the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as a new form of governance in climate protection

Die Bewältigung des Klimawandels ist heute eine der bedeutendsten politischen Herausforderungen. Das Kyoto-Protokoll ist der am weitesten fortgeschrittene Prozess der internationalen Staatengemeinschaft im Hinblick auf die Herausforderungen des Klimawandels. Einer der interessantesten und innovativsten Bausteine des Kyoto-Protokolls ist der Clean Development Mechanismus (CDM). Seit seiner Initiierung ist dieser so genannte flexible Mechanismus der Schlüssel zur Schaffung von volatilen und boomenden Märkten für Zertifikate für die Reduktion von Kohlenstoffemissionen (CERs). Diese Zertifikate, kurz CERs, sind die ersten international gehandelten Güter, die durch ein internationales Umweltabkommen geschaffen wurden. Während des Prozesses der Marktetablierung sind private Akteure wie Firmen, Projektverifizierer, Carbon Funds und Zertifikatshändler zu den führenden Akteuren des globalen Kohlenstoffmarktes aufgestiegen. Dennoch ist der Markt weiterhin stark von den politischen Rahmenbedingungen abhängig. Die Nachfrage wird durch die Festlegung von Emissionsreduktionen für Nationalstaaten und deren Emissionsallokationen geschaffen. Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht die Transformation des Markts, der zunächst von öffentlichen Akteuren initiiert, durch Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) angestoßen, sich zu einem Markt entwickelt, wo sich die Regierungen nach und nach zurückziehen und private Akteure immer stärker Governancefunktionen wahrnehmen. Weiterhin wird der Status quo des CDM evaluiert und auf verbleibende Forschungsfragen hingewiesen

The Reconfiguration of Public Authority in Developing Countries

In recent years, several scholars of world politics have observed a relocation of authority in different issue areas of global policy-making. This development appears to be particularly evident in the field of global climate politics where a number of authors have highlighted the gradual loss of authority by national governments and the emergence of new spheres of authority dominated by actors other than the nation-state. In fact, due to the existence of a regulatory gap in this policy domain, various new governance arrangements have emerged which work simultaneously at different levels (some top-down and others bottom-up) to cope with the problem of climate change. However, despite several broader descriptions and mapping exercises, we have little systematic knowledge about their workings, let alone their impact on political-administrative systems. Given these shortcomings, in this paper we explore how (and how far) different types of globally operating governance arrangements have caused changes in the distribution of authority within national governments and their public administration. We will focus on two stylized governance arrangements: one that operates bottom-up (i.e. Transnational City Networks, TCNs) and another that operates top-down (i.e. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, REDD+). Departing from our hypotheses that the former is likely to lead to more decentralization and the latter to more centralization of environmental policy making, we will present some preliminary findings from our case studies in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa

Uncertainty evaluation for velocity–area methods

Velocity–area methods are used for flow rate calculation in various industries. Applied within a fully turbulent flow regime, modest uncertainties can be expected. If the flow profile cannot be described as “log-like”, the recommended measurement positions and integration techniques exhibit larger errors. To reduce these errors, an adapted measurement scheme is proposed. The velocity field inside a Venturi contour is simulated using computational fluid dynamics and validated using laser Doppler anemometry. An analytical formulation for the Reynolds number dependence of the profile is derived. By assuming an analytical velocity profile, an uncertainty evaluation for the flow rate calculation is performed according to the “Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement”. The overall uncertainty of the flow rate inside the Venturi contour is determined to be 0.5 % compared to 0.67 % for a fully developed turbulent flow

The MIGenAS integrated bioinformatics toolkit for web-based sequence analysis

We describe a versatile and extensible integrated bioinformatics toolkit for the analysis of biological sequences over the Internet. The web portal offers convenient interactive access to a growing pool of chainable bioinformatics software tools and databases that are centrally installed and maintained by the RZG. Currently, supported tasks comprise sequence similarity searches in public or user-supplied databases, computation and validation of multiple sequence alignments, phylogenetic analysis and protein–structure prediction. Individual tools can be seamlessly chained into pipelines allowing the user to conveniently process complex workflows without the necessity to take care of any format conversions or tedious parsing of intermediate results. The toolkit is part of the Max-Planck Integrated Gene Analysis System (MIGenAS) of the Max Planck Society available at (click ‘Start Toolkit’)

