Hisham Zerriffi

Preparing to Manage Climate Change Financing

Lessons from the failures and successes of international development should guide investment in developing-world responses to climate change. At the 2010 Cancun Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the international community agreed in principle to one of the largest development programs in history. The developed nations pledged to mobilize U.S.

Seeing the trees for the carbon: agroforestry for development and carbon mitigation

100 billion per year by the year 2020 to “address the needs of developing countries” in responding to climate change (1). The funds, which may apply to adaptation and mitigation, are proposed to flow through multiple channels, including existing development banks, official development assistance, bilateral programs, international private investment flows (e.g., carbon markets), and other public and private mechanisms. Recommendations provided by a transitional committee for the management and operation of the proposed climate change financing will be considered by the parties to the UNFCCC at the upcoming conference in Durban, South Africa (2).

From açaí to access: distributed electrification in rural Brazil

Land-use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities will play an important role in global climate change mitigation. Many carbon schemes require the delivery of both climate and rural development benefits by mitigation activities conducted in developing countries. Agroforestry is a LULUCF activity that is gaining attention because of its potential to deliver climate benefits as well as rural development benefits to smallholders. There is hope that agroforestry can deliver co-benefits for climate and development; however experience with early projects suggests co-benefits are difficult to achieve in practice. We review the literature on agroforestry, participatory rural development, tree-based carbon projects and co-benefit carbon projects to look at how recommended project characteristics align when trying to generate different types of benefits. We conclude that there is considerable tension inherent in designing co-benefit smallholder agroforestry projects. We suggest that designing projects to seek ancillary benefits rather than co-benefits may help to reduce this tension.

Electricity and Conflict: Advantages of a Distributed System

Purpose – To rigorously examine success and failure in the use of small scale technologies for rural electrification.Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured primary field interviews plus secondary sources.Findings – Business model differences and influence of institutions important are important for understanding success and failure in rural electrification and the contribution rural electrification can play in rural development.Research limitations/implications – Data on the entire universe of distributed electrification efforts are unavailable. This highlights the need for better documentation of energy activities in rural areas.Practical implications – The development of new policies to guide rural electrification towards more sustainable and development enhancing outcomes.Originality/value – Prior studies have taken an ad hoc approach to study previous projects and suffer from case selection bias since their scope is limited in geography (one country, region or even village), technology (only PV...

The Regulatory Environment for Small Independent Micro-Grid Companies

With recent events having highlighted the need to consider deliberate attacks when planning electric power systems, it is pertinent to make a quantitative comparison of an electricity system based on distributed natural-gas-fired units to a traditional system based on large centralized plant. The distributed system proves to be up to five times less sensitive to measures of systematic attack.

Decentralizing Governance of Agropastoral Systems in Kyrgyzstan: An Assessment of Recent Pasture Reforms

Abstract An informal survey of past and current utility commissioners suggests that large regulatory barriers confront the model of small commercial micro-grids with distributed generation in an unregulated competitive environment underneath traditional distribution systems. Micro-grids operated as co-ops appear to face similar, though somewhat smaller, barriers.

Effects of Community-Based Natural Resource Management on Household Welfare in Namibia

Agropastoral systems in Kyrgyzstan have undergone dramatic change in recent decades. In large part, change has resulted from the introduction of legislation that devolves authority and responsibility for the management of common-pool agropastoral resources to community-level pasture users associations. By applying Ostrom’s principles of common resource governance, this paper analyzes the institutions and norms that currently shape local management practices in rural areas of Naryn Province in Kyrgyzstan and the views of different actors on pasture governance, including points of disagreement. Our research and analysis reveal that the community-initiated and -owned systems of pasture governance that were expected to develop and mature under the new Pasture Law have not yet been entirely realized. Decentralization occurred without the participation or awareness of most local resource users. As a consequence, users are creating and reinforcing their own community-defined practices and internal rules, leaving official management plans largely ignored and unenforced. Resource users tend to perceive the government-sanctioned pasture users associations not as public or democratic organizations that represent their interests, but rather as agencies that aim primarily to control the use of resources, exclude some people from decision-making, or impose taxation. Sustainable management of pasturelands therefore may best be served when community perspectives are more suitably integrated—from the planning phase through to collaborative governance and implementation of locally agreed upon management options.

