Chapter 6: Transition pathways and typologies in the Global South
6.2. Results
6.2.5. Governing change in a complex socio-economic landscape
147 as an energy service provider and hence raising revenue through a range of innovative ways such as installation and maintenance of distributed energy (EGI, 2013). Nevertheless, this is contested and resisted. This is reiterated in a report by Sustainable Energy Africa:
Some external advocates for renewable energy call for municipalities to adopt a different financial model which does not place such a revenue raising burden on electricity sales, but however theoretically defensible; this is unrealistic even in the long-term, as it strikes at the heart of a deeply entrenched modus operandi and institutional structure within these entities (SEA, 2014b: 3).
This highlights that, in the City, there are multiple pathways for integrating and balancing inherent regime tensions during reconfiguration processes. However, it also highlights that transition scenarios are driven by contested visions of sustainability related to socio-technical infrastructure.
The next section explores this further, through focusing on the manner and modes in which actors and networks attempt to govern or manage socio-technical reconfigurations.
148 which act as ‘nodes of support’. The value of these nodes is described by the Head of Energy and Climate Change:
It is highly useful to have support structures in various Departments which support sustainable energy development. We have supportive people in Transport Department, Electricity Department, Supply Chain Management and Legal Services (Interview 23. 26 August 2012).
Apart from relationship-building this network also manufactures these nodes by recruiting and
‘deploying’ supportive individuals across City departments88. This strategy was highlighted by participants in both the Energy and Climate Change Unit and Sustainable Energy Africa across multiple interviews.
This network employs a range of strategies and governance modalities to steer socio-technical change, which display manifold interactions with the ‘niche-regime-landscape’ hierarchy. Notably, it actively engages in niche incubation89 by supporting and mainstreaming green innovations. This is done through a number of ways such as advocating for preference for niche innovations in supply chain policies through a Greening the Procurement Policy programme (CCT, 2015s); contracting energy service companies in municipal retrofits (CCT, 2011d); marketing niche innovations in behaviour change campaigns such as the City’s Electricity Savings Campaign and attempting to provide a supportive policy environment for green niche technologies through policies such as a Resource Efficient Development Policy (CCT, 2016), Green Building Guidelines (CCT, 2006e) and SSEG feed-in tariffs (CCT, 2013b). A close assessment of the ECAP (CCT, 2010a) highlights that many projects are designed to incubate green niches, including the Mass Solar Water Heater Roll-out, Municipal Buildings Retrofit Programme and Atlantis Renewable Energy Hub (SALGA, 2013b). As highlighted by a ‘Report on Energy, Economics and Climate Change in Cape Town’ (CCT, 2012f), many of these nascent green technologies ‘can only be viable with government and policy support’
and these schemes thus seeks to address the ‘barriers to market penetration’ (SALGA, 2013c) that niche technologies come up against (Strategic Economic Solutions, 2012). Across interviews it was held that collaboration between innovation firms and City officials, particularly in co-developing innovations and technical solutions tailored to the city’s local challenges, are critical in facilitating socio-technical change90. Thus, in the City’s case the interaction between the state and niches is highly collaborative.
88 See Figure 10.5: Nodes in the City of Cape Town engaged in electricity reconfiguration in Appendix 5
89 Strategic niche management
90 See Table 10.4, in Appendix 5 on the ways in which the City incubates niches innovations
149 Figure 6.6: Niche in Cape Town related to sustainable energy
Importantly, this network prioritises ‘flagship’ and ‘leading by example’ projects that are intended to catalyse socio-technical change and momentum in the city’s wider community. An objective in the ECAP to ‘reduce energy consumption in Council operations’ through City-owned building, street and traffic light retrofits is positioned and marketed as a ‘lead by example’ programme in order to encourage ‘change’ in the wider Cape Town community (CCT, 2011d).
