Carbon neutral policy in action: the case of Bhutan

Climate policy across the world is proceeding at a highly variable pace, with some places very committed to decarbonizing their economies and others just beginning. Emerging nations are generally just starting along this journey. However, among the few nation states that have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality, is Bhutan, a least developed country. Carbon neutrality is an ambitious climate policy that is increasingly being recognized as necessary in order to stabilize global temperature rise at 1.5°C. However, Bhutan is likely to face significant challenges in maintaining this status as the country balances its desire to grow in economic opportunities (GDP) and in human happiness (GNH). Little research has been conducted inside the policy processes to better understand how Bhutan will maintain carbon neutrality. Through open-ended, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, this study provides an inside view on the current situation and future challenges that Bhutan may face, along with the complexities associated with implementing and maintaining an ambitious carbon neutral policy. The paper highlights Bhutan's story and how it could be useful for policy learning and knowledge sharing, especially in the context of emerging nations’ climate governance

Antarctica: an inchoate threat to New Zealand’s Security: implications for national policy and the Armed Services

National interest has always exerted a significant influence over the geopolitical affairs of Antarctica. During the first half of the twentieth century national interest was fuelled by the inimical politics of whaling, which of itself created tension amongst those states that had a presence on the Antarctic continent. With the ratification of the Antarctic Treaty in 1961 international anxiety over the prospect of Antarctica becoming a superpower playground with nuclear overtones subsided and the world community accepted an obligation to forthwith protect the continent and its unique environment. However, the advent of the Treaty has not curbed the aspirations of state and non-state parties to exploit Antarctica for both its living and non-living resources. Commercial pressure to gain access to Antarctic resources is likely to intensify in the future once exploitable resources elsewhere in the world become increasingly scarce. Reserves of several strategic resources are projected to reach the point of commercial exhaustion within the first three decades of the 21st century. In the Arctic access to resources such as oil and fish continues to sour relations between otherwise friendly countries and was, in part, is responsible for the militarization of the Arctic Ocean region. If the Arctic represents Antarctica's prophetic twin then New Zealand will face an international relations dilemma unlike any it has previously confronted: should it defend its territorial claim over the Ross dependency or withdraw northwards to secure a Sub-Antarctic bastion? This is a rhetorical question for without being part of an amiable union of countries, securing the Ross dependency will be impossible for New Zealand to achieve. Given that such a union cannot be assured, it is in New Zealand's national interest to be militarily prepared to defend its Sub-Antarctic 'backyard'. Military preparedness in New Zealand is determined by national policy, an amalgam of foreign affairs and defence considerations, which in recent years have failed to recognise Antarctica as an inchoate security threat. Consequently, the New Zealand Defence Forces, despite recent capability upgrades, remain inappropriately equipped and ill-prepared to confront any challenge to the territorial integrity of New Zealand's Sub-Antarctic 'backyard' and the resources it may harbour

Farming for What, for Whom? Agriculture and Sustainability Governance in Mexico City

