Climate Emergency! Energy Crisis! A symposium on responsibility, inclusion and place-based action

The symposium is an opportunity for comparative discussions on ongoing research and engagement between researchers, practitioners and policy makers. It is organised in three main sections: case studies on current or recent research; PhD research papers; and policy-engagement.

Registration

Registration is now closed.

Symposium theme

Climate change and responses to it, including the pressure for an energy transition, are increasingly being framed in terms of ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’. In these terms, there are clearly multiple emergencies at play that may occlude one another, drive one another in particular directions or serve to conceal the current pressure on nature. What are the consequences of this framing, and does it shape the responses available for action? The symposium raises questions around who defines emergencies, who adopts or is ascribed responsibility, and what kinds of responsibility are in place? It asks what is licensed by defining a situation in crisis-terms, and whether this framing includes or excludes particular actors or interests, for example, are there gendered or intersectional identity effects? What is the role of indigeneity in calling, framing or acting in emergency mode? What are its chronopolitics – an emphasis on rapid or large scale action, for example, or increasing disjuncture between high-political discourse, local governance and everyday life? How do responses address potential conflicts between national and international perspectives or the trans-national nature of energy systems? And what are the links between emergency and security – the role of uncertainty or discussions about securitisation?  

We invite policy makers, scholars, students, practitioners and organisations to join us and reflect on these issues during the symposium. 

Case studies on emergency and socially inclusive responses

This section will be divided in three themes: A social and political energy transition; Consumption, mobilities and the built environment; and Governance, innovation and community involvement. We have invited experts in their fields to give presentations on emergency, crisis, responsibility, justice, inclusion and/or place-based action, concerns that fall within the scope of the Include research centre: how to achieve a socially inclusive and just transition to a low carbon and environmentally friendly society. Empirically, the Include research centre focuses on Norway and the UK, but we will also get presentations on research conducted in other parts of the world.

Programme

Presenters and abstracts

Keynote Day 1

Ben Anderson: The logic of emergency in crisis times: Exception, urgency, interval, hope

Abstract

The talk will address the specificity of ‘emergency’ as a way of encountering events and rendering them governable, in comparison to disaster, accident, incident, catastrophe and crisis. Understanding emergency as a distinct imaginative and affective ‘genre’ which exceeds the ‘state of emergency’ as political-legal technique, the paper argues that the specificity of ‘emergency’ is found in four features: felt, imagined and material exceptionality, the affect of urgency which makes prospective harm or damage or loss affectively present, the opening up of a time limited interval for action, and the continued hope that action can make a difference and foreclose loss. I conclude by reflecting on the politics of emergency at a time when emergency is being increasingly deployed beyond state actors.   

Ben Anderson, Durham University

Professor Ben Anderson is a cultural-political geographer at Durham University, UK. His work research conceptualises ordinary affective life, and examines the politics of affect in relation to emergency governance and crisis, Brexit and the rise of populisms of the left and right, and other contemporary conditions. His 2014 book – Encountering Affect: Capacities, Apparatuses, Conditions (Routledge)– set out a theory of how affective life is organised and mediated. He is currently working on a geo-history of boredom and changes in capitalism since the 1970s, using boredom as a way into thinking about the politics of eventfulness in political times often described and critiqued as intensely turbulent.  

Affect and critique: A politics of boredom* - Ben Anderson, 2021 (sagepub.com) 

Throughout his empirical work, he is concerned with how futures are encountered, related to, and made present through ordinary affects, including hope and boredom. This includes extensive research on how events and conditions are governed through ‘emergency’, drawing out the specificity of emergency in the context of the other genres through which we come to feel, know and render actionable events, for example disaster, crisis, catastrophe, accident, and incident.

Panel debate: What is an emergency? What makes an inclusive response?

PANELISTS:

Susanne Normann

See Susanne's profile page at Nordland Research Institute.

Anders Tønnesen

See Anders' profile page at CICERO Center for International Climate Research.

