domenica 22 ottobre 2017

Climate Change, Global Warming, Pollution, Environmental Degradation and Renewable and Sustainable Energy

For a summary of the outcomes of and reaction to the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) in Paris November 30-December 12, 2015, see:
https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/paris_en
then background:
some criticism of the agreement (see below also)
Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/business/climate-change-tesla-corporations-paris-accord.html
More general background
You could watch Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ for the background to Climate Change. If you are too mean to buy it you can watch extracts on You Tube. Or you can watch him on TED with various updates. Here are a few:
and then you could go to the Climate Project on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_mr9EqJg18
You should look at the statistics from the International Energy Agency

and for the evolution of the current international agenda see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference

Observations across the United States and world provide multiple, independent lines of evidence that climate change is happening now. Over the past century, human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The majority of greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels to produce energy, although deforestation, industrial processes, and some agricultural practices also emit gases into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases act like a blanket around Earth, trapping energy in the atmosphere and causing it to warm. This phenomenon is called the greenhouse effect and is natural and necessary to support life on Earth. However, the buildup of greenhouse gases can change Earth's climate and result in dangerous effects to human health and welfare and to ecosystems.
Global warming refers to the recent and ongoing rise in global average temperature near Earth's surface. It is caused mostly by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming is causing climate patterns to change. However, global warming itself represents only one aspect of climate change. (That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 80 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. More specifically, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.) Climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, among other effects, that occur over several decades or longer.
Earth's average temperature has risen by 1.5°F over the past century, and is projected to rise another 0.5 to 8.6°F over the next hundred years. Small changes in the average temperature of the planet can translate to large and potentially dangerous shifts in climate and weather. The evidence is clear. Rising global temperatures have been accompanied by changes in weather and climate. Many places have seen changes in rainfall, resulting in more floods, droughts, or intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves. The planet's oceans and glaciers have also experienced some big changes - oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, ice caps are melting, and sea levels are rising. As these and other changes become more pronounced in the coming decades, they will likely present challenges to our society and our environment.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/233/climate-change-and-global-warming-introduction#WhatisGlobalWarmingandClimateChange

