The Rising Powers, Clean Development and the Low Carbon Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa

新兴大国对撒哈拉以南非洲地区清洁能源系统的参与常常被资源和土地争夺的流行形象所掩盖。新兴大国为了追求多样化的经济和政治目标，寻求与许多非洲国家、企业和社区更密切地接触，越来越多地将可再生能源项目纳入它们对非洲的援助和贷款组合。从发展和对国际能源与气候治理的影响两方面来看，这一活动的深度、驱动因素和结果都是复杂和有争议的。这个跨学科研究项目旨在研究中国和巴西如何、为什么以及在多大程度上使南部非洲能够过渡到低碳能源系统，并评估由此对该地区能源服务的可负担性、可获得性和可持续性的影响。该项目将开发新的分析框架，以便系统地比较中国和巴西在促进非洲向低碳能源系统过渡方面发挥的作用，特别是将分析它们如何影响生产用途（例如烹饪、照明和交通）的能源服务提供。此外，该项目还试图评估对地方、国家、区域和全球范围内更广泛的能源和气候变化治理的影响。从经验上看，该研究项目将通过研究参与者、机构、伙伴关系和所涉及的政策制定过程的范围，并通过确定这种合作所服务的主要利益和受益者，寻求了解新兴大国与非洲能源系统的接触。本研究还将结合半结构化访谈和基于社区的参与式研究方法，探讨中国和巴西在南部非洲创造和实现的转型的动态，这些转型在技术、社会和空间上是不平衡和差异化的。在整个地区，他们各自支持不同的技术部门和能源服务。中国和巴西的投资、创新和基础设施发展模式惠及特定的社会群体，并对贫困和生计产生不同的影响。此外，中国和巴西对低碳转型的影响似乎存在空间差异，不仅在撒哈拉以南非洲不同国家之间存在差异，而且在这些国家的城乡空间之间也存在差异。因此，该项目旨在审查这些动态对能源获取和负担能力等关键问题的影响，以及与更广泛的发展战略的关系。为了解决ESRC新兴大国项目的三个目标（即“可持续性和竞争力”、“福祉和公平”以及“全球治理”），该项目将产生关于南部非洲可再生能源领域新兴大国投资、创新和基础设施发展性质的详细知识。它还将详细分析新兴大国与非洲之间的南南技术转让和技术合作如何运作，包括对创新能力的影响、特定技术的适当性以及当前投资战略的影响，这些战略将特别适用于该地区内外的政府和私营部门。通过与英国政府部门、巴西和中国的学术研究伙伴以及南部非洲的学术和非政府组织合作，该项目旨在建立能力，促进知识交流和政策对话，并建立跨学科和跨国研究网络，关注新兴大国在促进撒哈拉以南非洲低碳转型中的作用。

The involvement of Rising Powers in clean energy systems in sub-Saharan Africa is often obscured by popular images of resource- and land-grabs. Seeking to engage more closely with a number of African states, businesses and communities in pursuit of diverse economic and political goals, the Rising Powers have increasingly come to incorporate renewable energy projects into their aid and loan portfolios in Africa. The depth, drivers, and outcomes of this activity are complex and contested in terms of both development and the implications for international energy and climate governance. This interdisciplinary research project seeks to examine how, why and to what extent China and Brazil are enabling the transition to low carbon energy systems in Southern Africa and to assess the consequent implications for the affordability, accessibility and sustainability of energy services in the region. The project will develop new frameworks for analysis in order to systematically compare the roles that China and Brazil are playing in facilitating the transition to low carbon energy systems in Africa and in particular will analyse how they are shaping the provision of energy services for productive uses (e.g. for cooking, lighting and mobility). Further, the project also seeks to assess the implications for the wider governance of energy and climate change at the local, national, regional and global scales. Empirically, the research project will seek to understand the Rising Powers engagement with African energy systems by looking at the range of actors, institutions, partnerships and policy-making processes involved and by identifying the key interests and beneficiaries being served by this co-operation. Using a combination of semi-structured interviews and community-based participatory research methods the research will also explore the dynamics of the transitions being created and enabled by China and Brazil in Southern Africa, which are uneven and differentiated technically, socially and spatially. Across the region they have each championed different technology sectors and energy services. Their impacts are also socially differentiated in that patterns of Chinese and Brazilian investment, innovation and infrastructure development benefit particular groups of society and have differential impacts on poverty and livelihoods. Further, the impacts China and Brazil are having on low carbon transitions appear to be spatially differentiated, not just between different countries in sub-Saharan Africa but also between urban and rural spaces within these countries. Thus the project seeks to examine the consequences of these dynamics for key issues of energy access and affordability, and in relation to wider development strategies. Addressing three of the ESRC Rising Powers programme objectives (namely 'sustainability and competitiveness', 'well-being and equity' and 'global governance') the project will thus produce detailed knowledge on the nature of Rising Power's investment, innovation and infrastructure development in the renewable energy sector in Southern Africa. It will also provide a detailed analysis of how South-South technology transfer and technology cooperation between the Rising Powers and Africa can work, including insights about the implications for innovation capacity, the appropriateness of specific technologies and the impact of current investment strategies which will be of particular use for government and the private sector, within and outside the region. Involving collaborations with UK government departments, with academic research partners in Brazil and China and with partners from the academic and NGO community in Southern Africa the project seeks to build capacity, to foster knowledge exchange and policy dialogue and to build cross-disciplinary and transnational research networks concerned with the role of the Rising Powers in facilitating low carbon transitions in sub-Saharan Africa.