Environment & Climate Change

4 Items

Magazine Article - Outreach

Profile: Calestous Juma

| December 15, 2011

"The Rio+20 process is an important reminder of the urgency to guide global production and consumption patterns with sustainability principles. Sadly, there is really no genuine global institution that is championing sustainable development. The vision that inspired Rio has been supplanted by two extreme positions. The first is a group that believes economic growth will have trickle-down benefits for the environment. The environmental camp has successfully replaced the spirit of Rio with a one-sided agenda that leaves little room for recognising the central role that human wellbeing plays in natural resource management."

May 31, 2011: Issiaka Ouedraogo lays cocoa beans out to dry on reed mats, on a farm outside the village of Fangolo, Ivory Coast. Climate change will leave many cocoa-producing areas in West Africa unsuitable for chocolate production by 2050.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Science

Science Meets Farming in Africa

| December 9, 2011

"Africa has a long history of exporting resources and importing food, despite the potential to meet its own food demands, reduce poverty, and drive economic growth. Unfortunately, major international agencies such as the United Nations (UN) have persistently opposed expanding biotechnology to regions most in need of its societal and economic benefits."

Delegate from Chad Mariam Hattahir, left, casts her ballot at the 37th Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Conference in Rome, June 26, 2011. Brazil’s Jose Graziano da Silva was elected director-general of the UN's FAO.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The Guardian

Graziano's Five Major Challenges

| July 4, 2011

"Addressing this triple challenge (more food, less hunger, less environmental degradation) will require more than just funding. For the FAO to continue to serve as the world's leading authority on food and agriculture policy, it will need to reinvent itself, becoming a thought leader in ending the hunger of ideas on how to end hunger. For example, what is the role of advance market purchasing in hunger reduction? What should be done about foreign direct investment in agriculture and large-scale land acquisitions? How should food price spikes be managed? What are the benefits and risks of emerging food and agricultural technologies? The FAO needs to be leading the debates in these and other areas."

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011

| Spring 2011

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.