COP20: Research from the edge

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP20) in Lima, Peru (1-12 December 2014) will settle the key elements of a global climate deal to be finalised in Paris next year, when the deadline for a new deal runs out.

The ESRC STEPS Centre and its partners around the world have been working on policy-relevant research in the places at the sharp edge of climate change, where it is having a huge effect on people’s lives and livelihoods. Here are a selection of resources, relevant to the COP20 negotiations, on the impact of climate change on poor and marginalised people, at the intersections of intersections of energy, agriculture, water and health.

Latin American partner:
Centro STEPS America Latina – the new Latin American regional hub for our Global Pathways to Sustainability Consortium, based at CENIT in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Projects:

• Energy and Climate Change domain With increasing access to modern energy services a key international development priority, the STEPS Centre believes a much broader and ambitious approach to energy and development is needed.
• Political Ecologies of Carbon in Africa New deals and funding mechanisms aim to reduce emissions. One consequence of this is the growth of a market in carbon. This project examines the power, politics and perceptions of carbon in Africa as new schemes are planned and put into action.
• Uncertainty from Above and Below How do people deal with uncertainty about the climate? Theories, models and diagrams from "above" may have little to do with the way how everyday men and women live with, understand and cope with uncertainty. This project brings together the views of people who study uncertainty, with the perspectives of people who experience it.

• Pro-poor, low carbon development This project aims to improve the transfer and uptake of low carbon technologies in developing countries, and to do so in ways that can assist in their economic development.
• Environmental Change and Maize Innovations in Kenya
  In East Africa, maize is an important staple crop, a vital part of food security. This project examined the various options for farmers in the region – from choosing alternative crops, to using new techniques or technology. It looked at how farmers and others see and make these choices in the context of climate change, uncertain markets and changes in land use.
• Low Carbon Innovation in China This project explores the extent, nature and social implications of low-carbon transitions in China, a key concern for the whole world.

Publications:

• Photovoice 'Uncertainty Through the Lens' from the Uncertainty from Below project
• Working Paper: Energy pathways in low-carbon development By Rob Byrne, Adrian Smith, Jim Watson and David Ockwell (PDF 3.96mb) How can we improve energy access while tackling climate change? This Working Paper examines the limits of using technology and finance to solve the problem, and explores a broader and more ambitious approach that addresses politics, social
• Briefing: Energy pathways in low-carbon development A short, easy-to-read briefing to accompany the Energy pathways in low-carbon development working paper. (PDF 219kb)
• Kiswahili version: Njia za Nishati katika Ustawi wenye Kaboni-Kidogo (PDF 219kb)
• Briefing: Pro-poor low carbon development project A short, non-technical briefing about this project, it's aims, rationale and approach (PDF 297kb).
• Kiswahili version: Kuendeleza kwa kaboni pungufu kwa ajili ya jamaa zilizo maskini. Kuboresha upatikanaji wa nishati ya kaboni iliyopunguzwa, hali kadhalika, kuendeleza faida katika nchi zenye maendeleo ya chini zaidi (LDCs). (PDF 296kb)
• Book: Low-Carbon Technology Transfer From Rhetoric to Reality Edited by David G. Ockwell, Alexandra Mallett Low carbon technology transfer to developing countries has been both a lynchpin of, and a key stumbling block to a global deal on climate change. This book brings together for the first time in one place the work of some of the world's leading contemporary researchers in this field.
• Working Paper: Community-based Micro Grids: A common property resource problem by Lorenz Gollwitze
• Article: Green grabbing: A new appropriation of Nature? By Melissa Leach, Ian Scoones, James Fairhea
• Resources collection: Green-grabs
• Special issue, Water Alternatives – Water grabbing? Focus on the (re)appropriation of finite water resources
• Working Paper: The Politics of Agricultural Carbon Finance: The Case of the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project by Joanes O. Atela
• Working Paper: Biocharred Pathways to Sustainability? Triple Wins, Livelihoods and the Politics of Technological Promise by Melissa Leach, James Fairhead, James Fraser, Eliza Lehner
• Briefing: Biochar: "Triple Wins", Livelihoods and Technological Promise

Recent blogposts:

• Same meat, different gravy? The new Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA) By David Ockwell
• Sustainable energy for whom? By David Ockwell and Rob Byrne
• IPCC: should climate change debates be more political? By Nathan Oxley
• Making climate change visible By Ian Scoones
  When global climate change politics meets African agriculture By Joanes Atela

Key People:

• Rob Byrne, STEPS Centre energy and climate change co-convenor Video: Rob Byrne talks about the STEPS Centre's energy and climate change research
• David Ockwell, STEPS Centre energy and climate change convenor

China and the new climate deal

“The joint US-China announcement on tackling climate change has been described as "historic", a "turning point" and a "positive signal". It has also been written off as insubstantive or even "hype".
“The reality, perhaps unsurprisingly, lies somewhere in between. What it might represent, however, is a future that pairs economic growth with environmental concerns,” writes STEPS Centre member Sam Geall in a piece entitled What next for China after historic climate deal? published in The Conversation, where you can read the full article.

Earlier this week the President Barack Obama and Xi Jingping announced a deal to reduce their greenhouse gas output, with China agreeing to cap emissions for the first time and the US committing to deep reductions by 2025.

Although there is no formal agreement yet in place, the deal represents a boost to international efforts on reaching a global deal on reducing emissions beyond 2020 at the crunch climate change negotiations in Paris next year.

David Ockwell at UNFCCC workshop on innovation systems (live webcast)

On 13–14 October, the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) of the UNFCCC is holding a workshop on Strengthening national systems of innovation in developing countries, covering the entire technology cycle for climate technology. This workshop will be webcast (see link below).

The workshop includes a presentation by David Ockwell, convenor of the STEPS Centre's Energy and Climate Change domain, on the subject of Transferring climate technology knowledge and developing national capacity to absorb knowledge.

The TEC is organizing the workshop to facilitate the implementation of its 2014-2015 rolling workplan. The workshop will support the TEC's work on enhancing enabling environments for and addressing barriers to technology development and transfer, in accordance with its mandated functions. It will have three sessions:

1. Strengthening national systems of innovation
2. Issues related to knowledge transfer between national systems of innovation
3. Knowledge transfer mechanisms: enhancing collaboration.

Full details of the event, including an agenda, background note and speaker biographies, can be found on the TEC web page about the workshop.

