Search results

In this paper, the international progress of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are reviewed. The content of Taiwan’s NAMAs and INDCs are also investigated, especially with reference to actions for the electricity sector. To better understand the greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction contribution from the electricity sector, this paper aims to examine challenges and solutions for implementing a carbon trading mechanism in Taiwan’s monopolistic electricity market under the newly passed Greenhouse Gases Emissions Reduction and Management Act (GHG ERMA).

Carbon reduction strategies for the electricity sector are discussed by examining and explaining Taiwan’s official documents and the law of GHG ERMA.

This study finds that market mechanisms should be utilized to allocate appropriate costs and incentives for GHG reductions to transform Taiwan into a low-carbon society.

This study identifies strategies for the electricity sector to reduce GHG emissions, especially the operation of a carbon-trading scheme under a non-liberalized electricity market.

Stakeholder consultation and participation are central to the climate change policymaking process. The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of stakeholder participation in the Ghana National Climate Change Policy. It examines the actors in the policy space and the negotiations and tradeoffs made during the policymaking process. Finally, it outlines the steps undertaken to make the process participatory and consultative.

A qualitative method has been used for this paper. The research design involves a review of relevant literature on Ghana’s climate change regime, meeting reports and key informant interviews.

The findings indicate that the processes the policy underwent had extensive stakeholder participation. An uptake of evidence was from existing impact and vulnerability assessments, the first and second communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), scientific and research documents and expert knowledge. Key actors were identified and involved right from the beginning of the policymaking process. Although stakeholder participation was time-consuming, expensive and elongated, the policy process was vital for buy-in and ownership. The results also identified the need to include more stakeholders at the sub-regional levels in policymaking.

The study is the first of its kind detailing stakeholder participation in the climate change policy process in Ghana. It forms a good basis for comparative studies with similar policies in other countries. Thus, this paper fills an identified gap of the need to document climate change policymaking processes.

This chapter provides an overview of how, from a multi-stakeholder approach, Brazil can recover, fight against climate change and build an inclusive and sustainable future for itself. The interdependencies of the climate change action and current COVID-19 pandemic are discussed through extensive secondary data research to provide an updated context on Brazilian initiatives or the lack thereof. Through a multi-stakeholder methodological approach, the response and recovery actions of Brazil's government are assessed and future scenarios are developed for the country.

Policy framework has significant roles in minimizing the impact of climate change in agrarian societies like Ethiopia. The purpose of this paper is to assess the integration of issues related to climate change adaptation into the national development planning of Ethiopia.

A qualitative research design, which depended on secondary and primary data sources, was used in this study. Data were collected from relevant documents. These were substantiated with field data gathered through key informant interviews and focus group discussions from participants identified using purposive sampling. Thematic analysis of the collected data was done by first considering the relevant documents and then comparing with the field data. During the analysis and interpretation, the results were combined to explain, confirm, refute and/or enrich the data obtained through document reviews and interviews.

The result of the study revealed that the general issues of environmental management have been included in the relevant documents (national plans). However, the documents do not explicitly identify climate change adaptation strategies and options that can alleviate the current impacts and the projected negative impacts associated with climate change. In fact, some documents were found to be characterized by numerous gaps. For example, the environmental policy of Ethiopia does not address climate trading, climate resilient green economy and recent development. The result from interviews shows that the constitution of the country lacks sufficiently addressing climate change adaptation. The result obtained from focus group discussion with informants indicated that the environmental policy of the country is shallow and suffers from showing clear direction regarding integration. The informants indicate that though there is an office that works on climate change at zonal level, there is no well-defined structure for climate change at zonal, district and Kebele levels and there appears to be weak integration among the different institutions working on climate change.

This study would speed up the revision of environmental policy of Ethiopia and the development of a separate policy document that focuses on adaptation to climate change.

