Research on Governing Energy Transitions at the University of Stavanger
Author: UiS transition
This website features research activities on Governing Energy Transitions at the University of Stavanger, including the GET-together seminars. It is hosted by the Energy Environment and Society research group and the Master in Energy Environment and Society at the Department of Media and Social Sciences.
The Sustainability Transformation programme area is happy to invite you to a GET-together lunch seminars during 11:00-12:00 on Monday, 15 April by Yann Robiou du Pont. The seminar takes place at Ellen and Axel Lunds Hus EAL-H007.
How to assess the fairness and ambition of climate pledges of countries, cities and businesses under the Paris Agreement?
The Paris Agreement requires all countries to pledge emissions reductions of the highest possible ambition and that reflect its equity principle. How can we translate equity principles accounting for countries’ historical responsibilities and financial capabilities into an ambition assessment of their pledges? Which countries should be contributing more to emissions reduction and international financial support?
Beyond countries, what can be expected or required of cities and private entities in the transition?
Here we will see how scientific studies can help assess which countries and non-state actors are falling short of doing their share of the Paris Agreement and how they can be brought to do more through diplomatic pressure, regulations and court cases.
Bio
Yann is a Fulbright and Marie Curie researcher at Utrecht University where he quantifies the fairness and adequacy of various actors’ contributions to the climate transition. He addresses the question of what are fair emissions reductions and financial contributions from businesses, national and subnational actors to align with the Paris Agreement mitigation goals.
His work is published in high-level journals (Science, Nature Climate Changes etc.) and informs governmental emissions targets (including the UK), international negotiations at COPs and court cases against governments.
Aside from academia, Yann has worked with diplomats from the EU and 58 vulnerable countries in their campaign on climate justice, written scientific reports for courts in several climate litigation cases against countries and an oil company, including before the European Court of Human Rights.
The Sustainability Transformation programme area is happy to invite you to three GET-together lunch seminars on 9-10 April by three senior scholars. All seminars take place at Elise Ottesen-Jensens Hus EOJ-376 (and EOJ-377).
On Tuesday, 9 April, during 11:00-13:00, we will have a double bill, with Professor Kjetil Rommetveit starting with a talk (11:00-11:30) followed by questions and discussion (11:30-11:45) and a catered lunch (11:45-12:15), and then Professor Håvard Haarstad with a talk (12:15-12:45) followed by questions and discussion (12:45-13:00).
Expertise and democracy in the making of digital collective futures
Kjetil Rommetveit
In this talk I will focus on the role of visions and scenarios in policy making, and some ways in which they fail and succeed. I will describe some main strategic initiatives that have been central to the making of digital strategies for Europe, and that mobilised scenarios, visions and digital imaginaries for the sake of future growth and prosperity. I will discuss the role of expertise in the making of futures, and some related democratic challenges, including resistance to ‘rule by experts’. This includes questions relating to futures-making such as: who participates and who is left out, and increasing levels of distrust as enhanced and mediated through digital technologies. And, it includes situations where citizens and users do not want to live in the worlds envisioned and created by experts, innovators and policy makers.
Kjetil Rommetveit (Professor in Science, Technology and Society, Centre for the study of the sciences and humanities, University of Bergen) has a background in philosophy, law and science and technology studies. His main research interests are in governance and politics of technoscience, and in the overall evolution of the knowledge society and modernity (into conditions that can be called non-modern). He has studied interrelations of politics, governance and technoscience in domains ranging from biomedicine (genomics), over security (biometrics, surveillance and privacy) to energy transition and climate policies. Over the last years, his research especially focused on efforts to bring, social and biological reality into digital mediation and datafication (such as Internet of Things, smart electricity, smart technologies and AI).
Populist resistance to sustainable transitions
Håvard Haarstad
What do we make of all the resistance to sustainability transitions and green policies? There are episodes of this resistance in Norway, Europe and the rest of the world, from toll roads protests, to yellow vests and the ‘greenlash’ in the EU. I have argued that we, as researchers, have not taken the potential for this backlash properly into account in our theories. Maybe we are even partly to blame for what is happening? In this talk, I will discuss some of the ongoing trends, how we should adjust our theoretical perspectives, and what can be done to overcome populist resistance to sustainable transitions.
Håvard Haarstad is professor of human geography, and director for the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) at the University of Bergen. He is the external member of the board at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger.
