Corruption and illicit trade. International money flow. Vulnerabilities. Access to Arctic. Legal rights for nature. Cropping and subsistence. The People's Republic of California - By Michael Levi. At the annual U.N. climate talks in Doha, Qatar, delegates are undoubtedly applauding the new Australian cap-and-trade scheme, bemoaning Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, and wondering what to do about emissions from emerging India. They will spend far less time thinking about an economy bigger than any of those: California. California's new cap-and-trade system is perhaps the biggest good news climate story this year, and delegates in Doha should be celebrating it.
Just last month, environmentalists celebrated California's first successful auction of carbon emissions allowances. Yet the rise of Sacramento and other state capitals as leading forces in U.S. climate policy raises thorny foreign-policy dilemmas, too. These are easy to miss because U.S. states have no seats at the global climate talks, but are nevertheless critical for negotiators around the world to address. Some of what happens as a result of state policy, though, presents tougher challenges for Washington. Big cat crisis: Africa's lions being crowded out by people | Environment. The lions that roam Africa's savannah have lost as much as 75% of their habitat in the last 50 years, a study has found.
Photograph: Thanassis Stavrakis/AP African lions are running out of room to roam and some local populations, especially in west Africa, are heading for extinction, a new study warns. New satellite data, studied by scientists from Duke University, found about three-quarters of Africa's wide open savannah had disappeared over the last half century, broken up into farms or engulfed by development. "The reality is that from an original area a third larger than the continental United States, only 25% remains," Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke and co-author of the study, said in a statement. Lion populations have dropped by two-thirds over the last half century – down to as few as 32,000, confined to isolated pockets of land. Only 10 of those 67 lion areas are stable and well-protected – lion "strongholds".
Six in 10 have changed shopping habits since horsemeat scandal, survey finds | UK news. Six in 10 consumers say they have changed their shopping habits as a result of the horsemeat scandal, according to a new survey which shows their confidence in the food industry has been seriously dented by the affair. The poll for the consumer group Which? Reveals that consumer trust in the industry has fallen by a quarter (24%), with 30% now buying less processed meat and a quarter (24%) buying fewer ready meals with meat in or choosing vegetarian options.
As sales of frozen burgers have tumbled amid further evidence of horsemeat in a range of meat products including ready meals, Quorn – the UK's biggest vegetarian ready meal brand – said last week that it had seen sales growth more than double in the second half of February as shoppers snapped up its burgers, mince and sausages made from a form of fungus. In the Which? The Which? Which? Is calling on the government to take a number of urgent steps to improve consumer confidence and avoid a future food crisis on this scale. Shaping Tomorrow. Cities of the Future: Made in China - By Dustin Roasa. For much of the 20th century, the world looked to American cities for a glimpse of the future. Places like New York and Chicago had the tallest skyscrapers, the newest airports, the fastest highways, and the best electricity grids. But now, just 12 years into the Asian Century, the city of the future has picked up and moved to China. No less than U.S.
Vice President Joe Biden recognized this when he said not long ago, "If I blindfolded Americans and took them into some of the airports or ports in China and then took them to one in any one of your cities, in the middle of the night … and then said, 'Which one is an American? Which one is in your city in America? And which one's in China? ' most Americans would say, 'Well, that great one is in America.' In these cities, visitors arrive at glittering, architecturally arresting airports before being whisked by electric taxis into city centers populated by modular green skyscrapers. Pakistani Disapproval of U.S. Leadership Soars in 2012. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With President Barack Obama's first term characterized by strained relations between Pakistan and the U.S., more than nine in 10 Pakistanis (92%) disapprove of U.S. leadership and 4% approve, the lowest approval rating Pakistanis have ever given.
Pakistanis' approval of the leadership of their ostensible ally, the United States, has historically been quite low. However, perceptions began to change, albeit modestly, through much of Obama's first term. As recently as May 2011, 27% of Pakistanis approved of U.S. leadership, the apex of support. Noticeably, approval declined after the May 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, carried out by the U.S. military without the assistance of the Pakistani military -- an event that many Pakistanis viewed as a blatant disregard for Pakistani sovereignty.
These findings are based on a survey conducted from Sept. 30-Oct. 16, 2012, in Pakistan. Ahead of Elections, Faith in Civilian Government Collapses Implications Survey Methods.