Scott Moore

Climate policy: Steps to China's carbon peak

A high-level, transdisciplinary body of international experts in disaster-risk reduction should be established by national governments and international organizations dealing with disaster risks, with input from various sectors and civil society. Such a body would have the reach and influence — from local communities, businesses and governments — to raise people’s awareness. The same findings presented by an independent scientist or article would not. The main practical difficulties will be in incorporating the field’s diverse information and practices into an assessment, and demonstrating to policy-makers that it need not take a extreme event to cause catastrophic human consequences. Government support for the process will be essential. Synergies must be found by combining and consolidating disaster-risk reduction efforts across UN institutions. Disaster-risk management, climate change and sustainable development targets will need to be aligned. For example, there should be a coordinated assessment of the state of knowledge in disaster risk and its utility for supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Knowledge transfer will make communitybased resilience efforts possible. Illuminating findings, best practices and state-of-the-art modelling must become part of the evidencebased strategy for disaster-risk reduction. ■

Modernisation, authoritarianism, and the environment: the politics of China’s South–North Water Transfer Project

China presents a paradox for scholars of environmental politics. Environmental politics and policymaking in China now includes elements critical to environmental protection in the West, including non-governmental participation and stringent environmental legislation. Yet the country’s authoritarian system constrains popular participation, and environmental outcomes are generally poor. China’s South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) embodies this puzzle: despite the pluralisation and development of environmental politics and policymaking, the SNWTP is a technocratic mega-project that imposes high social, economic, and environmental costs. What explains this puzzle, and what are the implications for understanding environmental politics in other authoritarian developing countries? I evaluate two current theories – Ecological Modernisation and Authoritarian Environmentalism – against the SNWTP case, and argue that it illustrates the ability of governments to co-opt environmental politics to pursue other strategic objectives, in turn necessitating greater attention to the mix of persuasive and coercive strategies in environmental politics.

Exploring and enforcing security guarantees via program dependence graphs

We present PIDGIN, a program analysis and understanding tool that enables the specification and enforcement of precise application-specific information security guarantees. PIDGIN also allows developers to interactively explore the information flows in their applications to develop policies and investigate counter-examples. PIDGIN combines program dependence graphs (PDGs), which precisely capture the information flows in a whole application, with a custom PDG query language. Queries express properties about the paths in the PDG; because paths in the PDG correspond to information flows in the application, queries can be used to specify global security policies. PIDGIN is scalable. Generating a PDG for a 330k line Java application takes 90 seconds, and checking a policy on that PDG takes under 14 seconds. The query language is expressive, supporting a large class of precise, application-specific security guarantees. Policies are separate from the code and do not interfere with testing or development, and can be used for security regression testing. We describe the design and implementation of PIDGIN and report on using it: (1) to explore information security guarantees in legacy programs; (2) to develop and modify security policies concurrently with application development; and (3) to develop policies based on known vulnerabilities.

Hydropolitics and Inter-Jurisdictional Relationships in China: The Pursuit of Localized Preferences in a Centralized System *

Inter-jurisdictional water resource issues constitute a growing political and economic challenge in China. This article examines three such cases of hydropolitics, namely large dam construction, water resource allocation, and downstream water pollution, through the lens of central–local relations. It argues that the hydropolitics in China are characterized by the pursuit of localized preferences within the constraints imposed by a centralized political system. In each case, the primary actors are sub-national administrative units, who adopt various competitive strategies to pursue their own localized interests at the expense of neighbouring jurisdictions. This article argues that although vertical control mechanisms in the Chinese system effectively limit central–local preference divergence, they do little to contain horizontal conflicts between sub-national administrative units. The paucity of formal inter-jurisdictional dispute resolution mechanisms is a major barrier to meeting water resource challenges, and inter-jurisdictional collective action problems are likely to pose growing difficulties for the Chinese political system.

