Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly – 22 November 2012

Recommended Citation

Nikhil Desai – Energy Security Contributor Every climatic disaster is an opportunity to demonise fossil fuels and whip up guilt, anxiety, moral pretensions, and political…, "Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly – 22 November 2012", NAPSNet Weekly Report, November 22, 2012, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-weekly/nautilus-peace-and-security-weekly-22-november-2012/

CONTENTS

See this week’s blog: Sins in the name of children, from our Energy Security contributor, Nikhil Desai.


DETERRENCE: Preparing for the Helsinki conference on a Middle East Nuclear and WMD-free zone, Paul Ingram,  BASIC Istanbul Roundtable report, Middle East WMDFZ Conference (25 October 2012) [PDF, 0.5MB]

The NPT nuclear weapon states and South Asia nuclear armed states should offer negative security guarantees to all states party to a Middle East WMDFZ, not only not to use nuclear weapons, but also not to threaten or attack them with conventional weapons.


DPRK: N. Korea tried to ship weapons to Syria, diplomats say, France 24 (14 November 2012)

North Korea has been unusually active with Japan, Mongolia, Syria, Egypt and Iran. Several interactions were likely mining-related but DPRK’s banking system access is tightly proscribed so funds transfers are likely problematic. Syrian FAJr-3 missiles are the same size, payload and weight as some North Korean missiles and approximate the limited damage North Korea can do to the very northern exurbs of Seoul given a range of 40 kilometers.


ENERGY SECURITY: Obama victory reopens door to emissions curbs and possible carbon tax, Eric Hand, Ivan Semeiuk, Jeff Tollefson, Meredith Wadman and Nature magazine, Scientific American (13 November 2012)

Ten days after the US elections, ten days before the end of Doha COP. Two years to the next US elections and four years for Obama to plan for a name in history. He promises a conversation “to find out what more we can do to make short-term progress in reducing carbons”. Managing expectations, designing a triage, is the name of the game. Jim Kim comforts us, “A 4°C warmer world can, and must be, avoided – we need to hold warming below 2°C.” Carbon taxes and anti-carbon subsidies are sold as silver bullets. Lies told often enough become beliefs; secret of investment banking.


BLOG: Sins in the name of children

by Nikhil Desai – Energy Security Contributor Every climatic disaster is an opportunity to demonise fossil fuels and whip up guilt, anxiety, moral pretensions, and political…


GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Tokyo’s Ishihara joins Osaka mayor to fight election, Keiko Ujikane, Monami Yui and Takashi Hirokawa, Bloomberg (19 November 2012)

Former Tokyo Governor Ishihara and Osaka Mayor Hashimoto merged parties, pledging to be a “third force” and increasing the potential for the nationalist Japan Restoration Party to win numerous seats in the next election. Ishihara has argued that Japan should “simulate” having nuclear weapons to boost international influence. ROK opposition candidates Ahn and Moon will select a single candidate between them and pledged to cooperatively seek reform.


CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Climate change and eHealth: a promising strategy for health sector mitigation and adaptation, Asa Holmner et al., Glob Health Action, vol. 5 (2012) [297 KB, PDF]

Health information technology (eHealth) has the potential to make health care a greener business. In addition, it also helps societies significantly adapt and reduce their vulnerability to climate change. Many promising examples of eHealth adaptation strategies are available, including: the use of telemedicine and mobile technology in anthropogenic and natural disasters; provision of point-of-care diagnostic tools; and strengthening of public health surveillance using mobile technologies.


CLIMATE CHANGE AND SECURITY: Climate and social stress: implications for security analysis, Report Brief, National Research Council (November 2012) [PDF, 277KB]

Climate change can be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of potentially disruptive environmental events. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by ways in which these events may cascade. Climate events will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of global systems to manage. It makes sense for the intelligence community to apply a scenario approach to potentially disruptive events that are expectable but not truly predictable.


The Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report presents articles and full length reports each week in six categories: Austral security, nuclear deterrence, energy security, climate change and security, the DPRK, climate change adaptation and governance and civil society. Our team of contributors carefully select items that highlight the links between these themes and the three regions in which our offices are found—North America, Northeast Asia, and the Austral-Asia region. Each week, one of our authors also provides a short blog that explores these inter-relationships. Subscribe to NAPSNet to receive free weekly email reports Editor

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