[enviro-vlc] Press Release: Global Problems Do Not Have Global Solutions: Climate Change in Vietnam

[Eren Zink]

Press Release

Uppsala University - September 2011

 


Global Problems Do Not Have Global Solutions: Climate Change in Vietnam


 

Is climate change the same in one country as it is in another? In Flexible
Science, a new PhD thesis from the Department of Cultural Anthropology and
Ethnology at Uppsala University, Eren Zink shows that climate change is a
social and a natural phenomenon that is different from one place to another.
Climate change is not only made of greenhouse gas molecules in the
atmosphere. It is also made of social, political and economic relationships.
Flexible Science shows that global problems do not have global solutions,
and global solutions generally have unexpected consequences. 

 

Climate change is often described as a global problem. Meanwhile, solutions
are planned that specifically target developing countries. Carbon trading is
one such solution that links wealthy and poor countries in the fight against
climate change. Many industrialized countries plan for major reductions in
their ‘carbon footprint’, but much of these reductions are achieved by
transferring money to poor countries so that they can reduce their own
production of greenhouse gases. In their everyday lives inhabitants of
industrialized countries experience these links when they use electricity,
buy airline tickets, or eat hamburgers that are ’carbon neutral’ or ‘climate
friendly’.  However, they would not be mistaken to ask if the climate change
that concerns them, is the same one that global solutions and international
money addresses when they arrive in developing countries?

 

Eren Zink explores the links between European intentions to address climate
change, and what is done in the name of climate change in a developing
country, in this case Vietnam. Here, donor agencies have a strong interest
to move the taxpayers’ money before the end of the year, and to support
businesses from home to secure lucrative contracts. Some Vietnamese
bureaucrats and government officials see opportunities to reap large
personal rewards by skimming money off infrastructure projects. Other
Vietnamese and foreign development workers see opportunities to address more
pressing domestic environmental and health issues such as dirty air and
polluted water. For some Vietnamese actors, climate change is about
challenging the authority of international organizations and the one-party
state to chart a course for the future of the country. Thus, while
development agencies, government officials, and scientists from both Vietnam
and other countries agree that climate change is an important threat, the
outcomes of climate change projects can be very different. Misunderstandings
amongst partners, sometimes intentional and sometimes by chance, make
cooperation possible. 

 

Eren Zink finds that understanding these coexisting aspects of climate
change is as important for attempts to find solutions, as are scientific
models of changes in the atmosphere. 

 

Author:                            Dr. Eren Zink (eren.zink at antro.uu.se or
+46 (0)73-4451880)

 
<http://www.antro.uu.se/en/Cultural_Anthropolog/Staff/View_profile/?n=Eren_Z
ink>
http://www.antro.uu.se/en/Cultural_Anthropolog/Staff/View_profile/?n=Eren_Zi
nk 

Title:                                Flexible Science: An Anthropology of
Scientists, Society and Nature in Vietnam

For more information:
<http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf;jsessionid=e9712558d78a3fbeb1c9d
661ea9c?pid=diva2:433409>
http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf;jsessionid=e9712558d78a3fbeb1c9d6
61ea9c?pid=diva2:433409

På Svenska:                      <http://www.uu.se/press>
http://www.uu.se/press 

 

Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology


Uppsala University


Box 631, SE-751 26 Uppsala, Sweden


Internet: www.antro.uu.se/en/ 

Telephone: +46 18 471 7030

Fax: +46 18 471 7020

 

 

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