Showing posts from category energy.
-
Governing the Far North: Assessing Cooperation Between Arctic and Non-Arctic Nations
›November 12, 2010 // By Ken CristDespite fears of an unregulated race for Arctic territory and resources, there is currently considerable international cooperation occurring to address key issues in the Far North, said Betsy Baker of the Vermont Law School at an event hosted by the Canada Institute in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Kennan Institute, and the Environmental Change and Security Program. The program provided a timely forum to discuss efforts by Arctic and non-Arctic nations to cooperate on key environmental, security, and economic issues, and foster discussion on pressing Arctic governance questions. The event’s first panel was moderated by Don Newman, former senior parliamentary editor, CBC News.
Assessing Cooperation Among Arctic Nations
The United States, said Baker, is currently engaged in international cooperation in a number of areas including, shipping, emergency response and rescue, science, seabed mapping, and joint military exercises. The majority of U.S. Arctic initiatives are conducted via the Arctic Council, an institution that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton favors strengthening. Baker maintained that the most effective form of Arctic governance would be a “bottom up” approach. Governing structures closest to the end users, she explained, are the most effective means of ensuring economic development and environmental security.
Baker noted that the lack of infrastructure and search and rescue capabilities represent the most pressing security concerns in the Arctic. Until this occurs, the international community will not be able to adequately respond to a potential oil spill or grounded vessel in the region. While some analysts have expressed concern over the militarization of the Arctic, Baker and other panelists downplayed the possibility of military conflict in the Far North as a significant concern. She suggested that science-based diplomacy would be the best means to peacefully resolve disputes in the region.
Danila Bochkarev of the EastWest Institute in Brussels said that the development of sea routes (particularly the Northern Sea Route), border protection, and infrastructure development are among Russia’s top Arctic priorities. Bochkarev noted that the Arctic region has increased in economic importance to Russia and currently represents 11 percent of its GDP and 80 percent of the country’s discovered industrial gas. Aside from economic opportunities, melting Arctic ice has also allowed increased access to Russian territory, which is also viewed as a security concern by Russian officials. Other looming Russian concerns, noted Bochkarev, include the increasing internationalization of Arctic governance, competing claims for the Arctic continental shelf, and challenges to Russia’s sovereignty claim over the Northern Sea Route. He maintained that Russia has committed to following the principles of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to peacefully resolve any territorial disputes.
Joël Plouffe of the Université du Québec à Montreal noted that Canada’s recently published “Statement on Canada’s Arctic Foreign Policy” highlights the Harper government’s desire to bolster economic development, protect the environment, strengthen its sovereignty claim, and improve governance in the Far North. Plouffe said that the Arctic policy document also shows Canada’s commitment to foster bilateral relationships among Arctic nations, particularly the United States. He noted that Canada has always promoted international cooperation in the Arctic and was one of the founding members of the Arctic Council. Canada’s Arctic policy, said Plouffe, also serves to fill a security gap in the Far North, an area of particular concern to the United States.
While Canada has demonstrated a willingness to engage coastal Arctic states on key environmental, security, and economic issues in the Far North, the Canadian government’s willingness to work with non-Arctic states is less clear, said Plouffe. Canada, he remarked, has yet to decide whether it would like to create an exclusive neighborhood of Arctic states to resolve governance issues, or if it is willing to include non-Arctic nations in international meetings and Arctic forums.
The Perspective of Non-Arctic Nations
“[W]e cannot be indifferent to a region whose melting ice sheet, volumes of water, and temperatures have a direct impact on Germany and Europe,” said Franz Thönnes, SPD Member of the German Bundestag. He explained that Germany and the European Union’s interest in the Arctic stem in part from the importance the EU places on the principles of stability and sustainability. EU interests in the Arctic also extend to the economic realm. Of particular interest, said Thönnes, are untapped Arctic oil and gas reserves and potential new shipping routes. He noted that the shipping route from Hamburg to Shanghai would be cut from 25,200 km to 17,000 km should the Northwest Passage become accessible. Given that Germany operates the world’s largest container fleet, access to such routes would be of major importance to Germany and other European maritime countries.
