Alexandra Mallett

Recasting ‘truisms’ of low carbon technology cooperation through innovation systems: insights from the developing world

A key challenge of approaches to low carbon technology transfer/cooperation is that too much attention is placed on outcomes, neglecting technology cooperation processes. An innovation systems (IS) analytical lens can help to understand dimensions of what makes low carbon technology cooperation more effective, as IS emphasizes the importance of these technology processes. In developing countries, IS analysis tends to focus on activities of firms, the public sector and universities (also coined the triple helix) aimed at improving the quality of ‘hardware’ while lowering the costs of production. While important, these aspects constitute partial segments of IS. This paper therefore advances the concept of IS within developing countries in the following ways. This paper questions the assumption that these IS are absent and that producer–user interaction is weak, through unpacking the notion regarding who is innovating and what is low carbon innovation. In doing so, we capture the roles of alternative actors (e.g. lay people versus only experts), and activities and products (e.g. ‘improvised’ goods and processes versus frontier, or second-tier, technologies) within these systems.

Views from above: policy entrepreneurship and climate policy change on electricity in the Canadian Arctic

Many recognize the role of public policy in catalyzing action to address climate change. Attention has turned to theories of policy change, focusing on agents and their activities. Less clear, however, is the relationship between effective policy change and the actors, their context, and their strategies. We therefore ask: to what extent do kinds of policy actors, institutional settings, and policy entrepreneurial strategies influence policy change? Drawing from experiences in a subnational jurisdiction in the Canadian Arctic (Northwest Territories), the following findings emerged. Firstly, policy change occurred due to the efforts of a wide-ranging collective of policy actors. We further suggest that more attention focus upon the structures in which they operate. These aspects include modern treaty and devolution agreements; mechanisms that provide people with opportunities to engage within policy formulation processes; attempts at incorporating alternative viewpoints; dispersed communities; and experience with decentralized electricity. In addition, by attempting to align strategies with features unique to the region help foster policy change. These strategies included capitalizing on focusing events (e.g., low water levels affecting one of the hydro-based electricity systems in a populace with a heightened awareness of climate change); issue linking (climate change, energy security, self-reliance); fostering networks involving insiders and outsiders and in a decentralized fashion; and utilizing a promising venue (an energy charrette). In essence, a key feature of the region is that many features are in a state of flux. We posit that these open or fluid systems are ecologies in which policy entrepreneurship can possibly thrive.