Number of results to display per page
Search Results
42. A High-Carbon Partnership? Chinese-Latin American Relations in a Carbon-Constrained World
- Author:
- Timmons Roberts and Guy Edwards
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- China's rapidly increasing investment, trade and loans in Latin America may be entrenching high-carbon development pathways in the region, a trend scarcely mentioned in policy circles. High-carbon activities include the extraction of fossil fuels and other natural resources, expansion of large-scale agriculture and the energy-intensive stages of processing natural resources into intermediate goods. This paper addresses three examples, including Chinese investments in Venezuela's oil sector and a Costa Rican oil refinery, and Chinese investment in and purchases of Brazilian soybeans. We pose the question of whether there is a tie between China's role in opening up vast resources in Latin America and the way those nations make national climate policy and how they behave at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. We focus on the period between the 2009 Copenhagen round of negotiations and the run-up to the Paris negotiations scheduled for 2015, when the UNFCCC will attempt to finalize a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, International Trade and Finance, Oil, Natural Resources, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- China and Latin America
43. China's energy demands: are they reshaping the world?
- Author:
- Gerald Stang
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- European Union Institute for Security Studies
- Abstract:
- In 2012, China was the world's seventh biggest producer of natural gas, the fourth largest oil producer, and the biggest producer of hydroelectricity. It also produced almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined. Still, this is not enough. China's domestic energy bounty has long allowed the country to keep its overall import dependency relatively low but, as the country's economy continues to boom, its import dependency is growing quickly, particularly with regard to oil.
- Topic:
- Economics, Energy Policy, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
44. Trading Forests: Quantifying the Contribution of Global Commodity Markets to Emissions from Tropical Deforestation
- Author:
- Martin Persson, Sabine Henders, and Thomas Kastner
- Publication Date:
- 10-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development (CGD)
- Abstract:
- This paper aims to improve our understanding of how and where global supply-chains link consumers of agricultural and forest commodities across the world to forest destruction in tropical countries. A better understanding of these linkages can help inform and support the design of demand-side interventions to reduce tropical deforestation. To that end, we map the link between deforestation for four commodities (beef, soybeans, palm oil, and wood products) in eight case countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea) to consumption, through international trade. Although few, the studied countries comprise a large share of the internationally traded volumes of the analyzed commodities: 83% of beef and 99% of soybean exports from Latin America, 97% of global palm oil exports, and roughly half of (official) tropical wood products trade. The analysis covers the period 2000-2009. We find that roughly a third of tropical deforestation and associated carbon emissions (3.9 Mha and 1.7 GtCO2) in 2009 can be attributed to our four case commodities in our eight case countries. On average a third of analyzed deforestation was embodied in agricultural exports, mainly to the EU and China. However, in all countries but Bolivia and Brazil, export markets are dominant drivers of forest clearing for our case commodities. If one excludes Brazilian beef on average 57% of deforestation attributed to our case commodities was embodied in exports. The share of emissions that was embodied in exported commodities increased between 2000 and 2009 for every country in our study except Bolivia and Malaysia.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Environment, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, Malaysia, Brazil, Argentina, Latin America, and Bolivia
45. The Global Arctic: The Growing Arctic Interests of Russia, China, the United States and the European Union
- Author:
- Juha Käpylä and Harri Mikkola
- Publication Date:
- 08-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
- Abstract:
- With exciting economic opportunities and serious environmental challenges, the Arctic is transforming and re-emerging as a geopolitically important region. Major global players within and without the Arctic are paying greater attention to the region. While Russia is a traditional Arctic state with significant economic and security interests in the region, China, the US and the EU have also expressed their Arctic interests more explicitly. They are keen to tap into the economic potential and have a say in the way the region becomes accessed, exploited and governed. As a result, the Arctic is no longer a spatially or administratively confined region, but is instead taking its new form in the midst of contemporary global politics. The globalization and economization of the Arctic will most likely downplay environmentalism and reduce the relative influence of the indigenous people and small Arctic states in Arctic affairs. Arctic governance is also likely to turn more complex and complicated as the economic and political stakes are raised.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Development, International Trade and Finance, Oil, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, China, and Europe
46. China and the Arctic: China's Interests and Participation in the Region
- Author:
- Kai Sun
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
- Abstract:
- As China's presence in the Arctic grows, international attention on China in the Arctic also grows. This paper clarifies why China is interested in the Arctic and its role in joining the Arctic play, and touches on future trends in this regard. The paper begins with a discussion of China's recent Arctic capacity building and diplomacy, and the surge of interest in Arctic affairs by Chinese social scientists and strategists in recent years. China looks north for basically four reasons: it is influenced by environmental changes in the Arctic; it is drawn by the business opportunities arising from the opening of the Arctic passages and better access to Arctic resources; and it is also committed to maintaining good governance in the Arctic — which is also in its best interests.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, Oil, Natural Resources, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- China and Israel
47. Africa's Booming Oil and Natural Gas Exploration and Production: National Security Implications for the United States and China
- Author:
- David E. Brown
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- The frenetic search for hydrocarbons in Africa has become so intense and wide ranging that there is planned or ongoing oil and gas exploration in at least 51 of the continent's 54 countries. Knowledge about Africa's geology is improving rapidly, generating great optimism about the continent's energy future. Onshore and offshore rifts and basins created when the African continent separated from the Americas and Eurasia 150 million years ago are now recognized as some of the most promising hydrocarbon provinces in the world. Offshore Angola and Brazil, Namibia and Brazil, Ghana and French Guyana, Morocco and Mexico, Somalia and Yemen, and Mozambique and Madagascar are just a few of the geological analogues where large oil fields have been discovered or are be-lieved to lie. One optimistic but quite credible scenario is that future discoveries in Africa will be around five timestheir current level based on what remains un-explored on the continent versus currently known sub-soil assets. If proven true, this could have a pro-foundly positive impact on Africa's future growth and strategic position in the global economy.
