Who Cares about the Weather?: Climate Change and U.S. National Security

Is climate change a national security threat to the United States? This question remains a subject of debate in academia and has received renewed emphasis in the policy community. Even taking a narrow definition of national security, climate change already constitutes a national security threat to the United States, both in terms of direct threats to the country as well as its broader extraterritorial interests. While some of these purported threats—abrupt climate change and sea-level rise—have been overstated by advocates, several concerns, mostly related to the effects of extreme weather events on the United States and its strategic interests overseas, are sufficient enough that they already constitute security threats. That climate change potentially poses a direct threat to the U.S. homeland and its overseas interests suggests the subject warrants serious attention.     

Neo‐nationalism and Neo‐Atlanticism in Italian foreign policy

The European Union has low expectations for the international climate regime after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol effectively expires. The United States is not thought likely to sign up to new binding international commitments, whereas EU countries have experienced unexpected difficulties in implementing existing commitments. As a consequence, the European Union may be prepared to settle for a surprisingly weak follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time, the European Union will pursue bilateral and regional climate agreements with like-minded countries, parallel to the UN framework and possibly independently of it. Collectively, such agreements could produce an international climate regime that is more robust than what could be agreed at the consensus-based UN level. Nevertheless, the European Union will continue to support the UN process as the only legitimate forum for international negotiations on climate change.     

哥本哈根世界气候大会:巴西的谈判地位、利益诉求及谈判策略

巴西在联合国气候变化谈判中采取了积极的应对政策,发布了"应对气候变化的国家计划".提出了减排目标.巴西拥有世界最大的天然碳汇--亚马孙森林面积的2/3,可再生能源占能源消费的比重大大高于世界平均水平,使巴西在世界气候变化谈判中占有举足轻重的地位.在全球气候变化谈判中,巴西不仅与发展中国家结盟,而且与法国等发达国家采取共同立场,力图使自己掌握全球气候变化谈判的话语权,争取获得国际援助.由于各国在减排责任及援助等问题上的立场差距较大,哥本哈根世界气候大会难以达成有约束性的减排协定.     

Gaiatsu and Japan's Foreign Aid: Rethinking theReactive–Proactive Debate

This article examines the role of the United States in Japan's foreign aid policy. The Japanese government often alters its course of action under U.S. pressure even if doing so would apparently undermine its own interests. Japan's unusual responsiveness to U.S. preferences appears counterintuitive given the fact that at least in the realm of foreign aid Japan's power clearly surpassed that of the United States. This article posits that Japan's responsiveness stems in large part from the asymmetry of interdependence between the two countries. After critically reviewing the existing literature, it conducts two case studies to examine the validity of the argument. The article concludes that the United States played a crucial role but Japan's responsiveness to American pressure reflects an act of will rather than a lack of coherent policy stemming from bureaucratic politics. The findings have important implications to the ongoing debate over whether Japan is a "reactive state."     

Convention Plus as a Norm-Setting Exercise

This article reflects upon UNHCR's Convention Plus initiative,a multi-lateral process established in order to contribute tothe development of a normative framework for global burden-sharing.Although the substantive achievements of the initiative havebeen limited, the article argues that Convention Plus has helpedto develop significant new ideas relating to UNHCR's potentialrole in norm-creation within the refugee regime. Based on aregime theoretical perspective, and drawing on the wider literaturerelating to the role of norms in the refugee regime, the paperexamines the procedural and conceptual innovations of ConventionPlus, and how these might be adapted in future in light of theinitiative's shortcomings. In particular, the article sets outtwo models for UNHCR's role in facilitating norm-creation, bothdeveloped in the context of the Convention Plus experience:firstly, a ‘top-down’ institutional bargaining modeland, secondly, a ‘bottom-up’ good practice model.The former model emerges from the interests–linkages–normsapproach implicit to the so-called ‘generic’ workof the initiative; the latter, from the situational work ofthe initiative, developed through the revival of ‘comprehensiveplans of action’ and the use of pilot projects. The modelsare argued to be mutually supportive. The paper suggests thatadapting these ideal-type models in light of the ConventionPlus experience has implications for UNHCR's role in norm-creation,with regard both to developing a normative framework for globalburden-sharing and also to developing other norms in responseto other emerging challenges.     

Why Japan Could Revise Its Constitution and What It Would Mean for Japanese Security Policy

This article seeks to make sense of the policy debate on constitutional revision underway in Japan, to consider what international and domestic factors are driving the debate forward, to assess the range of proposals currently on the table, and to gauge the likelihood of actual constitutional change. Additionally, it considers how various forms of constitutional revision, if actually implemented, might affect Japan's military doctrines and capabilities; the extent of its alliance cooperation with the United States; its devotion of military capabilities to un operations; and the repercussions for Japan's regional relations in East Asia.     