Preventing global warming is clearly a collective public good. This means that individuals and individual countries will only really benefit from collective action by the international community as a whole. A strategy that includes only some countries will not be effective. The commitment of both the US and China, originally made in Nov. 2014
The agreement does not include sanctions on states that fail to reduce their CO2 emissions and has been criticized for this by some experts as unlikely to be effective.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/legacy-or-bust/2015/12/17/ab8bd418-a4fa-11e5-9c4e-be37f66848bb_story.html
https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/20/the-trojan-horse-of-the-paris-climate-agreement/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/hansen-calls-cop21-a-fraud/
To see how things are going:http://climateactiontracker.org/
More useful background:
European Union
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/#c5=&c0=10&b_start=0
see latest from Green Peace on European Union:
http://www.ren21.net/status-of-renewables/global-status-report/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_reserves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_gas
http://www.what-is-fracking.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323894704578114492856065064.html
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/shale-gas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_oil_shale_industry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
Environmental Degradation and Loss of Biodiversity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_degradation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_India
http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/food-crisis/page/3566.aspx
http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/population-growth-and-environmental-degradation/
http://www.eniscuola.net/en/life/contenuti/biodiversity/left/loss-of-biodiversity/causes-of-the-loss-of-biodiversity/
http://www.globalissues.org/article/171/loss-of-biodiversity-and-extinctions
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/threatsto_biodiversity/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_protection
Pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution#Forms_of_pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_prevention
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_minimisation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_energy_use
Renewable (sustainable) energy (resources)
Renewable energy comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished) but the term often includes biomass.
Then look at this extract from the ‘Ren 21 Renewables 2017 Global Status Report’:
http://www.ren21.net/gsr-2017/chapters/chapter_01/chapter_01/
The year 2016 saw several developments and ongoing trends that all have a bearing on renewable energy, including the continuation of comparatively low global fossil fuel prices; dramatic price reductions of several renewable energy technologies (especially solar PV and wind power); and a continued increase in attention to energy storage.
World primary energy demand has grown by an annual average of around 1.8% since 2011, although the pace of growth has slowed in the past few years, with wide variations by country. Growth in primary energy demand has occurred largely in developing countries, whereas in developed countries it has slowed or even declined.
For the third consecutive year, global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and industry were nearly flat in 2016, rising only an estimated 0.2%, continuing to break away from the trend of 2.2% average growth during the previous decade. This slowing of emissions growth was due largely to declining coal use worldwide but also to improvements in energy efficiency and to increasing power generation from renewable energy sources. Globally, coal production declined for the second year in a row. In 2016, additional countries committed to moving away from or phasing out coal for electricity generation (e.g., Canada, Finland, France, the Netherlands and the US state of Oregon) or to no longer financing coal use (e.g., Brazil’s development bank). Countering this trend, however, a number of countries announced plans to expand coal production and use.
Despite the overall decline in coal production, relatively low global prices for oil and natural gas during much of the year continued to challenge renewable energy markets, especially in the heating and transport sectors. Fossil fuel subsidies, which remained significantly higher than subsidies for renewables, also continued to affect renewable energy growth. Building on international commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies – such as the 2009 commitments by the Group of Twenty (G20) and by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) – by the end of 2016 more than 50 countries had committed to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. Subsidy reforms were instituted during 2016 in Angola, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Gabon, India, Iran, Kuwait, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zambia.
As of 2015, renewable energy provided an estimated 19.3% of global final energy consumption. Of this total share, traditional biomass, used primarily for cooking and heating in remote and rural areas of developing countries, accounted for about 9.1%, and modern renewables (not including traditional biomass) increased their share relative to 2014 to approximately 10.2%. In 2015, hydropower accounted for an estimated 3.6% of total final energy consumption, other renewable power sources comprised 1.6%, renewable heat energy accounted for approximately 4.2%, and transport biofuels provided about 0.8%
The overall share of renewable energy in total final energy consumption has increased only modestly in recent history, despite tremendous growth in the renewable energy sector, particularly for solar PV and wind power. A primary reason for this is the persistently strong growth in overall energy demand (with the exception of a momentary pull-back in 2009 following the onset of a global economic recession), which counteracts the strong forward momentum for modern renewable energy technologies. In addition, the use of traditional biomass for heat, which makes up nearly half of all renewable energy use, has increased, but at a rate that has not kept up with growth in total demand.
In 2016, the power sector experienced the greatest increases in renewable energy capacity, whereas the growth of renewables in the heating and cooling and transport sectors was comparatively slow. As in 2015, most growth in renewable energy capacity was in solar PV (which led by a wide margin) and in wind power; hydropower continued to represent the majority of renewable power capacity and generation. Bioenergy (including traditional biomass) remained the leader by far in the heat (buildings and industry) and transport sectors.
Growth rates of renewable energy capacity vary substantially across regions and nations, with most new capacity being installed in developing countries, and primarily in China. China has been the single largest developer of renewable power and heat for the past eight years. In 2016, an ever-growing number of developing countries continued to expand their renewable energy capacities, and some are rapidly becoming important markets. Emerging economies are quickly transforming their energy industries by benefiting from lower-cost, more efficient renewable technologies and more reliable resource forecasting, making countries such as Argentina, Chile, China, India and Mexico attractive markets for investment. Nonetheless, some unique challenges remained in developing countries during the year, including a lack of infrastructure and of power sector planning, as well as off-taker risks.
At the global level, the 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) formally entered into force at the 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakesh, Morocco in November 2016. Renewable energy figured prominently in a large portion of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries submitted in the lead-up to November. Renewable energy markets were affected only indirectly by these developments during 2016; more concrete policy developments resulting from commitments to the Paris Agreement and new announcements had not yet been enacted and/or implemented in most countries.
For the whole document see:

Problems with biomass energy resources:

The EU Emissions Trading System
according to the European Union:
criticism:

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/carbon-emission.28lw
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sabato 21 ottobre 2017

Your essay on Italy's role in the international community

Please make most of your essay about practical examples of what Italy is doing today, not just a list of organizations it belong to.
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venerdì 20 ottobre 2017

more Italian Culture



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domenica 15 ottobre 2017

deadlock

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sabato 7 ottobre 2017

Update on EU migrant relocation scheme

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giovedì 5 ottobre 2017

What are the main characteristics, benefits and drawbacks of globalization?

