•State sovereignty was the driving factor behind establishment of the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) policy.•‘The hollow state’ hypothesis is not wholly correct in the Indonesian palm oil ...sector.•The government is undergoing a transformation and are enhancing national institutional capacity through the ISPO.•Conservation values and benefits for the producers when being certified need to be focused to improve ISPO.
Rise of transnational business governance has been used to argue that state control has declined, giving rise to the metaphor of a ‘hollowed-out state’. However, an alternative hypothesis is that, instead of a weakening of the state, a transformation occurs. This study uses interviews and discourse analysis to explore the main factors that trigger initiation of a new government policy following extra-territorial transnational negotiations. The Indonesian palm oil sector, specifically publication of the mandatory certification for Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) policy, is used as a case study. We also explore aspects of the ISPO and oil palm sector that need focusing in order to improve sustainable palm oil sector governance. Q methodology was used to reveal different discourses on the formation and implementation of ISPO policy. We interviewed 36 stakeholders to gather the qualitative data used for the Q concourse; and engaged 27 stakeholders in the Q sorting process. Five distinct discourses were revealed. Two discourses include state sovereignty and the need to strengthen the local sector as triggering factors for ISPO initiation. The other three discourses highlight scepticism about the ISPO, covering financial aspects and conservation value debates; and contain challenges and suggestions for ISPO implementation. The study concludes that, in the Indonesian palm oil sector at least, ‘the hollow-state’ hypothesis is not wholly correct. Instead, the government is undergoing a transformation and is enhancing national institutional capacity through the ISPO. However, there are some major concerns. To better shape the governance of sustainability in this sector the government needs to focus on aspects of policy implementation related to biodiversity conservation values and benefits for the producers when being certified, as well as improving engagement with stakeholders.
The electricity supply sector in Pakistan has performed poorly in recent years. Reforms were introduced in the mid-1990s to improve the sector, but progressed slowly with no significant impacts on ...pre-reform performance. This study uses new institutional economics as a theoretical basis to elucidate reasons for the failure of power sector reforms in Pakistan to make improvements. Interviews with 23 experts using Q-methodology generated 215 statements that were used as a Q concourse. Of these, 51 statements were selected for the Q sample and ranked by 34 respondents depending on their importance. Analysis revealed four important discourses on the determinants of power sector reform failure in Pakistan. These included weak governance structure, country and sectoral endowments, inefficient regulator and unspecified political institutions or unfriendly political contexts. The study recommends establishment of institutions that support a market based power supply sector and improvements to the contractual arrangements between stakeholders to reduce opportunistic behaviour.
•This study utilizes New Institutional Approach to study power sector reforms in Pakistan.•Work of Douglass North and Oliver Williamson help create analytical frame.•Q methodology helps overcome data limitations.•Results reveal institutional aspects as important for poor performance of reforms.•Study suggests policy recommendations to improve institutional environment and governance of power sector in Pakistan.
•Leeds HRR model predicted the fuel energy input of the RCCI engine with 2.41% error.•Accuracy of the HRR model of dual-fuel RCCI engines is improved by using.γ(T,λ)•Equation for global λ is improved ...by using the trapped masses of the fuels and air.
The Heat Release Rate (HRR) model of ICEs is known to be most sensitive to the ratio of specific heats, γ, which is known to be depended on temperature and the excess air ratio, λ. The HRR of ICEs cannot be measured directly. As such, accurate HRR models, as well as accurate expressions of γ and λ are required to model the HRR behaviour of ICEs mathematically. In this work, an improved HRR model based on γ(T,λ) was used to investigate the effect of syngas substitution of diesel at constant energy on the Heat Release Rate (HRR) behaviour and the combustion phasing in a 5.7 kW engine out and 4.3 kW generator output, single cylinder, dual fuel, Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) mode CI engine. An improved global excess air ratio, λg was used in the HRR analysis of the dual fuel engine. The engine was run on 10, 25, and 45% syngas substitution (by energy) and at 1, 2, 3, and 4 kW loads (generator output) for each syngas substitution. The improved dual fuel engine HRR model was validated by comparing the measured fuel consumption by energy (input energy) per (thermodynamic) cycle to the predicted fuel consumption by energy per cycle for the tested conditions. The values of the fuel consumption predicted by the Leeds HRR model were also compared to the predictions of the HRR models that were based on γ(T). The overall average error in the predictions of the fuel input energy by the Leeds HRR model was 2.41% with a standard deviation of 1.65. The overall average errors in the other models ranged from 6.26 to 8.29%. The SoC, MFB50, PP, and PHRR occurred later for the diesel-syngas dual fuels compared to baseline diesel due to increased ignition delay as the fraction of syngas was increased. The current work showed that the use of diesel-syngas dual fuel in diesel engines in Nigeria (a developing country) can potentially reduce CO2 emissions by up to ∼0.26 million tonnes.
