Activities and Achievements: Progress Report 2011-2013

We joined the University of Massachusetts Boston in the fall of 2010 to develop a new doctoral program in global governance and human security, the first of its kind in the United States. In the spring of 2011, we launched the Center for Governance and Sustainability in an effort to bring academic rigor to real-world policy challenges in environment, development, and sustainability governance. The Center is housed at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, which takes pride in offering a world-class interdisciplinary education and engaging in values-driven research, demonstrating a deep commitment to making a difference in our local and global communities. Over the past two years, we have engaged in analytical and political debates ranging from the future of the architecture for global environmental governance and the development agenda beyond 2015 to the role of private actors and emerging powers in global governance writ large. Our work spans three dimensions: (1) global governance for the environment and development, (2) assessment of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) implementation, and (3) innovative governance instruments. Three think-pieces frame this report. Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the climate change convention; Gus Speth, former UNDP Administrator and Dean of Yale’s Environment School; and Alice Odingo, professor at the University of Nairobi, offer perspectives on core aspects of the Center’s mission. At the end, an at-a-glance map of people, places, and projects illustrates that within two short years, we find ourselves represented across the globe through the people we work with and the projects we advance. We look forward to engaging with you in an effort to bring about more-informed decision making and inspired scholarship across scales and geographies

Four problems with global carbon markets: a critical review

This article offers a critique of global carbon markets and trading, with a special focus on the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. It explores problems with the use of tradable permits to address climate change revolving around four areas: homogeneity, justice, gaming, and information. Homogeneity problems arise from the non-linear nature of climate change and sensitivity of emissions, which complicate attempts to calculate carbon offsets. Justice problems involve issues of dependency and the concentration of wealth among the rich, meaning carbon trading often counteracts attempts to reduce poverty. Gaming problems include pressures to promote high-volume, least-cost projects and the consequences of emissions leakage. Information problems encompass transaction costs related to carbon trading and market participation and the comparatively weak institutional capacity of project evaluators

America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy

The New Economy Movement, as Gar Alperovitz described it in The Nation, is an effort to unite the various wings of progressive politics into a coherent set of ideas and programs that will be radically different from the current free-market paradigm. The movement arises out of environmentalism: the era of climate change, it asserts, demands a much deeper rethinking of American institutions than much of the political establishment is willing to contemplate. This book, as its title suggests, is the New Economy Movement\u27s manifesto. Gus Speth argues that America faces four problems of such magnitude that any one of them could seriously undermine the nation. All four together will almost certainly lead to a crisis, especially since the problems interact with each other. The four problems are: 1. the growth of inequality in our country, which is not only an economic burden but a social one, as it is creating classes of people who have little knowledge of or sympathy for each others\u27 lives, and little commitment to addressing the problems of others; 2. the increasingly onerous burden of foreign military commitments; 3. climate change; 4. our increasingly polarized and dysfunctional politics. It\u27s the interactions that are the most frightening: how, for instance, will the U.S. respond to sea-level rise in Bangladesh that forces tens of millions of people to flee the coast for higher ground? This would not only create a humanitarian crisis but a diplomatic and military one as well. America, politically paralyzed and economically almost bankrupt, would be called upon to act or cede its strategic supremacy --Provided by publisher.https://scholar.dominican.edu/cynthia-stokes-brown-books-big-history/1060/thumbnail.jp

Human Development Report 1997

xi,244 hlm.; 30 c

Environmental Law: Time to Reboot

Presentation given by James Gustave Speth at the 2016 David Sive Memorial Lecture

Environmental Law: Time to Reboot

Presentation given by James Gustave Speth at the 2016 David Sive Memorial Lecture

World Apart: Globalization and the Environment

xiii, 180 hlm.; 23 cm

America and the Crisis of the Global

The “Afterword ” prepared for th