scholarly journals Acceptance Issues in the Transition to Renewable Energy: How Law Supposedly can Manage Local Opposition

Author(s):  
Birgitte Egelund Olsen

Renewable energy projects are increasingly confronted by persistent resistance from local communities, which delays and sometimes even prevents their implementation. This reflects the frequent gap between support for the general idea of renewables as a strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and acceptance of renewable energy installations in the local landscape. For more than a decade, the Danish Renewable Energy Act has applied various financial measures to promote local acceptance. A general characteristic of the measures is their compensatory purpose, which presupposes that renewable energy facilities have negative impacts. The current toolbox includes instruments aimed at compensating individual house owners for specific financial losses, as well as measures that in more general terms, and ex post, compensate for non-financial impacts. Nevertheless, the toolbox is not yet fully developed and there is a need for further understanding of how different measures work, also in relation to more recently introduced renewables within the local acceptance framework of the Renewable Energy Act, such as solar power. Suggestions are made for the development of more dynamic and flexible regulatory approaches that would include individualized measures tailored to meet the distinct needs of local communities or individual landowners.

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen ◽  
Stefan Rieder ◽  
Chantal Strotz

This article explores the factors that hinder and promote the deployment of renewable energy generating infrastructure in/across the Swiss cantons (i.e., the country’s federal units). Using the example of small-scale hydropower, we shed light on how political regulations at the cantonal level interact with national policies and the local political process to affect the deployment of renewable energy production. The analysis demonstrates that political regulations can both foster and hinder the deployment of renewable energy production. While the national feed-in tariff scheme is revealed to be a beneficial framework condition, cantonal regulations hamper, rather than facilitate, the deployment of small-scale hydropower. Moreover, inclusive local processes and the existence of local entrepreneurs seem to act as a trigger for the local acceptance of renewable energy generation infrastructure. More generally, we conclude that, quite independently of whether state structures are decentralized or centralized, subnational and local leeway in the definition and organization of projects can help to prevent or deal with local opposition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 2075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozgur Kaya ◽  
Wojciech Florkowski ◽  
Anna Us ◽  
Anna Klepacka

Renewable energy (RE) sources are often locally available and have the potential to lessen the rural dependence on the national power grid, reducing disruptions in power supplies and the heavy dependence on coal combustion. Poland faces an EU mandate of a 15% share of renewables in energy generation by 2020. However, the installations intended to supply several types of RE encountered local opposition, forcing a cancellation of the planned investments and stressing a need for understanding rural residents’ attitudes towards RE in general. Using survey data, this paper examines the perception of RE importance among rural residents in eastern Poland. The specified empirical relationship includes the sociodemographic and economic characteristics of residents. Perceptions of the links between health and specific sources of environmental pollution and actions demonstrating energy-saving behavior serve as explanatory variables. The performance of the estimated logit equation was rigorously tested. The probability of attaching importance to RE by rural residents increases most if a respondent displayed an energy-saving behavior, has certain demographic characteristics, and links health to environmental pollution caused by coal combustion. The graphic depiction of the effects of selected variables succinctly communicates possible future programs aimed at strengthening the rural population support of RE.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Richardson ◽  
◽  
Eric Dixon ◽  
Ted Boettner ◽  

Although coal has powered the nation for generations and today offers well-paying jobs—often the best opportunities in more rural areas—coal negatively affects human health and the environment at every point in its life cycle: when it is mined, processed, transported, burned, and discarded (Freese, Clemmer, and Nogee 2008). Local communities— often low-income communities and/or communities of color—have for decades borne the brunt of these negative impacts, including air pollution, water pollution, and work- place injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Wang ◽  
Stephanie Maier ◽  
Rafael Horn ◽  
Robert Holländer ◽  
Ralf Aschemann

Various municipal solid waste management (MSWM) innovations have emerged in developing countries in face of the challenges posed by increasing waste generation and poor MSWM practice. We present a methodology to assess the potential sustainability impact of MSWM innovations in a holistic manner. The Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis (LCSA) framework and the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) facilitated the methodology development. The result of applying the methodology to the case of waste bank (WB) in Bandung City shows that WB potentially generates the greatest sustainability impact in the resource recovery phase and the smallest impact in the collection and final disposal phase. All negative impacts could arise in the economic dimension. Surprisingly, WB as a national strategy to achieve 3Rs would not effectively solve Bandung City’s landfill problem. Almost all SDGs would benefit from the WB program under the assumed conditions. This methodology will facilitate the decision-making in MSWM by (1) comparing available innovations to find the optimal solution, (2) identifying the hot spots and taking measures to combat the negative impacts, (3) providing the basis for monitoring the implementation process and the ex-post performance assessment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 424-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Mendes ◽  
Laurentina Vareiro ◽  
André Rafael Ferreira

Film-induced tourism has various socio-cultural, economic and environmental impacts on local destinations. Considering that destination managers and tourism development authorities aim to plan for optimal tourism development, and at the same time wish to minimize the negative impacts of this development on the local communities, monitoring residents’ opinions of perceived impacts is a good way of incorporating their reaction into tourism planning and development. This study’s main objective is to explore residents’ perceptions of film-induced tourism and the impacts of filmmaking on the development of a destination. Specifically, the research examines residents’ perceptions of filmmaking impacts on two Portuguese municipalities (Arcos de Valdevez and Estremoz) given their features in two popular television soap operas. Data is collected by means of an Internet survey, in which residents’ perceptions of these impacts are solicited. Residents generally agree that the recording and exhibition of the television soap operas are important to the municipality, and contribute to the increased number of tourists. Given that residents consider that the positive impacts are more significant than the negative impacts, they would support the recording of other television series in their municipalities. Although perceptions of residents from Arcos de Valdevez and Estremoz were similar, some significant differences were found.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-37
Author(s):  
Najum us Saqib ◽  
Asim Yaqub ◽  
Gomal Amin ◽  
Imran Khan ◽  
Huma Ajab ◽  
...  

