‘Great Powers’ in climate politics

The concept of ‘Great Powers’ extends well beyond its nineteenth century origins to current business in, for example, the EU, the UN Security Council, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Such core groups can be crucial to finding agreement in complex and fractured negotiations. Climate change was not initially seen as an issue for the Great Power-type architecture. The problem was of universal concern, requiring universal involvement. Moreover, climate's natural great powers (the EU, the US, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, and Canada) split into three antagonistic camps: the EU pressing for sharp emissions reductions; the US, with the other developed powers, much more cautious; and China, India, and Brazil determined that action should be confined to the developed world. These divisions contributed hugely to the ineffectiveness of both the 1992 Rio convention and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. In addition, as non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; particularly Chinese) emissions fast outgrew OECD emissions, their exclusion from any constraint became visibly untenable. So, from 2005 on, the Great Powers began to meet more closely in what became the Major Economies Forum. That cooperation contributed significantly to the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. The climate problem is of course far from being solved, but maintaining Great Power cooperation will be crucial to further progress.     

Determinants of Wild Fish Consumption in Indigenous Communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon

This paper analyzes the socioeconomic determinants of consumption of wild fish among the Kichwa and Shuar indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The results of a random-effect linear model show that the consumption of wild fish is higher for households with younger heads that do not have off-farm work and reside far from urban centers, in communities with low population densities. Although various actors promoting aquaculture in the region often claim that it helps to relieve the pressure on wild fish stocks, no statistically significant effect of the consumption of cultivated fish on the consumption of wild fish could be shown. Thus, our analysis suggests that public policies and development interventions which increase access to off-farm employment can both improve local livelihoods and conserve biodiversity, but that the same affirmation cannot be made for the promotion of aquaculture.     

Environmental challenges and priorities for action

The oceans have a major influence on world climate and are an important source of food, most of which comes from the coastal zones. These zones, and the traditional, sustainable, life-styles of the fishing communities that live there, are under immense and growing pressure. Urbanization, pollution, sea level rise, and the destruction of natural coast defences and fish nursery grounds are undermining sustainability. Although chemical pollution in some areas, with some substances, is falling it remains a serious problem over the world as a whole.

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, recognized the need for more effective protection of the resources of the coastal seas, and a number of specific actions are set out in Agenda 21. But action is still not being taken on a scale which matches the problem. There are four probable reasons: first, the sea is still assumed to be too big to damage; second, jurisdiction is inadequate; third, serious national and international conflicts of interest remain; and fourth, economic distortions hamper sound judgement. The northern seas, which suffer less from these problems, should be demonstration areas for sound marine resource management.     

Transfer impedance of a probe in a drifting plasma

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Hm-wave filtration in a horizontally stratified Earth's magnetosphere

Summary Drawing on papers [4, 5] a semi-quantitative model of filtration and resonance of a linearly polarized HM-wave has been constructed in a horizontally stratified Earth atmosphere. The wave is filtered in a system of 3 homogeneous layers, limited by two halfspaces. Attenuation of the wave is only assumed in the lower layer, i.e. in the ionosphere. A relation has been derived for the amplitude coupling factor H_T/H_F expressing the absolute ratio of the amplitude of the wave after transmission through the system of layers and the amplitude of the wave, incident at the system of layers. The mechanism of geomagnetic pulsations is illustrated on the principle of the resonance of a HM-wave in the Earth's magnetosphere. The magnetosphere has been replaced by the said system of layers, and the dependence of H_T/H_F=f() on the parameters of the system of layers has been studied using a computer.