Webcast and virtual participation
All stakeholders are invited to follow the workshop through the live webcast and participate in the workshop discussions via social media. By using the Twitter hashtag #climatetech, you may tweet questions for the consideration of the workshop participants.

• View webcast
• Tweet questions using #climatetech

Connecting development actors in Ethiopia: linking climate change, nutrition and gender

Over the past few days, ordinary people from around the globe have taken to the streets to show their concern at the lack of political will to deal with climate change. At today’s special UN summit in New York, the world will be watching how our leaders respond.

One of the issues likely to be on the agenda is food security. As demonstrated in the latest IPCC report, climate change is having an impact on already worrying levels of hunger and undernutrition in the world. This evidence has reinforced the importance of agriculture becoming more climate smart in order to: increase food security, adapt to build resilience, and reduce agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation).

This blog post examines IDS’ recent work in Ethiopia, touching upon how nutritionists, agriculturalists, gender, environmental and climate change professionals are starting to talk to one another and respond to the need for climate smart agriculture.

What the numbers tell us

Agriculture accounts for over 46 percent of Ethiopian GDP (2006), and is highly sensitive to seasonal variations in temperature and moisture. Worryingly, the World Bank has calculated that climate change may reduce Ethiopia’s GDP by up to 10 percent by 2045. In addition, the country has one of the highest rates of malnutrition globally. In 2011, 44 percent of children under five years old were stunted (meaning their height was far lower than the average for their age), which is 14 percent higher than the average for developing countries.

The Ethiopian government has exciting ambitions: to achieve middle-income status by 2025 in a carbon neutral way. The National Nutrition Plan and the Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy have outlined ways to meet this aspiration. However, when we discussed these plans with various actors in Ethiopia, it seemed that the ongoing work is still in siloes- people are working hard to support their national development but not linking up or learning from other sectors.

What has IDS been trying to do?

The Irish Aid funded project has given the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) team the opportunity to build a partnership with the Ethiopian Public Health Institution (EPHI), to bring together and connect some of the key actors; support them in building their capacity to share knowledge ;and examine the thematic links that can further build on their research. In

2012, we brought together people working across these three themes and asked: Who plays a role in sharing nutrition and climate change [adaptation] information in Ethiopia?


Figure 1: Ethiopian Map: A complex network in Ethiopia

We were able to explore what knowledge sharing techniques and tools could be used to enhance intersectoral sharing; and developed commitment statements of how participants were going to take a small action to integrate their implement their learning.

Taking individual action

It has been exciting (and challenging) to see these commitments grow over the year. Not all have become a reality; lack of time, institutional and collegial support, and changes in staff have all played a role, but some inspiring activities have also emerged. In August, participants were invited to share their success and highlight challenges, and exchange advice and learning.

For example, Nuriya Yusuf, Gender Directorate at EPHI, committed to conduct an institutional training programme on Gender, Nutrition and Climate Change for EPHI employees. She brought together over 50 employees, both men and women for free, face-to-face training on the impacts of nutritional issues on their family lives. With backing from senior management she plans to continue the project and has been invited to share her learning with other institutions.

Another participant, DFID Ethiopia Nutrition Advisor Berhanu Hailegiorgis, was keen to strengthen internal sharing of relevant cross-cutting knowledge between teams and advisors. Berhanu has now been invited to present on the interdisciplinary links at the next internal retreat to further drive understanding and momentum on this agenda for DFID in Ethiopia.

Lessons learned for the future

There was a general consensus that issues need to be better linked, but there are also a lot of research gaps. Some of these include:

• What kind of adaptive capacities are needed for better nutrition for women and children?
• Links between climate change, nutrition and gender across different institutions in Ethiopia and ideas on how can these areas be better integrated
• Drought resistant mechanisms and nutrition

An informal coalition emerged from the workshop, which currently has members from across different sectors. The research gaps identified along with the opportunity to stay connected will provide new spaces and opportunities for engagement, learning and collaboration. This in itself is an important response and action which now needs to be complemented by politicians at the summit today.

By Fatema Rajabali

Complex combinations: climate, poverty and health in the Sundarbans

STEPS/IIHMR

My first trip to Sundarbans was as a tourist. I was left mesmerized by the beauty of the natural mangrove trees and crisscrossing creeks. I found it difficult to imagine that, due to climate change, the five million islanders of this ‘beautiful forest’ (as Sundarbans means in Bengali) have the daily battle of an inhospitable terrain, combined with frequent climatic shocks like floods and cyclones which take place almost every year.

My later frequent visits to this island archipelago have been as a researcher of climate and child health in this vulnerable region. Working for the Institute of Health Management Research under two innovative projects – Future Health Systems and the STEPS Centre’™s ‘Uncertainty from Below’ project – I have tried to explore and understand the uncertainties faced by the people of Sundarbans, due to climatic events, not only in direct relation to community health, but also to the other social determinants, such as livelihood and food security.

The islanders face both visible and the not-so-visible challenges. The immediate impact of a visible and sudden climatic shock, such as flood or cyclone (a frequent occurrence in Sundarbans), is often a sudden rise in the incidence of flood related diseases (e.g. diarrhoea and respiratory infections) especially among children. In the long run, health care infrastructure takes a hit making the already weak system more inaccessible and unaffordable. Simultaneously, climatic shock erodes the opportunities for maintaining livelihoods and triggers food insecurity, sucking people deep into chronic poverty, resulting in malnutrition and recurrent disease.

Not-so-visible challenges, such as the slow and gradual change sea levels or weather patterns, like erratic rainfall or extended summers, deplete the traditional agro-fishing economy. This results in the outward migration of many men looking for work. Women are more likely to become part of the marginal workforce which can ultimately take a toll on other social determinants of health (food security, social support, seeking quality care etc.), especially for the child.

The continuum of these climatic uncertainties reinforces or intensifies adverse health outcomes. A suboptimal health care system weakens the coping ability of a household and results in negative resilience. A typical islander of the ‘˜beautiful forest’ is susceptible to an extra burden of health risks and a complex combination of poverty, environmental adversity, triggering inter-generational under-nutrition and ill health – the vicious cycle of underdevelopment.

by Upasona Ghosh, Senior Research Officer at the Indian Institute of Health Management Research, and researcher on the STEPS Centre’s project on Uncertainty from below.

This post was first published on the Eldis website. It is one of two case studies published on Eldis to mark the World Health Organization conference on health and climate, which took place in Geneva from 27-29 August.