On Wednesday 10 April, we will have catered lunch during 11:00-11:15, with a talk by Professor Adrian Smith during 11:15-11:45 followed by questions and discussion until 12:00, also based in EOJ-376.
Post-automation
Adrian Smith
Tremendous research, policy, and investment is directed towards a new wave of automation in modern societies. Most notable within policy commitments to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but also in radical ideas for Fully Automated Luxury Communism, it seems automation is essential to the future. Advocates claim automation will renew capital accumulation, boost labour productivity, and extend managerial control in sustainable systems of production and consumption. Noting criticism about a problematic and misconceived ‘future essentialism’ in this automation advocacy, this seminar will turn to innovations in the industrious spaces existing on the margins of industrial societies and in the undercurrents of the automation wave. Here people are hacking, subverting and appropriating ostensibly automating technologies for purposes of creativity, collaboration, and care. Social capabilities in ‘post-automation’ are being cultivated; ‘post-‘ in the sense that technology development amongst these groups challenges the foundations of accumulation, productivity and control that drive automation. We will look at examples from makerspaces, citizen sensing, repair culture, decolonising technology, and platform co-operativism. Contrary to the essentialism of its advocates, there appears to be nothing automatic about automation. In paying greater attention to post-automation, maybe greater democratic deliberation can be opened up for more democratic and sustainable deliberations about our shared technological futures?
Adrian Smith is Professorial Research Fellow in Technology and Society at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at Sussex University. Most of his research considers the politics and governance of innovation for sustainability and involves collaborations with researchers and practitioners in Europe and Latin America. He is particularly interested in alternative technology initiatives that emerge in civil society settings (for example, see the bookGrassroots Innovation Movements). You can read more about post-automation in the articlehere.
The Sustainability Transformation programme area is pleased to host a Governing Energy Transitions (GET-)together seminar by Raúl Castano De la Rosa. The seminar is held in auditorium H-007 of Ellen and Axel Lunds hus (EAL H-007) during 11:00-12:00 on Monday, 15 January 2024.
How to promote resilience in the built environment to multiple crises
An increasing number of unexpected crises and disruptions have emerged (e.g., wars, pandemic, extreme heatwaves, heavy flooding, and forest fires around the world) since the 90s. The way the built environment is designed, and transformed, plays an important role in both mitigating and adapting to simultaneous crises and disruptions. This talk illustrates how to implement key principles (greenery, diverse and adaptable, social, and inclusive and equitable infrastructures) to promote resilient built environment design and transformation. In the end, the built environment needs to be adaptable, diverse, inclusive, and co-produced with inhabitants, where green and social infrastructures are prioritized to promote resilience and well-being.
Raúl Castano De la Rosa (https://www.tuni.fi/en/raul-castanodelarosa) is a postdoctoral researcher and Co-chair of research group ASUTUT-Sustainable Housing Design at Tampere University, Faculty of Built Environment. Furthermore, he is Research Field Coordinator of the Resilient Communities of Practices at the ECIU University. Raúl has been working on the topic of energy poverty and energy vulnerability in residential building for the last 10 years, and currently his research interest includes understanding how to design and transform a more sustainable, affordable and resilient built environment without leaving anyone behind.
The Sustainability Transformation programme area is proud to host the Stavanger book launch of Marketization by Ian Greer (Cornell University) and Charles Umney (University of Leeds).
During 13:00-14:30 in Elise Ottesen Jensens Hus 376 (EOJ-376), the authors will join us in person to present and discuss their new Bloomsbury book about marketisation, neoliberalism, democracy and justice.
Read the publisher’s blurb about their new book:
How do markets function? Who creates, shapes and organizes them? And what do they mean for the relationship between labor and capital?
Marketization examines how the state and capital use markets to discipline the working class. Ian Greer and Charles Umney provide a comprehensive overview of the European political economy, from the European Commission to the workplace, to show how neoliberal principles translate into market mechanisms and reshape the lives of workers.
Drawing on dozens of conversations with policymakers, administrators, businesses, workers, and trade unionists across many European countries, Greer and Umney unpack marketization. They go beyond liberal theories that see markets as natural forms of economic organization and broad-brush left critiques of neoliberalism, looking behind the scenes in the current European political economy to examine the practicalities of how markets are created and manipulated by employers, policymakers and bureaucrats in pursuit of greater profitability. Far from leading to greater freedom, these processes often override the rights of individuals, degrade the status and security of workers, and undermine democratic accountability.
Governing Energy Transitions - University of Stavanger 