These notes go with the long article on globalization in your dropbox.
Globalization (or globalisation) refers to the increasingly global interconnectedness of cultures, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the increasingly global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction in barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import quotas (as well as invisible barriers such as complex and slow bureaucracy) and the transfer of such goods and services to consumers. It also involves the freer movement and circulation of workers around the world, delocalization (relocation of factory and service providers from one country to another) and glocalization of products and services. Globalization contributes to economic growth in developed and developing countries through increased specialization and the principle of comparative advantage. All this helps to lower the price of goods and thus benefits the consumer and raises the standard of living. Globalization of financial markets makes money available at low interest rates for investment.
The rapid increase in the process of globalization has been the result of a number of factors: the end of the Cold War and the end of the relative isolation of countries like Russia, the old Warsaw Pact states and China, and their integration into the global trading system; the work of the World Trade Organization to eliminate or reduce trade barriers; the work of the World Bank, which is a lending institution whose aim is to help integrate countries into the wider world economy and promote long-term economic development; the work of the International Monetary Fund which aims at promoting global monetary cooperation and financial stability and thus supporting trade; developments in transport technologies, infrastrucure and procedures and thus reductions in transport costs, e.g. container ships and ports, low-cost airlines; developments in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) that facilitate trade, e.g. the internet, cell phones and satellite technologies.
Supporters of globalization also argue that it promotes peace. In the 1960s and’70s there was very little trade between the West and the Communist bloc. Today the level of trade between, for example, the US and China or the EU and the Russian Federation is very high, and it is difficult to imagine how such trading partners could become involved in a conflict without seriously damaging their own economies (even in a situation like that in Ukraine where tensions are high).
The countries that gain least from globalization will be those least integrated within the global trading system, either by choice (by political decision and the maintenance of strong trade barriers) or through a lack of the necessary infrastructure (e.g. ports, airports and roads), or know-how and expertise, or technology, or an adequate industrial base or a secure business environment (e.g. failed or partially failed states or states with high levels of corruption, bureaucracy, red-tape and insecurity of ownership).
The term globalization can also refer to the transnational circulation of ideas, languages, and popular culture, particularly via the internet and social media or on satellite TV across political borders. Many Western political commentators identify its most positive effects in the spread of democratic and human rights values at a grass roots level, a phenomenon which authoritarian regimes may find difficult to control. Paradoxically, cultural globalization in this sense may actually lead to tension and political instability, at least in the short term, as the rapid changes taking place in the Arab world demonstrate. On the other hand, globalization may lead to a mixing of cultures and an enriched, more vibrant multicultural society. This is an important argument both for the EU and for a city like New York.
Globalization also means the growing role of international organizations, both global and regional, like the UN, the WTO, the IMF or the EU and AU, and the diminishing ability of nation states to confront their problems alone – problems which are now often global challenges requiring international cooperation at an ever increasing level.
Critics of globalization make a series of points:
Globalization encourages competition to lower prices. This may damage developed economies with strong social welfare systems which find themselves in competition with countries like China where social welfare costs for companies are small or non-existent, and overheads may also be relatively low. Many Europeans commentators would argue that this aspect of globalization outweighs the benefits to Western consumers of low-cost goods because European companies will be unable to compete and either close, move their factories and other production facilities abroad where costs are lower, or outsource part, or all, of the production process to other companies located in low-cost areas. This will lead to more unemployment in the developed economies. They call for trade limits on countries like China until those countries provide their own workers with adequate health care, education and pensions. The freer movement and circulation of workers around the world has also been criticized as leading to a decline in salaries as workers from the host state compete with migrants (often willing, or forced, to work at lower pay rates and usually less organized in terms of unions), and a rise in social tensions between these two groups. There may also be rising friction due to cultural and linguistic differences.Further criticisms in this field concern the risk of increased threats to security, terrorism and pandemics. The greater volume of trade makes it difficult for the customs authorities to effectively check the goods being transported and this has, it is argued, made illegal trafficking in drugs, arms, organs and human beings easier. The same argument is made for the increased number of people moving across borders.
