• Energy Research

Abstract In this paper we examine the effect of the current economic crisis on the environmental performance of the EU countries. By employing Hierarchical Linear Multilevel (HLM) modeling we find that, for the period 2000–2015, a drop in the national GDP (a “recession effect”) as well as endorsing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for receiving a IMF/EU/ECB financial “rescue-package” (a “Troika effect”) have non-significant to positive impacts on a number of national environmental quality and policy indicators, over and above other (economic, political and governance) predictors, for Eurozone and non-Eurozone countries alike. Nevertheless, this changes drastically if we examine these two factors' interaction: experiencing a ‘recession’ while being a recipient of a Troika-sponsored ‘rescue package’ has detrimental effects on an EU country's national environment.

Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for mitigation policy. These dimensions yield four clusters of cases producing a fractured global field. Positive values on the dimensions show modest association with emissions reductions. Data-mining media research is needed to determine trends in this global field.

Abstract This paper argues that electricity ‘curtailment’ behaviors (i.e. frequent and/or low cost or free energy saving behaviors) in households are distinct from one another and they thus should be analyzed and promoted. We test this claim with data from telephone interviews with Greek households in the capital city of Athens ( N =285), analyzing the impact of a number of demographical/structural, psychological (based on the Theory of Planned Behavior) and moral (based on norms’ activation) predictors though hierarchical binary logistic regression modeling. We find that that each electricity curtailment behavior depends on a different mix of predictors with ‘Age’, ‘Gender’ and ‘Perceived Behavioral Control’ being statistically significant for most behaviors. Overall, the psychological and the demographical/structural clusters of variables substantially contribute to the explained variance of electricity curtailment behaviors. The moral cluster׳s contribution is not statistically significant since moral concerns are largely interwoven in the psychological constructs.

In this paper, we are interested in assessing the different environmental security concepts, policies, and actions of actors involved in the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Through exploratory qualitative research, we interviewed key stakeholders who formulate both the climate security discourse and its policy outcomes. Aiming at finding the different perceptions and practices among various actors, we conducted 27 qualitative interviews with practitioners from 17 different institutions, such as EU bodies and agencies, think tanks, and ministries of defense (MoDs). This article discusses the divergence between announced environmental and climate security strategies and policies related to their actual results. Notably, the findings indicate that the effectiveness of the political directives compared with the practices and the developed capabilities around the environment–security nexus are dependent on individual initiatives and efforts that a developing community of practitioners is attempting to carry out. Our study indicates that tailored environmental security policies and actions are needed to motivate both practitioners and policymakers to develop downstream methods and programs that are suited to resolving security-related challenges associated with environmental issues and especially climate change.

In this paper, we are interested in assessing the Greek protected areas’ (PAs) operation, and in particular, to what extent the stakeholders engaged in their management consider that the “good environmental governance” criteria are met. Through the use of Q-methodology, we find that, despite the very different circumstances of each PA, the stakeholders’ views cluster around four distinctive main perspectives (or factors). Furthermore, we find that stakeholders do not consider, overall, that the Greek PAs management strongly meets any of the “good environmental governance” criteria, with particularly poor assessments on crucial governance aspects such as a shared vision guiding the PA management, the rule of law, and the effectiveness/efficiency of the procedures, which suggests that the environmental governance of Greek PAs is suboptimal at least.