Week in review – politics and policy edition

by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.

International
The UN climate chief is busy lowering expectations for December’s historic climate summit in Paris: [link]
China, India partner on climate change in a rare joint statement from the two countries [link]  …
French climate envoy sees ‘change of perception’ in Russia towards #climatechange [link]
African states are fighting back against big mining and energy companies—with rhetorics [link]
India’s Chief Economic Adviser lays out Govt steps to tackle climate [link]
US
Useful context on Obama’s arctic drilling decision: Arctic oil drilling presents tough environmental tradeoffs. Mixing in climate change only confuses things. [link]
Jeb Bush Signals His Faith Informs His Positions On Climate Change [link]
Bill McKibben in NYTimes: Obama’s catastrophic climate denial [link]
Obama offers welfare to miners out of work from EPA regs [link]
Policy analyses
New World Bank report: To save lives & livelihoods, start by understanding #disaster #risk: [link]
The Dark Side of Development: Displacement, Eviction in World Bank Projects and Ethiopia: [link]
The Nepal earthquakes offer a cautionary tale about the need for states to make disaster risk management a priority: [link]
Francis X Johnson on the science and politics of #bioenergy and #sustainability [link]
Oliver Geden: Paradigm shift in #climate policy (top-down/2C+binding UN treaty->bottom-up/non-binding #INDC) already predicted 2012 [link]  …
Energy
Watch out: In Iowa, its Al Gore vs Tom Steyer on corn ethanol. [link]
China could hold oil market ransom; tops US as world’s largest importer [link]
India punches well above its weight in terms of its expenditure on renewable energy: [link]
Electric giant @SouthernCompany foresees big uses for UAS (#drones) [link]
Survey: Climate change ranks surprisingly low among reasons that people oppose Keystone XL. [link]
Nuclear, the only energy technology with negative learning curve. Finland cancels Olkiluoto4. [link]
Cost of German solar versus nuclear [link]
 
Food
The cutting edge for producing food, might just be the old method for producing food [link]
Threats to soil productivity threaten food security [link]  …
India quietly changes course on GM crop trials http://ow.ly/MZY1P
Water
It’s not just California: The whole Southwest is facing a growing water crunch [link]   …
Why Food Companies Aren’t Prepared To Deal With Water Scarcity [link]
 
 Filed under: Week in review

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