Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Stephen Leahy* UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jul 28, 2011 (Tierramérica) – Many migrants from southern Brazil who clear forests in Brazil’s state of Amazonas are making their living as small-scale land speculators and not as farmers or as cattle ranchers, new research has found. This on-the-ground reality and the [...]
AUSTRALIA: Renewable Energy Wins, Controversially
July 14, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Stephen de Tarczynski MELBOURNE, Jul 14, 2011 (IPS) – Australia has taken a major step in reducing its future greenhouse gas output with the announcement of a plan that will initially place a tax on every tonne of carbon pollution produced by hundreds of the country’s major [...]
Q&A: Cook Islands Aims for 100 Percent Green Energy by 2020
July 13, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Stephen Leahy interviews HENRY PUNA, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands VIENNA, Jul 13, 2011 (IPS) – "One hundred percent renewable energy by 2020… It is ambitious but it is not impossible," Henry Puna, prime minister of the Cook Islands, told IPS in a recent interview. The Cook [...]
The Global Climate Regime on the Brink
June 19, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN By Martin Khor* IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint GENEVA (IDN) – We agreed in Bali in December 2007 to build a much stronger international climate regime to better cope with recent alarming analysis of the disastrous effects of climate change. But instead of achieving this new regime, we now see [...]
World Bank Calibrating its Measurement of Sustainability
May 26, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Emilio Godoy * MEXICO CITY, May 26, 2011 (Tierramérica) – The World Bank is working to update the mechanisms it uses to measure the effects of the financing it provides, particularly in environmental and social terms, now that it is gearing up to administer the new Green [...]
Green Economy Needs Respect for Indigenous Rights
May 23, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Haider Rizvi UNITED NATIONS, May 21, 2011 (IPS) – Nations must pay more than lip service to the idea of indigenous rights if they hope to seriously address problems like species loss and climate change, say delegates at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a U.N. body [...]
LATIN AMERICA: Digging Deep for Transparency in Oil and Mining
May 23, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Gonzalo Ortiz QUITO, May 23, 2011 (IPS) – Oil and mineral resources are abundant in several Latin American countries but will not last forever, and should be used to fuel the transition to a more diversified economy. The warning comes from María del Carmen Pantoja, head of [...]
KENYA: Sustainable Energy in the Heart of the Slums
March 29, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Miriam Gathigah NAIROBI, Mar 29, 2011 (IPS) – Talk about foul foundations: the Katwekera Tosha Bio Centre is built on the stuff that goes into toilets. This community centre in the Nairobi slum of Kibera goes well beyond solving sanitation problems – it is a model for [...]
Two Percent Price-Tag for a Green Economy
February 23, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Stephen Leahy UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 23, 2011 (IPS) – Growth-obsessed markets and governments are pillaging the planet and it must stop, a new U.N. report warns. The present "brown" economic system driven by fossil fuel energy and the serial depletion and degradation of natural resources and ecosystems [...]
Food Worries Rise in China
January 19, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Analysis by Mitch Moxley BEIJING, Jan 19, 2011 (IPS) – In China, a country with a history of famine and where rural dwellers still use the greeting "have you eaten?", food is close to sacred. Feeding the country’s massive population remains one of the biggest threats to future [...]
