RISK-DISASTER-AND-INSURANCE

About OGEL (ISSN 1875-418X) Oil, Gas, Energy Law Intelligence (OGEL, ISSN 1875-418X) started publishing in January 2003 and has since gained popularity with a large number of (international) energy companies, governmental organisations, law firms (mainly those with a claim to special competence in international oil, gas and energy regulation), international agencies, academic and think-tank institutions in the field of energy policy and various NGOs. To get an idea of our current readership you can find some of them here.

Visions and Pathways for a Hopeful Future A Great Transition to a future of enriched lives, human solidarity, and environmental sustainability is possible. The Great Transition Initiative is a growing international network of scholars and activists that analyzes alternative scenarios and charts a path to a hopeful future. At once rigorous and inspiring, the Great Transition story brings the message that we can create a better world if we shift our values and transform our institutions. Critical to this transition is growing public awareness of the dangers ahead and the need to revise our ways of living - and living together - on this planet. In this, our time of choice, we need a vast movement of global citizens to carry forward a Great Transition.

The Perfect Spill: Solutions for Averting the Next Deepwater Horizon By Robert Costanza, David Batker, John Day, Rusty Feagin, M. Luisa Martinez, Joe Roman National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) f we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction-if we don't factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs-we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future." -President Barack Obama, Carnegie Mellon University, June 2, 2010 he continuing oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon is causing enormous economic and ecological damage. Estimates of the size and duration continue to escalate, but it is now the largest in U.S. history and clearly among the largest oil spills on record.1 s efforts to plug the leak and clean up the damages continue, it is not too soon to begin to draw lessons from this disaster. We need to learn from this experience so we can prevent future oil spills, reevaluate society's current trajectory, and set a better course. ne major lesson is that our natural capital assets and other public goods are far too valuable to continue to put them at such high risk from private interests. We need better (not necessarily more) regulation and strong incentives to protect these assets against actions that put them at risk. While the Obama administration's demand for a trust fund to compensate injured parties is appropriate, it arrived only after the fact. Common asset trusts and new financial instruments like assurance bonds would be better able to shift risk incentives and prevent disasters like the Deepwater Horizon. The Costs: Damages to Natural Capital Assets he spill has directly and indirectly affected at least 20 categories of valuable ecosystem services in and around the Gulf of Mexico. The $2.5 billion per year Louisiana commercial fishery has been almost completely shut down. As the oil extends to popular Gulf Coast beaches, the loss of tourism

14/10/2008 - Petrobrás vai iniciar importações de diesel com menos enxofre Por Congresso em Foco Alterar tamanho da fonte: A+ | a- A empresa diz que o produto chegará ao País com um preço maior do que o diesel nacional  RIO - Após intensas discussões com a área ambiental do governo, a Petrobrás decidiu iniciar as importações, no ano que vem de diesel com 50 partes por milhão (ppm) de enxofre. A empresa, no entanto, alega que o produto chegará ao País com um preço maior do que o diesel nacional e que os efeitos ambientais não serão grandes, uma vez que a frota brasileira de caminhões não está adaptada ao produto. A resolução do Conselho Nacional de Meio Ambiente (Conama) de 2002, determina a redução nas emissões de poluentes pela frota nacional a partir do ano que vem, meta que, segundo organizações ambientalistas, poderia ser atingida com a substituição do diesel produzido atualmente pela Petrobrás. Os planos da estatal, porém, prevêem a produção em grande escala de diesel 50 ppm só a partir de 2012, quando os investimentos previstos para suas refinarias estiverem concluídos. Em entrevistas recentes, o diretor de Abastecimento da companhia, Paulo Roberto Costa, tem afirmado que a simples mudança do combustível não garante redução das emissões. "Querer resolver a questão apenas com o combustível de melhor qualidade é um erro. É tapar o sol com a peneira", afirmou o executivo, citando como medidas adicionais uma maior fiscalização e manutenção da frota atual e mais planejamento no transporte público urbano. Por Nicola Pamplona, da Agência Estado

Abstract As a reaction to flooding events, various governments in Europe addressed the need to create more physical space for water. Experiences in the Netherlands have shown, however, that the development and implementation of these measures can result in local opposition. Based on an examination of such conflicts, it is argued that spatial planning should not only be regarded as an instrument for regulating the land required for flood reduction, but also as an important substantive perspective through which participation can be facilitated and through which water management objectives can be balanced with other spatial claims on the landscape.

