Source: The Wall Street Journal
By James Hookway
11 April 2012 - The Philippine government said its newest warship is locked in a standoff with two Chinese surveillance vessels in a fresh dispute over fishing rights in the resource-rich South China Sea, potentially escalating an already-tense security environment in the contested region.
Wednesday afternoon, the Philippines said it had agreed with China to diplomatically resolve the dispute, according to the Associated Press.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario said he met with Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing and both reaffirmed their governments' positions that the Scarborough Shoal where the ships are facing off was part of their own country's territory and neither was ready to stand down.
Mr. del Rosario said that despite the impasse, "we resolved to seek a diplomatic solution to the issue."
"The ambassador of China took the view that they have full sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal," Mr. del Rosario told reporters after the meeting at his Manila office, according to AP. "So, in a sense we had reached an impasse in terms of our positions. And so there's a real challenge for us in terms of our agreement to keep on talking today."
For the complete article, please see The Wall Street Journal.
Although water is an essential input for agriculture and industrial production, it is also scarce in many regions. When it crosses international borders via shared rivers, lakes and aquifers, it can become a source of conflict and contention. Yet while water can be a source of instability, especially in the face of climate change, it can also be a source or catalyst for cooperation and even peace.
The Gulf Cooperation Council’s grid operator is studying the feasibility of a cable to Ethiopia, which would run through currently war-torn Yemen.
Small Island States will be facing dramatically higher adaptation costs to build resilience against the kind of impacts the IPCC projects in its most recent Special Report. Thoriq Imbrahim, former Environment and Energy Minister of the Maldives, urges the international community to attend to the political demands of countries particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change and also confront loss and damage with renewed urgency.
Three years after the talks that delivered the Paris Agreement, the world is gathering in Poland to take stock of the progress that has been made and to raise its ambitions. But as new nationalist leaders take power, has the world lost its appetite for climate action?