Mini-grids play a critical role in providing electricity to remote, off-grid communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, success of mini-grid projects can be hindered by poor cash flows and limited ...revenue returns. A clear understanding of off-grid households’ preferences for electricity services is a prerequisite for mini-grid stakeholders to set tariff structures and stimulate income-generating power demand to scale up mini-grid deployment. This study conducted a choice experiment survey in two off-grid villages targeted by new mini-grid projects in Tanzania to reveal heterogeneity in households’ preferences for multiple electricity service attributes. We found that households’ heterogeneous preferences were significantly associated with demographic (e.g. gender), socioeconomic (e.g. ownership of TV), and energy-related behavioural characteristics (e.g. charging devices away from home). We suggest that service-based, tiered tariffs and business models can be designed to cater for the heterogenous demands and preferences of different segments of customers. Successful deployment of mini-grids needs to consider the competition from the existing solar home systems and focus on the provision of higher tiers of electricity services. Gender equality issues should be addressed in rural electrification efforts given the significantly greater vulnerability of female-led households to higher electricity fees.
•Market segmentation for mini-grid services exists among off-grid communities.•We suggest a “tiered tariffs for tiered services” business model.•Mini-grids needs to consider competition of existing home solar systems.•Female-led households show greater vulnerability to increased electricity fees.
Lake Chad lost more than 80% of its surface area over the past decades as a result of environmental change and climate variability. It is not yet known how climate change will affect water resources ...availability in the basin over the coming decades. In this study, the reliability ensemble averaging (REA) technique was used to evaluate the performance of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) models in simulating present‐day precipitation and temperature (1980–2005), and to quantify the uncertainties in future projections (2050–2075) under two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) in the Lake Chad basin (LCB). Analyses were carried out at both annual and seasonal timescales. Overall, the CMIP5 models simulated precipitation better than temperature in the study area. Although the models were able to simulate the annual precipitation cycle in the basin, most models overestimated precipitation during the dry season and underestimated it during the monsoon season. Future annual basin precipitation is projected to increase by 2.5 and 5%, respectively, under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenario by the middle of the century by most of the models and most of the model projections are within the REA uncertainty range. Despite the increase in projected annual precipitation in the basin, most models project a decrease in monsoon precipitation under both RCPs. Although the uncertainty range for future precipitation projections for most models lie within the range of natural climate variability, additional analysis is needed for results to be useful for any future planning in the study area.
Desiccation of Lake Chad 1963–2013 (source: UNEP DIVA‐GIS).
Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide ...emissions
. Climate-driven vegetation models typically predict that this tropical forest 'carbon sink' will continue for decades
. Here we assess trends in the carbon sink using 244 structurally intact African tropical forests spanning 11 countries, compare them with 321 published plots from Amazonia and investigate the underlying drivers of the trends. The carbon sink in live aboveground biomass in intact African tropical forests has been stable for the three decades to 2015, at 0.66 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year (95 per cent confidence interval 0.53-0.79), in contrast to the long-term decline in Amazonian forests
. Therefore the carbon sink responses of Earth's two largest expanses of tropical forest have diverged. The difference is largely driven by carbon losses from tree mortality, with no detectable multi-decadal trend in Africa and a long-term increase in Amazonia. Both continents show increasing tree growth, consistent with the expected net effect of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and air temperature
. Despite the past stability of the African carbon sink, our most intensively monitored plots suggest a post-2010 increase in carbon losses, delayed compared to Amazonia, indicating asynchronous carbon sink saturation on the two continents. A statistical model including carbon dioxide, temperature, drought and forest dynamics accounts for the observed trends and indicates a long-term future decline in the African sink, whereas the Amazonian sink continues to weaken rapidly. Overall, the uptake of carbon into Earth's intact tropical forests peaked in the 1990s. Given that the global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing in size, independent observations indicating greater recent carbon uptake into the Northern Hemisphere landmass
reinforce our conclusion that the intact tropical forest carbon sink has already peaked. This saturation and ongoing decline of the tropical forest carbon sink has consequences for policies intended to stabilize Earth's climate.
