Sustainable Adaptation to Climate Change and the Role of Renewable Energy

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Sustainable Adaptation to Climate Change and the
Role of Renewable Energy
Karen OBrien, Kirsten Ulsrud Institutt for
Sosiologi og Samfunnsgeografi
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Outline

• What is human dimensions research?
• Why focus on adaptation?
• What is sustainable adaptation?
• What is the role of renewable energy?
• Key research questions for the social sciences
• Challenges for interdisciplinary research

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Human Dimensions Research

• Who will be most affected by climate change (who
  are the winners and losers)?
• What makes some people more vulnerable?
• How does climate change interact with other
  processes to affect human security?
• What are the implications for equity and
  sustainability?
• How do different beliefs, values and worldviews
  influence processes, responses, and outcomes?
• How do individuals, communities and societies
  adapt to rapid change?
• What are the limits to adaptation? What will be
  lost?
• How can positive experiences and useful
  technologies spread?
• What are the opportunities for sustainable
  adaptation?
• How do we adapt to change?

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Human Dimensions Research

• Who will be most affected by climate change (who
  are the winners and losers)?
• What makes some people more vulnerable?
• How does climate change interact with other
  processes to affect human security?
• What are the implications for equity and
  sustainability?
• How do different beliefs, values and worldviews
  influence processes, responses, and outcomes?
• How do individuals, communities and societies
  adapt to rapid change?
• What are the limits to adaptation? What will be
  lost?
• How can positive experiences and useful
  technologies spread?
• What are the opportunities for sustainable
  adaptation?
• How do we CREATE change?

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Figure 10.4
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Table TS.3. Examples of global impacts projected
for changes in climate (and sea level and
atmospheric CO2 where relevant)
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Adaptation

• Adjustments in practices, processes, or
  structures to take into account climate change,
  to moderate potential damages, or to benefit from
  opportunities associated with climate change.
• (IPCC, 2001)

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Adaptation to climate change

• Adaptation is a social process
• Influenced by exterior, objective factors
  (systems and behaviors), and also by interior,
  subjective factors (culture, values, beliefs)
• Not all adaptations are sustainable, and some may
  increase the vulnerability of others, and of
  future generations.

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Sustainable Adaptation

• Describes the processes, actions, decisions and
  strategies that reduce vulnerability to climate
  change without compromising human security in the
  short run AND in the long run.

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Sustainable Adaptation

• Describes the processes, actions, decisions and
  strategies that reduce vulnerability to climate
  change without compromising human security in the
  short run AND in the long run.
• Promotes the capacity to adapt to complex,
  dynamic and nonlinear changes, both at individual
  and collective levels.

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Sustainable Adaptation

• Describes the processes, actions, decisions and
  strategies that reduce vulnerability to climate
  change without compromising human security in the
  short run AND in the long run.
• Promotes the capacity to adapt to complex,
  dynamic and nonlinear changes, both at individual
  and collective levels.
• Addresses direct impacts and risks associated
  with climate change and the systemic and
  contextual factors that create vulnerability.

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Sustainable Adaptation

• Describes the processes, actions, decisions and
  strategies that reduce vulnerability to climate
  change without compromising human security in the
  short run AND in the long run.
• Promotes the capacity to adapt to complex,
  dynamic and nonlinear changes, both at individual
  and collective levels.
• Addresses direct impacts and risks associated
  with climate change and the systemic and
  contextual factors that create vulnerability.
• Recognizes that values, beliefs, and worldviews
  differ within and across populations, lifetimes,
  and generations -- yet prioritizes responses that
  enhance human security for the majority of the
  worlds population, both in the present and
  future.

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Decentralized Renewable Energy Technologies

• Solar photovoltaics
• Solar thermal
• Bioenergy electricity generators
• Geothermal technologies
• Wind energy
• Sustainable charcoal and firewood
• Biogas systems
• Etc.

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Renewable energy and adaptation

• We need energy to adapt (to transform mobility,
  cope with extreme temperatures, adapt economic
  activities, develop urban areas, adapt food
  systems, eradicate poverty).

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Renewable energy and adaptation

• We need energy to adapt (to transform mobility,
  cope with extreme temperatures, adapt economic
  activities, develop urban areas, adapt food
  systems, eradicate poverty).
• Energy is essential for social and economic
  development. Technological changes can increase
  the capacity to adapt by providing new income
  generating activities, improving water supply,
  sanitation, health, education, communication and
  other social changes.

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Renewable energy and adaptation

• We need energy to adapt (to transform mobility,
  cope with extreme temperatures, adapt economic
  activities, develop urban areas, adapt food
  systems, eradicate poverty).
• Energy is essential for social and economic
  development. Technological changes can increase
  the capacity to adapt by providing new income
  generating activities, improving water supply,
  sanitation, health, education, communication and
  other social changes.
• The diversity and flexibility of decentralized
  renewable energy can make it easier to adapt
  solutions to local conditions (social, economic,
  environmental). Renewable energy technologies can
  be more resilient to damage from changing climate
  conditions and extreme events.

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Knowledge for socio-technical change

• The introduction of technologies requires social
  innovations, including models for how to organize
  and implement the changes.
• Researchers can contribute by studying and
  monitoring ongoing processes of change and inform
  further action.
• Researchers can map out the different elements of
  emerging socio-technical systems and point out
  weak elements.

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Research questions

• How can renewable energy technologies be
  implemented and socially organized in ways that
• are consistent with the goals sustainable
  adaptation?
• embed the technologies in local contexts?
• make the energy supply useful in practice and
  solve central problems that people have?
• improve income generating opportunities and
  quality of life?
• give more people access to the technologies?
• overcome political and institutional barriers for
  change?

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Learning from ongoing activities

• Learning from existing experiences (pioneers) to
  adapt lessons to other local contexts. (Ex
  Austrian ? Norwegian communities on bioenergy,
  Indian ? Kenyan communities on solar energy)
• Examples of research questions
• How did the implementation measures work in one
  context and why?
• What are the lessons learned through practical
  experiences from the use of the technology?
• What have been the main drivers and barriers at
  the local, regional, national and international
  level?

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Bringing lessons to new contexts

• Who are the relevant actors that might be
  involved?
• What are the barriers and opportunities in the
  new context?
• How can political, regulatory and institutional
  barriers be overcome?
• How can socio-technical changes be integrated
  with broader development goals?
• How can the socio-technical change be adapted to
  peoples needs and wants, their strengths,
  resources, skills, values and beliefs?

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Methodology and approaches

• Not how can we make people use these
  technologies, but how can it become easier for
  people to choose and get access to these
  technologies
• See the energy systems from below, through the
  eyes of users and other involved actors
• Understand what are peoples main challenges,
  needs and wants (i.e., place people in the center
  of the systems)
• Action research for co-production of knowledge
  between researchers, involved local communities,
  implementing actors, NGOs and policy makers
• Widespread use of qualitative methods

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Opportunities and challenges for
interdisciplinary research

• Opportunities across faculties to broaden the
  understanding of social processes of adaptation,
  including socio-technical change
• Opportunities for social scientists to work with
  renewable energy experts to understand financial,
  technological and practical aspects of renewable
  energy supply
• Opportunities for collaboration between natural
  sciences and the others? An integral
  perspective From electron movements in the solar
  cells to the embedding of solar cells in society?

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Sustainable Adaptation and Renewable Energy are
not North-South issues

• Can rich industrialized countries and developing
  countries become more similar in social and
  economic aspects on the pathway towards a
  sustainable, climate-adapted society?