International efforts to achieve goals such as universal energy access and climate change mitigation are expected to stimulate billions of dollars of private financial flows to developing countries for clean…
The political economy of state-led transformations in pro-poor low carbon energy: A case study of solar PV in Kenya
The Political Economy of State-led Energy Transformations: Lessons from Solar PV in Kenya and China
STEPS Working Paper 92 Amid talk of the need for a low carbon ‘clean energy revolution’ to address the challenges of energy poverty and climate change, there is growing academic…
Solar PV and poverty alleviation in China: Rhetoric and reality
STEPS Working Paper 93 In 2014, China announced an ambitious plan to help alleviate rural poverty through deploying distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in poor areas. The solar energy for…
How did we do that? The possibility of rapid transition
Is rapid transition possible? Sometimes events or new knowledge throw up reasons why we must make change happen quickly. At the present moment, climate change and chronic social inequality seem…
Heirloom rice in Ifugao: an ‘anti-commodity’ in the process of commodification
We analyse the marketing of ‘heirloom rices’ produced in the Cordillera mountains of northern Luzon, the Philippines, as the commodification of a historical ‘anti-commodity’. We contend that, historically, rice was…
Double coupling: modeling subjectivity and asymmetric organization in social-ecological systems
Ecology and Society 20(3): 26 Social-ecological organization is a multidimensional phenomenon that combines material and symbolic processes. However, the coupling between social and ecological subsystem is often conceptualized as purely material,…
Advancing Metrics: Models for understanding adaptive capacity and water security
Volume 21, August 2016, Pages 52–57 We explore the relationship between water security (WS) and adaptive capacity (AC); the two concepts are connected because achieving the first may be dependent…
Adapting to risk and perpetuating poverty: Household’s strategies for managing flood risk and water scarcity in Mexico City
Volume 66, December 2016, Pages 324–333 Adaptation is typically conceived uniquely in positive terms, however for some populations, investments in risk management can entail significant tradeoffs. Here we discuss the…
Opinion: Urban resilience efforts must consider social and political forces
Environmental disasters, ranging from catastrophic floods to extreme temperatures, have caused more than 30,000 deaths per year and more than US$ 250–300 billion a year in economic losses, globally, between…
India’s peri-urban frontier: rural-urban transformations and food security
In India, peri-urban areas are too often neglected. Many people live in poverty and face increasing marginalisation and food insecurity. Yet peri-urban agriculture could be a major contributor to poverty…