Today COP 21 opens in Paris. Over two weeks a new climate deal will hopefully be agreed. It is a critical juncture for humanity. As high level officials discuss options…
COP21: how can Southern Africa cope with El Niño?
How to ensure governments stick to their Paris climate commitments
More than 146 countries covering 87% of global greenhouse gas emissions have now submitted their national pledges to tackle climate change in advance of the major climate summit in Paris….
Will the Sustainable Development Goals make a difference?
This week heads of state assemble in New York to launch the Sustainable Development Goals. The agreed text lays out 17 goals and 169 targets. It is an ambitious agenda…
Achieving sustainable development means no goal leaving gender behind
This article is part of a series on the Sustainable Development Goals. Feminists and their allies fought strongly for a stand-alone Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on gender equality and empowerment…
Unpacking multiple “shades of green” to make hope possible
Sandra Pointel, Associate Tutor, SPRU This year will see the culmination of two major global agreements for climate change and development. From 30 November to 11 December, worldwide negotiators will…
What Greece can learn from Africa about the effects of austerity after a debt crisis
Ian Scoones, republished from The Conversation Some have asked what can Africa learn from Greece. I argue that Greece (and others) can learn a lot from the African experience….
What can development learn from China’s approach to reform?
By Lewis Husain and Adrian Ely At the launch of the STEPS China hub in Beijing this year, there was much talk of learning from China’s development experiences. A key…
Our Common Future day 1: Climate science & climate politics in Paris
STEPS member Adrian Ely is at the Our Common Future conference in Paris, and has sent this blogpost looking back on Day 1. The conference runs until Friday. Read our…
Nepal: resilience, disasters and development
The doyen among Nepal’s ethnographers, the Janku-blessed Bihari Krishna Shrestha had a valid point. Since his phone had gone dead after the Big Earthquake of 25th April, I had gone…
Between ‘greenization’ and ‘citizenization’: Welcome to China’s New Normal
By Sandra Pointel A group of researchers from China, Africa, Latin America and Europe met last week in Beijing to launch the new China Sustainability Hub, in collaboration with the…