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This article examines the institutional pathology of corruption within the Nigerian Navy, and its broader manifestation and implications within Nigeria’s maritime industry. Beginning with an examination of the disappearance of the vessel, MT African Pride, in October 2003, the article reflects on the African Pride case to show that far from being a one-off incident, it was indicative of the opportunism and criminality that naval operations within the oil-rich Niger Delta have generated. Other primary case studies relevant to corruption within Nigeria’s maritime industry, and interrogated by the article, include the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). The article shall also examine a range of secondary case studies. These are relatively brief meditations on incidents, individuals and maritime industry private contractors and government parastatals, which are relevant to the debate to naval and maritime corruption in Nigeria.

The relationship between growth, inequality and poverty remains elusive, despite considerable scholarship. To what extent can governments rely on growth to eradicate poverty without reducing inequality? We derive a closed-form relationship between a minimum income threshold, changes in the Gini index of income inequality and average national income required to meet this target, independent of the form of income distribution. We develop a generalized form of redistribution and validate it against historical changes in inequality. We use this formulation to illustrate feasible growth-redistribution strategies to raise entire populations above the International Poverty Line ($1.90/day) by 2030, the Sustainable Development Goal 1, in two selective countries: India and Rwanda. We show that meeting this target would require unprecedented rates of both growth and inequality reduction in Rwanda. India could not eradicate acute poverty by 2030 with growth alone, but it could with only a modest reduction in inequality.

Some harm reduction strategies encourage individuals to switch from a harmful addictive good to a less harmful addictive good. This approach is controversial, with advocates claiming it helps switching to a less harmful substance, and opponents claiming it may lead to new substance abuse. This paper builds on theories of addiction to model the introduction of a harm reduction method, and it demonstrates when each side is correct, depending on the enjoyableness of the harm reduction method, the addictiveness of the harm reduction method, and the substitutability with the original addictive good.

Corporations are responsible for a significant portion of observed impacts on the Earth system, including green-house gas (GHG) emissions, but also water extraction, landuse change and other pressures on nature. These nature-related impacts are essential to consider and capture because they have local impacts on a range of ecosystem functions on which companies and economies depend, but they also fundamentally affect our ability to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate. Furthermore, climate, land and water interact and affect each other in various ways, such that climate change can be exacerbated by degraded ecosystems, which in turn are dependent on water. This paper tests a novel metric developed to capture corporate Earth system impact (ESI) beyond merely direct GHG emissions and explores how such a tool could be used to improve assessments of corporate environmental impacts and support decisions on where to direct public and private investments. We use the mining sector as a test case to illustrate the applicability of the ESI score and examine the impact of the the five largest (by market cap) mining companies in the precious metal mining sector and the top five in the non-precious metal mining sector. We find that many of the mining assets have non-negligible impacts on land and water, and we show that the ESI metric identifies a different set of asset for targeted action than conventional carbon intensity scores would do.

We assess to what extent municipalities with socioeconomically vulnerable populations are disproportionately exposed to particulate matter in Austria using municipality level data on particulate matter exposure from the European Environmental Agency and sociodemographic data from Statistics Austria for 2015. We find that foreign citizens are exposed to higher levels of particulate matter in Austria. This finding is robust with regards to different controls, regional fixed effects, and different particulate matter exposure indicators. Exposure disparities by citizenship are stronger in urban areas, where the large majority of foreign citizens live. We also find that citizens with low educational attainment are exposed to higher levels of particulate matter. The latter disparities are stronger in rural areas, where the majority of people with low educational attainment live. The relationship between income and air pollution follows an inverted U-shape in most specifications. High turning points and wide Fieller confidence intervals, however, suggest that the relationship is positive for most of the distribution and insignificant or negative for very high incomes. Overall, we find evidence that socioeconomically vulnerable municipalities are exposed to higher levels of particulate matter.

Developing transformative pathways for industry’s compliance with international climate targets requires model-based insights on how supply- and demand-side measures affect industry, material cycles, global supply chains, socio-economic activities and service provisioning supporting societal wellbeing. Herein, we review the recent literature modelling the industrial system for Low Energy and Materials Demand (LEMD) futures, resulting in lowered environmental pressures without relying on negative emissions. We identify 77 innovative studies drawing on nine distinct industry modelling traditions and critically assess system definitions and scopes, biophysical and thermodynamic consistency, granularity and heterogeneity, and operationalization of demand and service provision. We find large potentials of combined supply- and demand-side measures to reduce current economy-wide material use by -56%, energy use by -40 to -60%, and GHG emissions by -70% to net-zero. We call for strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations between industry modelling traditions and demand-side research, to produce more insightful scenarios and discuss research challenges and recommendations.

Climate change disproportionately impacts capital and output in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Limited fiscal space and high dependence on capital good imports further curtail their ability to make timely climate-resilient investments. In this paper we present a demand-driven model that is supply-side constrained due to insufficient build up of production capacity. Calibrating the model to Fiji, we evaluate growth pathways for three climate futures – 2C, 3C, and 4C global warming by the end of the century. We evaluate the role of a public climate fund to enable partial recovery that is financed through four different schemes - debt-led recovery, higher tax on households, higher taxes on capitalists, and unconditional grants from the rest of the world. Recovery is possible in the 2C scenario, but the 3C and 4C scenarios increasingly face higher investment costs in the face of lower growth and saving rates. In the 4C scenario, even the most generous unconditional grants scheme fails to prevent the downward spiral of hitting capacity constraints despite an initial boost to output. These insights underscore the need for effective and equitable domestic climate policies and affordable finance and compensation to support sustainable development in vulnerable countries.

Walnut (Juglans) species are economically important hardwood trees cultivated worldwide for both edible nuts and high-quality wood. Broad-scale assessments of species diversity, evolutionary history, and domestication are needed to improve walnut breeding. In this study, we sequenced 309 walnut accessions from around the world, including 55 Juglans relatives, 98 wild Persian walnuts (J. regia), 70 J. regia landraces, and 86 J. regia cultivars. The phylogenetic tree indicated that J. regia samples (section Dioscaryon) were monophyletic within Juglans. The core areas of genetic diversity of J. regia germplasm were southwestern China and southern Asia near the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Himalayas, and the uplift of the Himalayas was speculated to be the main factor leading to the current population dynamics of Persian walnut. The pattern of genomic variation in terms of nucleotide diversity, linkage disequilibrium, single nucleotide polymorphisms, and insertions/deletions revealed the domestication and selection footprints in Persian walnut. Selective sweep analysis, GWAS, and expression analysis further identified two transcription factors, JrbHLH and JrMYB6, that influence the thickness of the nut diaphragm as loci under selection during domestication. Our results elucidate the domestication and selection footprints in Persian walnuts and provide a valuable resource for the genomics-assisted breeding of this important crop. Author summary Walnut (Juglans) species are economically important hardwood trees. The Persian walnut as a woody nut crop is limited by an incomplete understanding of the diversity and spatial genetic structure of the species’ wild germplasm, and the relationship of the secondary germplasm pool of walnut (wild and landrace walnuts) to improved cultivars. To better understand walnut’s breeding, we sequenced the genomes of 309 walnut accessions from around the world. The results revealed core areas of genetic diversity of Persian walnut germplasm were southwestern China and southern Asia near the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Himalayas. The genome-wide scan for selective sweeps, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and expression analysis identified JrbHLH and JrMYB6 transcript factors related to the thickness of the diaphragm that were under selection during domestication. Our results elucidate the genetic diversity of walnut and its evolution as a species and a crop. We identified centers of wild genetic diversity that could contribute to breeding and sustainable improvement.