Ted McDorman of the University of Victoria stated that from an international law perspective, the Arctic Ocean is legally no different than any other ocean. Like other oceans, noted McDorman, there are significant gaps in governance that will require international cooperation to address. These include setting standards for shipping vessels passing through Arctic water and waterways, collaboration on marine science, and how to manage the Arctic marine ecosystem sustainably. According to McDorman, while some aspects of Arctic oil and gas development, such as drilling, will fall under domestic jurisdictions, international standards will still need to be negotiated to address potential oil spills or other environmental repercussions that may affect other countries. McDorman questioned whether an international treaty modeled after the Antarctic treaty would make sense for the Arctic region and he echoed comments by others that the idea is not supported by key Arctic players and is unlikely to move forward.
The Scandanavian countries vary in their level of Arctic engagement, said Timo Koivurova of Finland’s University of Lapland. Finland is currently developing a new Arctic strategy, and Iceland remains adamantly opposed to an exclusive Arctic Five governance structure while supporting active EU involvement in Arctic affairs. On the other hand, Sweden remains relatively inactive on the Arctic policy front. Koivurova noted that there are a growing number of non-Arctic nations – including China, South Korea, and Japan – that are seeking to become a part of the Arctic Council.
Koivurova closed by asking whether the Arctic Council could be reformed in a manner that allowed Arctic nations to retain their status while allowing greater representation for non-Arctic nations. Such reform, said Koivurova, may be necessary given the increasing desire and number of countries vying for a voice on Arctic governance.
Ken Crist is program associate with the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Photo Credit: “Arctic Sunrise,” courtesy of flickr user drurydrama (Len Radin). -
Rare Earths Intrigue: In Response to Chinese Ban, Japan and Vietnam Make a Deal
›November 2, 2010 // By Schuyler NullThe BBC is reporting that Japan has reached an agreement with Vietnam that will help provide a secure supply of rare earth minerals, after China reportedly stopped exports to Japan during an ongoing territorial dispute last month.
China produces nearly all (97 percent, according to the GAO) of the rare earth minerals used around the world, minerals that are used in many advanced electronics including mobile phones, missiles, and key components of cleaner energy tech. Japanese companies are expected to gain exclusive exploration and mining rights in northwest Vietnam in exchange for technical assistance on nuclear reactors.
China’s reported export freeze on rare earths raised warning flags in the region as well as in Washington, where fears over exclusive supply of the crucial minerals have been growing for some time – particularly in the defense community. (Although Bloomberg reports a new Pentagon study says it’s not such a big deal after all.) Control over and access to resources has become an important concern in East Asian diplomacy, as population and consumption in the region rises. For more, check out The New Security Beat’s coverage of the many diplomatic fault lines at play between the lower Mekong countries, China, and the United States, rare earth minerals and green energy, and the conflict potential of future resource scarcity.
Sources: BBC, Bloomberg, Government Accountability Office, The New York Times, TechNewsDaily.
Image Credit: Adapted from “The Huc Bridge, Hanoi,” courtesy of flickr user -aw-. -
Energy and Climate Change in the Context of National Security
›“Climate Change and Security,” a short briefing by Paul Rogers of the Oxford Research Group, examines the recent trend of framing climate change in terms of a national security threat and presents some of the pros and cons of this viewpoint. Rogers says the recent uptick in interest by the military is expected – and welcomed – because military planners often perform more long-term analyses than other policymakers. However, Rogers also cautions that the military, in its role as protector of the state, will naturally focus on adapting to the effects of climate change rather than preventing them. Thus, while this willingness to think long-term is appreciated, work remains to convince the international security community of the importance of carbon-cutting measures as well.“Fueling the Future Force: Preparing the Department of Defense for a Post-Petroleum Era,” by Christine Parthemore and John Nagl of CNAS, is a comprehensive policy paper arguing for the U.S. military to aim for the ability to operate all its systems on non-petroleum fuels by 2040. Parthemore and Nagl outline a broad set of recommendations that address DOD’s consumption habits, leadership structure, finances, acquisition process, and mission goals. Notable, in the context of Paul Rogers’ warning, is that the authors’ argument is essentially one of supply and demand, rather than for cutting emissions to reduce the effects of climate change: “…while many of today’s weapons and transportation systems are unlikely to change dramatically or be replaced for decades, the petroleum needed to operate DOD assets may not remain affordable, or even reliably available, for the lifespans of these systems.” -
Admiral Mullen and the “Strategic Imperative” of Energy Security
›October 13, 2010 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoTop American military brass weighed in this morning on energy security with an emphasis on conservation, efficiency, and alternatives. A little climate change even crept into the discussion as well.
