John Kraus is a Research Associate at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He earned his Master of Arts from SAIS in 2022 and was previously a commercial fishing deckhand for five years. Introduction On July 9, 1982, after three series of multilateral conferences spanning decades of rigorous negotiations, President Ronald Reagan formally announced that the United […]
A struggle between natural science and politics has characterized the history of climate diplomacy from 1991 to the present, as the physical condition of the earth’s atmosphere worsens while the international community continues to try to design policy responses. … Progress in combating climate change needs more intense, blunt, and candid conversations on a sustained basis between atmospheric physicists and diplomatic negotiators to move forward at a time when global economic and population growth is increasing greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbating climate change.
PART II In Part I, we argued that meeting the ambitious targets agreed upon at the 21st United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) will require concerted efforts—including policy changes, technological developments, the deepening of financial markets, and political leadership. Developments will be more fruitful if they are marked […]
In the Spring of 2011, the world watched as a generation of Tunisians and Egyptians took to the streets in revolutions that eventually toppled the regimes against which they were protesting. The Arab Spring uprisings spread across the Middle East and eventually into Syria where protestors have been met by the resolute and armed conviction of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad that he will not be removed from power. Over 7,000 people have so far died in the Syrian uprising; in the city of Homs the sidewalks run red with blood.