国际气候安全与气候技术合作困境与对策

全球气候变化正在带来严重的国际安全风险，气候问题已经与国家安全深度绑定。气候安全的治理能否成功，很大程度上取决于气候技术的选择及其全球普及程度。当前，国际社会积极利用先进气候技术实现气候安全面临着多重困难。文章对国际气候技术合作存在的障碍、未来合作方向和机制建设进行梳理，并以中美气候技术合作为例，探讨克服气候技术合作障碍的可能路径。解决气候技术合作难题，需要知识产权保护制度的改革和行业技术规范的供给。中美作为全球最大的两个经济体和碳排放国，宜进一步加强气候技术合作，履行大国责任，向发展中国家积极转让清洁能源技术，并借此契机重塑彼此互信，扩大科技领域的合作空间。     

Reflections on Global Climate Politics Post Paris: Power,Interests and Polycentricity

The Paris Agreement on climate change adopted in December 2015 has the potential to shape future climate politics and governance significantly, with broader implications for world politics at large. First of all, it solidifies the importance of ‘low-emission capacity’ as a source of power in international climate politics. Second, it supports the ongoing societal mobilisation and reinforces interest in the new climate economy. Third, it points, as a result, toward a more multipolar future climate world order. Finally, the Agreement recalibrates the role of the multilateral UN process as providing overall direction towards global decarbonisation, while leaving implementation to states, other international organisations and various non-state actors and initiatives. Therefore, phasing out global greenhouse gas emissions within the next few decades requires subnational and national policy frameworks that facilitate and promote overachievement and hence drive an upward dynamic – making the Paris Agreement a real-world experiment with an uncertain outcome.     

Japan's Search for the ‘Sweet Spot’: International Cooperation and Regional Security in Northeast Asia

To analyze how Japan's competing objectives and specific policies have been evolving and how they trade off in today's regional security situation, this article argues that shifting Japanese foreign and security policies in Northeast Asia can be understood as ongoing responses to tensions along three key axes. First Japan confronts a tension between bilateralism and multilateralism; second Japan's economic and security interests are often at odds, and third, Japan still struggles with the competing pulls exerted by Asia on the one hand and the West (most particularly the United States) on the other.     

The U.S. press and political change in the Third World: The coverage of military coups

One of the chief features of the Third World is how often regimes change. These regime changes have many implications both for internal political stability in the Third World and in the relationships between the Third World and the superpowers. In the United States, it is generally the media that inform the American people about these changes and their implications for the United States. This paper analyzes the coverage of the two most recent military coups in Nigeria by the U.S. press.

Our analysis indicates that if a government that is supportive of American interests is overthrown, and the personalities and policies of the new leaders are not readily apparent to the press, the change is greeted with hostilities by the U.S. press. However, as soon as it becomes apparent that the new regime will not threaten the economic and political interests of the United States, the press rallies behind the new regime and begins to proclaim it as a savior. The press lamented the overthrow of Shagari's government and proclaimed the coup a setback for democracy in Africa. However, within a few weeks of this judgement, the coup that overthrew President Shagari was hailed as necessary for the political stability and economic prosperity of Nigeria. When the military government that seized power from Shagari was itself thrown out of office in a military coup, the new regime was welcomed by the press. We also found the U.S. press utilizes a biased and distorted framework in its coverage of political events in the Third World. The framework used in the Nigerian case asserts that all economic and political crises emanate from tribalism, corruption, and the criminal tendencies of Nigerians. We argue in this paper that this perspective, which informs the coverage of political events in Nigeria by the U.S. press, does not allow it to present valid and truthful explanations of political changes in Nigeria. We also argue that this shallow coverage is done deliberately so as to obscure the reality of political struggles in Nigeria. We assert that it is in the interests of both the Nigerian ruling class and international capitalism to attribute economic and political crises in Nigeria to tribalism, corruption, and nepotism.     

Climate change and EU–China partnership: realist disguise or institutionalist blessing?

Both the EU and China are important participants in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The EU’s reliance on legally binding rules and institutions demonstrates its strong belief on institutionalism. While interstate cooperation is certainly necessary, implementation of any international agreement and most of the work needs to be done within a state. Henceforth, an uneasy balance between national interests and international responsibility has to be maintained. In the case of EU–China partnership, the carbon aviation tax issue serves as a good example to examine the realist–institutionalist struggle. Although it is still too early to tell if the EU and China would overcome their major disagreements in the field of climate change, there is reason to believe that an international agreement may be reached by 2015.     

Elite Domination of Public Doubts About Climate Change (Not Evolution)

This article examines the sources of ideological skepticism about two issues where there is a scientific consensus: climate change and evolution. The results indicate that self-identified conservatives doubt global warming in large part because of elite rhetoric, but that evolution beliefs are unrelated to reception of political discourse. News reception is perhaps the strongest predictor of conservatives’ climate change skepticism, but has no influence on their aversion to evolution. Moreover, the article leverages three sources of variation in elite discourse on climate change—temporal, cross-national, and experimental—to show that changes in the prevalence of ideological cues strongly affect public opinion about global warming. Politically attentive conservatives, in fact, were more likely to believe scientists about global warming than liberals were in the 1990s before the media depicted climate change as a partisan issue. The United States is also the only nation where political interest significantly predicts both conservatives’ skepticism about, and liberals’ belief in, climate change. Finally, evidence from a national survey experiment suggests that Americans would be less skeptical of manmade global warming if more Republicans in Congress believed in it, but a growing Congressional consensus about evolution would not diminish doubts about its existence.     

俄罗斯气候政策转型的驱动因素及国际影响分析

作为世界第三大温室气体排放国和世界最大能源出口国,俄罗斯在国际气候协议谈判中的地位极其重要。自从梅德韦杰夫总统上任以来,俄罗斯政府一改过去的冷漠态度,在国内和国际两个层面采取了一系列行动,在应对气候变化问题上表现出积极的政治姿态,被国际社会解读为俄罗斯的气候政策出现了惊人的转型。分析俄罗斯气候政策转型的各种驱动因素以及由此带来的国际影响,对研究未来国际气候体制的发展趋势具有重要意义。     

90年代国际产业竞争对日本经济的影响

20世纪80年代末90年代初,随着冷战的结束,贸易自由化、全球化蓬勃发展,各国纷纷加强国家干预,努力提高本国产业的国际竞争力。美国政府采取扶植战略性产业、"国家出口战略"等政策措施,使美国产业的国际竞争力明显提高。欧洲工业经过革新,在传统工业和新型工业上再次位居世界前列。随着东亚产业竞争优势的出现,日本不但在传统产业而且在高技术产业上面临东亚等新型工业化国家的激烈竞争。因此,90年代美欧以及东亚产业竞争力的提高,导致日本产业竞争力相对下降,对外出口增长缓慢,日本国内出现产能过剩,从而加剧了日本经济的衰退。     

Orchestration and transnational climate governance

With multilateral efforts to mitigate climate change in gridlock, attention has turned to transnational climate governance initiatives, through which sub- and non-state actors seek to reduce greenhouse gases. These initiatives include networks of cities committed to lowering their carbon footprints, voluntary corporate reduction targets and disclosure processes, and many of the rules that govern carbon markets. The paper considers the role of “traditional” actors in world politics—states and intergovernmental organizations—in orchestrating such initiatives. This strategy accounts for nearly a third of transnational climate governance initiatives, we find, and upends the conventional dichotomy between “top down” and “bottom up” solutions to global collective action problems. We develop a theory to explain when states and intergovernmental organizations are likely to engage in orchestration, and we provide initial support for this theory with a new dataset of transnational climate governance initiatives and case studies of two of the most active orchestrators, the World Bank and the United Kingdom.     

Fostering uptake: lessons from climate change vulnerability assessments in Africa and Latin America

Findings from climate change vulnerability assessments can inform decision-makers in their evaluation of options to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Certain attributes of an assessment can improve the use or uptake of its results. The science policy literature describes three characteristics – credibility, salience, and legitimacy – as being necessary for the uptake of scientific results for decision-making. We draw from the experiences of eight climate change vulnerability assessments conducted in Africa and Latin America for USAID (United States Agency for International Development) to explore the practical application of these three characteristics to fostering uptake of the assessment results.     

Pakistan,India, China,and the United States: Energy,Climate Change,and National Security

This article focuses on the interplay of energy, climate change, and national security issues in Southwest Asia, using the newer definition of “national security” to include energy security, economic development, and climate change, as well as traditional security focusing on the military aspects.     

Agenda-setting from behind: India and the framework convention on climate change

ABSTRACT

India’s approach and policies at climate change negotiations have garnered considerable interest and attention. Over the last three decades, India’s positions have gained more importance as its carbon emissions rise. In this article, I explain India’s ratification of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) using the New Interdependence approach, a framework that explains state behavior by analyzing how global rules affects the domestic politics and policymaking around a particular issue. Specifically, I map how the conflicts around which countries should address global warming influenced the domestic politics of climate change in India, particularly the rise of MEA in leading India’s policymaking on climate change, including FCCC negotiations. MEA’s political understanding of climate change, sharpened by two domestic environmental groups – TERI and CSE, decisively shaped India’s approach at FCCC negotiations. Indian negotiators focused on hammering the differences between developed and developing countries helping shape a Framework Convention that differentiated climate responsibilities based on development constraints.     

The role of mercantilism, humanitarianism, and gaiatsu in Japan's ODA programme in Asia

Objective. Three competing explanations for the distributionof Japan's ODA in Asia are empirically examined in this paper.The first explanation hypothesizes that Japan reacts to US pressureand interests as it formulates its foreign aid policy. The competingexplanations argue that Japanese ODA is used to promote Japan'snational economic interests or humanitarian goals. Methods.We examine the determinants of Japanese ODA in 14 Asian countriesfor the period of 1979–1998. The effects of the independentvariables are estimated using ordinary least squares (OLS) withpanel-corrected standard errors. Results. US strategic interestswere found to have no effect on aid disbursements for the periodin question. Rather, we find that Japan's national economicinterests have shaped Japanese aid decisions in Asia. The disbursementpattern of Japanese ODA is also influenced by poverty in therecipient country. Employing measures from the Political TerrorScale, Freedom House, and Polity IV, we find no effect for democracyor human rights.