Aid has been flowing by the billions to poor countries for decades yet seems to make very little difference. Much is used simply to help those in poverty survive, much goes to states directly that then often misuse it, such as on militaries or it goes into corrupt pockets. Overall aid seems to ha...
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Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Essentially that democracy has many flaws and problems but all the others have more problems. Now authoritarian countries such as China are potentially ch...
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In 1992 the American political scientist Samuel P Huntington proposed that after the cold war the fundamental fault line of the future would be along the boundaries of civilisations. These were fundamentally defined by religion and cultural area. He argued that along these boundaries conflict was...
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Summits, summits everywhere, a great alphabet soup of organisations that must all have their own summits for senior members of government. Summits used to be a very rare thing in diplomacy and often had immense importance. They decided the system of the international relations for the period such...
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Stanley McChrystal has been fired from being the US commander in charge of the Afghanistan war. He had made comments about his colleagues such as "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke... I don't even want to open it" about the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And ...
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One of the greatest sporting shows on earth is underway in South Africa. The football has so far not been as good as might have been expected but what are the benefits to the hosts? The Olympics in particular used to be known as an event that often leaves a city that hosts the event in significan...
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In this case I am taking disarmament to mean the abolition of weapons and demilitarization the abolition of armies rather than simply their reduction, we have had too many treaties that are ‘reductions’ that have little effect. It is a utopian dream, that we may be able to get rid of the world’s ...
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A poll for the BBC has shown that most people think that the internet should be a fundamental right for everyone. 79% of adults, almost four in five people regard internet access as a fundamental right. While many in the west often say we could not survive without the internet it is perhaps surpr...
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The attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on the morning of September 11th 2001 were the most significant event of the first decade of the 21st century and the war on terror that was fought as a result has spread around the globe and created the biggest conflicts of the century so far. Th...
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Poor nations seem to keep getting poorer while the rich nations get richer. Even the financial crisis does not seem to have really set back this long term trend. The big emerging countries have managed to come out of the crisis strengthened and in a better position to hold the rich world to accou...
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Stanley McChrystal has been fired from being the US commander in charge of the Afghanistan war. He had made comments about his colleagues such as "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke... I don't even want to open it" about the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And ...
More...
One of the major sticking points at the Copenhagen conference was the need for scrutiny of greenhouse gas emissions. It helped kill any potential deal that might have had binding targets or deeper reductions in CO2 emissions. While the USA and other developed countries insist on as much scrutiny ...
More...
Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Essentially that democracy has many flaws and problems but all the others have more problems. Now authoritarian countries such as China are potentially ch...
More...
Our earth is crowded and we are living unsustainably. The world population is estimated to be 6.8billion and will rise to between 8 and 9 billion by 2050. The more people there are the more resources they will consume and the more emissions will be created. According to the Optimum Population Tru...
More...
Cap and trading carbon dioxide emissions, or a carbon tax, ways of increasing the price of our carbon emissions are often suggested as a way of reducing our environmental impact. However there are many other areas where we are ruining the environment with the demands we are placing on it. We dema...
More...
A poll for the BBC has shown that most people think that the internet should be a fundamental right for everyone. 79% of adults, almost four in five people regard internet access as a fundamental right. While many in the west often say we could not survive without the internet it is perhaps surpr...
More...
Aid has been flowing by the billions to poor countries for decades yet seems to make very little difference. Much is used simply to help those in poverty survive, much goes to states directly that then often misuse it, such as on militaries or it goes into corrupt pockets. Overall aid seems to ha...
More...
The attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on the morning of September 11th 2001 were the most significant event of the first decade of the 21st century and the war on terror that was fought as a result has spread around the globe and created the biggest conflicts of the century so far. Th...
More...
Most of the 11,000 delegates, 3,000 journalists and 22,000 observers attending the conference arrived by plane, and the leaders and ministers arriving over the next few days for the end of the conference are almost certain to arrive by plane as well, many of them will be on private planes rather ...
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Governments are almost always behind the curve when it comes to environmental issues, they are pressured by environmental campaigners for years and then when they do something they just as quickly break their promises. The Environment is not a core issue for governments, their main concerns are t...
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Stanley McChrystal has been fired from being the US commander in charge of the Afghanistan war. He had made comments about his colleagues such as "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke... I don't even want to open it" about the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And ...
