Archives de catégorie : énergie

Postdoctoral position on “Urban energy economies in the Middle East: social justice and energy transition”

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Postdoctoral position on “Urban energy economies in the Middle East: social justice and energy transition”. (M/F)

[Update] Consult additional information about the suggested research orientations [EN/FR]

Application Deadline : 1st September 2024 Paris time

General information
Offer title : Postdoctoral position on “Urban energy economies in the Middle East: social justice and energy transition”. (M/F) (H/F)
Reference : UMR7050-BASDAO-012
Number of position : 1
Workplace : PARIS 07
Date of publication : 12 July 2024
Type of Contract : FTC Scientist
Contract Period : 24 months
Expected date of employment : 1 October 2024
Proportion of work : Full time
Remuneration : Between Gross salary 3 080 € et 4 290 € per month according to expérience
Desired level of education : Niveau 8 – (Doctorat)
Experience required : 1 to 4 years

Missions
CNRS Humanities and Social Sciences is inviting applications for a two-year post-doctoral position as part of its support for research into the habitability of the planet.
The theme of this call is “Urban energy economies in the Middle East: social justice and energy transition”.

The position is based at UMR CERI (France) and involves collaboration with UMIFRE IFPO (based in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Palestinian Territories).

The energy and ecological transition in Middle Eastern countries has specific characteristics and configurations, different from those in Europe or North America, but also from those in the Persian Gulf, which are characterised by energy abundance and the resulting financial wealth.

CERI and IFPO are proposing to recruit a post-doctoral researcher to study these issues on the basis of fieldwork located in this region, if possible incorporating a relational and comparative dimension between the different countries, and even possibly between the region and neighbouring regions.

Under the supervision of a member of CERI, specialising in urban geography, and in partnership with IFPO’s Contemporary Studies Department, the post-doctoral researcher, with a doctorate in human and social sciences, will carry out research on the energy transition in the Middle East, incorporating a relational and comparative dimension between different countries.
The question of social justice will be a guiding thread in the work. Several angles of analysis are possible, in particular :

– Socio-technical analysis of old and new urban energy systems and their interdependence (urban mobility, electricity supply, energy consumption in particular).

– Analysis of the territorialisation and politicisation of energy issues within urban public policies (institutional structuring, political economy and role of private players, securing infrastructures and mobilisation around social justice issues).

The aim of this post-doctoral contract is to give an early-career PhD holder (less than three years after PhD defense) the opportunity of developing his/her research within the supportive framework of two well established laboratories.

Through this experience, the person recruited will be able to gain experience in a humanities and social sciences laboratory, deepen their knowledge in a specific field of research and acquire greater independence in the scientific field of the humanities and social sciences.

Activities
The activities of the post-doctoral researcher will be as follows:

1- Research:
• Conducting a research project on the energy transition and social justice in urban environments in the Middle East (Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Palestinian territories)
• Helping to document the energy changes by carrying out surveys based on social science methodologies.
• Publish the results of your research and disseminate them to academic and non-academic audiences.

2- Leading research and contributing to collective research:
• To nurture synergies between CERI and IFPO by identifying potential collaborative research projects conducive to partnerships on a regional scale.
• To participate, through this work, in the collective research carried out at CERI and IFPO.

Skills
Knowledge and skills :
– Doctorate in the social sciences (defended less than 3 years before October 1st, 2024).
– Knowledge and mastery of social science methodologies
– An aptitude for interdisciplinarity
– Good experience of field research
– Knowledge of quantitative methods is a plus
– Experience of participatory research and working with stakeholders is a plus
– Ability to coordinate a group project in a collaborative spirit on multidisciplinary projects
– Ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team
– Know how to write research reports and scientific articles
– Ability to present results orally and in writing
– Autonomy and team spirit
– Be able to report on your activity
– Being a driving force
– Respecting confidentialitý

Work Context
CERI is a multidisciplinary laboratory. It studies the world through a dual and complementary approach: regional areas and international and transnational relations. The first is based on political societies, the second on international interactions (states, non-state actors), whether political, social, cultural or economic.

The Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) is a joint unit of the MEAE and the CNRS (UAR 3135). The institute is present in Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Iraq and Syria, where its services are currently closed to the public. Its contemporary studies department brings together five or six permanent researchers and a small number of doctoral students on host programmes.

The postdoctoral fellow will be based at CERI and will work under the supervision of Eric Verdeil, in liaison with the Contemporary Studies Department of the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, which will be his or her reference laboratory during missions to the Middle East. The director of the department will be his scientific adviser. The IFPO will have a budget to cover the mobility costs of the postdoctoral student.

Constraints and risks
The post-doctoral researcher will be required to carry out surveys in the Middle East. He or she will have to take into account the uncertain nature of the situation in these countries and vigilantly monitor the security constraints that this entails (SDF authorisation).

Additional Information
Deadline for receiving the applications: 1er September 2024

The application must include the following documents (in French or English)
– A covering letter
– A detailed CV
– The thesis defence report
– One or two publications
– A document detailing the applicant’s research project (maximum 5 pages)
Applicants should contact Eric Verdeil (CERI) eric.verdeil@sciencespo.fr and Mathieu Rey (IFPO) m.rey@ifporient.org.

Applications must be submitted through the CNRS portal

Désescalade énergétique. Les enseignements du cas libanais

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J’ai participé le 4 juillet 2023 au séminaire Désescalade énergétique organisé par Anaïg Oiry, Arnaud Passalacqua et Roberta Pistoni, dans le cadre du groupe de travail Ville et énergie du Labex Futurs urbains. Nous étions accueillis dans les locaux de PCA-Stream, agence d’architecture parisienne dont la cellule recherche a effectué un beau travail en éditant un podcast synthétisant les principaux enseignements de la séance. On peut ainsi écouter mon analyse du cas libanais, mis en relation avec les cas cubain et vénézuélien, à partir de 2’40”.

Résumé du séminaire:

Comment les territoires font-ils face à la réduction de leur puissance énergétique ? À l’occasion de la journée d’étude Désescalade Énergétique, organisée à l’agence par le groupe de travail Ville et Energie du Labex Futurs Urbains, cinq chercheurs et chercheuses présentent leurs travaux. Beyrouth, passage du cyclone Irma sur l’île de Saint-Martin, gestion des ressources au Moyen-Âge, choc pétrolier de 1973, et crise environnementale actuelle : tour d’horizons.

Le Liban, un Etat en voie de disparition

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J’ai participé à la table ronde organisée le 9 novembre der nier (2022) par l’IREMMO autour du numéro 56 de la revue Moyen-Orient et j’y ai présenté mon article « La crise électrique du Liban: une lecture géographique ». A voir en vidéo, mon intervention entre 5’37 et 27’02, suivie de Leila Seurat qui présente son article « À Beyrouth, au-delà du stigmate des «mercenaires du pouvoir» », puis les questions et réponses.

Carbon footprint of MENA cities

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I recently drew map of MENA cities ranked by their carbon footprint. I used the data processed with my colleagues from the Atelier cartographique de Sciences Po for a chart on cities and their footprint. Even if a few Middle Eastern cities show on this chart (Cairo, Riyad, Kuwait), it’s difficult to get a complete understand of the main challenges regarding the cities from this region.

Les 500 premières villes mondiales par leur empreinte carbone. Source : Atlas des mondes urbains, 2000, ©Presses de Scienes Po. Créateur : Atelier cartographique de Sciences Po.

Most of the time, data on carbon footprint in the region is not visualized at the city level, but rather at the nation level, like these charts and maps by Karim Elgendy on his blog Carboun, one of the useful resources on this issue in the region. For small countries, in the Gulf for instance, it is not a problem. However, when speaking of bigger countries, it is useful to have a finer view.