Helen Stockton

Research Manager
Policy and Advocacy Directorate, National Energy Action

Helen has 20 years of applied social research experience spanning the quantitative and qualitative paradigms and holds a BSc (Hons) in Sociology and Social Research; an MSc in Social Research; and MSc in Public Administration covering aspects of social policy development and analysis and public sector management. Helen manages the Research Team at NEA and supports NEA to be the expert voice on fuel poverty through high-quality research and policy analysis. Her areas of research interest include social policy and issues relating to poverty, energy and social justice. She is enthusiastic about exploring new methodological approaches for researching fuel poverty and the ways that knowledge can be better brokered between academia and those working in policy and practice. Helen also sits on the Advisory Board of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University.

• Moderator: Kirsten Jenkins, University of Edinburgh

Case studies 1: A social and political energy transition

Green industry geographies

Presenter: Kendra Dupuy,  Fridtjof Nansen Institute

Authors: Kendra Dupuy and Mari Lie Larsen, Fridtjof Nansen Institute 

Abstract

What determines the location of green energy projects? Many countries are now investing heavily in projects that produce components designed to reduce emissions and decarbonize society, such as the production of batteries and green hydrogen, and the establishment of data centers. Efforts are also afoot to reduce emissions from existing industrial projects, such as electrification of offshore oil platforms. These types of “green industry projects” are energy intensive. We investigate the extent to which the geospatial distribution of electricity supply determines the location of green energy projects.

A prerequisite for the successful development and operation of green industry projects is access to a reliable supply of electricity generated from renewable energy sources, and at competitive prices. This means that access to electricity tied to geographical location can become an important competitive advantage in the low carbon transition, and, vice versa, it can also mean significant disadvantages for some regions over others. This sub-project will investigate the relationship between existing electricity supply and price and the development of green industry projects over time and space in Norway.

Scholarship on the location determinants of firms and industry, and on the location determinants of foreign direct investment, emphasizes that factors such as local education levels, community attitudes towards industry, presence of financial institutions, and taxes are important influences shaping firm decisions about where within a country to locate their operations. Few studies have examined the importance of energy supply for the location and performance of green energy firm and projects (for exceptions, see Chauvet et al 2018; Geginat and Ramalho 2018; Poczter 2017; Panhans et al 2017), and there is a lack of academic literature on the importance and fairness concerning of energy supply for the location of green energy projects.

Kendra Dupuy is a political economist with a PhD in political science from the University of Washington (Seattle). Her research interests revolve around environment, energy, and natural resource management as well as the determinants and effects of climate policies. She is involved in research projects on energy transitions in petroleum producing countries, contentious environmental and energy politics, energy justice, climate finance governance, good governance in energy and natural resource management, shifting resource rights, private and voluntary governance, public opinion on climate change and environmental policies, and green industrialization.

Local governance and policy needs for smart, flexible energy systems

Presenter: Jess Britton, University of Edinburgh

Abstract

Many of the social, technical, and economic changes necessary to decarbonise society will be configured and delivered locally and have the potential to amplify existing inequalities and create new injustices, if not actively managed and understood. For energy systems, in particular, increasing attention on the decarbonisation of heating and transport, as well as the role of storage and demand-side flexibility, has led to renewed emphasis on place-based energy transitions.

In Great Britain these developments are being translated as a need for more ‘local energy systems’, with various emphasis put on technical, economic and social benefits at both the local and whole system level. This presentation will trace the development of the local energy systems agenda, exploring what it might mean, for whom, and how conceptions differ across the devolved nations of Great Britain, as well as between places and communities. The discussion will draw upon two research projects. The first assessed the policy mixes and institutional frameworks for local energy systems across England, Scotland and Wales, and the second explored the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on just transitions in cities. Duel themes of experimentation and strategic planning are evident, with implications for the integration of justice and social inclusion. The findings of both projects demonstrate the increasing intertwining of scalar politics and decarbonisation, and provide insight into how emergency framings can both accelerate and constrain action at the local level.

