Scholarship announcement: Oxford-Prince's Foundation Scholarship for the part-time DPhil in Sustainable Urban Development

The Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford is pleased to invite applications for a fully-funded scholarship to undertake the part-time Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Sustainable Urban Development.

 

The successful applicant will undertake research on the economic impact, broadly considered, of the Coed Darcy oil refinery conversion project and the associated Swansea University Bay Campus development. Potential research themes include: economic sustainability of brownfield redevelopment projects; economic sustainability assessment methodologies; urban design and economic sustainability; sustainable regional development; R&D and growth poles; regeneration of economically vulnerable regions; green growth strategies and shrinking regions; institutional factors in sustainable economic competitiveness; corporate social responsibility and urban sustainability; or any other theme(s) of the candidate’s choosing.

This scholarship is jointly funded by the University and by the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community and is only tenable at Kellogg College. Further details regarding the scholarship, including a background to the project and eligibility, can be found on the DPhil website www.conted.ox.ac.uk/dsud/.

Scholarship application deadline: 22 January 2016.

To find out more about the DPhil and how to apply please visit www.conted.ox.ac.uk/dsud/ or get in touch via sud@conted.ox.ac.uk or +44 (0)1865 286953.

 

 

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Weak climate deal would jeopardise new development goals - experts - TRFN

LONDON, May 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The world's chances of achieving new international development goals will be slim without more ambitious action to curb climate change, researchers said.

Dr. Ulric 'Neville' Trotz

Pakistan, for example, is unlikely to be able to end poverty by 2030 if accelerating climate change brings worse weather disasters, water scarcity and other problems, a new report from the UK-based Climate and Development Knowledge Network said.

But if global warming is held to 2 degrees Celsius - the aim of negotiations toward a new U.N. climate deal at the end of the year in Paris - Pakistan would have only a "low" risk of failing to eradicate poverty, the report said.

Planned new sustainable development goals (SDGs) aimed at ending poverty, improving gender equality, and giving access to water and clean power have a much higher chance of being achieved if action to limit climate change is ambitious, the report's authors said.

But if weaker efforts on climate change put the world on track for a 3 to 5 degree Celsius temperature rise, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa could see poverty rates 80 percent to 140 percent higher, the report found.

If the new sustainable development goals, expected to be agreed in New York in September, have strong targets, they could lift ambition in the year-end climate deal, the report said.

"There's a simple message: Climate action is developmental action," said Ulric "Neville" Trotz, a science advisor at the Caribbean Community Centre for Climate Change in Belize.

Countries need to fully incorporate climate action into national development plans, he added.

The report, by a team of economic policy and development experts, is one of the first attempts to put rough numbers on how the two new global deals due this year on climate change and sustainable development might interact.

States are negotiating over a proposal for 17 new sustainable development goals, backed by 169 targets, focused on everything from reducing inequality, hunger and climate change to managing forests and oceans better and promoting sustainable economic growth.

At the climate negotiations in December, leaders will aim to put in place an agreement, which would take effect in 2020, to curb carbon emissions and help poorer countries adapt to climate change and adopt a cleaner development path.

ZERO POVERTY, ZERO EMISSIONS

There are huge areas of overlap, experts say, not least because climate change impacts - such as water insecurity and more weather-related disasters - can cut harvests and incomes, and lead to children leaving school, as well as forcing governments to divert development funds to disaster relief.

"There's a simple message: Climate action is developmental action," said Ulric "Neville" Trotz, a science advisor at the Caribbean Community Centre for Climate Change in Belize.

Investing in cleaner, cheaper energy could not only cut climate risks but also improve health and provide the power needed to spur economic growth, the researchers said.

Many Caribbean islands, for example, rely on expensive imported fossil fuels, making their economies uncompetitive.

They are also extremely vulnerable to climate-related impacts, such as sea-level rise and stronger storms, said economist Anil Markandya, one of the report's authors.

"Unless we change the architecture of our energy sector, we might as well forget development under the SDGs," Trotz said.

Funding that change would require international support, such as from the new Green Climate Fund (GCF), he added.

Andrea Ledward, head of climate and environment for Britain's Department of International Development and a GCF board member, told a launch event for the report there is a need to "break down the firewall" between funding for climate and development projects because the two areas are so closely tied.

Rich nations have committed to mobilise by 2020 an annual $100 billion in climate finance that is "new and additional" to existing funding.

Jonathan Reeves of the International Institute for Environment and Development said that while climate and development funding streams could be merged, the accounting must be kept separate to ensure the money is "new and additional".