Community-based Micro Grids: Experiences in Rural Kenya

I am standing in Olosho-Oibor, a small village three-hours from Nairobi, at the bottom of the Ngong Hills (famous as the place where Denys Finch Hatton crashed his plane and died in Karen Blixen’s autobiography Out of Africa). Beeping in my pocket, my smartphone has just received an email, yet the nearest connection to the national grid is about 15km, or a three to four hour walk away. The contrast between my rural surroundings and the wireless 21^st century couldn't be starker. But unlike many people - not only in Kenya, but in large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa - the villagers of Olosho-Oibor do not need to make that long walk to charge their phones or LED lanterns, thanks to a solar-wind hybrid micro grid they have been successfully operating since 2009.

Rates of electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to be extremely low, even compared to other developing regions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated in 2011 that just under half of the total global population lacking access to electricity lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, amounting to almost 600 million people. The situation in Kenya is not atypical for many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Electrification rates in rural areas are estimated to be between 5-10% and the national grid operated by the public utility Kenya Power is already operating beyond capacity, causing rolling blackouts as well as in some cases nationwide blackouts.

Alternative pathways to universal electrification hence need to be found. Electrification through grid-independent, renewable energy mini and micro grids will be one important solution. In fact, the IEA estimates that, if universal electrification is to be achieved, 45% of new electricity connections until 2030 will be in the form of mini and micro grids. While there is no clear definition for what constitutes a micro or mini grid it is usually considered to be a system ranging from 5kw to 500kw generating capacity, connecting between ten and a few hundred households and businesses.

One important aspect of mini grid electrification is the engagement of the local community, enabling them to understand how a micro grid works, what it can and cannot do and what changes it will likely bring to the community. A development practitioner in Nairobi told me: "Make them aware of what you introduce to them. You are introducing change in a community, basically. If people didn’t have clothing and you bring in bundles of clothing from somewhere you don’t expect them to start wearing them." Similarly there should be a degree of community ownership in order to improve chances for long-term sustainability. This can range from full ownership and management of the micro grid and its asset all the way to just partial ownership through the contribution of, for example, labour in the construction process ("sweat capital"). Either way, the community must feel the system is theirs and have a sense of pride and responsibility for it. Or, as the same interviewee put it: "They know 'We spent money on it. And if this thing doesn’t work then it is our money we are loosing.' So the moment you pay for something you take care of it. If you don’t pay for it, you don’t care about it."

Olosho-Oibor, which I got a chance to visit as part of a Nairobi-based workshop for the Solar Nano-Grids (SONG) Project under the Low Carbon Energy for Development Network (LCEDN), is a really interesting example of a fully community-owned and –operated micro grid. It was installed in June 2009 by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) with the community of Olosho-Oibor contributed about KSH 60,000 (£400) in capital as well as "sweat capital" by helping to, for example, bury the distribution lines underground. The micro grid connects to the dispensary, which serves 8,000 people in the area, the school with 400 students and the church. It also serves a small flexible business space, which is used as a shop, a barber shop and a cell phone and LED lantern charging station as well as a few nearby households. The micro grid provides a focal point for the local community, which is quite dispersed due to the pastoral nature of their livelihood.

The system originally consisted of 3kWp (kilowatt peak) of solar photovolatic panels (PV), connected to a battery bank, a 3kW wind turbine, with a separate battery bank and a 10kW diesel generator, which can charge both battery banks. At a later stage the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Small Grants Programme contributed another 4kWp of solar panels to the system. Before this expansion there was not enough power to support even the basic energy needed to run computers in the school and dispensary, TVs, light public buildings, and charge mobile phones and lanterns.

The system is run by a community-based organization (CBO), which employs a dedicated manager responsible for the operation of the grid. Electricity access is not metered but the system is essentially "open" and there are monthly flat fees per household or business connection that the manager collects, as well as flat fees for charging cell phones or other appliances. Given the limited capacity of the system, the community hence had to come up with other ways of managing demand. As a result of community meetings they have agreed upon a system whereby, when it is overcast or there is very little wind, they disconnect the non-essential consumers first, such as households or the shop, so they can continue to provide electricity to the to essential public institutions. In a sense they have hence come together as a community to collectively manage a limited resource – a form of collective action. In a new STEPS Centre Working Paper I explore the theoretical foundations for collective action in such community micro grids.

A lot more research remains to be done on scalable and replicable business models for these community-based micro grids as almost all existing projects so far could be considered pilots. Having seen the example of Olosho-Oibor, however, which has been operating for five years under community management, there exists a huge opportunity in Kenya and possibly many other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa to provide electricity access to large amounts of the rural population not through the somewhat rigid national grids that the developed countries are so used to, but rather by creating many smaller systems that are specifically tailored to local needs and resource availability and operated locally. In the future these systems could begin to interconnect and form a highly flexible and resilient grid powered largely by renewable energy. This would represent a leapfrogging development straight to the kinds of systems we are now beginning to build in the developed world in order to integrate more and more intermittent renewable energy sources into the grid. There is a long way to go but rural communities in Kenya might be making the first steps.


By Lorenz Gollwitzer

Lorenz Gollwitzer is a PhD student at STEPS Centre co-host SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), at the University of Sussex

Find out more

• STEPS Working Paper: Community-based Micro Grids: A common property resource problem by Lorenz Gollwitzer
• Resources: STEPS Centre energy and climate change work

Missionary discourses: can the green economy bring climate justice to the South?

Colonialism by Clapagaré on Flickr (cc-by-nc-sa-2.0)

The green economy has become one of the most powerful political and social agendas in the era of climate change. This week, researchers have met in Dodoma, Tanzania at the Green Economy in the South conference – the first meeting of its kind. Central to this green economy is the emergence of carbon market mechanisms as a form of green development for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

 

The carbon phenomenon has attracted a variety of multilateral and bilateral investments from the North to the South, with the premise that it represents a form of climate justice for the states and local communities who could participate in these schemes. But in academic and political debates on green economy, questions have been raised as to what extent these carbon schemes – as part of the green economy – represent realistic climate justice to climatically vulnerable farmers and pastoralists in the South.

 

Specific cases of carbon schemes in Ghana (Vision 2050 carbon project), Zimbabwe (Kariba REDD project) and Kenya (the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project) indicate that these schemes, in their designs, perpetuate a generic discourse around ‘ecological and social missionary’. In this discourse, projects claim to bring a new life to the ecosystem and livelihoods in the respective target localities that are now suffering the impacts of global change.

