Contemporary renewable energy transitions require the extraction of critical minerals necessary to produce new green technologies. The Stibnite Gold Project located in Valley County, Idaho, is one of many proposed mine sites to supply raw materials for renewable energy infrastructure. A variety of actors including the mine operator, Perpetua Resources, use varying approaches to risk to measure the impacts of potential mine operations. A formal permitting process facilitated by US regulatory bodies assess these risks and proposals for their mitigation. This study examines the permitting process for the proposed mine, the Stibnite Gold Project, in Idaho in order to better understand what risks are considered and how they are conceptualized. Specifically, it examines public discourse from the mine operator Perpetua Resources, key regulators, key NGOs, and the Nez Perce tribal community. A critical discourse analysis reveals the development of distinct risk, economic, restorative, and decision authority narratives among each actor. These narratives shape approaches to risk. However, they also reveal settler colonialism and other intersecting systems of oppression are reinstated and/or resisted in each actors approach to risk. Drawing on existing literature as well as new empirical data from the discourse analysis, this study shows limits to prevailing approaches to risk that need to be addressed so that future efforts to advance sustainability-driven renewable energy transitions do not impose unjust costs on Indigenous peoples.

University-level sustainability education in Western academia attempts to focus on eliminating future harm to people and the planet. However, Western academia as an institution upholds systems of oppression and reproduces settler colonialism. This reproduction is antithetical to sustainability goals as it continues patterns of Indigenous erasure and extractive relationships to the Land that perpetuate violence towards people and the planet. Sustainability programs, however, offer several frameworks, including resilience, that facilitate critical interrogations of social-ecological systems. In this thesis, I apply the notion of resilience to the perpetuation of settler colonialism within university-level sustainability education. Specifically, I ask: How is settler colonialism resilient in university-level sustainability education? How are, or could, sustainability programs in Western academic settings address settler colonialism? Through a series of conversational interviews with faculty and leadership from Arizona State University School of Sustainability, I analyzed how university-level sustainability education is both challenging and shaped by settler colonialism. These interviews focused on faculty perspectives on the topic and related issues; the interviews were analyzed using thematic coding in NVivo software. The results of this project highlight that many faculty members are already concerned with and focused on challenging settler colonialism, but that settler colonialism remains resilient in this system due to feedback loops at the personal level and reinforcing mechanisms at the institutional level. This research analyzes these feedback loops and reinforcing mechanisms, among others, and supports the call for anti-colonial and decolonial reconstruction of curriculum, as well as a focus on relationship building, shifting of mindset, and school-wide education on topics of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and systems of oppression in general.

As India expanded its grid infrastructure, decentralized renewable energy technologies, such as off-grid solar, also emerged in parallel as an electrification solution. This dissertation critically examines the role of off-grid solar in facilitating rural electrification efforts in India. Specifically, it applies the frameworks of the multi-level perspective, capabilities approach, and energy justice to achieve three objectives: (1) trace the evolution of off-grid solar in India; (2) understand the role of solar micro-grids in improving household capabilities and well-being; (1) examine whether and how community-scale solar micro-grids can operate as just means of electrification. This research relies on qualitative case-study methods. The historical research in Paper 1 is based on published policy documents and interviews with energy experts in India. It finds that landscape-regime-niche actor relations and politics were crucial in shaping off-grid solar transition outcomes. There is also a narrative component, as the key narratives of energy security, environmental degradation, climate change and energy for development converged to create spaces for state and non-state interactions that could nurture the development of off-grid solar. The community-level research in Papers 2 and 3 analyze a local energy initiative of community operated solar micro-grid using semi-structured interviews and participant observations from three villages in Maharashtra. Solar micro-grids play an important part in expanding people’s choices and opportunities. The benefits are not uniform across all people, however. Increases in energy-related capabilities vary by economic class and gender, and to some extent this means certain biases can get reinforced. In addition, the inability of solar micro-grids to keep up with the changing electrification landscape and daily practices means that the challenges of affordability, reliability and community engagement emerged as important concerns over-time. Empirically, this dissertation finds that off-grid energy initiatives must be carefully designed to be in alignment with local values and realities. Theoretically, it adds to debates on justice in energy transitions by showcasing the regime-led innovations, and temporality elements of energy justice local energy initiatives.