Currently the local governance of energy transition in Great Britain is focussed on networked and experimental modes of governance. Whilst framed as rapid and responsive to local needs, the scope for these approaches to deliver is currently constrained by an absence of vertical governance structures which limits the self-organising properties required to deliver rapid change in urban energy systems. 
 

Jess Britton

Jess is a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her work focusses on low carbon and just transitions in cities and regions. Her current research, as part of the UK Energy Research Centre, is focussed on understanding the local governance and policy needs for smart, flexible energy systems. This incorporates research on interactions between decentralised energy systems and political devolution, and well as the role of local governments and new business models. Previously she held an ESRC fellowship on ‘Re-scaling governance for decarbonisation: co-ordinating decentralised energy systems’ and worked on the EPRSC project IGov (Innovation and Governance for future energy systems) at the University of Exeter. She was a contributing author to the IPCC AR6 WGIII report, Chapter 13: National and Sub-national Policies and Institutions. She also researches gender and diversity within the energy industry and the research community.

A social and political energy transition

Presenter: Tor Håkon Jackson Inderberg, Fridtjof Nansen Institute

Tor Håkon Jackson Inderberg

See Tor Håkon's profile page at Fridtjof Nansen Institute.

Case studies 2: Consumption, mobilities and the built environment

Negotiating sustainable consumption in everyday life

Presenter: Arve Hansen, University of Oslo (digitally)

Arve Hansen and Ulrikke Wethal, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo 

Abstract

Practice theoretical approaches, now dominant in the sociology of consumption, have demonstrated how unsustainable consumption patterns are created through the upwards spiraling amount of goods included in ‘normal’ lives (Shove, 2003). Such approaches have effectively unveiled the ways in which consumption is socially and patterned and habituated (Warde, 2017), and co-shaped by infrastructures and governance (Shove and Trentmann 2018; Rinkinen et al. 2021). However, practice-theoretical consumption theory has been criticized for over-emphasizing social patterns of everyday life at the cost of both the agency of reflexive consumers and larger systemic aspects and co-drivers of consumption (Welch et al 2020). This paper seeks to address such gaps, by analyzing the ways in which self-declared environmentally conscious households in Oslo (n20) perform and negotiate (un)sustainable consumption in everyday life.

In doing so, we first build on what Ortner (2006) has conceptualized as individual ‘projects’, which are shaped by the society in which they take place, but leave room for agency as a form of intention, desire, and pursuit of goals. Hence, we acknowledge that the reflexivity of individual consumers matters, and especially in ‘contested’ forms of consumption (Keller and Halkier 2014; Gram-Hanssen 2021). Second, we explore how political economy impacts and shapes consumption patterns by combining practice theory with a deeper engagement with systems of provision thinking than what tends to be the case in contemporary consumption research, rooted in the idea that understanding consumption requires understanding capitalism (Fine 2002). Our findings shed light on how different households define and materialise projects of sustainability in everyday life, and the ways in which these projects are continuously co-shaped by household negotiations, social relations, infrastructural arrangements and broader political-economic arrangements.

Arve Hansen

See Arve's profile page at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo.

Researching socio-spatial inclusiveness of urban densification strategies – using spatial capital as a theoretical conceptualisation

Presenter: Marieke van der Star, University of Oslo

Abstract 

To combat environmental problems and to regulate urban sprawl, low carbon policies are focusing on compact cities, where residents live in higher densities to counter automobile dependency. One of these policies is the densification around public transport hubs and multifunctional urban centres, to promote sustainable mobility practices (i.e. walking, cycling and public transport ridership). Together with an increasing trend of people moving towards (central parts of) the city, this enhances the attractiveness of urban areas and increases housing prices especially in the centrally located and highly accessible parts of city regions, potentially leading to processes of gentrification.

Such spaces have become a scarce ‘good’. An increasingly relevant question is whether these developments are socially inclusive, and what kind of socio-spatial consequences this has for the diversity of socio-economic groups living in urban spaces. In this paper I explore how the concept of spatial capital (Rérat 2018; 2011), which refers to the mastery or command of spatial aspects of life (inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s theories on capital), may be applied to develop a research design and to study socio-spatial accessibility and inequality in city regions, resulting from compact city and transit-oriented strategies. How may questions about socio-spatial inequalities and justice be addressed through the concept of spatial capital, and how may this conceptualization be operationalized and applied in empirical research.