 

The Kariba carbon project in Zimbabwe, for instance, claims that it will alleviate poverty, help people have food, education and health and at the same time provide enormous ecological benefits in terms of reduced degradation and wildlife protection. Similar arguments were put forward by the Vision 2050 carbon project in Ghana, which expects to create livelihoods opportunities for different land owners in the forest transition zones; and the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project, which aims to achieve ecological and social ‘triple wins’.

Shifting the blame

In this missionary framing however, there seems to be a hidden shift in the blame game. Global problems of climate change are blamed more on local activities such as firewood collection, hunting or unsustainable subsistence agricultural practices in these landscapes. For example, the Vision 2050 project in Ghana claims that the loss of forest in the transition zone is due to peasants’ grazing activities –implicitly absolving from blame greater timber concessions and plantation companies that extracted large sections of the forest.

 

While carbon projects must find a justification for situating their work in certain localities in the South, they fail to capture the actual drivers of change. Instead, the schemes tend, largely, to pass on the burden and sense of guilt to the local communities – who then become co-opted as part of the solution and cast as beneficiaries of this new ecological and social missionary work from the North.

 

Hope and hype

On the ground, the new ‘carbon missionary’ discourse potentially creates hopes and hypes that may degenerate into more livelihood injustices and inequalities. For instance, the Zimbabwe case depicts a new wave of repositioning in which rich immigrants expect the Kariba REDD project to displace land ownership claims by indigenous locals – who have been blamed for forest degradation. Our Ghana case paints a picture of a failed mission in which the project was unable to meet its promises to the local people, who abandoned certain forest-based livelihood practices and took responsibility for planting trees along the forest transition zone.

 

Learning from potential

While the general examples here seem to point to the shortcomings of carbon schemes in achieving climate justice, it is important to note that these shortcomings do not apply to all carbon schemes in the South. Indeed some carbon schemes, for example the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project in Kenya, have demonstrated the potential for these interventions to change lives and livelihoods.

 

Achieving this potential is only possible if projects take into account the history of land use, development processes and people’s aspirations in the target localities. In this era of green economy, therefore, packaging solutions under carbon is necessary but must be done with caution, historical cognition, and an eye on the global nature of climate change drivers and the local impacts of such actions. It is only through this the green economy debates and actions can realize climate justice for the South.

 

By Joanes Odiwuor Atela

 

Author’s note: For more details and insights on this topic look out for the forthcoming book Carbon conflicts and forest landscapes in Africa (Routledge, March 2015) by Ian Scoones and Melissa Leach (eds).

 

Joanes Atela is a former Early Career Fellow with Future Agricultures and a member of the STEPS Centre's project 'Political ecologies of carbon in Africa'.

Forests for the future? Carbon forestry and climate compatible development in Mozambique

Following the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany earlier this month, an Institute of Development Studies (IDS)-led project funded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) examines the recent lessons they have learnt on how ‘climate compatible development’ initiatives are unfolding in Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique. Using a political economy approach (PDF), the case studies focus on:

• the political, economic and institutional contexts in which initiatives occur
• the potential competition or conflict between different actors and their goals, and
• the consequences in terms of who wins and who loses from different aspects of climate compatible development.

This is the third and final in the series of the three blogs, by Julian Quan, Natural Resources Institute (NRI), and Lars Otto Naess, IDS. Julian and Lars Otto are lead researchers for the Mozambique case study, which explores the political economy of carbon forestry in Mozambique.

The first blog and second blog respectively came from Thomas Tanner, Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Pete Newell, University of Sussex.

Challenges and dilemmas of REDD+
How can a developing country like Mozambique build resilience to climate risks such as floods and droughts, while at the same time seizing new economic opportunities and global climate finance? The debate around the global programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, known as REDD+, highlights many of the challenges and dilemmas countries face in trying to capture synergies between goals for adaptation, mitigation and development.

REDD+ is an international mechanism which offers incentives to developing countries to reduce carbon emissions from forested lands and increase conservation of forest carbon stocks. While originally set up as a mitigation mechanism, its goals have been expanded to account for development and adaptation goals. In principle, it can be seen as an instrument to promote climate compatible development. Things are as ever more complicated in practice, however.

The REDD+ strategy in Mozambique has been years in the making. In 2012, according to the country’s “REDD readiness proposal”, one third of Mozambique’s entire land area was subject to proposals for forest conservation and carbon forestry from private business and global conservation agencies, which aspire to exploit carbon markets for private gain, or biodiversity conservation.

What are the interests of the diverse stakeholders  in  REDD+ in Mozambique? 
Opinions of REDD+ among local actors vary. For the government and many donors, it is a way of in which Mozambique can contribute to global emissions reduction and simultaneously generate revenue, while also safeguarding forest resources against escalating threats of deforestation, and support livelihoods,. For the private sector, it is a business opportunity, although one that – at least at the moment – looks less promising than a few years ago because of a weak carbon market. NGOs and civil society organisations differ; some are sharply opposed to it, whereas others consider that it  REDD+ and carbon forestry projects offer real potential opportunities, for farmers, rural communities and the nation as a whole: Following a wave of large-scale land acquisitions for commercial food production, biofuels and forestry, REDD+ raises a spectre of “green grabbing”, whereby large areas are dedicated to forest conservation or monoculture plantations, excluding people and usurping land rights.

Is there a viable alternative to REDD+ and what is the way forward?
There are real difficulties in envisioning alternative models which could pay rural communities to help deliver critical global environmental services on the ground. One model seen as promising by many was Envirotrade’s Sofala Carbon Project, which paid farmers for tree planting and improved forest management to earn investors returns from the sale of carbon credits, and create local social benefits. Farmer carbon payments were frontloaded before the trees reached maturity, failing to guarantee long-term carbon values and undermining sustainability. The market value of carbon has fallen, so despite a potential win-win business model, there is little commercial incentive for further investment. In practice the greater share of carbon accumulation came not from tree-planting but better natural forest management activities supported not by the market but by an EU grant, and this is where carbon measurement methodologies are weakest. For REDD+ to succeed without excluding people, it will need to address these problems.

Despite the at times very polarised debate on REDD+ in Mozambique, the study found an extraordinary – and perhaps surprising – willingness amongst local private sector and civil society players to engage with each other, and with local communities and government to implement the programme. However, it is clear that there is a need to deepen and broaden government engagement with sustainable forest management and climate change adaptation, especially at lower levels. So far, the legal and institutional framework developed for REDD+ concentrates on procedures for licensing large scale projects, rather than improving existing forest management and utilisation practices which lead to forest degradation and loss. It is striking how disconnected discussions about REDD+ have become from debates about how livelihoods, agriculture, and vulnerable national regions can adapt to climate change. Resolving forest tenure challenges and broader land governance issues will be key to progress. For REDD+ to work it is also clear that new forms of capital will need to emerge, and promote community enterprise; it will not be possible to rely entirely on the market.

