Sustainable Energy Policy in Germany: A Case of Natural Gas Lock-in

A new Working Paper from STEPS Summer School alumni seeks to explain why (and how) natural gas has assumed such a dominant role in German energy policy, and at what…

Destruction-prone conservation policies: one pathway to sustainability?

By Niak Sian Koh (Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden) and Amos Ochieng (Department of Forestry, Biodiversity and Tourism, Makerere University, Uganda) In an attempt to address the crucial problem of biodiversity…

Nexus, resource conflict and social justice: are we speaking the same language?

Nexus network meetings are a bit like a bar scene in Star Wars, joked Professor Mike Bradshaw, from the University of Warwick: “What we need is a universal translator to…

The political economy of small-scale mining in Zimbabwe

There was much discussion about small-scale and artisanal mining at the STEPS Centre’s Resource Politics conference last month. This is where resources and politics come together; perhaps especially so in Zimbabwe. Ever since…

Who writes international climate change reports?

Guest blog by Esteve Corbera (ICTA-UAB, Spain) This week in the journal Nature Climate Change, colleagues and I published an analysis of who has participated in the latest 5AR mitigation…

Resource politics: living in the Anthropocene

By Ian Scoones, Director of the STEPS Centre This week we are hosting a major conference at the STEPS Centre at Sussex on resource politics. There are panels looking at…

Conference: Resource Politics 2015

This year’s STEPS Centre conference, Resource Politics: transforming pathways to sustainability, took place from 7-9 September 2015 at the Institute of Development Studies. Plenary speakers include Rohan D’Souza, Betsy Hartmann,…

Cecil the Lion and Zimbabwe’s conservation carve-up

The huge uproar generated by the shooting of Cecil the lion provides a fascinating lens into Zimbabwe’s new elite land politics and the relationship between humans and “wild” nature. The…

Myint Zaw to join us for Resource Politics 2015

Myint Zaw, winner of one of this year’s ‘Green Nobels’, the Goldman Environmental Prize for Asia, will speak at Resource Politics 2015, the title of this year’s STEPS Centre annual…