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The Austrian government is implementing its energy and climate strategy to 2030, the aim of which is to stimulate the economy and achieve energy independence through the use of clean technologies. The strategy signals potential points of contention with Poland, including in nuclear and coal energy. At the same time, it indicates potential fields of cooperation regarding low-emission transport.
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The gas relationship with Russia has become an extremely contentious issue among EU Member States. It is a major reason for the EU’s failure to develop the common policy approach towards Moscow it so badly needs. Yet the relationship is often misunderstood. Russia is the largest external gas supplier to the EU, but it is far from a monopoly provider. Since 1980, Europe’s diversification of its gas supply has seen Russia’s share of EU gas imports roughly halve, from 80% to 40%. Russian gas represents just 6.5% of the EU primary energy supply, a figure that has remained essentially unchanged over 20 years. And contrary to widely held belief, Russian gas exports to Europe are unlikely to increase significantly in the foreseeable future. So calls for Europe to diversify its energy supply even further miss the point. The problem is divisiveness, not dependence. Russian gas is divisive because Europe’s gas market is dysfunctional and segmented. Most of the EU’s imports of Russian gas go to a few countries in western Europe, where supply is diversified, while several Member States in central and eastern Europe consume relatively little Russian gas but have no other external suppliers. Only the emergence of a single competitive European gas market can create real solidarity between consumers and ‘Europeanise’ the current large bilateral contracts between European importers and Gazprom.To address the specific concerns of central and eastern European Member States, the EU should build on the 2004 directive on security of supply in natural gas, and help these Member States devise and implement national action plans for gas security.
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Following the attacks on the World Trade Center in the US on September 11th 2001, three points draw attention. Firstly, these attacks revealed the obligation of evaluating the phenomenon of terrorism with a distinctive method and content when compared with the Cold War period. Secondly, the debates that the essential goal for US was the intervening with Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 respectively was to control the resources and routes for oil, and these attacks were used as the means of legitimacy are often brought to the agenda. And lastly, during and after the intervention, the issue of nuclear threat came under fire in the Middle East, especially on the Israel–Iran line. Within this general framework, the main goal of this study is to introduce the different perspectives, views, and debates on the Middle East on the axis of three factors about 9/11 and its aftermath.
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Climate change is a global issue for not only developing countries but also advanced industrial societies. Consuming more fossil fuels by emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) results in climate change and this problem stems from human activities. Global warming caused by climate change threatens ecological balance and the whole humanity. Despite having divergences and problems among states, world countries have been trying to tackle climate change in the international arena in the recent years. One of the most crucial issues to mitigate climate change risks at the Paris Climate Conference on November 2015 is particularly on nuclear energy. In this context, this paper aims to analyse whether nuclear energy will contribute to climate change or not.
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The basic ideological conflict of the 20th century was between capitalism and socialism. This conflict occurred between the supporters of the capitalist ideology and those opposing the capitalist ideology. In the 21st century, this ideological clash is witnessed to be evolved. The basic ideological conflict of the 21st century is between globalists and capitalists. The conflict between globalists and capitalists is developing between different factions of capitalist ideology, not between oppositionists of capitalist ideology and their opponents. These developments need to be evaluated in the context of this new ideological conflict. In this work, the development of the international system is evaluated within the framework of different ideologies, and then the analysis of change in the ideological power struggle is being conducted in the 21st century. Finally, the conflict of ideologies and the process of unification are explained.
