Global civil society? The Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development

In the face of mounting environmental degradation and persistent poverty over the previous decade, Johannesburg’s World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) of August and September 2002 inherited a number of unmet accords from the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit. Consequently, the United Nations Stakeholder Forum Implementation Conference (IC) was convened to integrate civil society stakeholders into global deliberations on sustainable development and to marshal their forces in the implementation of WSSD accords. Given the importance of the IC as the first civil society forum at a major global summit on environment and poverty, intriguing questions emerge as to its effectiveness in achieving civil society objectives. As a first attempt in exploring this topic, we examine three fundamental aspects of the IC. Specifically, we examine the relative “civility” of the IC forum in terms of (a) fidelity of representation of the community of global environment and development stakeholders; (b) autonomy of the IC agenda from state and institutional interests; and (c) interpretations of space and place as reflected in deliberative processes and outcomes. The paper begins with a review of the civil society literature with a particular emphasis on civil society representation in UN meetings since Rio. The paper concludes with a discussion of IC participation at the Johannesburg summit, and considers implications for future civil society participation in global decision-making forums.     

节水灌溉技术在通辽地区应用效果分析

从土壤—作物—大气连续体角度出发,利用农田优化灌溉技术,结合通辽地区农业生产实际,确立优化灌溉技术推广示范田,历经3年的推广试验,灌溉指标明确,经济效益和服务效果比较理想。     

节水条件下土壤氮素的环境影响效应研究

土壤无机氮素的损失主要是铵氮的挥发损失和硝氮的反硝化和淋失.土壤水分和氮素含量的增加,都将增加氮肥淋失的潜在威胁,如处置不当,获得高产可能需要以环境的污染为代价.节水条件下土壤无机氮素的损失量有所减少,但是氮素利用效率也同时受到了土壤水分状况的限制.探讨了作物产量、氮素损失和农业生产要素(水分、氮素)实际投入量之间的关系,建立了节水条件下土壤氮素损失和环境评价概念型模型,通过在北京水利科学研究所永乐店灌溉试验站3年的试验资料对模型进行了参数求解及校验.     

Watered down? Civil society organizations and hydropower development in the Darjeeling and Sikkim regions,Eastern Himalaya: A comparative study

ABSTRACT

Mitigating climate change is often framed as the ultimate collective action problem of this era and great emphasis is made on the need for approaches that foster ‘cooperation’ and ‘consensus’. This paper argues that the irony of this rhetoric could not be more stark; climate policy framing is an exclusionary process, and climate mitigating interventions that are engineered essentially to address neoliberal economic concerns rather than environmental challenges are often the source of multiple new conflicts. In this regard, this paper shows how the response of local non governmental organisations (NGOs) to hydropower development in the Darjeeling region of West Bengal in the Eastern Himalayas bears evidence to Gramscian analyses of ‘the manufacture of consent’ between elite bourgeois actors – the state, formal civil society, political parties and the private sector. Such ‘associational’ unions are only occasionally interrupted, as in the case of the people’s movement, Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT) in North Sikkim. Finding a balance between resistance and enabling political space to think and act differently, the movement led to the cancellation of several hydropower projects put forward in the name of climate mitigation, and in the process, drew attention to political processes involved in the manufacture of consent. Using case studies from the Darjeeling and Sikkim regions, this paper distinguishes between Gramsci’s vision of the political space of disruption vis-à-vis the covert agenda of climate consensus.

Key policy insights

• A politics of consensus in relation to climate change is an outcome of, and in turn reiterates, a narrowing of distance between the state and civil society.

• Including civil society in climate policy decision making and implementation is considered positive and inclusive, however, it is important to note that civil society is not always and everywhere inclusive and transformative.

• Both at global and national levels, it is claimed that climate change interventions happen in an overall framework of participatory, inclusive environmental governance; in relation to hydropower development, we note that this is hardly the practice on the ground.

     

Skills constraints and the low carbon transition

Achieving a successful transition to a low carbon economy, in the UK and other countries, will require sufficient people with appropriate qualifications and skills to manufacture, install, and operate the low carbon technologies and approaches. The actual numbers and types of skills required are uncertain and will depend on the speed and direction of the transition pathways, but there are reasons to doubt that market mechanisms will deliver the necessary skilled workers in a timely manner. The range of market, government, and governance failures relating to the provision of low carbon skills are examined, particularly for their potential to cause a slower, costlier, and less employment-intensive transition. The potential policy responses to these failures are considered, including standardization of funding for training; formalization of transferable qualifications; legally binding targets for carbon emissions reductions and low carbon technology deployment; framework contracts and agreements between actors in key sectors; licensing and accreditation schemes for key technology sectors; government support for skills academies and training centres; support for first movers in niches; increasing mobility of workers; and providing a clear long-term cross-sectoral framework for a low carbon transition, including skills training.

