1. Sustainability transitions in the global South: some ideas from India Susannah Fisher, Department of Geography

2. Summary argument  The ideal of sustainability has a long history in the global South  Divergent ideals of sustainability  Risks leaving behind those most in need of this agenda  Concept must be contested locally to gain saliency: social as well as environmental

3. Outline  The idea of the sustainability transition  One area of transition: Energy  Two examples - Rural voices - Urban energy policies

4. Not a new idea  Long history of sustainability ideals  Gandhian ideal of rural villages  Spiritual ecology / Political ecology

5. Local struggles  Livelihood struggles: Narmada Bachao Andolan, Chipko movement  Often framed as bharati sanskriti versus science and technology

6. Hinduism and sustainability  Hindu’s are noted for their respect and consideration of the natural world…if for some reason these noble values are displaced by other beliefs which are either thrust on the society or transplanted from another culture by invasions, then the faith of the masses in the early cultural tradition is shaken (Dwivedi and Twivedi 1999 p170; p183).  Although links with Hindutva (Mawdsley 2006) and disjunct from practices (Alley 2002)

7. Added concepts  Concern with technology  Urban issues: wildlife conservation, urban aesthetics  Linking to international concerns of climate change, biodiversity, energy security

8. Who is participating?  Urban elites  Grassroots movements  International donors  National policy frameworks

9. What is bring transitioned?

10. Quote: environmentalist  I am fully convinced that India, despite its huge population, could easily become a country of milk and honey for all. But whether to should or will ever become a country of Hondas and IBM devices for all – that I don’t know (Agarwal 1999 p36).

11. What is the end point?  Contested discourse  Long-standing debate over relationship between society and nature  Grassroot framings of Gandhian ideals  Elite framings of ecological modernisation

12. Outline  The idea of the sustainability transition  One area of transition: Energy  Two examples - Rural voices - Urban energy policies

13. Energy transition  Energy security / rural electrification  Sustainability of existing systems  Don’t need to be in conflict  Depends on ultimate goal: electrification or sustainability

14. State-led transition  National Missions on Solar and Energy Efficiencies  Policy frameworks to support investment in wind, solar etc  Obligations on States  National Rural Energy Policy

15. Grassroot initiatives  Networks of solar entrepreneurs  Off-grid solutions  NGO-led cluster approach to remote areas: mini-hydro  What do people want?

16. Biomass / black carbon  Major source of energy  Local environmental / social / health problems  Possible strategies for alleviation: LPG connections, subsidised kerosene  Adaptive capacity?

17. Tensions  Existing infrastructure v new development  Rural or urban visions  Local versus global sustainability  Social or environmental

18. Outline  The idea of the sustainability transition  The areas of transition: Energy  Two examples - Rural voices - Urban energy policies

19. Example 1: local ‘sustainable’ voices  Set of climate hearings  Sustainability across scales  NGO networks

20. Local and global sustainability?  Local messages then translated into outputs  Dominant framings: “climate positive lifestyles”, “resiliency” and “local agency” “well meaning indigineous rights activists and their middle- class ideas may be shrinking the spaces from which a truly radical politics will emerge” (Shah 2010 p190)

21. Example 2: municipal transitions

22. Urban transition  Solar Cities, urban development plans, international agencies  Technicalist discourse of transition  Not all infrastructure in place to be transitioned  Development before transition?

23. Understandings amongst the engineers  Understandings of the ‘climate friendly’ city based on making GHG emissions from municipal infrastructure visible  Focus on municipal energy systems  Leaves out other aspects of a sustainable transition

24. Technical sustainability  Li (2007) “questions that are rendered technical are simultaneously rendered apolitical”  Avoids key questions of trade-offs, compromises and political decisions

25. Lack of local saliency  Highly technical projects with little discursive power  Project deadlines and targets  Fulfilling project targets, and performance of local governance activities

26. Who bears the local cost?  Baviskar (2010): Commonwealth Games and spectacular events  Ghertner (2010): asthetic governmentality of the world city  Does the ‘new sustainability’ risk becoming accreted to this aesthetics agenda?

27. Two examples: local responses  Sustainable transition essentially political  Apolitical risks attachment to other political agendas  Trade-offs must be made  Contestation must be allowed to develop the concept of multiple sustainabilities “practice of politics” (Li 2007)

28. Conclusions  The transition is a contested idea occurring at multiple scales with a long history  Accreting local struggles to international discourses can dilute local saliency  Fear of conflicting with development  Positive spin of “sustainability” can hide local contests and trade offs

29. Any questions? sef35@cam.ac.uk