Region: International

Oil and Food

Today’s NY Times has two unusually interesting pieces, one on food and the other on oil. The article about food examines the difficulty of feeding an expanding and more affluent world population in the face of climate change: A rising unease about the future of the world’s food supply came through during interviews this year …

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Tough Political Choices On Climate Are Hardly Unique to U.S: The Case of Germany and Nuclear Power

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made headlines this week when she announced that the country would phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022.  The Fukishima nuclear crisis in Japan led Germany to review its reliance on nuclear power and the result of that review was Merkel’s decision to shut down the country’s existing plants. Here’s …

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Globalizing Public Nuisance

Let’s assume, as most of us on this blog do, that the Supreme Court will get rid of the public nuisance climate change when it decides Connecticut v. AEP a few weeks from now.  Does that get rid of public nuisance climate cases?  Not necessarily. Whatever one may think of the Clean Air Act’s displacement …

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Environmentalism Versus Science

  The French National Assembly yesterday voted to ban “fracking,” which extracts shale gas and oil by injecting water, chemicals, and sand into rock formations, and has received strong criticism from the environmental community.  So you would think that the action, taken by a conservative government, would have pleased environmentalists. Apparently not: Far from claiming …

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Important New IPCC Report on Renewable Energy: Good News

Yesterday the IPCC released its Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN).  To the extent that such a heavily edited and negotiated report contains a bottom line, it seems to be this: As infrastructure and energy systems develop, in spite of the complexities, there are few, if any, fundamental technological limits to …

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Great New Blog: AJWS Global Voices

American Jewish World Service, one of the most effective international anti-poverty and pro-development organizations in the worlds, has a new blog up.  It’s called Global Voices, and features not only the work of AJWS grantees but also how issues of poverty and human rights interact with ecosystem protection.  Some of the recent posts focus on …

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The Public Trust Doctrine: A Prophet Without Honor

  Michael C. Blumm and R.D. Guthrie of Lewis & Clark Law School have an interesting new paper soon to appear in the U.C. Davis Law Review, pointing out that the public trust doctrine has assumed enormous significance in the jurisprudence of several countries around the world, including India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Uganda, Kenya, South …

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Human Rights and Climate Change

The connection between climate change and human rights is beginning to get fuller attention. The Cancun Agreements (FCCC/AWGLCA/2010/L.7, paras 93-4) call for  submissions on “a forum on the impact of the implementation of response measures.” On behalf of Berkeley’s International Human Rights Law Clinic, Zoe Loftus-Farren and Cáitrín McKiernan have offered a submission, suggesting that …

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Energy and Development

Readers of this blog may be interested in a new blog by my ERG colleague Dan Kammen.  Dan is currently on leave from Berkeley to head the Clean Tech effort at the World Bank as the Bank’s Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Recent subjects range from cook stoves in Africa to …

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Will Bombay Choke the Queen’s Necklace?

Marine Drive in Bombay, better known as the Queen’s Necklace (pictured), is one of the most beautiful waterfronts in the world.  That’s why it is so depressing to learn that the Maharahstra state government seems to want to destroy it.  Per DNA India, the state’s chief minister,  Prithviraj Chavan, is meeting with Union Environment Minister Jairam …

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