Wednesday, May 02, 2012
By Guest Author, Angel Hsu, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Deborah Seligsohn, World Resources Institute
The Obama administration’s fourth major meeting with China, involving multiple Cabinet Secretaries and Chinese Ministers, the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), will be held May 3 and 4 in Beijing. As usual, the U.S. delegation will be led by Secretaries Clinton and Geithner, and their Chinese hosts will be Vice Premier Wang Qishan (who focuses on economic policy) and State Councilor Dai Bingguo (responsible for foreign policy). This S&ED comes at a time of particularly sensitive political and economic issues for the two countries to address; however, if past S&ED’s are any indication, we would expect at least some discussion of climate change. With that in mind we preview some of the climate and energy issues.
Monday, April 02, 2012
By Guest Author, Angel Hsu, PhD candidate, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
This past Sunday at the US-Canada Citizens Summit for Sustainable Development, I facilitated a group discussion on metrics and indicators for measuring progress toward sustainable development goals. Indicators and targets are mentioned throughout the “Zero Draft” document titled “The Future We Want,” a 19-page document that distills over 6,000 some pages of viewpoints from member states and major groups. This document has been serving as the basis for negotiations, and hopefully will be adopted as some sort of “outcome document” at the Earth Summit in Rio this June. This post was originally published March 31, 2012, in Sage Magazine.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
By Guest Author, Jonathan Smith, JD/MEM candidate, Yale Law School and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
For the past several months, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy has invited global experts to speak about the climate policies of the top ten greenhouse-gas-emitting nations in its Climate Change Solutions: Frontline Perspectives from Around the Globe webinar series. For most of the nations in the series, that means policies addressing emissions from energy use, electricity, and transportation. But the issues Brazil faces are much different – it is the only top-ten nation with emissions primarily derived from land use change, deforestation, and agriculture. Dr. Paulo Moutinho, Executive Director of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), spoke recently about these issues and others.
Monday, March 12, 2012
By Guest Author, Rafael E. Torres, MBA ’13, Yale School of Management, MEM ’13 Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
The 3rd ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit—held at the end of February just outside of Washington, DC—brought together an eye-catching lineup of speakers and energy experts to discuss the issues of the day and to celebrate the success of ARPA-E awardees’ projects. Some examples of the technologies showcased: lithium air and lithium water batteries, microbial fuel cells, solar hydrogen generators, an ultra-compact solid state cooling system for refrigeration, high-powered laser drilling, and advancements in assorted types of solar and wind energy generation components.
Friday, March 09, 2012
By Guest Author, Erica Zell, Stephanie Weber, and Alex de Sherbinin
Air quality matters for human health, and many of the world’s urban areas suffer from high levels of contamination. Outdoor air pollution causes close to one million premature deaths worldwide each year, with particulate matter as one of the leading contributors, according to World Health Organization research on the environmental burden of disease.
This post originally appeared on State of the Planet, the Earth Institute's blog.
