Giorgos Kallis

Inequality, communication, and the avoidance of disastrous climate change in a public goods game

International efforts to provide global public goods often face the challenges of coordinating national contributions and distributing costs equitably in the face of uncertainty, inequality, and free-riding incentives. In an experimental setting, we distribute endowments unequally among a group of people who can reach a fixed target sum through successive money contributions, knowing that if they fail, they will lose all their remaining money with 50% probability. In some treatments, we give players the option to communicate intended contributions. We find that inequality reduces the prospects of reaching the target but that communication increases success dramatically. Successful groups tend to eliminate inequality over the course of the game, with rich players signaling willingness to redistribute early on. Our results suggest that coordination-promoting institutions and early redistribution from richer to poorer nations are both decisive for the avoidance of global calamities, such as disruptive climate change.

The political ecology of Jatropha plantations for biodiesel in Tamil Nadu, India

Jatropha curcas is promoted internationally for its presumed agronomic viability in marginal lands, economic returns for small farmers, and lack of competition with food crops. However, empirical results from a study in southern India revealed that Jatropha cultivation, even on agricultural lands, is neither profitable, nor pro-poor. We use a political ecology framework to analyse both the discourse promoting Jatropha cultivation and its empirical consequences. We deconstruct the shaky premises of the dominant discourse of Jatropha as a ‘pro-poor’ and ‘pro-wasteland’ development crop, a discourse that paints a win-win picture between poverty alleviation, natural resource regeneration, and energy security goals. We then draw from fieldwork on Jatropha plantations in the state of Tamil Nadu to show how Jatropha cultivation favours resource-rich farmers, while possibly reinforcing existing processes of marginalisation of small and marginal farmers.

Heat waves and floods in urban areas: a policy-oriented review of ecosystem services

Urbanisation is increasing and today more than a half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Cities, especially those where urbanisation is un-planned or poorly planned, are increasingly vulnerable to hydro-meteorological hazards such as heat waves and floods. Urban areas tend to degrade the environment, fragmenting and isolating ecosystems, compromising their capacity to provide services. The regulating role of ecosystems in buffering hydro-meteorological hazards and reducing urban vulnerability has not received adequate policy attention until now. Whereas there is a wide body of studies in the specialised biological and ecological literature about particular urban ecosystem features and the impacts of hazards upon people and infrastructures, there is no policy-driven overview looking holistically at the ways in which ecosystem features can be managed by cities to reduce their vulnerability to hazards. Using heat waves and floods as examples, this review article identifies the aggravating factors related to urbanisation, the various regulating ecosystem services that buffer cities from hydro-meteorological impacts as well as the impacts of the hazards on the ecosystem. The review also assesses how different cities have attempted to manage related ecosystem services and draws policy-relevant conclusions.

Paper assets, real debts

Purpose – This paper sets out to investigate the potential contribution of the inter‐disciplinary field of ecological economics to the explanation of the current economic crisis. The root of the crisis is the growing disjuncture between the real economy of production and the paper economy of finance.Design/methodology/approach – The authors trace the epistemological origins of this disjuncture to the myths of economism – a mix of academic, popular and political beliefs that served to explain, rationalise and perpetuate the current economic system.Findings – The authors recommend ending with economism and developing new collective and discursive processes for understanding and engaging with ecological‐economic systems.Originality/value – The authors embrace the notion of sustainable de‐growth: an equitable and democratic transition to a smaller economy with less production and consumption.

Imaginaries of Hope: The Utopianism of Degrowth

This article analyzes degrowth, a project of radical socioecological transformation calling for decolonizing the social imaginary from capitalisms pursuit of endless growth. Degrowth is an advanced reincarnation of the radical environmentalism of the 1970s and speaks to pertinent debates within geography. This article benefits from Ursula Le Guins fantasy world to advance the theory of degrowth and respond to criticisms that degrowth offers an unappealing imaginary, which is retrogressive, Malthusian, and politically simplistic. We argue instead that degrowth is on purpose subversive; it brings the past into the future and into the production of the present; it makes a novel case for limits without denying that scarcity is socially produced; and it embraces conflict as its constitutive element. We discuss the politics of scale of the incipient degrowth movement, which we find theoretically wanting, yet creative in practice.