System Implications of Distributed Generation

Biodiversity conservation, as an environmental goal, is increasingly recognized to be connected to the socioeconomic well-being of local communities. The development of a widespread community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) program in Namibia makes it an ideal location to analyze the connection between conservation and socioeconomic well-being of local communities. Namibia’s CBNRM program involves the formation of communal conservancies within rural communities and previous studies have found it to be successful on both ecological and economic fronts. In order to broaden the understanding of the program’s impact to include social factors, we have conducted a comparative analysis to determine the effects of this program on household welfare outcomes. Data from two rounds of the Namibia Demographic and Health Surveys (2000 and 2006/07) and quasi-experimental statistical methods were used to evaluate changes in various health, education and wealth outcomes of those living in conservancies, relative to non-conservancy comparison groups. Regression results indicate mixed effects of the conservancy program at the household level. The program had positive effects on some health outcome variables, including bednet ownership, which was twice as likely to increase over time in conservancy compared to non-conservancy households. Program impacts were negative for education outcomes, with the proportion of school attendance of conservancy children being 45% less likely to increase over time than non-conservancy children. Wealth outcome results were inconclusive. Our findings highlight the importance of analyzing community conservation programs at a variety of scales when evaluating overall impact, as community-level benefits may not necessarily extend down to the household level (and vice versa).

A cognitive approach to the post-Soviet Central Asian pasture puzzle: new data from Kyrgyzstan

This chapter explores the implications of large-scale implementation of DG in a total energy system that includes both the supply of electricity and the supply of heat. The performance criteria examined are system cost and robustness under stress. The first model is a study of the relative economics of distributed and centralized options for provision of energy services. Widespread use of distributed generation (DG) represents an alternative system architecture for the generation and delivery of electricity and heat. A green-field cost optimization of seasonally varying energy system demands, showed utilization of DG provided overall cost savings of around 25%. In addition, DG technologies produce emissions reductions, and in comparison with CCGT and heat boiler plant, reductions in natural gas use, particularly at peak demand times. This model was used to investigate the implications of introducing DG into an energy system with existing generation plant. Sizeable penetration of DG for base-load application results in the system configuration evolving to mirror the green-field solution, hence ensuring similar system cost and emissions savings. However, a reduced utilization of 46% for existing capacity suggests potentially stranded assets. In addition, problematic economic and technical impacts on the electricity system and industry are suggested from such a rapid penetration of DG technologies. Ongoing modeling investigates endogenous implications of DG penetration including mechanisms for compensating stranded assets, natural gas costs, evolving demand and DG economies of scale. The second model quantifies the potential improvements that DG could bring to the robustness of electricity systems, particularly under conditions of stress. It is hypothesized that a distributed system based primarily upon natural gas cogeneration facilities will be more economical and robust. To determine the reliability advantages of distributed generation, a Monte Carlo simulation was developed to conduct generating capacity adequacy assessments. The model was used to determine the Loss of Load Expectation (hr/yr.) and Loss of Energy Expectation (MWh/yr.) for both a standard test system (consisting of 32 generating units) and for a system consisting of 284 identical 12 MW units. In order to simulate the effects of conflict on the system, the mean time to repair for each unit was increased and the reliability indices re-calculated. The results show that the system consisting of a large number of smaller units is 2 to 5 times less sensitive to changes in the MTTR.

Distributed Rural Electrification in Brazil

Despite internationally recognized definitions, there remains debate over what constitutes ‘actual’ degradation in various agro-pastoral contexts. This contention is especially pronounced in post-Soviet Central Asia. In this paper, we report on new interview data from the post-Soviet Kyrgyz Republic. These data evidence greater diversity of local perceptions of pasture degradation than previously reported. We then demonstrate how considering the role of well-documented aspects of human cognition demystifies the otherwise puzzling inconsistency in local pasture degradation narratives. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of this analytical approach for management.