Suchergebnisse

The overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus on the impacts of human-induced climate change have prompted enhanced mitigation responses over time, led by developed countries representing the biggest emitters historically. More recently, rapid economic growth in developing countries has led to soaring emissions of greenhouse gases. As a result, measures to promote a shift to low-carbon and sustainable futures in all countries of the world are now vital elements of global goals for the climate and sustainable development as established in two historical agreements in 2015, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development. To address the global challenge of sustainability transition, developed nations have confirmed in the Paris Agreement 2015 at the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to jointly mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for climate change action supporting developing-country counterparts. As part of this pledge, bilateral development cooperation agencies and multilateral financial institutions have been identified as key channels through which funding will be delivered. In turn, this indicates that the international community envisages donors playing an important role in supporting developing countries in their attempts to shift towards more sustainable futures. Against this background, the key aim of this PhD thesis is to contribute to the emerging literature on the role of donors in promoting sustainable transitions by investigating how transition concepts and donor practices influence low-carbon transitions in the developing world. This overall research topic is addressed in two ways throughout this thesis: 1) through a theoretical review of the management approaches that are prevalent within the donor community, and 2) by applying case-study methodologies to examine the impacts of donor interventions on low-carbon transitions in the case of the Tunisian cement sector. The theoretical and conceptual basis of the three articles comprising this thesis are drawn from the "Transition Management" literature to understand how transitions to low-carbon development can be governed and from the "Multi-Level Perspective" to understand the factors that influence the development of niches within the Tunisian cement sector. Analyses are based upon qualitative data collected mainly from semi-structured interviews, direct participation and observations conducted during consecutive periods of fieldwork in Tunisia in 2014-2015. This thesis finds that donors contribute towards stimulating low-carbon transitions in the developing world by addressing issues that limit the development of low-carbon measures in recipient countries, such as a lack of local expertise, coordinated action, and available funding. Donors address these constraints by engaging in niche development processes and encouraging regime-level changes through support for political and regulatory reforms or, more broadly, via donor funding modalities, which provide a basis for rational thinking and project structuring. In addition, this research finds evidence that current donor modalities suffer from a lack of attention to sustainability transition features of path dependency and lock-in. In particular, factors that constrain donor attempts towards sustaining low-carbon transitions in the developing world are: the lack of key change agents, the absence of formal decision-making legitimacy by donors within the formulation of transition initiatives, the short-term nature of development aid, a lack of coordination amongst donor agencies, the limited attention given to addressing local political processes, a lack of reflexivity, and assumptions regarding foresight and control in donor interventions. Given that the Parties to the Paris Agreement are now moving towards an implementation phase of increasingly ambitious climate policies and actions set out in Nationally Determined Contributions, the results of this thesis provide useful lessons that could be used to enhance donor impacts by avoiding the pitfalls highlighted.

The general decline of strikes does not necessarily imply that workers are demobilised. A dormant strike potential can be present. Drawing on strikes as 'experience goods', this article sheds light on this point by studying pro-strike attitudes among employees in 24 countries who have never been on strike. The variation in pro-strike attitudes is explained by both contextual (collective bargaining coverage, economic conditions and freedom of rights and liberties) and individual (union membership and confidence in unions, political values and household financial situation) factors. Deeper analyses of three countries highlight the potential impact of specific repertoires of contention developed over time on the formation of pro-strike attitudes. Implications for the labour conflict literature and union strategies are discussed.

The research project 'Measuring sustainable development (SD) in Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs)' was initiated by the NAMA Partnership Working Group on Sustainable Development (WG-SD). The aim of the research project is to improve quantitative and qualitative measurement of the SD outcomes of NAMAs, thereby enhancing understanding of how NAMAs can contribute to meeting national development goals. The UNEP DTU Partnership (UDP), in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and supported by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), have jointly carried out the research. The link between NAMAs and SD is crucial for developing countries, and although work is underway on this topic, it is still in its early stages.1 The Bali Action Plan agreed under the UNFCCC in 2007 agreed that enhanced action on mitigation would include NAMAs by developing country parties in the context of SD. However, the question of how SD impacts are to be integrated into NAMA processes remains open, as do questions regarding which impacts should be assessed and how they should be measured. A substantial body of research and best practices exist regarding how SD considerations have been integrated into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), such as the Executive Board CDM SD Tool launched in 2014 and the Gold Standard (GS) certification of SD benefits in mitigation projects, which can inform NAMA SD assessments. The global and flexible approach to the selection of SD criteria and indicators found in these standards are common to all types of mitigation actions, but they may not be directly suited to NAMAs, since globally defined standards may not be in the interests of the implementing host countries. NAMAs are much broader than the project-based CDM, potentially involving policy and sectoral actions, and may require additional or different SD assessment tools. In this context, the objective of the report is to develop a framework with criteria and indicators for the assessment of the SD impacts of NAMAs, based on a review of the literature on sustainability assessment tools and approaches, and a study of the different stakeholder perspectives among developing country governments, support agencies, the private sector and civil-society organisations.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity, especially in low-resource settings, and requires an interdisciplinary response across academia, government, countries, and societies. If unchecked, AMR will hamper progress towards reaching the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including ending poverty and hunger, promoting healthy lives and well-being, and achieving sustained economic growth. There are many global initiatives to curb the effects of AMR, but significant gaps remain. New ways of thinking and operating in the context of the SDGs are essential to making progress. In this entry, we define the next generation of the AMR research network, its composition, and strategic activities that can help mitigate the threats due to AMR at the local, regional, and global levels. This is supported by a review of recent literature and bibliometric and network analyses to examine the current and future state of AMR research networks for global health and sustainable development.