Integrated assessment models generate climate change mitigation scenarios consistent with global temperature targets. To limit warming to 2 °C, cost-effective mitigation pathways rely on extensive deployments of CO2 removal (CDR) technologies, including multi-gigatonne yearly CDR from the atmosphere through bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation/reforestation. While these assumed CDR deployments keep ambitious temperature targets in reach, the associated rates of land-use transformation have not been evaluated. Here, we view implied integrated-assessment-model land-use conversion rates within a historical context. In scenarios with a likely chance of limiting warming to 2 °C in 2100, the rate of energy cropland expansion supporting BECCS proceeds at a median rate of 8.8 Mha yr−1 and 8.4% yr−1. This rate exceeds—by more than threefold—the observed expansion of soybean, the most rapidly expanding commodity crop. In some cases, mitigation scenarios include abrupt reversal of deforestation, paired with massive afforestation/reforestation. Historical land-use transformation rates do not represent an upper bound for future transformation rates. However, their stark contrast with modelled BECCS deployment rates implies challenges to explore in harnessing—or presuming the ready availability of—large-scale biomass-based CDR in the decades ahead. Reducing BECCS deployment to remain within these historical expansion rates would mean either the 2 °C target is missed or additional mitigation would need to occur elsewhere.
Young Russian and U.S.-based scholars from a variety of science and social science disciplines met at Stanford to tackle emerging issues in nuclear security.
How can a new generation of scholars from around the world work together to prevent the use of nuclear weapons, from nuclear terrorism to developments in North Korea? A summit hosted at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation sought answers to that question—and more.
The third meeting of the Stanford-National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) Young Professionals Nuclear Forum, held May 2-4 at CISAC, brought together young Russian and U.S.-based scholars from a variety of science and social science disciplines to explore how to use thoughtful, cooperative approaches to solve these pressing international nuclear security issues.
Dr. Siegfried Hecker, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, emeritus, and an internationally recognized expert in nuclear risk reduction, organized the summit. Opening the forum, Dr. Hecker stressed that while U.S.-Russian relations continue to be complicated and cooperation in the nuclear sphere has virtually come to a stop, “the younger generation of nuclear professionals should be prepared to collaborate again once the relations between the two governments turn for the better.”
The group of Stanford and Russian scholars took part in two day-long exercises. Day one included an exercise in risk analysis of the threat of radiological terrorism from the perspective of the attacker, tasking the participants with comparing the risks of carrying out an attack using a radiological dispersal device versus carrying out an attack on a spent nuclear fuel cask. On the second day, scholars engaged in a detailed simulation of U.S. and North Korean approaches to the denuclearization of North Korea to be discussed at the proposed June summit between the U.S. and North Korea. CISAC affiliates Larry Brandt, Chaim Braun, and former national lab experts Len Connell (SNL) and James Toevs (LANL) joined Dr. Hecker to advise the teams.
Working in mixed groups of Russian and Stanford scholars, one group represented the U.S. perspective; the other the North Korean. They explored the risks of maintaining or eliminating different nuclear facilities and activities in North Korea. In the exercise, it quickly became clear that the North Korean team was aiming to keep a hedge for the future and not give away all nuclear options. Meanwhile, the U.S. team sought to eliminate much of the immediate risk posed by North Korea’s nuclear program, claiming some peaceful nuclear facilities and activities might eventually be possible but they cannot allow North Korea the ability to reconstitute its weapons quickly.
So—who won the exercise?
For Dr. Hecker: “nobody won.” That wasn’t the point. But, he said, “what was really interesting was that they came up with really reasonable compromises—on both the North Korean and American sides.”
The Center for International Security and Cooperation tackles the most critical security issues in the world today. Founded in 1983, CISAC has built on its research strengths to better understand an increasingly complex international environment. It is part of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Though scholarly research, fellowships, and teaching, CISAC is educating the next generation of leaders in international security and creating policy impact on a wide variety of issues to help build a safer world.
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Stanford and Russian young nuclear experts gathered for a forum at CISAC in May 2018. | Rod Searcey
Interested in learning more about the Ford Dorsey Master's Program in International Policy at Stanford University? Then please join us for an informational webinar on May 23, 2018 at 9:30am PST. We will be going over program specifics and answering any questions.
This is an excerpt of the the article, which was first published in Stanford News. You can read the whole article here.
