Global Strategic Leadership for a More Sustainable Future
Addressing the global challenges posed by a changing environment, population growth, and increased demands on our food, water and energy resources will be some of the defining challenges of the 21st century. Given the complexity and magnitude of these interconnected challenges, the Korbel School’s Environmental Sustainability Initiative focuses on transformative approaches to turn these challenges into opportunities. Our work links local and regional issues to the global context and translates scholarship into action by offering solutions for a sustainable future, while promoting just and equitable development.
Key Themes
Our multifaceted work focuses on key themes that are central to understanding and addressing the causes and consequences of global environmental change, including:
Economic and security implications of climate change
Consequences of global change for human wellbeing
Social justice and inclusive growth as key pillars of climate solutions
Policymaking to guide the transition to more renewable energy systems
Measuring and assessing progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Peaceful management of global commons resources, from the oceans’ fisheries to the atmosphere
Research
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Promoting Peace through Shared Governance of the Seas
For the next two years, Dr. Cullen Hendrix will be a cross-appointed Research Professor with the Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability at Hiroshima University in Hiroshima, Japan. His project, Promoting Peace through Shared Governance of the Seas: Can Regional Fisheries Management Organizations Manage Fisheries Conflict? will compile data on RFMOs and assess these institutions’ capacity to help prevent or manage fisheries conflict between member-states. For an overview of the project, see his lecture as part of the NERPS Webinar Series. Please contact Dr. Hendrix if you are interested in learning more about the project or the NERPS network.
Related Publications and Presentations:
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X19304622
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/26796914
- https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/02/fisheries-management-venue-navigating-fisheries-conflicts-indian-ocean/
- https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2017/12/10-interstate-disputes-fishy-implications-stink/
- https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2021/02/managing-fisheries-conflict-21st-century-role-regional-management-organizations/
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Assessing Climate-Related Security Threats
This project seeks to better understand the security implications of climate change. Conducted collaboratively with an interdisciplinary, international team, this project quantifies risks associated with climate change but also adaptation and mitigation efforts, identifies barriers to making more precise security risk assessments, and informs public and policy discourse around this emerging security issue.
Related Publications and Presentations:
- The Tempest Within: Reconciling Disagreements on Climate Conflict Links. Presented at the American Geophysical Union Meetings in 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyAbs5GHnOg
- https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020EF001532
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1300-6
- https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2019/08/search-consensus-climate-conflict-links/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/11/how-does-climate-change-impact-conflict-world/
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The Economics and Geopolitics of Global Energy Transitions
This project seeks to better understand the seismic effects decarbonization will have for the global economy, with particular attention paid to legacy energy exporting economies and those economies rich in the transition metals that will be needed to fuel the transition to more sustainable energy systems.
Related Publications and Presentations:
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02692171.2017.1389862
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/11/saudi-fund-opted-not-buy-newcastle-united-how-do-sovereign-wealth-funds-affect-politics-back-home/
- https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/why-us-energy-independence-wont-mean-greater-us-energy-autonomy
- https://www.denverpost.com/2018/08/07/freezing-iran-oil-markets/
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Recent Publications by Affiliated Faculty
Mayer, Frederick W. 2020. "Does providing scientific information affect climate change and GMO policy preferences of the mass public? Insights from survey experiments in Germany and the United States." Environmental Politics, 29:7, 1199-1218 (with Emily Diamond & Thomas Bernauer).
Laird, Frank N. 2020. “Sticky Policies, Dysfunctional Systems: Path Dependency and the Problems of Government Funding for Science in the United States.” Minerva 58, Issue 4 (December): 513-533.
Hendrix, Cullen S. 2020. “Directions for Research on Climate and Conflict.” Earth’s Future (with Katharine J. Mach, Carolien M. Kraan, W. Neil Adger, Halvard Buhaug, Marshall Burke, James D. Fearon, Christopher B. Field, Jean-Francois Maystadt, John O'Loughlin, Philip Roessler, Jürgen Scheffran, Kenneth A. Schultz, and Nina von Uexkull).
Hendrix, Cullen S. 2020. “Climate Change Increases the Risk of Fisheries Conflict.” Marine Policy (with Elizabeth Mendenhall, Elizabeth Nyman, Paige Roberts, John Robison Hoopes, James Watson, Vicky Wing Yee Lam, and U. Rashid Sumaila).
Translating Scholarship into Action
The Korbel School’s Environmental Sustainability Initiative has established collaborative partnerships with institutions in the nonprofit, business and academic communities. By developing partnerships, we are able to engage with current policy issues, facilitate dialogue and create a robust network of organizations and people engaging with the human dimensions of global environmental change.