25,782 research outputs found

    Editorial: water governance in a climate change world: appraising systemic and adaptive effectiveness

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    and other research outputs Editorial: water governance in a climate change world: appraising systemic and adaptive effectivenes

    CRIBs (Climate Relevant Innovation-system Builders): an effective way forward for international climate technology policy

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    National systems of innovation (NSIs) provide the context within which all processes of technology development, transfer and uptake occur - they refer to the network of actors (e.g. firms, universities, research institutes, government departments, NGOs) within which innovation occurs, and the strength and nature of the relationships between them. Nurturing NSIs in relation to climate technologies provides a powerful new focus for international policy with potential to underpin more sustained and widespread development and transfer of climate technologies. This working paper builds on an invited presentation by one of the authors at a workshop on NSIs convened by the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It identifies policy recommendations for consideration of the TEC. The intention is both to inform possible recommendations by the TEC to the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) and to highlight potential areas for future work that the TEC could undertake on this issue

    Cultural outlooks and the global quest for sustainable management.

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    Culture shapes how people identify and evaluate elements of their environment, and influences their behaviour and subjective experiences. At a more pragmatic level, culture provides the social infrastructure and institutions that determine how resources are used and managed. This article highlights the links between culture and natural resource management. The authors outline contrasting points of view on the role of culture in resource and environmental management, and attempt to mediate between these conflicting positions

    A Neo-Darwinian Foundation of Evolutionary Economics. With an Application to the Theory of the Firm.

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    The focus of evolutionary economics is a process of continuous economic and organizational change. Currently there is no agreement on the explanation of economic evolution. Rather there are competing interpretations. To achieve a common understanding of economic evolution, from the perspective of the history of economic thought, at first the theoretical approaches of Schumpeter and Marshall with regard to economic development or evolution are dealt with. After that, a concept of socio-economic evolution in broad agreement with evolution in nature is elaborated. It is summed up in the version of a generalized Darwinism. In this, evolution is seen as a process of change that leads to the adaptation of complex systems, the result of the causal interaction among variation, selection and retention of variety. As a (slightly) different interpretation the presently predominating approach of neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary economics is presented. It has gained wide application to the theory of innovation and later - based on Penrose - to resource-based theories of the firm. In this the dynamic process of the creation and exploitation of resources, mainly knowledge, turns out to be the centre of attention of an evolutionary theory of the firm.Economic evolution, Schumpeter and Marshall, Generalized Darwinism, Evolutionary theory of the firm

    The transitions discourse in the ecological modernisation of the Netherlands

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    Discourse analysis, socio-technical transitions, ecological modernisation

    Plan in progress: a critique of the selective coproduction of the Spatial Policy Plan for Flanders (Belgium)

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    In recent years, so-called coproductive, radical strategic planning has become a synonym for integrative and holistic public sector-led planning processes and the alleged integrating qualities of representative democracies. However, these views remain framed by the specific discourses, perspectives and path dependencies of governments, obstructing opportunities for radical reorientations as intended above. In this paper, we want to illustrate how these restrained views affect concrete planning practices through the specific case of the region of Flanders (Belgium). For decades, the holistic model of the Dutch neighbours has largely inspired planning dynamics in Flanders (Belgium). As such, in 1997, most concerned Flemish authorities accepted the first overarching spatial policy plan for the region. Fifteen years later, however, original commitments have eroded and the original plan has largely lost its credibility. In 2011 a new process was launched, aiming to develop a new policy plan (the future Spatial Policy Plan for Flanders). However, this new process builds only limited support and credibility outside the select group of involved actors. We argue that today in Flanders the borrowed methodology of coproductive planning is insufficiently adapted to the institutional context and is therefore mainly delivering an aura of sustainability optimism to on-going policies, while a variety of spatial developments that are recognized as fundamental or problematic are omitted from the debate. We show this by putting forward some major missing pieces, which are located in the policy fields of large road infrastructure development, “legacy” suburbanization, retail siting, and property taxation. We show that these issues are representative of a number of constraints that are imposed by separate policy levels (located at other ministries, at the federal level, or in neighbouring regions such as Brussels) although these are not accounted for by the current planning process, apart from a number of key issues that are kept deliberately outside the process after labelling these “already decided”. Finally, we sketch some opportunities for improvement, consisting of developing a more contextualized process model, putting the stress on more concrete planning issues, involving independent stakeholders in strategic alliances, and taking a co-evolutionary approach from the start

    International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries

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    The 'Zero Draft' of the International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries(SSF Guidelines) has been prepared based on the outcomes of the extensive consultation process that has taken place during the last few years. This preliminary draft text draws in particular on the Discussion Document: Towards Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries–prepared as a stock-taking exercise by the FAO SSF Guidelines Secretariat in July 2011 and the contributions to and the outcomes of the FAO Workshop on International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries held on 7-10 February 2012 in FAO, Rome. It has been prepared to stimulate further consultations among all concerned parties. The outcomes of these additional consultations will provide guidance to the FAO Secretariat when preparing the text of the SSF Guidelines that will be submitted as a draft to the formal inter-governmental negotiation process tentatively scheduled for May 2013
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