On October 28, 2013, two U.S. states, Washington and Oregon, signed an agreement with California and the Canadian province British Columbia that will set prices for carbon emissions in Oregon and set emissions limits and standards for Washington, efforts that will help to align regional efforts.
The collaboration follows a prior effort to form a regional authority on emissions trading policies, the Western Climate Initiative (WCI); the group’s members currently include British Columbia, California, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.
WCI will meet with officials from the Chinese coast in January to discuss possible collaboration.
These actions demonstrate continued U.S. and Canadian interest in pursuing regional carbon markets, an effort which has slowed on the national agenda.
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Linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the Latin American landmass has often been presented as one of the holy grails of development for the region. While China’s idea of a ‘Nicaraguan Canal’ has made headlines globally, another major infrastructure project is in the works further south: the Bi-Oceanic Railway. The idea has already spurred transboundary environmental cooperation, but the public is still in the dark.
Using a progressive environmental security concept can help to tackle a range of environmental issues related to armed conflict, such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity, tensions over natural resources, conflict pollution, and damage to ecosystems. The environment can actually play a role in peacebuilding. This article briefly outlines why such an inclusive and environmental protection approach is needed and how it could be implemented.
Climate action and free trade have been perceived as contrary agendas for a long time. Despite more and more governments seeing tremendous potential for win-win outcomes, aligning trade and climate has become harder. This is due to changes in our current geopolitical landscape, as Christian Hübner explains in light of the upcoming G20 summit.
Human activity has caused the temperature of the Earth and its atmosphere to rise by about 1°C above pre-industrial levels, triggering fundamental changes to the planet’s physical and social landscapes. On 8 October an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that temperatures were rising faster than expected, and that 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels could occur as early as 2030.