Hydro-climatic change, conflict and security

Climate change is likely to increase the frequency and intensity of water-related hazards on human populations. This has generated security concerns and calls for urgent policy action. However, the simplified narrative that links climate change to security via water and violent conflict is wanting. First, it is not confirmed by empirical evidence. Second, it ignores the varied character and implications of hydro-climatic hazards, the multi-faceted nature of conflict and adaptive action, and crucial intricacies of security. Integrating for the first time research and findings from diverse disciplines, we provide a more nuanced picture of the climate-water-security nexus. We consider findings from the transboundary waters, armed conflict, vulnerability, and political ecology literatures and specify the implications and priorities for policy relevant research. Although the social effects of future hydro-climatic change cannot be safely predicted, there is a good understanding of the factors that aggravate risks to social wellbeing. To reduce vulnerability, pertinent democratic and social/civil security institutions should be strengthened where they exist, and promoted where they are still absent.

Public versus private: Does it matter for water conservation? Insights from California

This article asks three connected questions: First, does the public view private and public utilities differently, and if so, does this affect attitudes to conservation? Second, do public and private utilities differ in their approaches to conservation? Finally, do differences in the approaches of the utilities, if any, relate to differences in public attitudes? We survey public attitudes in California toward (hypothetical but plausible) voluntary and mandated water conservation, as well as to price increases, during a recent period of shortage. We do this by interviewing households in three pairs of adjacent public and private utilities. We also survey managers of public and private urban water utilities to see if they differ in their approaches to conservation and to their customers. On the user side we do not find pronounced differences, though a minority of customers in all private companies would be more willing to conserve or pay higher prices under a public operator. No respondent in public utility said the reverse. Negative attitudes toward private operators were most pronounced in the pair marked by a controversial recent privatization and a price hike. Nonetheless, we find that California’s history of recurrent droughts and the visible role of the state in water supply and drought management undermine the distinction between public and private. Private utilities themselves work to underplay the distinction by stressing the collective ownership of the water source and the collective value of conservation. Overall, California’s public utilities appear more proactive and target-oriented in asking their customers to conserve than their private counterparts and the state continues to be important in legitimating and guiding conservation behavior, whether the utility is in public hands or private.

Radical dematerialization and degrowth

The emission targets agreed in Paris require a radical reduction of material extraction, use and disposal. The core claim of this article is that a radical dematerialization can only be part and parcel of degrowth. Given that capitalist economies are designed to grow, this raises the question of whether, and under what circumstances, the inevitable ‘degrowth’ can become socially sustainable. Three economic policies are discussed in this direction: work-sharing, green taxes and public money. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Material demand reduction’.

COEVOLUTIONARY CONTRADICTIONS: PROSPECTS FOR A RESEARCH PROGRAMME ON SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

Abstract. Insights from social system–environmental system coevolutionary thought experiments are abstract, mind opening, and can only be conveyed by leading readers through the experiment themselves. Undertaking applied coevolutionary analyses requires one to bound processes and fix some of the categories, contrary to the nature of the broad, opening nature of coevolution itself. Being conscious of these contradictions makes it difficult to engage in a sustained research programme or form a community of coevolutionary scholars. In this article we engage with the epistemological tensions of conducting coevolutionary research and put forward tentative strategies for managing them.

Shifting Perspectives on Urban Water Policy in Europe

The development of a centralized drinking water supply system is integral to the emergence and sustainability of the modern city. Urbanization and economic growth in the twentieth century co-evolved with the ‘industrialization’ of drinking water production and delivery. This resulted in large-scale, centralized infrastructures and institutions to capture, transfer, treat and distribute water to the city. The associated model for water policy consisted of State-subsidized and regulated provision of water with the objective of maintaining a cheap price as a basis for economic growth and social cohesion (Goubert, 1989). This relatively stable ‘hydraulic era’ of urban water policy seems to have come to an end. Continuous population growth, urban expansion, increasing consumption, global (i.e. climate) and local (i.e. pollution) environmental change, ageing and deteriorating infra-structure, limits in cost-affordable new sources, the rise of environmental and regional movements, budgetary constraints of the public sector versus rising investment needs and broader socio-economic transformations all have a role to play (Vlachos & Braga, 2001; Kallis & Coccossis, 2001). In this special issue of European Planning Studies, the goal is to shed light on driving forces, outcomes and a new set of issues relating to the on-going process of water policy transformation. We ask how have urban water policies and approaches to the planning and management of urban water supplies changed in Europe and what are the implications of this change? Four city case studies are employed to shed light on the above questions: Barcelona, Athens, Amsterdam and London. The focus is European though many of the issues raised are common to North America (see Platt & Morrill, 1997) and to some extent—the differences being more important—to cities in the Southern Hemisphere (see Bakker, 2002). The four case studies are representative yet diverse. All four refer to metropolitan areas and position them within a broader regional context. Two of the cities (Barcelona and Athens) are located in semi-arid regions and two in rainfall-abundant regions (Amsterdam and London). Three of the cities face problems with water availability and the condition of their networks (Athens,