Climate Change and Development short course

Climate Change and Development Short Course

International Development UEA, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

2 week residential course

Dates

September 4-17 2013

Places

20

Fee

£3200

Language

The course is conducted in English. Full competence in English, written and spoken is an essential requirement.

Target audience

The course is designed for professionals who want to gain a greater understanding of the implications of climate change for developing countries and of the processes, issues and debates surrounding adaptation and mitigation. It is aimed at building the knowledge base of staff from government agencies and NGOs who do not have an existing specialism in the field but who may have new responsibility or interest in the integration of climate change management into development planning, projects and policy.

"Exceptionally well organised and well delivered course. Well done Roger (Dr Roger Few, Course Director) and his team of experts. A big thank you!"

2011 participant from UK Commonwealth Secretariat

Location

International Development UEA, university of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Contact devco.train@uea.ac.uk for all further information

download a pdf of the course brochure

Apply for this course

Climate change has profound implications for developing countries and increasingly, professionals working in or for developing countries are being asked to integrate climate change management into planning, projects and policy. National governments are also engaged in official communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other initiatives which require analysis of vulnerability and adaptive capacity.

Objectives

The purpose of this short course it to equip non-specialists with a broad understanding of what climate change may mean for low-income populations. It will examine the scope and prospects for adapting to change and contributing to emissions reduction in the context of development issues and property reduction. The course does not set out to provide a practical ‘toolkit' guide for policy and practice. Instead it is designed to equip participants with a deeper awareness of the ideas, opportunities and trade-offs represented by adaptation and mitigation; an awareness that is increasingly needed if effective action on climate change is to be achieved. Participants have the opportunity to gain state-of-the-art knowledge and to develop their analytical skills in this field.

Course content and structure

Participants will gain grounding in a broad range of climate change issues from the underlying science of climate change, through its implications for development pathways to the international political agenda of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Key emphasis is then placed on vulnerability and adaption in the context of poverty reduction – exploring what climate change implies in terms of impacts and vulnerability in developing countries and how to go about building resilience and adaptive capacity at all scales.

Expert inputs will include:

• Climate science
• International policy and implementation mechanisms
• Impacts and vulnerability in the context of development
• Adaptation and resilience: examples and lessons from different sectors
• Mitigation and development pathways
• Linkages with poverty reduction

The course is structured to encourage participants to share their ideas through interactive and small-group work. During the course, participants will also be expected to work on the preparation and presentation of a project related to their country context or specific professional sector. This will ensure the knowledge and insight gained from the course is immediately grounded in the work that has practical relevance for the participant.

Course Director

Course Director Dr Roger Few is Senior Research Fellow in the School of International Development, UEA and a Researcher with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He has a background in human geography, political ecology and environment and health in developing countries. His research focuses on vulnerability and adaptation to natural hazards/disasters and climate change, with special interest in how households, communities and institutions respond to the health risks associated with extreme weather events and climatic changes. For this short course Roger draws together expertise from some of the world's leading research institutes on climate change such as the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. the School of International Development and the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Recent contributors include:

Professor Neil Adger, Professor Kevin Anderson, Dr Nick Brooks, Professor Kate Brown, Professor Declan Conway, Dr Roger Few, Dr Marisa Goulden, Professor Bruce Lankford, Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Professor Peter Newell and Dr Heike Schroeder.

Apply for this course

International Development UEA, university of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Contact devco.train@uea.ac.uk for all further information

Skills Development and Training Office

International Development UEA

School of International Development

University of East Anglia

Norwich NR4 7TJ

Tel: +44 (0)1603 592340

Fax: +44 (0)1603 591170

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This Drone Notion Is Starting to Get Serious

It was only two days ago that Battleland posted a photo of the Navy’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Aircraft System demonstrator “landing” gently on the flight deck of the USS Harry S Truman – with help from a crane.

Meanwhile, back on land, this video of a second Northrop Grumman aircraft shows its first-ever catapult launch Thursday at the Navy test center at Pax River, Md. That’s a steam-powered kick-in-the-pants to power a warplane off a relatively short carrier deck.

It’s something drones will have to do if they’re ever to play a key role in naval aviation (the new Ford class of carriers is planning to use electromagnetic power instead of steam to deliver the kick).