Despite the urgent need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), there has been a lack of national climate action leadership in the United States. In this vacuum, the need for subnational action, particularly at the local level, has become essential. But cities only have the authority granted them by their state. Thus, many cities thus take climate action consistent, or in-sync, with their state. However, other cities take climate action inconsistent, or out-of-sync, with their state. This study examines this in-sync, out-of-sync phenomenon using a multilevel, multiple case study approach to determine the multilevel dynamics influencing whether a city is taking climate action. The study compares two states at opposite ends of the climate mitigation spectrum—Idaho, a state not taking any mitigation action, and Washington, a state taking aggressive mitigation action—and two cities within each of these states, with one city in-sync and the other out-of-sync with its state on climate action. The results show ideology/political affiliation as the most significant factor influencing state and city climate policy: progressive leaning cities/state are engaging in climate mitigation action; conservative leaning cities/state are not. This result was expected, but the study revealed many nuances that were not. For example, the strength of a city’s ideological leaning can overcome disabling state authority. Ideological leaning impacts whether non-state actors are a driver or barrier to climate action. Policy experimentation is found only in progressive cities. Co-benefits manifest in different ways, depending on ideological leaning and whether a city is in- or out-of-sync. And policy champion influence can be fully realized only with supportive elected leadership. This study highlights important interplays between drivers and barriers cities face in addressing climate change in a multilevel setting; how those interplays can help or hinder municipal climate action; and strategies cities employ to address challenges they face. The study findings thus contribute to the understanding of why and how cities take climate action, and how barriers to action can be overcome. This understanding is essential for providing a path forward on municipal climate action and accelerating the reduction of municipal GHG emissions.

Sustainable communities discourse, literature and initiatives have essentially excluded poor marginalized communities at a time when sustainability efforts require more stakeholders and stakeholder involvement. The families in poor marginalized communities of color in the United States are struggling to meet basic needs (food, medicine, shelter, safety). Additionally, in these communities there is a disproportionate level of forced mobility to prisons, jails and detention centers. These communities are unsustainable. This dissertation is comprised of three articles. I present in the first article (published in Sustainability Journal) an argument for a definition of sustainability that includes recognition of the major, complex and persistent problems faced daily by poor marginalized communities of color (African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American) including those connected to mass incarceration and high recidivism. I also propose a system-of-communities conceptual framework. In my second article, I explore sustainability assessment tools and find them to be inadequate for measuring the progress toward sustainability of poor marginalized communities with high incarceration and recidivism rates. In order to fill this gap, I developed the Building Sustainable Communities Framework and a Social Reintegration, Inclusion, Cohesion, Equity (Social R.I.C.E.) Transition Tool, a qualitative interview guide (a precursor to the development of a community sustainability assessment tool). In the third article, I test the utility of the Building Sustainable Communities Framework and Social R.I.C.E. Transition Tool through a community-based participatory action study: The Building Sustainable Communities-Repairing the Harm of Incarceration Pilot Project. Three types of participants were included, formerly incarcerated, family members of formerly incarcerated and community members. The Restorative Justice Circle process (based on a traditional practice of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples) was also introduced to the groups for the purpose of having discussions and sharing personal stories in a safe, nonthreatening, confidential and equitable space. During the study, data was gathered for reflexive thematic analysis from two participant groups, in-depth interviews, focus groups and short qualitative surveys. The findings reflect the community is in dire need of a path to stability and sustainability and needs the knowledge and tools to help them make collective community decisions about present and future sustainability issues.

