Global Food Security blog contributor Christiaan Perez interviewed Claudia Ringler, Deputy Division Director for Environment and Technology Production at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) about the food security issues under discussion at the Rio+20 Conference, which took place this week. Q1. The original mission of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. The Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, which starts this week from June 20th -22nd, is not only the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but falls during the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. As the 20th anniversary of the Rio conference approaches, many countries are waiting to be affected by decisions made at this event. Case and point: Bangladesh. In this New York Times Green Blog post, a Q&A held with Thomas Rath, the country program manager for the United Nations International Fund […]
To protect its national security, North Korea presents a strong visage to the world, but it is proving increasingly unable to provide food security for its people. North Korea’s children bear the brunt of its declining food security as, according to the Guardian, “Millions of North Korean children [nearly one-third under age 5] are not […]
The world gas market is currently dominated by gas exporting behemoths like Qatar, Russia, Algeria, and Iran. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel–compared to coal and oil–and therefore encourages an increase in power plants that run on natural gas. Many coal-fired power plants in the U.S. are being retrofitted right now because of the abundance […]
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has announced his decision to restart two nuclear reactors in western Japan. As I noted in this blog a month ago, all of Japan’s nuclear reactors are offline. Before the Fukushima meltdown, 30% of the nation’s electricity came from uranium fission reactors. As a result of these shutdowns, there is […]
It is abundantly clear that if we are going to conquer our climate change demons, then we’ve got to radically reduce the burning of coal on our splendid but increasingly stressed planet. Carbon dioxide is still the primary driver of warming and coal is still the primary source of carbon dioxide from fuel combustion. Of […]
Two decades after achieving independence from the Soviet Union, Lithuania is still struggling to achieve energy independence. It appears to have taken some significant steps in that direction recently. First, it managed to get the foreign shareholders of Lietuvos Dujos, a Lithuanian natural gas company, to agree to divide the utility into three separate […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. Sudan and South Sudan continue to clash, with each side seeking to control lucrative oil fields near their border. However, as the crisis persists, there are many efforts to relieve some of the humanitarian problems that have emerged in South Sudan, according to Action Against Hunger. “Nearly half the population […]
Today the Foreign Policy Association hosted a conference on “The Future of Energy“. I had the pleasure of attending and, given that I am writing on energy, I also have some interesting insights to share. Especially interesting was the panel discussion “The Energy Picture, Redrawn.” The key insight is that energy is crucial for […]
I went to a very interesting presentation a couple of weeks ago: The good folks at the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and their partners at SAM, a Zurich-based group focused on sustainability investing, took the time to enlighten several of us ink-stained wretches of the press (if I can still characterize myself as such […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. The sanctions imposed by the West on Syria are proving to have an overwhelming affect on the people within this unsteady country, writes Jonathan Saul for Reuters. Sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States mainly target the assets and finances of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime but are […]
The 350.org folks and all their thousands of friends all over the world had a big event on May 5. Here’s the video:
Women play a vital role in providing food security in all societies, and with Mother’s Day coming up on May 13th, the World Food Program USA (WFP USA) is hosting a webcast, “Mothers Rule the World” to “discuss the critical role mothers play in improving household food security and the nutritional wellbeing of their children.” […]
Here’s a look at how the Arctic has been melting. (Click on the image to go to NASA for a full explanation of what you’re seeing here.) What we’re seeing all over the world is an accelerating rate of the thawing of permafrost, and the melting of sea ice and glaciers. I’ve written about this […]