MENA cities according to their carbon footprint (2015). Data : Global Gridded Model of Carbon Footprint http://carbonfootprint.info. Author: Eric Verdeil, CC by, using Magrit software.

It is important to note that the map only represents cities that are ranked among the biggest 500 cities in the world by their carbon footprint. Some big cities, such as Oran, Tanger, Damascus, Aleppo, Mascate, etc. are not on the map because they don’t feature in this list. I also chose not to show European cities, given the context where those data were presented.

Whatever the limitation of the data, the map displays an interesting message. There is a clear discrepancy between the carbon intensive cities of the Gulf, specifically Saudi Arabi, the Emirates and Qatar, as opposed to North African cities and most other cities in the Mashreq. Is is surprising for the cities of some oil exporting countries, such as Algeria, Iraq and may be Egypt. Iranian cities stand in an intermediary catogory, but quite similar to Turkish cities.

It suggests that, more than the involvement in hydrocarbon exploitation population, it is wealth and the associated standards of life (prominence of individual car use, air conditioning, resource-intensive construction) that factor in the calculation of the carbon footprint. National data linking carbon footprint and wealth inequalities, at the intenational and internal level, demonstrate it clearly in a recent study by the World Inequality Lab (Chancel 2021).

Pour aller plus loin, je me permet de renvoyer à de précédentes analyses sur le même sujet avec des approches plus orientées sur les questions de gouvernance et de modèles:

Verdeil Éric, 2018, « Energy Transition and Urban Governance in the Arab World » dans Eckart Woertz (ed.), “Wise Cities” in the Mediterranean? Challenges of Urban Sustainability, Barcelona, CIDOB, p. 93‑102.

Verdeil Eric, 2019, « Arab Sustainable Urbanism: Worlding Strategies, Local Struggles », Middle East – Topics & Arguments, 25 juin 2019, vol. 12, p. 35‑42.

Verdeil Éric, 2019, « Sustainable Urbanization? », World Energy, avril 2019, no 42, p. 32‑35.

[Parution] Instruments et territoires de la gouvernance des déchets au Liban

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La décharge de Zahlé (Liban) – photo Eric Verdeil, 2019 (cc)

J’ai le plaisir de signaler la parution d’un article coécrit avec Jihad Farah, dans le cadre du numéro thématique “Penser le politique par les déchets” coordonné par Fabrizio Maccaglia et Claudia Cirelli pour Géocarrefour. Voici la référence exacte et le lien vers l’article en accès libre:

Farah Jihad et Verdeil Éric, 2021, « Instruments et territoires de la gouvernance des déchets au Liban », Géocarrefour, 2021, vol. 95, no 1, p. 1‑29.

English version : Instruments and spaces of waste governance in Lebanon

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Transformations énergétiques collectives : présentation à la librairie Volume, Paris

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La revue multitudes a le plaisir de vous inviter le 25 mars 2020 à 19 heures à la rencontre organisée autour des Transformations énergétiques collectives avec les auteurs Alain Nadai, Grégoire Wallenborn, Éric Verdeil et Fréderic Brun, Anne Querrien, Gaëtane Lamarche-Vadel de multitudes
Librairie VOLUME
47, rue de Nazareth
75003 Paris

Télécharger le prospectus de présentation de ce numéro (PDF).

Résumé

L’idée d’une « transition » énergétique, processus pilotable dans un monde relativement stable et anticipable, semble arriver à son terme. Même le GIEC en appelle désormais à des « transformations » énergétiques rapides et radicales. Toutefois, malgré la prise de conscience de l’urgence climatique et de la perte dramatique de biodiversité, qui s’actualise notamment dans une série de manifestations et de luttes, la question du climat est trop rarement articulée à la question de l’énergie. Dans cette Majeure, nous explorons ce que pourraient vouloir dire ces transformations énergétiques et partons à la recherche des bonnes échelles pour agir et des récits pertinents pour inspirer les collectifs.

