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Summarizes the discussion on disaster preparedness, relief, and reconstruction for small states occurring during a plenary at the 51st Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, September 2005. The severe economic impact that hurricanes had on Caribbean island states in 2004 is noted, along with the mitigating effect of government information strategies on controlling inaccurate post-disaster media impressions. The need for better disaster relief planning, more effective early warning systems, and international cooperation in confronting disasters is stressed.

The international governance of climate change was initially informed by two norms concerning who should take responsibility for mitigating climate change and how such mitigation should be pursued.1 Since the early 1990s, these norms have been contested by several states. In this article the author argues that such contestation is a product of the perceived incongruence between these norms and the domestic conditions of those states they seek to govern. Following an overview of the emergence and contestation of climate governance norms, the author elaborates on this relationship between international norms and domestic conditions. These theoretical assumptions are then explored in the context of Australia's response to international climate governance norms from the late 1980s to 2007. As the author demonstrates, the perceived incongruence of these norms with domestic conditions led Australia's foreign policy makers to contest the norms and focus on the construction of alternative governance processes by reframing the issue of climate change. Through a diversion of attention away from historical emissions to future emissions and possible technological mitigation options, climate governance was temporarily reconciled with Australia's domestic conditions. However, the author suggests that this came at the expense of international equity and long-term national sustainability.

Moving beyond existing approaches that largely deal with the biophysical consequences of climate change realities in Africa, this book explores an alternative perspective that traces climate change as a travelling idea. It focuses on how globally constructed discourses on climate change find their way to the local level in the Bamenda Grassfields of Cameroon, thereby seeking to understand how these discursive practices lead to social transformations, and to new configurations of power. In the translation process from the global to the local level a continuous modification and appropriation of the idea of climate change takes place that finally leads to a concrete implementation of climate change related projects and sensitization campaigns. Hence, it is argued that in this increasingly interconnected and mediated world people in Africa (and elsewhere in the world) do not solely adapt to a changing climate, but also adapt to a changing discourse about the climate. Travelling between traditional rulers and their palaces, to the world of NGOs, journalists and ordinary farmers this study brings the reader on a captivating journey, that reveals how climate change engages in a variety of ways with different lifeworlds, revitalizes local cosmologies, gives birth to a new development paradigm, and moreover how it evokes apocalyptic anxieties and trajectories of blame at the grassroots level.

The general aim of this present work was to prospect the effect of the Global Warming on one of most important ecological parameter in any ecosystem for the Carbon Cycle: the Soil Respiration and its components. Carbon budget for oil palm plantations is of prime importance to diagnose its ecophysiological functioning and evolution and nowadays any prospectives in that sense is highly a fundamental political issue for oil palm extention and development. For oil palm, a planted ecosystem, several measurements in different ecologies -dry (West Africa) and wet (North Sumatra- Indonesia) - have permit to quantify the different components of soil CO 2 efflux and a specific spatial variation (Frond Pile, Windrows, Harvest Path, Trunk Circle) related to agriculture practices. The main components, composed by the roots respiration (Rr or Ar, Autotrophic Respiration), the root-free soil respiration (HR:Heterotrophic Respiration) the litter and fine litter decomposition as well as the root turn -over and the total carbon allocation to the root system (TBCA) could change under seasonal variations or other climatic events (El Nino/La Nina). These components are important for quantifying the carbon budget in natural and agricultural ecosystems and especially carbon caption. Soil respiration is strongly depending on soil temperature in interaction with the soil water content. Q w estimations were calculated as well as non linear regressions (Y= a Ln (SVWC) ¿ b: a, b parameters, SVWC: soil volumic water content) fitted to the data. To simulate C flux all over the year and for the different locations (frond pile inside a plantation, empirical relations were used as: C flux = f(T°C) g(SVWC), f and g as function depending on the ecology and on the location in a plantation, and then respectively for AR and HR. Net Primary Productivity (NPP) could estimated from growth, standing biomass, from annual production of aboveground material such as fronds and inflorescences, from the production of root biomass and root turnover. Carbon sequestration could be estimated by subtracting the heterotrophic component of respiration. Through an important set of climatic data in North Sumatra including soil temperatures, simulations of CO2 soil efflux and its components were done in regards to predict the evolution of oil palm ecosystem parameters as soil carbon content, root turn-over, total carbon allocation to the below ground compartment and possible consequences on oil palm carbon caption. In regards of the results, a better understanding of the below ground carbon compartment could be obtained as well as sustainable recommendations for better cropping practices.

We are facing a global energy crisis caused by world population growth, an escalating increase in demand, and continued dependence on fossil-based fuels for generation. It is widely accepted that increases in greenhouse gas concentration levels, if not reversed, will result in major changes to world climate with consequential effects on our society and economy. This is just the kind of intractable problem that Purdue University's Global Policy Research Institute seeks to address in the Purdue Studies in Public Policy series by promoting the engagement between policy makers and experts in fields such as engineering and technology. Major steps forward in the development and use of technology are required. In order to achieve solutions of the required scale and magnitude within a limited timeline, it is essential that engineers be not only technologically-adept but also aware of the wider social and political issues that policy-makers face. Likewise, it is also imperative that policy makers liaise closely with the academic community in order to realize advances. This book is designed to bridge the gap between these two groups, with a particular emphasis on educating the socially-conscious engineers and technologists of the future. In this accessibly-written volume, central issues in global energy are discussed through interdisciplinary dialogue between experts from both North America and Europe. The first section provides an overview of the nature of the global energy crisis approached from historical, political, and sociocultural perspectives. In the second section, expert contributors outline the technology and policy issues facing the development of major conventional and renewable energy sources. The third and final section explores policy and technology challenges and opportunities in the distribution and consumption of energy, in sectors such as transportation and the built environment. The book's epilogue suggests some future scenarios in energy distribution and use.