Project Sustainability at the CLEW Nexus in Latin America

Abstract:

Emerg­ing economies will account for more than 90 per­cent of new energy-​​generation capac­ity by 2035, and Latin Amer­ica is no excep­tion to this trend. In the last 40 years, the region’s pri­mary energy demand has more than dou­bled. In a global envi­ron­ment of increas­ingly volatile fuel prices, emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, and climate-​​change impacts, the con­tin­ued increase in demand presents chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties to Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean. To man­age the next phase of devel­op­ment, the region’s gov­ern­ments will need to develop new energy sources and pay more atten­tion to sustainability.

Kam­men and stu­dents (Juan Pablo Car­vallo, Diego Ponce de Leon Barido and Rebekah Shirley) dis­cussed strate­gies to design and eval­u­ate pro­grams for man­ag­ing energy and other resources in the region both as a speaker panel for the Cen­ter for Latin Amer­i­can Stud­ies at UC Berke­ley and in a new pub­li­ca­tion on inte­grated tools for build­ing low-​​carbon economies in Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean.

Our researchers also delve into the spe­cific case study of Nicaragua along with Ful­bright Nexus Fel­lows 2012–2013. This group explored three case stud­ies at the national, regional and com­mu­nity lev­els in Nicaragua: bread­fruit and food inse­cu­rity; rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing on the Pacific coast; and, bio-​​energy pro­duc­tion from agri­cul­tural waste. This research shows the increas­ing need to see the cli­mate, land, energy, and water (CLEW) sec­tors as inter­re­lated, and to proac­tively plan pol­icy with these inter­con­nec­tions in mind. Nicaragua’s oppor­tu­ni­ties for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment within a CLEW nexus frame­work are suf­fi­ciently large that the coun­try could well become an exam­ple of wise nat­ural resource use for Latin Amer­ica and the world.

 

Press release on our work with bio­gas digesters in Mexico: 

Fusion, March 24, 2014. These stu­dents have bold ideas on how to make renew­able energy more acces­si­ble

 

Arti­cle, full video and pho­tos from our panel dis­cus­sion with CLAS:

Cen­ter for Latin Amer­i­can Stud­ies. Feb­ru­ary 10, 2014. Sus­tain­able Energy Sys­tems in Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean

 

Read more about our involve­ment in the Ful­bright Regional Net­work for Applied Research (NEXUS) Pro­gram 2012–2013.