Globalization is criticized as producing a tendency towards a global monoculture (and the destruction of local cultures) and towards a monoculture of crops, which reduces agricultural biodiversity and could put the world at risk of sudden reductions in food production due to crop diseases.
Since the start of the current economic recession in 2008 many experts have argued that globalization makes the spread of a financial or economic crisis more likely because of the interconnectedness of the world economy, and thus renders the global trading system less stable, rather than more stable as supporters claim. However, other economists point out that this interconnectedness is not a new phenomenon as the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Depression of the 1930s demonstrates. In fact, they argue that today’s global institutions and our awareness of global economic realities have made it possible for countries to react more effectively this time by adopting common policies rather than pursuing protectionist policies as happened in the 1930s. However, the globalization of financial markets and the removal of or reduction in the rules controlling financial and banking transactions, together with the availability of credit on easy terms to those who were not really credit-worthy led, in the opinion of many critics, to a financial culture of irresponsibility based on short term gains from the stock market and property markets, and lending to high-risk borrowers rather than sound, long term investment of this money in industrial and technological projects and research. This, they say, led directly to the financial bubble and crisis in the US real estate market, in particular the sub-prime mortgage market (but also in the Spanish and Irish real estate markets). It also allowed too much lending to some states and now too much speculation against these states and their currencies (e.g. Greece, Greek Treasury bonds and the Euro) on financial markets. Critics argue that a distinction should be made between the real economy (the production of goods and services) where the bankruptcy of even the biggest company will not create an economic crisis for a government, and the financial sector where financial institutions may lend on such an enormous scale that should they face bankruptcy they put the country’s entire economic system at risk. This argument leads to the conclusion that financial institutions require much stricter regulation and oversight than other types of companies.
Critics argue that poor countries, particularly small poor countries with little or no industrial base, and thus dependent on the export of agricultural produce or raw materials are under pressure from developed economies and emerging economies to open up their economies to foreign companies. They may thus be exploited or face very great fluctuations in the global price of the commodities that they export. See the current situation:
This may prevent them from accumulating enough capital to develop and grow their economies. It is argued that they may need to protect strategic industries, with trade barriers and national institutions and management, in the early stages of the development of these industries, as most developed countries themselves (e.g. Italy and Japan) did and China still does.
Globalization has also been criticized for prioritizing global economic growth (in which it has been very successful) over global issues such as sustainable development, climate change, deforestation, the reduction in biodiversity and global warming. A series of conferences (the most recent, the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris November 2015, in Lima in December 2014, and at UN HQ in New York in September 2014) ) have attempted to address these issues, but there is great disagreement among commentators as to the effectiveness of these conferences and the extent of the progress made. Some praise conferences as a ‘breakthrough’ (the UN) in terms of commitment, while others see them as too little, too late (many NGOs).
Cultural globalization has also been criticized as leading to a dehumanized monoculture based on materialist and essentially Western values. In this context we should note the rising criticism, in the more traditional fringes of some cultures, of international institutions like the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF and even the UN itself as Western (i.e. ‘foreign’) and imperialist.
Finally, globalization has also given international criminal and terrorist organizations more space to operate and these threats to security will require an ongoing, collective response.
Conclusion – a sudden reversal of the trend to economic globalization would, in the opinion of most economists be disastrous, but the reintroduction of effective rules to govern international finance is an aim shared by the EU and the Obama administration (Donald Trump?). A re-examination of the terms of trade between developed, emerging, and developing countries is also clearly necessary and the goal of ongoing global negotiations. Moreover, as many of the problems of the 21st century are now on a global scale only shared global strategies and cooperation will succeed in dealing with them (e.g. climate change and the COP21 meeting in Paris in 2015). As Sustainable Development Goal 17 makes clear, in order to deal with the problems caused or made worse by population trends a global partnership will be necessary. However, critics argue that so far negotiations on global challenges have produced only modest consensus and even less in terms of practical results.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/20/the-guardian-view-on-globalisation-its-death-is-the-making-of-it
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/25/dead-end-globalisation-youth-rage






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Phrasal verbs

One of you asked me about where you can practise phrasal verbs, so......












phrasal verbs for business




for legal English

www.fd.unl.pt/docentes_docs/ma/wks_MA_19584.docx






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