Ultimately, the outcomes of REDD+ for climate compatible development in Mozambique will depend on the existence of strong governance mechanisms and ‘safeguards’ in place to secure tenure rights and benefits from forest resources and carbon stocks for local communities. In order to provide incentives for rural communities to participate and protect them against land alienation as a result of land grants for large scale project investments 

Whatever the view on REDD+: The fact remains that forest management in Mozambique is crucially important for the country’s development and for adaptation strategies, and can offer large potential carbon gains. For REDD+ to work, fundamental forest governance challenges need to be addressed. Questions thus remain:  Is it conceivable that REDD+ can be modified so that these (and other) challenges can be overcome, or is it ‘dead in the water’? If the latter, what other mechanisms for forest governance could be envisaged, taking into account climate compatible development goals? And, how much can be achieved in Mozambique through implementation of current legislation, and what additional challenges does climate change bring?

For more information on the project, contact Lars Otto Naess: L.Naess@ids.ac.uk

Ghana, the ‘Brazil of Africa’: Keeping the lights on…for the World Cup

Over recent years, concerns to "keep the lights on" have featured high on energy policy agendas and in media headlines, especially in the developed world. Competing concerns to ensure energy security - including geopolitical turbulence associated with oil and gas supply, potential terrorist attacks and attempts to mitigate climate change and transition to low carbon societies – have all provided rational for governments' actions to avoid businesses and citizens being left in the dark. In Ghana, where "lights out", a term commonly used by some locals to describe recurring power cuts, have become symptomatic of growing energy security issues, the drive to keep the lights on has recently taken a new turn. Rather than long-term energy planning, the focus has been on temporary measures to help the government fulfil its pledge to ensure reliable and uninterrupted power during the 2014 World Cup, or at least when the infamous Black Stars, Ghana's national football team, are playing.

Ghana’s national electricity access rate of 72%, is considered relatively successful, ranking third in Sub-Saharan Africa after Mauritius and South Africa. Ghana's electrification plan has been implemented mainly through grid extension but disparities remain in electricity access, both between rural and urban areas and the poorer Northern regions and the South. But expectations that many households will watch the World Cup on TV have prompted drastic steps to ensure the grid holds up.

The one-month tournament, which kicked off in Sao Paulo on 12 July and culminates on 13 July in Rio, has provided a momentum for ad-hoc energy policy and patriotic energy conservation measures. Once an electricity exporter, Ghana has struck a deal for neighbouring Ivory Coast to supply 50 megawatts to the country during the Black Stars’ matches. The government has also asked the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), Ghana's largest aluminium smelter and largest electricity consumer, to slow down production and reduce consumption to make sure that scheduled blackouts do not interfere with the national team's games. Furthermore, households have been urged to join the national effort to provide equitable access to football viewing by cutting-down electricity consumption during the crucial 90 minutes. Particularly, the Energy Commission's new energy conservation campaign (link), dubbed ‘switch off the freezer', and backed up by Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum John Abdulai Jinapor, is seeking to make up for shortfalls in electricity supply by asking to stop their fridges and power-hungry appliances during the football games.

The additional public spending and the need to "ration electricity so that everyone can watch the World Cup" is somewhat at odds with current pressures on the national budget and the on-going load shedding schedule started few months ago. Over the years, inadequate and shrinking supply combined with growing demand has led to numerous problems in the Ghanaian electricity system, characterised by frequent nationwide power disruptions, blackouts and load shedding. Continued economic growth and increased access to grid electricity have both contributed to increased demand, which is expected to rise further at a 12% per annum in the coming years.

Although long-term investments in the energy sector are crucial, load shedding at peak periods by utilities provide temporary solutions to safeguard generating systems. They usually occur when electricity demand exceeds supply to prevent a total blackout of the entire power system. Utilities reduce demand (load) on the generation system by temporarily switching off grid distribution to different geographical areas. According to the Energy Commission's recent figures, energy demand stand at 2000 megawatts while the generation capacity are only 1 600 megawatts.

These energy challenges are not new in Ghana. Energy security, often narrowed down security of supply has been prominent in policy discourse over the years. In 2007, for example, the power crisis, which resulted of poor hydrology in the Volta Lake, lasted for up to 12 months and led to a far-reaching power-rationing regime, whereby all categories of electricity consumer went without electricity for at least 12 hours every other day. But this time, Ghana is going through what the media referred to as "The energy crisis" at a period when people require reliable electricity to watch the World Cup.

The "soccer-crazy nation" has come with high expectations for the Black Stars. In Accra, giant screens have emerged in many corners, local bars display TV sets around which neighbours congregate to follow the match while many decide to follow the games at home with friends and family. Although most of cars have been exhibiting the national red, green yellow flag featuring a black star, long before the start of the World Cup, days when the Black Stars are scheduled to play are special. National flags are waved and horns honked relentlessly as a sense of excitement and celebration pre-empting a national victory builds, adding to the general chaos that characterise the busiest streets of the Ghanaian capital city.

In the "Brazil of Africa", football is a serious matter that agitates even the highest levels of power. Prior to the Black Stars' first match against the USA, president John Dramani Mahama joined the national frenzy to rally Ghanaians, urging both Christians and Muslims to pray for the team to excel at the World Cup. The game against fierce opponent Germany last Saturday, triggered vivid tension and explosive passios, also merited special comment from the President, who congratulated the national team on their "exciting" game.

Commenters have dismissed the Ghanaian's government pledge to keep the lights on during the World Cup as "populist" when energy reforms are needed. But the move also brings to the fore the political dimension of energy decisions. This should not be overlooked in a country where "no power, no vote" resonates strongly and where, I am being told powerless communities in rural areas often get connected to the grid ahead of new elections even if they do not meet specific criteria under the on-going national electrification programme. The word on the street, or at or at least from one of my regular football fan taxi drivers, is that a power cut during a Ghana match, could end up in a civil uproar. While this may or may not be exaggerated, a black-out during the World Cup could have a detrimental impact on voters at a time when ordinary people are already resenting endless power cuts that affect their daily lives.