Unlike most earlier drones, with their piddling engines and propellers, the jet-powered X-47B looks – and sounds, thanks to its Pratt & Whitney F-16 engine – like a real warplane. More

 

 

 

For the First Time, Obama Official Sketches Out End to War on Terror

Neither the George W. Bush nor Barack Obama White House ever laid out a vision for what an end to the war on terrorism would actually look like. But as Obama prepares for his second term in office, one of his top defense officials is arguing that there is an end in sight, and laying out conditions for when the U.S. will reach it.

Jeh Johnson

“On the present course, there will come a tipping point,” Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s top lawyer, told the Oxford Union in the U.K. on Friday, “a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al-Qaida and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such that al-Qaida as we know it, the organization that our Congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed.” At that point, “our efforts should no longer be considered an armed conflict.”

Johnson’s description of the endgame raises more questions than answers. But under his formulation, the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), which the Obama administration has cited as the foundation of its wartime powers, would expire. That would mean any detainee at Guantanamo Bay who hasn’t been charged with a crime would be free to go, although Johnson says that wouldn’t necessarily happen immediately. It would also raise questions about whether the U.S. would possess residual legal authorities for its lethal drone program — which Johnson defended to the BBC on Thursday — including the legal basis for any “postwar” drone strike the CIA might perform.

In Johnson’s view, once al-Qaida’s ability to launch a strategic attack is gone, so too is the war. What will remain is a “counterterrorism effort” against the “individuals who are the scattered remnants” of the organization or even unaffiliated terrorists. “The law enforcement and intelligence resources of our government are principally responsible” for dealing with them, Johnson said, according to the text of his speech, with “military assets in reserve” for an imminent threat.

Johnson, considered one of the more liberal voices on Obama’s senior national security team, notably did not say when the U.S. will reach his tipping point. And his vague argument is more likely to provoke debate than settle any legal or strategic questions about the war. But it comes at an auspicious time: just before Obama’s second term, when there are visible stirrings in Congress to finally close Guantanamo Bay and accelerate an end to the Afghanistan war. Johnson, according to Foreign Policy’s Kevin Baron, is also under consideration to become attorney general, a post from which he’d have greater influence to conclude the war. It’s also notable that Johnson’s current boss, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, recently backed away from his earlier rhetoric that the war is abating and heralded its spread to new battlefields in Africa.

Johnson’s not a commander. He’s the Pentagon’s general counsel, meaning his most direct involvement in the war on terrorism surrounds the military’s ability to detain suspected terrorists during the conflict. In his view, once the conflict ends, Guantanamo Bays doors have to swing open. Just maybe not immediately.

“In general, the military’s authority to detain ends with the ‘cessation of active hostilities’,” Johnson said. But he pointedly noted that both the U.S. and U.K. governments “delayed the release of some Nazi German prisoners of war” after World War II ended. Still, that would mean the vast majority of Guantanamo’s 166 detainees, those who haven’t been charged with any crime, would be ultimately free to go — a position almost guaranteed to spark controversy.

Murkier still is what it would mean for intelligence and law enforcement to target the “scattered remnants” of al-Qaida. Most significantly, once the AUMF expires, big questions would immediately arise about the legal framework for the apparatus of drone strikes and commando raids that President Obama hasexpanded and institutionalized for the long haul. The CIA in particular is a question mark: since the legal rationale for its drone program has never been disclosed, its dependency on the AUMF or its typical “Title 50″ authorities is unclear. More

 

Pakistan's struggle for LNG

The marginal increase in the GDP between 2009-2010 was not due to any real increase in economic activity rather it reflected the impact of substantial increases in the international price of Pakistan’s largest export item, textiles. Otherwise the impact of the economic crisis is clear and economic growth may continue to nose dive and may not stabilize unless a lasting solution to the energy crisis is found for the country’s 180 million residents.

Apart from its impact upon Pakistan’s economy, the energy crisis has destabilized the routine of every day life for the vast majority of Pakistanis. It affects their behavior and psychology due to their inability to carry out essential daily activities ranging from cooking to commuting to work.

This situation cannot be left unattended. Fuel availability must be expedited, particularly natural gas, in order to arrest the free fall of Pakistan’s economy and to bring solace to its people. The indigenous production of natural gas cannot be increased overnight and the teetering economy coupled with an unstable regional geopolitical situation does not bode well for the success of cross border gas pipelines. Therefore, Pakistan must go for imports of LNG and on a fast track. If Pakistan is unable to bring LNG into the country over the next 3 to 4 years, the whole economic structure built around the natural gas industry will fall into ruins.