Summary
Motivation
Progress in Indonesia towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 involves contestation between the global goals and the country's political ambition. The ...electrification rates ambition has triggered a policy trilemma. There are targets for meeting national energy demand; there are equally important targets for improving energy access and minimizing negative impacts on the environment.
Purpose
This article illustrates idea contestation within Indonesia's rural electricity policy subsystem by: (1) analysing the position of the global sustainability storyline in pre‐ and post‐SDG and Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) periods; and (2) exploring the dynamic of coalition structure within both periods.
Methods and approach
The data is derived from statements of political actors in the national news articles and is analysed using Discourse Network Analysis. To investigate the influence of global agendas, we perform a timeframe analysis in pre‐ and post‐SDG and NDC periods.
Findings
Our analysis presented empirical evidence of the energy trilemma. The contestation between energy access, energy security, and climate change mitigation is observed in the ideas that emerged within the existing storylines. We find that sustainability has not been a primary topic of debate within the policy subsystem in pre‐ and post‐SDG and NDC periods. The findings also reveal how the global deployment of sustainability has triggered the emergence of discursive intermediaries within the policy subsystem. They are essential to framing global environmental issues to fit into internal debates.
Policy implications
First, the narration of implementing renewable energy has to emphasize its benefits over the energy poverty problem while injecting some messages related to environmental profit. Second, the issue of decentralization has always been the most frequent and mutually connected topic, both in terms of source utilization and governance. Therefore, it needs more attention from policy‐makers.
Limiting climate change to less than 2°C is the focus of international policy under the climate convention (UNFCCC), and is essential to preventing extinctions, a focus of the Convention on ...Biological Diversity (CBD). The post‐2020 biodiversity framework drafted by the CBD proposes conserving 30% of both land and oceans by 2030. However, the combined impact on extinction risk of species from limiting climate change and increasing the extent of protected and conserved areas has not been assessed. Here we create conservation spatial plans to minimize extinction risk in the tropics using data on 289 219 species and modeling two future greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCP2.6 and 8.5) while varying the extent of terrestrial protected land and conserved areas from <17% to 50%. We find that limiting climate change to 2°C and conserving 30% of terrestrial area could more than halve aggregate extinction risk compared with uncontrolled climate change and no increase in conserved area.
Voluntary certification schemes aimed at assuring producer compliance with a set of sustainability criteria have emerged as market-based instruments (MBIs) of sustainability governance. However, the ...impacts they tackle can be part of a complex arena of socio-environmental conflict, where values and powers of business and local actors compete. Legitimacy of these schemes not only results from compliance by business actors; but also depends on acceptance by local actors affected by, or resisting the industries that these mechanisms aim to govern. This paper explores the influence of different local actors' values and powers on legitimacy granting or contestation by local actors during national processes of sustainability criteria development. We analyse the case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Colombia using an approach that combines concepts of ecological economics and political ecology with the legitimacy literature based on critical sociology. In Colombia, the palm oil industry led the initiative to implement certification under national interpretation of RSPO principles and criteria. However, the national interpretation process revealed power asymmetries among stakeholders and clashes between their different values. This resulted in strong contestation of RSPO legitimacy by local actors who resist expansion of oil palm cultivation.
•We analyse domestic dynamics of legitimacy of certification schemes•We focused on the case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Colombia•Clash of values influenced RSPO legitimacy contestation by local actors•Lack of inclusiveness and participation also explained legitimacy contestation•The procedural weaknesses were rooted in choices made by holders of procedural power
Sustainability is a key concept in economic and policy debates. Nevertheless, it is usually treated only in a qualitative way and has eluded quantitative analysis. Here, we propose a sustainability ...index based on the premise that sustainable systems do not lose or gain Fisher Information over time. We test this approach using time series data from the AmeriFlux network that measures ecosystem respiration, water and energy fluxes in order to elucidate two key sustainability features: ecosystem health and stability. A novel definition of ecosystem health is developed based on the concept of criticality, which implies that if a system's fluctuations are scale invariant then the system is in a balance between robustness and adaptability. We define ecosystem stability by taking an information theory approach that measures its entropy and Fisher information. Analysis of the Ameriflux consortium big data set of ecosystem respiration time series is contrasted with land condition data. In general we find a good agreement between the sustainability index and land condition data. However, we acknowledge that the results are a preliminary test of the approach and further verification will require a multi-signal analysis. For example, high values of the sustainability index for some croplands are counter-intuitive and we interpret these results as ecosystems maintained in artificial health due to continuous human-induced inflows of matter and energy in the form of soil nutrients and control of competition, pests and disease.
PDF