This network has coordinated a number of collaborative forums aimed at knowledge transfer amongst urban policy actors and supporting firms engaged with innovation including an Energy
Stimulate innovation through EE Standards and Planning Criteria
Support RE and EE in procurement Support through
contracting e.g. ESCOs RE from municipal
operations e.g.
waste to energy and micro-hydro
Not-for-profit e.g.
Sustainable Energy Africa Private: Firms
involved in EE, SSEG and RE e.g. Energy Service Companies
SSEG e.g. PV and bi- directional meters DSM e.g. ripple control, time-of-use
EE e.g. lighting, geysers, HVAC
Supportive and fair feed-in-tariffs
Removal of market barriers
e.g. billing Envisioned
technology configuration
s
Metering: Smart and internet-based metering, AMR & AMI
Incubation / SNM
Supportive policy instruments
Network of actors
Research community e.g. Energy Research
Centre Sector Development
Agencies e.g.
GreenCape
Local government e.g.
Energy & Climate Change Unit
URBAN ENERGY NICHE
150 Climate Change Think Tank (Cartwright et al., 2012), which acts as an epistemic community for local climate actions and the Cape Town Climate Change Coalition and associated Climate Smart Cape Town campaign (CCT, 2011b). Based on City reports and interviews these vehicles are intended to play multiple roles, including pooling of resources, knowledge exchange, coordinating advocacy, supporting niche technologies and building platforms of collaboration (CCT, 2011b; SEA, 2015b;
CCT, 2015b). Importantly, an Efficiency Forum and Market-Place was established in order to
‘support the commercial sector’ by providing a platform for knowledge exchange and linking suppliers of energy efficient goods and services with commercial building owners and managers (CCT, 2012b). The Head of Energy and Climate holds that these partnerships facilitate ‘cooperation of unprecedented levels’ and are ‘critical in creating institutional resilience’ (Interview 23. 26 August 2012).
An important strategy employed by this network is to lobby national government for regulatory and policy reform in order to create top-down pressures and incentives for urban socio-technical change. City officials highlight that participation in this network enables them to operate across traditional government scales. In this regard it has established relationships with individuals across national government agencies including the Department of Energy, National Treasury, NERSA and Eskom. Through these relationships it seeks to influence national policy, using a range of mechanisms including engagement in national Portfolio Committees; commenting on draft legislation, regulation and policy; and participation in national energy forums and meetings. In this way it attempts to influence the landscape level.
Related to the above, this network makes use of umbrella organisations including SACN, City Energy Support Unit, SALGA and AMEU to consolidate and relay positions to national government, exchange knowledge, develop joint strategies and increase bargaining power against national government (SACN, 2013; SEA, 2009; SALGA, 2013a). It also engages directly with other South African cities in order to exchange knowledge and ‘share lessons’ (SALGA, 2013a). In cases where one city innovates or pushes the boundaries of what is legally permissible in terms of energy initiatives, other cities tend to follow suit. As a result of strong energy and climate change policy and implementation ‘national government often requests the City to transfer knowledge’ to smaller municipalities around successful project implementation (Programme Manager: Sustainable Energy Africa. Interview 10. 24 June 2012). The City has thus developed ‘transition initiatives that are taken up by national and cascaded down to other cities’ (Hodson and Marvin, 2010: 480).
Due to the multi-scale nature of energy and climate challenges, this network has persuaded City politicians to formally commit to several transnational ‘advocacy’ networks (Lindseth, 2004). These include the Cities Climate Change Covenant, Carbonn Climate Cities Registry, C40 Cities Network
151 and the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCT, 2015b). There are two main motivations communicated for persuading the City’s political stratum and Mayor to join these international platforms. First, these international platforms provide opportunities for resources, knowledge exchange and learning.
Second, according to the Head of Energy and Climate Change, it is intended as a means to ‘apply pressure’ and a system of accountability on local politicians and officials to ‘act in accordance with international commitments and trends’ (Interview 23. 26 August 2012).
