- Frans Berkhout is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy and Professor of Environment, Soc... moreFrans Berkhout is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy and Professor of Environment, Society and Climate in the Department of Geography at King’s College London. His work has been concerned with science, technology, policy and sustainability, with a focus on climate change.edit
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ABSTRACT This chapter assesses recent literature on the opportunities that create enabling conditions for adaptation as well as the ancillary benefits that may arise from adaptive responses. It also assesses the literature on biophysical... more
ABSTRACT This chapter assesses recent literature on the opportunities that create enabling conditions for adaptation as well as the ancillary benefits that may arise from adaptive responses. It also assesses the literature on biophysical and socioeconomic constraints on adaptation and the potential for such constraints to pose limits to adaptation. Given the available evidence of observed and anticipated limits to adaptation, the chapter also discusses the ethical implications of adaptation limits and the literature on system transformational adaptation as a response to adaptation limits.
ABSTRACT This paper explores transnational linkages in sustainability experiments. Transnational linkages refer to diverse cross-border relationships and interactions that can complement local, regional and national capabilities enabling... more
ABSTRACT This paper explores transnational linkages in sustainability experiments. Transnational linkages refer to diverse cross-border relationships and interactions that can complement local, regional and national capabilities enabling sustainability experiments. The paper develops a typology of transnational linkages and applies it to solar photovoltaic energy initiatives in India. Our analysis shows that transnational linkages appear to be almost universal in these experiments. Of seven solar photovoltaic technology domains present in the sample, experiments in only one – off-grid power plants - can be characterised as predominantly domestic. These findings underscore the significance of capabilities, resources and linkages spanning local, regional and national scales in innovative solar PV experiments in India, suggesting similar patterns for other socio-technical experiments. This study contributes to an emerging literature on the geography of sustainable transitions, which argues for a move away from a predominantly national framing in transition studies to embrace a multi-scalar understanding of transition processes.
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Rapid industrialisation in Asia is generating a significant new demand for raw materials and pressure on local, regional and global environments. In the future these demands and pressures are expected to increase markedly. These concerns... more
Rapid industrialisation in Asia is generating a significant new demand for raw materials and pressure on local, regional and global environments. In the future these demands and pressures are expected to increase markedly. These concerns are models of development that ...
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ABSTRACT Global sustainability is increasingly influenced by economic growth and social change in non-OECD countries, especially in Asia. Growth models suggest that industrializing economies will become first relatively more resource-and... more
ABSTRACT Global sustainability is increasingly influenced by economic growth and social change in non-OECD countries, especially in Asia. Growth models suggest that industrializing economies will become first relatively more resource-and pollution-intensive, before becoming more resource-efficient and less polluting, following the pattern of higher-income economies. This 'environmental convergence' is assumed to parallel economic convergence during processes of catching-up by latecomer countries. To accelerate environmental convergence, or to achieve pathways of 'green growth', greater emphasis needs to be placed on sustainable innovation and capability-building in latecomer countries. Drawing on insights from system innovation research on long-run change in socio-technical systems, we discuss the potential role of 'sustainability experiments' to generate innovations that will constitute new 'greener' growth models. We observe a great number of sustainability-oriented innovation initiatives in latecomer countries. We set out a conceptual framework for assessing the role of experiments, and for evaluating how they link with and become anchored in alternative more sustainable regimes. We argue that sustainability experiments represent a potentially significant new source of innovation and capability-formation, linked to global knowledge and technology flows, which could influence emergent socio-technical regimes and thereby contribute to alternative development pathways.
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Climate change may cause most harm to countries that have historically contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change. This paper identifies deontology, solidarity and consequentialism as the principles that can... more
Climate change may cause most harm to countries that have historically contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change. This paper identifies deontology, solidarity and consequentialism as the principles that can serve as a basis for a fair international burden sharing scheme of climate change adaptation costs. We translate these principles into criteria that can be applied in
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... Bombay. Both reactors-Cirus (40 MWt) and Dhruva (100 MWt)-are still operating, as is the associated Trombay reprocess-ing plant. ... kt). In 1985, the indigenously constructed 100-MWt Dhruva research reactor began operation. ...
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... Frans BERKHOUT, Julia HERTIN2, Jérôme CARLENS†, Daniel TYTECA3, Xander OLSTHOORN4, Marcus WAGNER5 and Walter WEHRMEYER 6 Abstract ... Paper for The 7th European Roundtable on Cleaner Production, 2-4 May 2001, Lund, Sweden. WHITE, AL,... more
... Frans BERKHOUT, Julia HERTIN2, Jérôme CARLENS†, Daniel TYTECA3, Xander OLSTHOORN4, Marcus WAGNER5 and Walter WEHRMEYER 6 Abstract ... Paper for The 7th European Roundtable on Cleaner Production, 2-4 May 2001, Lund, Sweden. WHITE, AL, 1999. ...
... officials charged with environ-mental responsibilities, internal information services, training, specific budgets for external consultancy. ... Integrating the Environment into EU Industry Policy ... the framework to a specific... more
... officials charged with environ-mental responsibilities, internal information services, training, specific budgets for external consultancy. ... Integrating the Environment into EU Industry Policy ... the framework to a specific initiative for EPI on the level of the European Union, this section ...
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The need to integrate environmental concerns into all areas of policy has served as a rhetorical reference point for a long time. Only recently has the objective of environmental policy integration (EPI) been tackled through serious... more
The need to integrate environmental concerns into all areas of policy has served as a rhetorical reference point for a long time. Only recently has the objective of environmental policy integration (EPI) been tackled through serious institutional and regulatory reforms. This paper argues that EPI can be understood as an element of a process of ecological modernisation of policy. It
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One of the great themes of the social debate about environmental protection has been the question whether environmental quality can be safeguarded without major economic or social change. With the advent of the notion of ‘sustainable... more
One of the great themes of the social debate about environmental protection has been the question whether environmental quality can be safeguarded without major economic or social change. With the advent of the notion of ‘sustainable development’ in the late 1980s a new consensus emerged which sug gested that the economy and the environment could be complementary, so long as
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Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth (RESCUE), ESF Forward Look – ESF-COST ‘Frontier of Science’ joint initiative