So far the government appears to have kept its promises to "keep the lights on" during the World Cup. The effectiveness of those ad hoc measures will be tested again this afternoon at 4pm Ghana time (5pm GMT) when the Black Stars face Portugal. Once again, hopes are high. While a qualification to the next round will not address national energy challenges in the long-term, it would certainly, although temporarily, boost the moral of many Ghanaians watching the match on screen. Good luck Black Stars.

By Sandra Pointel in Accra

• Find out more about the STEPS Centre’s energy and climate change work
• Sandra Pointel is a doctoral researcher at SPRU – Science Policy Research Unit at the Unniversity of Sussex. Her research focuses on low carbon development and energy access in Africa.

Solar Power? Kenya’s energy future at a crossroads

As the UNFCCC Bonn Climate Change Conference discussions come to a close, an IDS-led project funded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) examines the recent lessons they have learnt on how ‘climate compatible development’ initiatives are unfolding in Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique. Using a political economy approach, the case studies focus on:

• Contexts in which initiatives occur
• Potential competition or conflict between different actors and their goals, and 
• The consequences in terms of who wins and who loses from different aspects of climate compatible development.

This, the second in a series of  three blogs, originally posted on the Global Studies Blog SussexGlobal is by Peter Newell, Professor at the University of Sussex. Peter is the lead research fellow for the Kenya case study which explores the political economy analysis of the national energy policy that aims to support a transition to a low carbon economy, delivering poverty reduction and climate resilience at the same time.

The first blog came from Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Research Fellow Thomas Tanner.

Kenya faces an energy dilemma. It is hardly alone in this but unlike many developing countries it has developed a National Climate Change Action Plan and the need to address climate mitigation and adaptation alongside poverty features strongly in its Vision 2030 plan for the country. Kenya is also home to a highly successful solar home system market and a large part of its energy mix comes from renewable resources including geothermal and hydropower. Yet it has also recently discovered oil and there is growing interest in exploiting the countries coal reserves and though the potential for a clean energy revolution is high, the policy and regulatory framework to support it is not yet in place.

A recent workshop held in Nairobi to showcase recent Sussex research on these issues highlighted some of these challenges and suggested ways forward.

1. Donor support is critical. Despite being feted as a purely market-led success, detailed tracking of the history of innovation and deployment of solar home systems suggests public money was vital to building markets, networks and reducing risk. 
2. There is no substituting for a proactive and forward looking entrepreneurial state, one which sets the direction of change, supports Research & Development (R&D) and creates a positive enabling environment for the uptake of renewable energy through tax, regulation and industrial policy. 
   
3. Businesses that stand to benefit from clean energy need a greater voice in the debate. Renewable associations exist and are active in these debates. But assembling a broader ‘coalition of the willing and the winning’ from a low carbon economy is vital to showing private sector support for clean energy future in Kenya. 
4. Given the potential benefits of renewables for poorer groups that often lack access to the grid there is real scope to build alliances at country level whom the Kenya 2010 constitution grants increasing powers. There is a power struggle unfolding over the authority that central as opposed to county level government exercises over key areas of policy such as energy. But it looks like being a possible site for change where counties have been enthusiastic and renewables and if they are able to generate real benefits in terms of jobs and revenue, supported by a feed-in-tariff scheme, could provide tangible wins for poorer groups.   

This is then both a worrying and exciting time for Kenya. Affected by drought and highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, Kenya has a lot to lose from climate change. But proactive responses to the issue that can help to improve access to energy and do so in a low carbon way suggest the genuine potential of climate compatible development.

Photo credits: Peter Newell | University of Sussex
More information on the project, contact Lars Otto Naess

Complexity of politics in Climate Compatible Development: Creating wins over space and time

As the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - Bonn Climate Change Conference takes place in Germany, an IDS-led project funded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) looks at the recent lessons they have learnt on how ‘climate compatible development’ initiatives are unfolding in Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique. Using a political economy approach, the case studies focus on:

• the contexts in which initiatives occur
• the potential competition or conflict between different actors and their goals, and 
• the consequences in terms of who wins and who loses from different aspects of climate compatible development.

The first in a series of three blogs comes from Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Research Fellow Thomas Tanner. Tom is the lead researcher of the Ghana case study that considers the political economy of climate compatible development in the coastal fisheries sector.


I still remember the moment I realised that I ‘got’ what geography was all about -  mapping two axes of time and space, with points on the graph marked as events occurring at particular places. So simple, but effectively summing up what a geographers eye brings to an analysis.

Climate compatible development
And such simplicity underlies the appeal of the three interlocking circles that characterise the 'Climate Compatible Development' approach championed by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN). It was originally devised to communicate the inter-relationship between climate change and development to the Department of International Development (DFID) senior managers and Ministers – rather effectively it seems as climate change is one of DFID’s 6 strategic Structural Reform Priorities.

Climate Compatible Development
Source: Mitchell and Maxwell, 2010

• The diagram is useful because it helps us consider development processes and pathways in terms of whether they will contribute to these distinct but related objectives:
• Improving access to cleaner energy can help prevent climate change at the same time as providing people and businesses with the light, heat and electricity they need
• Diversified livelihoods or flood-proof infrastructure can improve incomes and services at the same time as being more resilient in the face of climate change impacts.
• And in the sweet spot at the centre, the holy grail of the ‘triple win’ – such as growing climate-resilient cassava for ethanol production as fuel for cook-stoves, or planting trees alongside crops such as coffee or cocoa to provide shade, stabilise soils and store soil carbon and biomass.  

Political economy of climate change
But while the diagram points us towards enhancing synergies, it hides some of the challenges of hitting ‘the sweet spot’ at the centre that are linked to the political economy of climate change. There will usually be trade-offs between the three different strategies, with potentially different winners and losers from different policy mixes:

• Should the designs of new cook stoves aim to maximise fuel efficiency or maximise usability?
• Should adaptation to coastal erosion prioritise protecting infrastructure or local livelihood activities? 
• Would removal of fossil fuel subsidies prevent people moving out of poverty? 

Such tradeoffs highlight the politics underpinning climate compatible development policy making the development. I’ve been involved in these issues through a project examining the political economy of climate compatible development in Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique. This is an interesting understanding of the realities of how the space for climate compatible development has been and might be further expanded – we can see this as how the three interlocking circles can be brought closer together to enlarge the space for synergies (see figure below).

