Word: regions
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Scientists and officials working with the U.S. Global Change Research Program released on June 16 the first climate-change assessment to be completed during Barack Obama's presidency. The assessment, which is required periodically by Congress, breaks down the predicted effects of global warming in the U.S. by region and sector; it contains no new research, but it paints a detailed and worrying picture of what a warmer America will be like 10, 50 and 100 years from today. "It is clear that climate change is happening now," says Jerry Melillo, a lead author of the report and an ecologist...
...Precipitation will generally become heavier in northern areas, and will tend to fall in severe downpours, leading to more widespread flooding. Meanwhile, the South - and especially the Southwest - will become drier. That's alarming because the Southwest and Southeast, where populations are growing faster than in any other U.S. region, are already struggling with drought...
...past, the SCO has worked to stave off the threat of Islamist militancy in Central Asia, but it declared in 2005 that all U.S. military bases in the region's post-Soviet republics must have a timeline for withdrawal - a move on both Beijing and Moscow's part to stymie U.S. influence. Already, the U.S.'s pivotal Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan has been ordered to cease operations...
...present climate, likely overblown. Beijing and Moscow regard each other with equal measures of warmth and distrust. The Central Asian countries tagging along are also keen to pit the Chinese and Russians against each other in a global scramble for the vast reserves of natural resources lurking beneath the region's rolling steppe and in the Caspian Sea. Still, in the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia have presented something of a united front when it comes to Iran. Their combined weight has thwarted the West from levying stricter sanctions upon Tehran as it continues its quest for nuclear weaponry...
...still keen to boost its long-standing friendship with New Delhi. A mooted gas pipeline, running from Iran's fields through Afghanistan and into Pakistan and India, is a massive project that appeals to all parties involved. Conversation in Yekaterinburg will surely include the need to shore up the region's economies - China has already promised a $10 billion soft loan to its SCO allies, including Russia, which has been hit particularly hard by the fallout of the world's financial crisis. Few will raise thornier questions of political reform. After all, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart...