Blog Posts
Posted by Åshild Kolås & Uttam Sinha on Wednesday, 1 November 2017
Climate change is not a one-way street of cause and effect. International negotiations on climate change and the reduction of emissions are equally complex. A consistent Indian demand has been green technology transfer from “high-emitting” developed countries. An equally longstanding principle is that of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities, ... Read more »
Posted by Halvard Buhaug on Sunday, 12 February 2017
Despite rapid scientific progress, firm knowledge about the societal consequences of global warming remains limited. What are the implications of climate change for peace and security? Should we expect more wars and more political instability as the world heats up? The real concerns linked to climate change are not about ... Read more »
Posted by Kristian Hoelscher, Hanne Cecilie Geirbo, Ingrid Nytun Christie, Lisbet Harboe & Sobah Abbas Petersen on Tuesday, 18 October 2016
The Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador this week is the most important meeting on cities and development in decades. It will shape the urban agenda of the 21st century. It is now well-known that the world is more urban than rural, with the challenges of 21st century urbanisation firmly ... Read more »
Posted by Nic Marsh on Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Full details of the arms used in the 13 November massacres will emerge in time. This post provides some information on illicit automatic weapons, such as the Kalashnikov, in France, and how they reach illicit markets. Overall, it appears that there is a pool of several thousand illicit military style ... Read more »
Posted by Kristian Hoelscher on Monday, 16 November 2015
Attacks in Paris show how urban security challenges are becoming more complex. They ask difficult questions and present no easy answers. Friday’s attacks in Paris were an alarming reminder of the threats of organised violence in European cities. This comes less than a year after the assault against French satirical ... Read more »
Posted by Marta Bivand Erdal & Zain Ul Abdin on Thursday, 1 October 2015
Deadly heat exposes Pakistan’s power problems. This summer CNBC run a report titled Deadly heat exposes Pakistan’s power problems after more than a thousand people died during heatwaves during the first days of Ramadan. Insufficient preparedness for the heatwave is largely seen as the cause of deaths, yet the context ... Read more »
Political violence correlates strongly with climate: Civil conflict risk is seven to ten times higher in dry and tropical climates than in continental climate zones. Yet, there is little evidence that climatic variability and change are important in understanding this pattern. The prospect of climate change causing forced migration and ... Read more »
Posted by Halvard Buhaug on Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Does climate change constitute a threat to peace and security? Many agree that it does. The US administration’s new National Security Strategy, launched last month, portrays climate change as ‘an urgent and growing threat.’ And this week, a new study appears to add scientific credibility to this concern, suggesting human-caused ... Read more »
The global shift from rural to urban living will be the most important demographic transformation of the 21st century. All great shifts create the opportunity for great fortunes, especially for those with audacious visions who are positioned to capitalize on them. Indian industrialist Ajit Gulabchand runs Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), ... Read more »
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff must see off two fast gaining rivals to win reelection in October. Problems during the World Cup might end up being be her political downfall. With the World Cup underway, the eyes of the world are on the football in Brazil. Off the field though, the ... Read more »
In April, 800 hundred million people began casting their ballots all across India in the largest election the world has ever seen. When we think of voting in India, we often picture a poor elderly villager showing a big ink-stained thumb and boasting a wide smile as proof of democracy ... Read more »
The day after the publication of the latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the effects of climate change, Norwegian daily newspaper Dagsavisen was able to report that Norway’s Minister for Climate and Environment now envisaged a future world with more conflicts. This is in ... Read more »
When Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan known for her work in human rights and environmental conservation, including efforts to fight deforestation, won the Nobel Peace Prize last month, many took note that the Nobel Committee had evidently expanded its notion of “peace.” “Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure ... Read more »