Environmental regulation: co-operation and the capacity for control

This thesis examines the contention that effective regulation has as much to do with the capacity for co-operation between inter-dependent actors as it has to do with the state's capacity for control. This contention, and the alternative conception of regulation that it implies, is significant because it is associated with a tension that runs through many areas of public policy: does cooperation between the public and the private, or between the regulators and the regulated, lead to effective collective action or to regulatory capture? Following a conceptual examination of the nature of regulation and implementation, the thesis considers the explanatory value of two different perspectives on cooperation and collective action: the rational choice perspective, which suggests that the behaviour of economically responsive actors is shaped by the incentives for cooperation that stem from their interdependence, and the institutional perspective, which contends that as particular forms of behaviour emerge, evolve and become institutionalised, so the implementation process becomes embedded in particular institutional structures that enable the continuation of existing approaches whilst restricting the potential for change. In seeking to examine the explanatory value of these perspectives, the thesis considers the factors shaping the implementation of two frameworks of environmental regulation, namely the frameworks of Integrated Pollution Control and Local Air Pollution Control as applied in England and Wales. Based on a comparative analysis of the factors that shape the nature and influence of each implementation process, the thesis concludes that the explanatory value of the rational choice perspective is fundamentally limited and that the value of the institutional perspective is much more complete. On this basis, the thesis proposes an institutional perspective on regulation and implementation that recognises the significance of resource inter-dependencies and the ways in which cooperative approaches can increase the prospects for collective action whilst reducing the accountability and the manageability of the implementation process. As is discussed, this conclusion has significant implications for broader debates on regulation and governance

Finance and Sustainability : Synthesis Report of WP7

This paper investigates the relationship between finance and environmentalsustainability. The first part summarises a few crucial methodological and foundational issues underlying meaning and implications of financialisation, sustainability and their mutual relation. The second part focuses on a particularly significant case study: the unsustainability of the existing energy system based on carbon fuels focusing on the urgency of a rapid transition to a low carbon economy. The third part explores which role financial instruments may play to facilitate the transition towards a low carbon economy. In particular, it investigates the implications for sustainability of the growing trade of energy derivatives. The forth part examines the consequences of the disembedment of money from the socioecological flows of matter and energy. The fifth part investigates the relations between financialisation of built environments and urban sustainability. The final part of the paper draws the main policy implications from the preceding analysis in the light of the growing problems affecting environmental policy in a financialised economy. The main policy conclusion is that, notwithstanding the growing conflict between the ongoing process offinancialisation and sustainability, finance has to play a crucial role to implement a process of convergence towards a sustainable path of development

Uncovering Blind Spots in Urban Carbon Management: The Role of Consumption-Based Carbon Accounting in Bristol, UK

The rapid urbanisation of the twentieth century, along with the spread of high-consumption urban lifestyles, has led to cities becoming the dominant drivers of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing these impacts is crucial, but production-based frameworks of carbon measurement and mitigation—which encompass only a limited part of cities’ carbon footprints—are much more developed and widely applied than consumption-based approaches that consider the embedded carbon effectively imported into a city. Frequently, therefore, cities are left blind to the importance of their wider consumption-related climate impacts, while at the same time left lacking effective tools to reduce them. To explore the relevance of these issues, we implement methodologies for assessing production- and consumption-based emissions at the city-level and estimate the associated emissions trajectories for Bristol, a major UK city, from 2000 to 2035. We develop mitigation scenarios targeted at reducing the former, considering potential energy, carbon and financial savings in each case. We then compare these mitigation potentials with local government ambitions and Bristol’s consumption-based emissions trajectory. Our results suggest that the city’s consumption-based emissions are three times the production-based emissions, largely due to the impacts of imported food and drink. We find that low-carbon investments of circa £3 billion could reduce production-based emissions by 25% in 2035. However, we also find that this represents <10% of Bristol’s forecast consumption-based emissions for 2035 and is approximately equal to the mitigation achievable by eliminating the city’s current levels of food waste. Such observations suggest that incorporating consumption-based emission statistics into cities’ accounting and decision-making processes could uncover largely unrecognised opportunities for mitigation that are likely to be essential for achieving deep decarbonisation

A socio-technical approach to improving retail energy efficiency behaviours

In recent years, the UK retail sector has made a significant contribution to societal responses on carbon reduction. We provide a novel and timely examination of environmental sustainability from a systems perspective, exploring how energy-related technologies and strategies are incorporated into organisational life. We use a longitudinal case study approach, looking at behavioural energy efficiency from within one of the UK's leading retailers. Our data covers a two-year period, with qualitative data from a total of 131 participants gathered using phased interviews and focus groups. We introduce an adapted socio-technical framework approach in order to describe an existing organisational behavioural strategy to support retail energy efficiency. Our findings point to crucial socio-technical and goal-setting factors which both impede and/or enable energy efficient behaviours, these include: tensions linked to store level perception of energy management goals; an emphasis on the importance of technology for underpinning change processes; and, the need for feedback and incentives to support the completion of energy-related tasks. We also describe the evolution of a practical operational intervention designed to address issues raised in our findings. Our study provides fresh insights into how sustainable workplace behaviours can be achieved and sustained over time. Secondly, we discuss in detail a set of issues arising from goal conflict in the workplace; these include the development of a practical energy management strategy to facilitate secondary organisational goals through job redesign

The Economic Case for Low Carbon Development in Rapidly Growing Developing World Cities: A case study of Palembang, Indonesia.

