Justice and adaptation to climate change in the Asia Pacific region : designing international institutions

Many developing states argue that they should be compensated for the costs of adapting to climate change. They point out that industrialised states are responsible for the bulk of historical greenhouse gas emissions and per capita first world emissions continue to dwarf developing world emissions. Yet, given the substantial internal inequality and rapidly rising emissions within developing states such as China and India, the same arguments that justify international adaptation compensation might equally justify internal redistributive measures. This paper addresses the question of how international institutions that fund adaptation to anthropogenic climate change should be designed. After reviewing both communitarian and cosmopolitan arguments about adaptation assistance we propose that a more just and more effective international agreement on climate change adaptation must achieve a higher degree of consistency between the principles of burden sharing applied internationally and domestically. Adaptation assistance should target human welfare directly rather than through compensation payments between states. The application of these arguments is briefly demonstrated primarily by use of China as an example

Author rights, open access, and you!

Librarians present a session on author rights, copyright and permissions, and best practices for curating faculty members’ online presence, and talk about the benefits of making one’s work openly available on DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU

The non-cooperator pays principle : pragmatic norms and the US-China mitigation standoff

If the US and EU agree to stringent emission targets in a post-Kyoto successor agreement but China does not, would carbon tariffs on Chinese imports be justified? A dominant view of climate justice affirms the \u27polluter pays principle\u27 as the most appropriate distributive principle for allocating the costs of mitigating climate change and asserts that carbon tariffs on developing world imports are unjust. Against this widely accepted standard of justice this paper defends the appropriateness of more pragmatic climate norms. In particular the paper defends a forward-looking \u27non-cooperator pays\u27 principle which states that under the condition of anarchy, actors negotiating to secure a public good that cannot be provided without wide-spread cooperation are justified in seeking to induce cooperation by imposing costs on non-cooperators, even if this cost-allocation would be considered unjust in the absence of the collective action problem. This principle’s most likely application would be in the form of border tax adjustments (or carbon tariffs) that equalise the embodied cost of greenhouse gas emissions on imports and exports. This position is contextualised within a broader argument that the climate regime’s norm of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ is a barrier to the creation of an effective international climate agreement. Taking the interests of the most vulnerable climate victims seriously may require us to move beyond existing conceptions of inter-state justice and to accept that the distribution of costs under a climate agreement that is both effective and politically viable may not reflect historical responsibility

Revolutionary or evolutionary? Making research data management manageable

This chapter investigates the role of academic librarians, particularly those at small liberal arts institutions, in providing research data management services. Research data management may not seem like an obvious fit for curricular libraries whose primary mission is supporting teaching rather than faculty research, nor is data curation an obvious need for schools without a data repository or staff who specialize in the preservation and dissemination of data. Yet numerous reports cite data management and data services as critical services for the future of academic libraries (ACRL Planning and Review Committee, 2013; Johnson, 2014; Cox, 2013; Tenopir, 2012). The question raised, then, is how and why are data management services important in the liberal arts context? What can librarians at these institutions do to develop expertise in this growing area of the profession? What services are college and university libraries beginning to provide, and how successfully can existing models be adapted to other institutions? Does the addition of data services transform the mission of liberal arts libraries, and if so, is that transition revolutionary or evolutionary? Liberal arts librarians, as they have with numerous other shifts and trends in librarianship, can turn to models in the literature from research universities, develop communities of practice amongst themselves, and also innovate from within their own unique contexts. The authors argue that such collaboration and innovation reflect an evolutionary process as librarians build on existing skills, strategies, workflows, and knowledge. The following pages of this chapter survey the current environment, offer case studies from two small liberal arts institutions, the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University and Carleton College, and provide readers with recommended action steps to develop a path of gradual, manageable, shared, and sustainable work in research data management

Operationalising sustainability? Why sustainability fails as an investment criterion for safeguarding the future

Policy instruments promoting sustainability, such as investment taxonomies, are playing an increasing role in guiding the allocation of financial resources internationally. But can policy instruments define sustainability in ways that are both operational (i.e. assessable via replicable procedures) and which specify practices that can reliably be expected to enhance future generations' welfare? This paper analyses candidate definitions of sustainability and identifies a dilemma: while various definitions identify a ‘capital’ variable whose value can indeed be determined empirically; we have no reason to assume that preservation of any specific capital variable will maximise expected future welfare. By contrast, sustainability can be defined ‘dynamically’ in terms of activities that will, on expectation, lead to future developmental trajectories with high welfare. But, as we show through discussion of concrete examples, ‘dynamic sustainability’ cannot readily be operationalised. We conclude that what qualifies as ‘sustainable’ will remain a subject of political dispute and that authoritative comprehensive assessments of ‘sustainability’ will remain chimeric. We suggest that selecting a narrow class of specific measures, such as of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, might lead to more effective and less contentious approaches to resource allocation

Revolutionary or Evolutionary? Adapting Best Practices for Data Management

Looking for ways to talk to researchers about data management? Wondering whether text, video, and image collections “count” as data? Daunted by the idea of helping someone write a data management plan? Never fear! In this workshop-style session, you will learn how you can support researchers and students with their data projects by building on existing librarian knowledge, skills, and practices. Through discussion and interactive exercises, this session will familiarize you with key concepts and tools you’ll need to start assisting with and planning services for data management, curation, and data literacy

Workshop: How prepared is healthcare for the future?

This interactive workshop organised by RCA and engineering firm WSP sets out to design and understand the criteria for cities to meet the healthcare needs of their rapidly growing and ageing populations, exploring issues such as quality, access, equity, affordability and sustainable development

Incidence and Clinical Predictors of Ocular Candidiasis in Patients with Candida

Purpose. The aim of this study is to determine the incidence and the predictors of ocular candidiasis among patient with Candida fungemia. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the charts of all patients diagnosed with candidemia at the University of Kansas Medical Center during February 2000–March 2010. Data regarding patients’ demographics, clinical characteristics, laboratory results, and ophthalmology examination findings were collected. Results. A total of 283 patients with candidemia were enrolled. The mean age (± standard deviation) was 55 ± 18 years; 66% were male. The most commonly isolated Candida species were C. albicans (54%), C. parapsilosis (20%), C. glabrata (13%), and C. tropicalis (8%). Only 144 (51%) patients were evaluated by ophthalmology; however, the proportion of patients who were formally evaluated by an ophthalmologist increased during the study period (9%in 2000 up to 73%in 2010; P<0.0001). Evidence of ocular candidiasis was present in 18 (12.5%) patients. Visual symptoms were reported by 5 of 18 (28%) patients. In multivariable analysis, no predictors of ocular candidiasis were identified. Conclusions. The incidence of ocular candidiasis among patients with fungemia remains elevated. Most patients are asymptomatic and therefore all patients with candidemia should undergo fundoscopic examination to rule out ocular involvement