Climate adaptation has not kept pace with climate impacts which has formed an adaptation gap. Increasingly insurance is viewed as a solution to close this gap. However, the efficacy and implications of using insurance in the climate adaptation space are not clear. Furthermore, past research has focused on specific actors or processes, not on the interactions and interconnections between the actors and the processes. I take a complex adaptive systems approach to map out how these dynamics are shaping adaptation and to interrogate what the insurance climate adaptation literature claims are the successes and pitfalls of insurance driving, enabling or being adaptation. From this interrogation it becomes apparent that insurance has enormous influence on its policy holders, builds telecoupling into local adaptation, and creates structures which support contradictory land use policies at the local level. Based on the influence insurance has on policy holders, I argue that insurance should be viewed as a form of governance. I synthesize insurance, governance and adaptation literature to examine exactly what governance tools insurance uses to exercise this influence and what the consequences may be. This research reveals that insurance may not be the exemplary adaptation approach the international community is hoping for. Using insurance, risk can be reduced without reducing vulnerability, and risk transfer can result in risk displacement which can reduce adaptation incentives, fuel maladaptation, or impose public burdens. Moreover, insurance requires certain information and legal relationships which can and often do structure that which is insured to the needs of insurance and shift authority away from governments to insurance companies or public-private partnerships. Each of these undermine the legitimacy of insurance-led local adaptation and contradict the stated social justice goals of international calls for insurance. Finally, I interrogate the potential justice concerns that emerged through an analysis of insurance as a form of adaptation governance. Using a multi-valent approach to justice I examine a suite of programs intended to support agricultural adaptation through insurance. This analysis demonstrates that although some programs clearly attempted to consider issues of justice, overall these existing programs raise distributional, procedural and recognition justice concerns.

The goal of this paper is to serve as a case-study of the youth climate movement at the local level, focusing on how young activists and organizers in Arizona perceive their pathways, motivators, and barriers in the climate movement. In order to answer my research question of ‘What are the different experiences of Arizona youth activists’ involvement in climate action?’, I conducted a case-study of 15 interviews with participants between the ages of 18-25 that varied in racial and gender identity, as well as the duration of their involvement. While this paper does not present a comprehensive view of all experiences of youth climate activists and organizers in Arizona, these interviews highlight the upbringing, background, and the degree of involvement of young climate organizers and activists, ultimately revealing their similar yet unique experiences in the climate movement. Even though further research, discussion, and opportunities are needed to better understand the youth climate movement as well as other emerging social movements, these participants represent the heart of the movement here in Arizona. This case-study sheds light on lived-experiences and urges readers to consider young climate activists and organizers’ varying perspectives on how to support, amplify, and implement their requests for a livable, intersectional, diverse, and inclusive future.

Disasters represent disruptions to stability and offer lessons about how climate adaptation is negotiated and acted on. Viewing adaptation as a negotiation helps understand recovery not just as actions taken to minimize harm, but a reflection of values and motivations surrounding adaptation. This research elicits these perspectives and considers them as part of an ongoing agreement for disaster recovery and adaptation in Puerto Rico. Previous research has characterized recovery as an opportunity for rethinking societal arrangements for climate adaptation and highlights the importance of how adaptation is conceptualized across actors. This study builds on past research by using distinct perspectives to understand recovery as an adaptation process and a co-production of a new ‘social contract’ after Hurricane Maria. Community interviews and government documents are analyzed to understand who is involved, where change is happening, and what resources are necessary for success. The purpose of this is to consider distinct framings of recovery and adaptation, and what these contribute to long-term change. Community interviews give a perspective of local stability and show capacities for immediate and long-term recovery. Similarly, government documents discuss managing foundational vulnerabilities like infrastructure, while navigating recovery given geographical and economic obstacles. Findings show that self-organization and harnessing social capital are crucial components of recovery in the Corcovada community after Maria. They rely on bonding and bridging social capital to mobilize resources and reduce vulnerabilities for future threats. This transformative approach was also present in official recovery documents, though political and economic change were stressed as necessary for stability, along with modernizing infrastructure. While recovery documents suggest connecting physical and social resilience, community residents have cultivated this connection long before Maria. Unlike in Corcovada, the government of Puerto Rico is only starting to view disruptions as windows of opportunity and therefore mention plans for transformation but don’t present actions taken. Further, the reality of vulnerable infrastructural, political and economic systems greatly affects recovery both in Corcovada and across the island. Both perspectives will likely affect actions taken in Puerto Rico and recognizing these unique framings of stability can help design transformative, adaptive social contracts for facing future threats.