Purpose – In 2007, the issues of global and climate change in particular, have become major issues in the social psyche. With the United Nations declaring 2008 the “International Year of Planet Earth”, this paper aims to look at four recent reports and comments on how the reports aim to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present some basic conceptual aspects and empiric examples of urban mitigation and adaptation to climate change, of greening urban development, as there is strong need for further research and education on these issues. Design/methodology/approach –...

Purpose – World wide, the gross national product (GNP) has been and still is the basic accounting concept and the dominant societal goal and performance indicator. As the concept is full of flaws and deficiencies, national and international committees are searching for alternatives. A view in...

In einem Buch mit dem Titel „Eigentum und Eigentumspolitik hatten Hans-Christoph Binswanger und Mitarbeiter bereits 1978 die Frage aufgeworfen, ob und wie das private Eigentum von der Ökologiefrage tangiert wird, und sie hatten, daran anknüpfend, Umrisse einer umweltkonformen...

Environmental problems have always been part of our history, of life, and work. Yet the way in which environmental problems are perceived and politicized has changed: If it was at first chiefly local and regional environmental problems that were recognized, in recent years global environmental...

Three topics dominate the formulation an international greenhouse-gas regime as part of an effective global environmental policy. Efficiency, equity, and uncertainty. And three major policy instruments are discussed as regards the implementation of the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate...

Global environmental policy certainly could gain strength if the management of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) or of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) were made more efficient. However, such a minimalist strategy of efficiency improvement is no panacea: it can...

»Noch nie zuvor«, vermerkt Henry Kissinger in seinem Essay Die Vernunft der Nationen (1994), »mußten in die Gestaltung einer neuen Weltordnung so unterschiedliche Vorstellungen einfließen, und noch nie zuvor hatte eine Weltordnung eine so globale Dimension.« In der Tat, die neue Ära des...

The Committee for Development Policy is required by Economic and Social Council resolution 1991/46 to conduct triennially a review to determine the countries to be added or graduated from the list of least developed countries (LDCs). Since the previous review was conducted in 2000, the Committee...