Processes of elite power and low-carbon pathways: experimentation, financialisation, and dispossession

What is a low-carbon pathway? To many, it is a way of mitigating climate change. To others, it is about addressing market failure or capturing the co-benefits attached to low-carbon systems, such as jobs or improved health. To still others, it represents building adaptive capacity and resilience in the face of climate change. However, these interpretations can fail to acknowledge how pathways of low-carbon transitions can also become intertwined with processes and structures of inequality, exclusion and injustice. Using a critical lens that draws from a variety of disciplines, this article explores three ways through which responses to climate change can entrench, exacerbate or reconfigure the power of elites. As society attempts to create a low-carbon society, including for example via coastal protection efforts, disaster recovery, or climate change mitigation and renewable energy, these efforts intersect with at least three processes of elite power: experimentation, financialisation, and dispossession. Experimentation is when elites use the world as a laboratory to test or pilot low-carbon technologies or policy models, transferring risks yet not always sharing benefits. Financialisation refers to the expansion and proliferation of finance, capital, and financial markets in the global economy and many national economies, processes of which have recently extended to renewable energy. Dispossession is when elites use decarbonisation as a process through which to appropriate land, wealth, or other assets (and in the process make society more majoritarian and/or unequal). We explore these three themes using a variety of evidence across illustrative case studies, including hard and soft coastal protection measures (Bangladesh, Netherlands), climate risk insurance (Malawi), and renewable energy auctions and associated processes of finance and investment (South Africa and Mexico)

Beach Nourishment

An analysis of "soft" measurements, in the form of beach nourishment, to protect ourselves against the sea. The rapport covers the following subject with regard to "soft" measurements: - Design of soft solution: review of design tools, practical consequences of morphological theory and failure modes - Construction methods for soft solutions: review and consequences of available equipment - Measurement, cost, payment and risk allocation - Combining hard and soft solution The rapport concludes with some case studies of soft measures.ICCE 199

Breakwaters and closure dams (2nd edition)

Civil Engineering and GeosciencesHydraulic Engineerin

Handboek dijkenbouw: uitvoering versterking en nieuwbouw

Al eeuwenlang worden er in Nederland dijken gebouwd; we zijn een volk dat voortdurend werkt aan de bescherming tegen hoogwater. Daarom bestaan er talloze leidraden, handreikingen en handboeken die gaan over de planvorming en het ontwerpen van dijkversterkingen. De meeste benoemen zijdelings aspecten die te maken hebben met de realisatie van de versterking, maar gaan er helaas zelden dieper op in. Handboek Dijkversterking brengt hier verandering in en concentreert zich juist op die realisatie. Het handboek laat zien wat er allemaal bij komt kijken als er eenmaal besloten is een waterkering te versterken.WWB

Bed, Bank and Shore Protection 2: Breakwaters and Closure Dams

Civil Engineering and GeosciencesHydraulic Engineerin

Void porosity measurements in coastal structures

The paper describes the use of two fundamental design parameters, the void porosity and layer thickness in rock armour constructions. These design parameters are very sensible for factors such as the boundary definition of a rock layer, rock production properties, intrinsic properties and construction properties. Differences in the value of the design parameter cause a considerable (financial) risk. This risk contains two directions, the first is the affection on the hydraulic performance of the structure and the second is its relation with materials procurement. This paper describes and investigates the second risk for the contractor: the large margin in the calculation of the void porosity, which influences the amount of rock (in weight). Often this risk is on account of the contractor, so it is necessary to have better insight in these values in order to reduce the financial risk. Focus is on the variation of the porosity at the bottom, at the top and at the transition between two layers of graded material. This has resulted in correction coefficients for the layer thickness, as well as for the computation of the void porosity as a basis for payment by the client.Hydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience