Global Climate Change Fears Are Genuine
By Stephen Leahy* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
UXBRIDGE (IDN) - Around the world scientists are not sleeping well. They toss and turn knowing humanity is destroying the Earth’s ability to support mankind. The science is crystal clear and all of us 'ought to be shaking in our boots', Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme told me last year.
But hardly any of us are shaking in our boots. Why is that?
The most extensive survey about the scientific consensus that humanity is causing global warming was published on May 16, 2013 in Environmental Research Letters (ERL). Researchers looked at 12,000 scientific articles published between 1991 and 2011 on the subject and found that 97.1% of these agreed global warming is primarily caused by human activities.
Learning Statecraft from China
By Kasturi Moitra* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
NEW DELHI (IDN | IDSA) - “Deception is an integral element of Chinese strategic culture”, noted Shyam Saran (former Foreign Secretary with the Government of India) at the second K. Subrahmanyam lecture series held in August 2012 at New Delhi.
At the same event, he also underscored the importance of being more conversant with the Chinese thought process for improving Indo-China relations. His counsel becomes even more relevant in the light of the recent friction between India and China over difference in interpretation of the border, resulting, recently, in a 19-km incursion in the Daulat Beg Oldi sector of the Depsang Valley in Ladakh.
The European Dream Fading Away
By Roberto Savio* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
ROME (IDN | Other News) - The European Union has asked its citizens to brace for further economic misery. In a report on European economic prospects released on May 3, the European Commission said that further deterioration is expected to last at least until 2015. But, as every such report says, things will then get better!
Global Forum Vows Commitment to Land Rights
By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport
ROME (IDN) - Farmers, pastoralists and indigenous peoples from around the world have expressed concern about the increasing levels of land grabbing and land concentration. These, they say, are embedded in wider political and economic choices, including poorly regulated investment frameworks and poor governance that do not respond to the needs of rural communities. In fact these undermine democratic processes, create unhealthy environments and unequal societies, and perpetuate poverty and hunger.
Uncertainty About Canada's Arctic Vision
By R. Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BERLIN (IDN) - While scientists and environmentalists watch the Arctic as a bellwether of global climate change, and nations and corporations seek to exploit its oil, gas and mineral reserves as well as new shipping routes, rapid and even abrupt changes occurring on multiple fronts across the polar region are threatening to cause irreversible impact on ecosystems and societies, according to experts.
US Global War on Terrorism Not a Forever War
By Harold Hongju Koh* | IDN-InDepth NewsEssay
OXFORD (IDN | Yale Global) - From both the left and the right, three common misperceptions have emerged about US foreign policy: First, that the Global War on Terror has become a perpetual state of affairs; second, that no strategy is available to end this conflict in the near future; and third, that “the Obama approach to that conflict is just like the Bush approach.” I disagree with all three propositions.
First and most important, the overriding goal should be to end this Forever War, not engage in a perpetual “global war on terror,” without geographic or temporal limits.
Election Outcome Bodes Well For Pakistan
By Eric Walberg* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
The parliamentary elections in Pakistan on May 12 may be described as historic in many ways. But what do the tea leaves tell us? Sharif is a logical heir to Pakistan’s tragic history, which continues to unfold, regardless of who sits on top. But if he can strike a peace accord with India and work with regional players – including Iran – and the US in Afghanistan, peace will break out, creating an economic boom across the region.
Tackling Nuclear Proliferation At Its Roots
By Ian Anthony and Lina Grip* | IDN-InDepth NewsEssay
Making nuclear weapons requires access to materials – highly enriched uranium or plutonium – that do not exist in nature in a weapons-usable form. To constitute a threat, natural uranium needs to go through a challenging and time-consuming process of transformation as it moves through the nuclear fuel cycle.
STOCKHOLM (IDN) - The effort to cap the number of nuclear armed states in the world has largely focused on limiting the spread of the industrial items and processes needed for the stages of the fuel cycle that can turn uranium or plutonium into forms that could be used to make a nuclear weapon: enrichment or reprocessing.
Back to Keynes in Eurozone, Sans Germany
By Suzan A. Kane* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BRUSSELS (IDN | European Sting) - Thank god it will not be any more the economists to set the course of economic policy in Eurozone but the people and the politicians. Whatever bad things one may think about politicians, there is one thing that nobody can deny; they can hear the people.
In this case the theory of Reinhart – Rogoff proposing austerity and prayers to correct all sins of the western economy and more so of Eurozone’s debts, will cease to set the rules. It will be rather the politicians to decide now to end austerity and start borrowing again to finance growth. Japan opened the way deciding to increase its government debt above the already breath-taking 200% of the GDP.
Before The Next Drought Wreaks Havoc
By Jutta Wolf | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BERLIN (IDN) - The growing intensity, frequency and duration of droughts worldwide is a source of acute anxiety to secretariat of UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which was agreed in the aftermath of the severe drought in the Sahel in the 1970s and 1980s and continues to be key to global efforts to combat desertification.
Together with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UNCCD therefore organised a High-level Meeting on National Drought Policy in Geneva, Switzerland, to impress on stakeholders that they urgently need to take action.
Syrian Civil War Likens A Gordian Knot
By Eric Ruder* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
CHICAGO (IDN) - Israel carried out two major rounds of air strikes on Syria in the span of 48 hours in the opening days of May, raising the prospect of a wider war in the Middle East. The second and larger of the two attacks targeted a mountainside military complex that overlooks Damascus, turning the night skies into day, according to witnesses.
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