Tag Archives: EU

Peacebuilding and adaptation to climate change: the 3 minute version

Posted on November 24, 2009 | 1 Comment

No more need for long posts. Between us, al-Jazeera and I have boiled down the whole climate-conflict-peace-adaptation issue, on which I have been writing at length, to a three minute news report. Well, not quite the whole but some of the core elements. Watch on.

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Posted in Climate change, Conflict & peace

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Climate agreement in Copenhagen? Prospects dimming rapidly

Posted on October 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

September’s UN Climate change summit convened by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appears not to have succeeded. It was a good try and could have worked if national leaders had stepped up to accept the challenge. But most of them haven’t. The regular conferencing to prepare the Copenhagen summit in December has resumed in Bangkok and the acrimony is at an unprecedented level. Continue reading →

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Posted in Climate change, Power

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Climate change and the complex complications of the Copenhagen COP

Posted on September 16, 2009 | Leave a comment

The Copenhagen climate conference in December is crucial for the future well being of the vast majority of humanity alive today and the billions yet to be born.  Its prospects are not good, however, and it is beset by multi-layered complexities. There needs to be much more political energy going into it now in order to achieve anything that can be politely called success in three months time.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Climate change

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Reintegrating ex-fighters is about more than the ex-fighters

Posted on September 10, 2009 | 4 Comments

A few years back, the universally acknowledged truth in peacebuilding was that, for a country to move from a peace agreement on paper into a real and sustainable peace process, the fighters had to disarm, demobilise and re-integrate – DDR. It was high priority on the ground, backed by a deal of international activity to learn lessons and sort out best practice. Lately, the energy seems to have drained out of DDR. It is time to renew it.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Conflict & peace, International development

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The new UK economic greenprint, politics and how the media reacted

Posted on July 16, 2009 | 1 Comment

Two of the big issues the world faces today are how to recover from the economic crunch and how to reverse global warming and deal with climate change. On Wednesday 15 July the UK government addressed both with a major policy statement reshaping its energy policy to reduce carbon emissions. It signals a bold effort to green the economy and create several hundred thousand new jobs. The biggest risk it faces is getting politically entangled – and in this regard, the media reaction was a worry.

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Posted in Climate change, The economic crunch

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IMF’s July economic projections: so many uncertainties remain

Posted on July 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

The International Monetary Fund’s July World Economic Outlook report portrays the world economy shrinking in 2009 by 1.4% and growing though not strongly at 2.5% in 2010. This both reflects and buttresses a widely held view that at global level and in some countries and regions, the end of the worst of the recession is occurring or is in sight but that recovery will not be strong or quick enough to take this year’s overall economic results into the realm of growth. Moreover, some of the sharp variations in IMF projections from one quarter to the next, on which I commented in my 24 April post, have flattened out and there seems greater to be greater consistency, confidence and certainty than before. But underneath, a plethora of uncertainties remain. Continue reading →

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Posted in The economic crunch

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As Obama opens doors to the Muslim world, will Europe close them?

Posted on June 22, 2009 | 1 Comment

President Obama’s 4th June speech in Cairo about relations with the Islamic world rightly got huge plaudits, including here. It doesn’t solve all problems but doors are open for new dialogue, policies and approaches. But as Washington wins credit and credibility through expressions of openness and respect and heads towards better links with the Muslim world, is Europe moving the opposite way? Continue reading →

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Posted in Power

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Climate, conflict, peacebuilding and adaptation: a need for leaps and links

Posted on June 16, 2009 | 4 Comments

To assist poor countries facing the double and connected problems of climate change and violent conflict, adaptation to climate change has to be combined with peacebuilding. For this to be possible, organisations – governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental alike – that work on development, the environment and peace issues have to move out of their boxes and make more than one leap of imagination and policy so the links are visible between both problems and solutions. It is not inevitable that the Obama administration will succeed in this. Help is needed! Continue reading →

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Posted in Climate change, Conflict & peace, International development

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