• Energy Research
• Open Access close
• Open Source close
• Embargo close
• AU close
• English close

Localisation of humanitarian aid has emerged as a major issue after the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 which emphasised the importance of locally-led response as a corrective to power imbalances in the humanitarian system. However, the practical complexities of localised humanitarian aid are yet to be fully discussed. This paper aims to examine the concept of localisation in humanitarian aid through a case study of a local non-governmental organisation, the Cambodian Children's Trust (CCT), in Cambodia. Drawing on the framework of localisation proposed by Baguios et al., (2021), we analyse the application of localisation of child protection programs run by CCT. We provide a holistic understanding of how localisation is conducted in practice, and the impacts it has on the wider humanitarian sector. Our study illustrates that power can be effectively developed to local entities and localisation with empowerment could be achieved despite highly challenging conditions.

Points out that sustainability as such does not provide a clearcut guide to policy. First one has to decide what is to be sustained. If this is agreed, it must be in an operational from. However, difficulties may still emerge since opinions may differ about how to achieve. This is illustrated by differences in the views of economists about how sustainable development is to be achieved. Orthodox economists stress the importance of the accumulation of man-made capital to achieve this end whereas neo-Malthusians stress the importance of conserving natural resource and environmental capital. Both take an anthropocentric point of view. For political reasons the neo-Malthusian has had little support but it may eventually turn out to be correct. Economics is concerned with reducing economic scarcity and economists have traditionally suggested four main ways of doing this of which economic growth is one. However, neo-Malthusian economists believe that this may not be a sustainable strategy – it may result in future poverty. It should be noted that economic systems are embedded in social and natural systems and depend on these. Economic sustainability depends on the sustainability of these other systems. So from this point of view, it is just one of several bottom lines. Values must be considered in relation to sustainability. Economics is completely anthropocentric in its approach. Therefore, economic approaches to conservation and sustainability can be at odds with the values of deep ecologists or those willing to accord rights to other sentient beings or ecosystems independent of human wishes, or those who want to make use of value judgments other than those based on the measuring rod of money. Consequently economics evaluation is sometimes ineffective in resolving social conflict, including conflict about what should be sustained. As a rule economics alone should not be the final arbiter of social decisions. It is a part (often an important part) of the social evaluation process but not the bottom line, or just one of many lines.

[Extract] The Fukushima nuclear disaster demonstrated the magnitude of devastation when energy security is prioritized over human security. No doubt, the task of balancing the two needs is immense and difficult trade-offs need to be made at different times. But policy decisions in these two domains cannot be made without adequate consultation with the public, consideration for their preferences, and a shared vision for the future.

Trends within Northern Hemisphere surface waters indicate that natural organic matter (NOM) concentrations are rising not only due to historical, acid-deposition based influence, but more recently due to climate change. The accumulation of NOM in reservoirs is detrimental to potable water supply and erodes the success and capacity of existing treatment infrastructure. In recent years, the Australian East Coast has experienced a rapid succession of high temperatures, rainfall deficiencies, drought, fire, intense rainfall, and flooding. Such events have the ability to convey changes to the way NOM is fluxed to aquatic systems and how NOM is cycled and stored within reservoirs. The aim of this thesis was to assess the role of climatic variation on the susceptibility for reservoirs in Greater Sydney to accumulate NOM. An assessment of the historical record of all six major surface water storage reservoirs in Greater Sydney using a combined hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis technique, has indicated for the first time that these systems are browning from accumulating DOC. Subsequent determinations of changepoints in this historical record combined with extensive temporal cross examination of climatological drivers, deduced browning was influenced by intensive precipitation events which translated to intense and rapid reservoir recharge. A comprehensive assessment of the physical and chemical properties of NOM within the Nepean catchment (Sydney, Australia, n = 656) by fluorescence spectroscopy and liquid-chromatography with organic carbon detection (LC-OCD), deduced only minor NOM compositional change occurred across drought and intensive rainfall events. A similar assessment of the fire impacted Warragamba catchment (Sydney, Australia) concluded that fire impacted particulate organic matter held significant quantities of leachable dissolved organic matter. Overall, it was concluded that climate driven increases in precipitation intensity will drive an increased frequency and observance of browner reservoir systems due to higher NOM concentrations, but this will not equate to large compositional shifts in the underlying physical and chemical properties of NOM within a catchment system.

Summarises some of the predicted natural consequences of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Changes in temperature, climates, physical and chemical impacts on the biosphere as well as biodiversity loss are considered. Then some of the expected social and economic consequences of global warming are discussed. Subjects considered are the impacts of global warming on bio-industries and social conditions, the economic costs of greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change. Attention subsequently turns to the environmental Kuznets curve and the inappropriate use of the relationship. For example, it is stressed that reducing the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions in relation to GDP does not necessarily reduce total greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, even if they are reduced, greenhouse gases can continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Some suggestions are then made about how the global warming problem might be addressed.

With the increase in energy of the Large Hadron Collider to a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV for Run 2, events with dense environments, such as in the cores of high-energy jets, became a focus for new physics searches as well as measurements of the Standard Model. These environments are characterized by charged-particle separations of the order of the tracking detectors sensor granularity. Basic track quantities are compared between 3.2 fb$^{-1}$ of data collected by the ATLAS experiment and simulation of proton-proton collisions producing high-transverse-momentum jets at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The impact of charged-particle separations and multiplicities on the track reconstruction performance is discussed. The efficiency in the cores of jets with transverse momenta between 200 GeV and 1600 GeV is quantified using a novel, data-driven, method. The method uses the energy loss, dE/dx, to identify pixel clusters originating from two charged particles. Of the charged particles creating these clusters, the measured fraction that fail to be reconstructed is $0.061 \pm 0.006 \textrm{(stat.)} \pm 0.014 \textrm{(syst.)}$ and $0.093 \pm 0.017 \textrm{(stat.)}\pm 0.021 \textrm{(syst.)}$ for jet transverse momenta of 200-400 GeV and 1400-1600 GeV, respectively. The European physical journal / C 77(10), 673 (2017). doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5225-7 Published by Springer, Berlin