PIRE: Confronting Energy Poverty: Building an Interdisciplinary Evidence Base, Network, and Capacity for Transformative Change

主要研究者：Pamela Jagger（北卡罗来纳州查佩尔山大学）共同项目执行人：Michael Emch、Barbara Entwisle（北卡罗来纳州查佩尔山大学）、Andrew Grieshop、Stephen Kelly（北卡罗来纳州州立大学）发展中国家获得现代能源服务的机会有限。能源贫困，或无法获得现代能源服务，对个人和社区的福祉、环境和经济增长产生严重影响。该项目旨在了解在南部非洲这一能源获取率低的地区改善现代能源获取的战略的影响。研究人员将评估依赖于促进新技术和/或激励行为改变以减轻能源贫困的方法对环境和人类的影响。他们将通过分析地理变量来调查能源贫困的社会，人口和空间维度，并考虑最大限度地提高环境效益和人类福祉的干预措施的最佳规模。研究人员将使用社会生态系统框架和人口与环境动力学理论来研究能源贫困。他们将促进和维持一个学术，从业者和政策社区的网络，以填补用于减轻能源贫困的战略的关键差距。该项目将培训70多名博士后、研究生和本科生研究人员，他们来自人类学和工程学等不同学科。在南部非洲，预计到2050年，能源穷人的绝对人数将增加。能源贫困对气候、环境可持续性、人类健康和福祉都有影响，在个人和集体规模以及地方、区域和全球范围内都有负面影响。研究人员的目标是建立一个跨学科的证据库和网络，以实现变革。他们的研究和教育计划将围绕两个主题：评估技术和激励措施;人口和环境动态。使用严格的影响评估研究设计，他们将衡量空气质量，土地使用和人类福利的影响，一套代表性的新颖和可扩展的技术和行为干预措施，旨在减轻能源贫困。研究人员将使用生命周期分析来评估环境和社会成果之间的时间权衡和协同作用。在第二个主题中，他们将通过分析作为能源贫困决定因素的地理变量，调查能源贫困的社会、人口和空间层面，并考虑实施干预措施的最佳规模问题，以最大限度地提高环境效益和人类福祉。利用他们的比较研究设计，他们将探讨能源贫困与城市化和移民之间的关系，以及干旱和政治不稳定等冲击。这项研究之所以具有创新性，有两个原因。首先，它以严格的跨学科影响评估为锚。该团队将研究什么是有效的，为什么有效，以及在什么样的空间和时间尺度上有效。其次，能源贫困的研究在大量学科中高度分散，很少有跨学科框架的交叉或参与（例如，复杂的社会生态系统以及人口和环境动态）。研究人员将使用这些理论透镜来阐明这一问题，并在一个未充分研究的地区指导一个连贯的实证研究机构。该项目由社会、行为和经济科学理事会共同资助。

Principal Investigator: Pamela Jagger (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)Co-PIs: Michael Emch, Barbara Entwisle (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Andrew Grieshop, Stephen Kelly (North Carolina State University)Access to modern energy services are limited in the developing world. Energy poverty, or lack of access to modern energy services, has serious implications for the well-being of individuals and communities, the environment, and impacts economic growth. This project seeks to understand the impact of strategies to improve access to modern energy in Southern Africa, a region with low energy access. The researchers will evaluate the environmental and human impacts of approaches that rely on promotion of new technologies and/or incentives for behavior change to mitigate energy poverty. They will investigate the social, demographic, and spatial dimensions of energy poverty by analyzing geographic variables, and consider the optimal scale of interventions for maximizing environmental benefits and human well-being. The researchers will use social ecological systems frameworks and theories of population and environment dynamics to study energy poverty. They will foster and sustain a network of academic, practitioner, and policy communities to fill critical gaps in the strategies used to mitigate energy poverty. This project will train over 70 postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate researchers from disciplines as diverse as anthropology and engineering.Sub-Saharan Africa is an epicenter of energy poverty, defined as the lack of access to electricity and reliance on biomass fuels. In Southern Africa, the absolute number of energy poor is projected to increase through 2050. Energy poverty has implications for climate, environmental sustainability, human health, and well-being, with negative impacts realized at individual and collective-scales, and in local, regional, and global contexts. The researchers' goal is to build an interdisciplinary evidence base and network for transformative change. They will center their research and educational program around two themes: evaluating technology and incentives; and population and environment dynamics. Using rigorous impact evaluation research designs, they will measure the air quality, land use, and human welfare impacts of a representative set of novel and scalable technology and behavioral interventions designed to mitigate energy poverty. The researchers will use life-cycle analysis to evaluate temporal trade-offs and synergies between environmental and social outcomes. In the second theme, they will investigate the social, demographic, and spatial dimensions of energy poverty by analyzing geographic variables as determinants of energy poverty, and consider the question of optimal scale of implementation of interventions for maximizing environmental benefits and human well-being. Using their comparative research design, they will explore the relationship between energy poverty and urbanization and migration, and shocks such as droughts and political instability. The research is innovative for two reasons. First, it uses rigorous interdisciplinary impact evaluation as the anchor. The team will study what works, why it works, and over what spatial and temporal scale. Second, the study of energy poverty is highly fragmented across a large number of disciplines with very little cross-fertilization or engagement with interdisciplinary frameworks (e.g., complex socio-ecological systems and population and environment dynamics). The researchers will use these theoretical lenses to shed new light on this problem, and guide a coherent body of empirical research in an understudied region.This project is co-funded by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.