 In reality, this actually means understanding the forces keeping these circles apart, such as

• Simple low awareness
• The short-term nature of investment decision making, 
• The benefits of oil and gas exploitation for revenue and energy security that might be incompatible with mitigation objectives. 

But the work has also got us thinking about space and time in more depth (and woken the sleeping geographer that lives in each of us). Prof Chris Gordon, Director of the University of Ghana’s Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS), challenged us to think of the three circles as dynamic across time and space as presented in the figure below from IESS Ghana. As such, we should also try to understand how the drivers of these different strategies lead them to be more or less prominent, and more or less interconnected, over time. And thinking spatially, how do international factors such as climate funds, international policy under the UNFCCC, or the release of the new IPCC Assessment Reports affect the national and local drivers of change?

Dynamic Triple Wins across space and time Source: Chris Gordon, IESS Ghana

In Ghana for example, while the mitigation agenda was strongly endorsed by senior politicians following the Copenhagen Summit of 2009, national adaptation needs are now being given much greater attention as a response to impacts on people’s livelihoods from factors like coastal erosion, changing rainfall patterns and heat-waves. Similarly, reductions in the subsidies for premix fuel used by small-scale fishermen might have a detrimental effect on development in the short term by making fishing less viable as a livelihood, but contribute to mitigation and help prevent collapse of fish stocks from overfishing over longer timescales. As payment systems for avoiding deforestation become more advanced, perhaps the drivers of mangrove preservation will swing towards their mitigation benefits?

So the geographer in me continues to ask: Is it time to make space for spacetime thinking in climate compatible development?

Guest blogpost: Andrew Barnett on low carbon development trade offs

Andrew Barnett, Director of The Policy Practice, inspired by the discussion at The Royal Society on Monday 31 March 2014 to discuss the policy implications of research on low carbon development and sustainable energy access in low-income countries, writes for the STEPS Centre blog.

 

I very much enjoyed meeting the teams from Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, the STEPS Centre and the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) group from Kenya. Their recent working paper 61, Sustainable energy for whom? Governing pro-poor, low-carbon pathways to development: Lessons from solar PV in Kenya, provides a useful contribution to the field, not least by providing a detailed history of Photo Voltaics development in Kenya. The paper draws strongly on the huge intellectual legacy from many years of research at SPRU on the limits to simplistic views of technology transfer and the need for an innovation systems approach to the management of technical change.

In this blogpost I would like to see if I can help to build on this work. The paper makes the point that there is a perception of a “tension… between increasing energy access and pursuing low carbon development” (p Xii and page 2). But it seems to me that it is a great deal more than a perception and this trade-off may well be one of the key intellectual issues in this area of research. There are now a number of authoritative sources to suggest that there can be a trade-off between these two objectives and they cannot be so easily dismissed. No less an authority is the current chief economist at DFID, Stefan Dercon, who wrote a paper for the World Bank on this topic, see Policy Research Working Paper 6231, He concludes:

“Green growth is in no way necessarily bad for the poor. But the key message of this paper is that promises that green growth will offer a rapid route out of poverty are not very plausible; there may well be less rapid an exit than with more conventional growth strategies. To sustain growth, green growth also needs to be weighed in terms of its ability to reduce poverty. To sustain poverty reduction, green growth may involve giving up some possible environmental benefits, to keep the growth-poverty elasticity high. Since poverty reduction remains at the top of the agenda, different shades of green may be needed. In particular, poverty reduction is a powerful force for giving the poor more resilience to the increasing risks of climate change; they should not be asked to pay the price for greening the planet.”

For me understanding that a trade-off CAN exist is at the heart of the “political economy” that is increasingly seen as being of critical importance to understanding apparently illogical human behaviour in this area (see www.thepolicypractice.com). Of course if there is to be lots of genuinely 'new money' for low carbon growth, it is a laudable objective for academics to see how they can help to capture as much of it as possible for the poorer people of Africa. But for me the SPRU analysis would be strengthened if it accepted and dealt with the possibility of a trade-off. Indeed if the possibility of a trade-off were put at the centre of the work it would lead nicely onto the other issue at the heart of the STEPS programme namely the existence of “diverse pathways“. The issue is NOT (as suggested at the meeting) that new technologies always start off less competitive than established technologies, it is that from among all the possible future pathways some will contribute more to energy access and others will contribute more to low carbon “development” for a given level of resource input (by the way there does not appear to be as much effort into unpacking the concept of "energy access", or even development, as are applied to other terms in the analysis – the reduction of energy poverty must surely involve USE of modern energy services and a view as to what is considered to be an adequate or minimum level of consumption).

A related, but different, point is raised when the report says in passing that “many low carbon alternatives are not yet competitive with carbon intensive technology options” (page 23). This is likely to be true, but it also seems to need more analysis in any discussion of modern energy services and poor people. Not least of the reasons being that it goes a long way to explain the behaviour of governments that act on the belief that at least FOR THE MOMENT PV are too expensive for many of their poor people. A number of high officials in Tanzania, and researchers in Kenya (such as Stephen Karekezi, Director of AFREPREN/FWD) explicitly explained this to me in the 1980′s.

The other key issue that you have to confront when talking of the energy needs of poor people is that most poor people do not currently have sufficient “access” to any modern energy services, whether low or high carbon, primarily because they are poor. If our analyses are to be useful they must address this issue head on and centrally. One of the report’s team said at the Royal Society meeting that “subsidies are essential” if poor people are to have access to low carbon energy options. I am happy to support this view, but it is almost trivial as a conclusion. The report’s main conclusion states that market forces alone will not drive the widespread uptake of low carbon energy technologies in low-income developing countries”. But surely the interesting point is what is said next. The team needs to say more about what "market making subsidies" would look like as there are already well documented cases of market destroying subsidies. But more importantly the team could make much of their SPRU colleague’s work on the need for the state to undertake risky equity investments if innovation is to be dynamic, and to demand an equity return on their successes (see Prof Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU).

If the main problem of "energy access” for poor people is poverty then the team also could say useful things about the need for energy end-use technologies that provide the energy services that help people to increase their incomes. This is of course a complex area, but then SPRU has never been frightened by complexity!

While the PV industry provides a most useful case study (and clearly the team know a great deal about PV), the policy analysis would be strengthened by locating this work within the broader focus (framing?) of other energy delivery systems (both for electricity, and for the other energy services that poor people need/want, such as heat for cooking). This would open up a number of other "diverse pathways", some of which are also low carbon (such as co-generation from agricultural waste, hydro and geothermal electricity to name but three). This is a big ask of course, but it would also underline the many trade-offs within the low carbon scenario.