The occasion was a Department of Defense conference titled “Empowering Defense Through Energy Security” sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics and the United States Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps leadership. The new Office of Operational Energy Plans and Programs was on point.
Starting at the top, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen set the tone:My friend and columnist Tom Friedman has spoken eloquently of the growing need – and awareness – to rethink our views on energy – and minimize our dependence on overseas energy sources that fuel regimes that do not always share our interests and values, while not further damaging a world that is already becoming overheated, overpolluted, and overstretched.
The wider context of climate change and its security implications also found a place in Admiral Mullen’s remarks:
We in the Defense Department have a role to play here – not solely because we should be good stewards of our environment and our scarce resources but also because there is a strategic imperative for us to reduce risk, improve efficiencies, and preserve our freedom of action whenever we can. …
So, to start with, let’s agree that our concept of energy must change. Rather than look at energy as a commodity or a means to an end, we need to see it as an integral part of a system … a system that recognizes the linkages between consumption and our ability to pursue enduring interests.
When we find reliable and renewable sources of energy, we will see benefit to our infrastructure, our environment, our bottom line … and I believe most of all … our people. And the benefits from “sustainability” won’t just apply to the military.Beyond these immediate benefits, we may even be able to help stem the tide of strategic security issues related to climate change.
Admiral Mullen then gave way to General Norton A. Schwartz, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force; General Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of the U.S. Army; Aneesh Chopra, the federal chief technology officer; and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, with Sharon Burke, director of operational energy plans and programs, running the show.
This is no small matter. In addition to the newly developing waterways near the polar icecaps, in 2008, the National Intelligence Council identified twenty of our bases that are physically at risk as a result of the rising level of the ocean.
And regardless of what the cause of these changes is – the impacts around the world could be sobering – and far-reaching.
As glaciers melt and shrink at a faster rate, water supplies have been diminishing in parts of Asia.
Rising sea levels could lead to mass migration and displacement similar to what we have seen in Pakistan’s flood … and climate shifts could drastically reduce the arable land needed to feed a burgeoning population as we have seen in Africa.
This scarcity of – and potential competition for – resources like water, food, and space – compounded by an influx of refugees if coastal lands are lost … could not only create a humanitarian crisis, but create conditions of hopelessness that could lead to failed states … and make populations vulnerable to radicalization.
These challenges highlight the systemic implications – and multiple-order effects – inherent in energy security and climate change.
And while the brass met inside, clean energy companies exhibited their wares in the Pentagon’s inside courtyard.
Photo Credit: “the Pentagon from above,” courtesy of flickr user susansimon. -
Tracking the End Game: Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement
›The next nine months are critical for Sudan. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) sets January 9, 2011, as the date when southern Sudanese will vote on secession or unity, and the people of disputed Abeyei will vote on whether to be part of North or South Sudan. Between now and July 2011, when the provisions of the CPA come to an end, we could see the birth of the new country of South Sudan—or a return to a North-South war if the referendum is stalled, botched, or disputed. (Few currently expect that a unity vote will create the “New Sudan” envisioned by the late John Garang.)
-
Choke Point U.S.: Understanding the Tightening Conflict Between Energy and Water in the Era of Climate Change
›Without sharp changes in investment and direction, the United States’ current strategy to produce sufficient energy — including energy generated from clean sources — will lead to severe water shortages, and cause potentially major damage to the country’s environment and quality of life. These are the conclusions from a comprehensive reporting project, “Choke Point U.S.” presented by Circle of Blue at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Sept. 22, 2010.At the event hosted by the China Environment Forum and Environmental Change and Security Program, J. Carl Ganter, Director of Circle of Blue, Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue’s senior editor, and Jeffrey J. Fulgham, Chief Sustainability Officer and Ecomagination leader at General Electric, discussed the findings of “Choke Point: U.S.,” an analysis of the tightening linkage between the nation’s rising energy demand and finite domestic freshwater supplies. The four-month Circle of Blue project explored whether the nation’s transition to a clean-energy economy will have net dividends or deficits for U.S. freshwater resources in an era of climate change, rising population, and a projected 40-percent rise in energy demand by 2050.