Today’s unenviable situation was not created overnight rather it is the cumulative effect of inconsistent and inept energy policies pursued for decades. Successive governments kept on discarding the policies of their predecessors on the basis of political expediency. On this account numerous promising projects have been shelved without looking into their merits. Two examples may suffice to help understand the impact that political rivalries have had on the economic development of the country. The government of the Pakistan (GoP) Muslim League led by Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif initiated the privatization of public sector companies including gas and electricity utilities in the early 1990s which was halted by the succeeding government of Benazir Bhutto’s led Pakistan People Party.

One of the surprising initiatives taken by the Bhutto government was the introduction of Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in 1993 to overcome electricity shortages. This was surprising because the Buhtto government was largely skeptical of the role of the private sector yet she recognized the need for IPPs to fill Pakistan's electricity gap. Though the projects could not be thrown out unilaterally by the succeeding government of Nawaz Sharif due to internationally binding contracts he left no stone untouched to scare off future investors by making life difficult for the IPPs. They were dragged in the courts on the allegation that these power generation projects were unduly favorable to IPPs due to the corruption and favoritism of the outgoing government. (Of note is the fact that the GoP did not have sufficient evidence to prove corruption in the project agreements.)

One of the main reasons behind today’s electricity crisis in Pakistan is the then hounding of the IPPs. Every martial law regime has brought its own economic vision of the country totally discarding the policies of the toppled civilian regimes. Throughout the 65 year history of Pakistan there have been military takeovers of the government four times in total. One of the common allegations against the toppled civilian government in each of the military takeovers has been the pursuit of failed and rather dangerous economic policies. Thus the first step of every martial law regime has been to discard all of the economic policies of the previous government and to introduce its own economic cycle afresh.

There has been no clear direction for increasing resource availability, and the efficient utilization of available resources. Myopic vision has kept policy makers blind of the creeping gap between the country’s energy supply and demand profile. Pakistan’s energy supply mix remains dominated by oil and gas with little contributions from hydroelectricity, coal, and nuclear energy while alternate fuel sources like wind, bio-gas and solar energy are glaringly absent. The composition of Pakistan’s primary energy supply for 2010-11 is given in Table 2 below. More

 

Salafist Movements Threaten World Cultural Heritage By: Hedieh Mirahmadi

The face of radical Islamism has rocked headlines in recent months, demonstrating to the world the threat it poses to Islam’s own cultural heritage.

Many were shocked when spiritual leader Said Efandi al-Chirkawi was killed in a suicide bombing in the tiny Russian Republic of Dagestan by a woman pretending to be one of his students. Nearly 100,000 mourners attended the funeral of the revered cleric, who had been working to bring peace between warring Islamic factions. This was the second such spiritual leader in this remote region to have been killed by radical Islamists in the past year alone.

Elsewhere, in Libya, Mali, Pakistan and Egypt, attacks are also on the rise. Militants around the world are leading a two-pronged assault by targeting outspoken Muslim leaders who denounce violence and by destroying ancient shrines and cultural sites that are respected by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In recent years, the Taliban’s systematic assassination of moderate Afghan clerics, and their destruction of the sixth-century Buddha statues in 2001, are classic examples of how radical Islamists use terror tactics to solidify their power. This blatant disregard for diverse faith and cultural traditions has grave implications for global security.

When pluralistic social norms are eliminated, it paves the way for hardline forces to rise. Nowhere is this trend more apparent than across Africa, where militants are fueling sectarian and community conflict. Earlier this year in Mali, Islamists of the Ansar Dine organization initiated a campaign to systematically obliterate cultural sites in Timbuktu, including 16 mausoleums of ancient Muslim saints. Many of those cultural sites had recently been put on a list of endangered World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. In late August 2012, armed Salafis in Libya attacked the tomb of Abdel Salam al-Asmar, a 15th-century Muslim scholar who was highly regarded by locals. Nearby in the city, militants also set fire to a historic library, burning centuries of rare academic and religious resources to the ground.

These crimes of intolerance extend to non-Muslim monuments, traditions and places of burial. In March 2012, the Somali terrorist organization al Shabaab desecrated a Christian cross and grave in a cemetery. That same month, former Libyan rebels in Benghazi smashed the headstones and crucifixes of more than 150 British servicemen killed in North Africa. As these broad campaigns continue, local villagers, community activists and everyday citizens watch in horror, thinking of what this destruction means for the future of their respective nations. Most tragically, they feel powerless to stop it.

