sustainability transitions in the global south: some ideas from india susannah fisher, department of...
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Sustainability transitions in the global South:
some ideas from India
Susannah Fisher, Department of Geography
Summary argument
The ideal of sustainability has a long history in the global South
Divergent ideals of sustainability
Risks leaving behind those most in need of this agenda
Concept must be contested locally to gain saliency: social as well as environmental
Outline
The idea of the sustainability transition
One area of transition: Energy
Two examples- Rural voices- Urban energy policies
Not a new idea
Long history of sustainability ideals
Gandhian ideal of rural villages
Spiritual ecology / Political ecology
Local struggles
Livelihood struggles: Narmada Bachao Andolan, Chipko movement
Often framed as bharati sanskriti versus science and technology
Hinduism and sustainability
Hindu’s are noted for their respect and consideration of the natural world…if for some reason these noble values are displaced by other beliefs which are either thrust on the society or transplanted from another culture by invasions, then the faith of the masses in the early cultural tradition is shaken (Dwivedi and Twivedi 1999 p170; p183).
Although links with Hindutva (Mawdsley 2006) and disjunct from practices (Alley 2002)
Added concepts
Concern with technology
Urban issues: wildlife conservation, urban aesthetics
Linking to international concerns of climate change, biodiversity, energy security
Who is participating?
Urban elites
Grassroots movements
International donors
National policy frameworks
Quote: environmentalist
I am fully convinced that India, despite its huge population, could easily become a country of milk and honey for all. But whether to should or will ever become a country of Hondas and IBM devices for all – that I don’t know (Agarwal 1999 p36).
What is the end point?
Contested discourse
Long-standing debate over relationship between society and nature
Grassroot framings of Gandhian ideals
Elite framings of ecological modernisation
Outline
The idea of the sustainability transition
One area of transition: Energy
Two examples- Rural voices- Urban energy policies
Energy transition
Energy security / rural electrification
Sustainability of existing systems
Don’t need to be in conflict
Depends on ultimate goal: electrification or sustainability
State-led transition
National Missions on Solar and Energy Efficiencies
Policy frameworks to support investment in wind, solar etc
Obligations on States
National Rural Energy Policy
Grassroot initiatives
Networks of solar entrepreneurs
Off-grid solutions
NGO-led cluster approach to remote areas: mini-hydro
What do people want?
Biomass / black carbon
Major source of energy
Local environmental / social / health problems
Possible strategies for alleviation: LPG connections, subsidised kerosene
Adaptive capacity?
Tensions
Existing infrastructure v new development
Rural or urban visions
Local versus global sustainability
Social or environmental
Outline
The idea of the sustainability transition
The areas of transition: Energy
Two examples- Rural voices- Urban energy policies
Example 1: local ‘sustainable’ voices
Set of climate hearings
Sustainability across scales
NGO networks
Local and global sustainability?
Local messages then translated into outputs
Dominant framings: “climate positive lifestyles”, “resiliency” and “local agency”
“well meaning indigineous rights activists and their middle-class ideas may be shrinking the spaces from which a truly radical politics will
emerge” (Shah 2010 p190)
Urban transition
Solar Cities, urban development plans, international agencies
Technicalist discourse of transition
Not all infrastructure in place to be transitioned
Development before transition?
Understandings amongst the engineers
Understandings of the ‘climate friendly’ city based on making GHG emissions from municipal infrastructure visible
Focus on municipal energy systems
Leaves out other aspects of a sustainable transition
Technical sustainability
Li (2007)
“questions that are rendered technical are simultaneously rendered apolitical”
Avoids key questions of trade-offs, compromises and political decisions
Lack of local saliency
Highly technical projects with little discursive power
Project deadlines and targets
Fulfilling project targets, and performance of local governance activities
Who bears the local cost?
Baviskar (2010): Commonwealth Games and spectacular events
Ghertner (2010): asthetic governmentality of the world city
Does the ‘new sustainability’ risk becoming accreted to this aesthetics agenda?
Two examples: local responses
Sustainable transition essentially political Apolitical risks attachment to other political
agendas Trade-offs must be made Contestation must be allowed to develop the
concept of multiple sustainabilities
“practice of politics” (Li 2007)
Conclusions The transition is a contested idea occurring at
multiple scales with a long history
Accreting local struggles to international discourses can dilute local saliency
Fear of conflicting with development
Positive spin of “sustainability” can hide local contests and trade offs