Configuring Urban Carbon Governance: Insights from Sydney, Australia

Abstract

In the political geography of responses to climate change, and the governance of carbon more specifically, the urban has emerged as a strategic site. Although it is recognized that urban carbon governance occurs through diverse programs and projects—involving multiple actors and working through multiple sites, mechanisms, objects, and subjects—surprisingly little attention has been paid to the actual processes through which these diverse elements are drawn together and held together in the exercise of governing. These processes—termed configuration—remain underspecified. This article explores urban carbon governance interventions as relational configurations, excavating how their diverse elements—human, institutional, representational, and material—are assembled, drawn into relation, and held together in the exercise of governing. Through an analysis of two contrasting case studies of urban carbon governance interventions in Sydney, Australia, we draw out common processes of configuring and specific sets of devices and techniques that gather, align, and maintain the relations between actors and elements that constitute intervention projects. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of conceiving of governing projects as relational configurations for how we understand the nature and practice of urban carbon governance, especially by revealing the diverse modes of power at work within processes of configuring.

回应气候变迁的政治地理中，或更确切而言，在碳排放的治理中，城市已成为策略性的场域。儘管城市碳排放的治理，已被认定为透过各种计画和方案进行——并涉及多重角色，且透过多重场域、机制、目标和对象运作——但令人惊讶的是，鲜少研究关注真实的治理实践中，这些多样的元素如何聚集并结合在一起。这些过程——以组态称之——仍然未受到详细说明。本文探讨城市碳排放治理的介入，作为关係性的组态，挖掘其多样的元素——人类、制度、再现和物质——如何在治理实践中进行凑组、聚集成关係，并结合在一起。我们透过分析澳大利亚悉尼城市碳排放治理介入的两组对照案例研究，得出组态的共同过程，以及汇集、排列和维繫组成介入计画的各个行动者及元素之间关係的一组特定机制及技术。我们于结论中，反思将治理计画视为关係性组态，对我们如何理解城市碳排放治理的实践本质之意涵，特别是透过揭露在组态过程中运作的多种权力形式。

En la geografía política que tiene que ver con las respuestas al cambio climático, y más específicamente con la gobernanza del carbono, el entorno urbano ha emergido con el carácter de sitio estratégico. Si bien se reconoce que la gobernanza del carbono urbano se manifiesta a través de diversos programas y proyectos—que involucran variados actores y que trabajan a través de múltiples sitios, mecanismos, objetos y sujetos—es sorprendente la escasa atención que se le ha prestado a los procesos a través de los cuales estos diversos elementos se juntan y se mantienen unidos para ejercer gobierno. Tales procesos—denominados configuración—permanecen poco especificados. En este artículo se exploran las intervenciones de la gobernanza urbana del carbono a título de configuraciones relacionales, buscando sacar a flote la manera como sus diversos elementos—humanos, institucionales, representacionales y materiales—son ensamblados, puestos en relación y mantenidos juntos en el ejercicio de gobernar. Mediante el análisis de dos estudios de caso contrastados sobre intervenciones de la gobernanza urbana del carbono en Sídney, Australia, sacamos a la luz los procesos comunes de configurar, y los conjuntos específicos de instrumentos y técnicas que recogen, alinean y conservan las relaciones entre los actores y elementos que constituyen los proyectos de intervención. Concluimos reflexionando sobre las implicaciones de concebir proyectos de gobierno como configuraciones relacionales, con base en la manera como entendemos la naturaleza y práctica de la gobernanza urbana del carbono, revelando especialmente los diversos modos de ejercicio del poder dentro de los procesos de configuración.

Keywords:

• devices and techniques
• geographies of urban carbon governance
• governance projects
• relational configurations
• Sydney

关键词：:

• 机制与技术，城市碳排放治理之地理，治理计画，关係性组态，悉尼。

Palabras clave:

• instrumentos y técnicas
• geografías de la gobernanza urbana del carbono
• proyectos de gobernanza
• configuraciones relacionales
• Sídney

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Garth Lean, Nicola Vaughan, and Jennifer Kent for their research assistance on the project. We are also grateful for the constructive input provided by the referees and editor.