Unfortunately, the preservation of history and culture is of little value to Salafis, who use violence to implement their own power structures based on extreme interpretations of Islamic law. In an ongoing effort to Islamicize their countries, they cause severe fissures in the countries' social fabric. The most striking example of this is the rise of the Taliban in Pakistan’s northwest frontier area.

When the Taliban swept into the area, traditional Muslim communities faced unprecedented persecution. During their reign of terror, the Taliban razed hundreds of schools in an effort to curb “westernization” and launched attacks on dozens of mosques and mausoleums. In numerous cases the bodies of revered saints and religious figures were disinterred and publically desecrated. While some communities banded together to form peace committees, others joined local militias in an effort to protect their communities from the extremist onslaught. To date, the conflict has killed hundreds of Pakistanis and displaced millions of people, and the Pakistani military has spent billions of US tax dollars to contain the Taliban threat. Still, the region is considered a stronghold of terrorist groups.

Civil-society activists lament that they suffer from a severe lack of funding and resources to organize a nonviolent counter movement. The US government and the international community have a vested interest in protecting and supporting moderate voices as well as the world’s cultural and historical legacies. Whether helping communities develop a neighborhood watch, teaching them how to respond to threats with nonviolent social-mobilization techniques or engaging communities in media and other social campaigns to raise awareness, the strategy of bolstering these groups should be a vital part of a robust program to counter violent extremism. At the same time, it is essential to apply diplomatic pressure on local government and law-enforcement officials who are often accused by their citizens of a lackluster response to the destruction. More

 

Millennials on the next nuclear generation

In the 42 years since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force, much has changed in the world -- the Cold War has ended, the global number of nuclear weapons has decreased, yet the number of nuclear-armed states has increased. What do the next four decades hold in store for nonproliferation and disarmament? For the Millennial Generation, this is no theoretical question -- in about 2054 they will be completing their careers and settling into retirement. Below, Maryam Javan Shahraki of Iran, Selim Can Sazak of Turkey, and Beenish Pervaiz of Pakistan respond to this topic: Forty-two years after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into force, where will the world be in another 42 years? How many states will be nuclear-armed? How many nuclear weapons will exist? And will the NPT survive?

Blueprint for avoiding the crisis by Maryam Javan Shahraki

Forty-two years ago, amid the Cold War, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force. The treaty's original purpose was, among other things, to prevent countries like Italy, West Germany, and Japan from building nuclear weapons. But since the end of the Cold War, the goal has evolved into maintaining the global nuclear order. Today, the NPT has 189 signatories and is the arms control treaty with the greatest international acceptance. But the treaty's success in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons is debatable, and serious questions surround the NPT's credibility and effectiveness as the world's central mechanism against further proliferation.

When considering these issues, it is useful to keep in mind just how dangerous a nuclear crisis can be. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The world survived -- but there is no guarantee it would survive a similar crisis in the future. Indeed, the key lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is the importance of preventing a crisis through diplomatic and political efforts before the brink of nuclear war is reached. No matter how imperfect the NPT might be, the treaty still represents a crucial diplomatic tool for anticipating and preventing nuclear crises.

Credibility challenge. Few people dispute that the treaty is necessary; instead, the crucial challenges that it faces involve its effectiveness and credibility. The treaty need not be changed or replaced but, if it is to meet its global objectives, it must be implemented fairly.

One crucial issue related to fairness involves the nuclear weapon states' responsibility to pursue disarmament as defined in the NPT: Each nuclear weapon state commits to taking good-faith steps toward disarmament, a key element of the treaty's central bargain. But this is far from being fully implemented. The United States and Russia control a vast majority of the planet's nuclear weapons and are capable of destroying the world several times over. Since the end of the Cold War, nuclear strategies have changed in many countries, including in the five nuclear weapon states recognized under the treaty. But the central security attitude of the Cold War -- that the more nuclear weapons you have, the more powerful you are -- remains strong.

A similar problem is that the treaty's principles are applied differently to different non-nuclear weapon states. In a glaring example, India in 2008 concluded a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, and also received a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group allowing it to engage in nuclear trade with few restrictions. But India is one of only three states, along with Pakistan and Israel, never to have acceded to the NPT (as for the other two nuclear-armed states, North Korea ratified the treaty, but later withdrew, and South Africa joined the treaty after surrendering its nuclear arsenal); nor have these countries, with the exception of South Africa, ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (though Israel has signed it). It is a mistake to ignore these countries' nonproliferation responsibilities just because they might enjoy good relations with the United States, especially when a treaty signatory like Iran faces international pressure while pursuing its inalienable right to a peaceful nuclear energy program. (Meanwhile, every nuclear-armed state is a potential proliferator, but this fact receives little attention.)

