| 1. |
- André, Karin, 1978-
(författare)
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Climate change adaptation processes : Regional and sectoral stakeholder perspectives
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis analyses how societal adaptation processes in public and private sectors at the regional to local level in Sweden are enacted. The thesis pays particular attention to critical factors that constrain or enable adaptation by focussing on: who are the stakeholders, how do different stakeholders perceive their capacity to adapt, and the role of stakeholder interaction in facilitating adaptation processes A combination of two analytical perspectives is used where one is based on key concepts within adaptation literature, and the other draws on boundary crossing and transdisciplinary knowledge production (stakeholders, adaptive capacity, and science-based stakeholder dialogues). The study is conducted within the scope of two overall case studies of local adaptation processes within an urban region, and a land-use based sector, the private forestry sector. The cases are setting the scene for the collection of empirical material which is achieved through qualitative methods, primarily focus groups discussions with local and regional, public and private stakeholders with an interest in, and responsibility for adaptation. The focus groups meetings are organized as a series of meetings to which different participatory techniques are applied. The study also builds on a comprehensive stakeholder mapping. First, the results suggest a systematic method for identifying stakeholders in adaptation research, policy, and planning applicable in both sectors and regions that combines top-down knowledge with experience and knowledge based on bottom-up processes. Second, the analysis of perceived adaptive capacities reveal several facilitating and constraining factors that relates both to the characteristics of climate risks, experience of climate variability and extreme weather events, and responsibility- and decision-making structures. Third, the analysis of the interaction between local experts and scientists show that there is potential for the boundary spanning function of science-based stakeholder dialogues in facilitating adaptation through stimulating questions and sharing different knowledge bases and experiences among the participants. However further attention needs to be taken to the institutional environment and the role of so called anchoring devices that help local experts to contextualise, discus and thus anchor scientific knowledge in their own decision-making context. In conclusion, there are both commonalities between adaptation processes in the two case studies and some marked differences, e.g., regarding the concept of adaptation, what type of adaptation actions that are identified, the perceived opportunities for adaptation and degree of complexity.
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| 2. |
- André, Karin, et al.
(författare)
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Method Development for Identifying and Analysing Stakeholders in Climate Change Adaptation Processes
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning. - : Routledge. - 1523-908X .- 1522-7200. ; 14:3, s. 243-261
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is now widely recognized that stakeholder interaction and dialogue is essential to improve decisions about and awareness of climate change. The term ‘stakeholder’ is broad and researchers and practitioners may have interrelated and contrasting views on who is a stakeholder or who is (or should be) responsible for adaptation to climate change. To engage stakeholders in research or other projects on adaptation thus requires a careful mapping of the stakeholder landscape and identification of relevant actors at different levels. Through a case study approach, based on studies of two Swedish urban regions, Stockholm and Gothenburg, this paper proposes a systematic method to analyse and identify roles and responsibilities in the stakeholder landscape. The initial mapping exercise was complemented by participatory studies of local and regional stakeholders’ perceptions of who is, or should be, involved in adaptation and their significance for climate change adaptation in the respective regions. The results indicate the value of careful stakeholder analysis for sustainable, effective, planned adaptation that is flexible, but also systematic enough to fulfil practical and scientific requirements for the study and advancement of ongoing adaptation processes and implementation.