- Topic:
- Economics, Human Rights, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, China, America, Eurasia, Asia, Brazil, Yemen, Mozambique, Mexico, Morocco, Somalia, Angola, Ghana, Namibia, Guyana, and Moldavia
48. Canada-US Arctic Marine Corridors and Resource Development
- Author:
- James Manicom, John Higginbotham, and Andrea Charron
- Publication Date:
- 11-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
- Abstract:
- The shrinking Arctic ice cap is creating unprecedented geophysical change in the circumpolar region, a trend that is very likely to continue. Together, this “great melt” and the delineation of extended national economic zones afford increased access to economic resources in the Arctic Ocean. Intense activities in commercial, investment, diplomatic, legal, scientific and academic sectors abound in the new Arctic, but the region's long-term significance is only gradually penetrating North American public consciousness. Media reports such as the recent, virtually ice-free trans-polar transit of a Chinese icebreaker through the Russian Northern Sea Route, or the transit of the Northwest Passage by a large cruise ship, are only the tip of the proverbial economic iceberg. In preparing for the commercialization of the Arctic Ocean, Canada and the United States, as major nations bordering the Arctic, face enormous opportunities in protecting economic and environmental interests; however, a number of challenges impede the fulfillment of this vision.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Environment, Oil, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, China, Canada, and North America
49. Is Chinese FDI pushing Latin America into natural resources?
- Author:
- Miguel Pérez Ludeña
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
- Abstract:
- Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America is a recent phenomenon. Although the China National Petroleum Corporation and other companies have been present in Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela since the early 1990s, large projects have been pursued only since 2006, following an extended period of high commodity prices. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimated that there were US$ 15 billion of Chinese FDI inflows into Latin America in 2010, 90% of which were in extractive industries. This further contributed to the already high percentage of Chinese FDI flows to the region that are in natural resources. At a time of high economic growth fueled by commodity exports and strong currency appreciation (particularly in Brazil), FDI into extractive industries strengthens the region's specialization in primary products at the expense of manufacturing and other activities.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Natural Resources, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- China, Brazil, Latin America, and Peru
50. Chinese Investment in Latin American Resources: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Author:
- Theodore H. Moran, Julia Muir, and Barbara Kotschwar
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Abstract:
- China's need for vast amounts of minerals to sustain its high economic growth rate has led Chinese investors to acquire stakes in natural resource companies, extend loans to mining and petroleum investors, and write long-term procurement contracts for oil and minerals in Africa, Latin America, Australia, Canada, and other resource-rich regions. These efforts to procure raw materials might be exacerbating the problems of strong demand; "locking up" natural resource supplies, gaining preferential access to available output, and extending control over the world's extractive industries. But Chinese investment need not have a zero-sum effect if Chinese procurement arrangements expand, diversify, and make more competitive the global supplier system. Previous Peterson Institute research (see Moran 2010) and new research undertaken in this paper, show that the majority of Chinese investments and procurement arrangements serve to help diversify and make more competitive the portion of the world natural resource base located in Latin America. For a more comprehensive analysis, the authors conduct a structured comparison of four Peruvian mines with foreign ownership: two Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-based, and two Chinese. They examine what conditions or policy measures are most effective in inducing Chinese investors to adopt international industry standards and best-practices, and which are not. They distill from this case study some lessons for other countries in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere that intend to use Chinese investment to develop their extractive sectors: first, that financial markets bring accountability; second, that the host country regulatory environment makes a significant difference; and third, that foreign investment is a catalyst for change.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- China, Canada, Latin America, and Australia