Special Report
Imprint of the Past: Ecological History of Greenwich Bay, Rhode Island
ESCH, C. G., E. J. Shumchenia, M. Charpentier, AND M. C. PELLETIER. Imprint of the Past Ecological History of Greenwich Bay, Rhode Island. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-12/050, 2012.
Because environmental problems are often caused by an accumulation of impacts over several decades or even centuries, it is necessary to look at the environmental history of an area to understand what happened, and why, before solutions can be devised. This case study of Greenwich Bay, a small sub-estuary of Narragansett Bay, describes the connection between the development in the watershed and the ecology of the bay.
ecbi - THE EUROPEAN CAPACITY BUILDING INITIATIVE
Least Developed, Most Vulnerable: Have Climate Finance Promises Been Fulfilled for the LDCs?
David Ciplet, Timmons Roberts, Mizan Khan, Spencer Fields & Keith Madden
As part of the Copenhagen Accord, wealthy nations pledged to help developing countries transition to a lower-carbon economy and to deal with the current and future impacts of climate change. The pledges were substantial, but by no estimate adequate: US$ 30 billion of ‘fast-start finance’ (FSF) over three years from 2010-2012 which was to be ‘new and additional,’ with a ‘balance’ of funding between mitigation and adaptation.
This paper includes a systematic review of the reports filed to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2012 of the nations that promised to provide this US$ 30 billion in FSF over the period. Expanding upon our FSF assessments for 2010 and 2011 and our 2011 transparency scorecard,we assess whether wealthy nations transparently contributed a fair-share of the US$ 30 billion pledge, while balancing adaptation and mitigation funding, sourcing funds through UNFCCC channels, and without reverting to debt-inducing loans in the place of grants.
This report focuses, in particular, on the extent to which wealthy nations are meeting their obligations to the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs). This is critical given the heightened vulnerability of this group of nations. Over the period from 1980 to 2011, LDCs have experienced 66 percent of all deaths from climate-related disasters, while only constituting 12 of the world’s population.Thus, people in LDCs arefive times more likelyto die from climate-related deaths than those in other parts of the world.
Past Century's Global Temperature Change Is Fastest On Record
In the past 100 years, average temperatures on Earth have changed by 1.3 degrees. Previously, that large of a swing took 5,000 years. That's the word from researchers who pored over temperature data going back to the end of the last ice age.
There's plenty of evidence that the climate has warmed up over the past century, and climate scientists know this has happened throughout the history of the planet. But they want to know more about how this warming is different.
A New Latin American Climate Negotiating Group: The Greenest Shoots in the Doha Desert
Timmons Roberts and Guy Edwards|December 12, 2012 - 2:50pm
Well-worn stories of dinosaurs like the United States and India battling it out in the United Nations climate change negotiations in Doha last week (see my previous post, titled "Doha Climate Change Negotiations: Moving Beyond the Dueling Dinosaurs to Bring Together Equity and Ambition") continue to crowd out other, more positive stories that need to be told. Rather than retelling the story of sticking points between the rich countries of the global North and those of the developing South, it’s crucial to see where something new is breaking through. The greenest shoots we saw at COP18 were from a group of developing countries scarcely mentioned in the media’s fascination with conflict and acrimony between the different Parties and blocs.
THE EIGHT UNMET PROMISES OF FAST-START CLIMATE FINANCE
Wealthy nations are still not meeting their Copenhagen climate finance pledges.
While we await the final numbers from a few contributors, reports submitted to
the UNFCCC in May 2012 show that only two of the ten contributors committed
their ‘fair share’ of fast-start climate finance, assessed on their capability and their responsibility for the problem.
NEW REPORT ON RHODE ISLAND VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE RELEASED, COMMISSION RESULT OF CES STUDENTS' LEGISLATION
In Spring of 2010, Center for Environmental Studies students led by Professor Timmons Roberts drafted the Rhode Island Climate Risk Reduction Act of 2010, legislation that resulted in the creation of the 28 member RI Climate Change Commission. In the wake of Sandy, the Commission released its first report, “RI Climate Commission 2012 Progress Report: Adapting to Climate Change in the Ocean State: A Starting Point." Professor Roberts is Co-Chair of the Health and Welfare working group of the Commission.
