Gilbert MichaudAs part of the unfolding energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables, large, utility-scale solar and wind projects are increasingly being deployed throughout the United States (U.S.). While smaller forms of renewable energy, such as rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, have been around for decades, relatively less is known about the impacts of these larger projects, which have been the subject of recent and heated debate in rural areas. As part of a broader and smarter site selection strategy for industry and utilities, this research works to quantify and identify the openness to large renewable energy projects throughout the U.S. states of Indiana and Ohio. This project reviews, for the first time, statewide land use policies for the townships, cities, and counties across these two states. It also looks at the largest employers and their stated commitments to renewable energy, among other climate goals. On the quest for pathways to decarbonize the electricity grid, understanding how and where to site large renewable energy projects is fundamentally important, especially as local opposition groups intensify. Operationalizing the magnitude and location of these public and private demand-side drivers of renewable energy projects offers great practicality to developers, economic and regional planners, and many other stakeholders, particularly in less progressive states that lag in terms of statewide renewable energy incentives or streamlined project approval procedures.
Transdisciplinary and Transformative Research in different contexts: Insights from Asia, Africa and Latin America
Flurina Schneider
Transdisciplinary research (TDR) has been developed to generate knowledge that effectively fosters the capabilities of various societal actors to realize sustainability transformations. The development of TDR theories, principles, and methods has been largely governed by researchers from the global North and has reflected their contextual conditions. To enable more context-sensitive TDR framing, we – a team of Southern and Northern scholars – sought to identify what contextual characteristics affect the design and implementation of TDR in six case studies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and what this means for TDR as a scientific approach. Our analysis showed that contextual characteristics prevalent in many Southern research sites – such as highly volatile socio-political situations and relatively weak support infrastructure – can make TDR a challenging endeavour. However, we also observed a high degree of variation in the contextual characteristics of our sites in the global South, including regarding group deliberation, research freedom, and dominant perceptions of the appropriate relationship between science, society, and policy. We argue that TDR in these contexts requires pragmatic adaptations as well as more fundamental reflection on underlying epistemological concepts around what it means to conduct “good science”, as certain contextual characteristics may have bearing on core epistemological values of TDR.
Rural perspectives on inclusive transformation towards decarbonization in Sweden
Kajsa-Stina Benulic
It would take nothing less than transformative actions to decarbonise our fossil-ridden world, to pointedly paraphrase IPCC. The nature of transformative actions mean they will not go by unnoticed and furthermore, they may benefit some groups of people while others see comforts and riches diminishing. Enter the concept of just transformations, commonly used to highlight the risk that people and societies directly tied to fossil-intensive practices and industries are going to be disfavoured in a transformation towards decarbonisation. In Sweden, the climate policy action plan has taken a slightly broader outlook on justice dimensions, at least in language, by using the concept inclusive transformation. It states that the needs of people at risk of being disfavoured, for example those living in sparsely populated areas, should be considered. Yet, little has been done in research and politically to investigate said needs. To begin to cover this gap, we have carried out 7 focus group discussions and 1 interview with participants recruited through a partnership with the NGO Rural Sweden, and the study association of the workers. I will share results on how the “just” in just transformations takes on many different meanings to rural citizens, and that a narrow definition of just transformations as losses due to a shift away from fossil-intensive industries does not capture all of these. Rather, to capture all relevant meanings of just transformations one must include several forms of justice, such as procedural, distributional, spatial, and recognitional. I suggest that doing so unveils more groups at risk of being disfavoured during low-carbon transformations. I will also discuss how the results from the focus group interviews will be incorporated into a study circle exploring personal transformations to be carried out over one year, with participants from a local association of Rural Sweden.
Changing the climate of collaboration and communication – towards a typology of relational spaces at the science-policy interface
Niko Schäpke
UNFCCC climate change conferences (COPs) annually convene tens of thousands of actors from various climate related fields. The conferences hold enormous convening power (Mar et al. 2023). COPs not only host negotiations on political agreements and their implementation. Beyond formal negotiation they as well hold huge potential to build communities, mutual learning and develop collective action. Interaction takes place in so called side events, with expert panels as dominant interaction format (ibid.). Yet, COPs have been critiqued as a ´trade fair´ (Lövbrand et al. 2017), a ´circus´ (Freyne 2021) and a ´theatre´ (Death 2011). Decision makers described the culture of communication and collaboration as siloed, power-laden, male and western-dominated and competitive. A sense of urgency and orientation towards collective action is lacking, necessitating to change underlying mindsets and communication culture (Wamsler et al. 2021). Building on this insight, RIFS Potsdam and multiple partners set up the Co-Creative Reflection and Dialogue Space (CCRDS) in the side-event space. CCRDS was based on a relational paradigm, working to emphasize interdependency between participants and shared world, and cultivating empathy in such relationships (Wamsler et al. 2022). CCRDS convened some 60 workshops at COPs 25, 26 and 27. Workshops followed generic guidelines for interactive, horizontal, embodied and action-oriented communication. Concrete forms widely differed including arts- and ritual based, future-oriented, and deep dialogs, meditation and story-telling, hosted by Youth and Gender-Initiatives, Faith groups, NGOs, research institutions and others. Our workshop-comparison aims for a typology of relational spaces, relating three analytical dimensions: 1) transformative capacities (e.g. sensemaking, empathy, awareness); 2) deep leverage points (e.g. world views, values and motivations); 3) experiencing relatedness, including it´s formability and action-relevance. Triangulative analysis combines participant surveys, expert interviews, participant observations and group reflections. The analysis focuses action-oriented insights, i.e. concrete hosting practices and underlying essentials, in relation to the analytical dimensions.