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321. Reforming the Renewable Fuel Standard

Author:
James Stock
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on Global Energy Policy
Abstract:
The US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was introduced in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and expanded in both scope and duration in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. The policy goals of the RFS program are threefold: - enhance energy security through additional domestic production of biofuels, - support rural economies by expanding the demand for agricultural products, and - expand the development and production of second-generation low–greenhouse gas transportation fuels. The RFS requires the blending of increasing quantities of biofuels into the US surface vehicle transportation fuel supply. These quantities are specified in the EISA but are subject to modification by the US EPA under certain conditions (“waiver authorities”). The EPA issues annual rules specifying the overall fractions of renewable fuels in the fuel supply. The fractional requirements are specified by fuel category: cellulosic, advanced biomass-based biodiesel, other advanced fuels, and total renewable fuels. Compliance with the blending standards is demonstrated by obligated parties (petroleum refiners and importers) retiring electronic certificates, called renewable identification numbers (RINs), when they sell petroleum fuel into the surface transportation fuel supply. RINs, which become available when a renewable fuel is blended into the fuel supply, are tradable and bankable (with limitations). Thus obligated parties have the choice of either producing RINs themselves through blending operations or purchasing RINs on the open market.
Topic:
Energy Policy, International Affairs, and Climate Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

322. US Carbon Tax Design: Options and Implications

Author:
Jason Bordoff and John Larsen
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on Global Energy Policy
Abstract:
While there seem to be no immediate prospects for a national carbon tax in the United States, there is growing interest among some policymakers and thought leaders across the political spectrum. If and when a legislative opening emerges in the coming years, policymakers will need to grapple with a range of important design issues that will determine the effectiveness of a carbon tax in reducing carbon emissions.
Topic:
Energy Policy, International Affairs, and Climate Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

323. "One of the Great Polar Navigators": Captain T.C. Pullen's Personal Records of Arctic Voyages, Volume 1: Official Roles

Author:
Elizabeth Elliot-Meisel and P. Whitney Lackenbauer
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Captain Thomas Charles Pullen (1918-1990), also known as “Pullen of the Arctic,” became a noted authority on and explorer of the Arctic after he took command of the naval icebreaker HMCS Labrador in 1956. After his thirty years of active naval service, Pullen served as an advisor and consultant to government and industry on arctic marine operations for another twenty-four years, earning the reputation as North America’s foremost expert on Arctic navigation and icebreaking. This volume reproduces key diaries and reports on Arctic operations that Pullen wrote in various official capacities over his career. The first part documents his role as the commanding officer of the Labrador during operations in the Canadian Arctic in 1956 and 1957. The second part reproduces his observations as the Government of Canada’s official representative onboard the icebreaking tanker Manhattan during its two transits of the Northwest Passage.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

324. The ICC and the RtoP in a post-interventionist world: Adapting to critique?

Author:
Katja Cruetz
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) principle both seek to respond to mass atrocities. They are products of the heyday of the international liberal order, which allowed the formation of projects based upon interference in the internal affairs of states in order to protect populations from atrocity crimes. The changing international system with the redistribution of power between states has affected these projects by bringing uncontroversial activities to the fore in order to secure state acceptance. Consensus on the RtoP extends to the primacy of the state in protection of its populations, while actions of the international community going beyond assistance and capacity-building are contested, particularly highly coercive ones such as military intervention. Alongside its judicial task of trying perpetrators of international crimes, the ICC has focused on positive complementarity whereby national capabilities are enhanced. It has also engaged in symbolic activities, such as highlighting certain international crimes.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

325. Technology and National Security: The United States at a Critical Crossroads

Author:
James Kadtke and John Wharton
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Rapid globalization of science and technology (S&T) capacity presents a serious and long-term risk to the military and economic security of the United States. To maintain U.S. preeminence, our domestic science and technology enterprise requires a new paradigm to make it more agile, synchronized, and globally engaged. U.S. technological competitiveness depends not only on research but also on legal, economic, regulatory, ethical, moral, and social frameworks, and therefore requires the vision and cooperation of our political, corporate, and civil society leadership. Re-organizing our domestic S&T enterprise will be a complex task, but recommendations presented in this paper could be first steps on the path to maintaining our future technological security.
Topic:
Defense Policy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