Abstract The northern area of Pakistan, Gilgit Baltistan (GB), has huge tourist potential due to its exotic mountain beauty. According to the GB Tourism Department, a large number of tourists (around 200651) visit GB every year from across the country. Due to a large influx of tourists in the area both positive and negative impacts have been felt especially on the environment and on the local communities. The environmental impacts of tourism were investigated in this research in two districts of GB. Three villages were selected from each of the districts of Hunza and Diamer as the basis of this research. This study was based on the perceptions and attitudes of the respondents. The total number of questionnaires completed was 340 filled from different respondent categories. Results showed that deforestation, loss of biodiversity, generation of solid waste, water, air and noise pollution, damage cultural and heritage sites and are the main environmental issues caused by tourism activities in the villages in these districts. About 42% of respondents said that deforestation and loss of biodiversity were high in the Diamer district while in Hunza 39% of respondents said that solid waste generation was high. Similarly, 21% respondents in Hunza and 14% respondents in Diamer agreed that water pollution is caused by tourism activities. Microbial analysis of water confirmed the presence of Salmonella typhi, E. coli and Enterobacter sp. There were positive impacts of tourism with results revealing that 87% of villagers and 98% of businessmen responded that tourism had provided them with jobs and business during the peak tourism season. Hotels and restaurants are the main source of jobs in GB mainly as porters and guides. According to the data collected dry fruits, medicinal herbs, gemstones and handicrafts provided considerable attractions for tourists. It is recommended that a combined effort be made by the local communities, tourism departments and other Govt. Agencies to ensure the cleanliness of tourist attractions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attobrah Justice ◽  
Aboagye Emmanuel Mensah ◽  
Afrane Sandylove ◽  
Ampah Dankwa Jeffrey

Waters off the coasts of West Africa are very rich with many different types of fish and marine life. Some species like sardines, tuna, mackerel, tilapia and shrimps are important to many local communities and economies in West Africa. However, the current overfishing of these fish affects the sustainability of fishery industry. Despite Ghana ratifying to a number of international marine laws to ensure a sustainable marine fishing, there seem to be some challenges that are associated with marine fishing in Ghana. This paper further examines the strategies that have been employed by the fishing community and the fisheries ministry in Ghana as a response to restrictive measures for the challenges identified and discussed in literature. This paper is fundamentally an extensive review of marine fisheries literature. In general terms, it was found that, Ghana has ratified to a number of international marine laws including the UNCLOS.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Ladewig

International trade is a dynamic and powerful force that affects nearly every individual, business, and nation in the world. Its scope and scale have also made international trade an immense, intense, and perennial subject of interest and inquiry. Some of the foundational works on international trade can be traced back to Adam Smith and David Hume, whose theories sought to debunk the commonly held idea of international trade at the time: mercantilism, which viewed exports as beneficial because they generated an increase in foreign currency and a nation’s wealth, and imports as detrimental because they were thought to decrease a nation’s wealth. Today, the general idea of comparative advantage informs almost all neoclassical economists’ models of international trade. However, neoclassical economists tend to assume that the theoretical benefits of international trade are clear, and thus, often ignore or dismiss the negative impacts of international trade and the studies that challenge their theories. In fact, many countries have not seen the benefits predicted by neoclassical economic theories. This is particularly evident when comparing the effects of international trade across developed and developing countries. Furthermore, there is evidence that international trade has developed along patterns that are not predicted by the traditional theories of comparative advantage. Given these, the practice of trade and its international impact can be much murkier.


Koedoe ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Newsome ◽  
Shannon Hassell

Madagascar is renowned for high levels of biodiversity and endemism. As a result of its unique flora and fauna, as well as the high levels of human threat to the environment, such as illegal clearing, hunting and political instability, it is a critical global conservation priority. Andasibe–Mantadia National Park in eastern Madagascar is one of the most popular protected areas visited by tourists. Observations carried out in 2011 showed that even though there were some negative impacts associated with natural-area tourism, the benefits to both the local communities and associated biological conservation outweighed the negatives. Natural-area tourism at Andasibe is well organised, with many local guide associations having partnerships with international organisations and 50% of park fees going directly to local communities. Forest loss is a widespread problem in Madagascar, but at Andasibe the forest is valued for its ecological function and as a generator of profits from natural-area tourism. Exploitation of the park was not observed. Andasibe is an example of how conservation and natural-area tourism can work together in Madagascar for the benefit of local communities and the environment. However, with the current unstable political climate and lack of adequate wider tourism and conservation planning frameworks, awakening to its potential as a leading conservation tourism destination will not be a simple task. Conservation implications: This research demonstrated that ecotourism can be an effective means of achieving conservation objectives, whilst, at the same time, improving the livelihoods of local people. We caution, however, that governments can do a lot more to encourage and support the nexus between tourism and conservation.


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