Posted on May 29th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
A new paper published by the Institute for Science, Innovation & Society of the University of Oxford and the Mackinder Programme of the London School of Economics begins with the provocative thesis that the international climate change policy process, as embodied in the UNFCCC/Kyoto framework failed to result in meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, [...]
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Posted on May 26th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
The U.S. Energy Information Agency released its latest report on energy trends, International Energy Outlook 2010, yesterday, and several aspects of the analysis are extremely foreboding from the perspective of climate change: Under a business as usual scenario, world energy consumption is projected to grow by 49% from 2007 to 2035, with 84% growth for [...]
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Posted on May 26th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
There is an excellent new potential reading on the Copenhagen Accord for climate change law and policy classes in a recent issue of Nature, Rogelj & Meinshausen, Copenhagen Pledges are Paltry, 464 Nature 1126-28 (2010) (subscription required). The authors analyze the likely implications of the pledges made by UNFCCC parties under the Copenhagen Accord. Among [...]
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Posted on May 25th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
The NGO Sandbag has released a new interactive emissions map of Europe, including the ability to see how the EU-ETS works. This would be a good site for classes engaged in climate change negotiations.
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Posted on May 24th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
The Secretariat of the UNFCCC has just posted a valuable new document, compiling the commitments of Annex I Parties beyond the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. The document is also valuable because it catalogs the emissions of all Annex I Parties through 2007 and also discusses the role of land use activities in [...]
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Posted on May 21st, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
Dear Colleagues, To foster the search for local solutions to tackle the global challenge of climate change it is important to raise awareness about this topic at universities and schools. This is the central aim of the “World Climate Teach-In Day”, to be held in the run-up of CLIMATE 2010 on the 4th June 2010. [...]
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Posted on May 21st, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
An excellent video to assign students is U.C.-San Diego Professor Naomi Oreske’s presentation “The American Denial of Global Warming” (approximately one hour). Oreske provides a lively and extremely thorough history of climate change denialism in the United States, including the colorful track record of many of the major actors in the denialism camp.
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Posted on May 20th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
An interesting emerging development in the context of climate geoengineering is the potential assertion of jurisdiction over such operations by a number of different international regimes, and the possibility of conflicting mandates. For example, in 2007, the Parties to the International Maritime Organization’s London Convention issued a decision asserting jurisdiction over ocean iron fertilization activities [...]
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Posted on May 19th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
While the lion’s share of studies on the direct impacts of increased uptake of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans have focused upon potential acidification effects on marine organisms, especially calcifiers, there is growing evidence that this uptake may also feed into changes in the Earth’s future climate. A recent study focuses on some of [...]
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Posted on May 19th, 2010 by Dr. Wil Burns
There is an excellent group of videos entitled “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” available on You Tube that would be especially appropriate for undergraduate students. The author, Peter Sinclair’s blog, Crock of the Week, is also full of interesting information, including a “Solution of the Week” section.
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