The International Community Achieves Progress in Climate Policy

Leinen

The year 2010 was a successful year for environment protection efforts within the framework of the United Nations. At the end of October the conference on the Convention on biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan, led to a successful outcome. The intense negotiations resulted in the ‘Access and Benefit Sharing Protocol’ (ABS), a strategic plan for 2011-2020 [...]

Monopoly Imperialism: How Empires Can Be Bought and Leased

Dominic Alessio

Given that empire remains a wide-ranging and hugely influential phenomenon it is surprising how little academic attention has been directed towards it. Those few texts that do examine the processes by which empires gain power tend to focus upon the most obvious method, conquest. Yet there remain a surprising number of alternative strategies for expanding, [...]

‘Plan B’ for International Climate Negotiations

The roadmap for the next Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Mexico is clear: The EU wants a comprehensive and legally binding outcome at the end of this year. To achieve this already in 2010 should be the fundamental goal of Europe’s climate strategy. This is not only urgent because the world has [...]

Which planet is America on (and which Europe)?

The American political commentator Robert Kagan once claimed that ‘Americans are from Mars, Europeans from Venus’. If so, I have just spent a week in the capital of Mars. And, back on Venus, I have watched from afar the debate, if that is the right word, on the reform of the Martian healthcare system. I [...]

Green Transport – The Next Step in Europe’s Climate Strategy

Reviewing and improving its climate protection strategy will be one of the main challenges facing Europe over the next couple of months. Generating new ideas and ensuring adequate preparation are essential before the world resumes negotiations in Mexico. During her hearing in the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, the new Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, [...]

Time to Put the Cards on the Table

On the 31st of January 2010, it is time to put the cards on the table. The ‘Copenhagen Accord’, a document that was presented during the last plenary session of COP 15 and which serves as a basis for the international negotiations until the next climate conference in Mexico at the end of 2010, requests [...]