Representations of Romania in British Public and Political Discourse, 1907–1919

This thesis examines representations of Romania in British public and political discourse from 1907, when an extensive and violent Peasants’ Revolt erupted in Romania, to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where the country doubled in size. Britain’s detachment from southeastern Europe was briefly reversed in this period of conflict and diplomacy. Romania was eventually acquired as an Entente ally in 1916 and Britain subsequently played a considerable role in the adjudication of Greater Romania’s borders and minorities. Located between two large multi-national empires, Austria-Hungary and Russia, which were both home to extensive Romanian populations, and bordering the Balkan Peninsula, much of it governed by the Ottoman Empire until 1912-13, Romania is a complex case study in the creation of national identities. The Balkan wars in 1912-13 forced Britain to come to terms with a strategically more significant Romania, an exploration of which will demonstrate both the motivations behind and limitations of British ‘expertise’ and highlight the power dynamics and volatility involved in external imaging during periods of extreme dislocation. Efforts to discover a politically useful identity for Romania were impacted by various competing national constructs, with Romania’s Jewish Question and the priority accorded to the Romanians in Hungary’s Transylvania reinforcing opposing ideas about the country and its status in Europe. It was the wartime propaganda generated by British-born Queen Marie of Romania that played an important part in the broader process of national legitimisation, and an examination of her work and imaging will argue for the central role of monarchy in national representations. A decade of conflict saw European regional groupings overlap and realign, with the demands of war and Romania’s contradictory features exacerbating the country’s fluid place in British discourse. This malleability saw Romania’s identity pivot from Eastern, through Balkan to Latin and Central European spatial groupings in a ten year period, with Britan’s determination to embrace a post-war New Europe facilitated through representations of Greater Romania in which Transylvanian identity was prioritised over Old Kingdom associations

Fallacies of energy efficiency indicators : recognizing the complexity of the metabolic pattern of the economy

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MThe strategy of energy efficiency to save energy is deceptively simple: the idea is to use less input for the highest amount of useful output. However, on a practical and conceptual level, efficiency is an ambiguous and problematic concept to implement. Of particular concern is the lack of contextual and qualitative information provided in energy efficiency measurements based on simple ratios. Oversimplification of efficiency measurements can have a detrimental effect on the choice of energy policies. Efficiency measurements are particularly problematic on a macroeconomic scale where a significant amount of meaningful information is lost through the aggregation of data into a simple ratio (economic energy intensity). First, practical examples are presented flagging conceptual problems with energy efficiency indicators, then an alternative accounting method-the end-use matrix-based on the concept of the metabolic pattern of social-ecological systems is illustrated to show the possibility of enriching efficiency indicators by adding qualitative and contextual information across multiple scales and dimensions. This method unpacks and structures salient energy input and output information in a meaningful and transparent way by generating a rich multi-level and multi-dimensional information space

A Characterization of European Collective Action Initiatives and Their Role as Enablers of Citizens’ Participation in the Energy Transition

This paper provides novel additional evidence on the characteristics of Collective Action Initiatives (CAIs), investigating their role within the European energy sector. It analyses and presents results of a survey administered in six European countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Estonia, and Spain. CAIs are studied in light of four key dimensions, those being their creation dynamics, the way they are organized, financed, and the activities they undertake. The results presented are also interpreted to reflect on their role as drivers of social innovation (SI) within energy transition in Europe. The analysis shows that the contribution of CAIs to the energy transition has a much wider scope than the development of energy projects and provision of energy services. CAIs are intrinsically socially innovative models of implementation as characterised by a strong level of citizen involvement and participation. Moreover, they have a potential multi-level role in the energy transition, from the technological and social perspectives. Indeed, alongside traditional energy activities, our results show that CAIs are evolving and expanding towards socially innovative activities, raising awareness on environmental issues, promoting citizens’ mobilization, and fostering social inclusion.This research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 837722, project COMETS (COllective action Models for Energy Transition and Social Innovation)

A dual-track transition to global carbon pricing

Unilateral climate policies have been unable to achieve intended emissions reductions. We argue that international harmonization of climate policy beyond the Paris Agreement is the only way forward and that global carbon pricing, either through a tax or market, is the best available instrument to manage this. A foundation has already been laid, as current carbon pricing initiatives cover about 20% of global CO2 emissions. Since it limits free-riding by countries/jurisdictions, global carbon pricing is, in principle, behaviourally easier to negotiate than other instruments, such as emission targets or technical standards

Parallel tracks towards a global treaty on carbon pricing

We argue that a global carbon price is the only way to effectively tackle free riding in international climate policy, required to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We briefly review the main reasons behind the essential role of carbon pricing, address common misunderstandings and scepticism, and identify key complementary policy instruments. Negotiating global carbon pricing is argued to be much easier than negotiating binding country-level targets, especially if it includes equitable revenue recycling. Moreover, a global carbon price can be more readily adapted to new data and insights of climate science. We propose a political strategy towards a global carbon price that consists of two tracks. The first entails assembly of a carbon-pricing club, a specific case of a climate club, to gradually move towards a full participatory agreement on carbon pricing. The second track involves putting time and energy into re-focusing UNFCCC negotiations on a carbon-pricing agreement. The two tracks reinforce one another, increasing the likelihood of a successful outcome

A dual-track transition to global carbon pricing: the glass is half full

We appreciate the response by Erik Haites (2020) to our paper (van den Bergh et al., 2020a), not only because it is well-informed and contains many subtle remarks, but also because our article was aimed at stimulating debate on how to achieve effective climate policies that limit global warming change to 1.5-2°C. There is no question that the latter represents a tremendous challenge for the global community, and our dual-track proposal is intended to provide a workable approach to it by addressing the free-riding problem through policy harmonization. Although we feel that Haites raises many relevant points regarding the difficulties of carrying out the proposal, most of these were, in fact, already addressed by our paper (...

The impact of televised tobacco control advertising content on campaign recall: evidence from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) United Kingdom Survey

BACKGROUND: Although there is some evidence to support an association between exposure to televised tobacco control campaigns and recall among youth, little research has been conducted among adults. In addition, no previous work has directly compared the impact of different types of emotive campaign content. The present study examined the impact of increased exposure to tobacco control advertising with different types of emotive content on rates and durations of self-reported recall. METHODS: Data on recall of televised campaigns from 1,968 adult smokers residing in England through four waves of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) United Kingdom Survey from 2005 to 2009 were merged with estimates of per capita exposure to government-run televised tobacco control advertising (measured in GRPs, or Gross Rating Points), which were categorised as either “positive” or “negative” according to their emotional content. RESULTS: Increased overall campaign exposure was found to significantly increase probability of recall. For every additional 1,000 GRPs of per capita exposure to negative emotive campaigns in the six months prior to survey, there was a 41% increase in likelihood of recall (OR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.24–1.61), while positive campaigns had no significant effect. Increased exposure to negative campaigns in both the 1–3 months and 4–6 month periods before survey was positively associated with recall. CONCLUSIONS: Increased per capita exposure to negative emotive campaigns had a greater effect on campaign recall than positive campaigns, and was positively associated with increased recall even when the exposure had occurred more than three months previously