2012 LUND CONFERENCE INTERVIEW WITH TIMMONS ROBERTS
Interview held at the Lund Conference on Earth System Governance with Timmons Roberts, Brown University.
You’ve done a lot of work on climate finance; talk a little bit about the difficulties involved in that issue.
You need to keep account of both the contributors and the receivers of these funds. You have to figure out who should get money and who should pay, and how to transfer the funds. This is a huge managerial problem.
David Ciplet, J. Timmons Roberts, Mizan Khan, Linlang He, Spencer Fields
There is an ever-widening chasm between the support developing countries need to adapt to climate change, and the funding promised and delivered by wealthy nations. This paper looks at the Durban negotiations and the steps countries should take to ensure the developed world can meet its agreed responsibilities: establish funding sources based on international trade; define annual targets for the scale-up; and adopt a transparent, centralised accounting system.
David Ciplet, J. Timmons Roberts, Martin Stadelmann, Saleemul Huq, Achala Chandani
In 2009, developed countries pledged US$30 billion of ‘fast-start climate finance’. Transparent reporting on climate finance is essential for governments to plan mitigation and adaptation activities and for civil society to hold contributors and recipients to account for how climate funds are spent. This briefing presents a new scorecard based on the extent to which developed countries meet a set of common-sense criteria in their climate finance reports to the UN. It reveals that we have a long way to go in making climate finance transparent and urgently need an international registry of funds that provides comprehensive, detailed, consistent and transparent accounting and reporting measures at the project level.
The Ecosystems Center was founded in 1975 as a year-round research center of the MBL. Its mission is to investigate the structure and functioning of ecological systems, predict their response to changing environmental conditions, apply the resulting knowledge to the preservation and management of natural resources, and educate both future scientists and concerned citizens.
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More Dollars than Sense: Refining Our Knowledge of Development Finance Using AidData |
Authors: Michael J. Tierney | Daniel L. Nielson | Darren G. Hawkin | J. Timmons Roberts | Michael G. Findley | Ryan M. Powers | Bradley Parks | Sven E. Wilson | Robert L. Hicks
In this introductory essay to the special issue, we introduce a new dataset of foreign assistance, AidData, that covers more bilateral and multilateral donors and more types of aid than existing datasets while also improving project-level information about the purposes and activities funded by aid. We utilize that data to provide a brief overview of important trends in foreign aid.
READ MORE
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Renegades Keep Climate Finance Tracking a Wild WestBy J. Timmons Roberts / Outreach Magazine |
For a stretch of U.S. history back in the 1800s, two forces struggled to impose their social order on the expanses of the nation’s vast Western frontier. On the one side were citizen “settlers” and their officials, trying to impose national laws from the East to make the place safe for building a society where joint problems like safety, land ownership, and building basic infrastructure got dealt with in a consensual and predictable way. On the other side were bands of renegades or “outlaws,” who furtively sought the treasures of the land through their ability to terrorize the settlers and other bands of outlaws.
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Press release: Embargoed until 19 September at 00.01am
Donor nations get low scores on climate finance transparency scorecard
David Ciplet and TimmonsRoberts from Brown University’s Center for Environmental Studies, helped author a score card on the climate finance transparency. Developed countries are being far from transparent about the climate-change finance they promised to developing nations at the Copenhagen summit in 2009, according to a scorecard published today (19 September) by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
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RI Chefs & Farms Raise $48,835 for Farm Fresh RI
Local flavors abounded at the 5th Annual Local Food Fest on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at Castle Hill Inn & Resort in Newport, RI. The event, now in its fifth year, featured a dozen Rhode Island chefs, each paired with a local farm. Chefs prepared dishes featuring the freshest, most seasonal ingredients for a sold out crowd to savor, and Rhode Island vineyards and breweries offered samples. A silent auction, live music from the Fox Point Rounders, and other festivities, all took place overlooking the beautiful bay views from Castle Hill. This year Farm Fresh Rhode Island raised $48,835 for their programs to provide fresh, local food to all Rhode Islanders, thanks to a great team effort and our generous sponsors.
