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Dictatorship presents ’a far more perilous threat to the survival of Africans than climate change’, Alemayehu G. Mariam writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. But with the widespread acknowledgement that global warming ‘could affect Africa disproportionately’, and that the continent is ‘entitled (…)

Technology transfer is one of the four key topics being discussed under negotiations on Long-Term Cooperative Actions in Copenhagen (the others are mitigation, adaptation and financing). The inter-governmental negotiating text that is under discussion contemplates various measures for (…)

This publication aims to contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the emerging climate justice movement and to create resonances between different perspectives and spheres of engagement. The activities around the COP 15 in Copenhagen are a starting point in the creation of such a (…)

Today’s food is well travelled. A pack of green beans in a Northern supermarket may have journeyed 6000 miles, or 60. But while food miles loom large in our carbon-aware times, transporting it counts for less than you might think. And there is a far bigger picture. Food is more than a plateful (…)

This sixth report from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development argues that our chances of triumphing over climate change will rise dramatically if we recognise that there we need not one but many models of human development.
Featuring contributions from Dr Rajendra Pachauri (…)

What we really need is a new women’s health movement, one that’s sharp and skeptical enough to ask all the hard questions: What are the environmental (or possibly life-style) causes of the breast cancer epidemic? Why are existing treatments like chemotherapy so toxic and heavy-handed? And, if (…)

Some 225 participants, the bulk of them journalists from Mekong countries, are set to discuss, debate and take stock of their media environment against a backdrop of changing and often quite different news cultures at the Mekong Media Forum, which starts here Dec. 9.
The four-day media (…)

‘Whatever our culture, we must treat animals in a humane way,’ William Gumede writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, following the recent approval of South African courts for the sacrifice of a bull as part of a traditional thanksgiving ritual. ‘African culture has a long tradition of democratic (…)

‘I am an angry African,’ Assefa Bequele writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, challenging the continent’s failure to meet its collective responsibilities to children. ‘I will tell you why and what, I hope, we can do to build an Africa fit for children and help nurture an African man and woman (…)

India is in a unique predicament; it has a stake in both preventing climate change and avoiding costly mitigation. It is an unfortunate irony that India, with a third of the world’s poor and less than one-third the per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the world average, is seen as a (…)

An inexplicable pricing regime and skewed export-import policies bring about a crisis for sugarcane farmers and consumers alike. From Rs.17 a kilogram barely six months ago to Rs.42 a kg now, sugar is fast running out of the common man’s reach. The crisis is likely to turn worse because a (…)

It is no secret that links between the commercial sectors and science and technology are increasing. Many policy-makers, business leaders and members of the science community argue that this is positive for both science and society. But there is growing evidence that the science (…)

Creative, accessible, and illuminating introduction to the con of carbon trading by UK cartoonist Kate Evans. Download pdf

In her new book, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the origins of contemporary optimism from nineteenth-century healers to twentieth-century pushers of consumerism. She explores how that culture of optimism prevents us from holding to account both corporate heads and elected officials. Read more here (…)

Immanuel Wallerstein comments on the global financial crisis from a long-term historical perspective, and on the opportunities it offers for global justice movements (Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009). Read more

The notion that somehow we can transform the world by shopping is a debilitating one, and it’s one that George Monbiot has recently done a fine job of skewering. In his latest, he references a piece in the journal Nature in which it appears that consumers who buy green goods feel that their (…)

Climate change is a major challenge for us all, but for African countries it represents a particular threat. This book outlines current thinking and evidence and the impact such change will have on Africa’s development prospects.
Global warming above the level of two degrees Celsius would be (…)

Next month, at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the wealthy nations that produce most of the excess carbon in our atmosphere will almost certainly fail to embrace measures adequate to ward off the devastation of our planet by heat and chaotic weather. Their leaders will probably promise (…)

The hopes and prospects for peace aren’t well aligned—not even close. The task is to bring them nearer. Presumably that was the intent of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in choosing President Barack Obama.
The prize “seemed a kind of prayer and encouragement by the Nobel committee for future (…)

Migrants’ rights have to be addressed on two fronts: end the neoliberal policies that are responsible for creating poverty in their home countries, thus forcing them to emigrate, and demand that they are given full rights in their host countries. Read more