Transforming wood energy in Sweden and Chile

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-377
Author(s):  
Cristián Alarcón
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Environmental Communication ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Wood Energy ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
International Forestry

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse and problematize the relations between international forestry companies and wood energy in the context of climate change in Chile and Sweden. Design/methodology/approach Based on interviews, field observations and analysis of documents, case studies of international forestry companies and wood energy in local areas of Chile and Sweden are examined comparatively. A conceptual framework combining political ecology and environmental communication is developed to approach the cases. Findings The paper finds that the two international forestry companies studied here have widely incorporated the use of wood energy as a renewable and carbon neutral energy strategy for their forestry business. Second, the paper finds that wood energy is used as a way to reproduce forestry development in the two countries, which is contested by NGOs and activists which are today articulating critical approaches to forestry development in the two countries. Third, related to the former finding, the paper finds that the incorporation of wood energy into the forest sector’s interests in Chile and Sweden takes place in the context of important social-ecological conflicts related to industrial forestry development. Originality/value The paper’s analytical framework helps to analyse the social-ecological nature of international business and the way they organise material practices and communicative meaning around renewable energy. The paper’s findings and analysis shed light on important problematic aspects of the material and symbolic struggles around renewable energy in the context of climate change. The comparative dimension of the analysis has the value to offer a cross-border analysis to improve the understanding of some of the most important aspects of international businesses concerning wood energy today.

Conjoint analysis of purchasing behavior for energy-saving appliances

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1255-1274
Author(s):  
Shin Kinoshita
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Saving ◽  
Conjoint Analysis ◽  
Logit Model ◽  
Random Parameter ◽  
Monetary Incentives ◽  
Solar Panels ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Content Type

Purpose Saving energy is an essential issue in the world to attenuate climate change. To achieve the goal, energy-saving appliances such as refrigerators should be promoted. This study aims to analyze the conditions enabling Japanese households to purchase such appliances, focusing on the relation with preferences for renewable energy as one of the non-monetary incentives. Design/methodology/approach A conjoint analysis is used. A random parameter logit model and nested logit model are used for estimation. Data were collected through an online questionnaire of the Rakuten Insight service. Findings Households will purchase energy-saving appliances when renewable energy is used for electricity generation. This implies that households will purchase energy-saving appliances with electric power generators by renewable energy such as solar panels and home micro-wind generators. Research limitations/implications The response rate and attributes of respondents and non-respondents are not shown to researchers in the web-questionnaire service. Social implications Promoting energy-saving appliances and renewable energy is essential in Japan (as in other countries) to save energy and to attenuate climate change. Based on the results, both energy-saving appliances and renewable energy will be widely used. Originality/value Although many studies have analyzed households’ preferences for energy-saving appliances and the effects of non-monetary incentives, studies that mentioned the relation with preferences for renewable energy are few. This study analyzes the relation and proposes policy recommendations to promote both energy-saving appliances and renewable energy.

Prospects for renewable energy to end-2017

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Electric Power ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Energy Information Administration ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pull Out ◽  
The Us ◽  
Energy Information

Subject Prospects for renewable energy to end-2017. Significance On June 1, US President Donald Trump's administration announced its intent to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Later that week, the US Energy Information Administration revealed in a report that renewables set a record of generating 10% of the country’s electric power in the month of March, highlighting that renewable energy has strong momentum that should carry it through shorter term policy fluctuations.

Prospects for renewable energy in 2017

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Electric Power ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Tipping Point ◽  
Content Type

Subject Prospects for renewable energy in 2017. Significance The United States and China, the world’s two largest economies as well as the largest carbon emitters, announced their ratification of the Paris Agreement in September. Earlier this year, prices for renewable energy in select regions set historic lows below fossil-fired plants. Renewable energy seems to have passed the tipping point towards gradual adoption as the primary source of electric power while also hopefully preventing catastrophic climate change.

Prospects for global climate governance in 2018

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Electric Vehicle ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Vehicle Technology ◽  
Global Carbon

Subject The prospects for global climate governance in 2018. Significance The 2017 UN COP23 Climate Change Conference, chaired by Fiji, ended in the shadow of news that 2017 is expected to see a 2% rise in global carbon emissions. After three years of roughly stable emissions, this estimated increase magnifies the challenge of making the sharp emission reductions needed to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming to below 2 degrees centigrade above preindustrial levels, even as the renewable energy sector grows and electric vehicle technology makes further progress.

Chile climate promises mount ahead of UN summit

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pollution Levels ◽  
Carbon Neutral ◽  
Do So

Subject Chile's climate change commitments. Significance On June 4, Chile’s centre-right President Sebastian Pinera announced the country’s aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, one of a handful of nations worldwide to do so. As a step towards meeting the goal, he said the country’s 28 coal-fired power plants would all be closed by 2040 (eight of them by 2024). Impacts Chile’s rapidly growing non-conventional renewable energy (NCRE) industry, particularly solar, will benefit from carbon neutral plans. The path to carbon neutral will address critical pollution levels, and consequent health issues, in Chile’s cities. The strategy will support Chile’s goal of electrifying 100% of public transport by 2040.

