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Southeast Asia is home
to some of the world’s best-known beach and island resorts, which have
helped make tourism the region’s fastest-growing industry. Coastal
water quality is emerging as an important determinant of the industry’s
future growth. Sewage and industrial effluents have degraded water quality
throughout
the region. At the same time, international tourists have become more aware
of the potential health risks they face when vacationing at beaches.
IGCC, in partnership with the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and the World
Bank, organized the 2007 international workshop "Beach Water Quality and Tourism in Southeast
Asia: What Role for Public Information Programs?" which was held in Penang,
Malaysia. Participants
included government officials from Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand,
and Vietnam, regional experts from Hong Kong and India,
representatives from NGOs, the media, and the World Bank, and faculty from
USM and six campuses of the University of California. The workshop objectives were to: assess
the impacts of beach water quality on public health and tourism in Southeast
Asia, review experience with public information programs on beach water quality
in other parts of the world, and evaluate the role that such programs could
play in protecting human health and promoting more sustainable, more profitable
recreation and tourism industries in Southeast Asia.
Under the sponsorship
of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP),
an international program, Project
Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC), was created to
study brown clouds and their human impacts. The scientific
team is led by Professors V.
Ramanathan and Paul
Crutzen of the Center
for Clouds, Chemistry, and Climate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In 2005, IGCC Research Director Jeff Vincent collaborated with
the center on a study of the impacts of brown clouds
on rice output in the Indian subcontinent.
The
initial focus of Project ABC was Asia, where
over 50 percent of the world’s population lives
and where industrial and demographic growth rates are
high. A primary thrust of Project ABC is to assess the
impact of brown clouds on the Asian monsoon, which brings
live-giving rainfall to the region. Evidence
has emerged that an immense and persistent cloud of
aerosol pollution has already
affected temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation
in the region.
Much of the world's biological diversity is found in poor countries,
while many of the people who value it the most live in rich countries. With
the
signing of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in
1992, the global community agreed that the conservation of biodiversity is
a common concern of humankind and that transfers of financial resources from
rich countries to poor countries are needed to support conservation efforts. Development agencies and environmental organizations
have experimented
with a variety of other new mechanisms for financing conservation in poor
countries
with money raised in rich countries. Examples include debt-for-nature swaps,
conservation trust funds, bioprospecting agreements, land acquisition,
and conservation concessions. A 2003 workshop organized by
Jeffrey Vincent, Raymond Clémençon, and David Woodruff, examined these and
other mechanisms
for transferring conservation funds from North to South, especially
as
they
have been applied to the conservation of terrestrial biodiversity.
Climate Science and Policy
In 1998, IGCC initiated a state-wide research program on global climate change to bring objective scientific
and technical expertise to the United Nations climate change negotiations. The first phase of the project sent a delegation
of eminent climate change scientists to the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-4) of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 2–13, 1998.
The UC Revelle Program on Climate Science and Policy (UCRP) was established
in January 2000 as a joint project between IGCC, the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography, and the School of International Relations
and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego.
The UC Revelle Program (UCRP) was designed to improve communication and enhance
the impact of natural and social science on the issue of global climate change.
Water and Food Security in the Middle East
To complement its military focus, IGCC also researches ways to meet basic
economic needs of the Middle East and North Africa. In 1996, IGCC began the
project "Water and Food Security in the Middle East" to examine
how meeting fundamental resource requirements is crucial to the peace process. Building on this project, "Environmental Diplomacy in the Middle
East" (December
1998, Washington, D.C.) took stock of past, present, and possible future
approaches for resolving regional water and environmental problems.
Middle East Environmental Diplomacy
Expanding on IGCC's project on water and food security in the Middle East,
the conference "Environmental Diplomacy in the Middle East: Past Efforts,
Present Dilemmas and Future Options." was held in Washington, D.C.,
on 15 December 1998. The conference had three objectives: (1) to examine
past environmental diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, (2) to draw implications
for future regional and global environmental policy, and (3) to develop an
innovative research agenda to help guide future multilateral efforts in the
region.
In keeping with the structure of the Middle East Multilateral Working
Groups, the conference addressed both regional water issues and regional
environmental
issues. The conference was attended by experts from the U.S. government,
research institutions, academia, the environmental community, the Middle
East policy community, and public and private foundation representatives.
The conference was funded by the new congressionally-authorized Edmund
S. Muskie Foundation, established to honor the former Secretary of State's
commitment
to the preservation of the environment and global affairs.
In the early years of its environmental program, IGCC co-hosted, with the Jakarta, Indonesia-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a 1996 workshop on Economic Integration and the Environment in Southeast Asia. Researchers, government officials and representatives from international organizations participated in the gathering, timed to precede the December 1996 World Trade Organization ministerial meeting. Case studies on topics including forestry, energy policy, marine pollution, obnoxious facilities, environmental impact assessment, economic valuation, and institutional and political responses to sustainable development were presented at the gathering.
Environmental Fellowship Opportunities
Since 1995, IGCC has awarded doctoral dissertation fellowships for work
that addresses topics such as transboundary environmental conflicts, regional
relations, global environmental policy, and regional approaches to global
environmental policy. Funded by the MacArthur and Hewlett foundations,
such support builds a community of scholars to work on key environment
issues over the long term. In 1999, with support from the California Sea
Grant College System, IGCC launched a new fellowship program on international
marine policy. Such programs also help researchers develop professional
relationships that last well beyond the fellowships.
From 1994–99, the IGCC graduate fellowship program benefited from a generous
$750,000 grant from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The grant was dedicated solely to building teams of junior scholars to
address the issues of regional relations and international environmental
problems.
In 1992, IGCC helped establish the Journal of Environment and Development
to provide a forum to academics and policymakers for analysis of controversial
issues surrounding the concept of sustainable development. The journal
is student-edited and managed, both accomplishing an educational purpose
and stimulating the interchange of scholarly views. Now published jointly
by Sage Publications and the School of International Relations
and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at UC San Diego, the journal is the only international
forum that combines discussion of environmental and developmental issues.
The journal publishes research and debate from the regional to international
level on a quarterly basis, and includes scholarship from disciplines as
diverse as political science, economics, law and public policy.
Building Regional Environmental Cooperation
From
1995–98, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funded the
IGCC research program "Building Regional Environmental Cooperation," which
explored the potential role of regions as arenas for resolving environmental
conflict and improving the implementation of effective global environmental
policy.
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