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On 21 January another round of trilateral gas talks between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union was held in Brussels. This meeting mainly concerned the new Russian-Ukrainian transit contract; the transit contract currently in force between Gazprom and Naftogaz will expire as of 1 January 2020. During the meeting, European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič submitted proposals to the parties concerning the parameters of a new contract transit, but did not make them public. The meeting was the latest in this series of trilateral gas talks; the previous round was held in Berlin in July 2018. In Brussels Russia declared its willingness to conclude a new transit agreement, although it highlighted the need for the legal dispute between Naftogaz and Gazprom to be resolved before that could happen. The lack of success during the talks so far, the divergent interests of the various parties and the current political context suggests that a new contract transit will probably only be concluded by the late autumn or winter of this year, and possibly in the period immediately before the expiry date of the current contract between Naftogaz and Gazprom. It is also conceivable that the negotiations will be extended into 2020, and that meanwhile transit will take place on the basis of principles agreed in the short term, along the lines of the so-called winter packages in 2014 and 2015, something which would be very disadvantageous for Ukraine and the EU, but extremely convenient for Moscow. There is no reason to expect rapid progress in the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations; they are proceeding in complicated conditions, including the ongoing political conflict between Kiev and Moscow, the numerous legal disputes between Naftogaz and Gazprom, the construction of new Russian export pipelines, the continuing fundamental reform of the Ukrainian gas sector, and finally a packed political calendar (for both Ukraine and the EU) in 2019. The negotiation process is also difficult because of the contradiction between the long-term interests of Ukraine, which wants to maintain its status as a key transit route for Russian gas in the long term, and Russia, whose strategic goal is to become independent of the Ukrainian transmission network.
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DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING ECONOMIES NEED TO EXPLOIT THEIR BIOECONOMY CAPABILITIES TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT. THIS STUDY SEEK TO EXAMINE THE FINNISH AND NIGERIAN BIOECONOMY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF BIOENERGY AND TOURISM. WE USED SECONDARY DATA FROM FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO); INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY (IEA); UNITED NATION WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (UN WTO) AND WORLD BANK TO DRAW INSIGHTS ABOUT THE SUBJECT. BASED ON AVAILABLE DATA; DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS SUCH AS CHARTS AND FREQUENCIES WERE USED TO EVALUATE THE BIOECONOMY OF FINLAND AND NIGERIA. THIS STUDY REVEALS THAT BIOECONOMY IS DESIRABLE TO DEVELOPING NATIONS SUCH AS NIGERIA. FOLLOWING THE DIFFERENCES IN BIOECONOMIC ADVANCEMENT BETWEEN THE FOCUS COUNTRIES; OUR STUDY HAVE SHOWN THAT DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND NIGERIA; IN PARTICULAR; WILL HAVE TREMENDOUS BENEFIT IF ITS PARADIGM SHIFT TOWARD BIO-BASED ECONOMY. IMPLEMENTING THE MEASURES AND POLICIES OF DEVELOPED ECONOMIES SUCH AS FINLAND WILL DRIVE NIGERIA TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE BIOECONOMY DEVELOPMENT.
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North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a framework agreement which requires a wide cooperation between the signatory countries. This agreement and its formation: NATO, not only prevents the attacks to the member countries or provides the efficiency to get rid of the attack when it appears, but also requires a work and solidarity in political, economical and social arena.This agreement’s signatory countries are obligated to defend the peace and international security to develop and protect the stability and wealth in the field of North Atlantic Treaty Organization with getting the necessary strength from the NATO laws. According to the agreement signatories are again obligated to solve the eco-political problems and to increase the cooperation between them.
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Mining development provides tremendous amount of long-term environmental and community degradation all over the world. Often, local communities bear the burden. This article demonstrates how the Bergama environmental network has utilized international environmental treaties with a focus on precautionary principle in order to halt the cyanide-leach Ovacik gold mine project in Turkey. The network has not only operated under the principle of precaution, but it has also defined and illustrated how the precautionary principle could be operationalized and implemented in practice in mining industry. By doing so, the Bergama environmental network developed a model for the operationalization and implementation of the precautionary principle in mining sector. In contrast to risk assessment that focus on the question of what level of contamination is safe, the precautionary approach focus on the question of how to reduce or eliminate the hazards and considers all the possible means of achieving that goal---including forgoing the proposed activity. This network has been promoting precautionary principle instead of risk assessment in mining nationwide. This model can be utilized by other communities dealing with mining developments in order to make the companies and their states to adopt and implement the precautionary principle. This article is based on a larger research project that has been taking place since 2002 on Ovacik gold mine development in Bergama. It relies on data that comes from interviews, focus group discussions with local community residents and field notes as well as books and documents prepared by the network and local newspapers that covered the case extensively.
