Island innovation in an era of climate change: Tokelau's moral leadership through renewable energy
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Ellsmoor, James
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Geography
- Abstract
- Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have become protagonists in the global movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by calling upon their extreme environmental vulnerability to situate themselves as leaders in the fight against climate change. At international climate conventions, SIDS have captured the imagination of the public worldwide by demonstrating the real impacts of climate change in an accelerated timeframe. The prevailing wisdom dictates that SIDS are non-competitive in entrepreneurship, yet these small nations have become global leaders in both mitigating their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change. By engaging in policy innovation, many islands have been able to turn their constraints to their advantage to situate themselves as global leaders in knowledge production for climate change adaptation. Yet, how might innovation be characterized in the context of climate change? This study approaches this question using the case of the Pacific island territory of Tokelau, which has a population of less than 1,500, and yet became a global leader in climate debates by generating almost all of its electricity with solar photovoltaic panels. As an extremely isolated and recently depopulated territory, Tokelau had major constraints to developing such a project. This study identifies creative indigenous thinking and engagement with its political status as a sub-national island jurisdiction (SNIJ) of New Zealand as island innovations that enabled Tokelau at once to enact the groundbreaking Tokelau Renewable Energy Project and couple it with a move towards moral leadership in global climate politics. These finding reveals that SNIJs and SIDS can turn their perceived disadvantages as small and isolate states into engines of innovation that create a significant impact within and well beyond their own shores.
- Date of publication
- spring 2016
- Keyword
- DOI
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- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: Morehead-Cain Foundation
- Advisor
- Havice, Elizabeth
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 77
- Date uploaded
- April 27, 2016
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