The gap between rural and urban is widening in ways that reward urban lifestyles and undermine the interests of rural communities. The asymmetrical power relation between rural and urban is relevant in a Swedish context where Norrland, Sweden's northernmost region, is experiencing outmigration and cutbacks in welfare services all the while urban centers in southern Sweden attract innovation, economic capital and an inflow of young, educated people. This study examines what perceptions of Norrland that are dominating the Swedish media landscape and by doing so aims to investigate how power relations between urban and rural are constructed in the sustainability discourses ecological modernization and the environmental justice framework. The study is based on a discourse analysis of printed articles in the national press and TT news agency over a 10 to 12 years time span. In addition to discourse analysis, a theoretical framework concerning visions of sustainability and urban/rural divisions are applied. The result suggest that the material primarily articulate Norrland as a natural resource base for economic profit and as a site for realizing ideas inherent to the ecological modernization discourse. Resistance against Norrland as a site for production and exploitation are embedded in the environmental justice discourse and shed light on the socially unequal and geographically uneven patterns of injustice.

This study examines the adoption of clean cooking technologies in developing countries with a focus on the ACE-1 advanced biomass stove (ABS). Marginalized communities in rural environments are often exposed to high levels of Household Air Pollution (HAP) due to the common use of traditional cookstoves. The United Nations (UN) has recognized the adoption of clean cooking technology like the ABS as a key driver and high-impact opportunity in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Nonetheless, the context for adoption is complex. Adoption depends on numerous variables, that can enable or hinder the uptake of modern cookstoves. This study is based on the assumption, that adoption starts with the decision-making process and acquisition of the stove. Based on a field study in rural Cambodia, this research focuses on users at the initial stage of adoption. By means of questionnaire-based interviews, this study identifies how variables related to ‘fuel and technology’ and ‘household and setting’ affect the likeliness of adoption and what opportunities can be identified to facilitate the process of adoption. The study finds, that ABS-suitable biomass fuels are available and accessible in rural Cambodia. Besides, the production of renewable biomass fuels like pellets is growing, which provides opportunities for collaboration with stove distributors. The study confirms the common practice of stove stacking and points out the strong market presence of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) stoves. Market activities need to consider these factors and highlight the competitive advantages of AB, namely fuel efficiency and cost savings. Finally, the impact of social influence and peer relations should be further researched and taken into consideration for sales and marketing activities.

The current trend of emissions from the transport sector is unsustainable. To increase cycling mitigates these emissions, while also actively promoting health and alleviating congestion within cities. However, the clear benefits from cycling, along with efforts from municipalities around the world to promote cycling, have not translated in a sufficient change in behavior to reverse the global trends in emissions. Rather than looking at individual behavior, Social Practice Theory (SPT) is concerned with the practice (of cycling) as a whole. Primarily through interviews with international students about their experiences cycling and how they picked up cycling in Uppsala, voted best bike city in Sweden in 2018, I present an analysis of the recruitment process, and the overall practice of cycling in Uppsala through the lens of SPT. In this thesis I found that the pervasiveness of cycling throughout Uppsala and the social networks created by exchange students work together to recruit practitioners and spread the practice of cycling.

This thesis assesses the discourses identified in the literature that is critical to BECCS and its inclusion in IAMs used in the construction of RCP2.6 through a Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis. Within this analysis, there is a recognition of the resilience and civic environmentalism discourses that challenge the dominant and incumbent discourses in climate governance; green governmentality and ecological modernisation.This study has also assessed how the literature has implicitly and explicitly confronted the legitimacy that have offered credibility to the inclusion of BECCS in the construction of IAMs used for the achievement of RCP2.6. The predominately source and process-based legitimacy has been questioned via a thorough amount of research that investigates individual assumptions that are commonplace in said IAMs.

Wetlands provide important ecosystem services (ES) by storing large amounts of organic carbon (OC) and being of high biological, cultural, and economical value. Uganda is covered by vast wetland areas but has with a booming population rapidly been decreasing due to pressure on lands. The aim of this report was to examine important socio-ecological dynamics of rural wetlands in relation to variations of land use in central and eastern Uganda. This by assessing above- (ABG) and belowground (BG) C stocks, soil pH, and capturing provisioning ES and related impacts on soil and vegetation. The methods involved initial spatial analysis followed by two field campaigns with collection of soil samples, biomass measurements and recordings of provisioning ES, following locally developed standardized methods. Laboratory soil analyses included bulk density, loss on ignition and pH. The results shows that the permanent wetland LUC classes store the most total ecosystem C (273.5 to 356.5 t C ha-1), with the BG pool being the largest. It further brings new insights to the much less studied seasonal wetlands that also proves to be an important C stock (331.1 t C ha-1) as well as providing essential ES. In line with previous research, the total ecosystem C and the provisioning ES of wetlands decreases with changing land use management (farmlands 185 to 209; grasslands 125; woodland 120 to 284 t C ha-1). Further knowledge of socio-ecological dynamics of wetlands is needed, especially in seasonal wetlands, to increase sustainable wetland management. This being urgently needed for many communities in Uganda that are dependent on agroecologically-based economies in close relation to wetland ES and vulnerable to climate variations.