Rérat, P. (2018). Spatial capital and planetary gentrification: residential location, mobility and social inequalities. Handbook of Gentrification Studies. Edward Elgar Publishing. 

Rérat, P. & Lees, L. (2011). Spatial capital, gentrification and mobility: evidence from Swiss core cities. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 36(1), 126–142. 

Marieke van der Star is a PhD student at the University of Oslo at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography. Her PhD project focuses on the inclusiveness and socio-spatial consequences of urban (sustainable) planning strategies. She is an urban geographer and holds a master’s degree in urban studies from the University of Amsterdam.

Decarbonising and Securing Households Under Climate Threat: What Tools, and Whose Futures?

Presenter:Sarah Knuth, Durham University

sarah.e.knuth@durham.ac.uk

Abstract

A key intellectual task in forging more just and inclusive decarbonisation pathways is exploring fast-evolving energy and climate resilience strategies together. In at-risk cities and built environments, these interventions will meaningfully unfold in the same landscapes, in complex relation with each other and with preexisting drivers of political economic transformation, precarity and injustice, frequently deeply racialised. In this paper, I investigate and theorise the emergence of ‘climate proofing’ as a widely proposed solution to securing housing values—and urban property tax bases and governing capacities—against climate-related devaluation.

These interventions are targeted at the household level and can feature major corporate ‘partners’ such as SunRun and Tesla. They seek to grow distributed energy resources (DERs) such as energy efficiency, rooftop solar and microgrids, sometimes alongside measures like ‘hurricane hardening’ and wildfire risk reduction. For households that can access/afford them, these retrofits and novel financing mechanisms like property assessed clean energy (PACE) simultaneously promise decarbonisation and improved adaptive capacity against climate threats.

In this new work, I am following consumer and racial justice debates growing as climate-proofing is implemented in high climate risk US cities in California, Texas and Florida. This inquiry poses field-crucial questions around new patterns of racialised financial exclusion in the energy-climate space, risky ‘inclusion’ via under-regulated instruments like PACE and deeper questions around racialised investments in property—as well as alternative pathways to self-determination for frontline climate/environmental justice communities. 

Sarah Knuth is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Durham University, United Kingdom. Her research critically investigates how global climate change and its responses intersect with preexisting drivers of precarity, inequality, and injustice. A particular focus is how new forms of financial speculation, extraction, and self-protection are unfolding within fast-changing energy systems and urban economies, and with what implications for frontline communities. Another priority is identifying openings for more just climate futures and pathways to self-determination.

Case studies 3: Governance, innovation and community involvement

Why support energy research on social inclusion and public resistance

Presenter: Cristina Mihai, Research Council of Norway

Cristina Mihai
Adviser
Department for Energy research
Research Council of Norway

Understanding climate policies in rural settings  A case study of land-use policy in four Norwegian Municipalities

Presenter: Anders Tønnesen, CICERO Center for International Climate Research

Anders Tønnesen - CICERO; Monica Guillen-Royo – CICERO; Sindre Cottis Hoff, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo

Abstract

Over the last three decades there has been an international recognition of the important role of local governments in climate policy (van der Heijden et al. 2019). In this  regard, limiting emissions through cautious land-use policy is crucial. This relates both to the close connections between land-use and use of energy for transport and to  how land-use management influences the ability of nature to absorb and store CO2. However, while much research has been conducted to understand barriers and opportunities for climate-friendly land use in populated municipalities, studies  of municipalities with small populations are rare. This paper presents in-depth studies of four Norwegian municipalities; Sigdal, Flakstad, Frøya and Åfjord, with populations between 1200 and 5200. 40% of Norway’s municipalities are in this range. To reach national climate goals it is therefore essential to understand climate policy in such settings. We ask: What are the barriers and opportunities for implementing climate-friendly land-use policy in small municipalities?

