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In 2015, the Liberal Party of Canada formed a majority federal government on a platform that included prioritizing Nation-to-Nation relationships with Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit, and MĂŠtis) peoples in the country and re-asserting global leadership in climate change action by moving away from fossil fuel-based extraction and toward renewable energy initiatives. It may be argued that addressing both of these issues, advancing Indigenous-Settler reconciliation and mitigating climate change, can be done in the same space. Indeed, though Indigenous peoples in Canada and elsewhere have recently moved forward with renewable energy initiatives within their Territories, there has been very little critical analysis on just how such projects have been operationalized and whether renewable energy can or even should be considered a vehicle for reconciliation efforts. In this paper, we present a systematic review of Canadian literature (spanning 1980 to 2017) concerning Indigenous peoplesâ involvement in renewable energy in order to better understand the stated motivations and desires of Indigenous peoples in Canada taking leadership, partnering in, and/or participating in the renewable energy sector. Using a series of keyword search strings across three academic databases, two theses databases, and a grey literature search, we retrieved literature (n=980) that was subjected to four exclusionary forms, then thematically analyzed the included literature (n=26). Our findings suggest Indigenous peoplesâ experiences and motivations are varied, yet many are developing renewable energy in their Territories to break free of colonial ties and move towards energy autonomy, establish more reliable energy systems, and reap the long-term financial benefits that clean energy can provide. Despite the apparent advantages seen throughout most of the literature reviewed here, we suggest further research in this area is necessary before this kind of positive rhetoric of renewable energy in Indigenous communities builds enough momentum that proponents become blind to possible shortcomings. We conclude with a broader discussion of the interactions between Indigenous-Settler reconciliation in the context of renewable energy projects as well as offering indicators for future research to fill current knowledge gaps.

This article deploys the term 'green imperialism' to denote the specificities of contemporary imperialism within the context of the hoped-for global transition towards low-carbon capitalist economies and societies in the coming decades. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) provides a modern exemplar of green imperialist dynamics in action. Hegemonic powers are seeking to position the Congolese economy as an exporter of low-cost, low-carbon metals and an open market for the entry of renewable energy finance and technologies. To date, the political response to green imperialism in the DRC has reproduced a model of mining-led national development that historically has delivered little by way of material improvements for most of the population, thus undermining the prospects of prosperity in the country. Albeit this time around there is the possibility of expanded access for some to renewable forms of energy as a foreign-owned private commodity, with all the limitations and contradictions this new model of energy delivery entails.

This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report (IPCC-SRREN) assesses the potential role of renewable energy in the mitigation of climate change. It covers the six most important renewable energy sources – bioenergy, solar, geothermal, hydropower, ocean and wind energy – as well as their integration into present and future energy systems. It considers the environmental and social consequences associated with the deployment of these technologies and presents strategies to overcome technical as well as non-technical obstacles to their application and diffusion. SRREN brings a broad spectrum of technology-specific experts together with scientists studying energy systems as a whole. Prepared following strict IPCC procedures, it presents an impartial assessment of the current state of knowledge: it is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive. SRREN is an invaluable assessment of the potential role of renewable energy for the mitigation of climate change for policymakers, the private sector and academic researchers.

Clean energy is going transnational. Following the COP21 UN Climate Change Conference in December 2015, a roll-out of clean energy schemes in the global South is fostering a global energy transition. One such case is South Africa, where a policy innovation - the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) - was introduced in 2011. While REIPPPP seems to be a success story in terms of renewable energy capacity, it is unclear how the instrument is shaping the overall course of South Africa's green transformation regarding the influence of transnational actors, participation in local ownership, and socio-economic benefits. Based on expert interviews and empirical process tracing of the renewable energy projects during the five bidding rounds of REIPPPP (2011-2016), the article analyses the design and effects of REIPPPP and discusses its implications for transition strategies, such as a 'just transition'.