From the oil spill to the financial crisis, why we don't plan for the worst Network News X PROFILE View More Activity TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Yahoo! Buzz Reprints   COMMENT 50 Comments  |  View All »  COMMENTS ARE CLOSED WHO'S BLOGGING » Links to this article By Richard A. Posner Sunday, June 6, 2010 The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest of several recent disastrous events for which the country, or the world, was unprepared. Setting aside terrorist attacks, where the element of surprise is part of the plan, that still leaves the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the global economic crisis that began in 2008 (and was aggravated by Greece's recent financial collapse) and the earthquake in Haiti in January. THIS STORY If it seems unthinkable, plan for it Why is BP's CEO still on the job? In all these cases, observers recognized the existence of catastrophic risk but deemed it to be small. Many other risks like this are lying in wait, whether a lethal flu epidemic, widespread extinctions, nuclear accidents, abrupt global warming that causes a sudden and catastrophic rise in sea levels, or a collision with an asteroid. Why are we so ill prepared for these disasters? It helps to consider an almost-forgotten case in which risks were identified, planned for and averted: the Y2K threat (or "millennium bug") of 1999. As the turn of the century approached, many feared that computers throughout the world would fail when the two-digit dates in their operating systems suddenly flipped from 99 to 00. The risk of disaster probably was quite small, but the fact that it had a specific and known date made it irrational to postpone any remedies -- it was act now or not at all. Such certainty about timing is rare; indeed, a key obstacle to taking preventive measures against unlikely disasters is precisely that they are unlikely to occur in the near future. Of course, if the consequences of the disaster would be very grave, t

Asset Specificity and Transaction Structures: A Case Study of @Home Corporation Spring, 2010 15 Harv. Negotiation L. Rev. 77 Author Brian J.M. Quinn 1 Excerpt I. Introduction   While broadband Internet access seems commonplace today, during the mid-1990s the technology required to support the development of high-speed residential Internet access was still nascent. Before service providers could introduce such technology nationwide, proponents of a broadband vision had to overcome a series of technical and economic challenges, not the least of which involved coordinating large investments in dedicated infrastructure capable of supporting such a network. This article is a case study of how the largest cable companies in the United States used contract and transaction structures to overcome these challenges and build the first nationwide high-speed network.

What's the Fuss About "Financial Seismology"? ~ Frederic Sautet ~ A recent article in The Economist discusses the concept of "financial seismology." It's kind of a new idea that consists in monitoring through various indicators the financial system in order to forecast better the onset of a crisis. Three main indicators are discussed in the article: LIBOR (London interbank offered rate), the spread between LIBOR and OIS (overnight indexed swap), and CDS (credit-default swaps).

Natural Hazards Center Publications Descriptions and links to publications of the Natural Hazards Center are provided below. In most cases, downloadable versions of the publications are available, along with archives of past publications. An updated PDF file listing all of the Natural Hazards Center Publications is available. For information on ordering hard copies of any publications, visit our publications purchasing page. Natural Hazards Observer The Natural Hazards Observer is the bimonthly periodical of the Natural Hazards Center. It covers current disaster issues; new international, national, and local disaster management, mitigation, and education programs; hazards research; political and policy developments; new information sources and Web sites; upcoming conferences; and recent publications. Disaster Research Disaster Research (DR) is a biweekly e-newsletter that includes some news items that also appear in the Natural Hazards Observer as well as other timely articles about new developments, policies, conference announcements, job vacancies, Web resources, and information sources in the field of hazards management. Quick Response Reports With funds contributed by the National Science Foundation, the Natural Hazards Center Quick Response program offers social scientists small grants to travel to the site of a disaster soon after it occurs to gather valuable information concerning immediate impact and response. Scholars participating in the program submit reports, which the Center makes available for free online. Research Digest Research Digest is a quarterly online publication that compiles recent research into an easily accessible format for the hazards and disasters community. It provides complete references and abstracts (when available) for current research in the field. The issues include more than 35 peer reviewed publications. Natural Hazards Review The Natural Hazards Review is a joint publication of the Natural Hazards Center and the American Societ

10 MAY 2010: ANALYSIS The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: An Accident Waiting to Happen The oil slick spreading across the Gulf of Mexico has shattered the notion that offshore drilling had become safe. A close look at the accident shows that lax federal oversight, complacency by BP and the other companies involved, and the complexities of drilling a mile deep all combined to create the perfect environmental storm. by john mcquaid It's hard to believe now, as oil from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon well encroaches on the Louisiana marshes. But it was only six weeks ago that President Obama announced a major push to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. Obama's commitment to lift a moratorium on offshore drilling reflected the widely-held belief that offshore oil operations, once perceived as dirty and dangerous, were now so safe and technologically advanced that the risks of a major disaster were infinitesimal, and managing them a matter of technocratic skill. But in the space of two weeks, both the politics and the practice of offshore drilling have been turned upside down. Today, the notion that offshore drilling is safe seems absurd. The Gulf spill harks back to drilling disasters from decades past - including one off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif. in 1969 that dumped three million gallons into coastal waters and led to the current moratorium. The Deepwater Horizon disaster is a classic "low probability, high impact event" - the kind we've seen more than our share of recently, including space shuttle disasters, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. And if there's a single lesson from those disparate catastrophes, it's that pre-disaster assumptions tend to be dramatically off-base, and the worst-case scenarios downplayed or ignored. The Gulf spill is no exception. Getty Images/U.S. Coast Guard Fire boats battle the fire on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon after the April 21 explosion. The post-mortems are only beginning, so the precise causes of the initial