Where costs or risks are higher, evidence is lacking or supporting institutions are less developed, policymakers can struggle to make the case for low-carbon investment. This is especially the case in developing world cities where decision-makers struggle to keep up with the pace and scale of change. Focusing on Palembang in Indonesia, this paper considers the economic case for proactive investment in low-carbon development. We find that a rapidly growing industrial city in a developing country can reduce emissions by 24.1% in 2025, relative to business as usual levels, with investments of USD405.6 million that would reduce energy expenditure in the city by USD436.8 million. Emissions from the regional grid could be reduced by 12.2% in 2025, relative to business as usual trends, with investments of USD2.9 billion that would generate annual savings of USD175 million. These estimates understate the savings from reduced expenditure on energy subsidies and energy infrastructure. The compelling economic case for mainstreaming climate mitigation in this developing country city suggests that the constraints on climate action can be political and institutional rather than economic. There is therefore a need for more effective energy governance to drive the transition to a low-carbon economy

Can national policy blockages accelerate the development of polycentric governance? Evidence from climate change policy in the United Kingdom

Many factors can conspire to limit the scope for policy development at the national level. In this paper, we consider whether blockages in national policy processes − resulting for example from austerity or small state political philosophies − might be overcome by the development of more polycentric governance arrangements. Drawing on evidence from three stakeholder workshops and fifteen interviews, we address this question by exploring the United Kingdom’s recent retrenchment in the area of climate change policy, and the ways in which its policy community have responded. We identify two broad strategies based on polycentric principles: ‘working with gatekeepers’ to unlock political capital and ‘collaborate to innovate’ to develop policy outputs. We then empirically examine the advantages that these actions bring, analysing coordination across overlapping sites of authority, such as those associated with international regimes, devolved administrations and civic and private initiatives that operate in conjunction with, and sometimes independently of, the state. Despite constraining political and economic factors, which are by no means unique to the UK, we find that a polycentric climate policy network can create opportunities for overcoming central government blockages. However, we also argue that the ambiguous role of the state in empowering but also in constraining such a network will determine whether a polycentric approach to climate policy and governance is genuinely additional and innovative, or whether it is merely a temporary ‘sticking plaster’ for the retreat of the state and policy retrenchment during austere times

Reviewing the scope and thematic focus of 100,000 publications on energy consumption, services and social aspects of climate change: a big data approach to demand-side mitigation

As current action remains insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris agreement let alone to stabilize the climate, there is increasing hope that solutions related to demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation can close the gap. However, given these topics are not investigated by a single epistemic community, the literature base underpinning the associated research continues to be undefined. Here, we aim to delineate a plausible body of literature capturing a comprehensive spectrum of demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation. As method we use a novel double-stacked expert—machine learning research architecture and expert evaluation to develop a typology and map key messages relevant for climate change mitigation within this body of literature. First, relying on the official key words provided to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by governments (across 17 queries), and on specific investigations of domain experts (27 queries), we identify 121 165 non-unique and 99 065 unique academic publications covering issues relevant for demand-side mitigation. Second, we identify a literature typology with four key clusters: policy, housing, mobility, and food/consumption. Third, we systematically extract key content-based insights finding that the housing literature emphasizes social and collective action, whereas the food/consumption literatures highlight behavioral change, but insights also demonstrate the dynamic relationship between behavioral change and social norms. All clusters point to the possibility of improved public health as a result of demand-side solutions. The centrality of the policy cluster suggests that political actions are what bring the different specific approaches together. Fourth, by mapping the underlying epistemic communities we find that researchers are already highly interconnected, glued together by common interests in sustainability and energy demand. We conclude by outlining avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration, synthetic analysis, community building, and by suggesting next steps for evaluating this body of literature

Cities and climate change mitigation: Economic opportunities and governance challenges in Asia

Cities are central to the fight against climate change, but the IPCC recently noted that many cities — and particularly those in the developing world — lack the institutional, financial and technical capacities needed to switch to low emission development paths. Based on detailed case studies of three Asian cities, this paper finds that the adoption of low emission development strategies (LEDS) at the urban level could be economically attractive. However, it also argues that without a coordinated multi-level, cross-sectoral governance framework these opportunities for low carbon urban development are likely to be left unexploited. As these governance conditions are frequently not in place, we argue that these case study cities, and cities in similar contexts, are likely to miss even the economically attractive low carbon development opportunities and become increasingly locked in to higher cost, higher carbon development paths. Due to their growing size and importance, we conclude that the presence or absence of governance arrangements that enable the adoption of low carbon development strategies in Asian cities will have global implications for climate change