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17732. Financing the answer to climate change: challenging but feasible
- Author:
- Clémentine d'Oultremont
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- An agreement on climate finance is crucial to ensure an equitable approach between developed and developing countries in the fight against climate change. Given their economic capabilities and their historical responsibility for global warming, developed countries are expected to bear the majority of the costs associated with global climate action. The Cancun Agreements formalise a commitment by developed countries to jointly provide USD 30 billion for the period between 2010 and 2012 and USD 100 billion annually by 2020 for developing countries. This funding will be balanced between adaptation and mitigation and is destined primarily for the most vulnerable developing countries. The objective is to help developing countries adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and to undertake mitigation actions so as to bring them towards a low-carbon economy.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Industrial Policy, and Treaties and Agreements
17733. Europe deploys towards a civil-military strategy for CSDP
- Author:
- Sven Biscop (Ed) and Jo Coelmont (Ed)
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- Why does Europe develop the military and civilian capabilities that it does? Why does it undertake the military and civilian operations that it does? And why in other cases does it refrain from action?
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
- Political Geography:
- Europe
17734. Worse, not Better ? Reinvigorating Early Warning for Conflict Prevention in the Post Lisbon European Union
- Author:
- John Brante, Chiara De Franco, Christoph Meyer, and Florian Otto
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The number and lethality of conflicts has been declining significantly since the end of the Cold War, but five new armed conflicts still break out each year. While costly peace-making, stabilisation and reconstruction efforts have helped to end conflicts, no comparative efforts have gone into preventing them from occurring in the first place. The international community appears stuck in the never-ending travails of managing crises, finding it difficult to act early to prevent new conflicts from escalating. Encouraging signs that this is changing include the United Nations (UN) promotion of the preventive arm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the United States' efforts to improve its capacity to prevent conflicts and mass atrocities emerging from the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Similarly, since the launch of the Gothenburg programme in 2001, the European Union (EU) has embraced the case for conflict prevention in policy documents as well as in the Lisbon Treaty itself, making it a hallmark of its approach to international security and conflict in contrast to conventional foreign policy. Yet, it has fallen significantly short in translating these aspirations into institutional practice and success on the ground. It suffers from the 'missing middle' syndrome between long-term structural prevention through instruments such as conditionality for EU accession and development policy, and short-term responses to erupting crisis through military and civilian missions.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Peace Studies, War, Armed Struggle, and Peacekeeping
- Political Geography:
- Europe and United Nations
17735. The Reform of European Economic Governance : Towards a Sustainable Monetary Union?
- Author:
- Stijn Verhelst
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The euro is a rather unusual currency as it is shared by a union of largely independent states. This results in a single supranational monetary union, while most 'economic' matters are decided on a national level. A key challenge in such a system is to ensure that the different levels of decision-making do not undermine the advantages of the common currency. For this reason, the European monetary union has been buttressed by economic integration, resulting in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).
- Topic:
- Debt, Economics, Monetary Policy, Financial Crisis, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
17736. Death of an Institution. The end for Western European Union, a future for European defence?
- Author:
- Graham Messervy-Whiting and Alyson J. K. Bailes
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- On 31 March 2010 the ten Member States of Western European Union (WEU) announced that the last organs, staffs and activities of that institution would be laid to rest by 30 June 2011. Having resiled from the Modified Brussels Treaty (MBT) of 1954 which created WEU as a successor to the Western Union of 1948, these nations are now working to dispose of the staff, premises and archives at WEU's Brussels offices and its Parliamentary Assembly in Paris. Little public interest has been shown in these moves, perhaps because WEU's operational and political work had already been taken over by the European Union (EU), in the frame of its new European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), at the end of 1999.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Europe
17737. A new Geography of European power?
- Author:
- James Rogers
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The naval historian and geostrategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, understood the utility of military power perhaps better than anyone before or since. In an article called The Place of Force in International Relations – penned two years before his death in 1914 – he claimed: 'Force is never more operative then when it is known to exist but is not brandished' (1912). If Mahan's point was valid then, it is perhaps even more pertinent now. The rise of new powers around the world has contributed to the emergence of an increasingly unpredictable and multipolar international system. Making the use of force progressively more dangerous and politically challenging, this phenomenon is merging with a new phase in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, many European governments are increasingly reluctant – perhaps even unable – to intervene militarily in foreign lands. The operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that when armed force is used actively in support of foreign policy, it can go awry; far from re-affirming strength and determination on the part of its beholder, it can actually reveal weakness and a lack of resolve. Half-hearted military operations – of the kind frequently undertaken by democratic European states – tend not to go particularly well, especially when there is little by way of a political strategy or the financial resources needed to support them. A political community's accumulation of a military reputation, which can take decades, if not centuries, can then be rapidly squandered through a series of unsuccessful combat operations, which dent its confidence and give encouragement to its opponents or enemies.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Armed Struggle
- Political Geography:
- Europe
17738. The Single Market in need of a strategic relaunch
- Author:
- Tinne Heremans
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- On the 27th of October 2010 the Commission finally published its long-awaited Communication “Towards a Single Market Act” with the ambitious objective of relaunching the Single Market. It is beyond doubt that the market integration project is indeed in need of a serious boost. On the one hand, the “acquis” should be buttressed more firmly against protectionist reactions, citizen distrust and integration lethargy more generally. On the other hand, the untapped growth potential – in domains suffering from persistent bottlenecks as well as in new sectors – needs to be better exploited. It will however be argued in this contribution that, in its present form, the Commission's “Draft Single Market Act” (Draft SMA) does not contain all the strategic building blocks needed to address the key challenge of reengaging the different actors in the market integration project and genuinely revamp the Single Market. Therefore, on the basis of an examination of the gaps and defaults in the Draft SMA's approach, and against the background of the preparatory documents presented by Mario Monti and the European Parliament, some suggestions for possible strategic improvements to be included in the final SMA will be made.
- Topic:
- Economics, Markets, Regional Cooperation, and Monetary Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
17739. Renewed Financial Supervision in Europe – Final or transitory?
- Author:
- Stijn Verhelst
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- In order to obtain financial sector stability, adequate financial regulation and supervision are paramount. Despite their crucial role, both failed to prevent or at least mitigate the financial crisis. While financial regulation strives to impose a set of rules that ensure a safe and resilient financial sector, it has proven to contain too many gaps and loopholes.
- Topic:
- Debt, Economics, Markets, Monetary Policy, Financial Crisis, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
17740. African dynamics at the climate change negotiations
- Author:
- Jean-Christophe Hoste and Andrew Anderson
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The climate change negotiations in Cancun saved the multilateral negotiation process under the UNFCCC, but what were the African political dynamics at the negotiations? In this Africa policy brief the international climate change negotiations are analysed as a “political marketplace” where international, regional and national agendas meet and have an impact that goes far beyond the theme of the negotiations. It addresses three questions to understand the African political processes at the climate negotiations. First, why did the African Union endorse the Copenhagen Accord after COP 15? Second, why was Kenya so active in the high-level segment of the negotiations in Cancun? Third, what could South Africa do to bring the negotiations forward in Durban?
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Globalization, International Cooperation, Politics, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Africa, South Africa, and Durban