecosystem service relevant innovations, governance mechanisms and actors, we develop a deeper understanding of the biophysical-institutional landscape that can condition innovation in the forest sector. Based on our biophysical and institutional mapping, InnoForESt can identify niche innovations and their transferability, upscaling and further co-learning in comparable high potential context regions. This report describes the justification for mapping specific FES and policies and reports the methods applied in conducting the biophysical and institutional mapping as well as the findings. The report is supplemented by a coarse level map interface that can be used to visually analyse the coincidence of biophysical FES supply and institutional FES demand, innovations and governance, as expressed in forest strategies. The biophysical mapping of FES conducted for this report focused on the supply of ES and relied on simple mapping methods. The mapping process followed four main steps: 1) Identification of FES; 2) Definition of the indicators to map the selected FES; 3) Production of Pan-European maps of selected FES, 4) analysis of hotspots, synergies and trade-offs and spatial bundles of FES. Given the European focus of the study, the identification of FES and definition of related indicators built on the CICES classification and the set of MAES indicators. Indicators were then refined based on the availability of adequate spatially-explicit data at the European level. A total of 13 indicators were eventually defined and maps produced for each of these. As maps of FES showed ES supply on a per unit area basis, the potential of a region or a country to provide a given FES requires considering the actual extent of forests in that region or country. The analysis of hotspots, synergies and trade-offs and bundles of FES, which was carried out on a subset of eight FES, allows policy makers to get further insights about FES concentrations and coincidence. Deliverable 2.2 InnoForESt 6 The institutional mapping was carried out to identify current and future policy demand for ES. The policy demand was analysed through detailed policy document analysis, for which a protocol and database were developed and iterated among the team. The initial document analysis conducted in 2018 covered the most relevant national or regional forest, biodiversity and bio-economy strategies in the InnoForESt case study areas and at the EU level, altogether 31 policy documents. The document analysis was reported through an online survey that was used to produce a database, with both quantitative grading of weight in the document and qualitative text examples. The document analysis focused on ten FES: wood, bioenergy, non-wood forest products, game, biodiversity conservation, erosion and water protection, climate regulation, resilience, cultural heritage, recreation. Additionally, the analysis considered innovation type and stage, actor responsibilities and rights as well as new governance mechanisms, for all these ten FES. Our analysis illustrates that both the biophysical distribution of FES and the policy targeting FES differ across Europe. The analysis of biophysical FES supply through bundles shows that biophysical FES tend to be related to the climatic-ecological gradient, with cultural-agricultural FES being concentrated in the Mediterranean area, wood and water FES in the central area, soil carbon FES in the northernmost area and a mix of all FES in the north-eastern area. In terms of demand for FES, our analysis shows that countries do differ in how much weight they place on different FES in their strategies. Wood and bioenergy stand out as the focal FES for both forest and bio-economy policies, while biodiversity conservation is the only FES that is in some form mentioned in all analysed policy documents. The documents identify innovations, actor roles and governance mechanisms in detail for those ecosystem services that they directly address. The analysis of policies shows that biodiversity conservation is supported with innovations. New product ideas are about wood and biomass, sometimes recognising a long value chain. Also networking innovations and market-based rearrangements centre on procurement of raw material, recognising the responsibilities and rights of industry and land-owners. With our analysis combining data on FES provision across the European landscape and document analysis of European forest, biodiversity and bio-economy policies, we show that there is a slight tendency in policies to address and detail innovations and governance for scarce forest ecosystem services. By analysing how different EU, national and regional policies address different forest relevant innovations, governance mechanisms and actors our analysis provides a deeper understanding of the biophysical-institutional landscape that can condition innovation in the forest sector, and ideally, identify opportunities for transferring and upscaling innovations.
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