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| 3. |
- Bohman, Anna, 1975-
(författare)
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Framing the water and sanitation challenge : A history of urban water supply and sanitation in Ghana 1909 - 2005
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis analyses the development of urban water supply and sanitation services in Ghana from 1909 to 2005. Special focus is put on institutional arrangements with regard to networked, large scale and centrally managed water and sewerage services. The national and international historical context is highlighted as a way to understand policy redirections in the sector. Further on, the concept of frames is used as an analytical tool in order to put light on the assumptions, arguments and reasons behind institutional reforms. The thesis finds that it was not until the water and sanitation challenge was framed from a productivity perspective, as opposed to a pure humanitarian “health frame”, that funds were released for investments in WSS infrastructure. To begin with, development strategies were largely focussed on “filling the gaps” in terms of manpower, technical and financial resources. As the water challenge was increasingly framed as a matter of managing scarcity, a new thinking gradually emerged which emphasized entrepreneurship, business mindedness and management skills as a way to achieve more efficiency within the sector. This development was also paralleled by a shift in the favoured organisational structure from an extremely centralised state utility model to a gradual focus on decentralisation and unbundling of the sector. Here a strong focus was put on private sector participation in urban water supply whereas the non-commercially viable task of sewerage development was decentralised to local authorities. The study finds that formal institutional change in the sector has been largely donor driven. However, the privatisation element of the recent urban water sector reform did not go unquestioned and a strong opposition movement concerned with the possible negative effects of privatisation was formed. Eventually the initial lease arrangement was transformed into a management contract where its signing was brought to closure in 2005. Besides changing frames strong elements of continuity in the urban water supply and sanitation sector development in Ghana are identified. Historical evidence demonstrate that urban water delivery was a highly political issue in Ghana already during colonial times which, just as today, was closely connected to the framing of water as independence and national integrity. The issue of finance and pricing has remained a constant concern and so the debate cannot be categorized as a novel issue that solely emanates from neo-liberal political trends during the 1980’s and 1990’s. The thesis argues that a legacy of a colonial frame tends to continue normalising inequalities in access and consumption. Continuity can also be found in a neglect of the issue of sanitation which persistently lags behind the development of water distribution. The dissertation concludes that the perceived space for policy alternatives in Ghanaian WSS sector development has been largely constrained by the historical context and contemporary development theories. Therefore, to constantly strive towards a frame reflective policy dialogue is strongly encouraged as a way for policy planners and decision makers to make well informed decisions for the future.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Friman (Fridahl), Mathias, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Getting the NAMA Registry’s flawed incentive structure right
- 2014
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Ingår i: Annual Status Report on Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) 2014. - Petten and Cologne : ECN and Ecofys. ; , s. 32-33
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report is prepared and published as part of the MitigationMomentum project, a collaboration between ECN Policy Studies and Ecofys Germany. The project aims to support the development of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) by contributing to the concrete development of NAMA proposals, and foster cooperation and knowledge exchange within the NAMA community.The UNFCCC NAMA Registry will most likely become asidelined remnant in the future NAMA landscape unlessthe flawed incentive structure for making submissions isaddressed. The main disincentive for filing NAMAs in theRegistry is plain: its matching function is failing, so far.The potential of the Registry as a site of learning, trustbuilding and efficiency will be hard to realize withoutaddressing this disincentive.Here, we suggest ideas to actualize the Registry intoa central node for both matching NAMA proposalswith support and information sharing. We centre theargument on making the Registry a submission portalfor NAMAs seeking support. The suggestions imply anumber of consequential issues that we also outline inbrief.
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| 6. |
- Friman (Fridahl), Mathias, 1980-
(författare)
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Historical responsibility : Assessing the past in international climate negotiations
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Assessments of the past are essential to the struggle over the right to define the normative position of history under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Despite this importance, attempts to analyze the use of history in this context are rare. This thesis aims to investigate how assessments of the past are used in UNFCCC negotiations on responsibilities to act, focusing on negotiations on historical responsibilities. The research questions concern how discourse on historical responsibility: 1) can be structured, 2) is influenced by UNFCCC negotiating practice, 3) has been structured in the UNFCCC, and 4) has enabled agreement despite considerable conflict. Official UNFCCC documentation between 1991 and 2011 was studied using discourse analysis. This study suggests: first, the UNFCCC discourse on historical responsibility conveys two main assessments—a proportional and a conceptual one—of how the past could be used to differentiate responsibilities to act. Second, the strong consensus focus necessitates rationales underlying an “agreeable history” that is neither too flexible, allowing arbitrariness, nor too rigid, reducing Parties’ likelihood of ratifying. Third, as the past evolves, new situations challenge discourse that potentially engages policy makers with a need to rearticulate history. Fourth, if the context changes, so may the importance ascribed to particular assessments of the past. If the stakes increase over time, even more effort is required to reach agreement, which simultaneously becomes more important in solving problems of common concern. Fifth, power seems difficult to circumvent, even by means of cleverly designed negotiating practice. If so, multilateral environmental negotiations could increase the legitimacy of outcomes among Parties in two principal ways: first, by identifying the core conflict that drives negotiations and, second, by evaluating how multilateral environmental negotiations handle conflict. Obscuring or ignoring conflict will likely only reduce the legitimacy of the negotiations.
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| 7. |
- Friman (Fridahl), Mathias, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Supporting Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions through the Green Climate Fund : Governance capacities and challenges
- 2014
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Forum on Development and Mitigation, Cape Town 2014. - Cape Town : Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town. - 9780620596930 ; , s. 65-77
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Green Climate Fund (GCF), the new operating entity under the Financial Mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is emerging as an innovative multilateral climate finance institution. Among other things, it is commissioned to support developing countries’ project-based and programmatic pursuits to address climate change, including Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). Promising as these ambitions may be, the GCF’s effectiveness in supporting NAMAs hinges on overcoming significant governance challenges. Using perspectives from international environmental law and governance literature, this paper identifies some crucial governance challenges and analyses the capacities granted to the GCF Board in dealing with them. Developed countries expect that support will lead to measured emissions reductions. Developing countries prefer stringent monitoring of support while hesitating to agree on internationally defined NAMA criteria. The GCF will struggle with this balancing act. Absence of concrete criteria for deciding on NAMA support may prompt potential funders to seek other channels for supporting NAMAs. On the other hand, too-rigid criteria may discourage developing countries from submitting NAMA proposals. For the GCF to be effective in incentivising development and diffusion of NAMAs, we argue that the contracting Parties to the Convention will have to forge an institution that has the capacity to balance diverging expectations on NAMAs. Our analysis indicates that the GCF Board has the governance capacity to efficiently deal with this challenging balancing act. Inability to exercise this capacity may result in establishing a strong empty shell for supporting NAMAs.