Morocco sets global pace for renewables

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Force ◽  
Energy Projects ◽  
Generating Capacity ◽  
Electricity Mix ◽  
The Government ◽  
Do So

Subject Morocco renewables. Significance Morocco showcased the progress it has made with the development of renewable energy at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris. At the conference, Morocco pledged to increase the renewable contribution to its electricity mix to 52% by 2030. The government has already set a target of 42% of its electricity generating capacity based on renewables by 2020: 14% each from hydro, wind and solar plants. Impacts Morocco can derive political and diplomatic benefits by projecting itself as a leading global force in developing clean energy. It will have an even better opportunity to do so when it hosts the COP22 meeting in Marrakech in November 2016. Morocco's renewable energy projects have been underpinned by subsidies, but these are likely to diminish as costs fall. Depending on technology, Morocco could export electricity generated from renewables to Europe and countries in north and west Africa.

Climate will alter political competition in Europe

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Green Parties ◽  
Climate Change Policies ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Energy Projects

Subject Climate politics in Europe. Significance In Europe, climate change has shifted from being a peripheral to a central electoral issue; now mainstream parties are committing themselves to ambitious climate policies. However, overtime division will likely grow between those parties whose support is underpinned by business and conservative interests, and those who appeal strongly to younger voters. Climate change will also be a source of further competition between mainstream and national populist parties. Impacts Governing parties at the local, national and EU-levels will be judged increasingly on their environmental track-records. Most major infrastructure and non-renewable energy projects will face opposition from civil society through petitions and protests. Support for green parties could decline if traditional parties hiijack climate change policies.

scholarly journals Work and Social-Ecological Transitions: A Critical Review of Five Contrasting Approaches

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 3852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bottazzi
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Green Jobs ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Unlimited Growth ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Lock In

Going to work has become such a ritualized activity for the modern human that few people challenge its relevance from a sustainability perspective. Since the Industrial Revolution, the prospect of unlimited growth with the aim of jobs creation has been dramatically associated with a massive social-ecological degradation that puts the Earth system at risk. In recent decades, a number of heterodox theories and policies are reconsidering our relationship with work in view of contemporaneous social-ecological challenges. This paper offers critical review of five contrasting approaches. Those promoting ‘green jobs’ consider the possibility of transforming ecological constraints into economic opportunities by incentivising eco-efficient innovations and generating new jobs. Conversely, critical approaches, such as working-time reduction (WTR), labour environmentalism, political ecology of work, and contributive economy and justice, defend decommodifying work to liberate pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours. We additionally present two opposing scenarios mainly inspired by critical theories. One illustrates the root causes of systemic lock-in leading to the present social-ecological work-life degradation, while the other illustrates perspectives on the ‘politics of free time’ and contributive economy and justice oriented towards building capabilities, and workers’ emancipation and justice in search for more sustainable relationships with ecosystems.

scholarly journals Knowledge Structures and Components of Rural Resilience in the 2010s: Conceptual Development and Implications

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9769
Author(s):  
GoWoon Kim ◽  
Wanmo Kang ◽  
Junga Lee
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

Resilience is being widely adopted as a comprehensive analytical framework for understanding sustainability dynamics, despite the conceptual challenges in developing proxies and indicators for researchers and policy makers. In our study, we observed how the concept of resilience undergoes continued extension within the rural resilience literature. We comprehensively reviewed rural resilience literature using keyword co-occurrence network (KCN) analysis and a systematic review of shortlisted papers. We conducted the KCN analysis for 1186 papers to characterize the state of the rural resilience literature, and systematically reviewed 36 shortlisted papers to further examine how rural resilience analysis and its assessment tools are helping understand the complexity and interdependence of rural social-ecological systems, over three three-year periods from 2010 to 2018. The results show that the knowledge structure built by the high frequency of co-occurrence keywords remains similar over the three-year periods, including climate change, resilience, vulnerability, adaptation, and management, whereas the components of knowledge have greatly expanded, indicating an increased understanding of rural system dynamics. Through the systematic review, we found that developing resilience assessment tools is often designed as a process to strengthen adaptive capacity at the household or community level in response to global processes of climate change and economic globalization. Furthermore, community resilience is found to be an interesting knowledge component that has characterized rural resilience literature in the 2010s. Based on our study, we summarized conceptual characteristics of rural resilience and discussed the challenges and implications for researchers and policy makers.

Strategic actions against climate change of institutional entrepreneurs: a case study in the Spanish renewable energy sector

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
José María González-González ◽  
Constancio Zamora-Ramírez ◽  
Ignacio García-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Strategic Actions ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs

Purpose – This paper aims to improve the knowledge about the strategic actions of institutional entrepreneurs in the configuration of the institutional pillars of an emerging field such as the Spanish renewable energy sector, as well as to illustrate the role of these actors in the fight against climate change. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a single case study conducted in a company that entered the renewable energy sector in the ‘90s, and currently is a national and international reference in the generation of thermosolar power. The results of this case study are analysed and interpreted according to the New Institutional Sociology. Findings – The paper identifies and analyses the strategic actions developed by the company to configure the regulative, normative and cognitive pillars of its institutional context, such as the establishment of inter-actors relationships, the mobilisation of constituent actors, the use of sanctions and rewards, the employment of consultants and the public dissemination of knowledge and social awareness. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the development of the specialised literature about the institutional entrepreneurship which is very scarce in relation to the actions of institutional entrepreneurs in emerging fields. Likewise, this study allows managers to know the role of those entrepreneurs to configure the behaviour patterns that could be accepted and assumed by those entering the sector later on.

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