This article is a discussion and critique of public intellectualism in the present. Rather than reify a self-aggrandized form of public intellectualism within academia that centers individualized intellectual development and that encourages a greater flow of findings outward to communities, I highlight black women public intellectuals who have used their skills, talents, and station within the university and society in novel ways. Moreover, I suggest that scholars take seriously the questions, research methods, and analyses emerging from the general public, particularly from within communal and political organizations. These encouragements are illustrated by highlighting three political education workshops that have been developed across the United States. 相似文献
With poverty alleviation and sustainable development as key imperatives for a developing economy like India, what drives the resource-constrained state governments to prioritize actions that address climate change impacts? We examine this question and argue that without access to additional earmarked financial resources, climate action would get overshadowed by developmental priorities and effective mainstreaming might not be possible. A systematic literature review was carried out to draw insights from the current state of implementation of adaptation projects, programmes and schemes at the subnational levels, along with barriers to mainstreaming climate change adaptation. The findings from a literature review were supplemented with lessons emerging from the implementation of India’s National Adaptation Fund on Climate Change (NAFCC). The results of this study underscore the scheme’s relevance.Key policy insights
Experience with NAFCC implementation reveals that states require sustained ‘handholding’ in terms of financial, technical and capacity support until climate change issues are fully understood and embedded in the policy landscape.
Domestic sources of finance are critically important in the absence of predictable and adequate adaptation finance from international sources.
The dedicated window for climate finance fosters a spirit of competitive federalism among states and encourages enhanced climate action.
Enhanced budgetary allocation to NAFCC to strengthen the state-level adaptation response and create capacity to mainstream climate change concerns in state planning frames, is urgently needed.
While carbon pricing is widely seen as a crucial element of climate policy and has been implemented in many countries, it also has met with strong resistance. We provide a comprehensive overview of public perceptions of the fairness of carbon pricing and how these affect policy acceptability. To this end, we review evidence from empirical studies on how individuals judge personal, distributional and procedural aspects of carbon taxes and cap-and-trade. In addition, we examine preferences for particular redistributive and other uses of revenues generated by carbon pricing and their role in instrument acceptability. Our results indicate a high concern over distributional effects, particularly in relation to policy impacts on poor people, in turn reducing policy acceptability. In addition, people show little trust in the capacities of governments to put the revenues of carbon pricing to good use. Somewhat surprisingly, most studies do not indicate clear public preferences for using revenues to ensure fairer policy outcomes, notably by reducing its regressive effects. Instead, many people prefer using revenues for ‘environmental projects’ of various kinds. We end by providing recommendations for improving public acceptability of carbon pricing. One suggestion to increase policy acceptability is combining the redistribution of revenue to vulnerable groups with the funding for environmental projects, such as on renewable energy.
Key policy insights
If people perceive carbon pricing instruments as fair, this increases policy acceptability and support.
People’s satisfaction with information provided by the government about the policy instrument increases acceptability.
While people express high concern over uneven distribution of the policy burden, they often prefer using carbon pricing revenues for environmental projects instead of compensation for inequitable outcomes.
Recent studies find that people’s preferences shift to using revenues for making policy fairer if they better understand the functioning of carbon pricing, notably that relatively high prices of CO2-intensive goods and services reduce their consumption.
Combining the redistribution of revenue to support both vulnerable groups and environmental projects, such as on renewable energy, seems to most increase policy acceptability.
Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, both national and subnational governments have been encouraged to submit Mid-Century Strategies, outlining how they would reach their deep decarbonization goals. However, research on the design and potential of these strategies has been very limited. To address this shortcoming, here we assess 13 such strategies – six national, seven subnational – in a comparative fashion. We find that the energy-economy-climate models underpinning these strategies are generally of high quality, though national jurisdictions generally performed better. However, most strategies are not plausible without significant changes to policy, and the industrial sector in particular presents a major limitation. The strategies are helpful in revealing this gap, but much works remains to be done for plausible mid-century decarbonization trajectories to become a reality. We also find that public input and societal participation in strategy building were a double-edged sword depending on the constellation of domestic preferences.
Governmental Mid-Century Strategies for deep decarbonization are underpinned by high-quality energy-economy-climate models
Governments’ proposed strategies require significant new policies, as even among jurisdictions that have an MCS, extant policies are insufficient to achieve deep decarbonization
No jurisdiction studied has yet put forward a plausible decarbonization policy for the industrial sector.
Public input and societal participation can be a double-edged sword: they can increase durability of the strategy but also enable opposing forces to mobilize against ambitious changes.
ABSTRACTREDD+ is an international policy aimed at incentivizing forest conservation and management and improving forest governance. In this article, we interrogate how newly articulated REDD+ governance processes established to guide the formulation of Nepal’s REDD+ approach address issues of participation for different social groups. Specifically, we analyse available forums of participation for different social groups, as well as the nature of their representation and degree of participation during the country’s REDD+ preparedness phase. We find that spaces for participation and decision-making in REDD+ have been to date defined and dominated by government actors and influential civil society groups, whereas the influence of other actors, particularly marginalized groups such as Dalits and women’s organizations, have remained limited. REDD+ has also resulted in a reduction of influence for some hitherto powerful actors (e.g. community forestry activists) and constrained their critical voice. These governance weaknesses related to misrepresentation and uneven power relations in Nepal cast doubt on the extent to which procedural justice has been promoted through REDD+ and imply that implementation may, as a consequence, lack the required social legitimacy and support. We discuss possible ways to address these shortcomings, such as granting greater prominence to neglected civil society forums within the REDD+ process, allowing for an increase in their influence on policy design, enhancing capacity and leadership of marginalized groups and institutionalizing participation through continued forest governance reform.Key policy insights
Participation is a critical asset in public policy design.
Ensuring wide and meaningful participation can enhance policy legitimacy and thus its endorsement and potential effective implementation.
Fostering inclusive processes through dedicated forums such as multi-stakeholder groups can help overcome power dynamics.
While REDD+ is open to participation by different actors through a variety of formal means, many countries lack a clear framework for participation in national policy processes.
Nepal’s experience with representation and participation of non-state actors in its REDD+ preparedness programme provides useful insights for similar social and policy contexts.