Policy relevance

The article argues for the importance of skills issues for a successful transition to a low carbon economy. It outlines the potential causes of skills shortages, both generic and those specific to low carbon, as well as the probable impact of these types of shortages. By changing existing sectoral and occupational patterns, the transition will disrupt the existing market and government mechanisms to identify and remedy skills shortages in specific sectors. The nature and required pace of the low carbon transition also means that there are pressures that could induce greater skills shortages. These shortages, in turn, could critically delay elements of the transition and increase its cost and duration. The article outlines approaches taken to address these causes of skills shortages, drawing on examples from UK low carbon policy. The article ends with an argument that skills issues need to be more central to transitions debates.     

A low-carbon society: global visions,pathways, and challenges

The feasibility of two low-carbon society (LCS) scenarios, one with and one without nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS), is evaluated using the AIM/Enduse[Global] model. Both scenarios suggest that achieving a 50% emissions reduction target (relative to 1990 levels) by 2050 is technically feasible if locally suited technologies are introduced and the relevant policies, including necessary financial transfers, are appropriately implemented. In the scenario that includes nuclear and CCS options, it will be vital to consider the risks and acceptance of these technologies. In the scenario without these technologies, the challenge will be how to reduce energy service demand. In both scenarios, the estimated investment costs will be higher in non-Annex I countries than in Annex I countries. Finally, the enhancement of capacity building to support the deployment of locally suited technologies will be central to achieving an LCS.

Policy relevance

Policies to reduce GHG emissions up to 2050 are critical if the long-term target of stabilizing the climate is to be achieved. From a policy perspective, the cost and social acceptability of the policy used to reduce emissions are two of the key factors in determining the optimal pathways to achieve this. However, the nuclear accident at Fukushima highlighted the risk of depending on large-scale technologies for the provision of energy and has led to a backlash against the use of nuclear technology. It is found that if nuclear and CCS are used it will be technically feasible to halve GHG emissions by 2050, although very costly. However, although the cost of halving emissions will be about the same if neither nuclear nor CCS is used, a 50% reduction in emissions reduction will not be achievable unless the demand for energy service is substantially reduced.     

Risky responsibilities for rural drinking water institutions: The case of unregulated self-supply in Bangladesh

The drinking water sector is off track to reach Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.1 with over a quarter of the world’s population lacking safe and reliable services. Policy approaches are shifting away from provision of access towards managing the multiple risks of water supply and quality. By considering how infrastructure, information, and institutional systems evolved in Bangladesh, this article identifies the unintentional consequences of reallocating management responsibility for rural water services away from government agencies towards individuals and households.Between 2012 and 2017, we estimate up to forty-five unregulated tubewells were installed privately for every publicly funded rural waterpoint. This growth rate more than doubled total national waterpoint infrastructure since 2006. The scale of growth is reflected in the declining ratio of households per tubewell from over fifty-seven in 1982 to less than two in 2017, potentially approaching market saturation. This scale of growth aligns to an observed decrease in the real price of private market shallow tubewells by seventy percent between 1982 and 2017. In 2018, we estimate households invested up to USD253 million in tubewells, nearly sixty-five percent of the total national water and sanitation sector’s household-level finance. In effect, household investments became critical to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of improved infrastructure access, but now pose challenges for meeting targets of safely managed services. The scale of continued private investment provides an opportunity for policymakers to explore blended public finance models to meet emerging consumer preferences, while at the same time introducing regulatory and monitoring systems.     

中国西北缺水区节水型社会建设的若干思考

水环境研究已从微观尺度向宏观尺度逐渐拓展,研究所包括的层次更多,范围更广,内容更丰富.本文分析了中国西北水资源的现状,提出了推进节水型社会建设的必要性及存在的问题,同时提出了西北缺水区进行节水型社会建设的可行性建议.     

Another political ecology of civil society reflexiveness against urban industrial risks for environmental justice: The case of the Bisasar landfill,Durban, South Africa

The concerns of political ecology since its beginnings as a field have been predominantly set in rural areas with limited focus on urban industrial risks. Further, debates on the global South (often from Anglo‐American perspectives) have not fully appreciated the divergent and differentiated perceptions of urban risks and, therefore, everyday forms of resistance within civil society. Instead, work has mainly focused on civil society power relations against the state and industry that are driven by coherent populist political agendas. Against this setting, this paper's contribution aims to better contextualize ‘other’ third world localities in political ecology through a case study of urban industrial risks in the upper/middle income (as opposed to rural, low/lower middle income) country, South Africa. In doing so, the paper sheds light on the derelict aspect of civil society contestation, especially along class and ethnic lines, over urban landfill infrastructure as a livelihood resource or a health hazard. The paper draws upon frameworks of self‐reflexivity and reflexive localism as complementary to the mainstream political ecology to illuminate differentiated civil society reflexiveness and therefore, aims to advance the discussion of other political ecologies. The case study of the largest formal landfill site in Africa, the Bisasar landfill situated in Durban, highlights differences underlying power relations and constraints within civil society (in leadership, social networking, resources and mistrust) that have implications for mainstream political ecology notions of civil society coherence.