Uneven application of standards could force some countries' nuclear programs underground. But even more important, the treaty's credibility and effectiveness are weakened when different states' obligations and rights are treated unevenly.

Problems and solutions. For the treaty to have survived for 42 years is a great success. But the NPT suffers from serious shortcomings -- both inside and outside the regime. Several steps could be taken to address these shortcomings. First, the world should recommit itself to eliminating nuclear weapons, instead of focusing on nonproliferation to the exclusion of disarmament. Nuclear weapons are exceedingly dangerous no matter who possesses them, and all states -- large or small, treaty signatories or not -- should accept shared responsibility for eliminating them.

Second, variable standards and unjust rules must be avoided. Prioritizing one nation's political interests over global security could bring about the treaty's ultimate failure. The point of the NPT regime is to make the world a safer place, with fewer nuclear bombs. Therefore, the very idea of the treaty is undermined by using the NPT to prevent State X from exercising its legitimate rights while supporting State Y as it exercises the very same rights.

Third, the tendency to turn nuclear issues into security issues -- to remove them from the diplomatic realm and from the context of the treaty -- should be resisted. Indeed, to declare a nuclear dispute an existential threat to the global community, instead of seeking political and diplomatic solutions discredits the treaty itself and also risks turning disputes into crises. As the world should have learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis, last-minute crisis management must not be depended upon. More

 

The four guilty parties behind Israel’s attack

The inciting cause of the latest confrontation between Israel and Hamas has little to do with the firing of rockets, whether by Hamas or the other Palestinian factions. The conflict predates the rockets – and even the creation of Hamas – by decades. It is the legacy of Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians in 1948, forcing many of them from their homes in what is now Israel into the tiny Gaza Strip. That original injustice has been compounded by the occupation Israel has not only failed to end but has actually intensified in recent years with its relentless siege of the small strip of territory.

Why Gaza must suffer again 18 November 2012

The four guilty parties behind Israel’s attack

Israeli Occupation Archive – 18 November 2012

A short interview broadcast by CNN late last week featuring two participants – a Palestinian in Gaza and an Israeli within range of the rocket attacks – did not follow the usual script.

For once, a media outlet dropped its role as gatekeeper, there to mediate and therefore impair our understanding of what is taking place between Israel and the Palestinians, and inadvertently became a simple window on real events.

The usual aim of such “balance” interviews relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is twofold: to reassure the audience that both sides of the story are being presented fairly; and to dissipate potential outrage at the deaths of Palestinian civilians by giving equal time to the suffering of Israelis.

But the deeper function of such coverage in relation to Gaza, given the media’s assumption that Israeli bombs are simply a reaction to Hamas terror, is to redirect the audience’s anger exclusively towards Hamas. In this way, Hamas is made implicitly responsible for the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians.

The dramatic conclusion to CNN’s interview appears, however, to have otherwise trumped normal journalistic considerations.

The pre-recorded interview via Skype opened with Mohammed Sulaiman in Gaza. From what looked like a cramped room, presumably serving as a bomb shelter, he spoke of how he was too afraid to step outside his home. Throughout the interview, we could hear the muffled sound of bombs exploding in the near-distance. Mohammed occasionally glanced nervously to his side.

The other interviewee, Nissim Nahoom, an Israeli official in Ashkelon, also spoke of his family’s terror, arguing that it was no different from that of Gazans. Except in one respect, he hastened to add: things were worse for Israelis because they had to live with the knowledge that Hamas rockets were intended to harm civilians, unlike the precision missiles and bombs Israel dropped on Gaza.

The interview returned to Mohammed. As he started to speak, the bombing grew much louder. He pressed on, saying he would not be silenced by what was taking place outside. The interviewer, Isha Sesay, interrupted – seemingly unsure of what she was hearing – to inquire about the noise.

Then, with an irony that Mohammed could not have appreciated as he spoke, he began to say he refused to be drawn into a comparison about whose suffering was worse when an enormous explosion threw him from his chair and severed the internet connection. Switching back to the studio, Sesay reassured viewers that Mohammed had not been hurt.

The bombs, however, spoke more eloquently than either Mohammed or Nissim. More