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Regional bioeconomies promote sustainable, regional economies under the auspices of EU green growth policies. Combining prospects of rural rejuvenation, sustainability and innovation, they are employed to address climate change, societal challenges, and often benefit from substantial public funds. Yet, despite public finance's key role for bio-based transitions and (regional) bioeconomies, it has received little academic attention. Framed by conceptualisations on greening finance and (sustainable) policy narratives, this paper evaluates the public finance processes of three spatially variegated regional bioeconomy developments in Europe (Finland, Sweden, Spain). It provides empirical accounts from the case study sites and contrasts their public finance narratives with sustainable bioeconomy policy trajectories employed in EU policy promotion and benchmarking. This critical questioning of the current representations of regional bioeconomies in public finance narratives portrays a problematic mismatch between the dominant selective economic features and wider EU policy aims, particularly in relation to sustainability. Accompanied by the neglect of decisive local features in these benchmarking narratives, they promote a sustainably and spatially unreflective path forward for bioeconomy policy learning and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways in which green neighbourhoods have developed over recent decades has become increasingly globalized, driven by the challenges of climate change and the globalization of knowledge exchange including a shift towards quantified approaches of carbon control. As a result, cities do not only share knowledge, experiences and practices but also compare and compete with each other in their pursuit of sustainability leadership. To understand the emergence and establishment of certain approaches over others, policy mobilities research has emphasized the role of certain actors and institutions in promoting, mobilizing, adapting and mutating policy models, practices and knowledge. This paper extends the policy mobility literature by emphasizing the temporal dimension of green neighbourhood development. We reconstruct and compare trajectories of four green neighbourhood developments in Freiburg, Vancouver and Luxembourg in terms of 'extroverted' dimensions that focus beyond the city, and 'introverted' dimensions that are more localized in nature. Findings highlight the relational character of the role and meaning of these green neighbourhoods over time that reflect a global shift in how green urbanism is conceptualized and put into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore the relationship between the 'eco-' prefix of the term 'ecosophy' and the 'geo-' prefix of the term geography, delving into the conceptualization of ‘earth’ that each prefix prioritizes. I argue that the geo- prefix has pushed geographers towards conceiving of the earth as a surface across which differences are spread, whereas the eco- prefix pushes us towards a conceptualization of the earth as ‘home’. To explore this further, I focus on the ethics that they therefore encourage, particularly in consideration of how humans relate to the earth. I trace a history from Hartshorne’s description of geography through a series of examples of ‘geo’ oriented ethical writings, before turning towards the ecosophies written about by Arne Naess and Felix Guattari. To illustrate the application of these ideas, I then explore how they might help us rethink various contemporary debates about artificial lighting in the context of climate change, light pollution, mobilities and use of energy. While the geo and the eco share multiple values, the addition and consideration of the earth as ‘eco’ might push geography towards a greater reflection as to how we relate to the earth and to others who might call it home. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The on-going transition towards low-carbon forms of energy provision (frequently termed ‘energy transitions’) has triggered far-reaching material, economic and institutional reconfigurations at the global scale. There is evidence to suggest that energy transitions increase the social vulnerability of actors involved in and affected by them, including entities operating at different scales, from individual households to entire states. However, the link between energy vulnerability and energy transitions remains poorly understood. We aim to formulate an explicitly geographical perspective on this relationship. The paper is based on an analysis of documentary evidence and 170 expert interviews undertaken between April 2013 and March 2015. This research took place in the post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe where systemic change has fundamentally altered the institutional landscape of the energy sector since the early 1990s. Our findings point to the need for understanding energy vulnerability as an evolving socio-spatial phenomenon embedded in multiple layers of institutional change and organizational practice. We identify urban landscapes as the primary site for the geographic expression and articulation of domestic energy deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tuvalu, a place whose image in the ‘West’ is as a small island state, insignificant and remote on the world stage, is becoming remarkably prominent in connection with the contemporary issue of climate change-related sea-level rise. My aim in this paper is to advance understanding of the linkages between climate change and island places, by exploring the discursive negotiation of the identity of geographically distant islands and island peoples in the Australian news media. Specifically, I use discourse analytic methods to critically explore how, and to what effects, various representations of the Tuvaluan islands and people in an Australian broadsheet, the Sydney Morning Herald, emphasize difference between Australia and Tuvalu. My hypothesis is that implicating climate change in the identity of people and place can constitute Tuvaluans as .tragic victims. of environmental displacement, marginalizing discourses of adaptation for Tuvaluans and other inhabitants of low-lying islands, and silencing alternative constructions of Tuvaluan identity that could emphasize resilience and resourcefulness. By drawing attention to the problematic ways that island identities are constituted in climate change discourse in the news media, I advocate a more critical approach to the production and consumption of representations of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]