Karlstad kommun har de senaste åren arbetat med projektet ”Klimatsmart mat” där kommunen fokuserat på hållbarhetsfrågor inom måltidsverksamheter i skolor. Konceptet One planet plate har testats för första gången i skolor och Karlstad kommun var först ut i Sverige att prova.  Det här är en kvalitativ studie som har genomförts via personliga intervjuer med fyra stycken kostansvariga på de skolor som var utvalda att delta i One planet platesamt kommunens koststrateg. Syftet med studien har varit att undersöka hur de utvalda skolorna upplever att konceptet har fungerat på deras arbetsplats samt vilka möjligheter och hinder de upplever att det klimatsmarta arbetet ger upphov till. Studien har visat att One planet platehar upplevts som ett konkret och enkelt verktyg för de kostansvariga att använda sig av. Det har dock tagit mycket tid och planering att skapa recept som håller sig inom gränsvärdet för koldioxidutsläpp. För att förbättra konceptet föreslås att måltiderna bör kombineras med pedagogisk undervisning angående matens klimatpåverkan för att skapa en bättre förståelse hos eleverna.  I det klimatsmarta arbetet har flera hinder och möjligheter beskrivits och de viktigaste handlar om ekonomiska förutsättningar och politikers makt att påverka. Även att erbjuda klimatsmart mat från tidig ålder har lyfts som betydande för att kunna förändra attityder och kunskap som skapar långsiktiga hållbara vanor. / Karlstad community has been working with the project ”Climate-smart food” where the community in the past years has been focusing on sustainability questions within school canteens. The concept ”One planet plate” has been tested for the first time in schools and Karlstad community was the first in Sweden to try it. This is a qualitative study, carried out by interviewing those four people responsible for catering at the selected schools within one planet plateand the food strategist of the community. The purpose of this study have been to examine how the chosen schools experience that the concept have worked on their working place and which opportunities and obstacles they find the climate smart work causes. The study have found that one planet platehas been perceived as a concrete and easy tool for those responsible of the cantines to use. However, it has been time consuming to create recipes whitin the limits of carbon emissions. To improve the concept they suggest to combine the meals with educational teaching concerning the climate impact of food, to create a better understanding for the students. In the climate-smart work various obstacles and opportunities were described and the most important concerns financial prerequisites and the power politicians have to affect. Also, to offer climate-smart food from an early age have been lifted as important to be able to change attitudes and knowledge that creates long-term sustainable habits.

Climate change has become a catalyst for global action on greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change orchestrated the Paris Agreement to propel the international community towards implementing definitive carbon abatement plans. These policy commitments are known as Nationally Determined Contributions. However, as of yet many signatories to the Agreement are struggling to align their mitigation pledge with domestic policies. The energy sector is one of the key industries implicit in this carbon abatement process. New energy policies will need to be radically reoriented towards a low-carbon trajectory. In the literature, this pursuit is classed as a socio-technical transition. The Philippines is severely vulnerable to the risks posed by extreme weather patterns exaggerated by increasing temperatures. The country has actively engaged with the climate change discourse but recent trends demonstrate a reversal in low-carbon energy sector planning. Its status as an emerging economy with high potential GDP growth rates increases the urgency to act now to avoid becoming locked-in to an outdated energy system. A discourse and thematic analysis was conducted on key Philippine government texts concerning future energy policy. The approach enabled an exploration of the mechanisms underlying power sector governance in the context of the Paris Agreement. The multi-level perspective provided a conceptual framework for the findings, and enabled the identification of relationships and antagonism within discourses linked to energy system. This framework breaks down the system into three tiers and facilitates analysis of the interplay between landscape pressures, regime resistance and niche experimentation. The results indicated a disparity between the two government agencies on the necessity of low-carbon sector planning. The Philippine Climate Change Commission correlated the benefits of carbon abatement much more closely with the wider goals of sustainable development. The department of energy meanwhile advocated fossil fuel capacity building to meet economic requirements. Divergence in storylines led to a poor alignment between domestic energy policy and the aims of the Paris Agreement. An appreciation of the barriers to a unified overarching mitigation discourse, will assist in the creation of long-term abatement strategies required by the Paris Agreement.