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Within this article, we are trying to establish the necessary legal premises for the creation of a legal body of regulations concerning exclusively the realm of energy and the energy activities, from the perspective of the public international law. The public international law is here regarded as a general framework for the future international energy law. At present, there are some special international regulations with compulsory legal force, applicable to energy activities, especially the treaty of Energy Charter. There are also, international regulations with general incidence for the international energy law, such as the UN Charter, the Charter of the Economic Rights and Obligations of the States, the UNGA resolution no. 1803 from 1962 concerning permanent sovereignty of the state over its natural resources, the International Pacts from 1966, the 1958 Convention regarding the continental shelf, the UN Convention regarding the Sea Law, from 1982, and other international treaties, conventions or UNGA resolutions incident in this field. Therefore, it cannot be asserted that there are not legal regulations regarding international energy law. A process must be started at international legal level, in order to crystallize the specific IEL regulations, by starting with those regulations of public international law already in force. In this article, we prefer to connect fundamentally the international energy law with public international law, as a body inspiring the scholars in developing the energy regulations already in force and also, in elaborating some specific regulations regarding interstate relations as relations between sovereign entities (where states are not acting de iure gestionis, as a legal quality interesting the international commercial law and not IEL as a part of public international law). On the other hand, we cannot conceive a conflict between principles of public international law (applicable, in our opinion, de iure in the international energy law case) and the principles of international commercial law, because we do not consider IEL in this article, as a domestic law, and also, due to the sovereign quality (de iure imperii) of the state when entering into a legal relation on the public international law field (and consequently, on the IEL field).
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This study was carried out to provide an overview of hydrogen energy, which is increasingly used in the world. While environmental problems require the use of hydrogen, the limited availability of fossil fuel reserves makes this development compulsory. There are ready-made technologies developed for the production, transportation, storage and usage of hydrogen, which is the product of contemporary technology, and the first applications have been made. In the long term, the problems in the hydrogen production area should be solved and it should be determined which hydrogen will be an appropriate energy source in the future. The development, advantages and production methods of hydrogen energy are examined, the amount of energy required for the production and distribution of hydrogen by various methods and the reviews for 1995 and 2020 are given. In addition, fuel costs of hydrogen-supply systems and internal combustion cars for fuel cell cars were given considering external costs and compared with other fuels.
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An internally integrated gas market that is independent from Russia is a permanent element of the Baltic States’ energy policies. This goal in the regional dimension was to be achieved by the launch of an LNG terminal in Klaipeda, Lithuania, at the end of 2014. However, Latvia rejects the opportunity to import gas from Lithuania, and Estonia would benefit only slightly. Instead, to cooperate effectively, including in the implementation of joint infrastructure projects, all three act individually. This hinders the creation of a regional market and the EU should actively resist it.
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The German Presidency of the EU in the first half of 2007 inspired great hopes regarding the development of relations between the European Union and the states of Central Asia. In Brussels and other European capitals, it was expected that Germany, as an EU political and economic heavyweight and one of the key promoters of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, would be able to foster a coordinated Central Asian policy giving direction and coherence to European engagement in the region.
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Energy resource supply, which is a vital factor fort he continuation of the high production power reached by developed countries, caused strategic connections between countries In this study, I underlined that the EU’s import of energy raw materials from Russia reached up to 80% and this dependency is a vital problem waiting to be resolved before Europe’s economic freedom. I also tried to explain the EU’s effort to minimize this dependency through reports and analysis. I have detailed and expanied the cost that should be spent for resource searches in a table. Reminding that the EU is the most important market for Russia, I tried to find an objektive assessment.
