• sustainable development: a multi-scale approach

• introduction to the climate issue: from the global to the local

• territory and energy sustainability

• Renewable Energy Sorces (RES), territory and local scale

• facing climate change: multilateral agreements on sustainability

• changing scenarios: not exploitation of Yasuni oil reserve, an alternative of

for local sustainibility?

• conclusions

LOCAL DEVELOPMENT: TIME AND SPACE FRAMING

seminar structure

keywords:

didactic tools• powerpoint• video• discussion

didactic material:• Slides• Videos• Scientific articles

www.geogr.unipd.it

• Internationalization UNCED Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro, 1992)

• In the battle of public ideas sustainibility won (Gibbs, 2005)

• Theoretical viewpoint: contraddictions combining “sustainable”

and “development” (Sneddon, 2000; Latouche, 2005)

• Geographical scale of sustainibility: which scale of e.p. generate

“demand” for sustainibility? At which scale should be replyed?

Sustainable Development: approaches and rethorics

Adopt a multi-scale approach to the concept of sustainable development

Sustainable Development: approaches and rethorics

Approaches:

• global perspective: S.D. “should be seen as a global objective” (UNCED, 1992)

• Analytical-operative perspective: legitimize the local scale as an effective level

of control of S.D.; enphasizing the need to to take decision “as close as possible”

• political normative: consideration and predominance of local scale; bottom-up

endogenous development; it prefers “eco-devolepment instead S.D.;

bioregionalism

• epistemiological: the local territory is not merely a de-articulation of an

administrative activity regulated by the same global logics in each territorial

environment in which is projected, but a strutured and often conflictual set of

meanings and attribution of meanings (Bagliani, Dansero, 2005)

social-economical environmentpassive support

complexityenvironmentlocal territory

natural environment

green urban areas

mine and dump (Sacks, 1998)

ecosystems

complex network of ecosystems

(Dematteis, Governa, 2005)

Integrated components

trivial machine

summary ofcomponents

operative-analyticperspective

functionalist approach

political-normative perspective

epistemologicperspective

territorialistperspective

ECOSYSTEMS – PRODUCTION SYSTEMS – ECONOMICAL SYSTEMS

ECOSYSTEMS PRODUCTIONSYSTEM

Non-renewable energy

ECONOMICSYSTEM

goods and services

capitalgreenhousegases

climate crisis energetic crisis economic crisis(Tiezzi, 2005)

Ecosystems services

provisioning services(products obtained from ecosystems)

regulating services(benefits obtained from regulationof ecosystem processes)

cultural services(nonmaterial services)

• Food

• Freshwater

• Fuelwood

• Fibers

• Biochemicals

• Genetic resources

• climate regulation

• diseases regulation

• water regulation

• water purification

• pollination

• spiritual and religious

• recreational and ecoturism

• sense of place

• educational

• cultural heritage

The Climate Issue

Direct link between climate change and energy production

Effects on weatherIncreasing temperature is likely to lead to increasing precipitation but the effects on storms are less clear. Extratropical storms partly depend on the temperature gradient, which is predicted to weaken in the northern hemisphere as the polar region warms more than the rest of the hemisphere.

Increased freshwater flowResearch based on satellite observations, published in October, 2010, shows an increase in the flow of freshwater into the world's oceans, partly from melting ice and partly from increased precipitation driven by an increase in global ocean evaporation. The increase in global freshwater flow, based on data from 1994 to 2006, was about 18%. Much of the increase is in areas which already experience high rainfall. One effect, as perhaps experienced in the 2010 Pakistan floods, is to overwhelm flood control infrastructure.

Regional effects of global warming vary in nature. Some are the result of a generalised global change, such as rising temperature, resulting in local effects, such as melting ice. In other cases, a change may be related to a change in a particular ocean current or weather system. In such cases, the regional effect may be disproportionate and will not necessarily follow the global trend.

Local scale

Climate change

(Ecosystem Millennium Assessments (2005)

ANTHROPOCENE (Krutzen, 2005)

(IPCC, 2009)

www.worldmapper.org

Global Carbon Emissions, 2000

the Kyoto Protocol – facing climate change

Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC): stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system (350 ppm).

