Geoengineering and development – what price on equity and justice in the coming climate culture wars?
Climate geoengineering is a divisive topic. What could be good – the promise of ways to either cool the planet through enhancing the reflection of sunlight, or to remove CO2 from the atmosphere thereby reducing global warming – could also be terrible.
IIED director Andrew Norton discusses the issue in a recent blog, addressing how relying on hypothetical solutions from unproven technology could reduce efforts to stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and disproportionately impact on people in the developing world.
New publications this month
As part of Irish Aid’s Climate and Development Learning Platform, climate farmer field schools were established in Zambia’s Northern Province in 2016.
In this case study, From climate risk to climate resilience, we present details of the methodology to enable this work to be taken forward and replicated by local government and other institutions committed to climate-resilient smallholder farming over the medium- to long-term.
Irrigation, food security and poverty – Lessons from three large dams in West Africa summarises the results of four years of research and identifies parallels between sites in Mali, Burkina Faso and Senegal, providing wider lessons for the West Africa region. The report concludes on the cost-effectiveness of the schemes, the quality of their management and the persistence of poverty and food insecurity. It also makes recommendations for action and for the better alignment of public policy objectives.
A guide to transparency under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement provides practical information to help prepare various reports and communications under the UNFCCC as well as take part in the relevant review processes. It also provides a glimpse into the ongoing negotiations to develop the enhanced transparency framework under the Paris Agreement and some of the implications for those preparing reports and communications for their countries.
Date: 15 February 2018 Time: 5:30 - 8pm Location: IIED, 80-86 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8NH (map)
The evening will hear from four case studies of schemes aiming to incentivise environmental stewardship, spanning a range of social and environmental contexts and different scales. Discussions will focus on how different approaches to incentivising environmental stewardship can be more effective as mechanisms to achieve both socioeconomic and environmental goals, particularly in helping to address persistent poverty, and how such interventions engage with the political economy of policy implementation at local scales. Links will then be made to implications for development policy.
We are recruiting for a senior researcher to support the ocean and fisheries economics research programme, which looks at the use of innovative economic solutions to address the problems facing the fisheries sector and to support healthy marine and coastal ecosystems and resilient communities.