A Stanford-led study in China has revealed for the first time high levels of a potentially fatal tapeworm infection among school-age children. The researchers suggest solutions that could reduce infections in this sensitive age range and possibly improve education outcomes and reduce poverty.
The study, published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, focuses on Taenia solium, a tapeworm that infects millions of impoverished people worldwide and can cause a disorder of the central nervous system called neurocysticercosis. The World Health Organization estimates that the infection is one of the leading causes of epilepsy in the developing world and results in 29 percent of epilepsy cases in endemic areas. It is thought to affect about 7 million people in China alone.
On May 4, 2018, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) President Jin Liqun delivered a talk titled “The AIIB After Two Years” to a Stanford audience of faculty, students, and community members. The event was sponsored by the China Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
President Jin addressed the challenges of establishing the AIIB and shed light on the organization’s future goals. Following prepared remarks, President Jin conversed with moderator Thomas Fingar, before opening the floor to questions from the audience.
A recording of the event is now available online .
Uma Mulukutla is FSI's associate director for finance and budgeting. Uma brings extensive Stanford research, finance, and administrative experience to this leadership role, most recently as a research accountant in the Office of Research Administration, and in her previous roles as research and finance administrator in the School of Engineering, program manager and faculty administrator, both in the Department of Computer Science, and faculty affairs administrator in the School of Medicine. Uma's academic background also makes her a great fit for FSI. She holds an ED.M. with a concentration in technology innovation education from Harvard University, an M.S. in mass communication with a concentration in advertising and marketing from Boston University, and an M.Phil in public administration with her research dissertation on employer-employee relations in the public sector from Osmania University. Before joining Stanford, she was an education researcher at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in Palo Alto and an education specialist at Sun Microsystems in Menlo Park, and, prior to moving to the U.S., she taught public administration in India.
How does Southeast Asia incentivize a major power like China to exercise restraint, particularly in the ongoing dispute in the South China Sea (SCS)? Prof. Huang will argue that regional consensus, interactive deliberations, and insulated negotiation settings are most likely to induce China to shift its policy in the SCS toward supporting regional initiatives that it previously deflected, resisted, or opposed, and toward reevaluating the efficacy of using force. Conversely, regional disunity and fragmentation would render China more likely to practice power politics. Without joint influence, the states of Southeast Asia are unlikely to alter China’s preference for pursuing its interests in the SCS by coercive means intended to minimize the capabilities of other claimant states and thereby sustain its unilateral approach to maritime security.
A key question for this research is the extent to which confidence-building diplomacy based on voluntary cooperation between China and Southeast Asia can cultivate habits of avoiding conflict without the binding agreements and formal sanctioning mechanisms that have proven so hard to negotiate. Preliminary findings suggest the need for scholars and practitioners to be more creative, precise, and consistent in studying and suggesting how Southeast Asia can project and implement its security norms in ways that incentivize change in the foreign policy paradigm of an imposing external power.
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Chin-Hao Huang is an assistant professor of political science at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. His current book-in-progress, Power, Restraint, and China’s Rise, explains why and how China’s foreign policy might reflect restraint even as its material power increases at unprecedented rates. His latest publication is “China-Southeast Asia Relations: Xi Jinping Stresses Cooperation and Power—Enduring Contradiction?” (coauthored, Comparative Connections, May 2018). Earlier writings have appeared as monographs, in edited volumes, and in journals including The China Quarterly, The China Journal, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. Tri-lingual in Mandarin, Thai, and French, Prof. Huang lectures widely and has testified on Chinese foreign policy before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. His PhD and BS are respectively from the University of Southern California and Georgetown University
Chin-Hao Huang
2017-2018 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia
Interested in pursuing a Master’s degree in International Policy? Come check out our newly redesigned Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy (MIP) at FSI!
MIP is a two-year Master of Arts program that emphasizes the application of advanced analytical and quantitative methods to decision-making in international affairs. It is also offered as a coterminal degree here at Stanford. If you are interested in hearing more, please join us for our upcoming MIP Coterm Info Session:
What:MIP Coterm Info Session
Date:May 22, 2018
Time:12:30 -1:15pm
Location: International Policy Studies Kitchen, Ground Floor, Encina Hall Central (616 Serra St.)
Please see more details about the program, as well as application information, on our website: http://ips.stanford.edu/.