Challenges and Opportunities in GRACE-Based Groundwater Storage Assessment and Management: An Example from Yemen

Sustainable management of groundwater resources is often hampered by information asymmetries between abstracters and managers. At the same time, developments in satellite remote sensing, particularly estimates of groundwater storage using the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE), have dramatically improved water resource assessment. This study examines the potential for GRACE-based assessment of groundwater resources in the context of the persistent challenges of water management in Yemen, which suffers from acute groundwater depletion and water scarcity. By comparing GRACE estimates of groundwater storage change to observed well measurements in Yemen, this study indicates that GRACE can complement institutional water management reform by providing better water resources information, especially in combination with socioeconomic data visualized in a Geographic Information System (GIS). However, the case of Yemen also indicates that commonly accepted principles of water management must be adapted to harness the potential of GRACE-based groundwater storage assessment.

Strategic imperative? Reading China's climate policy in terms of core interests

Chinas policy related to climate change is a complex and seemingly contradictory amalgam of initiatives across a range of policy areas. Nonetheless, a nuanced understanding of Chinas stance on climate change is necessary to understand the process of international climate negotiations. This article seeks to clarify and expand understanding of Chinas climate policy through an analysis of how specific aspects of climate policy relate to the core interests of the Chinese Communist Party. Climate change presents both threats and opportunities to these interests, and it is chiefly the calculus of threat and interest which guides Chinas policy on climate change.

Uncharted Waters: The New Economics of Water Scarcity and Variability

The 21st century will witness the collision of two powerful forces, burgeoning population growth, together with a changing climate. With population growth, water scarcity will proliferate to new areas across the globe. And with climate change, rainfall will become more fickle, with longer and deeper periods of droughts and deluges. This report presents new evidence to advance understanding on how rainfall shocks coupled with water scarcity, impacts farms, firms, and families. On farms, the largest consumers of water in the world, impacts are channeled from declining yields to changing landscapes. In cities, water extremes especially when combined with unreliable infrastructure can stall firm production, sales, and revenue. At the center of this are families, who feel the impacts of this uncertainty on their incomes, jobs, and long-term health and welfare. Although a rainfall shock may be fleeting, its consequences can become permanent and shape the destiny of those who experience it. Pursuing business as usual will lead many countries down a “parched path” where droughts shape destinies. Avoiding this misery in slow motion will call for fundamental changes to water policy around the globe. Building resilience to rainfall variability will require using different policy instruments to address the multifaceted nature of water. A key message of this report is that water has multiple economic attributes, each of which entail distinct policy responses. If water is not managed more prudently, from source, to tap, and back to source, the crises observed today will become the catastrophes of tomorrow.

Peril and promise: a survey of India's strategic relationship with Central Asia

Abstract This article outlines the growing importance of Indias relations with the Central Asian region. In particular, it explores security, economic, and cultural dimensions of the relationship. Important considerations for India in dealing with Central Asia include terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, energy security, and new export markets. Of equal gravity, however, is the nature of great power competition in the heart of Asia. The argument presented here is that Indias relations with Central Asia are calculated to gain strategic depth in the region. However, relationships with Pakistan, the United States, and the Asian great powers tend to constrain these ambitions. The future direction of Indias strategic relationships with Central Asia remains fluid.

Governing the Depths: Conceptualizing the Politics of Deep Sea Resources

The deep sea, defined as those parts of the ocean below 200 meters, is increasingly the site of intensive resource exploitation for fish, minerals, and other uses, yet little thought has been given to effective governance by either scholars or policy-makers. This article provides an overview of existing deep-sea governance arrangements, as well as a description of the barriers to developing a more effective institutional framework, with particular focus on the unique status of the deep sea as part of the common heritage of mankind, the logistical challenges inherent in monitoring resource exploitation in the deep sea, and the lack of available scientific data. We call for greater engagement by political scientists and environmental studies scholars in addressing these challenges and protecting one of Earth’s last true frontiers.

China’s domestic hydropolitics: an assessment and implications for international transboundary dynamics

Abstract This article reviews the dynamics of conflict and cooperation between sub-national administrative jurisdictions in China, and assesses the implications of these dynamics for its transboundary waterways. The article argues that domestic hydropolitics can rival the international variety in both complexity and contentiousness. This is especially true in China because of its marked fiscal-economic decentralization, which creates considerable interjurisdictional conflict. These internal politics may help explain tension between China and its neighbours over transboundary rivers, and future research should attempt to more fully link the domestic and international arenas.