He warned that the least-developed countries have the most to lose if efforts to address climate change fail.

"If your country is going to be submerged within a couple of generations by sea-level rise, you're not even going to be thinking about achieving the SDGs," he said.

Ilmi Granoff, a researcher with the Overseas Development Institute in London, said public support for an ambitious climate deal and strong sustainable development targets could be won by focusing on a new, understandable aim for all countries: "zero poverty and zero emissions within a generation". (Reporting by Laurie Goering; editing by Megan Rowling) More

 

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“If we win, then every coastal city in the world wins, every fishing village in the world wins.” Seychelles Ambassador to the UN Ronny Jumeau

2015 is big year for the world. A final draft of the Sustainable Development Goals are due by the time heads of state gather in New York for the UN Summit in September.

Ambassador Ronny Jumeau

Then, six weeks later diplomats gather in Paris for the last best chance at striking a global agreement on climate change. Today we are kicking off a regular series we are calling “Meet a 2015er” that will offer glimpses into the life of the UN officials, NGO people, diplomats and advocates as they help shape the international development and climate change agenda this year.

We kick off this series in with Ronny Jumeau, the Seychelles Ambassador to the United Nations. Jumeau often represents the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) in climate change negotiations, but wants to emphasize that these are his own views.

So, we’re sitting here in a snow storm in New York and you are headed to equally cold Geneva for the adaptation meeting of the UNFCC. Let’s talk about the climate change SDG. What is your role in all these negotiations?

My job is to explain things in a way that people understand, without the jargon. We need to move past that and look at the people involved in climate change. We can’t just focus on the science or graphs and figures.

How are the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) feeling about the pace and status of the climate SDG and the climate talks leading up to Paris?

There are so many issues [left] unresolved [by the Lima round of talks in December]. Everybody’s frustrated. Well, maybe not everybody but if you want a strong, ambitious agreement in Paris of course you’re frustrated!

It’s unfortunate that the climate change process has reached a stage where we always say…at least it’s better than nothing. That’s a poor judgement. We say, ‘it could have been worse.’ Everything could have been worse! As long as you’re not dead, it could have been worse.

Sounds quite depressing for the fate of the climate SDG and Paris agreement.

[Laughing] Most resilient of us all are the islands. We are certainly the ones who smile the most, it’s our way of coping. Once you know the worst that can happen [it’s not so bad] — it’s when you don’t know that is the worst. We already know the bottom line…our countries will disappear. We just don’t want that narrative to take over.

There are countries that have approached us who say, you do know if the science is right, that even if we cut all emissions tomorrow, sea level will continue rising. That’s one of the problems AOSIS faces, but the moment you start that conversation, then no one has to listen to you anymore.

What does that mean for how you look at parallel SDG negotiations and Paris climate talks?

The more we make climate change a development narrative, the more attention we get. Tackling climate change cannot be seen as a barrier to pulling people out of poverty. I think we’ve kept that divorced too much. Between pulling out of poverty and climate change, I know which ones will ‘win votes’ as a politician: it’s the poverty reduction.

Our first priority is to make sure that we are still around! So for us, the SDGs and climate change action are one in the same.

Every year AOSIS has a luncheon with the Secretary General. The last time we had lunch and the Ambassadors were speaking, I told them a weak climate agreement will ensure that the SDGs will not succeed. For the SIDS, there can be no sustainable development if the SIDS are not around [due to the affects of climate change.] They go hand in hand.

Can you explain that a bit further?

Most SIDS are heavily dependent on tourism and fisheries. How can we in the SIDS plan the sustainable development of our fisheries, if we don’t know what ocean acidification is going to do? And that’s a climate issue. So until we know how the climate is going to affect the oceans, we can’t plan our biggest industry. Same with agriculture.

Another example is the airport in Seychelles which [ according to the data] will need a new runway to be built at a level that is higher than the whole airport is currently. We need the additional runway to increase tourism, but how do you build it without knowing how high the ocean level will rise and when?

The Secretary General gets it. His Cabinet gets it. But politics comes into play.

We’ll continue the SDGs, of course, but…everyone is saying: whatever you say in the SDG on climate must not pre-judge the Paris agreement [without understanding] that the two cannot be divorced.

Is there hope for a more effective climate SDG

I think we’re going to have SDGs that sound strong, but as long as it’s not strong on the financing! They look good, until someone will say ‘by the way, how are we going to pay for all this?’

Is it really about finance?

It’s all about finance. I think the development narrative has more staying power than the climate narrative because development is about the politics of the developing world. It’s more tangible. That’s what people are elected to do; pull people out of poverty, create jobs. The climate part of that is creating ‘green’ jobs.

One of the ways of getting traction for climate is to say you cannot develop without climate action.

It looks like the meeting in Ethiopia [The Conference on Financing For Development to be held in Addis Ababa this July] is everything. I think that meeting is becoming the whole thing, incredibly important. But, I think people will be saying [once they get to Addis], ‘we’re talking about financing for what now?’

If you take development as something separately from climate change, what are we discussing financing exactly – development projects or climate projects? For the SIDS and [Least Developed Countries] they still go hand in hand, especially in financing context.

Is it necessarily a bad thing to be so focused on finance?

When countries like China and U.S. are interested in solar power, its not because of climate change – it’s business and economic development. I’m not going to argue with that though – whatever it takes to get you to the table!

Will the climate SDG and any agreement that comes out of Paris be completely, separately formulated then?

They [SDGs and UNFCCC] will come together but unfortunately after 2015. We’re so focused now on delivering separately the SDGs, post-2015 development agenda, Paris agreement – but they’re all inter-related. I can understand if someone says, ‘look when it comes to climate change, let’s just develop Paris and not complicate it further.

The trouble is on the one hand: delivering it, on the other hand: are we going to deliver something weak and then start talking?

What happens if there is a weak climate SDG and subsequently, a weak deal in Paris? Why should other countries care what happens to the SIDS as a result?

At first we said ‘you can’t wipe out whole countries, ancient cultures, and so on.’ Then we realized, it’s not us vs. them.

If we win, then every coastal city in the world wins, every fishing village in the world wins.

You cannot take a globe and with blue paint, paint out all those little dots because every continental coastline will change too. We would have to redraw every single continent in the entire world. We’re trying now to say: you save us, you’re saving everybody. As long as we stay above water, everybody else does. If you sacrifice us, who’s next? If we go, we won’t go alone. Just because we disappear, at that point we’ll have runaway climate change, it won’t stop with us. More

 

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UN and Samoa: 2014 Small Islands Sustainability Conference

United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Wu Hongbo is leading a UN planning mission to Samoa to prepare for the 2014 Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States. Mr. Wu is also Secretary-General of …UN and Samoa Launch Preparations for 2014 Small Islands Sustainability Conference

Apia, Samoa, 1 April 2013 – United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Wu Hongbo is leading a UN planning mission to Samoa to prepare for the 2014 Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States. Mr. Wu is also Secretary-General of the Conference.

Countries agreed at last year’s Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development that greater efforts were needed to assist small island developing States and called for convening a conference in 2014. The General Assembly has accepted Samoa’s offer to host the Conference.

Mr. Wu will meet with Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sa’ilele Malielegaoi on 2 April and will tour the proposed conference site.

The Samoa Conference will follow up on the outcomes of the two previous international conferences on small island developing States held in Barbados in 1994 and Mauritius in 2005.

“Small island developing States are on the frontlines of sustainable development and despite their unique vulnerabilities, they never shy away from tackling head-on the social, economic and environmental challenges facing their communities”, says Mr. Wu. “The world should take notice how these countries are dealing with a range of economic, social and environmental issues, including the impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and extreme weather events. The Samoa Conference will help guide us all toward a sustainable future.”

“The decision to hold a small island developing States review meeting in 2014 is important and timely,” Samoa Prime Minister Malielegaoi told the General Assembly in September. “Coincidentally, 2014 holds special significance for Samoa. Barring any natural catastrophes, we will graduate from the category of Least Developed Countries on 1 January that year.

“We want to underscore that through genuine partnerships with development partners our Small Island Developing State, also a least developed country, is able to markedly lift the socio-economic situation of our country and the standard of living for our people.” He added the success of meetings “should be measured on the quality of the decisions and commitments agreed to, not just on costs and number of participants considerations only.”

At Rio+20, countries agreed that small island developing States remain a special case for sustainable development because of their small size, their remoteness, small natural resource base and because they are especially vulnerable to extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change. More

 

The Open and Rocky Road Post-2015

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31 2013 (IPS) - What values does a Yemeni journalist who fuelled the Arab Spring hold in common with a former principal of the U.S. National Security Council? And how in turn will they see eye to eye with a Jordanian queen, or the president of Indonesia?

The subjects of this riddle are meeting in Monrovia as part of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s 27-member High Level Panel of Eminent Person’s on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP).