Staat, Gesellschaft und grüne Transformationen im globalen Süden

Die Anbahnung und Umsetzung grüner Transformationen ist ein komplexer, sektoren- und ebenenübergreifender Prozess, der auf die Unterstützung mächtiger Akteurskonstellationen angewiesen ist. Solche Transformationen müssen von staatlichen Akteuren angestoßen oder begleitet werden, wie das Beispiel der „grünen“ Republik Costa Rica zeigt

Max Weber in the tropics: How global climate politics facilitates the bureaucratization of forestry in Indonesia

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is one of the most advanced global climate governance arrangements and we show that it contributes to the buildup of autonomous capacities and reliable procedures in areas of rather limited statehood. These partially unintended effects can be conceptualized as an increasing rational–legal bureaucratization, which has been initiated through both external and domestic actors as we illuminate in the case of Indonesia's forestry sector in the period from 2007 until 2017. Our finding is that a bureaucratization of a new kind is increasingly strengthened in Indonesia's forest despite enduring patterns of neopatrimonialism, emerging signs of new public management approaches, and the strengthening of functional equivalents such as community‐based forest management. We thus claim that Max Weber's perspective on the prospects and problems of rational–legal bureaucratization is still valuable, even when travelling to the tropics

The Politics of Global Poverty - Diverse Perspectives on Measurement

Output Type: Book Revie

Promises and Pitfalls of Polycentric Federalism: The Case of Solar Power in India

Recognizing that no central authority can combat climate change, scholars have pointed to the potential of polycentric governance in tackling climate change. Yet, empirical evidence for such a claim is scarce, particularly in the Global South. This study analyzes the characteristics, promises, and pitfalls of polycentric governance to promote climate mitigation efforts in three Indian states. Our contribution is twofold: (1) conceptually, we propose a framework to investigate the promises and pitfalls of polycentric climate governance in a federalist system with a particular focus on aspects of scaling and institutionalization, and (2) empirically, we compare solar power development across three Indian states with favorable conditions for solar power but varying performance. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews and documents, we show how state governments with different party backgrounds have been vital in implementing policy changes and overcoming political barriers. Still, very few bottom-up initiatives exist and were successfully institutionalized

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Transformative Change through the Sustainable Development Goals?

The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 sub-targets which serve as a global reference point for the transition to sustainability. The agenda acknowledges that different issues such as poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, environmental degradation, among others, are intertwined and can therefore only be addressed together. Implementing the SDGs as an ‘indivisible whole’ represents the actual litmus test for the success of the 2030 Agenda. The main challenge is accomplishing a more integrated approach to sustainable development that encompasses new governance frameworks for enabling and managing systemic transformations. This thematic issue addresses the question whether and how the SDGs set off processes of societal transformation, for which cooperation between state and non-state actors at all political levels (global, regional, national, sub-national), in different societal spheres (politics, society, and economy), and across various sectors (energy, transportation, food, etc.) are indispensable. In this editorial, we first introduce the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs by providing an overview of the architecture of the agenda and the key challenges of the current implementation phase. In a second step, we present the eleven contributions that make up the thematic issue clustering them around three themes: integration, governance challenges, and implementation

Why healthcare workers are sick of TB.

Dr Thato Mosidi never expected to be diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB), despite widely prevalent exposure and very limited infection control measures. The life-threatening diagnosis of primary extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) came as an even greater shock. The inconvenient truth is that, rather than being protected, Dr Mosidi and thousands of her healthcare colleagues are at an increased risk of TB and especially drug-resistant TB. In this viewpoint paper we debunk the widely held false belief that healthcare workers are somehow immune to TB disease (TB-proof) and explore some of the key factors contributing to the pervasive stigmatization and subsequent non-disclosure of occupational TB. Our front-line workers are some of the first to suffer the consequences of a progressively more resistant and fatal TB epidemic, and urgent interventions are needed to ensure the safety and continued availability of these precious healthcare resources. These include the rapid development and scale-up of improved diagnostic and treatment options, strengthened infection control measures, and focused interventions to tackle stigma and discrimination in all its forms. We call our colleagues to action to protect themselves and those they care for