Recent History
For the past few years, the dynamics of
trans-Atlantic climate change policies have featured a mandatory
emissions trading scheme in Europe and a voluntary, technology-based
approach in the United States. Part of that story in the United States
has played out in the US Senate: The US Senate passed the 1997
Byrd-Hagel Amendment , stipulating that the Senate would not ratify any
international treaty that did not require meaningful participation by
developing countries or that harmed the US economy. The US Senate has
also been the venue for debate over the cap-and-trade program authored
by Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Lieberman (D-CT).
More recently, however, another bipartisan Senatorial team has begun
working on the issue - Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM),
the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Energy Committee. Senator
Bingaman engaged the issue early last year, when his staff examined the
recently completed work of the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) . During a brief window of opportunity in June 2005, Senator Bingaman considered introducing a proposal
based on the NCEP report as an amendment to the 2005 Energy Bill. The
Senate was debating the 2005 Energy Policy Act, and there appeared to
be genuine interest in a NCEP-like alternative to the McCain-Lieberman
proposal.
In 2001, the US Surgeon General issued a report warning of an obesity
"epidemic." Despite a subsequent outpouring of media attention and
public health alarms, obesity rates continue their seemingly inexorable
rise. Over 65 percent of all Americans are overweight and 31 percent
are clinically obese.1 Policy makers, accustomed to responding to
crises, debate solutions to obesity's critical toll. Yet in
individualistic America, a political response to obesity strikes many
as misguided. Why should the government regulate the private behavior
- food consumption and exercise - driving up obesity rates?
As an American scholar or student you might feel at home at Education City in Qatar.
Trudging
through the desert outskirts of Doha, you pass by branches of five
prestigious US universities. Separated by a walking distance of at
least fifteen minutes, the architecturally stunning academic buildings
rise impressively from the desert sand. The huge high-tech facilities
combine futuristic forms with traditional Arab-Islamic architecture. In
particular the unique geometric shapes give these works of art a
strikingly modern look.
NASA and ESA: Two leaders in Spaceflight
Although spaceflight is by
its very nature a truly international endeavor, there is no
international space agency coordinating humanity's activities.
Spaceflight is currently pursued actively by only a few countries, be
it for strategic, scientific, cultural, and/or economic reasons. The
countries with the most active space programs are the United States
(NASA), Europe (ESA), Russia (RKA), China (CNSA), Japan (JAXA), and
India (ISRO). Of these six players, five support a manned spaceflight
program: Russia, the US, and China have the knowledge and resources to
conduct a manned spaceflight mission entirely on their own, while
Europe and Japan each have an astronaut corps, but have not (yet) fully
developed the capability to launch their own manned missions into space.
Founded as a European version of NASA (the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration) in 1975, the European Space Agency (ESA) has
followed its own path and has succeeded in federating 17 European
countries of which France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom are
dominant. In terms of budget, ESA resembles roughly one-fifth of NASA,
with an annual spending power of approximately €3 billion compared to
the $16.2 billion of NASA. In addition, ESA's mandate is restricted to
civilian space programs only. Still, ESA has been able to position
itself as a strong number two in this ranking of space agencies, mostly
because the ESA has pursued a very comprehensive and ambitious space
science program over the last two decades. When "Horizon 2000" was
launched in 1984, ESA had managed to launch only three space science
missions, COS-B, IUE, and Exosat. However 11 more missions followed by
2001 - all in all 17 spacecrafts. And if one includes the four doomed
Cluster satellites of the maiden Ariane 5 flight, the mass of the
launched space probes adds up to 30 tons. Horizon 2000 was such a
successful space science program that ESA extended it to "Horizon 2000
Plus" in 1994. Consequently six more missions had been launched as of
2001 and 13 others are in preparation. ESA is now starting its next set
of activities. At the last ministerial conference in December 2005 in
Berlin, the new space science program dubbed "Cosmic Vision 2020" was
launched, as well as an ambitious space exploration program named
"Aurora," which has the goal of sending humans to the Moon and on to
Mars - and this is where NASA enters the picture again.
