Sep 16, 2019
Provision of energy for irrigation in a sustainable manner has become critical to the global food and livelihood security, particularly in the context of increasing fresh water scarcity and the risks associated with climate change. In this context, solar irrigation pumps (SIPs) have emerged as a promising alternative to diesel and electricity powered pump sets, particularly in developing countries. But, in view of the fiscal, environmental and socio-economic fallouts of past irrigation strategies, how can it be ensured that SIPs are deployed in a sustainable manner?
Based on a detailed literature review and semi-structured interviews of key stakeholders, we identify and discuss 14 factors, which would determine whether the use of SIPs in a given context is economically viable, socially acceptable and environmental sustainable. Drawing from the best practices and experiences in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, we also put forward key recommendations to incorporate sustainability concerns in the policies and programmes for SIPs deployment.
Sep 16, 2019
Fossil fuel subsidies strain public budgets, and contribute to climate change and local air pollution. Despite widespread agreement among experts about the benefits of reforming fossil fuel subsidies, repeated international commitments to eliminate them, and valiant efforts by some countries to reform them, they continue to persist. This book helps explain this conundrum, by exploring the politics of fossil fuel subsidies and their reform. Bringing together scholars and practitioners, the book offers new case studies both from countries that have undertaken subsidy reform, and those that have yet to do so. It explores the roles of various intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions in promoting fossil fuel subsidy reform at the international level, as well as conceptual aspects of fossil fuel subsidies. This is essential reading for researchers and practitioners, and students of political science, international relations, law, public policy, and environmental studies.
Sep 16, 2019
Climate change mitigation relies increasingly on clean technologies such as renewable energy. Despite widespread success, further deployment of renewables has been met with resistance from voters and governments in several countries. How resilient is the renewable energy industry to adverse political events? I use the unexpected election of Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential race to study this question. As a vocal critic of renewables and a supporter of fossil fuels, his election is a plausible negative shock to the renewable energy sector. I examine stock market data to gauge the reaction of investors. I find that renewable energy stocks were adversely affected by the election. Overall, they experienced a cumulative abnormal loss in share values of about 6% on average over the twenty days that followed the election. However, I find that the negative effect is concentrated among non-U.S. firms. U.S. firms, on average, emerged unscathed. Non-U.S. companies, on the other hand, lost over 14% of their value in the aftermath of the election. This suggests that markets are more concerned by increasing obstacles to international business than a decrease of federal support for renewables.
Sep 16, 2019
Governments apply a range of policy instruments to promote the electrification of personal transport using technologies such as Plug-in Hybrid, Battery Electric, and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles. We introduce a framework for comparing public policies cross-nationally used to support the research, development, and deployment of electric vehicles. We use this framework to identify whether governments are using similar policy instruments to promote vehicle electrification in the period 2006-2016. We also examine the extent to which policy instruments are neutral across technologies, presenting country case studies for China, the United States, Japan, and, within the regulatory framework of the European Union, Germany, and France. We find that governments have largely adopted technology neutral policies and are employing similar policy mixes in promoting vehicle electrification, despite differences in governing institutions between the countries examined. We conclude by suggesting a future research agenda, including identifying plausible explanations for this outcome.
Sep 16, 2019
The term “global South” refers to developing countries as a whole, but recently, numerous developing countries — Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Thailand, South Africa, and others — simultaneously grew wealthier while many other countries remain poor. This prompts a fundamental question: does the global South demonstrate unity in international politics, with developing countries at various wealth levels behaving like one another, and in ways unlike the industrialized “North”? Or is the global South fractured, too economically and politically diverse to operate in tandem? Theoretical expectations are mixed, and the empirical record is inconclusive. To adjudicate, we pinpoint a stringent set of observable implications that should hold if the developing world is to be considered at all unified vis-a-vis the industrialized world. Then we probe those implications with statistical analyses of over 3,600 paragraphs of text from governments’ negotiations concerning trade and environmental policy, a policy space that facilitates generalizability by representing fundamental sovereignty and wealth issues underlying traditional North-South frictions. Our finding — that overall, developing countries exhibit surprising unity — weighs in on central theoretical and policy debates in international relations, comparative politics, and political economy.