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ARTICLE: RATIONAL ELECTRICITY REGULATION: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND THE PUBLICINTEREST
AUTHOR: JEREMY KNEE
PUBLICATION: WEST VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW, VOLUME 113, SPRING 2011, NUMBER 3
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Outreach - a multi-stakeholder magazine on environment and sustainable development
“A Collective Commitment”? Nailing down Climate Finance in Cancun and Durban
The surprisingly positive conclusion at Cancun was as much about the process as the substance of the two key texts that are now in place to advance the negotiations over the next year leading to Durban. There were standing ovations at the transparent and inclusive process that brought the year of negotiations to a close, putting some of the bad feelings of Copenhagen behind us...
Click here to read more.
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The Mycota of Rhode Island By R. D. Goos
A Checklist of the Fungi Recorded in Rhode Island (Including Lichens and Myxomycetes)
The centerpiece of this peer-reviewed book is a taxonomic listing of fungi, including lichens and myxomycota, known or likely to occur in Rhode Island. Each listing for the approximately 1,700 species includes a taxonomic classification, synonymy, and bibliography, as well as notes on hosts, substrates, medical or economic significance, common name, and status in the state. Other useful features in the book include a short introduction summarizing the history of mycology in Rhode Island, a bibliography of taxonomic and evidentiary sources, 11 pen-and-ink illustrations by Roberta Calore, and an index that includes all taxonomic entries as well as substrates and general topics.
The Mycota of Rhode Island is available from August 2010 directly from RINHS for $60.00 ($54 for RINHS members) +$10 S&H to U.S. addresses.
Order by contacting RINHS by mail at P.O. Box 1858, Kingston, RI 02881, by e-mail at programadmin@rinhs.org, or by phone at 401-874-5800.
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The Huffington Post - 26 November 2010
At climate summit, all eyes on Brazil
Guy Edwards, research fellow in environmental studies, co-authors this op-ed about the world climate summit in Cancun. The article examines whether Brazil will assume the role of leader for developing countries who generally do not have the means to combat global warming and extreme weather events.
Full report online: www.huffingtonpost.com
See news release: today.brown.edu/articles/2010/11/cancun
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18th November 2010
Keeping a big promise: options for baselines to assess “new and additional” climate finance
CIS Working Paper 66/2010Martin Stadelmann (University of Zurich), J. Timmons Roberts (Brown University), Axel Michaelowa (University of Zurich)
Summary
All major climate policy agreements - the UN Framework Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and recently the Copenhagen Accord - have stated that climate finance for developing countries will be ”new and additional”. However, the term “new and additional” has never been properly defined. Agreeing a system to measure a baseline from which “new and additional” funding will be calculated will be central to building trust and realizing any post-Kyoto agreement. We explore eight different options for a baseline, and assess each according to several criteria: novelty to existing pledges, additionally to development assistance, environmental effectiveness, distributional consequences, and institutional and political feasibility. Only two baseline options do well on these criteria and are therefore viable: "new funds only" and "above pre-defined business as usual level of development assistance".
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25th, October 2010
Calculating Commitment to the Climate
BRUSSELS — There was a surge of optimism at the Copenhagen climate conference, when the U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, backed an international aid package worth hundreds of billions of dollars to help poor countries counter threats like rising seas and desertification. The surprise announcement by the United States to join the European Union and other wealthy nations in making the pledges represented a singular moment of global cohesion during an event remembered more for its unremitting acrimony...
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N AT U R E | VO L 4 6 7 | 2 1 O c T O b E R 2 0 1 0
Articles: Ecology - Plant patterns predict collapse :: Drug Development - Worm surgery
on a chip :: Oceanography - Cold water rising in the Pacific :: Energy - Plenty of energy,
not well shared
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October 2010
Copenhagen’s Climate Finance Pledges
A number of commentators have rightly blamed the train wreck in Copenhagen on a lack of trust between parties, especially between developed and developing worlds. Out of the confusion came one seemingly clean and ambitious promise in the Copenhagen Accord that might support rebuilding that trust: “Scaled up, new and additional, predictable and adequate funding…
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Rich nations failing to keep Copenhagen promise to help poor nations adapt to climate-change Research published today shows that developed nations are failing to keep the promise they made last year to provide adequate finance to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The paper — published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) — includes a five-point plan to enable developed nations to fulfill their pledges and build the trust needed to advance the next session of UN climate-change negotiations, which begin on 29 November in Cancun, Mexico.