326. Migration, Jobs and Wages: Reassessing Benefits and Challenges of Labour Migration

Author:
Jose Ma, Luis Montesclaros, and Mely Caballero-Anthony
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
As Southeast Asian economies become deeply integrated, there are concerns as to whether movement of people through labour migration should be part of this integration. While labour migration offers benefits especially in addressing labour shortage in countries with shrinking working age population, for countries at different levels of economic development, opening up the labour markets presents disadvantages to locals facing more job competition and falling wages. This paper re-examines this debate by analysing a number of factors that have allowed states to maintain their competitiveness and improve wages. By comparing the experiences of a number of countries that have seen rising wages with those countries that saw falling wages with labour migration, and using a statistical (two-sample difference of means) test, this preliminary study shows that labour migration by itself is neither boon nor bane. A more nuanced view is needed, as labour migration’s impacts on wages hinge on the nature of institutional support provided by governments in helping firms to be internationally competitive.
Topic:
Migration and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

327. Being Heard: Engaging young people at SVRI Forum toolkit

Author:
SVRI
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
Every two years, the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) hosts the leading global event in the world on sexual and intimate partner violence – the SVRI Forum. The SVRI has noted an increase in the number of presentations on sexual violence in childhood since the Forum began in 2009. This increase is reflected in the number of initiatives underway globally looking at the connections between violence in childhood and later victimisation and perpetration.3 Whilst SVRI Forums and global programmes are helping to promote joint programming between the violence against children and violence against women fields, child and youth participation in research on sensitive topics remains a challenging issue for many academic researchers. Research presented at the SVRI Forum which includes young people beyond their role as research subjects is also limited, as is the number of young people aged 18-24 years old participating
Topic:
Gender Issues, Human Welfare, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

328. Confronting an “Axis of Cyber”? China, Iran, North Korea, Russia in Cyberspace

Author:
Fabio Rugge
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
The year 2018 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Morris worm, the first malware ever released in the Internet. Thirty years later, technological innovations have dramatically increased the importance of the Internet in virtually every economic, social and political endeavor, tremendously expanding the potential “surface” of cyber attacks. The cyber domain makes it possible to gather privileged information, disrupt industrial processes, create havoc by targeting, for instance, ICT supporting critical infrastructures, and to launch cyber-enabled information warfare campaigns against largely unaware foreign target audiences. Cyberspace, in sum, allows states to achieve strategic results with campaigns that fall below the threshold of the “use of force”, while offering an unprecedented level of plausible deniability, as the real perpetrator of a cyber attack is always difficult to identify with certainty. And yet, this is only the beginning: we are in the midst of a digital revolution. By 2025, with the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the cyber domain will connect more than 75 billion devices, many of which will control key functions of our daily lives and most of our critical infrastructures.
Topic:
International Affairs and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

329. The “Deal of the Century”: The Final Stage of the Oslo Accords

Author:
Joseph Massad
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Abstract:
Donald Trump’s “Deal of the century” is the final phase of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which formalized the final liquidation of the Palestinian anti-colonial national struggle for independence and liberation. The “Deal” is nothing more or less than the last step of the so-called “peace process.” In order to understand the aims of the “Deal,” we need to go back to the Oslo Accords, which anticipated this step and assiduously prepared the ground for it. Since the beginning of the so-called “peace process” inaugurated in Madrid in 1991, the PLO, through its unofficial negotiators, conceded Palestinian rights one by one, in a gradual process culminating in the official PLO signing of the Declaration of Principles in Washington D.C. on September 13, 1993.
Topic:
International Security and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

330. Imran Khan CPEC Diplomacy: Remodelling Trade Politics between Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and China

Author:
James M. Dorsey
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Abstract:
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan lands in Beijing on November 3, the latest head of government to seek a renegotiation of commercial terms and/or focus of projects related to China’s infrastructure and energy-driven Belt and Road initiative. He follows in the footsteps of his Malaysian counterpart, Mahathir Mohamad has suspended US$26 billion in Chinese-funded projects; while Myanmar is negotiating a significant scaling back of a Chinese-funded port project on the Bay of Bengal from one that would cost US$ 7.3 billion to a more modest development that would cost US$1.3 billion in a bid to avoid shouldering an unsustainable debt. China has also witnessed pushback and rising anti-Chinese sentiment in countries as far flung as Kazakhstan, Nepal, and Denmark
Topic:
Diplomacy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus