Elements for a Robust Climate Regime Post-2012: Options for Mitigation

This article addresses the current state of negotiations within the international climate change regime (including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol) and options to be included in a post-2012 carbon market framework, such as sectoral agreements, soft targets for developing countries and a larger consideration of sinks. The article reviews the different options focusing on their potential to spur mitigation of greenhouse gases in key areas such as energy production. The size and depth of the carbon market, as well as the stringency of the cap and the stabilization path chosen, are variables affecting the effectiveness of different options. The article thus makes a clear case for all large emitters to agree on a long-term stabilization goal to guide further negotiations on medium-term carbon market frameworks, and notes that options related to the consideration of sinks, for example, should maintain proportionality with the size of the carbon market to ensure that a sufficient 'pull' for technological developments in energy-related activities is maintained.     

On the waves: a new kind of surf in Rio de Janeiro

Surfmen are thus called young daredevils who climb to the roof of suburban trains in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and vie with each other in agility and prowess, some of them often falling on the railway tracks and being killed. The practice started as a need to hang on anything outside the crowded train and became a sport of sorts. Even though repressed by the railway authorities and punished by fines and imprisonment, the practice has been going on since the eighties and developed into a competition with rules, code of honour, grading of achievement. It became a means of improving self-esteem as well as securing leadership and social prestige by people who otherwise carry on lives devoid of any charm or ludic stimulus. A substitute behavior, it results from processes of cultural elaboration at work in the youth culture of our cities.     

Corporate citizenship and social responsibility in a globalized world

This article addresses the rise of corporate citizenship in the context of the changes in the nature of individual citizenship and the emergence of new, non‐territorial forms of national identity that are occurring in the current era of intensifying globalization. It also ponders the power of corporate citizens and the role they play in the prevailing global governance framework, as well as the extent to which they can behave responsibly and pursue sustainable development goals. More generally, the article discusses the limits to corporate social responsibility and the extent to which capitalism can be ‘caring’. The argument advanced is that, by virtue of their very nature, transnational corporations (TNCs) cannot become fully responsible and accountable citizens. Nonetheless, they can be induced to transform themselves in ways that may be compatible with socially and environmentally desirable objectives. Lastly, the article explores paths for action and, in particular, the potential of NGOs and anti‐globalization social movements to become civil regulators able to push for the introduction of binding rules and regulations and the construction a governance framework capable of restraining and harnessing the power of TNCs.