South Asia

5 Items

South Africa's Minister of International Relations & Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabaneat at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, July 3, 2011. International delegations met for 2 days to prepare the upcoming UN climate conference in Durban.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Belfer Center

Whither the Kyoto Protocol? Durban and Beyond

    Author:
  • Daniel Bodansky
| August 2011

The Kyoto Protocol establishes a very complex and ambitious regime, in architecture if not stringency. The problem is that relatively few states, representing only about a quarter of the world's emissions, have been willing to assume emission targets under Kyoto....The future of the Protocol thus seems doubtful at best. Even in the most optimistic scenario, a new round of emissions targets couldn't be agreed in time to prevent a legal gap between the first and second commitment periods. A possible middle ground would be to establish a transitional regime that would be political in nature, but that could evolve over time into a legally-binding regime.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, left, welcomes Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mahdi Safari in New Delhi, India, Sept. 7, 2007

AP Photo

Policy Brief

India-Iran Relations: Key Security Implications

| March 24, 2008

While India and the United States have embarked on a campaign to strengthen their bilateral relations, as symbolized by the proposed US-India civilian nuclear deal, it appears as though New Delhi has similarly begun to pursue a more robust relationship with another major power: Iran. The two states have recently expanded cooperation in a number of key areas, including counterterrorism, regional stability, and energy security. What are the implications of this "New Delhi-Tehran Axis" for the United States, and how should Washington respond to growing ties between India and Iran?