Media centre Jobs Contact Research Learn Events News & opinion About Search About Research clusters CLUSTER Resource Politics and Environmental Change Climate disruption, environmental change and resource scarcity have become the subject of growing policy attention, academic debate and popular political mobilization in recent years. These issues are linked in political and media discourses to phenomena ranging from famine, migration, urbanization and vulnerability to natural hazards, warfare, terrorism and other sub-national, national and international security threats. Environmental and climate change – including framings of and responses to them – carry huge consequences for politics, the economy and for social and biological life globally. But at the same time, unequal power relations, diverse knowledge uncertainties, incumbent technologies and institutions, and issues around spatial scale and time horizons influence pathways to achieving just and transformative change. Understanding and untangling the complex, contested, cross-sectoral and multi-scalar politics of natural resources and environmental change and seeking out just, sustainable pathways of transformation are therefore more important than ever. Our starting point is that the complex challenges around resource politics and environmental change require diverse, innovative and critically attuned methods and strategies for research, policy engagement and communication. The questions that we ask and knowledge that we produce, must reflect how dynamics of political and material exclusions – including those related to inequitable access to natural resources and technology, rights and citizenship, gender and labour – shape the contemporary terrain of environmental struggle and natural resource politics at and across different scales. How do forces of globalization and regimes of extraction, industrial production and consumption of resources affect states, landscapes, societies and conflicts in different places and different types of resource environments? What does environmental and social justice mean in diverse development contexts, across the global north and south? Specifically, our research and engagement focuses on three overlapping themes: (1) Political economy and environmental change; (2) Climate and environmental justice; and (3) Scarcity, security and resilience. Share Key contacts Amber Huff Research Fellow a.huff@ids.ac.uk 01273 915805 Lars Otto Naess Research Fellow l.naess@ids.ac.uk +44 (0)1273 915849 People Alvaro Moreira Postgraduate Researcher Amber Huff Research Fellow Dieunedort Wandji Research Officer Dina Zayed Dominic Glover Research Fellow Elise Wach Research Advisor Georgina Powell-Stevens Hub Manager Gerardo Torres Contreras PhD research student See all Projects PROJECT Anticipating Futures: Forecasting and Climate Preparedness for Co-located Hazards in India (ANTICIPATE) Changing rainfall patterns caused by climate change can increase the severity and frequency of both droughts and floods. This is a cause for concern when these historically new patterns occur in drought-prone areas. While local communities in arid rural areas may be used to adapting to the... PROJECT Climate Justice Scoping Study This study, commissioned by the International Development Research Centre, identified gaps and future entry points for Southern-led research on climate justice. The study was framed around the concept of transformative climate justice, reflecting the need to bridge gaps between climate justice... PROJECT Well-being, Ecology, Gender and cOmmunity- Innovative Training Network (WEGO-ITN) The Well-being, Ecology, Gender and cOmmunity – Innovation Training Network (WEGO-ITN) is the first international feminist political ecology research network of its kind, WEGO-ITN aspires to tackle socioecological challenges linked to policy agendas. The goal of WEGO-ITN is to provide research... PROJECT New Community-Informed Approaches to Humanitarian Protection and Restraint The number of armed conflicts around the world, as well as the number of parties fighting in these conflicts, has risen significantly between 2001 and 2016. We therefore need to better understand the key factors at the community level that promote restraint and de-escalation in violent... See all Recent work FEATURED PROJECT Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) is a five-year, DFID-funded, research programme consortium which aims to produce new evidence and policy insights into different pathways to agricultural commercialisation in Africa and their differential outcomes for local people and economies. FEATURED BOOK Flows and Practices: The Politics of Integrated Water Resources Management in Eastern and Southern Africa Grounded in social science theory and research, this book highlights the importance of politics, history and culture in shaping water management practices and reform, and demonstrates how Africa has clearly been a laboratory for IWRM. While a new cadre of professionals made IWRM their mission, we show that poor women and men may not have always benefitted. PAST EVENT Renewable Energy Procurement from Independent Power Producers in Ethiopia Recognising the importance of a robust procurement framework to attract private investment into the infrastructure sector, including energy, in 2017 the Government of Ethiopia introduced the Public–Private Partnerships policy. From 2018, several non-hydro renewable energy projects were... 16 November 2021 OPINION COP26: Time to reframe climate and environmental justice The language of justice relates to nearly everything on the agenda at COP26, whether on the inequality and injustices of the impacts of climate change, the injustice in the distribution of climate funds, or the injustices from policies to reduce emissions. Yet beyond the broad statements of the... Amber Huff Lars Otto Naess 1 November 2021 NEWS IDS comments on the landmark IPCC climate change report The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the UN body responsible for climate science – has published the first of its three-part 6th Assessment Report (AR6). This landmark report comes at a crucial time as world leaders look ahead to the climate conference COP26 in Glasgow in... 9 August 2021 PUBLICATION How to Co-produce Transdisciplinary and Plural Knowledge to Solve Complex Humanitarian Problems? An Illustration in the Democratic Republic of the Congo The humanitarian and protracted crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of the most enduring and complex of the Great Lakes region, intertwining issues of governance, health and food security emergencies, insurgencies, natural resources issues and land conflicts. Humanitarians... Jeremy Allouche Camille Maubert 20 July 2021 See all Contact Subscribe to our newsletter(s) IDS Bulletin Disclaimer & cookies Privacy statement © 2021 Institute of Development Studies Design and development by Soapbox