Climate Change, Environmental Governance and the Scale Problem

Abstract

As the world faces critical challenges in resource and energy sustainability, the importance of transforming the way governance institutions work across scales is increasingly recognized by policy makers, policy advocates and scientists. The scale problem has become a central topic of discussion in different disciplines, but it is one to which the discipline of geography has a particularly important contribution to make. This article argues for geography's relational concept of scale – seeing scales as interconnected arenas produced and constructed by social action, rather than naturally existing, discrete units – and shows some implications this has for how we frame and act on environmental issues. In particular, a relational perspective on scale changes the way we frame the scalar “existence” of environmental problems and how we assign responsibility. This can open new possibilities for analyses and for politics that can be mobilized around these problems.

Exergy for environment, ecology and sustainable development

“…There is a critical need for a more effective multi-scalar governance framework that can overcome collective action problems between institutional actors and create incentives for regulating energy resources more sustainably [20]. Table 1 gives summary of fuel used for heating and fuel characteristics, and corresponding emissions if the fuel is used.…”

“…While the transition to a more sustainable energy future is a challenge of technological innovation, it is also a challenge of governance of creating and transforming institutions that are up to the task of regulating energy systems, shaping consumption patterns, managing global commons and enforcing mutually beneficial rules [20].…”

The challenges of greening energy: policy/industry dissonance at the Mongstad refinery, Norway

“…Distance (both in relational and absolute terms) can stretch and dilute social relations, and the contextual specificities of place can create and maintain cultural barriers between policy makers and actors involved in innovation processes. Differences in the scale of policy-making, governance and innovation processes can uphold differences in knowledge regimes and bounded rationalities (Haarstad, 2014;Jordan, 2008;Lindseth, 2006), and in turn fragment decision-making and make implementation difficult (Duit and Galaz, 2008). While policies appear increasingly 'mobile' and 'mutable' across different geographical contexts, they always involve certain territorial assumptions and conditions that complicate implementation in particular places (Peck, 2011).…”

“…Rationality dissonance is linked to notions of bounded rationality (Simon, 1957) and refers to the divergent objectives and interests through which policy makers and industry actors approach a project. Spatial dissonance, understood through geographical concepts of site, scale, distance and context (Haarstad, 2014;Peck, 2011), refers to a mismatch between the territorial assumptions of the policy and the spatial composition and dynamics of the industrial project. Temporal dissonance, understood with reference to the timescales of energy transitions and industrial ecology (Desrochers, 2002;Grubler, 2012), points to the diverging time frames between policy and industrial innovation processes.…”

State rescaling and economic convergence

“…Furthermore, as argued by Peck (2016, p. 318), 'after years of debate around the social construction and relativization of scale' the entire notion of combined and uneven development must be reconstructed anew. Nevertheless, despite vocal demands for rescaling theory to be abandoned as 'inherently flawed' (Charnock, 2010b, p. 87), academic output on the rescaling of statehood and capitalism continues unabated (Bialasiewicz, Giaccaria, Jones, & Minca, 2013;Haarstad, 2007Haarstad, , 2014Li, Xu, & Yeh, 2014;Oliveira & Breda-Vázquez, 2010;Perkmann, 2007;Pugalis & Townsend, 2013). This paper's primary research aim is to reflect upon the growing criticism of the key theoretical aspects of State/ Space theory by interrogating the soundness of its fundamental assumptions and questioning the validity of the propositions made.…”