The Journal for Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change will be publishing a Special Issue on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in 2011. The Special Issue is entitled “Five years after the IPCC Special Report on CCS: state of play”. The editors are looking for a broad range of review articles that examine and analyse the developments in a variety of CCS-related areas and/or build on the review done by the IPCC in 2005. The articles will be subjected to normal peer review. Continue reading →
Nature™ Inc? Questioning the Market Panacea in Environmental Policy and Conservation
International Conference, 30 June – 2 July 2011, ISS, The Hague, The Netherlands
Nature is dead. Long live Nature™ Inc.! This adagio inspires many
environmental policies today. In order to respond to the many
environmental problems the world is facing, new and innovative methods
are necessary, or so it is argued, and markets are posited as the ideal
vehicle to supply these. Indeed, market forces have been finding their
way into environmental policy and conservation to a degree that seemed
unimaginable only a decade ago. Payments for ecosystem services,
biodiversity derivatives and new conservation finance mechanisms,
species banking, carbon trade, geoengineering and conservation 2.0 are
just some of the market mechanisms that have taken a massive flight in
popularity in recent years, despite, or perhaps because of the recent
‘Great Financial Crisis’. Continue reading →
The Aalborg (Denmark) Climate Change and Impact Assessment Symposium, 25-26 October 2010, include themes such as “social impact assessment”. Mitigation and adaptation strategies can potentially generate both negative and positive social impacts. Developing improved strategies to cope with climate change requires improved understanding of such impacts. For more information about the symposium see: https://www.iaia.org/iaia-climate-symposium-denmark/
The workshop on ‘Carbon Governance in Asia: Bringing Scales and Disciplines’ is calling for applications. The workshop will be jointly organised by the Global Carbon Project, the Earth System Governance Project and the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) in Yokohama, Japan, on 1-3 November 2010. The workshop is supported by the Asia-Pacific Network on Global Change Research. The deadline for application is 8 July 2010.
In his new book “Eaarth”, environmentalist Bill McKibben says we must abandon the notion that economic growth and environmental sustainability are compatible — only then can we prevent a climate catastrophe. For McKibben, nothing less than a transformation in mindset is needed to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to a level that will prevent dangerous climate change. Read the interview by Christine Woodside at Nature Reports Climate Change.
The 2nd Global Conference on Environmental Governance and Democracy will take place at Yale University, New Haven, USA from 17-19 September 2010 in the margins of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Summit, 20-22 September, New York. Focusing on the theme of Strengthening Institutions to Address Climate Change and Advance a Green Economy, the event will take stock of and examine the role of institutional structures and decision-making procedures in fostering (or impeding) low carbon and climate resilient development. Continue reading →
December is shaping up to be an important month for the debate, and hopefully some decisions and actions too, on global environmental change. From the 7th of December, environmental ministers and officials from 192 countries will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, in an attempt to agree a new climate treaty, a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The week before, about 200 researchers and practitioners from around the world will gather at the 2009 Amsterdam Conference on Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change to attend to the Earth System governance. Though not associated with, and much smaller than the Copenhagen meeting, the Amsterdam conference is expected to play an important role in the debate about global environmental governance. Continue reading →
Just in… Prof Elinor Ostrom has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Ostrom, from University of Indiana, USA, is the first female Laureate in Economic Sciences and will share the prize with Prof Oliver E. Williamson, from the University of California Berkeley, USA.
Ostrom was praised “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:
Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. Continue reading →
The most obvious fact about ecological economics is that, well, ecology comes before economics.
“For example,” says Joshua Farley, an economist at the University of Vermont, “without healthy ecosystems to regulate climate and rainfall and provide habitat for pollinators, agriculture would collapse.” Which makes it tough to sell cars.
Put another way, “we need economic production to survive, but we also need healthy ecosystems and the service they provide,” he says. No bees, no food, no trip to the grocery store. Continue reading →
Kofi A. Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, launched on 1 October a specially re-recorded version of Midnight Oil’s ‘Beds are Burning’ as a global musical petition to demand climate justice at the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December. The song is also set to become the soundtrack of the Climate Justice movement.
Here is the video from Mr. Kofi Annan’s campaign for climate justice.
The song has been supported by over 60 international music stars and celebrities including Duran Duran, Mark Ronson, Jamie Cullum, Melanie Laurent, Marion Cotillard, Milla Jovovich, Fergie, Lily Allen, Manu Katché, Bob Geldof, Youssou N’Dour, Yannick Noah and many more. Continue reading →
Hi there, I am a research scientist in the field of environmental governance. The purpose of this website is to share information, news, articles and commentaries on a wide range of issues related to the environment and its governance.
Hi there, I am a research scientist in the field of environmental governance. The purpose of this website is to share information, news, articles and commentaries on a wide range of issues related to the environment and its governance.