Funding

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARCDP110100081).

Notes

1. Notably, governmentality and ANT-informed work has been particularly cognizant of the ultimate coconstitution of governing intentions and specific interventions that reshape the objects and subjects of governing (see Rutland and Aylett 2008).

2. Configuring resonates with notions of assembling and articulating (see Wise 2005; Featherstone 2011). Although arising from diverse traditions (ANT, and Deleuze and Guattari; Hall, and Laclau and Mouffe, respectively), these concepts are connected by their basis in relational thought: the idea that social entities and social formations are made through the connection of heterogeneous components and that the form, meaning, and efficacy of entities arises from their positioning within some form of relational configuration (Bingham 2009).

3. The synergies between the language and conceptual bases of AT and ANT are frequently commented on. Although there are points of distinction between the sets of theories (see Anderson et al. 2012), they are often drawn on in tandem (e.g., Müller 2015a) and assemblage is taken as a close equivalent of the actor network (Müller 2015b).

4. A broadly related notion is mobilized in Gidwani's (2008) use of suturing to explore the composition and ongoing governance of political–economic formations. For Gidwani, suturing is, like configuration, driven by a compositional logic and committed to the historically and geographically distinct conjunctures in which governance projects must be realized. Moreover, suturing resists the inference of unidirectional movement from intention to intervention that troubles the notion of translation, through its receptiveness to the instability of political–economic formations and their continual need for labors of repair. In exploring how desired formations are sutured together via moral and economic orderings, class, gender, and political relations rendered across human and nonhuman circuits, however, suturing remains somewhat abstract and ideational. By contrast, configuration enables a focus on the detailed workings of practices involved in maintaining the relations that hold heterogeneous elements together.

5. Following Bamberg (2011), we think of narration as a mode of discourse associated particularly with the purpose of passing on values about what is considered desirable, good, or valued or aimed at establishing (or countering) norms and conventions.

6. Currently, electricity generation is Australia's single largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG), accounting for nearly 35 percent of emissions (DCCEE 2012). Three quarters of electricity generation is coal-fired, making Australia's electricity production system one of the world's most carbon-intensive (Commonwealth of Australia 2011).

7. Although energy demand plateaued nationally, peak demand recently reached historic highs, requiring costly upgrades to the electricity grid (Wood and Carter 2013).

8. The average New South Wales household electricity bill has doubled in the past six years (Wood and Carter 2013). Of the current average bill, 51 percent is related to network charges (Australian Government 2012).

9. The New South Wales state government's Climate Change Fund resourced the Randwick Community Centre retrofit, but wider funding for the 3-Council Ecological Footprint project—a partnership among Randwick, Waverley and Woolahra Councils—was obtained from the New South Wales Environmental Trust and Department of Environment and Climate Change (2007–2010). The three councils agreed to continue project funding after the grant period.

10. An elaborate annual environmental fair involving multiple events, activities, stalls, and demonstrations, hosted at the Randwick Community Centre.

11. Nor does it abandon the idea of hegemony, however; accepting that hegemony is always in the making (see McGuirk, Bulkeley, and Dowling 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauline M. McGuirk

PAULINE McGUIRK is a Professor in the Discipline of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include the political geographies of urban governance, including the roles of urban-based actors in carbon governance and the politics and practices of low carbon urban transition.

Harriet Bulkeley

HARRIET BULKELEY is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research is concerned with the processes and politics of environmental governance, and she has particular interest in the areas of climate change, energy and urban sustainability.

Robyn Dowling

ROBYN DOWLING is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, 2109, Australia. E-mail [email protected]. Her current research interests focus on the refashioning of governance and everyday life in lower carbon futures.