India is the first country to introduce environmental legislation in the constitution but because of lengthy legal procedures, it is very difficult to control environmental deterioration. There are many factors responsible for this deterioration. Coal mining is one such activity where deterioration is very severe and the present communication aims this aspect. Coal is the one of the most essential mineral having large reserves in India. It's mining and beneficiation produce a variety of pollutants. The main pollutants emitted during the processing of coal are green house gases, coal dust and acid mine drainage. Many reports on different aspects of coal mining are available including reports on emission of different pollutants but the present work is probably only of it's kind in which the authors have tried to determine environment liability directly in terms of economy. It was found that greenhouse liabilities, coal dust liability and sulphur liability are accounted for 12.07, 5.0 and 101.97 US$, making an overall 2.4% of the total economic gains due to coal mining. During the calculations approximate number of total workers and other parameters have been taken into consideration. Who pays for this irreversible damage is a question

Commonly occurring natural events become natural disasters when they affect the population through death and injury, and/or through the destruction of natural and physical capital on which people rely for their livelihood and quality of life. Climate change plays a role in that it tends to increase the frequency and intensity of weather-related natural disasters. Additionally, climate change may put people at risk by influencing access to water, coastal flooding, disease and hunger, and leaving them with a more degraded environment, leading, in turn, to increased vulnerability. The purpose of this paper is to present a review and synthesis of the literature and case studies addressing differential impacts of climate change-related natural disasters on a society and its economy. Developed and developing countries show different vulnerabilities to natural disasters. Even within countries, impacts vary significantly across population and economic sectors. When losses from natural disasters are large, their cumulative effect can have notable macroeconomic impacts, which feed back to further pronounce existing income inequalities and lower income levels. Impacts tend to be most pronounced for women, the young and elderly, and people of ethnic or racial minorities.Keywords  Climate change - Natural disaster - Macroeconomic impact - Income distribution - Poverty - Vulnerability

 Derecho y economia. Analisis economico del derecho y el papel estatal en materia ambiental. Analisis de casos, metodologia y enfoques complementarios.

El paradigma ambiental. El derecho ambiental. Incertidumbrre y riesgos ambientales. Prevencion y precaucion. Teoria de la implementacion. Cumplimiento obligatorio de las normas ambientales. Enforcement.

 Derecho de daños. Aspectos generales del Derecho de daños: Responsabilidad civil. Los presupuestos de la responsabilidad civil (Antijuridicidad; daño; relación de causalidad; factores de atribución subjetivos de la responsabilidad civil; factores de atribución objetivos de la responsabilidad civil).  Aspectos particulares del derecho de daños: Responsabilidad civil por el hecho propio: los hechos ilícitos. Responsabilidad civil extracontractual por el hecho ajeno. Responsabilidad civil por el hecho de las cosas. Responsabilidad civil por daños causados por animales. Responsabilidad civil de las personas jurídicas y de los funcionarios públicos. Responsabilidad civil de los profesionales. Cuestiones novedosas y controvertidas en el Derecho de daños. La acción civil y la acción penal: independencia, relaciones y efectos entre ellas: La coexistencia de la acción civil con la acción penal.

Data de Defesa - 06/08/2008Carinna Gonçalves SimplícioA responsabilidade do acionista controlador para a reparação do dano ambientalOrientador: Profª. Doutora Nanci de Melo e Silva

My company, Intellectual Ventures, is misunderstood. We have been reviled as a patent troll-a renegade outfit that buys up patents and then uses them to hold up innocent companies. What we're really trying to do is create a capital market for inventions akin to the venture capital market that supports start-ups and the private equity market that revitalizes inefficient companies. Our goal is to make applied research a profitable activity that attracts vastly more private investment than it does today so that the number of inventions generated soars. "That's preposterous," some might say. "Inventing can't be a business in its own right. It's too risky, and inventions are too intangible to generate sufficient profits by themselves. Inventing and inventions can't be separated from the companies that turn the ideas into actual products. And the notion of creating a liquid market for inventions is absurd." I couldn't disagree more. In the 1970s, people said the same thing about another type of intangible intellectual property: software. Back then, everyone in the computer industry believed that software was valuable only because it helped to sell mainframes or minicomputers and that you could never sell software by itself. As a result, software engineers worked for computer manufacturers or for companies that used computers. Very few independent software vendors existed, and those that did were barely profitable. As a business, software was hopeless. Everyone said so. Everyone was wrong, of course. Over the next three decades, software became one of the most profitable businesses in history. I know because, as a manager and ultimately the chief technology officer at Microsoft, I had a ringside seat to this amazing success story. Software owes its ascent largely to two crucial developments. First, software vendors gradually persuaded software users-through both education and lawsuits-to respect intellectual property rights and pay for somethi

Often, discussions about improving long-term Flood Risk Management (FRM) refer to spatial planning as one of the most promising policy instruments (non-structural measures), especially after flood disasters like in Dresden in August 2002. However, up to now, evidence is limited that spatial planning is used intensively and systematically for long-term FRM, for instance, to reduce vulnerability in flood-prone areas by controlling developments on floodplains and providing development possibilities in non-hazardous areas (Burby et al., 2000). Based on the literature on strategic spatial planning (e.g., Albrechts, 2004a; Bryson, 2004; Healey, 2007) and risk management (e.g., Klinke & Renn, 2002