Suchergebnisse

With climate change, an increasingly important focus of scientific and policy discourse, the Russian government has aimed to position the country as one of the leaders of the global process for addressing climate change. This article reviews a breadth of literature to analyze the politico-economic situation in Russia with regard to international climate change negotiations, related domestic policies, societal attitudes, and climatic change impacts on Russia's territory. The analysis demonstrates how Russia has a pivotal role in influencing the future direction of international climate change mitigation and adaptation. Not only is Russia predisposed geographically to the impacts of climate change, but also it is a major emitter of greenhouse gases and a global supplier of fossil fuels, and remains a major force in international politics. This unique confluence of circumstances leaves Russia with a challenging dilemma. It can choose to acquiesce to short-term political and economic considerations, adopt weak mitigation measures, and face potentially significant impacts. Or it can apply its considerable attributes and powers to initiate an epoch of international action to secure a low-carbon climate-resilient future. Although the former will see Russia subsumed into the international malaise on climate change, the latter may both quench the nation's 'thirst for greatness' and fill the void of international leadership. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Delivering reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector requires support and action from all tiers of government. There has been considerable focus on the policies that can be implemented at international and national levels; however, sub-national bodies can also play an important and influential role. In order to identify what this role may be, it is important for sub-national governments to have an understanding of the size of their potential emissions responsibility. At present there is no widely accepted methodology for the apportionment of either international or domestic aviation emissions to sub-national levels. This paper assesses a number of existing consumer- and producer-based CO2 apportionment regimes that could be used to allocate the emissions from aviation to regional and other sub-national levels. This is followed by the presentation of a new hybrid consumer-producer apportionment regime applicable to aviation. This new approach is designed to provide an emissions baseline for a region that reflects its share of responsibility for the UK's aviation emissions as both a producer of emissions and consumer of the services provided by aviation. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

The rise of food security up international political, societal and academic agendas has led to increasing interest in novel means of improving primary food production and reducing waste. There are however, also many 'post-farm gate' activities that are critical to food security, including processing, packaging, distributing, retailing, cooking and consuming. These activities all affect a range of important food security elements, notably availability, affordability and other aspects of access, nutrition and safety. Addressing the challenge of universal food security, in the context of a number of other policy goals (e.g. social, economic and environmental sustainability), is of keen interest to a range of UK stakeholders but requires an up-to-date evidence base and continuous innovation. An exercise was therefore conducted, under the auspices of the UK Global Food Security Programme, to identify priority research questions with a focus on the UK food system (though the outcomes may be broadly applicable to other developed nations). Emphasis was placed on incorporating a wide range of perspectives ('world views') from different stakeholder groups: policy, private sector, non-governmental organisations, advocacy groups and academia. A total of 456 individuals submitted 820 questions from which 100 were selected by a process of online voting and a three-stage workshop voting exercise. These 100 final questions were sorted into 10 themes and the 'top' question for each theme identified by a further voting exercise. This step also allowed four different stakeholder groups to select the top 7-8 questions from their perspectives. Results of these voting exercises are presented. It is clear from the wide range of questions prioritised in this exercise that the different stakeholder groups identified specific research needs on a range of post-farm gate activities and food security outcomes. Evidence needs related to food affordability, nutrition and food safety (all key elements of food security) featured highly in the exercise. While there were some questions relating to climate impacts on production, other important topics for food security (e.g. trade, transport, preference and cultural needs) were not viewed as strongly by the participants. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and International Society for Plant Pathology.

The rise of food security up international political, societal and academic agendas has led to increasing interest in novel means of improving primary food production and reducing waste. There are however, also many 'post-farm gate' activities that are critical to food security, including processing, packaging, distributing, retailing, cooking and consuming. These activities all affect a range of important food security elements, notably availability, affordability and other aspects of access, nutrition and safety. Addressing the challenge of universal food security, in the context of a number of other policy goals (e.g. social, economic and environmental sustainability), is of keen interest to a range of UK stakeholders but requires an up-to-date evidence base and continuous innovation. An exercise was therefore conducted, under the auspices of the UK Global Food Security Programme, to identify priority research questions with a focus on the UK food system (though the outcomes may be broadly applicable to other developed nations). Emphasis was placed on incorporating a wide range of perspectives ('world views') from different stakeholder groups: policy, private sector, non-governmental organisations, advocacy groups and academia. A total of 456 individuals submitted 820 questions from which 100 were selected by a process of online voting and a three-stage workshop voting exercise. These 100 final questions were sorted into 10 themes and the 'top' question for each theme identified by a further voting exercise. This step also allowed four different stakeholder groups to select the top 7-8 questions from their perspectives. Results of these voting exercises are presented. It is clear from the wide range of questions prioritised in this exercise that the different stakeholder groups identified specific research needs on a range of post-farm gate activities and food security outcomes. Evidence needs related to food affordability, nutrition and food safety (all key elements of food security) featured highly in the exercise. While there were some questions relating to climate impacts on production, other important topics for food security (e.g. trade, transport, preference and cultural needs) were not viewed as strongly by the participants.