In line with Bulkeley and Newell (2015) and Bulkeley et al. (2022) we emphasise the need ofunderstanding how some elements become assembled in climate governance terms whilst others do not. Empirically, we therefore highlight how land-use policy is entangled in the management of local economies. We also make use of the social-justice framework (Jenkins et al. 2017; Sheller 2018; Perrin and Nougaredes 2020) to understand local policymaking. Central in this regard is locally perceived justice implications of both small municipalities serving needs of the society at large (in Norwegian ‘Storsamfunnet’) and from other levels of government involving in local land-use policy.

References

Bulkeley, H., and Newell, P.J. (2015) Governing climate change. Oxon: Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Group

Bulkeley, H., Stripple, J., Nilsson, L., Van Veelen, B., Kalfagianni, A., Bauer, F., & Van Sluisveld, M. (2022). Decarbonising Economies (Elements in Earth System Governance). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jenkins, K., MCauleyb, D & Formanc, A (2018). Energy justice: A policy approach, Energy Policy, V 105, p. 631-634

Perrin, C., and Nougarèdes, B. (2020) An analytical framework to consider social justice issues in farmland preservation on the urban fringe. Insights from three French cases. Journal of Rural Studies.

Sheller, M 2018. Mobility Justice. The Politics of Movement in An Age of Extremes. Verso Books.

van der Heijden, J., Bulkeley, H., Certomà (2019) Promises and Concerns of the Urban Century: Increasing Agency and Contested Empowerment. In van der Heijden, J., Bulkeley, H., Certomà (Eds.) Urban Climate Politics: Agency and Empowerment (pp 1-20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Anders Tønnesen

See Anders' profile page at CICERO Center for International Climate Research.

Westminster Notions and North-Eastern Realities: Imagining Decarbonised Automobility in Post-Coalonial County Durham 

Presenter: Chima Michael Anyadike-Danes, Durham University

Abstract

The United Kingdom was slow to develop automobile infrastructure when compared to countries like France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. The nation had no motorways until 1958 when the Preston By-pass was opened. Despite this initial disadvantage, by the 1960s the car had risen to become the United Kingdom’s dominant form of transportation. Its dominance gave rise to British motoring culture, shaped the built environment, and exerted an influence on the nation’s artistic output. The car’s continuing supremacy is reflected in the more than thirty million private automobiles on the country’s roads, with the overwhelming majority of these have internal combustion engines. Decarbonising private transportation is thus essential if the nation is to meet the targets that it has set itself as part of the Paris Climate Agreement.

But what sort of transportation futures and solutions are being imagined in the United Kingdom? For the past decade, the Conservative Party have led the country, either in coalition or by themselves. The party’s vision for the nation’s automotive future has centred in the near-term on plug-in electric vehicles. These, it is imagined, will be charged at their owners’ houses. In this presentation I contrast this Conservative government vision for the United Kingdom’s private transportation with an alternative vision that addresses the specific circumstances of post-coalonial County Durham. In doing so I draw upon fieldwork that I conducted with the Durham County Council’s Low Carbon Economy team and their networks. Informed by Sheila Jasanoff and Sang-Hyun Kim’s concept of socio-technical imaginaries I examine the values that inform these differing national and local visions for the future of the automobile.

Dr Chima Michael Anyadike-Danes is a Cultural Anthropologist who received his PhD from the University of California, Irvine in 2017. His current research interests concern the socio-cultural aspects of energy transitions and decarbonisation. He joined Durham University in 2020 to work with Professor Simone Abram and Dr Claire Dungey on an INCLUDE project. Over the course of a year Chima explored the efforts of Durham County Council to plan for inclusive post-carbon futures. Concurrently he worked with Simone and Miz Claire Copeland on a CESI funded project that examined local governments’ usage of energy modelling. Currently, Chima is co-authoring an ethnographic monograph based on the INCLUDE fieldwork while also researching East Durham’s post-coal communities as part of the GEMS project.

