ALBERT

Description: This policy brief makes three recommendations for strengthening international cooperation in support of a global energy transition.

Description: While the positive impacts of renewable energy development, the implementation and use of renewable energy for people and the planet are widely recognised, the direct contribution of local renewable energy projects to local community well-being has received limited attention. And while the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), have been rightfully celebrated as global milestones towards securing livelihoods and opportunities now and in the future, they lack societal ownership and traction among communities, who are decisive in supporting and driving the necessary sustainability transformation. However, aside from energy access, the opportunities for local energy projects to provide broader positive effects (such as community revenues) through co-investments are largely regarded as secondary co-benefits, if not entirely ignored by development policies and practices. Tapping into these opportunities for effective policies and practices in climate action and international development calls for a different approach to sustainable energy development (energy transitions in some countries): a social performance approach to energy development and investment, which we outline in this paper. In the context of this paper, the social performance of energy sector investments refers to direct and positive social impacts on the well-being of individuals and communities during the development and implementation of energy projects and the usage of locally generated energy, in both monetary and non-monetary ways. In essence, the social performance approach in energy-sector investments and energy-project development puts the needs and well-being of people – both current and future generations – at the centre of energy development and related investments and activities. The social performance approach that we propose builds on the conceptual foundations of the capability approach, the co-benefits approach, the Need–Opportunity–Ability (NOA) model, and important groundwork on community development in South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP). An important aspect of the social performance approach is its focus on the direct contribution of these investments in fostering the well-being of individuals in a manner that reflects their aspirations for good quality of life. This approach can facilitate regular evaluation of progress and ensures accountability and adjustment of implementation strategies so that future investments, design, and implementation strategies perform both for people and the planet. Social performance can be used to compare how different energy options (e.g., a coal-mining site, a renewable wind park, or decentralised energy services such as solar mini-grids) may effectively and comprehensibly improve the lives of people and local communities. The social performance approach helps to identify concrete intervention points or enablers, to ensure and increase the positive contributions of energy-sector investments to the well-being of individuals and communities, either in monetary ways such as local economic value creation and employment, or in non-monetary ways such as community cohesion and social inclusion. In this paper we suggest that, consequently, policy interventions and investments aimed at decarbonising energy systems should not simply be monitored in view of how they perform for communities and people on the ground; rather, these interventions and investments should be intentionally designed to maximise their social performance for individuals and communities.

Description: Die internationale Zusammenarbeit zur Förderung einer globalen Energiewende befindet sich im Aufwind. Initiativen und Foren für multilaterale Kooperation werden durch wachsendes bilaterales Engagement ergänzt.

Description: This report presents a framework for the systematic monitoring of the global hydrogen economy. It suggests data sources and indicators to systematically survey the most important trends and developments of a future global hydrogen economy. Monitoring based on this framework could provide an important knowledge base for the continuous review of policy measures related to the German and European hydrogen policy.

Description: Im folgenden Bericht wird ein Konzept für ein systematisches Monitoring der globalen Wasserstoffwirtschaft vorgestellt. Der Bericht stellt Datenquellen und Indikatoren zur systematischen Erfassung der wichtigsten Trends und Entwicklungen im Rahmen einer globalen Wasserstoffwirtschaft vor. Ein entsprechendes Monitoring könnte einen wichtigen Beitrag zur kontinuierlichen Überprüfung von Politikmaßnahmen im Rahmen der deutschen und europäischen Wasserstoffpolitik leisten.

Description: Access to sustainable and effective energy services is central to every challenge and opportunity that humanity and the planet face today. As a result, there is unprecedented consensus that the ways in which energy is produced, distributed, and consumed can have major positive or negative consequences for humans, the environment, and the broader ecosystem, and therefore, a direct or indirect effect on achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and complying with the Paris Agreement. The situation in the developed and middle-income countries is such that most households have sustained and effective access to cooking energy services. In contrast, almost 80-90% of household in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, lacks such access or face constant interruptions due to financial insecurities, and unreliable or insecure energy services. Technological development has widely been viewed and supported as the solution to these challenges. However, while technological development is an important element in addressing this challenge, the central role of individual and societal factors in influencing the acceptance, sustainable access, and effective uses of technologies is often overlooked. Nevertheless, technological processes are negotiated, developed, implemented, and used within social contexts. The objective of this thesis is to understand and contextualize the factors that facilitate or hinder sustainable and effective access to cooking energy services within households in the informal settlement of Kibera, with a focus on biomass improved cookstoves (ICSs). Guided by the needs-opportunity-ability model (NOA), this thesis first examines the needs that households seek to fulfil through cooking energy services. It then assesses the state of abilities and opportunities in order to understand the limitations and opportunities available and accessible to households to meet their desired needs. Lastly, the role of individual and societal factors are examined at the micro, meso, and macro levels in enabling or hindering sustainable access and effective use of the cooking energy services sought and desired by households. This approach is especially important because it recognizes that energy access processes are also shaped by a broad spectrum of influences that lie outside the households’ direct control or the nature of technological outcomes. The findings of this thesis show that households have multiple and diverse needs that they seek to fulfil through cooking energy services. Moreover, the findings confirm, as emphasized in the NOA model, the influential and interconnected roles of factors at the micro and macro levels in influencing consumer behavior and outcomes. Furthermore, it is found that meso-level factors also have significant influence on sustained access and effective use of cooking energy services, and might even exert stronger influence than macro-level factors, due to their immediacy and direct connection to the user and their day-to-day activities and livelihoods. This thesis concludes that, rather than household resistance to embracing sustainable and effective cooking energy services, the most persistent barriers to the adoption of sustainable and effective cooking energy services relate to how user needs are understood or fail to be understood, and the lack of appropriate and secure abilities and opportunities. Therefore, while several opportunities to address the challenges of access to clean and effective cooking energy services were identified, a range of individual and structural challenges would also need to be overcome to facilitate sustainable and effective progress. To overcome these challenges in Kibera, a range of options are proposed to improve and strengthen sustained access and effective use of cooking energy services. These recommendations emphasize the need for ongoing and holistic understanding of households' needs and realities, as well as the central role played by interacting forces at the micro, meso, and macro levels in influencing access conditions and outcomes for humans and the environment of advocated cooking energy services. More specifically, the recommendations call for greater attention to the social and contextual dimensions and dynamics of cooking energy production, distribution, and consumption processes, as demonstrated in the ‘landscape’ of cooking energy access that is one of the major outcomes of this thesis.

Description: In collaboration with national knowledge partners in India, South Africa, Vietnam and Turkey, the project elaborates country specific co-benefits of climate policies, with emphasis on the opportunities presented by renewable power generation. With its political partners in government departments and agencies COBENEFITS connects the social and economic opportunities of renewable energies to climate change mitigation strategies. The COBENEFITS project contributes to building strong alliances and lowering political barriers to revisit and effectively implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. COBENEFITS enables international mutual learning and capacity building among policy makers, knowledge partners and multipliers on seizing the social and economic co-benefits of climate change mitigation, through Country-specific assessment reports of social and economic co-benefits of renewable power generation Training materials, online courses and face-to-face trainings on seizing co-benefits of renewable power generation Policy dialogue sessions on enabling political environments and overcoming barriers to seize the co-benefits Strategies to connecting co-benefits of climate change mitigation with climate action plans, the Paris Ambition Mechanism and MRV schemes to support national NDC implementation.

Description: This Policy Brief identifies key policy recommendations for the proposed Africa-EU Strategy to ensure that the subsequent policies and implementation strategies, developed in the context of the“Green Transition and Energy Access Partnership”, deliver for the people of Africa and the planet, on a long- term basis.