Global Environmental Agreements
Global environmental governance: the challenge of accountability
News 360°
VIEW FINDER NOT A USUAL EXERCISE Soldiers smell the ground to detect bodies of flash flood victims in Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot battered the island"s southern region in the second week of August. The typhoon, which Met officials call the deadliest in 50 years, also triggered mudslides; one such mudslide
The role of science in the global governance of desertification
The problem of desertification sits at the interface of environmental and developmental concerns. In this article, we examine the institutional relationship between desertification science and policy through focus on the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and its subsidiary body, the Committee on Science and Technology.
GoodBAU, cruel world
At l’aquila in Italy, during a meeting of the world’s major boys and girls, India agreed to cap its carbon emissions. The agreement proclaimed the signatory countries would work together to limit global temperature rise to 2ºC from pre-industrial time. It was as if they were writing off bad debt.
Fixing the sky
When nations made plans to save the ozone layer, they didn't factor in global warming. Quirin Schiermeier reports on how two environmental problems complicate each other.
Lessons from Antarctica
Twenty years on, the success of the Montreal Protocol can help inform plans to mitigate climate change. (Editorial)
Exploring legal form options for a post-2012 climate regime
In the run-up to the United Nations conference on climate change, scheduled to be held in Copenhagen, in December 2009 there is a great deal of discussion and speculation about what legal agreement should emerge from that conference.
The globe's green avenger
Maurice Strong has shaped how nations respond to planetary crises. Ehsan Masood meets the man whose successes — and failures — laid the groundwork for the current climate talks.
Funding struggle for mercury monitoring
Nicola Pirrone may need all the help he can get next week. In the hallways of a conference in Guiyang, China, Pirrone — the director of Italy's CNR-Institute for Atmospheric Pollution Research — will be trying to rustle up support for a global network to monitor mercury pollution.
Overshoot, adapt and recover
If policy-makers are to reach international agreement on greenhouse-gas emissions at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December, they need to be optimistic that their decisions could have swift and overwhelmingly positive effects on climate change. The reality is less certain, but no less urgent.
