tag:www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de,2005:/en/fachbereich-sowi/professuren/mueller/newsNews2021-04-28T08:51:04ZNAGR-fakws-15503273-production2020-05-26T22:00:00ZGreen is a Pan-African Colour! Comparing renewable energy policies in 34 African countries<img width="293" height="165" style="float:left" src="https://assets.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/instance_assets/fakws/15497506/paper-green-panafrican-colour-733x414-80d64846ebcbfb23f5e88ab637e93005d8b799ff.jpg" /><p>Renewable energy is flourishing – and so are RE policies. Yet research on Africa's energy transition is still scarce. So how do African countries relate to renewable energy? Which RE policies can we find? How far-reaching and how just are they? These questions formed the basis for an intense stock-taking of African renewable energy policies. The GLOCALPOWER research group carried out a mapping of renewable energy policies in 34 African countries (i.e. all those who have come up with substantial legislation). Our article “Is green a Pan-African colour? Mapping African renewable energy policies and transitions in 34 countries“ was recently published in Energy Research and Social Science and is available via open access. Our findings suggest that a combination of comprehensive policies, high ownership and donor alignment, and mainstreaming of energy justice contributes to high energy sovereignty and a just transition in line with SDG7.</p>
<p>We can provide evidence of African energy policies covering recognitional and distributive justice, but also detected potential trade-offs between strong market orientation and energy justice. Moreover, there is a reason for the concern that financialization tendencies will put the spread of just RE policies at risk.</p>
<p>tiny.cc/AfricanEnergyPolicies </p><p>Photo: Franziska Müller</p>NAGR-fakws-15502808-production2020-05-24T22:00:00ZCarbon-saving super heroes? REDD+, educational programmes and carbon governmentality<img width="293" height="165" style="float:left" src="https://assets.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/instance_assets/fakws/15497446/special-issue-stabalizing-redd-733x414-b7dc51f071b72d77f924a218e179f52b302b8075.jpg" /><p>REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is a global mechanism, which comprises several global forest protection and carbon sequestration programs, for instance under the umbrella of the Green Climate Fund, the World Bank’s Forest Investment Programme or the Norwegian NICFI Fund. Increasingly, these programs are now carried forth under the new banner of Natural Climate Solutions. While they are considered as a strategy for global emission reduction, they have also been labeled as “carbon colonialism” and especially indigenous communities are protesting against the commodification of forests as carbon sinks.<br>The Journal of Political Ecology Special Issue “Stabilizing a policy: reproducing REDD+” by Jens Friis Lund and Adeniyi Asiyanbi combines three strands of political ecology literature - critical policy studies, assemblage studies, and political economy. The authors argue that the persistence of policies and policy ideas manifests in a balance of the counteracting processes of stabilization and contestation, which precipitate both intended and unintended outcomes. We show how the stabilization of REDD+ itself lends stability to broader ideas of forest-based climate change mitigation. </p>
<p>Franziska Müller’s contribution “Can the subaltern protect forests? REDD+ compliance, depoliticization and indigenous subjectivities” problematizes subjectification of Indigenous peoples as 'planetary stewards', based on a governmentality analysis of educational resources.</p>
<p>https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/JPE/issue/view/1643 </p><p>Photo: Franziska Müller</p>