191 States signed and ratified the K.P. (July, 2010)

Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from the 1991 level within 2012.

carbon credits and carbon markets

supporting and promoting Renewable Energy Sources (RES):solar energy, wind energy, biomasses, hydroelectric energy

from global to local dimension: the case Yasuni-ITT

Ecuador Initiative proposal: leave 850 million barrels crude locked, in perpetuity, beneath the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve

Ecuador seeks financial compensation from developed countries

Not exploiting the Yasuni-ITT fields will keep 410 millions metric tons of CO2 out of atmosphere

UNDP Trust Funds

Windows of opportunity

Renewable Energy Resources

• wind energy

• solar energy

• hydroelectric

• biomasses

• geothermal power

A natural resource is a renewable resource if it is replaced by natural processes and if replenished with the passage of time. Renewable resources are parts of our natural environment and form our eco-system (UNDP, 1989).

theoretical negative feedback on climate change and new opportunities:Global scale: general reduction of greenhouses effectLocal scale: energy diversification, reduction of dependence of non-renewable resources, diffusion of a “sustainable lifestyle”, democratization in the production and access to energy.

Renewable Energy Resources: critical aspects

All RES have some backlash on ecosystems:

• Direct polluting emissions (e.g. biomasses are combustions, damming reservoir for hydroelectric pollution)

• Undirect polluting emission (e.g. collection and transport of biomasses)

On the border line between ecological and socio-ecological environment:Impact of wind mills and hydroelectric power plant on the landscape

from a spatial point of view, RES has interesting aspects tied to type of territoriality:an energy system based on more massive exploitation of RES

territory and energy sustainability

energy production and sustainable development

A RES-based energy model implies complex re-organization of the territory, usually, increased decentralization of energy production and consumption.

(Bagliani, Dansero, 2008)

Backlash at many different scales and dimension:

Ecological: re-routing flows of materials and energy produced and consumed so they can be contained inside the local systemSocial and political: a broader arena of actors who participate in energy policy decision at different scalesEconomic:wide range of private and organized actors located at different scales

some RES-based energy solutions may give little consideration to the territorial local systems and to possible ecological impact at local and supra-local level; e.g., solutions based on importation of raw material from outside and conder local territory merelyas a space for localizing the plant.

Relationships between energy systems and territory

Using fossil energetic sources has produced an energy system organized in a very long supply chains in which production of energy is centralized and integrated (Eliot, 2000)

Local dimension dipends generally on supra-local supplying networks (long networks) managed by supra-local actors (national, transnational monopolies, global oligopolies) (Bagliani, Dansero, 2008).

Increasing “de-territorialized” system in which there are no direct relationships between consuption and energy production sites, but only links mediated by long energy and raw material distribution networks

Relationships between energy systems and territory

extractive productive activities of non-renewable resource has almost the same modalities:• relationships between the oil fields and surrounding territory are very limited or negative (case study)• relationships between oil fields and places where raw material is processed and the energy produced and consumed are practically nil (case study)

Territoriality expressed by energy models based on fossil resources considers the territory merely an “energetic physical support” or, in the best cases, a set of resources located at specific sites and which can be extracted completely bypassing both the role of local actors and the local dimension

RES may generate forms of organization in wich local actors may play a decisive role

relationships between some RES and territory

solar energy(photovoltaic)

wind energy

biomasses

Hydroelectric power

Centralized photovoltaic systems: little returns on the territory

Photovoltaic plants through cooperation between local actors

Plants are “clean energy” without any ecological impacts

• Attention to the whole production cycle of the plants• Minimazing environmental impacts

• Constructed by external companies• No participation of localactors

• Co-planning by local public actors• Location plants decision with l.a.

No environmental impacts

Attention to all existing components

• Biomasses imported from outside• No relationships with l. producers

Short supplying network in agricultural-food production

Very little environmental impacts

• Reducing environmetal impacts• proximity

Large-scale hydroelectric plant by supra-local actors

Negotiation with local and supra-local actors

Very little environmental impacts

• Prevent to construct large dams• Mini hydroelectric plant

relationships with alterity relationships with exeriority

territory as support territory as collective actor

reductionist approaches

ecosystemapproach

Solar farm in China

Solar farm in China

Energy windmills in California