The case for attributing the recent global warming to human activities rests on the following undisputed scientific facts: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere. Since pre-industrial times, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from about 280 parts per million (ppm) to over 380 ppm. Current concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are unprecedented in at least the last 650,000 years, based on records from gas bubbles trapped in polar ice. Independent measurements demonstrate that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels…
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LAND USE: REGULATORY ASPECTS, PRACTICES AND FACTORS HAVING ADVERSE EFFECT, POLICIES METODS AND OTHER TOOLS TO PRESERVE LAND RESOURCES AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON SUSTAINABLE LAND USE
The land use are subject to human intervention and include a full range of management practices, through agriculture, urban sprawl, tourism or by changing the forms of use of rural areas etc… The magnitude of this artificial land in countries under strong natural constraint raises questions about the social value of land, and on the modes of public regulation that would protect them more effectively against human intervention. The majority of countries have adopted policies for improved land management. Others countries have implemented land use practices, this takes many forms…
Read MoreA FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACTS OF ILLEGAL AGRO-CONVERSION AND NATIONAL OBJECTIVES FOR FOREST AND LAND AND TYPOLOGY OF ILLEGALITIES
Governments establish a legislative framework – policies, laws, and regulations – in order to best manage their resources. This framework should be developed to incorporate “good governance” principles, including: participatory and equitable policies and laws; transparent and efficient processes, reinforced by monitoring and evaluation; effective implementation that achieves policy objectives, including through enforcement where necessary; and accountability, including anti‐fraud and anti‐corruption mechanisms; all underlain by the application of the rule of law. A country’s legislative framework should advance four primary and legitimate objectives of the state with respect to its…
Read MoreMONUMENTAL TRIUMPH AND OUTCOMES FROM THE CLIMATE CHANGE REGIME
The adoption of the 2015 Paris Agreement has been widely celebrated as a ‘monumental triumph’ (UN News 2015). It enshrines a ‘new logic’ of global cooperation, representing a decisive shift away from the top-down regulatory approach that had previously underpinned the international climate change regime. This shift can best be understood in light of the historical evolution of the legal and institutional framework for global collaborative climate action. This policy brief provides a comprehensive overview of the development of the global climate change regime. It documents how climate change –initially…
Read MoreDISAPPEARING STATES, STATELESSNESS AND RELOCATION
Among the various environmental problems that cause the displacement of people from their habitats, none rivals the potential effects of sea level rise as a result of human-induced changes in the earth ́s climate. Lately, the climate change discourse has become aware of a possible consequence of climate change, the disappearance of the entire territory of a state. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determines that the earth is warming up. The linear warming trend for the last 50 years is twice that compared to the same over 100…
Read MoreROLE OF LAWS AND POLICIES FOR ADDRESSING THE UNIQUE HUMAN AND BIO-GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MOUNTAIN AREAS
Law has an important, but by no means exclusive, role to play in promoting and securing the civil, political, economic, cultural and environmental rights of affected groups, and in ensuring that the benefits and burdens of development are equitably distributed. The absence of specific laws and policies for addressing the unique human and bio-geographical characteristics of mountain areas occurs in the context of the broader failure of nation states to develop appropriate domestic and international legal frameworks for human rights and community-based management of renewable natural resources. Indeed, the conservation,…
Read MoreBIOLOGICAL ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT REVIEW AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARES FUTURE
Negotiations to prohibit biological weapons became part of the agenda of the international community with the organization of the United Nations. Initial discussions focused on a treaty aimed at both chemical and biological weapons, but little progress was made until the mid-1960s. At the insistence of the British, negotiators began to focus on a treaty limited solely to biological weapons. The result was the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which prohibited possession of any biological and toxin weapons. Although the treaty does not define what constitutes a biological weapon, subsequent deliberations…
Read MoreGLOBAL GOVERNANCE REFORMING UNITED NATIONS
