Jun 11, 2021
Extreme climatic events and variability are on the rise around the world, with varying implications for populations across socio-economic conditions. Effective strategies for climate adaptation and development depend on understanding these differential sensitivities to climatic variability. This study focuses on a vulnerable population living in forest-fringe villages of central India, where seasonal migration is a common livelihood strategy for poor households to supplement their incomes with remittances. We quantify the relative sensitivity of a decision to migrate for the first time to climate and socio-economic variables and how the sensitivities vary for different segments of the population. We surveyed 5000 households in 500 forest-fringe villages to identify patterns of migration from 2013 to 2017. Using a mixed-effects logistic regression model, we predicted the probability of first-time migration of a household member based on climate variables and household- and district-level characteristics. We find that households in more agricultural and prosperous districts experience lower rates of migration but are more sensitive to climatic variability than households in poorer districts. The probability of first-time migration from a household in the most prosperous district increases by approximately 40% with one standard deviation in mean maximum temperature or rainfall from the 1981–2017 mean. However, the probability of migration does not vary as a function of climatic variability for households in the poorest district. We attribute this difference in sensitivities to the greater dependence on agriculture and irrigation in more prosperous districts and poverty-driven dependence on migration regardless of the climate in poorer districts. Households investing remittances from migration in agricultural intensification could become increasingly sensitive to climate variability, particularly with water shortages and projected increases in climate variability in the region. Promotion of non-agricultural livelihood options and climate-resilient agriculture could the reduce sensitivity of migration to climate variability in the study region.
Jun 10, 2021
Political support for decarbonizing the global economy is at an all-time high. The good news is that about two-thirds of carbon emissions come from countries that have committed to reach ‘net zero’ by mid-century — they aim to cut their greenhouse-gas outputs and capture as much as they emit1. The bad news? The computer models that analysts use to assess routes to achieve such goals are missing a crucial factor: politics.
These ‘integrated assessment models’ (IAMs) combine insights from climate science and economics to estimate how industrial and agricultural processes might be transformed to tackle global warming. They’re encoded with knowledge about technologies, such as pollution-free power plants and the cost of electric vehicles. Thus IAMs enable researchers to probe, for example, how a carbon tax might induce big cuts in emissions2, or how a drive to decarbonize the transport sector could shift investments towards greener fuels and electricity.
May 28, 2021
Amidst a general increase in household electricity access across the world, some vulnerable communities stand at risk of being left behind. As a result, electricity inequality can be increasing even in countries in which access improves on average. We explore this question in the context of Jharkhand, India, which is characterized by its large tribal populations. Us-ing new household survey data, we document two findings. First, tribal households are much more likely to suffer from poor electricity access. Electrification rates are about 11 percentage points lower than the general population (adjusting for a range of confounding factors) (95%CI: [-21, -1]). Likewise, tribal households own fewer appliances than their general population counterpart: the capacity of their appliances is 168W smaller [-42, -295] than that of the general population. Second, aggressive public policy can reduce electricity inequality. We show that tribal households were much more likely to be targeted by Saubhagya, a government electrification scheme, than the rest of the population, with estimates ranging from 11 (95% CI: [-2;23]) to 22 percent (95% CI: [12; 32]). Public policy could thus, under favorable conditions and when designed appropriately, be an effective tool to combat energy inequality.
May 21, 2021
Many developing countries are ambitiously investing in intermittent renewable electricity but face problems of integration. Advocates of the standard model of power sector reform argue that this is at least partly due to incomplete implementation of reform measures, such as unbundling, absence of incentives for economic dispatch through appropriate market signals, and exposing consumers to market signals. However, examples of complete implementation of these elements of the standard model exist mainly in the developed world. And some authors argue that the model prevalent in developing countries should be recognized in their own right, calling the model a ‘hybrid power market’.
This article examines both the premise and prescription of the argument to integrate renewable electricity in developing countries through elements of the standard model (such as a wholesale spot market, or an independent system operator for dispatch). This is done by highlighting the differences between power sector reform experiences in the developing and developed worlds, and the causal mechanisms underlying these differences. The causal mechanisms are viewed through two disciplinary lenses – neo-classical economics and political economy. Two brief case studies of India and China are presented to elucidate the challenges they face in implementing reform measures to integrate renewables. Based on the causal mechanisms and contextual conditions identified, considerations are proposed for designing institutions to integrate renewables in developing countries.
The findings suggest that cost-recovery issues and distributional imperatives need to be addressed in order to implement markets or other institutions that can enable greater integration of renewables. The article presents four ‘design considerations’, framed in terms of desired futures and possible constraints, which relate cost-recovery and distributional considerations to the implementation of unbundling, economic dispatch, or wholesale price signals.
Apr 17, 2021
State policies shape firms’ incentives to lobby in the United States, but the existing lobbying literature mostly ignores these incentives. Using lobbying records for all electric utilities in the United States from 1998 to 2012, we examine how state policies affect federal lobbying by both proponents and opponents of federal support for the renewable energy policy. Our theory predicts that supportive state policies reduce the returns to lobbying by both proponents and opponents. Empirically, we show that when the federal production tax credit for renewable energy is about to expire, electric utilities from states without renewable portfolio standards become more likely to lobby than those from states with these policies. Because the timing of the expiration of the production tax credit is quasi-random, these findings carry a causal interpretation. Using text analysis techniques, we also show that the lobbying efforts are focused on energy and environmental issues while lobbying on unrelated topics remains unaffected.
