The 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), currently taking place in Dubai from November 30 to December 12, is missing contributions from one major energy power — namely, Russia. Many countries are guilty of pledging to curtail emissions then departing from their plans and falling short of the United Nations’ ambitious goals (Kommersant, November 30)…. Read more »
Category: Environment
The Geopolitics of Deep-Sea Mining
Deep-sea mining carries substantial environmental risks and its immediate profitability remains questionable due to several technical difficulties. Yet, amid regulatory pitfalls, a handful of states are rushing to extract raw resources from the seabed.
What’s Next in Climate Security Studies? Exploiting Synergies between Practice and Research
The increase in global temperatures by over 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times is already having broad and significant impacts. An ongoing multi-year drought in Eastern Africa, for instance, has been attributed to global warming. Hunger crises, displacement, and exacerbated conflict between pastoralist groups are some of the reported dire consequences. This blog post reports on a recent study of the… Read more »
Renewable Energy, Renewable Conflicts? How a Lithium Rush in Zimbabwe Is Raising Tensions
In October 2022, lithium prices reached an all-time high. Lithium is an essential component for electric vehicle batteries, and with the current high ambitions in electrification of transport, demand for the mineral has been rapidly increasing, hitting a record price of $74,475 per tonne in October 2022. In Zimbabwe, where some of the world’s largest… Read more »
Land and Mining in the Green Energy Transition
Global mining uses more than 57.000 km2 of land. This area is likely to expand in the coming years due to a rising mineral demand for low-carbon technologies. The more strategic minerals become, the more critical the land becomes below which they are found. This poses a number of challenges.
50 Years Hence: Can the Apollo Missions Inspire Us Today?
Last week, 50 years ago, Apollo 17’s lunar module left the moon. Since then, no one has set foot there. Let us pause for a moment to think about the signficance of that rather unique adventure called Apollo. The Apollo program defies belief. At a time when much of modern technology – not least computer… Read more »
Armed Conflict and Climate Change: How These Two Threats Play Out in Africa
The world is falling miserably short of reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, a 2015 treaty to keep global warming well below 2℃. The results of this failure are a greater increase in the prevalence and severity of extreme weather events, more rapid sea-level rises and an elevated risk of triggering irreversible climate tipping… Read more »
Climate Policy Must Be Inclusive to Be Successful
Climate justice is essential if we are to succeed in preventing global warming of 1.5 to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. This is a point that receives far greater attention in the new Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report than in previous reports. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published… Read more »
Good Reads: Resource Sovereignty
Green Curses research project member Dr. John Andrew McNeish, Professor at the Faculty of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, has just published two books on contestations over natural resources. The first book, a monograph authored by McNeish and entitled Sovereign Forces: Everyday Challenges to Environmental Governance in Latin America, looks… Read more »
Climate Resilience and Conflict: Multi-stakeholder Partnerships As A Way Forward?
As world leaders convened in Glasgow for the 26th annual Conference of Parties (COP 26) in hopes of accelerating action on the Paris Agreement and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the correlation between climate change and conflict is receiving more attention. In recent years, there has been an outpouring of evidence that… Read more »