Tag: Environment

Antarctic coastline with snow mountain range visible in the distance. Three small red buildings are visible in the front right lower corner.

Confronting Antarctic Security. Let’s stop chasing spectres at the South Pole!

Written on 17. March 2025. Posted in English, PRIF Spotlight.

Antarctica is often celebrated as a continent of peace and science. All ‘measures of a military nature’ – other than logistic and technical support for scientific endeavours – are prohibited by the Antarctic Treaty, which remains widely observed some 66 years after it was negotiated in 1959. However, conversations about ‘Antarctic security’ appear to be increasing in frequency and salience. Rather than chasing military and national security spectres at the South Pole, we should invest more in diplomatic and political efforts to ensure the ongoing effective and peaceful management of the Antarctic.

Ein Ruderboot im Meer vor einem grünen Küstenabschnitt

Politisierung in Zeiten schwacher politischer Normen: Zum Klima-Gutachten des Internationalen Seegerichtshofs

Written on 18. June 2024. Posted in Deutsch, Socio-Ecological Transformation Conflicts.

Ende Mai legte der Internationale Seegerichtshof ein mit Spannung erwartetes Gutachten vor. Eine Gruppe kleiner Inselstaaten hatte den Seegerichtshof im Dezember 2022 angerufen, um die Frage zu klären, was die Pflichten der Vertragsstaaten des Seerechtübereinkommens für den Klimaschutz umfassen. Der Seegerichtshof kam zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Staaten verpflichtet sind, die Meeresverschmutzung zu verhindern. Auch wenn das Gutachten rechtlich nicht bindend ist, dürfte es Auswirkungen auf die weitere Entwicklung der Rechtsprechung zum Klimaschutz haben. Zugleich ist fraglich, wie groß die normative Wirkung des Gutachtens sein kann, da die über den Kern des Völkerrechts hinausgehende regelbasierten Ordnung zurzeit an Bedeutung verliert.

Photograph of a landscape with four wind turbines.

Resisting Energy Transition? Understanding Roadblocks in Northern Colombia

Written on 13. May 2024. Posted in English, PRIF Spotlight, Socio-Ecological Transformation Conflicts.

La Guajira in northern Colombia has seen a disproportionate number of roadblocks recently, especially connected to wind park construction sites, staged by people demanding that the state implement economic, social, and physical security improvements. This conflict is an example of local impacts of the global energy transition on historically marginalized people. In this Spotlight we argue that La Guajira is a prime case showing how the energy transition is leveraged to indirectly address the state through private companies.

Socio-ecological Transformation Conflicts: A Central Field of Conflict and Research in the 21st Century

Written on 2. April 2024. Posted in English, Socio-Ecological Transformation Conflicts.

Conflicts over climate and energy policy, security and geopolitical dimensions of global decarbonisation, or human and environmental rights violations in global value chains: The current socio-ecological transformation is causing new and exacerbating existing socio-political conflicts that will characterise the 21st century. The new working group on socio-ecological transformation conflicts, which introduces some of its fields of research in this blog series, brings together existing expertise on these conflicts at PRIF.

<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kakhovka_HES.jpg">Der Kachovka-Staudamm am Fluss Dnepr wurde am 6. Juni 2023 zerstört.</a> | Foto: <a href="https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A3%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA:GennadyL">
Липунов Дмитрий via wikimedia commons </a> | Public Domain

Der dramatische Dammbruch von Kachovka und seine kurz- und langfristigen Folgen

Written on 6. June 2023. Posted in Deutsch, Russia-Ukraine War.

Am Morgen des 6. Juni 2023 wurde gemeldet, dass der Kachovka-Staudamm zerstört wurde, und dass dadurch weite Gebiete flussabwärts, inklusive der Großstadt Cherson, durch eine Flutwelle bedroht werden würden. Der ukrainische Präsident Selensky macht für diese Katastrophe Russland, welches seit dem 24. Februar 2022 den Damm und das dazugehörige Wasserkraftwerk besetzt und kontrolliert hat, verantwortlich. Ob durch eine gezielte Sprengung oder durch grobe Fahrlässigkeit, der Dammbruch hat dramatische kurz- und langfristige Folgen für die Südukraine in Bezug auf Landwirtschaft, Wassersicherheit sowie auch den Schutz vor einem radioaktiven Unfall.

Is Antarctica Still Exceptional? The Case for “Co-opetition” at the South Pole

Written on 15. May 2023. Posted in English, PRIF Spotlight, Regime Competition in a Fragmented World.

Antarctic diplomacy has famously shielded the continent of peace, science, and environmental protection from outside conflict and war. This “exceptionalism” is now being tested by Russia’s war against Ukraine and the belief that international strategic competition between great powers is spilling over into the Antarctic. In order to keep the Antarctic exceptional, however, it would be wise to refocus on what has made Antarctic diplomacy so successful in the first place: cooperation in order to compete, or “co-opetition.”

Stopping the Biodiversity Apocalypse: Existential Threats and Ecological Justice at COP15 in Montreal

Written on 15. December 2022. Posted in English.

Global biodiversity is in a deep crisis. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke of a “biodiversity apocalypse” and of “humanity as a weapon of mass destruction”. The COP15 gathering in Montreal from 7-19 December is tasked with finding a new global framework for effectively protecting global biodiversity. Despite of the scale and speed of biodiversity deterioration, the language of security obscures the key aspect of ecological injustice: not all of humanity is causing environmental destruction but specific modes of economic development and the inequitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens between Global North and South, as well as non-human nature.

Am seidenen Faden: Das Freihandelsabkommen zwischen der Europäischen Union (EU) und dem Mercosur

Written on 31. March 2021. Posted in Deutsch.

Zwanzig Jahre lang wurde das Freihandelsabkommen zwischen der EU und dem Mercosur verhandelt, im Juni 2019 wurde eine Einigung über den Handelsteil erzielt, doch die Ratifizierung lässt auf sich warten und steht aktuell unter keinem guten Stern. Trotz breiter Kritik sind zwar noch letzte Hoffnungsschimmer ersichtlich, insgesamt weisen die aktuellen Entwicklungen jedoch in Richtung des Scheiterns.

Protests against new fracking projects in Colombia

Written on 1. February 2021. Posted in English.

A new fracking initiative has been formalized by the Colombian government in cooperation with the state enterprise Ecopetrol. The first of four exploratory projects will take place in Puerto Wilches, a small community located next to the Magdalena River, one of the largest in Colombia. Fracking has been associated with water pollution, which could lead to severe consequences for local people’s livelihoods and the region as a whole. Social and environmental activists have received death threats and have grown increasingly vulnerable since 2016. Nevertheless, protests have emerged and will likely continue, despite COVID-19 restrictions.

SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic is an Alert: Environment-Related Root Causes of Animal-Borne Diseases Need to be Addressed!

Written on 20. April 2020. Posted in Corona Crises, English.

The novel infectious disease – SARS-CoV-2 – is nature’s alert to humans. Existing research on the links between animal-borne diseases, human behavior and environmental change clearly demonstrate how humans and the environment are intrinsically connected, however currently in a profound imbalance. Already 70% of “new or emerging” diseases that infect humans originate in animals. In the wake of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and associated vast global health, security and economic damage, the environment-related underlying root causes of animal-borne diseases cannot be ignored any longer.

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