“In the next decade, every single sector will need to reform due to water shortage. This is not in fifty years, this is in the next decade,” Schneider told an audience of more than 70 energy and environmental experts from the research, policy, business, and security sectors.As part of the project, Ganter said that Circle of Blue dispatched reporters to the coal fields of southern Virginia, the high plains of the Dakotas, California’s Central Valley, Midwestern farms, and other regions throughout North America. On one hand, their reporting revealed riveting narratives about the urgent contests between energy development and water supply, and how those contests can be resolved. On the other hand, the reports also recognized the extraordinarily difficult challenges that the energy-water nexus will pose to regional economies, governing practices, technological development, and the quality of natural resources.
Schneider, who directed the reporting, summarized the findings:- Unless the U.S. government plans more carefully, generating energy from clean alternatives is almost certain to consume much more water than the fossil fuels that green energy sources are meant to replace.
- The region confronting the energy-water choke point in the most dramatic fashion is the Southwest, where climate change is steadily diminishing snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains, and a prolonged drought is threatening to halt energy production at the Hoover Dam.
- The next era of hydrocarbon development is well underway in the United States, as energy companies invest billions of dollars a year to tap the “unconventional” oil sands of Canada, the oil shales of the northern Great Plains, and the gas shales of the Northeast, Texas, Oklahoma, and the Upper Midwest. However, tapping each of these carbon-rich reserves is using three to four times more water than the conventional oil and gas reserves they are replacing.
- Developers in North Dakota are spending roughly $7 billion annually to drill 1,000 wells a year now into the Bakken Shale. That effort will produce 100 million barrels of oil and 100 billion cubic feet of gas this year, but will use billions of gallons of North Dakota’s scarce groundwater.
- Each of the thousands of wells drilled each year into the unconventional gas shales underlying the Northeast, Gulf Coast states, the West, and Midwest requires three million to six million gallons of water injected under high pressure to fracture the rock and enable gas to flow out of the rock.
- In Kern County, California, where the agriculture and oil industries compete for diminished supplies of water for irrigation and energy production, the winner is the oil industry.
- The energy vector in the United States points strongly to more fossil fuel consumption, not less.
- All new energy technologies except wind and solar PV will require increased freshwater withdrawals.
Jeffrey J. Fulgham of General Electric addressed the potential solutions to the tight water-energy nexus, focusing on water demand, water pricing, and the use of new technologies. According to Fulgham, smarter policies coupled with the implementation of new low-flow irrigation technology could potentially reduce the use of water for agriculture by 50 percent. Applying the same “reduce before we produce” principle to energy production could achieve significant water-use reductions in that sector as well, he said.
From General Electric’s perspective, the next five to ten years will produce significant leaps in water technology that, if combined with efficient water use, appropriate valuation of water, and more holistic policies, will be key in avoiding an impending water Choke Point.
The speakers said that the trends identified in “Choke Point U.S.” could have serious implications not just for the United States, but also for freshwater supplies around the world. In August, Circle of Blue joined with the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum to develop “Choke Point: China,” — a companion to the “Choke Point: U.S.” study — which will produce front-line research, reporting, and analysis about one of China’s most important resource competitions.
Peter Marsters is a Program Assistant with the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Photo Credit: “Hoover Dam overlook,” courtesy of flickr user Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton. -
Scarcity, Climate, Population, and Natural Resources
Integrated Analysis for Development and Security Policymakers
›Development, population, security, scarcity, climate, and natural resources: Increasingly, policymakers are realizing that the issues in this laundry list are inextricably linked. But how do policymakers break out of their institutional stovepipes to address these connections in an integrated way?
In an event hosted by the Environmental Change and Security Program on September 2, 2010, Alex Evans of New York University and Global Dashboard and Mathew Burrows of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) focused on the current state of integrated scarcity issues in the policymaking world.
A Developing Problem
“Why should we be worried with scarcity issues in the first place?” asked Evans. The crux of the problem, he said, is that people are simply consuming more across the board – particularly more energy, water, and food. In addition to general population growth, higher demand is driven by an expanding global middle class that is shifting to more Western-style diets and consuming more energy.
