The talk with present the key results of the IPCC Working Group III 5th assessment report. Concluding four years of intense scientific collaboration by hundreds of authors from around the world, the report responds to the request of the world's governments for a comprehensive, objective and policy neutral assessment of the current scientific knowledge on mitigating climate change. The report has been extensively reviewed by experts and governments to ensure quality and comprehensiveness.

Climate change 2014 - Mitigation of climate change

Inclusion and democracy.

The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical. Context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn). We begin with the remarkable Athenian democracy, and its frequent enemy the Spartan oligarchy. In Athens legislation was passed directly by an assembly of all citizens, and executive officials were selected by lot rather than by competitive election. Athenian oligarchs such as Plato more admired Sparta, and their disdain for the democracy became the judgment of the ages, until well after the modern democratic revolutions. Marsilius of Padua in the early Middle Ages argued for popular sovereignty. The Italian citystates of the Middle Ages did without kings, and looked back to Rome and Greece for republican models. During the English Civil War republicans debated whether the few or the many should be full citizens of the regime. The English, French, and American revolutions struggled with justifying and establishing a representative democracy suitable for a large state, and relied on election rather than lot to select officials. The English established a constitutional monarchy, admired in Europe, and adapted by the Americans in their republican constitution. The American Revolution helped inspire the French, and the French inspired republican and democratic revolution throughout Europe during the 19 century.

/pdf/democracy-and-its-critics-2zxg086s7q.pdf

Democracy and Its Critics

Human Development Report 2006

International governance: protecting the environment in a stateless society

Since 2009, CIFOR has implemented the policy component of the Global Comparative Study of REDD+ in fourteen countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Laos, Mozambique, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Tanzania and Vietnam. In analyzing national REDD+ policy arenas and emerging strategies, researchers have developed five areas of work for each country. These include a country profile, media analysis, policy network analysis, strategy assessment and a fifth area of specific policy studies to be determined by emerging research results.This country profile for Tanzania provides an overview on the socioeconomic and political context within which REDD+ policies and processes emerge. It explores the Tanzanian REDD+ policy processes and strategies at the national level, identifying barriers, limits and opportunities in national REDD+ arenas to inform future REDD+ design by providing research-based options for achieving efficient, effective and equitable REDD+ (i.e. the 3Es of REDD+). Both direct and indirect drivers of deforestation and forest degradation are at work, including forest conversion to small-scale agriculture, timber extraction driven by demand from national and international markets, fuelwood and charcoal, and population growth. The prospects for REDD+ rest on improving a number of issues: tenure arrangements, forest governance, reliability of long-term funding, benefit-sharing mechanisms, and technical, human and financial capacity. We recommend the continuation of support towards decentralized sustainable forest management and utilization of the participatory forest management model as an entry point for REDD+ initiatives. Participatory land-use planning practices coupled with improved spatial planning and strengthening mechanisms against illegal activities entrenched in driving forest degradation are needed. In addition, for REDD+ to succeed it will need to challenge and overcome the powerful actors invested in and driving the business-as-usual model.

https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-133.pdf

The context of REDD+ in Tanzania: Drivers, agents and institutions

Responsibilization in natural resources governance: A romantic doxa?

This article discusses the conceptual base of the term of responsive environmental governance. Theme is important, as combining the greater demand for material wealth and sustainable use of natural resources is difficult. Successful and sustainable environmental management is possible only when active local support exists, that is, when governance is responsive. The article argues that action space for citizens on eco-social dependency is called for. People’s participation in decision-making and public debate; clear responsibilities and accountability measures of duty-bearers; and clearly articulated rights of citizens make governance responsive.

Conceptual Reflection on Responsive Environmental Governance

Women's marginalization in participatory forest management: Impacts of responsibilization in Tanzania

Though there is an increasing trend of natural resources governed by local communities, disadvantaged groups who are highly dependent on natural resources are still far behind in terms of being involved in the natural resource governance. When the wider public is included in decision-making in natural resources governance, the ways in which people protect and cope with the changing environment in their daily lives are exposed and can advance the search for alternatives in sustainable development. This paper compares natural resources governance interventions in Nepal and Tanzania, and searches for differences and similarities in the patterns of engagement of disadvantaged groups. The special focus is on Dalits in Nepal and rural women in Tanzania. The study reveals that though disadvantaged groups are included in principle, in practice their special needs are not taken into consideration. Our findings indicate that the formal possibilities for engagement do not provide citizens with sufficient and equal space for meaningfully participation. The theoretical background of the paper builds on two approaches of engagement: Chamber’s view of power at the grassroots and Fung and Wright’s thoughts on empowerment.

/pdf/from-blueprints-to-empowerment-of-disadvantaged-groups-in-2zd0g7czp8.pdf

Maija Anneli Hyle

Papers

The context of REDD+ in Tanzania: Drivers, agents and institutions

Responsibilization in natural resources governance: A romantic doxa?

Conceptual Reflection on Responsive Environmental Governance

Women's marginalization in participatory forest management: Impacts of responsibilization in Tanzania

From Blueprints to Empowerment of Disadvantaged Groups in Natural Resource Governance: Lessons from Nepal and Tanzania