Articles de la majeure

Résumé de notre article

Cet article propose d’élargir le débat sur la transition énergétique au-delà du contexte occidental. Partant d’études de cas situées dans deux métropoles des Suds, la réflexion invite à nuancer les scénarios normatifs et supposés universels de transformation des systèmes énergétiques pour confronter les transitions aux singularités des sociétés et des territoires dans lesquels elles prennent forme. Ainsi s’aperçoit-on que les discours sur le changement climatique global ont bien moins d’effets d’entraînement sur les trajectoires énergétiques d’Istanbul et du Cap que l’impact de crises écologiques plus locales ou que l’évolution de compromis socio-politiques, toujours fragiles et dépendants d’héritages historiques nationaux.

Arab Sustainable Urbanism: Worlding Strategies, Local Struggles

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BiClean, centre de tri secondaire, géré par la municipalité de Bikfaya, Liban (2019)

I am happy to announce the release of a new article discussing sustainability in the Arab world. It is part of a set of reflections based on litterature review and short field trips I have documented over the years, and it develops in particular my recent take in Energy World and last year’s conference paper on Wise cities in the Mediterranean. I would like to thank Steffen Wippel and Christian Steiner who invited me to contribute on this topic in their edited theme issue for Middle East-Topics & Arguments on Urban Development. It also comes as an answer to Christian Beier’s piece “Worlding Cities in the Middle East and North Africa – Arguments for a Conceptual Turn“.

Here is the summary of this short piece: Arab Sustainable Urbanism: Worlding Strategies, Local Struggles

Despite strong warnings, Arab cities seem reluctant to embark in ambitious schemes addressing sustainability issues. The article draws on a literature review to highlight two arguments. Firstly state-led governance prioritizes in most urban settings social stability and claims to modern and resource-consuming comfort. It tends to favor private interests, which conceives sustainability as a business and marginalizes local authorities and even more, civic movements including green parties and associations. Secondly, the dominant framings of sustainability tend to focus on global transitions (GHG emissions and low carbon energy), hence overlooking local claims for sustainability that do not fit in the global environmental narratives, thus dismissing it. Nonetheless, these issues represent key motivations for the local definition of a sustainable urban future.

Sustainable urbanization in the Gulf?

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This short article was published in World Energy #42 April 2019

Eric Verdeil

Since 1987 and the release of the Bruntland Report about Sustainable Development, concerns over climate change, biodiversity and other global threats have grown. Urbanization is at the core of global anxiety. Urban population, as recorded by the UN, now reaches 4.2 billion, ie 55% of the total and is expected to grow by 2,5 billion in 2050. This tremendous growth consumes huge level of resources and emits about 75% of world Green house gases. Cities are a major factor of unsustainability, and the same time cities and urban dwellers increasingly suffer from global environmental changes. Gulf cities are no exception. Record breaking temperatures in Kuwait in 2016 highlighted the unbearable summer heats Gulf cities are facing and will have to cope with. Sea-level rise or extreme rainy events also might affect the future of cities in this region.

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Electricity Subsidies: Benefiting some Regions More than Others – analysis featured on the LCPS website

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EDL headquarters in Beirut

I am happy to announce the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies has featured my analysis about electricity subsidies in Lebanon on its website.

While the recent political showdown over where to connect the Esra Gul barge to Lebanon’s power grid is indicative of the country’s unequal electricity supply, it also unearthed something more fundamental, namely, how electricity subsidies exacerbate geographical and social inequalities. Indeed, one major problem facing Electricité Du Liban (EDL) concerns the fact that production costs exceed revenues from consumers. For many years, the difference has been covered/subsidized by the state but these subsidies impact citizens differently depending on where they reside.

More precisely, because the periphery have access to a smaller supply of electricity per day, they incur greater generator use costs than those living in the central agglomeration, particularly   municipal Beirut. Consequently, my recent study demonstrates that effective subsidies disproportionately benefit wealthier households and in particular those who live in Beirut, as the latter are supplied with more power on a daily basis compared to other regions.[1] Therefore, electricity subsidies exacerbate both geographical and social inequalities.