Kenya is vulnerable to multiple natural hazards that lead to disasters resulting in human, economic, environmental and other losses. The promulgation and ratification of several disaster management (DM) policies, acts, conventions and the establishment of the National Disaster Management Policy Framework has placed Kenya at the international forefront. We critically analyse various Kenyan policy institutions and processes for disaster risk management (DRM), applying a mixed-methods approach. Content analysis was applied to qualitatively analyse Kenya’s DM policy and legislation documents, using Nvivo 11 Pro. Descriptive and econometric analyses were performed on empirical data from DRM key informants in Kenya using SPSS version 25.0. Only 11% of interviewees were aware of the National Disaster Policy Framework; 50% had read up to two national DM-related documents. National institutions exert highest influence in the policy formulation (78%), compared to local and international institutions (67% and 56%, respectively). Participation of local and national institutions in national DRM policy formulation was high (mean scores of 2.44/4 and 1.67/4, respectively). A weak correlation was observed between years of experience (r = 0.115, p = 0.768), and a positive but insignificant one between experience and participation in DRM policy formulation. Based on the aforementioned, we suggest that Kenya’s disaster risk reduction (DRR) implementation benefits from the high human capacity and high level of participation. However, the performance of frontline staff needs to be improved, especially regarding their knowledge of existing national DRM frameworks.

Since the registration of the first clean development mechanism (CDM) project in 2004, the CDM has seen a dynamic expansion: the CDM pipeline currently comprises 6,725 projects generating 2.73 billion certified emission reductions (CERs) up to 2012. These CERs result in a substantial financial flow from Annex I to Non-Annex I countries. But CDM projects also result in investments in low carbon technologies, a substantial share of which is focused on the energy sector. The total installed capacity of all CDM projects amounts to 288,944 MW. However, the CDM is not widely taken up in Africa. This holds true for Africa's share in the CDM project pipeline (2.62 per cent), for Africa's share in CERs generated up to 2012 (3.58 per cent) and for the normalized CERs per capita, per country. Two hypothesizes are commonly discussed: first, the continent features low per capita emissions and low abatement potentials. Second, African countries may be hampered by weak institutional frameworks. This article reviews both hypotheses and presents new empirical data. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Investigating the greenhouse gas (GHS) abatement potential of 16 energy-related sectors for 11 selected least developed countries in sub-Saharan Africa shows a total theoretical CDM potential of 128.6 million CERs per year. Analyzing investment indicators confirms that most countries are impeded by below average investment conditions.

It is concluded that Africa offers a considerable range of substantial abatement potentials. However, the weak institutional framework is limiting the uptake of the CDM in Africa. This is underpinned by an analysis which shows if a CDM sector has high investment cost, Africa will have a low share in the sector. If the sector has low investment needs per CER, Africa's share in the CDM sector will be bigger. Investment needs and Africa's share in the pipeline feature a negative correlation.

Supporting CDM development in Africa should not be constraint to technical assistance. It will be crucial to develop an integrated financing approach, comprising the CDM as a co-financing mechanism, to overcome the institutional challenges.

Until today, there are few empirical studies that use concrete criteria and indicators to show why the CDM is underrepresented in Africa. The work presented here contributes to filling this gap.

This study aims to establish whether three technology-specific attributes – convenience, compatibility with cultural needs and social reputation – influence the sustained use of clean cooking technologies in Uganda’s households.

This study adopted a cross-sectional and correlational research design. A survey was conducted with 125 households. The data were analyzed using SPSS and Smart PLS.

The results indicate that, in contrast to convenience, social reputation and compatibility with cultural needs significantly influence the sustained use of clean cooking technologies in Uganda’s households.

This study focused on the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area; hence, several households in other urban centers and rural communities were excluded from the study. In addition, technology-specific attributes only accounted for 34.4% of the variation in the sustained use of clean cooking technologies in Uganda, leaving 65.6 unexplained. Therefore, the authors recommend that future studies look at other technology-specific attributes that may influence the sustained use of clean cooking technologies in Uganda’s households.

This study provides initial evidence of technology-specific attributes and the sustained use of clean cooking technologies based on the expectation–confirmation model.