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Beyond Carbon Credits: TIST Combines Reforestation, Health, and Livelihood Efforts
›Carbon offsets have fallen in and out of favor since they were established with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Critics say they allow wealthy organizations to placate consumers and claim their products are “green” without making any real, lasting changes. But, if the scheme works properly, some action is supposed to be taken somewhere, so what is it like at one of these credit-producing organizations?
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Managing the Planet: The World at Seven Billion
›Population growth “is highly concentrated in what are today the poorest and least well-governed areas of the world,” said George Mason University professor Jack Goldstone at the Wilson Center on December 5.
Goldstone was joined by Suzanne Ehlers, president and CEO of Population Action International (PAI), and Matthew Erdman, population-health-environment technical advisor at USAID, to discuss the implications of seven billion people and counting for the environment as part of the joint Wilson Center-George Mason University Managing the Planet series. [Video Below]
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Climate Change’s Impact on Human Development
›One of the greatest challenges in addressing climate change is the uncertainty of outcomes. The world is warming and greenhouse gases are accumulating at an unprecedented rate – what does that mean for the future of human development? In Barry B. Hughes, Mohammod T. Irfan, Jonathan D. Moyer, Dale S. Rothman, and José R. Solórzano’s paper, “Exploring Future Impacts of Environmental Constraints on Human Development,” they describe three possible futures for the world (a base line scenario, an environmental challenge scenario, and an environmental disaster scenario) and their potential impact on the indicators of the Human Development Index (HDI). The environmental disaster projection features a flat-lining HDI starting around 2015, with global life expectancy at birth seven years shorter than the baseline in 2060. The report also notes that the future of the planet will be drastically different if the world population peaks “well before 2100,” as is the case in the base line scenario, or continues to grow, as it does in the other scenarios.
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Linking the Environment and Women’s Health at the World Conservation Congress
›November 30, 2012 // By Payal ChandiramaniPeople don’t often think of gender issues when they think of the environment, but in fact sustainable development in many of the world’s most bio-diverse regions has a lot to do with women’s health and well-being.
At this year’s World Conservation Congress, where the theme was improving the inherent resilience of nature, ECSP’s Sandeep Bathala presented alongside Blue Ventures’ Gildas Andriamalala about the connections between women’s health and the environment – specifically on the potential of population, health, and environment (PHE) approaches as an effective sustainable development strategy.
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‘The Global Farms Race’: Comprehensive Study of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions Launches at Wilson Center
›Last month, Oxfam made an extraordinary request. It asked the World Bank to freeze its investments in agricultural land.
At a time when urbanization and growing service industries are bringing great neglect to agricultural sectors across much of the developing world, why would Oxfam want the World Bank to suspend its generous levels of agricultural funding?
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Feminized Development in Latin America: Understanding the Confluence of Gender Equity and Cultural Tensions
›Poverty in Latin America has become increasingly “feminized,” said John Coonrod, executive vice president of The Hunger Project, at the Wilson Center on October 22. As a result, many governments and NGOs are starting to focus on the needs of women, especially indigenous women. [Video Below]
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Three Critical Maternal Health Medicines That Could Save Women’s Lives
›“We know maternal health medicines are safe, we know they’re effective, we know they’re essential to keeping women healthy throughout pregnancy and childbirth,” said Kristy Kade at the Wilson Center on October 23. But lack of supply, poor quality, and misuse means they do not always help the women who need them. [Video Below]
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Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times
As Coal Boosts Mozambique, the Rural Poor Are Left Behind
›November 14, 2012 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Lydia Polgreen, appeared on The New York Times.
When Augusto Conselho Chachoka and his neighbors heard that the world’s biggest coal mine was to be built on their land, a tantalizing new future floated before them. Instead of scraping by as subsistence farmers, they would earn wages as miners, they thought. The mining company would build them sturdy new houses, it seemed. Finally, a slice of the wealth that has propelled Mozambique from its war-addled past to its newfound status as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies would be theirs.
Showing posts from category poverty.