Search Climate Insights Directory

The report examines the remittance landscape for immigrants in Norway, comparing 42 services across 21 mechanisms, including banks, money transfer operators (MTOs), and informal hawala systems. It highlights a restrictive regulatory environment that often drives users toward illegal services, particularly for transfers to Somalia and Iraq. The analysis reveals that real costs are often hidden through exchange rate spreads, with typical costs for NOK 1,000 transfers ranging from 5% to 25%. While bank transfers can be cheaper for larger amounts, they are often slower and less predictable than MTOs. The report argues that improving financial literacy and regularizing informal services could enhance the development impact of remittances and improve immigrant integration.

The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) outlines immediate strategies to lower U.S. crude oil demand, arguing that a 5% to 9% reduction would remove 1.0 to 1.8 million barrels per day from the global market. Proposed measures include reducing speed limits for non-Class 8 vehicles to 60 MPH, increasing the federal Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) for trucks to 110,000 lbs, and mandating Auxiliary Power Units (APUs) for new Class 8 tractors. RMI suggests these actions, combined with increased biofuel procurement and the adoption of 'total-flex' vehicle technology, would restore global excess capacity to 2.5 to 3.8 million barrels per day, thereby reducing price volatility.

The document highlights the synergies between climate change mitigation and the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), identifying key areas for multisectoral intervention. It emphasizes that shifting to clean energy, promoting active transport, and adopting sustainable food systems can reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and NCD risk factors like air pollution and physical inactivity. The briefing advocates for policy coherence across government ministries and a whole-of-society approach to achieve these health and environmental co-benefits.

The document identifies key components of effective climate accountability frameworks, emphasizing the importance of legislating targets, establishing independent oversight, and using cumulative carbon budgets. It advocates for a whole-of-government approach and the integration of adaptation and clean growth into climate policy to enhance resilience and economic development.

The guide outlines NRK's ambition to integrate environmental considerations into all production decisions, drawing on international experience from organizations like Albert. It identifies transport, energy consumption, and material use as primary areas for reduction, offering specific tactics such as choosing local locations, using LED lighting, and implementing reuse plans for sets and props. The document emphasizes the need for a designated environmental lead for each production and suggests using carbon calculators to identify the most significant impacts.

The text explores transnational practice as a spatial phenomenon where human actions and relationships stretch across national borders. It details key manifestations of this practice, including the economic impact of remittances, the symbolic and material role of transnational house building, and the political engagement of diasporas. The author argues that while these practices are central to the lives of migrants, digital technology has expanded transnational activity to a broader segment of the global population.

The text outlines the methodological toolkit of human geographers, distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative approaches. It explains the use of text analysis (from social media to archives), quantitative data for causal inference and pattern recognition, GIS for spatial analysis, and qualitative tools such as semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Additionally, it covers the role of visual data (remote sensing and photography) and the importance of field presence through ethnography and observation.

The research explores the role of the Norwegian-Somali community as a foreign policy actor, bridging the gap between 'ethnic lobby' literature and transnational migration studies. Through interviews and case analysis, the authors argue that the diaspora successfully influenced Norway's shift to criticize Ethiopia's 2006-2007 military intervention in Somalia and encouraged the creation of the Special Financing Facility (Trust Fund) to support the Somali government. The study identifies key enabling factors for this influence, including the diaspora's concentration in urban centers like Oslo, their high level of political engagement, and their ability to provide Norwegian decision-makers with direct access to Somali political elites. However, the authors note that the diaspora is not a unitary actor, with significant internal divisions based on clan and region, such as the Somaliland diaspora's unsuccessful lobbying for independent state recognition.

Based on 60 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2015, the study finds that individuals are inconsistent in how they define the boundaries of Norwegian nationhood, often drawing on different symbolic resources depending on the time, place, and their personal circumstances. While boundaries appear clear when they are actively produced, the uncertainty of when and why they emerge blurs the overall perception of a fixed national boundary. The author argues that boundary-making is a contingent event influenced by socioeconomic status and the distinction between public and private spheres, suggesting that nationhood's boundaries are permeable rather than stable.

The research examines the transition of 'duty of care' from an internal NGO management norm to a legally enforceable liability, using the case of Steven Patrick Dennis v. the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) as a primary example. The Oslo District Court found the NRC grossly negligent following the 2012 kidnapping of staff in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, ruling that the organization must adhere to the same due care standards as any other employer, regardless of the humanitarian context.

The research explores how young members of the Somali diaspora, specifically those born or raised in Norway and the United States, navigate their identities and civic participation. It challenges binary views of citizenship and integration, proposing 'multi-sited embeddedness' to describe how these individuals belong to and act within multiple communities simultaneously. The study finds that civic engagement is both a result of belonging and a tool used to claim inclusion in various national and local contexts.

The author analyzes 'value-talk'—the use of references to 'our values' to formulate 'we', 'us', and 'them'—following terror attacks in France and Norway. By examining national TV news from the first week after the events, the study argues that values are not static traits dividing cultural groups, but are dynamic tools used to mobilize unity (we-hood) and dissociate the national community from terrorists (us-hood). The findings suggest that while both countries used value-talk to foster cohesion, the results differed: Norway experienced a more consensus-oriented, depoliticized narrative, whereas France's efforts were more fragmented and marked by ongoing conflict regarding the loyalty of Muslim populations to the Republic.

A joint statement by Medact, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, and Scientists for Global Responsibility welcoming the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for ICAN. The organisations argue that nuclear weapons are indiscriminately destructive, that no meaningful medical response to a detonation is possible, and that even limited use would cause global climate damage and mass starvation. They urge the British Government to sign the TPNW and engage in multilateral discussions to eliminate nuclear weapons.