Globally, demand in key resources is outpacing supply:
You can’t address one of these scarcity issues without affecting another, argued Evans. In Haiti, for example, deforestation led to soil loss and erosion, thus degrading agricultural land. Deforestation also changed the country’s precipitation patterns. Together, these effects reduced food supplies even before the earthquake. Today, the UN estimates that more than 2.4 million people in Haiti are food-insecure.- Demand for oil is rising by a percentage point each year, and the International Energy Association has warned that investment is not keeping up;
- Demand for water will increase 32 percent by 2025, but one of the first impacts of climate change is expected to be less available water; and
- Demand for food will increase 50 percent by 2030, but food supplies are only growing by one percent annually.
Evans recommended that these concerns be better integrated into current development and aid efforts, focusing on five areas:
A New International System- Establishing land tenure and renewable resources;
- Exploring the overlaps between resilience and peacebuilding;
- Empowering women and stabilizing population growth;
- Improving agricultural investment; and
- Increasing general investment in the energy sector.
In addition to the physical dangers of scarcity, Evans pointed out that the perception of scarcity can drive what he sees as dangerous behavioral dynamics such as protectionism.
“Look at the way 30-plus countries slapped export restrictions on their exports of food in 2008,” said Evans. “It’s perceptions of scarcity driving irrational behavior, it’s fertile ground for panic and we need to factor that into our policymaking.” He called for a mechanism similar to NAFTA, which restricts sudden price changes, to help the global trade system become more resilient to changes in energy and food supplies.
Burrows pointed out that a big reason for the rising disparity between food, water, and energy demand and supply is the large “middle class” of emerging powers. “You are seeing this phenomenal change going on on the resource side, but at the same time, the international system is in great flux,” he said.
Scarcity will also affect the international legal system as well. “Of the world’s 263 transboundary river systems, 158 lack any kind of cooperative management framework,” said Evans, asking if they could be peacefully managed during times of scarcity. He offered another example: How will the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea handle coastlines that change with the climate? “We haven’t really begun to ‘stress test’ existing legal infrastructure, to look for these kinds of instances,” said Evans.
The biggest elephant in the “international room,” however, is how to settle the issue of carbon sharing, without which there can be little global cooperation on these issues that does not end in a zero-sum game, Evans said:For me the jury is still very much out on whether there are limits on growth per se, as a result of scarcity – I’m not convinced of that yet. But I think it is clear that there are obviously limits to how much carbon we can put in the atmosphere, how much oil there is, how much land and water is available, and so on. We can do a huge amount with efficiencies and new technologies, but I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think that efficiencies and new technologies get us off the hook all together from having to face up to the distributional questions, the questions of fair shares that arise in a world of limits.
Is Integrated Policymaking Possible?
Government has come a long way towards addressing scarcity, said Burrows, but serious structural issues remain because there are too many established, vested interests at stake. Often, the tactical takes priority over the strategic: “A lot of these issues, by their very nature, are long-range in character,” he said. “In my experience there are more policymakers that are simply focused on the tactical [and] fewer that take these longer-range perspectives.” In addition, he pointed out that the divide between government and the scientific community continues to impede policymakers’ understanding of the technological options available.
On the positive side, Burrows highlighted improved work by government planning offices, particularly in the intelligence community and the military. “If you compare Global Trends 2020 and Global Trends 2025…you’ll see a huge difference in terms of how we dealt with climate change, environment, and the resource issues,” said Burrows of the NIC’s reports. He said that the intelligence community is performing more long-range analyses, and that other countries like China are now starting similar global trends analyses.
Despite the silo problem, the best solution may not be in creating new government agencies and closing down others, said Evans. “I think instead perhaps we need to see the challenge as more creating shared awareness, common analysis; a common sense of objectives among existing institutional configurations. I think we may find we get better rates of return on that,” he said.
While U.S. and other governments are only beginning to grasp these issues, Burrows praised NGOs and think tanks, which “have played such a big part… in creating those sorts of networks and inter-relationships” that have raised the profile of scarcity issues.
While the political space for dealing with these issues is not there yet, Evans argued that it will eventually emerge – most likely after some kind of shock, because “after sudden-onset crises, people are often, for a short time, prepared to think the unthinkable.”