More...
The hosts of conferences are supposed to be unbiased facilitators who encourage agreement bringing the various sides together. Instead there has been a draft text of a treaty written by the quite possibly misnamed 'circle of commitment' - including Denmark, as well as the U.S. and U.K. that it is...
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Bangladesh is demanding 15% of any adaption fund even though they have not even decided on a fund yet. Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, a leading economist, and part of the Bangladesh climate negotiation team argued "We are not begging any mercy from anyone. Rather we want justice as the worst vict...
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. said “These long-overdue findings cement 20...
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The raison d’être for the Copenhagen conference is to come up with a binding treaty that will cover the whole world committing the nations of the world to cutting CO2 emissions and so slowing global warming. However since the US congress will not pass a climate change bill in time this is almost ...
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The U.S. is proposing to spend 25billion on protecting rainforests. However the proposal is based upon carbon credits, allowing investors to earn carbon-emission credits in return for saving trees. This means that for however much they invest into protecting the rainforest, they will be allowed t...
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Two degrees is the target the international community is looking at. However the association of small island states believe that 2 degrees is too much and are demanding that the target for limiting global warming should be 1.5 degrees. On the other hand even 2 degrees looks like a difficult targe...
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Countries like to talk about being green and trumpet their climate change policies to
show how progressive they are. However this does not mean they actually do anything. Legally binding targets are one way to make sure that countries act on policies to prevent climate change, but are they the...
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There is a tendency for everyone to blame other parties, either obliquely or directly. Proposals such as the Danish text create outrage that is often played out in the media. Blame is also pinned on those who are not meeting their Kyoto targets. China for example is blaming the US, EU and Japan f...
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Most of the 11,000 delegates, 3,000 journalists and 22,000 observers attending the conference arrived by plane, and the leaders and ministers arriving over the next few days for the end of the conference are almost certain to arrive by plane as well, many of them will be on private planes rather ...
More...
One of the major sticking points at the Copenhagen conference was the need for scrutiny of greenhouse gas emissions. It helped kill any potential deal that might have had binding targets or deeper reductions in CO2 emissions. While the USA and other developed countries insist on as much scrutiny ...
More...
Many of the countries most opposed to a deal at Copenhagen were the major energy producers, most notably Saudi Arabia. Many of these energy exporters are dangerously dependent on the fossil fuels they produce for their economy. Oil and gas make up the majority of their exports and is a major empl...
More...
Cap and trading carbon dioxide emissions, or a carbon tax, ways of increasing the price of our carbon emissions are often suggested as a way of reducing our environmental impact. However there are many other areas where we are ruining the environment with the demands we are placing on it. We dema...
More...
Respected climate scientist James Hansen has argued that the Copenhagen conference should fail. This could be considered surprising as Hansen believes the world is not going far enough in tackling climate change. However unlike most environmentalists he is not of the view that getting some of wha...
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In 1992 the American political scientist Samuel P Huntington proposed that after the cold war the fundamental fault line of the future would be along the boundaries of civilisations. These were fundamentally defined by religion and cultural area. He argued that along these boundaries conflict was...
More...
One of the greatest sporting shows on earth is underway in South Africa. The football has so far not been as good as might have been expected but what are the benefits to the hosts? The Olympics in particular used to be known as an event that often leaves a city that hosts the event in significan...
More...
Biofuels are often seen as a possible short term miracle cure for all sorts of ills, most obvious is climate change, they are zero carbon as burning them is simply putting the CO2 that has already been taken out of the atmosphere by the plants in order to grow. But biofuels also have other uses, ...
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African nations today walked out of talks for several hours over fears that the developed world was going to scrap Kyoto. They did eventually come back to the table but as British Energy and Climate Minister Ed Miliband put it "At least five hours (have been lost), and I think that's very re...
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Throughout human history civilisation has been created where humans can best survive; areas that are fertile and productive for farming. When there is a major natural disaster, desertification, a settlement is lost to the sea, or a river moves we abandon the settlement and move to somewhere safer...
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Our earth is crowded and we are living unsustainably. The world population is estimated to be 6.8billion and will rise to between 8 and 9 billion by 2050. The more people there are the more resources they will consume and the more emissions will be created. According to the Optimum Population Tru...
More...