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Ecological Economics
From constraint to sufficiency: The decoupling of energy and carbon from human needs,
1975–2005 - Julia K. Steinberger a, J. Timmons Roberts bIn this article, we examine the evolving relationships between energy, carbon and indicators of
human development. By conducting a novel longitudinal analysis, we find evidence of previously undescribed secular trends; we project these trends to 2030 and consider their implications.
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Three New ecbi Publications on Climate Finance
Available on the ecbi homepage (www.eurocapacity.org)
Apologies for cross-postings
Climate Finance after Tianjin
How to reach a deal at Cancún?
This ecbi Policy Brief by Benito Müller looks at whether the progress and momentum of the LCA finance negotiations in Tianjin could be harnessed to bring about a successful outcome at Cancun, and what that would be.
How many people does it take…
...to administer long-term climate finance?
David Ciplet, Benito Müller, and J. Timmons Roberts address the question of whether it is possible to give some estimate of how many people it would need to manage the sorts of sums currently talked about with regards to longer-term climate finance.
National Funding Entities
Their role in the transition to a new paradigm of global cooperation on climate change Luis Gomez-Echeverri presents a new report on National Funding Entities (NFEs) in the lead-up to Cancun this December.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Civil society organizations look to build on Cochabamba success in Cancun
In April this year, the First World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth drew over 35,000 people to the Bolivian city of Cochabamba. The challenge it posed to the climate establishment for failing to reach an agreement in Copenhagen, as well as its substantive accomplishments, are considered a revolution in social mobilization around the mounting threat of climate change.
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Preliminary Assessment of RI's Vulnerability to Climate Change and Options for Adaptation Action
Graduate Seminar on Special Topics in Environmental Studies:
Urban Adaptation to Climate Change
Professor Timmons Roberts, Kathryn Birky, Kimberly Damm, Noah Fisher, Dayanch
Hojagyedliyev, Jeremy Knee, Loreana Marciante, Cicely Marshall, Courtney
Mattison, Courtney McCracken, Sara Mersha, Jessica Pagan and Kyle Poyar
March 2010
Copenhagen's climate finance - six key questions
Co-authored by CES Director Timmons Roberts
February 3, 2010
Billions at stake in climate finance: four key lessons
Co-authored by CES Director Timmons Roberts
December 4, 2009
- Wal-Mart and Sustainability: Closing the Eco-Efficiency Gap - MA thesis, Zisa, 2007
- 'Old' Jamestown Bridge - ES 125, Fall 2003
- Climate Change in Rhode Island - Impact Analysis - ES201 Fall 2003
- Enhancing Rhode Island's Urban Forests - ES201 Fall 2003
- Transit-oriented Development- ES201 Fall 2003
- Environmentally Preferable Purchasing for Rhode Island - ES201 Fall 2003
- Vehicle Efficiency Incentive Act - ES201 Fall 2003
- Stormwater Management in the Blackstone and Woonasquatucket Rivers - ES192 Spring 2003
- Strategies for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Transportation- ES 201 - Fall 2002
- Anatomy of a Water Crisis: Lessons Learned from the Pascoag MTBE Water Contamination:
Interview Studies - Summer 2002
Communication Study - 2003 - Identifying Patterns of Ownership and Childhood Lead Poisoning in Providence, RI
- Marissa Rappaport - June 2002 - 2001/2002 Urban Web Theses
- Watershed Council Projects- ES192 - Spring 2002
- 2000/2001 Land Use Web Theses
- Towns of the Pawcatuck Watershed - ES192 - Spring 2001
- Trends in Selected Rhode Island Environmental Indicators - ES201 - Fall 2000
- Greenhouse Gas Inventory - Fall 2000
- Approaching a Watershed - ES192 - Spring 2000
- Livable Providence 2000 Conference - Fall 1999 (not available at this time)