Hosted by Sarwar Kashmeri, the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions podcast series will headline issues together with the leaders whose decisions today will mold the foreign policy of tomorrow. Each podcast will tackle a different Great Decisions topic in the 2014 series, a list of which can be found here. Tackling climate change has unearthed a […]
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, president of the smallest oil producing and exporting member of OPEC, has committed to expanding oil drilling – from the current 513,000 barrels of oil per day. President Correa announced last week that he signed an executive decree to end the Yasuni Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tipuni (ITT) initiative. ITT are oil blocks, which house […]
As the developing world continues its economic expansion, it is predicted to leave the developed world in its dust in regards to increase in energy consumption over the next 25 plus years or so. Dominant forces of China and India will drive the trend, but other developing nations will continue to become major […]
While whether climate change is real is being debated around the world, there is one country that is experiencing its effects firsthand: the Maldives. This documentary follows then-President Mohamed Nasheed as he attempts to get the rest of the world on board with reducing carbon emissions, one cause of global warming that is causing sea […]
India is anticipating a massive wave of refugee migration from neighboring Bangladesh. This feared population swell – India already has 1.2 billion people of its own – would come not from anticipated political corruption, but from climate change. India projects that rising sea levels will yield an unprecedented number of Bangladeshi “climate refugees” seeking basic […]
As immigration legislation is prodded through the U.S. Senate then likely to collect mothballs in the U.S. House of Representatives, and major Supreme Court decisions are announced, the executive branch has garnered a portion of the headlines. Ready to take on another challenge, President Obama laid out his plan to combat Climate Change – a […]
During the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna, Sweden last Wednesday, the body’s Secretariat released the “Vision for the Arctic” (PDF). The Secretariat is composed of the eight Arctic States together with the six permanent participants, the Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations. The vision has seven sections, which I analyze below. The document’s introduction describes how […]
Asia in, EU not yet China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Italy have all been admitted as permanent observer states to the Arctic Council, while the EU will have to wait. Though technically admitted, it still must work out its differences with Canada. Countries are admitted as permanent observer states by consensus between the […]
Last April I wrote about the tiny island nation of Maldvies, and its embattled former President Mohamed Nasheed. After a brief foray into democracy, it seems that Maldives has slid back to the political bullying of its past. Nasheed claims to have been deposed by force in February 2012; the current government — which […]
As COP 18 in Doha seems to have failed (as of writing) to reach a consensus on how to further climate change action for the future, Malaysia proves to be one developing country with a plan for internal action. The country has set ambitious emission reduction targets: by 2020 it has committed to cut it […]
The United Nations climate change negotiations, or the long form: the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the Kyoto Protocol, got underway today […]
Despite the fact that it’s only the 9th of November, election day is far behind us. There’s no option of a lame duck for any officials. The glaringly obvious and ever-pressing question is, of course, what now? Or, to put it another way, where? Some of the “whats” have snuck their way into kitchen table […]
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