An adequate response requires readying integrated approaches to address the integrated problem of scarcity. “It’s necessary to have the solutions, so when the crisis hits, you can have some action, and I think we are doing that legwork,” said Burrows.
Sources: International Energy Agency, MSNBC, UN. -
Latin America’s Future: Emerging Trends in Economic Growth and Environmental Protection
›Economic development and environmental sustainability in Latin America and the Caribbean are intrinsically connected, as evidenced by a seminar this summer organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute (on behalf of the Latin American Program), and co-sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The seminar — the culmination of six workshops and a regional meeting in Panama — presented the new Wilson Center report Emerging Trends in Environment and Economic Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean (also available in Portuguese and Spanish), which identifies key trends likely to shape the economy and natural environment in Latin America and the Caribbean over the next 10 years.
Janet Ballantyne, acting deputy assistant administrator of USAID’s Latin America and the Caribbean Bureau, stated that Latin America is “not our backyard, it’s our front yard.” It’s time that we “open the front door,” she claimed, and address the issues facing Latin America — issues that have long-term consequences for not only the region, but the United States and the world as well.
A Broad Range of Challenges
Christine Pendzich, principal author of the report and technical adviser on climate change and clean energy to USAID, covered the five interrelated economic and environmental trends that the report discusses: climate change, clean energy, indigenous and minority issues, challenges facing small economies, and urban issues. To capitalize on the Latin American demographic transition that will soon result in a large number of working age adults, Pendzich argued that the region needs to increase skilled job creation, educate workers to fill those positions, and maintain economic stability. She also declared that recent climate change trends are a “game changer,” which can fundamentally alter development paths.
While closer economic ties with China have contributed to Latin America’s above-average recovery from the global economic downturn, Pendzich argued that this economic relationship could add to the social and environmental problems facing the region. She added that insufficient innovation could lead to the continuation of the region’s dependence on commodity exports, while also noting that the inadequate economic integration and educational opportunities for indigenous and minority groups “drags everyone down.”
In terms of the regional economic trends, Eric Olson, co-author of the report and senior associate of the Mexico Institute, highlighted six challenges and opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean. Olson claimed that the recovery of the global economy will hurt net importers of fossil fuels, especially in Central America and the Caribbean; have a negative impact on the environment; increase natural resource exploitation that may exacerbate inequality and social conflict; increase demand for primary products that will decrease the incentive to diversify Latin American economies; provide opportunities to promote environmentally friendly growth; and allow for increased utilization of existing trade benefits and intra- and sub-regional trade opportunities.
Recognizing the Need for an Integrated Response
Three of the 77 participants involved in the formation of the report explored in greater depth what Geoffrey Dabelko with the Environmental Change and Security Program described as the “integration and interconnectivity” of the five trends discussed in the report. Blair Ruble, chair of the Comparative Urban Studies Project, noted that with 78 percent of the Latin American population living in urban areas, “cities and urban life create a context in which there are opportunities for solutions to problems,” opportunities that can be used to further innovation, encourage social equality, and promote good governance.
Meanwhile, working with rural indigenous communities and minority groups can also provide valuable opportunities for change, specifically in the area of climate change, according to Judith Morrison, senior adviser at the Inter-American Development Bank’s Gender and Diversity Unit. Morrison argued that indigenous populations are the ones most affected by climate change, but also the most able to improve environmental stewardship as a result of their unique knowledge of the local geography.
Maria Carmen Lemos, associate professor at the University of Michigan, highlighted that vulnerability to climate change depends on two sets of factors: geographical location and socioeconomic factors. As a result, Lemos asserted that climate-change adaption measures must focus on poverty reduction as well as the vulnerability of specific geographic locations.
Julie L. Kunen, senior adviser to the Bureau of Policy, Planning, and Learning at USAID, applauded the report for its cross-trend analysis and called the development community to work together to address these trends in the Latin American and Caribbean region. The next step, Kunen claimed, must be to develop an ambitious strategy and “convene everyone who cares about the issues and rally them around the agenda.”
Elizabeth Pierson is an intern with the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Photo Credit: “The River Runs Through the Andes,” courtesy of flickr user Stuck in Customs.