As the world approaches the 2030 year marker for the implementation of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as defined by the United Nations, the global urgency for sustainable and energy sources grows. Lower-income countries, however, confront a choice between cleaner energy and ensuring cheap and reliable energy. This raises the question of how some countries can find a balance between meeting their global climate change commitments and meeting urgent energy generation needs. This article uses resource nationalism as a lens to examine Tanzania's energy transition dynamics. It seeks to understand why renewable sources such as wind and solar have been promoted in government policy but have not attracted much developmental support and investment. The authors argue that resource nationalism provides context within which to understand why the state has been quick to promote energy projects (notably geothermal, coal, natural gas and hydroelectric) where it has direct investment interests, as opposed to large wind and solar projects where private - often foreign - investors are dominant.

In the twenty-first century, modern bioenergy could become one of the largest sources of energy, partially replacing fossil fuels and contributing to climate change mitigation. Agricultural and forestry biomass residues form an inexpensive bioenergy feedstock with low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, if harvested sustainably. We analysed quantities of biomass residues supplied for energy and their sensitivities in harmonised bioenergy demand scenarios across eight integrated assessment models (IAMs) and compared them with literature-estimated residue availability. IAM results vary substantially, at both global and regional scales, but suggest that residues could meet 7–50% of bioenergy demand towards 2050, and 2–30% towards 2100, in a scenario with 300 EJ/year of exogenous bioenergy demand towards 2100. When considering mean literature-estimated availability, residues could provide around 55 EJ/year by 2050. Inter-model differences primarily arise from model structure, assumptions, and the representation of agriculture and forestry. Despite these differences, drivers of residues supplied and underlying cost dynamics are largely similar across models. Higher bioenergy demand or biomass prices increase the quantity of residues supplied for energy, though their effects level off as residues become depleted. GHG emission pricing and land protection can increase the costs of using land for lignocellulosic bioenergy crop cultivation, which increases residue use at the expense of lignocellulosic bioenergy crops. In most IAMs and scenarios, supplied residues in 2050 are within literature-estimated residue availability, but outliers and sustainability concerns warrant further exploration. We conclude that residues can cost-competitively play an important role in the twenty-first century bioenergy supply, though uncertainties remain concerning (regional) forestry and agricultural production and resulting residue supply potentials.

Palm oil is an important edible oil due to its high content of beta-carotene and vitamin E, high oil output, and solid fat content. However, its extensive commercialization has resulted in a vast amount of waste, leading to challenges for the development of an economically feasible conversion of palm oil waste into useful products. This review focuses on exploring the various conversion processes of the liquid waste produced from the palm oil processing industry. The main treatment of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME), which can be separated into fiber, wastewater, residual oils, and other impurities, involves a digestion process which produces biogas, while the fiber and other impurities are often converted into animal feed, soil fertilizer, fermentation media, and yeast production. Residual oil found in POME, known as Sludge Palm Oil (SPO), contains high levels of free fatty acid (FFA). Other residual oils resulting from palm oil refining include Palm Fatty Acid Distilled (PFAD) and Palm Acid Oil (PAO) that also have a high FFA content. The transesterification and esterification processes are utilized to convert SPO, PFAD and PAO into fuel.

In response to global climate change, Canada is transitioning towards a low-carbon economy and the need for policy approaches that are effective, equitable, coordinated, and both administratively and politically feasible is high. One point is clear; the transition is intimately tied to the vast supply of ecosystem services in the boreal zone of Canada. This paper describes four contrasting futures for the boreal zone using scenario analysis, which is a transdisciplinary, participatory approach that considers alternative futures and policy implications under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity. The two critical forces shaping the four scenarios are the global economy’s energy and society’s capacity to adapt. The six drivers of change are atmospheric change, the demand for provisioning ecosystem services, the demand for nonprovisioning ecosystem services, demographics, and social values, governance and geopolitics, and industrial innovation and infrastructure. The four scenarios include: (i) the Green Path, where a low-carbon economy is coupled with high adaptive capacity; (ii) the Uphill Climb, where a low-carbon economy is instead coupled with low adaptive capacity; (iii) the Carpool Lane, where society has a strong capacity to adapt but a reliance on fossil fuels; and (iv) the Slippery Slope, where there is both a high-carbon economy and a society with low adaptive capacity. The scenarios illustrate the importance of transitioning to a low-carbon economy and the role of society’s adaptive capacity in doing so. However, they also emphasize themes like social inequality and adverse environmental outcomes arising from the push towards climate change mitigation.