Since its foundation in 1946, the United Nations has undergone a continuous process of reform, each phase reflecting the renewed priorities of its membership. The decolonization period and the subsequent independence of numerous States in Africa and Asia provided a unique opportunity for the United Nations to address the needs of the newly independent nations. Within twenty years of its creation, UN membership more than doubled reaching 118 by 1965. The emergence of new States showed the need for a strengthening of the United Nations system in the area of…
Read MoreCLIMATE CHANGE: IMPACT ON ISLAND RESOURCE SYSTEMS
To make progress in the chain of impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on human communities, the focus is put on the impact of physical disturbances on land (soil, water, flora and fauna) and marine resources (reef and fisheries) of low-lying islands and coastal plains of high mountains islands. Land resources are going to decline as a result of various processes. Firstly, the increase in atmospheric temperature leads to increased evapotranspiration, causing the soil to dry and an increase in the consumption of brackish shallow groundwater by plants. This…
Read MoreMULTILEVEL CLIMATE GOVERNANCE AND THE INTEGRATION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The need for cooperation between the different levels of governance, and in particular the integration of the potential of action by cities and regions, is now widely recognised as a necessary effort to reach the objectives of the Paris Agreement and to make its implementation credible. This was the main message of the International Conference on Climate Action (ICCA) in May 2019 in Heidelberg, which the Director of the World Resources Institute (WRI) summarised as follow: “harnessing the full power of towns and cities to drive the shift to a…
Read MoreRESERCH TO IMPROVE ANALYSES FOR RISK OF FOREST LAND CONVERSION: EXPECTED BENEFITS AND COSTS
Forests account for a little over one-third (38%) of habitable land area. This is around one-quarter (26%) of total (both habitable and uninhabitable) land area which range from wild land forests to urban forests. These diverse ecosystems provide a variety of habitats for wildlife; help to cleanse the air and water; supply timber, fuelwood, and other harvested products; serve as places for recreation; help to mitigate the effects of global climate change; and provide other essential goods and environmental services. Forests are vulnerable to conversion to other land uses. An increasing number of…
Read MoreTHE PROBLEM OF ARCHIPELAGIC STATES
For the Philippines and Indonesia, adoption by the Third Law of the Sea Conference in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (1982 LOS Convention) of Articles 46-54 on “Archipelagic States,” marked the capstone of the two countries’ efforts to win international recognition for the archipelagic principle.’ For both, acceptance by the international community of this principle was an important step in their political development from a colony to a sovereign state. Their success symbolized independence from colonial status and their role in the shaping of the international community in…
Read MoreTHE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS
The drivers of conflict and vulnerability to climate change are multiple, complex, and oftentimes, cyclical, making it difficult to analyze their differentiated impacts on Sexual And Reproductive Health And Rights(SRHR) in isolation. As such, evidence related to the impacts of climate change on SRHR is often discussed more broadly in the context of these drivers of vulnerability, without distinguishing between, for example, post-disaster and conflict-affected settings. However, it is clear that settings of conflict and fragility are areas of high vulnerability in relation to SRHR and it is expected that…
Read MoreCLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION COSTS AND PROSPECTS IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD : INCORPORATING CLIMATE CHANGE INTO LONG TERM POLICIES
At higher temperatures, the climate change costs of adaptation will rise sharply and the residual damages will remain large. The additional costs of making new infrastructure and buildings resilient to climate change in Organisation For Economic Cooperation And Development (OECD)Organization For Economic And OECD countries could range from $15 – 150 billion each year (0.05 – 0.5% of GDP), with higher costs reflecting the prospect of higher temperatures in future. In the developed world, some sectors may experience benefits from climate change for moderate levels of warming up to 2…
Read MoreCLIMATE DISPLACEMENT: GAPS IN THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR SMALL ISLANDS/ARCHIPELAGO
Despite the existence of numerous international instruments addressing forced migration, internal displacement and climate change, international law does not offer ad hoc protection to people affected by climate displacement. The unprecedented nature of the challenges posed by sinking islands is one of the causes of this legal vacuum. Nonetheless, international law will have to react and the ways in which this could happen vary substantially. One possible solution could consist in adapting the existing legal frame work to the peculiarities of climate-induced displacement. The specific needs of climate-displaced people could…
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