Photo Voltaics are already the least cost source of electricity in more remote areas, and for sparsely populated areas (particularly for LED lighting, phone charging and radio). But for me the relative success of PV in densely populated parts of the world is an index of the failure of power sector reform in that particular country. Such reform is where agencies such as DFID would get the biggest bang for their aid buck. Focussing solely on PV diverts their attention from these more critical concerns. It is noteworthy in this context to remember that while PV is flourishing in Kenya so are the companies supplying electricity to Kenya from fossil fuels at huge cost per kilowatt hour in name of emergency power! We must guard against continuing to play our favourite violins when Rome is clearly burning!

Useful links

• Find out more about the research project Andrew refers to: Pro-poor, low carbon development: Improving low carbon energy access and development benefits in Least Developed Countries
• Sustainable energy for whom? Build capacity, don’t just fund hardware – David Ockwell and Rob Byrne blog about the project findings for Politics@Warwick
• Summary of policy lessons from the project: Low carbon energy and development in low-income countries and in Kiswahili: Nishati ya kaboni ndogo na maendeleo katika nchi zenye kipato cha chini

IPCC: should climate change debates be more political?

Photo: Ethio drought 7 by aheavens on Flickr

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, focusing on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, makes sobering reading. But it also situates climate change among a range of other challenges and uncertainties faced by society, especially poor people.

IPCC reports always provoke a discussion about trust in climate science. But they should also make us look at the political choices in responding to climate change – choices which cannot be settled by focusing on the science alone. Responding to climate change, as with many other problems where humans and nature interact, involves making decisions on the basis of incomplete knowledge. But politics and uncertainty are an uneasy mix.

The journalist Fred Pearce, a member of the STEPS Centre’s advisory committee, wrote last week in response to a draft of the IPCC report, noting that this time around, the authors are ‘more wary’ of making specific predictions of local impacts.

“The 2007 report was almost all about the impacts of climate change. Most of this report, and in particular most of the summary for policymakers, is about resilience and adaptation to inevitable climate change.

Central to that new take is setting climate change in a context of other risks, uncertainties and mega-trends such as poverty and social inequality, urbanization, and the globalization of food systems.”

Back in February, Prof Mike Hulme (another member of our advisory committee) suggested that the debate about the climate change needs become more political, not more scientific. Attempts to assert the scientific consensus on climate change miss the point – what matters is what we do about it. In his blog for The Conversation, Mike Hulme offers four important questions to be asked about climate change, which all require a political position to be taken.

This article first appeared on the STEPS Centre blog.

STEPS-JNU SYMPOSIUM: Making climate change visible

By Ian Scoones, Co-Director, STEPS Centre

 

The second session at the JNU-STEPS Symposium focused on how uncertainties generated by climate change are appreciated both ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ – and indeed by those in the middle. Three highly contrasting rural and urban case studies from Delhi and Mumbai, presented by Alankar of Sarai, Kutch in Gujarat, presented by V. Vijay Kumar of the Gujarat Institute of Desert Ecology (GUIDE), Bhuj, and the Sunderbans in West Bengal, presented by Upasona Ghosh, Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), Kolkata, were discussed. Each showed how local understandings of uncertainties are attuned to “the contexts of the lived practices and rhythms of everyday life”, as Sheila Jasanoff has put it.

A particularly evocative ‘Photo-Voice’ story, offered by project team member Shibaji Bose from IIHMR, combined words and images from the three sites. Uncertainties are deeply embedded in the struggles of daily life, often in the contexts of extreme marginality and poverty. Perceptions, emotions, personal experiences, social relations were brought to the fore. This helped move our understandings beyond more technical perspectives on uncertainty, and made the invisible visible in an immensely powerful way. The next step in the research involves providing cameras to research participants to document their own visual narratives about uncertainty and the challenges they face. As a route to exposing alternative pathways from a local perspectives this is potentially a fascinating and powerful response, one that simultaneously allows voice and representation, as well as the ability to translate and communicate with those in power, very often imposing a view ‘from above’.

While the simple heuristic contrasting ‘above’ with ‘below’ offered a good hook, discussion also focused on how such a dichotomisation is also too simplistic. A greater theorisation of the networks of power that exist in such different spaces was urged. This of course recalls the older debate about ‘indigenous knowledge’, and how ‘modern’ and ‘local’ knowledges should not be seen as distinct, but more significant are the relations of power that exist in the constructions of knowledge, and the encounters that exist between different knowledges. When negotiating climate change responses, encounters take place between formalised, accredited knowledge in the form of climate models that often tame uncertainties through statistical procedures and informal, often hidden, knowledges rooted in field practices and embedded experiences.

Too often knowledges are not negotiated and the encounters are wholly one-sided. Yet as the presentations pointed out there is increasingly a role for mediation by a variety of ‘brokers’, intermediaries might include front line, field-level bureaucrats, researcher-activists, projects and community organisations. However such roles are often not recognised, nor rewarded, as discussed in the advocacy of the idea of ‘sustainability brokers’ in the Slow Race.

How can such conversations emerge? Mike Hulme from King’s College London argued that we need to abandon some of the baggage associated with the policy debate on ‘climate change’, and “develop a new narrative on climate change, focusing climate and its changes”. Sue Hartley from York University argued that scientific practice needs to change too, commenting that “natural scientists need to get more relaxed about variability… outliers are often the more interesting data points”. But such shifts need political pressure. Mariano Fressoli from the Institute of Studies on Science and Technology – National University of Quilmes (IESCT_UNQ), Buenos Aires, asked how does invisible, decentred expertise, rooted in place-based citizens’ knowledge get articulated politically – what is the role of social movements in creating bridges, fostering translation, and building alternatives?

As highlighted by Lyla Mehta from the STEPS Centre observed, if perspectives ‘from below’ are to generate truly sustainable pathways, they must move beyond simply reification of poverty driven coping strategies to ones that challenge power relations, and provide space for subaltern alternatives. This means challenging power relations and shifting patterns of control. For those living in the flood-prone Sunderbans, a wider political economy must be made central – it is not just a matter of how embankments are constructed, but also who has control of these, and how wider patterns of global consumption influence flooding through climate change.

Thus sustainability must encompass a politics that is both local and global, bringing perspectives from above to engage with those from below, mediated and facilitated by new players and new methods and media such as the photo story that allow new conversations to emerge, new actions to unfold and a new politics of sustainability to flourish.