After Paris: Good Enough Climate Governance

2016 ◽  
Vol 115 (777) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Busby

[F]or many developing countries, the Paris agreement is better than no deal and an important step in the right direction.

Significance The climate pact sets forward an ambitious vision of global climate governance, with significant implications for policymakers and investors, but the Paris Agreement will now move beyond bold rhetoric to more contentious issues related to ratification and implementation. Impacts Many developing countries are still wary of making unconditional pledges without additional support from developed countries. Morocco -- the host of this year's COP22 summit in November -- will set the pace for the global shift to renewables. Climate-driven water shortages may 'strand' once-lucrative investments in farmland.


2018 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-435
Author(s):  
Gerard Kelly

This article assesses the contribution of the clean development mechanism (cdm) to climate governance. The cdm emerged as the key offset mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, but its contribution to climate governance remains contested. This article deconstructs the cdm by evaluating the mechanism’s dominant critiques and offers a synthesised analysis of its core design and operational defects. The implications of the Paris Agreement, particularly the prospect of a successor mechanism to the cdm, are evaluated, and inform this article’s vision of a reconstructed mechanism as an important component in the evolving carbon markets infrastructure. Although such a reconstructed mechanism would continue to build a base of regulatory experience in less developing countries, this article suggests that the framework emerging under the Paris Agreement should more carefully circumscribe the cdm’s future role. Finally, this article concludes by considering the potential climate governance contribution of a reconstructed cdm.


Author(s):  
D. Cherns

The use of high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) to determine the atomic structure of grain boundaries and interfaces is a topic of great current interest. Grain boundary structure has been considered for many years as central to an understanding of the mechanical and transport properties of materials. Some more recent attention has focussed on the atomic structures of metalsemiconductor interfaces which are believed to control electrical properties of contacts. The atomic structures of interfaces in semiconductor or metal multilayers is an area of growing interest for understanding the unusual electrical or mechanical properties which these new materials possess. However, although the point-to-point resolutions of currently available HREMs, ∼2-3Å, appear sufficient to solve many of these problems, few atomic models of grain boundaries and interfaces have been derived. Moreover, with a new generation of 300-400kV instruments promising resolutions in the 1.6-2.0 Å range, and resolutions better than 1.5Å expected from specialist instruments, it is an appropriate time to consider the usefulness of HREM for interface studies.


1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-338
Author(s):  
Muhammad Hussain Malik

The need to enhance their economic relations with each other has long been felt by developing countries. However, their efforts in this regard have met with limited success. One of the reasons for this could be that not much serious work has been done to understand the complexities and possibilities of economic relations of developing countries. The complementarities which exist among the economies of these countries remain relatively unexplored. There is a lack of concrete policy proposals which developing countries may follow to achieve their often proclaimed objective of collective self-reliance. All this needs serious and rigorous research efforts. In this perspective, the present study can be considered as a step in the right direction. It examines trade and other economic relations of developing countries of two regions of Asia-South Asian countries and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The study also explores ways and means to improve economic relations among these countries


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (02) ◽  
pp. 140-146
Author(s):  
M. R. Edwards ◽  
S. P. James ◽  
W. S. Dernell ◽  
R. J. Scott ◽  
A. M. Bachand ◽  
...  

SummaryThe biomechanical characteristics of 1.2 mm diameter allogeneic cortical bone pins harvested from the canine tibia were evaluated and compared to 1.1 mm diameter stainless steel pins and 1.3 mm diameter polydioxanone (PDS) pins using impact testing and four-point bending. The biomechanical performance of allogeneic cortical bone pins using impact testing was uniform with no significant differences between sites, side, and gender. In four-point bending, cortical bone pins harvested from the left tibia (204.8 ± 77.4 N/mm) were significantly stiffer than the right tibia (123.7 ± 54.4 N/mm, P=0.0001). The site of bone pin harvest also had a significant effect on stiffness, but this was dependent on interactions with gender and side. Site C in male dogs had the highest mean stiffness in the left tibia (224.4 ± 40.4 N/mm), but lowest stiffness in the right tibia (84.9 ± 24.2 N/mm). Site A in female dogs had the highest mean stiffness in the left tibia (344.9 ± 117.4 N/mm), but lowest stiffness in the right tibia (60.8 ± 3.7 N/mm). The raw and adjusted bending properties of 1.2 mm cortical bone pins were significantly better than 1.3 mm PDS pins, but significantly worse than 1.1 mm stainless steel pins (P<0.0001). In conclusion, cortical bone pins may be suitable as an implant for fracture fixation based on initial biomechanical comparison to stainless steel and PDS pins used in clinical practice.


Author(s):  
Daniel Krahl

The Paris Agreement has turned traditional approaches to global governance upside down, using a bottom-up approach that made it possible for emerging powers like China to agree to binding emissions targets to contain climate change. It thus marks a further step away from the old order centered on Western power, and at the same time it fits well into Chinese attempts to create a post-American order that rests on great power diplomacy within a multilateral framework of cooperation that privileges developing countries. The Paris Agreement allows China to leverage the internal fight against pollution and the restructuring and upgrading of its economy for international status. That the agreement has so far survived President Trump’s announcement of America’s departure suggests that it could yet serve as a blueprint for other, future arrangements for world order that would be able to integrate a risen China.


Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Fridland

AbstractThis paper provides an account of the strategic control involved in skilled action. When I discuss strategic control, I have in mind the practical goals, plans, and strategies that skilled agents use in order to specify, structure, and organize their skilled actions, which they have learned through practice. The idea is that skilled agents are better than novices not only at implementing the intentions that they have but also at forming the right intentions. More specifically, skilled agents are able formulate and modify, adjust and adapt their practical intentions in ways that are appropriate, effective, and flexible given their overall goals. Further, to specify the kind of action plans that are involved in strategic control, I’ll rely on empirical evidence concerning mental practice and mental imagery from sports psychology as well as evidence highlighting the systematic differences in the cognitive representations of skills between experts and non-experts. I’ll claim that, together, this evidence suggests that the intentions that structure skilled actions are practical and not theoretical, that is, that they are perceptual and motor and not abstract, amodal, or linguistic. Importantly, despite their grounded nature, these plans are still personal-level, deliberate, rational states. That is, the practical intentions used to specify and structure skilled actions are best conceived of as higher-order, motor-modal structures, which can be manipulated and used by the agent for the purpose of reasoning, deliberation, decision-making and, of course, the actual online structuring and organizing of action.


2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Feaver

President George W. Bush's Iraq surge decision in late 2006 is an interesting case for civil-military relations theory, in particular, the debate between professional supremacists and civilian supremacists over how much to defer to the military on decisions during war. The professional supremacists argue that the primary problem for civil-military relations during war is ensuring the military an adequate voice and keeping civilians from micromanaging and mismanaging matters. Civilian supremacists, in contrast, argue that the primary problem is ensuring that well-informed civilian strategic guidance is authoritatively directing key decisions, even when the military disagrees with that direction. A close reading of the available evidence—both in published accounts and in new, not-for-attribution interviews with the key players—shows that the surge decision vindicates neither camp. If President Bush had followed the professional supremacists, there would have been no surge because his key military commanders were recommending against that option. If Bush had followed the civilian supremacists to the letter, however, there might have been a revolt of the generals, causing the domestic political props under the surge to collapse. Instead, Bush's hybrid approach worked better than either ideal type would have.


2013 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 1350008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mou WANG

Drawing on the idea that countries are eligible to implement differentiated emission reduction policies based on their respective capabilities, some parties of UNFCCC attempt to weaken the principle of “Common but differentiated responsibilities(CBDR)” and impose carbon tariff on international trade. This initiative is in fact another camouflage to burden developing countries with emission cut obligation, which has no doubt undermined the development rights of developing countries. This paper defines Carbon Tariff as border measures that target import goods with embodied carbon emission. It can be import tariffs or other domestic tax measures that adjust border tax, which includes plain import tariffs and export rebates, border tax adjustment, emission quota and permit etc. For some developed countries, carbon tariffs mean to sever trade protectionism and to build trade barriers. Its theoretical arguments like “loss of comparative advantage”, “carbon leakage decreases environmental effectiveness” and “theoretical model bases” are pseudo-propositions without international consensus. Carbon tariff has become an intensively debated issue due to its duality of climate change and trade, but neither UNFCCC nor WTO has clarified this issue or has indicated a clear statement in this regard. As a result, it allows some parties to take advantage of this loophole and escape its international climate change obligation. Carbon tariff is an issue arising from global climate governance. To promote the cooperation of global climate governance and safeguard the social and economic development of developing countries, a fair and justified climate change regime and international trade institution should be established, and the settlement of the carbon tariff issue should be addressed within these frameworks. This paper argues that the international governance of carbon tariff should in cooperation with other international agreements; however, principles and guidelines regarding this issue should be developed under the UNFCCC. Based on these principles and guidelines, WTO can develop related technical operation provisions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 114 (6) ◽  
pp. 3351-3358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania de Vito ◽  
Marine Lunven ◽  
Clémence Bourlon ◽  
Christophe Duret ◽  
Patrick Cavanagh ◽  
...  

When we look at bars flashed against a moving background, we see them displaced in the direction of the upcoming motion (flash-grab illusion). It is still debated whether these motion-induced position shifts are low-level, reflexive consequences of stimulus motion or high-level compensation engaged only when the stimulus is tracked with attention. To investigate whether attention is a causal factor for this striking illusory position shift, we evaluated the flash-grab illusion in six patients with damaged attentional networks in the right hemisphere and signs of left visual neglect and six age-matched controls. With stimuli in the top, right, and bottom visual fields, neglect patients experienced the same amount of illusion as controls. However, patients showed no significant shift when the test was presented in their left hemifield, despite having equally precise judgments. Thus, paradoxically, neglect patients perceived the position of the flash more veridically in their neglected hemifield. These results suggest that impaired attentional processes can reduce the interaction between a moving background and a superimposed stationary flash, and indicate that attention is a critical factor in generating the illusory motion-induced shifts of location.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document