The release of harmful chemicals into the Earth system is a threat to the survival of human societies and ecosystems. There are different types of harmful chemicals, some possess characteristics that are more harmful than others. Chemicals causing local effects have a short-term impact on the Earth system, whereas others are persistent in nature. The second becomes a global pollution issue because these substances accumulate, resulting in cascades through the Earth system. The chemical pollution issue is a scale challenge, meaning that the pollution issue occurs within and across levels and scales. Chemical pollution is not treated as a scale challenge in the decision-making process today. In the literature it is stated that chemical pollution is usually studied by focusing on single institutions, which hinders the possibility to investigate the linkages between the institutions affecting the scale dynamics. In this study the scale and cross-scale perspective was used to identify institutions that are affecting the work for a toxin free environment on a national and municipality level in Sweden. Governance Architecture was used as an analytical tool to investigate the key hindering and facilitating governance mechanisms to achieve sustainable chemical management in Sweden from a cross-scale perspective. The analytical tool was based on the Earth System Governance theory and scale dynamics. Sweden was used as a case to apply this tool. Two methods were used to gather empirics: literature analysis and in-depth interviews. The findings reveal an overrepresentation of the hindering factors being a result of a scale or a policy gap issue. These gaps are created by the lack of interdisciplinarity in the decision-making process, and the current legislation and politics which influences the implementation of the strategies on the different institutional levels. To overcome these hinders the current strategies and legislation needs to be in collaboration. This study contributes to empiric development within policy studies on how the chemical pollution issue needs to be conceptually formulated to achieve a toxin free environment within and cross-scales. It also contributes to method development by addressing the gap of including several institutions in cross-scale studies.

Controversy in transboundary rivers usually arises due to a lack of inclusive agreement and cooperation between the basin countries. Originating from Ethiopia, the Blue Nile River contributes most of the Nile River water making it vital for water, energy, and food security at downstream Sudan and Egypt. In 2011, the Ethiopian government announced the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) along the Blue Nile 40 km away from the Sudanese borders. The dam will be the biggest in Africa and seventh-largest in the world producing 6,000 Megawatts of electricity with a reservoir volume of 74 billion cubic meters. Great concerns were raised on the impact of this megaproject for downstream countries due to the expected changes in water quantity and quality. Different studies were published regarding the potential impacts of this dam on the Eastern Nile countries. However, these studies have usually focused on one aspect of the impact (e.g. hydropower, agricultural projects, water use) despite the connection that exists between these sectors. This research aims to investigate the impact the GERD operation will have on Sudan in terms of WEF security and sustainability. The study uses the WEF security nexus framework that addresses the interconnectedness between these sectors instead of treating them in silos. A sustainability assessment is also carried out to analyze the impact of the dam operation on the environmental, social and economic areas in Sudan. The study first looked into the current state of Sudan’s WEF security nexus and highlighted the vulnerabilities that exist within these sectors. Then an analysis of the GERD operation was carried out and the results showed that water regulation and sediment reduction will reflect positively on Sudan as it will enable for expansion in agricultural projects, increase hydropower production, and provide flood control. Some negative impacts, however, are to be expected especially during the impounding phase from water level reduction and change in river characteristic which will greatly affect the environment and society downstream. The safety of the dam was found to be the biggest threat to Sudan’s security, as the case of dam failure will have catastrophic consequences for the country. The study concluded that an increase in cooperation between the Eastern Nile countries will decrease the downstream negative impacts of the GERD and increase its overall benefits ultimately leading to sustainability, peace, and welfare for these countries. Sudan also needs to take measures in accommodating the new flowing conditions including reoperation of the Sudanese dams and mitigation strategies for the potential negative impacts.

House Resolution 109 mandates the duty of the United States Federal Government to the people of the United States to create a Green New Deal to combat the triple crises that people are currently facing. In order to understand this mandate and whether or not it is calling for sustainable changes, a discourse analysis was used to examine the discourse as text, interaction and context. This study seeks to fill in a gap of missing literature about House Resolution 109 due to its recent creation. The results show that while author Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emphasizes her beliefs of democratic socialism throughout the text as well as economic-based solution, the document lacks strong sustainability and fails to address the intricacies of sustainable development.