The US and Europe have been cooperating with success in space
activities for almost forty years. Yet the US budget request for fiscal
year 2007 may pose significant challenges to this historic partnership,
as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) might
cancel or unilaterally postpone numerous missions developed in
international cooperation. Furthermore, following the accident of the
Space Shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003, and the subsequent complete
reassessment of US national space policy, space exploration has
recently become the important focal point of NASA's plans. This poses a
challenge to all other space-faring countries in the world, and Europe
in particular, that have made the International Space Station (ISS)
utilization the centerpiece of their planning for the next decade and
more; but it may also provide a new impetus to the trans-Atlantic space
relations and raise the relationship from a program-to-program
cooperative approach to a broader policy level that will be more stable
in the long run.
Universities are not necessarily the first place people turn to when facing emergency situations in the "real world." But when listening to Emmerich Simoncsics, Coordinator of the Cooperation Center for Disaster Mitigation and Security in Buildings at the Vienna University of Technology (VUT), this is a preconception one might want to reconsider. "Although our university is working in a context of "academic education" and "knowledge production," he explains when asked for the raison d'ętre of the Cooperation Center, "our special goal is, by means of the creativity of our students and the profound knowledge of experienced researchers, to help to solve the acute problems of our society, not only in Austria but also in other parts of the globe."
Since 1999 the so-called "Bologna Process," aimed at establishing a
European Higher Education Area by 2010, has become the driving force
for reforms in higher education all across Europe, and has strongly
influenced trends in higher education in 45 European countries. Halfway
through the process, work on a strategy for the "external dimension" -
interaction with the countries and re-gions of the world not included
in the Bologna Process - has just started.
Climate change is one of the most complex issues that the world will
face in this century. Because of the increasing impact of humans on the
earth's climate, decisions made in upcoming decades will significantly
shape our world's weather, geography, distribution of plant and animal
life, and even human health and migration patterns. Temperatures have
risen over the last century and are expected to continue to rise at an
increasing rate. Concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the
atmosphere have already reached levels unprecedented for hundreds of
thousands of years, causing changes not only in global temperature, but
also in precipitation, sea-level rise, and other observable impacts
throughout the world; and these changes are happening more quickly than
expected. The broad consensus of established scientific experts is that
most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human
activities. In addition, without significant steps to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions to the atmosphere, the rate and severity of these changes
will increase.
Founded as a European version of NASA (the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration) in 1975, the European Space Agency (ESA) has
followed its own path and has succeeded in federating 17 European
countries of which France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom are
dominant. In terms of budget, ESA resembles roughly one-fifth of NASA,
with an annual spending power of approximately €3 billion compared to
the $16.2 billion of NASA. In addition, ESA's mandate is restricted to
civilian space programs only. Still, ESA has been able to position
itself as a strong number two in this ranking of space agencies, mostly
because the ESA has pursued a very comprehensive and ambitious space
science program over the last two decades. When "Horizon 2000" was
launched in 1984, ESA had managed to launch only three space science
missions, COS-B, IUE, and Exosat. However 11 more missions followed by
2001 - all in all 17 spacecrafts. And if one includes the four doomed
Cluster satellites of the maiden Ariane 5 flight, the mass of the
launched space probes adds up to 30 tons. Horizon 2000 was such a
successful space science program that ESA extended it to "Horizon 2000
Plus" in 1994. Consequently six more missions had been launched as of
2001 and 13 others are in preparation. ESA is now starting its next set
of activities. At the last ministerial conference in December 2005 in
Berlin, the new space science program dubbed "Cosmic Vision 2020" was
launched, as well as an ambitious space exploration program named
"Aurora," which has the goal of sending humans to the Moon and on to
Mars - and this is where NASA enters the picture again.