While the production cost of electricity—indexed to the international hydrocarbon market—has significantly increased since 1994, prices have not been reevaluated in that period. According to the National Electricity Strategy Plan of 2010, the price represented on average only 55% of the production cost per kilowatt hour. While the price structure should reflect a principle of fairness and employ progressive rates designed to ease the burden for small consumers—among whom are the country’s poorest people—a 2009 World Bank study reported the opposite. In fact, fixed costs added onto an EDL bill resulted in small consumers (who use up to 300 kilowatt hours) paying disproportionately more of their income toward energy bills than larger users. Practically, the more they consume, the more users are subsidized by the state. This is not an open and deliberate subsidy, but rather a largely unseen mechanism at work.

In fact, the study highlights geographic variances that result from the length of time that power is supplied. This adds an essential component to the distortion caused by this effective subsidy. Since 2006­-2007, Beirut has received on average nineteen to twenty-one hours of electricity per day, while other regions have received only twelve to fifteen hours if not less (depending on the time of year and in which year data was gathered). The capital’s residents use more public electricity by default and consequently benefit more from subsidies.

…/…

Read the end of the article on the LCPS website.

A French longer version, including the detailed data, is to be read on this blog.

Publication récente (1) : Energy Transition and Urban Governance in the Arab World

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Masdar City

J’ai le plaisir d’annoncer la parution de cette communication lors du colloque Wise Cities in the Mediterranean organisée par la Kuwait Program de Sciences Po, dont les actes peuvent être lus en ligne ici. Voici le résumé de ma communication:

The 2015 Paris Agreement and the recent Quito New Urban Agenda both emphasised the need to empower cities in climate change policies, including energy policies that aim at energy transitions towards more energy efficiency and the use of renewable energies. Being both factors in and potential victims of climate change, cities have many reasons to act. Therefore, there is a need to examine how changes in urban governance could indeed address this necessity and the challenge cities have to face. This issue has been addressed in many studies and plans for cities in the Western and advanced industrial world. These first studies have highlighted several results. Firstly, instead of considering only climate change issues, they stressed the need to understand ecological pressures more widely, particularly the way global energy pressures, like peak oil threats or price increases have created energy stress for cities. Secondly, they also underlined how privatisation trends and the ascent of transnational energy firms reconfigured energy regulation by sidelining public energy utilities and companies. Thirdly, metropolisation, the concentration of wealth and power in the big metropolises, transforms urban governance. The role of states in energy regulation is thus undermined and metropolitan coalitions are more diverse and open to private and as well as local urban interests. Green growth becomes a new market for private firms, and metropolitan governments compete for jobs and investments in the sector. At the same time, ensuring the continuity of energy supply or of other infrastructure is another goal for metropolitan firms and authorities. This leads to new agendas, including local policies of energy transition, which combine the promotion of renewable energies and energy efficiency with the shortening of energy circuits. However, several factors that are favouring these changes in energy governance seem to be specific to world cities and might not apply in other contexts. The increasing – albeit contested – political autonomisation of such cities in their relation to national states and their specific wealth are cases in point. My goal in this chapter is to look at Arab cities, for which, at a first glance, energy transition initiatives seem difficult to identify. My chapter draws on a wide collective analysis of urban energy transition policies in ten metropolises from emerging economies, including several Arab cities such as Amman, Beirut, Tunis and Sfax (Jaglin and Verdeil, 2017; Verdeil et al., 2015; Verdeil, 2014a; 2016; forthcoming), and on secondary literature about the United Arab Emirates. It aims to propose some preliminary observations and to raise questions to fuel the upcoming debate. I will not present case studies but rather identify policy issues and policy options that vary greatly according to context and, above all, according to the national availability of fossil energy such as oil and gas and the social contracts that govern the redistribution of this wealth in exchange for loyalty.

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