The Canadian boreal zone provides extractive goods and services (provisioning ecosystem services (PrES)) to domestic and global markets and makes a significant contribution to the Canadian economy. The intensity and location of these extractive activities, however, may positively or negatively affect the availability of other benefits that the Canadian and global society receive from the boreal. Where PrES compete, managing these activities along with their impacts to boreal ecosystems becomes a balancing act between the need for resource extraction and the continued availability of the other benefits from ecosystems. Management measures and policies are more likely to succeed if they are designed with foresight, which means accounting for how demand, a key driver of change in the boreal, may change in the future. To help this process, we present three divergent, yet plausible future scenarios based on the analysis of: (i) the capacity of the boreal to provide wood products, fossil fuels, metals and minerals, and hydropower and other renewables; (ii) past trends (1985–2015) and key events in the demand for these PrES; (iii) the interaction of demand for PrES with other drivers of change to the boreal zone; and (iv) the synergies and trade-offs between PrES. We find that historically and currently the capacity of the boreal to provide these PrES exceeds the amount currently supplied. However, the capacity of different PrES and location of extractive activities are spatially dispersed creating a spatial and temporal patchwork of associated risks to local ecosystem integrity and the supply of non-PrES. In addition, these scenarios suggest that the future of boreal PrES is very uncertain and highly dependent on how other drivers of change (namely governance and geopolitics, societal values and climate change) play out in the future. Given the spatial complexity, we find that the cumulative effect of these drivers (e.g., climate change) will determine what paths unfold for different areas of the boreal, and we conclude that careful consideration and planning must be given to ensure that the balance between PrES and non-PrES is maintained.

Abstract The article identifies an empirical blind spot in the literature on hydro-hegemony, with a scant analysis of power relations and resource control between states in transboundary water relations in a Latin American context. This article aims to fill this gap by examining Brazilian hydro-hegemony in the case of the Brazilian–Paraguayan Itaipu hydroelectric dam, the second-largest hydroelectric dam in the world by production. Based on a literature review and analysis of interviews with regional experts, it is argued that Brazilian hydro-hegemony can be best understood as consensual hegemony, resulting in consensual hydro- hegemony as a distinct and understudied form. In the Itaipu case, Brazil established such a hydro-hegemony through the dam's binational administrative company, containing Paraguay within a structure that leads to Brazil-skewed resource control. Resumen El artículo identifica un punto ciego empírico en la literatura sobre hidrohegemonía, con un escaso análisis de las relaciones de poder y control de recursos entre Estados en las relaciones hídricas transfronterizas en un contexto latinoamericano. Este artículo pretende llenar este vacío examinando la hidrohegemonía brasileña en el caso de la presa hidroeléctrica brasileño–paraguaya de Itaipú, la segunda mayor presa hidroeléctrica del mundo por producción. A partir de una revisión bibliográfica y del análisis de entrevistas con expertos regionales, se argumenta que la hidrohegemonía brasileña puede entenderse mejor como hegemonía consensual, resultando la hidrohegemonía consensual una forma distinta y poco estudiada. En el caso de Itaipú, Brasil estableció tal hidrohegemonía a través de la empresa administrativa binacional de la represa, conteniendo a Paraguay dentro de una estructura que lleva a un control de los recursos sesgado hacia Brasil. Résumé L'article identifie un point aveugle empirique dans la littérature sur l'hydro-hégémonie, caractérisée par une analyse limitée des relations de pouvoir et du contrôle des ressources entre les États dans les relations transfrontalières en matière d'eau dans le contexte latino- américain. Cet article vise à combler cette lacune en examinant l'hydro- hégémonie brésilienne dans le cas du barrage hydroélectrique brésilo- paraguayen d'Itaipu, le deuxième plus grand barrage hydroélectrique du monde en termes de production. A partir d'une revue de la littérature et d'une analyse d'entretiens avec des experts de la région, il est avancé que l'hydro-hégémonie brésilienne peut être mieux comprise comme une hégémonie consensuelle, une forme distincte et peu étudiée d'hydro- hégémonie. Dans le cas d'Itaipu, le Brésil a établi une telle hégémonie hydrologique par le biais de l'entreprise binationale administratrice du barrage, confinant le Paraguay dans une structure qui le réduit à un contrôle déséquilibré des ressources par rapport au Brésil.