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The work was aimed at monitoring the chemistry of precipitation after passing through the willow ecosystem. Precipitation samples were evaluated for 2 years. Most of the observed rainfall was acidic. The highest acidity of precipitation was recorded in an open area in continuous open collector (pH = 5.51). The lowest acidity was measured at throughfall willow ecosystem (pH = 5.77). Chemical analyzes of atmospheric precipitation have shown a slight increase in acidity. The great extremity of values (3.72 to 7.04) was found in pH results collected over the course of two years. According to the precipitation scale, the lower extreme pH falls to very acidic and the upper value to a neutral range. The lowest bottom pH was recorded in December in the open collector and the highest upper value in November in the same colletor. Except for actual acidity, the extremity of values has certainly a negative impact on the stability of forest and soil ecosystems. As for the individual annual periods, most acidic precipitation fell in the winter to the part-covering collector. In other seasons, precipitation were less acidic. The average pH values in individual seasons (spring, summer, autumn and winter) have occurred in the interval from 5.22 to 5.83 in the part-covering collector (K1), 5,01 – 5.81 in the opened collector (K2) and 5,32 – 6.00 in the collector in the willow ecosystem (K3). At assessing the resulting pH in the individual collectors, it can be concluded that the acidity of precipitation has not changed significantly. This natural relation is also confirmed by the average figures for the whole period. All average pH values lie in a slightly acidic region.
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In the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s, there were practically no major efforts of Russia to diversify its oil and gas exports beyond Europe. Except for some preliminary agreements between Russian private players with potential Asian consumers (see below), there were no gas purchase and sale contracts concluded as well as no major infrastructure constructed, which would connect Russian vast but untapped Eastern Siberian and the Far Eastern gas resources with Asian market.
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As far as civil nuclear power development is concerned, we identified several diverse groups of players in the Asian market: a) mature countries with their nuclear technology and services export programs (e.g. Japan, South Korea, newly followed by China); b) countries which operate nuclear power plants, but had otherwise limited participation in nuclear sector due to being outside of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (India until 2008, Pakistan); c) newcomers to the sector, who decided to address their rapidly growing energy demand by developing their nuclear power-generating capacity (e.g. Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc.).
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The catastrophic effects of climate change can be seen in New York City (“NYC”) today. As of now, the NYC as a coastal city has faced different climate risks such as heat waves and storm surges, which affect everyday life citywide, and, if current trends continue, they will become more frequent and severe. Hurricane Sandy which has devastated the East Coast is just the latest example. To strengthen its resilience, the NYC Administration comes forward particularly in this regard to commissioning expert scientific advice, formulating policy goals, setting standards and developing new institutions for environmental governance and sustainability. Locally, through PlaNYC, the City’s sustainability plan, the NYC Administration has pursued several initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with mostly 30 percent below current levels by 2030. Since 2002, the Administration stands out challenging climate change and its initiatives which are the examples of best practices at the municipal level. In this framework, this study describes the comprehensive effort to reduce GHG emissions, as well as provides NYC’s climate change projections and some of the potential risks to the NYC’s critical infrastructure posed by climate change. Also local legal documents determining the City’s climate policy and offering significant opportunities for implementation is examined.
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On July 15, 2016, a legal act entered into force, which electrified the business community, especially the unconventional energy industry, local government authorities, and all those who saw the development of the alternative energy sector as the only solution for the global energy crisis. This is about the Act of 20 May 2016 on Investments in Wind Power Plants, which set out the conditions, rules and procedures for the location and operation of wind farms with a power greater than the power of a micro installation, as well as the conditions for the location of housing developments (residential buildings and mixed-use buildings) in the vicinity of wind farms. This Act has been named, both by scholars of law and the media, “another special legislation”, although it is not a typical special legislation. Although it is a lex specialis in relation to the Act of 7 July 1994 – Construction Law, as well as the Act of 27 March 2003 on Spatial Planning and Land Development, its provisions, unlike any “special legislation”, do not introduce preferential conditions for investors with regard to identifying location and authorization for the project covered by it. On the contrary, they introduce a number of significant constraints in the process. The legislature’s goal of increasing the transparency of the wind farm building permit process has come at too high a cost; at the expense of violating basic constitutional standards, notably the principle of proportionality and the principle of protection of property.
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