The Stream, January 22: Water Cooperation Far Outweighs Conflict

The latest issue of the UNESCO journal, A World of Science, is focused on the human face of water politics. Researchers have found that conflict is no more likely in arid nations than in humid nations, and that water conflicts, when they do arise, are not more or less frequent in a nation based on their wealth or political structure. The report is released in anticipation of the beginning of the 2013 UN International Year of Water Cooperation.

A new water security report comes from a research collaboration between Oregon State University and the U.S. Department of Defense. Titled: “Case Studies on Water Security: Analysis of System Complexity and the Role of Institutions,” the study examines “hydropolitical resilience” and “hydropolitical vulnerability” of three case study river basins. The cases examined are transboundary basins, including: the Columbia River Basin (between Canada and the U.S.), the Zambezi River Basin (between Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe), and the Amu Darya River Basin (between Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).

Self Interest, Understood as Climate Change
NPR reports about a new data project from New Scientist called Your Warming World. The project presents historical climate change data for locations around the globe. The goal? To encourage individuals to see how climate change is at work in their locality, and to hope the data, charts, and graphs will incite some to make the changes necessary to contribute to mitigating climate change.

Fossil Fuel Energy Expansions
According to The Guardian a new Greenpeace report portends that new fossil fuel projects, most concentrated in oil, gas, and coal developments in China and Australia, will increase global CO2 emissions by 20%. The report explores the 14 largest planned fossil fuel energy expansion around the globe, and suggests that if all were to be cancelled, there would be a 75% chance of keeping emissions within the 2C target.

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