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| 8. |
- Grennfelt, Peringe, et al.
(författare)
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Socio-Economic Research in Support of Climate Policy Development: Mistras Research Program Clipore
- 2012
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Ingår i: Ambio. - Stockholm : Springer Verlag (Germany). - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 41
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mistras Climate Policy Research Program, Clipore, is one of the largest research programs directed to support international climate policy development, involving research groups in Sweden, Norway, United States and India. It has been running from 2004 to 2011 with a budget of more than 100 MSEK (15 M USD). The paper briefly describes the program and its outcomes in relation to climate policy development. Discussion focuses on how the program has been able to be in the front of and include the development of emissions trading systems in Europe and the United States and how the program has been able to follow and produce inputs to the agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The paper also discusses how the program has managed to present its outcomes and maintain an active dialogue with the various stakeholders. The paper emphasises options and obstacles in the communication between science and policy.
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| 9. |
- Hjerpe, Mattias, et al.
(författare)
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Functions of COP side-events in climate-change governance
- 2010
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Ingår i: Climate Policy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1469-3062 .- 1752-7457. ; 10:2, s. 167-180
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Side-events are the most visible venue for civil society involvement in international climate negotiations. The many varied functions that side-events fulfil for participants and organizers are identified and analysed for their contributions generally as well as for their contribution to the negotiation process. The analysis is based on two surveys of over 2,000 side-event participants and organizers at COP-13 and COP-14. The surveyed side-events were found to fulfil the broader official objective of benefiting COP participants through providing a shared conceptual basis as well as building institutional capacity and legitimacy. All participant groups, particularly from Africa, G77, and less-developed countries, found these events useful for their work. As a venue for information dissemination, side-events provide an important opportunity for capacity building. Historically, new items were introduced at COP side-events before being discussed in the formal negotiations. Side-events also provide a process for creating a shared vision. By providing a forum that includes more organizations and actors in conjunction with the negotiations, side-events have the potential to increase the input legitimacy of the international policy process. A significant challenge will be the inclusion of a wider range of stakeholder groups and geographical, socioeconomic and epistemic communities, in order to avoid favouring the hegemony of NGOs and other organisations based in industrialized countries, as well as Annex 1 Parties.
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| 10. |
- Hjerpe, Mattias, 1972-, et al.
(författare)
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Utopian thought as a missed opportunity and leverage point for systemic change
- 2012
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Ingår i: Climate Change and the Crisis of Capitalism. - London : Routledge. - 9780415676946 ; , s. 159-172
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Are established economic, social and political practices capable of dealing with the combined crises of climate change and the global economic system? Will falling back on the wisdoms that contributed to the crisis help us to find ways forward or simply reconfigure risk in another guise? This volume argues that the combination of global environmental change and global economic restructuring require a re-thinking of the priorities, processes and underlying values that shape contemporary development aspirations and policy.This volume brings together leading scholars to address these questions from several disciplinary perspectives: environmental sociology, human geography, international development, systems thinking, political sciences, philosophy, economics and policy/management science. The book is divided into four sections that examine contemporary development discourses and practices. It bridges geographical and disciplinary divides and includes chapters on innovative governance that confront unsustainable economic and environmental relations in both developing and developed contexts. It emphasises the ways in which dominant development paths have necessarily forced a separation of individuals from nature, but also from society and even from ‘self’. These three levels of alienation each form a thread that runs through the book. There are different levels and opportunities for a transition towards resilience, raising questions surrounding identity, governance and ecological management. This places resilience at the heart of the contemporary crisis of capitalism, and speaks to the relationship between the increasingly global forms of economic development and the difficulties in framing solutions to the environmental problems that carbon-based development brings in its wake.. Existing social science can help in not only identifying the challenges but also potential pathways for making change locally and in wider political, economic and cultural systems, but it must do so by identifying transitions out of carbon dependency and the kind of political challenges they imply for reflexive individuals and alternative community approaches to human security and wellbeing
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