International Policy Studies Kitchen, Ground Floor, Encina Hall Central (616 Serra St.)
Even as Indian officials watch the rise of China and recent changes to its foreign policy with apprehension, they prefer to avoid having to choose sides between the United States and China.
That sentiment marked the keynote address by veteran journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, winner of the 2017 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Speaking on April 16 at the Award’s sixteenth anniversary panel discussion titled “India, the United States, and China: The New Triangle in Asia,” Varadarajan described a triangle where all three parties were in flux.
The award recognizes Varadarajan’s exemplary record of excellence in reporting on India’s domestic and foreign affairs in both traditional and new media. As founding editor of The Wire, Varadarajan combines innovative digital strategies with quality reporting that advances positive social, economic, and political change.
“Today we can see, across Asia as well as the United States, that journalism has been somewhat reinvigorated by… the growth of authoritarianism,” said Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC visiting scholar, who chaired the noon panel. “I think we feel even more vindicated in hosting this award…and giving some attention to people who are making this kind of contribution.”
Thomas Fingar, a China specialist and a Shorenstein APARC fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, and Nayan Chandra, the founder, former editor-in-chief, and current consulting editor of YaleGlobal Online magazine, joined Varadarajan on the panel.
The panelists addressed a host of questions related to Indian foreign policy under the geopolitical construct of a rising China and a retreating United States. Although the China-India-U.S. triangle has existed for some time, Varadarajan argued that present conditions make it an important topic for renewed discussion.
Pointing to recent internal changes by president Xi Jinping, India’s departure from the so-called Nehruvian consensus, as well as the unpredictability of U.S. foreign and trade polices under the Trump presidency, Varadarajan depicted a triangle comprised of shifting segment lengths and angles. He reviewed the India-U.S. and the India-China relationships and their evolution over the last decade-and-a-half; outlined significant changes in China’s foreign and economic policies over the last eight years; and elucidated the U.S.-India response to these changes.
Since 1998 and India’s declaration of its status as a nuclear power, U.S.-India relations have seen a succession of rises and falls under each presidency, with the present administration being no exception. “When the rest of the world was ambiguous, ambivalent, a bit worried about what the United States might do under Trump,” Varadarajan said, “Prime Minister Modi was one of the few world leaders to actually seek a doubling down of the relationship." Over the same period, India-China relations tended to follow a similar pattern of peaks and troughs, albeit in a reversed pattern. “If you look broadly at the India-China relationship,” Varadarajan summated, “it’s a textbook case of how improvements in economic relations and improvements in trade do not necessarily lead to improvements in political relations."
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Varadarajan closed his remarks by arguing against the existing viewpoint of the triangle as a zero-sum game. “You cannot, on the one hand, talk of the need for a free and open Indo-Pacific region and, on the other hand, create forums or architecture that in some ways are designed to keep the Chinese out… India's interests lie perhaps in an architecture that is genuinely inclusive.”
The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, recognizes accomplished journalists committed to critical reporting on and exploring the complexities of Asia through their writing. It alternates between honoring recipients from the West, who mainly address American audiences, and recipients from Asia, who pave the way for freedom of the press in their countries. Established in 2002, the award honors the legacy of Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein. A visionary businessman, philanthropist, and champion of Asian-American relations, Shorenstein was dedicated to promoting excellence in journalism and deeper understanding of Asia.
Varadarajan called the award a “boost to those of us in India who are fighting the good fight of keeping independent journalism alive-and kicking under difficult circumstances.”
Watch Varadarajan’s keynote speech:
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Siddharth Varadarajan, the 2017 Shorenstein Journalism Award winner, speaks to an audience of Stanford faculty, students and community members, part of the award's 16th anniversary, April 16, 2018. | Rod Searcey
The United States is in the midst of a profound paradigm shift in racial demographics: the latest Census revealed that over 12 million Americans identify as being multiple races and political scientists estimate that a full 20% of the population will identify as multiracial by 2050. Multiracials are the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. along with Latinos and Asian Americans (especially those of Chinese, Korean and Filipino descent) and very soon Whites will no longer be a majority.
This talk addresses some of the most pressing question:Why is this change happening? How are ideas about race and ethnicity changing in the U.S.? What are the political and cultural impacts of these changing demographics, and especially of what some have called the rise of “Generation Ambiguous”?
This event is co-organized with the Peking University School of Foreign Languages.
