The Duck of Minerva

Josh Busby

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

Recent Posts

World AIDS Day and the Global Fund Replenishment

World AIDS Day and the Global Fund Replenishment

by Josh Busby | 1 December, 2013 |

Sunday, December 1st was World AIDS Day, the annual reminder of the state of the epidemic, a way to focus attention on a problem that is perhaps less visible than it was two or three years but not defeated, not by a long shot. To that end, this week, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria will be convening its fourth replenishment conference in Washington, DC, where it is seeking $15 billion for the next three years. Recall, in 2011 , the Global Fund canceled its 11th funding round in the midst of the global economic crisis and concerns about some millions of the Global Fund's...

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Belated Thanksgiving Linkage – Iran Nuclear Deal Edition

Belated Thanksgiving Linkage – Iran Nuclear Deal Edition

by Josh Busby | 29 November, 2013 |

This was a momentous week with the announcement of an interim deal on Iran's nuclear program. There were some critics to be sure of this effort, but I for one am hopeful that the six month effort to halt or at least pause some aspects of Iran's nuclear program will eventually lead to a permanent reduction of tensions between Iran and the West. It's obviously too soon to say but as we give thanks this holiday season for our families and friends, we can only hope that the diplomatic overtures will ultimately bear fruit. With the past decade plus having yielded relentless military campaigns...

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Equity in Global Climate Governance: An Update From Warsaw

Equity in Global Climate Governance: An Update From Warsaw

by Josh Busby | 22 November, 2013 |

Following on my round of links on Thursday, this is a guest post from Jennifer Hadden from the University of Maryland who is in Warsaw at the global climate negotiations (follow her on Twitter here). Yeb Saño, Climate Change Commissioner of the Philippines, opened the annual negotiations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change last week by making an emotional appeal to delegates to "stop the madness" and act decisively on climate change. As of Thursday evening, there have been two three walkouts by the G77/China on the issue of 'loss and damage' and a substantial and broad-based...

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Thursday Morning Linkage – Special Climate Negotiations Edition

Thursday Morning Linkage – Special Climate Negotiations Edition

by Josh Busby | 21 November, 2013 |

The annual climate negotiations are going on at the moment in Warsaw, Poland. For long-time observers of the process, they have a Groundhog Day-esque quality to them. Every year the same issues seem to come up again and again, and it's unclear if there has been any meaningful progress or if each negotiation is more or less a replay of what transpired the previous year, with divisions between developed and developing countries almost always ever-present. Rich countries aren't doing enough while poor countries and environmental activists are demanding greater action because there is a climate...

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Thursday Morning Linkage – Special Typhoon Haiyan Edition

Thursday Morning Linkage – Special Typhoon Haiyan Edition

by Josh Busby | 14 November, 2013 |

This week, more news from the relief effort and typhoon Haiyan and how the events in the Philippines threaten to overshadow the on-going climate negotiations in Warsaw. The Security and Relief Situation on the Ground U.S. military ramps up aid to Philippines with up to 1,000 soldiers likely on the ground from Okinawa in short order, ferrying Filipino troops and aid supplies Plenty of gasoline but gas stations won't open for fear of looting; mayor, a relative of Imelda Marcos, urges residents to flee, tells foreign aid workers "Please be self-sufficient, because there’s nothing" Tacloban so...

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Postscript on Typhoon Haiyan: Hazard Vulnerability, Disasters, and Security

Postscript on Typhoon Haiyan: Hazard Vulnerability, Disasters, and Security

by Josh Busby | 12 November, 2013 |

I found two pieces that asked similar questions to my earlier post on why this typhoon appeared to be so destructive and why similar storms in Asia are especially deadly. Both raise interesting questions for scholars of security studies and environmental politics. Max Fisher raises a similar set of concerns in the Washington Post asking why the Philippines wasn't more ready. Beyond the sheer size of the storm and the country's poverty, he also addresses the governance challenges, writing: The Philippines' political system, though, can make centralized governance difficult. Owing to the...

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Typhoon Haiyan and Asia’s Special Vulnerability to Climate-Related Hazards

Typhoon Haiyan and Asia’s Special Vulnerability to Climate-Related Hazards

by Josh Busby | 11 November, 2013 |

You probably saw the horrific photos and video of Typhoon Haiyan (also known as Yolanda) that made landfall over the weekend in the Philippines, with winds nearing 200 miles an hour and an immense 13 foot storm surge that decimated infrastructure, leading to wide-scale loss of life due to drowning and collapsed buildings. According to reports, the storm left perhaps as many as 10,000 dead in the city of Tacloban alone and displaced hundreds of thousands. Even as domestic and international aid efforts ramp up, there have been isolated widespread reports of looting, as people who lost...

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Thursday Morning Linkage

Thursday Morning Linkage

by Josh Busby | 7 November, 2013 |

Here are a few articles for your consideration. For those of you interested in conservation, we have had a disturbing pattern of stories about rapid declines in species around the world, some of them due to poaching, what has been described as an "environmental crime wave," and others as a result of disease. All of this suggests to me that nature is in serious trouble as population, disruptive modernity, and consumptive pressures may be taking their toll on the natural world. On top of existing stories about declines in elephants, rhinos, bees, bats, and amphibians, we now have reports of a...

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Can China Get a Handle on Pollution? What Does that Mean for Climate Change?

Can China Get a Handle on Pollution? What Does that Mean for Climate Change?

by Josh Busby | 5 November, 2013 |

In the northern city of Harbin, China, air quality was so bad ten days ago that concentrations of particulate matter reportedly reached 1000 micrograms per cubic meter at their peak, exceeding the World Health Organization's daily safe levels by a factor of 40 and shrouding the city in a fog so dense that commuters had trouble finding their way and a numbers of schools were forced to close. As China's pollution has reached intolerable levels, the air quality problem may pose an opportunity for China to address not only its dirty air but also its greenhouse gas emissions, as actions to reduce...

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Thursday Morning Linkage

Thursday Morning Linkage

by Josh Busby | 31 October, 2013 |

Aside from major sporting events, there have been a few items of import in the news. Health A new polio outbreak in Syria is endangering the drive for global eradication Climate Change A 2012 story that I missed, a drive to replace dirty cook stoves in India using experimental methods failed India not keen on addressing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) -- a short-lived greenhouse gas -- through the Montreal Protocol Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia join forces on regional greenhouse gas reduction scheme and coordinated carbon prices Africa A drone strike kills an al Shabaab...

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