Environmental economics
FT Climate Experts' Forum - 14 December
IPN Opinion article
IPN's Executive Director discusses the first week of the Copenhagen Conference
Obama at the Copenhagen Endgame
IPN Opinion article
Julian Morris blogs for FTEnergySource during COP15 in Copenhagen
The pitfalls of protectionism shown by Brazil and Mexico
IPN Opinion article
Brazil and Mexico are in danger of going down the path blazed by Venezuela: after years of opening up trade and improving their economies they are reintroducing protectionism in oil and gas. This energy analyst describes how the real patriotic move would be to stimulate exploitation - and therefore employment and the economy - by welcoming foreign firms instead of coddling state-run and domestic firms.
Protectionism in Green Garb
IPN Opinion article
The US Waxman-Markey energy bill claims to be about reducing greenhouse gas emissions but its hidden consequences include subsidies and protectionism for US firms plus trade war with the rest of the world. Even its core intention is made irrelevant by the current and future emissions of China and India. Aris Taristides explains some of the threats to other countries and to the USA itself of damaging trade, especially in a time of recession.
What's killing the poor is poverty, not climate change
IPN Opinion article
There is a growing idea that rich countries should slash imports from poor countries whose antiquated factories are heavy carbon emitters: this eco-protectionism is in fact good old-fashioned protectionism and would hit the poor hardest. What hurts the poor right now is not climate change but poverty: growth is the only way out.
Twelve step programme to poverty
IPN Opinion article
World Environment Day on 5 June offers the poor a tempting formula: developing countries must slow economic growth to avoid becoming eco-vampires like the industrialized economies. Its "Twelve Steps to Help You Kick the CO2 Habit" mean we Africans should be content to live quaintly in our mud huts lit by solar and wind power.
UN Climate Plans vs. The Poor
IPN Opinion article
Despite the breakdown of UN climate-change talks in Bali last December, the same themes were still being pushed at the late August week's meeting in Ghana--but now developing countries have begun to question the effects on the world's poorest. They must fight for greater realism in the climate debate: their livings and even their lives depend on it.
Free water!
IPN Opinion article
Poor management and inefficiency plague government water programmes but the oil market may provide examples for improvement.
