Vasna Ramasar

REPORTING ON THE STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT: SOUTH AFRICAN EXPERIENCES

The past few decades have seen an increasing demand for environmental information on which to make more informed decisions, strengthened by several international calls for improving available environmental information. In a democratic South Africa, the involvement of people in policy and decision-making processes has led to an even greater need for accessible information. In response to this demand for information, State of the Environment (SOE) reporting has gained momentum and become highly popular in South Africa. This popularity has grown despite the absence of any legal mandate for reporting in South Africa, as well as the lack of formalised institutional arrangements for reporting. The current situation has resulted in a number of challenges for SOE reporting which need to be addressed. These challenges, and appropriate solutions, are discussed. The paper aims to stimulate discussion in the field of SOE reporting, both within South Africa and internationally.

Modernist dreams and green sagas: The neoliberal politics of Iceland's renewable energy economy

Transitioning to renewable energy is an imperative to help mitigate climate change, but such transitions are inevitably embedded in broader socio-ecological and political dynamics. Recent scholarship has focused on these more-than-technological dimensions of energy transitions to help understand their promises and drawbacks. This article contributes to this research agenda by highlighting the importance of considering not only who benefits from renewable energy development, but also what renewable energy is for. We analyse two cases in Iceland, the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project and Hellisheiði geothermal energy plant, in which renewable energy was used to attract heavy industry investments in the form of aluminium smelters. Attractive regulatory conditions in the form of ‘minimal red tape’, low electricity prices and an industry-friendly tax regime led to significant profits for the aluminium industry but questionable benefits for the state and the people of Iceland. Renewable energy development in this way put Icelands nature to use for private gain, while marginalizing alternative ideas of what that nature is for. Our analysis underlines the need to pursue perspectives that recognize the complex political and socio-ecological nature of energy systems, which includes attention to the political economy of industrial energy consumption.