Environment Archive

After a rollicking election, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski took office as Peru’s new president yesterday. To fulfill his broad pledges for Peru’s economy—mainly, to maintain market-friendly policies while reducing poverty—his administration will need to move quickly and decisively on several issues, especially the energy sector. Kuczynski has committed to closing the gap for access to electricity in Peru by 2020, but that requires efforts aimed at improving power distribution across the country—no easy task. He has prioritized natural gas as a power source, focusing on completing a touted but stalled pipeline connecting the Camisea gas fields in Cusco to Peru’s southern […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on countries’ risk exposure, contribution and response to climate change. Earlier this year, Indonesia called on the palm oil sector to play a larger role in the fight against climate change, including by stopping its slash-and-burn deforestation practices. In an email interview, T. Nirarta Samadhi, the Indonesia country director for the World Resources Institute, discusses Indonesia’s response to climate change. WPR: What is Indonesia’s risk exposure to climate change, what effects of climate change are already apparent, and what sorts of mitigation approaches will it have to adopt or […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on countries’ risk exposure, contribution and response to climate change. Earlier this month, the U.N.’s special envoy on climate change accused Germany of going against the Paris climate agreement by financing the fossil fuel industry through subsidies. In an email interview, Daniel Klingenfeld, the head of the director’s staff at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, discusses Germany’s climate change policy. WPR: How big of an issue is climate change domestically in Germany, and what role does Germany play in EU and international efforts to address climate change? […]

In November, Nicaraguans will head to the polls to elect a president, members of the National Assembly and representatives to the Central American Parliament. The elections will be the country’s first since constitutional reforms were passed in 2014. The likely victor of the presidential race, President Daniel Ortega, can now be elected with a simple plurality, although he is predicted to win more than 60 percent of the vote. It would be his fourth term since being elected in 1984 and his seventh presidential campaign overall. Though his candidacy comes as no surprise, two recent controversies—one international and one domestic—have […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the challenges of building sustainable peace in former conflict zones. For the Report, Ilan Noy joins us to talk about preparing for and recovering from natural disasters. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Why This Time’s Different for the Border Clashes Between Ethiopia and Eritrea A Year After Algiers Accord, Flexibility Is the Key to Durable Peace in Mali Instability the Norm in Central African Republic as Rebel Violence Surges New Ways of Defining Success in Post-Disaster Recovery Trend Lines is produced, […]

The year 2010 started with two large earthquakes less than two months apart. The strongest one, by far, was the earthquake in February in Concepcion, Chile, that killed about 250 people. Unfortunately, the earthquake also generated a tsunami, and since an adequate early warning was not issued along the Chilean coast, the tsunami ended up doubling the death toll. A month before, however, a much weaker earthquake shook another coastal city on the other side of the Americas: Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Tragically and catastrophically, many of the city’s buildings collapsed, and the death toll may have reached more than a quarter […]