Figure 6.7: Multi-level actors supporting Cape Town’s energy transition
Cape Town networks Energy Efficiency
Forum
Cape Town Climate Change Coalition
Low Carbon City Strategy
Accelerate Cape Town
Cape Town Partnership South African city networks
City Energy Support Unit
South African
Cities Network SALGA AMEU Cities Suppport
Programme International city networks
C40 Cities Carbonn Cities
Climate Registry ICLEI Global Cities Covenant on Climate
50 Cities Climate Partnership International donor agencies
DANIDA British High
Commission SIDA HIVOS GIZ REEEP EEP
International foundations and development banks Clinton Climate
Initiative
Rockefeller
Foundation KAS Agence Française de
Développement AFDB
Intergovernmental agencies
World Bank UNEP UN Habitat Global Environment
Facility Global Energy Basel
152 Recently, this network initiated ‘Cape Town Energy 2040’ vision process. This visioning is intended to ‘develop a long term (25 year) energy plan for Cape Town’ and incorporate a ‘vision of a city- wide energy future into local government policies’ (CCT, 2015b). According to the CEO of GreenCape, the process is aimed at ‘facilitating broad stakeholder engagement that includes commerce and industry, provincial government, the City, NGOs and academia’ (Interview 15. 16 September 2013). The aim of the process is to negotiate, discuss and pursue a common long-term vision for Cape Town’s energy future. As the Energy Vision covers a 25-year time line it allows stakeholders to participate in an unencumbered manner and without being concerned by implications such as capacity constraints, cost burdens, technical obstacles and regulatory barriers.
In this way it seeks to facilitate a process of ‘thinking about the type of legacy everyone wants to achieve’ (Interview 23. 26 August 2012). The process itself moreover seeks to ‘build networks and persuade participants on desirability of system change’ (Meeting 47. CCT Energy and Climate Change Unit. 16 January 2013). Moreover, through a process of backcasting, a clearly defined set of actionable targets may be established as well as systems for monitoring and evaluation (CCT, 2015b).
The governance modalities and policy agenda adopted by this network aligns closely with reflexive governance modalities with origins in the Global North such as strategic niche management, transition management and multi-level climate governance. It is thus necessary to evaluate the context-specific implications and factors in such governance in light of critiques by Pieterse (2008) and Lawhon and Murphy (2011).
Notably, community groups, social movements and NGOs focused on the social dimensions of energy and energy justice were notably absent from visioning processes, knowledge transfer, policy development, framing the nature and focus of socio-technical change sought and the types of technology to prioritise for incubation. Community movements such as Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Social Justice Coalition that focus on service delivery aspects of infrastructure were seldom engaged or consulted in these governance processes. According to the Policy and Research Manager of the Electricity Governance Initiative, more socially geared NGOs that consistently ‘voice concerns around energy poverty and development’ are largely left out of dialogue and framing socio-technical reconfigurations (Interview 7. 12 August 2013).
Further, the targets of governing socio-technical change within visioning, knowledge exchange and niche incubation by this network were predominantly framed in terms of ‘environmental performance’. Plans and policy for reconfigurations are replete with terms such as smart, green, connected, modern, networked, competitive and efficient cities. Conversely, there is limited focus
153 on ‘sustainable lives and livelihoods’ (Pieterse, 2008), justice, inequality, development, poverty or other indicators and dimensions of social sustainability.
In essence it is evident that this urban network is positioning and marketing the City of CT as a
‘global’, ‘first-class’, ‘resilient’ and ‘smart’ city (CCT, 2015b) aligned to an international network of funders and partners such as C40 Cities, largely within an urban, ecological security and modernism narrative (CCT, 2015b). These include high-level programmes and partnerships such as greening the World Design Capital, a Green Goal Legacy programme for the 2010 World Cup and being crowned the WWF Global Earth Hour City Capital in 2014 (CCT, 2015b). Not only does the City of CT partner with highly developed cities such as Aachen and Munich and multi-national consultancies and technology firms such as Siemens, but the actual framing of partnership and funding agreements and the focus of knowledge exchange and collaboration is based almost exclusively on green niche and technology development.