abstract: City governments are increasingly incorporating urban and peri-urban agriculture into their policies and programs, a trend seen as advancing sustainability, development, and food security. Urban governance can provide new opportunities for farmers, but it also creates structures to control their activities, lands, and purposes. This study focused on Mexico City, which is celebrated for its agricultural traditions and policies. The study examined: 1) the functions of urban and peri-urban agriculture that the Government of Mexico City (GMC) manages and prioritizes; 2) how the GMC’s policies have framed farmers, and how that framing affects farmers’ identity and purpose; and 3) how the inclusion of agrarian activities and lands in the city’s climate-change adaptation plan has created opportunities and obstacles for farmers. Data was collected through participant observation of agricultural and conservation events, informal and semi-structured interviews with government and agrarian actors, and analysis of government documents and budgets. Analysis of policy documents revealed that the GMC manages agriculture as an instrument for achieving urban objectives largely unrelated to food: to conserve the city’s watershed and provide environmental services. Current policies negatively frame peri-urban agriculture as unproductive and a source of environmental contamination, but associate urban agriculture with positive outcomes for development and sustainability. Peri-urban farmers have resisted this framing, asserting that the GMC inadequately supports farmers’ watershed conservation efforts, and lacks understanding of and concern for farmers’ needs and interests. The city’s climate plan implicitly considers farmers to be private providers of public adaptation benefits, but the plan’s programs do not sufficiently address the socioeconomic changes responsible for agriculture’s decline, and therefore may undermine the government’s climate adaptation objectives. The findings illuminate the challenges for urban governance of agriculture. Farms do not become instruments for urban sustainability, development, and food security simply because the government creates policies for them. Urban governments will be more likely to achieve their goals for agriculture by being transparent about their objectives, honestly evaluating how well those objectives fit with farmers’ needs and interests, cultivating genuine partnerships with farmers, and appropriately compensating farmers for the public benefits they provide.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Sustainability 201

Financing Environmental Change: A New Role for Canadian Environmental Law

Financial institutions occupy a central role in equity and debt markets, providing the finance that shapes economic development and thus environmental pressures. Environmental regulation has traditionally focused on development itself but not those that financially sponsor developers. To achieve an environmentally sustainable economy in Canada, new regulations and policies to promote environmentally friendly financing in the financial services sector are necessary. This article explains why financing environmental change is crucial, surveys the main private financial institutions in Canada relevant to this task, and makes recommendations on how financial regulation and its broader institutional context can be reformed to support sustainable development

Financing Environmental Change: A New Role for Canadian Environmental Law

Financial institutions occupy a central role in equity and debt markets, providing the finance that shapes economic development and thus environmental pressures. Environmental regulation has traditionally focused on development itself but not those that financially sponsor developers. To achieve an environmentally sustainable economy in Canada, new regulations and policies to promote environmentally friendly financing in the financial services sector are necessary. This article explains why financing environmental change is crucial, surveys the main private financial institutions in Canada relevant to this task, and makes recommendations on how financial regulation and its broader institutional context can be reformed to support sustainable development

Continuity, communion and the dread: the Maori Rastafari of Ruatoria, Aotearoa-New Zeland

This thesis is based upon ethnographic field research conducted in and around the predominantly Māori-populated town of Ruatoria; a small rural settlement situated in the sparsely inhabited heartland of the iwi (tribe), Ngāti Porou, on the east coast of Aotearoa-New Zealand’s North Island. The thesis investigates the apparent paradox concerning how and why the Jamaican Rastafari movement appeals to, and has invigorated, rather than obliterated the Māoritanga (Māori culture) of a group of Ngāti Porou who self-identify as ‘The Dread’. Thus far, anthropological analyses of the Rastafari movement have tended to characterise its manifestation as a religion of protest, a religion of resistance or a religion of the post-colonially oppressed. In this thesis I destabilise such interpretations by demonstrating that we can best understand The Dread’s assimilation of Rastafari through their articulation of aspects of Māori cosmology charged with promoting communion with God, gods and ancestors. Theoretically, this thesis combines traditional ethnographic explorations of hierarchy, identity, myth and comparative Rastafari, with more recent approaches to the anthropological study of ontology, cosmology, human-ancestor and human-environment relations. I also consider key methodological implications that attention to the latter analytical approaches ensue. By situating my analysis of The Dread’s articulation of cosmology and mythic narrative at the interface of ontology and agency, I tease out what I term the ‘divergent mono-ontological perspectives’ that emanate from disagreements between the primordial siblings over whether to instigate the creation of the cosmos and individuation through an act of rupture, or to remain united within the original cosmogonic whole. As the first ethnographic study to locate an occurrence of Rastafari discourse within an ontological context, this thesis contributes to the literature on Māori cosmology by elucidating the mediation of tensions between autonomy and unity thatcontinues to inform intra-tribal relational dynamics in the Māori present