Region: International

The ADB’s New Essay on “Green Urbanization in Asia”

Over the last few months, I’ve been working with economists at the ADB on the annual Key Indicators Special Chapter.   “Green Urbanization in Asia” was recently published.   This chapter covers a lot of ground but I think it does a very good job in presenting the core issues and challenges and discussing a …

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Cruz, Fischer and Mourdock: Three Tea Party Senate Candidates Versus the Environment.

Tea Party candidates defeated less extreme conservatives in three GOP Senate nominating contests. Their environmental views are ultra-Right Wing. These candidates should be right on your wavelength — if you think that there’s a plan for U.N. world domination, that EPA should be gutted or abolished, and that climate change is a deliberate hoax by …

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The Dark Subcontinent

Chaos has reigned over massive swathes of India during the last few days, as much of the northern part of the country outside of major urban centers has been without power.  The New York Times has excellent spot coverage, but a deeper analysis comes from John Elliott’s invaluable blog, Riding the Elephant. The government has …

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The Economist on Natural Gas: Slouching Toward Mediocrity

I was quite interested in finding last week that The Economist’s most recent major survey is about natural gas.  Given the explosion of natural gas resources (uh…so to speak) and the world’s growing reliance on it, I needed to get up to speed. Besides, from a climate perspective, getting the fracking issue right is crucial.  …

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Climate Strategies: “One Step at a Time” or “Don’t Jump the Gun”??

In some situations, voluntary efforts leads other people to join in, whereas in others, it encourages them to hold back.  There’s a similar issue about climate mitigation efforts at the national, regional, or state level.  Do these efforts really move the ball forward?  Or are they counterproductive, because other places increase their own carbon emissions …

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Fukushima Whodunit

In a remarkable and significant new report, Japanese experts have concluded that the Fukushima nuclear accident was a “man”-made disaster – phrased this way perhaps in a gallant effort to allow all women to distance themselves from the decision making process. This dramatic conclusion prompts yet another question: If “man” isn’t responsible, then who is? …

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Rio+20 and Network Governance

Although I was in Rio last week, I was miles away from the actual negotiations, both geographically and metaphorically.  But, as it turned out, the side events were at least as important as the actual negotiations. This is an interesting phenomenon.  Some big international negotiations like WTO meetings attract protesters, but the big environmental negotiations …

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The T-Shirt’s Tale

After letting it sit on my shelf for about a year, I finally got around to reading Pietra Rivoli’s book, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.  The subtitle is “An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade.”  That’s accurate but makes the book sounds pretty dry and academic.  The …

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Legal Planet reviews the IPCC

Congratulations to our LP colleagues Sean Hecht and Dan Farber for having been designated as expert reviewers of the IPCC 5th assessment report, to be published in 2014.  They will be reviewing the drafts issued by Working Group II, which assesses climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability.  The IPCC’s assessment reports, written every five to seven years, have not been without …

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Comparing Canadian and US Environmental Law: Judicial Review

In a prior post, I talked a little about proposed changes to Canadian environmental laws that would roll back significant protections and procedural requirements.  I also talked about some of the differences between Canada and the United States that might be the basis for very different histories of environmental law in the two countries.  But …

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