The role of local union representatives in just and sustainable transitions

Presenter: David Jordhus-Lier, University of Oslo

Abstract

The climate crisis has profound effects on the world of work. We are constantly reminded of this through media: Whose jobs are at risk in an energy transition? Can renewable energy systems provide decent work for the many? But transition processes affect us all at work in ways that are more mundane, but also more all-encompassing, than the prospects of job loss and job creation. As we all need to change our work practices, an important question is how we can have a say in climate action happening in the workplace.

This talk aims to concretise this “greening work” agenda by discussing local worker participation in decarbonisation processes can happen in municipalities. As municipalities are among the most significant employers in many local communities, the ability of the municipal organisation to include their employees in inclusive and participatory climate action has transformative potential. In concrete terms, this would entail opening up decision-making around emissions from building, travel activities, labour processes, investment, procurement and consumption for cooperation, participation or even negotiation with the employees of the municipal organization.

In Norway, several trade unions signalled their intent to broaden the scope of collective bargaining and industrial relations to include matters of energy consumption and emissions in the run-up to the 2020 centralised bargaining round. While the outbreak of covid-19 forced a postponement of these negotiations, the issues and the agenda will not go away. Moreover, municipal sector representatives on both sides of the table have strengthened a formulation in their Main Agreement (Hovedavtalen mellom KS og forhandlingspartene), explicitly stating that measures to strengthen the Sustainable Development Goals on climate sustainability should be included in the local collaboration between employers and employee representatives. What these written intentions mean in practice in each municipality remains an open question, however. 

Building on participation in dialogue meetings with representatives from unions and employer associations, the talk presents some experiences and suggests some potential ways forward in the Norwegian municipal sector. By drawing on parallel research in the Norwegian petroleum industry, some observations about the actual and potential roles of union shop stewards in “greening work” will serve as concluding remarks. 
 

David Jordhus-Lier

See David's profile page at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo

Keynote Day 2

Janet Stephenson: Culture and energy transitions

Abstract

Janet argues that the climate/energy emergency is a crisis of culture.  She unpacks culture’s multiple roles as cause, effect and response to the emergency.  Drawing from many studies, she discusses how culture operates at multiple scales and can both impede and drive transitions.  

Janet Stephenson

See Janet's profile page at the Centre for Sustainability, University of Otago

Electric vehicles policies

The electric vehicle scheme in Norway

Presenter: Lars Böcker, Institute of Transport Economics

Lars Böcker

See Lars' profile page at the Institute of Transport Economics.

Experiences with EV policies in Norway

Presenter: Unni Berge, The Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association

Unni Berge

Developing Electric Vehicle infrastructure in Local Authorities, the method and best practice in County Durham

Presenter: Tracy Millmore, Durham County Council

Tracy Millmore is the  Electric Vehicle project officer for Durham County Council. Tracy has worked within the local authority for 20 years on different areas providing council services. Since November 2019, she has been working on building the EV infrastructure around the Durham area and developing the inhouse depot infrastructure on the council's fleet vehicles.

Politics, participation, and polarisation

Presenter: Jamie Cross, University of Edinburgh

Musicians

Musicians Ian McMillan and Luke Carver Goss will spice up the first day of the symposium with musical interludes. By the end of the day, they will present a musical summary of the event (!).

Read more about the musicians (pdf).

Practical information

Venue

• The symposium will take place at the The Calman Learning Centre; room Kingsley Barrett at the 4th floor.
  See the location of Calman Learning Centre on Google Maps.

Accommodation

• We advise you to arrange accommodation early. Look for accommodation in Durham City.

Visiting Durham

Check out:

• Durham World Heritage Site
  The heritage site consists of Durham Cathedral, Durham Castle and the buildings located between. The castle, built 900 years ago, is now part of Durham University.
• Durham University's information site for visitors
• The Official Tourism Website for Durham

Questions?

• If you have trouble finding accommodation or other queries in relation to the practical arrangements, please contact: simone.abram@durham.ac.uk or lynn.gibson@durham.ac.uk.