The purpose of the HLP is to lead the discussion around a new framework, the post-2015 development agenda, to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The HLP’s work will culminate with an advisory report to Ban in May 2013.

The meeting, which takes place between Jan. 30 and Feb. 1, is the third in a series of four. Previous meetings took place in London and New York, and the forthcoming one will take place in Bali.

“This (meeting in Monrovia) is the HLP’s chance to hear the perspectives of a wide range of organisations and individuals in Africa about their priorities for a post-2015 agenda,” said Claire Melamed, head of the Growth and Equity Programme at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

“It’s important those perspectives are reflected in the final report,” Melamed told IPS.

ODI, in partnership with the World Wide Web Foundation and the U.N., developed an online survey to gauge the priorities of the world’s citizens. The survey, conducted through myworld2015.org, inspired a running Twitter conversation on the topic (#post2015). The online platforms sparked international chatter that was absent during MDG discussions.

“As we witnessed in the historic events of 2011 – from the Arab spring to the rise of Occupy – the possibility of mobilising public opinion on a global scale is becoming ever-more urgent and realistic,” Rajesh Makwana, director of Share the World’s Resources (STWR), told IPS.

The airing of new voices does pose a challenge: how will 27 panellists harbour the hopes and concerns of so many people?

“My apprehension is that this process is moving in so many levels (that) there’s no priority on how these different conversations (will) come together in one place,” said Radhika Balakrishnan, executive director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University.

“There’s consultations happening all around the world… There’s not a clear way to see how these are going to come to fruition at the end,” Balakrishnan told IPS, noting that she is still hopeful, despite the challenges.

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C'wealth conference on small states in London

London: The Commonwealth Secretariat has convened a global conference here to discuss the unique development challenges of small states in the group and explore policy options to address them.

Thirty-two of the Commonwealth's 54 member countries are small states, with populations of less than 1.5 million.

They share similar challenges such as remoteness, susceptibility to exogenous shocks and high debt burdens, a press release from the Secretariat said.

The Second Global Biennial Conference on Small States will take place on September 17-18 at the headquarters of the Commonwealth in London.

The meeting is a follow-up to the inaugural 2010 conference, whose outcomes Commonwealth Heads of Government endorsed in Perth, Australia, in October 2011.

Besides ministers and officials from small states, the conference will also be attended by representatives from G20 countries, and international organisations like the World Bank and La Francophonie.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma said:"The Commonwealth has always exercised a special responsibility to protect and promote the interests of small states in the pursuit of their social, environmental and economic development goals. We are convening this global conference in that spirit."

The key themes for discussion during the conference include: green growth in small states; tourism development and local economy linkages; migration and development; building resilience to external shocks; and enhancing growth through regional integration, the release added.

Conference outcomes are expected to feed into major international meetings, including the Small States Forum that will take place in the wings of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings in October 2012.

They will likely also impact on preparations for the UN 2014 Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, the release said. More

 

Small Island States must collaborate on Climate Change Issues - Pickersgill

Minister of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change, Hon. Robert Pickersgill looks on as Resident Representative, UNDP, Dr. Arun Kashyap (left), greets Senior Fellow, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute, University of the West Indies, Mona, Dr. Michael Witter, during the National Consultations on the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held at the Wyndham Kingston.

Minister of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change, Hon. Robert Pickersgill, says there is need for a strong regional mechanism geared towards facilitating co-operation and collaboration among Small Island Developing States (SIDS), especially on issues surrounding climate change.

Addressing the National Consultations on the United Nations (UN) Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) at the Wyndham Hotel in Kingston on May 15, Minister Pickersgill said climate change is of particular concern to SIDS because of their vulnerability to its effects.

He stated the issue should remain on the agenda for the Rio+20 conference in June. “We need to ensure that this is reflected in the Rio + 20 outcome,” he stated.

According to Minister Pickersgill, climate change is considered to be the most pervasive and truly global of all issues affecting humanity and poses a serious threat to the environment as well as to economies and societies.

The phenomenon, he said, is a threat to sustainable development in CARICOM states, even though the contribution of the region to global greenhouse gas emission is negligible.

While pointing to the need for a mechanism at the national level to address sustainable development, he said the issue is addressed in Vision 2030 Jamaica: The National Development Plan, “and I will be in discussion with my colleagues responsible for economic and social matters as well as the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), to see how we can put in place institutional arrangements to facilitate coordination and implementation of the plan." More