Date: 27 September
Time: 13.30 - 15.00

Session program

• Welcome and introduction to the session  
• The value of citizen engagement in deliberation to strengthen capacity building, Fanny Möckel 
• Exploring people's place attachment, risk perception and adaptive behavior in two small communities, Leikny Bakke Lie 
• Recognition and integration of citizens’ climate adaptation practices by local authorities: Landslide prevention in Mid-Norway, Sara Heidenreich 
• How sense of place influence perspectives on flood risk prevention on small Danish Islands, Nina Baron 

Each presenter has 10 min. to present + 2-3 min. for questions.  

Climate change requires deep and wide societal transformation both for accelerating decarbonization and reducing greenhouse gases and for adapting to the irreversible changes we already experience and will experience in the future. The expected increase of climate change-related hazards, such as floods, storms, extreme rains, or landslides, requires that local communities, organisations, and authorities build capacity to deal with such hazards.  

Capacity building is important in the context of prevention of climate change-related hazard as well as for preparedness, response, and recovery. However, local communities, organisations, and authorities are often not adequately equipped to deal with an increase of hazards. Thus, this session addresses how different stakeholders, such as authorities and emergency management organisations, can build capacity together with the local communities, through involving the resources, knowledges, and skills of their citizens.  

We invite paper submissions that address the following issues: 

• How do citizens perceive climate change related hazards in their community? What are the local concerns? 
• How can capacity building be organized to meet local concerns? 
• How can competencies and resources such as local knowledge, local practices, among local communities/of citizens contribute to capacity building for climate change adaptation? 
• How can public and private support systems, in and around the local communities, be organized to better build capacity? 
• What role does place attachment have in capacity building? 
• What role can methodological approaches such as narratives and storytelling have in capacity building? 
• And more… 

Organizers 

Sara Heidenreich, KULT, NTNU 
Nina Baron, University College of Copenhagen 
Robert Næss, KULT, NTNU

Contact: Sara Heidenreich 

 - CANCELLED -

Sreeja Jaiswal and Juhi Chatterjee 

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) at Glasgow in 2021, 34 countries, including the UK, USA, Germany, and China, committed to align their international public support towards a clean energy transition and out of the unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022. Earlier, the United States Department of Treasury had issued a fossil fuel energy guidance for multilateral development banks (MDBs) directing them to oppose oil and coal projects and to support natural gas investments only if certain strict criteria were met.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), under pressure from rich donor governments, is also moving towards mainstreaming climate change mitigation and attaching green conditionalities to its loans. While resource-poor low and middle-income countries are being pushed to "leapfrog" to renewables by withdrawing international financial support, high-income countries such as the UK, USA, and Germany are ramping up their use of natural gas as a bridge fuel in their decarbonization effort. Further, Russia's war on Ukraine has seen Germany and Italy, among others, sign agreements for gas supplies from Africa, the very geography they had previously worked to block such investments. In this paper we explore these contradictory developments in the global decarbonization process in which the use of fossil fuel for energy security for wealthier nations is prioritized over its use in overcoming energy poverty and developing productive capabilities in low-income energy-poor nations. We undertake an empirical investigation of data related to current and planned fossil fuel investments by developed and developing nations, as well as MDBs in developing nations along with an analysis of policy documents, statements and reports.

We argue that there are multiple transition pathways possible for decarbonization that recognize the varying economic differences between countries and their contribution to cumulative emissions. An energy transition must be just in nature and should not compromise access to affordable and reliable energy for industry and individuals in low and middle-income energy-poor countries.