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August 1, 2025

Climate change: new method can more accurately attribute environmental harm to individual polluters

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Shashi Kant Yadav, Lecturer, Northumbria University, Newcastle

A small coastal community in Kivalina, Alaska sued several major oil and gas companies, including Exxon Mobil, in 2008. Local representatives argued that greenhouse gas emissions from these companies were contributing to the erosion of the coastline and causing irreversible damage to their village by heating the climate.

But the US Court of Appeals dismissed the claim, citing a lack of evidence linking the corporate emissions with coastal erosion.

In France, 2024, climate campaigners filed a criminal complaint against the major shareholders and the board of directors of TotalEnergies. They alleged that fossil fuels extracted by the company produced emissions that caused floods and storms that damaged property and irreversibly depleted biodiversity.

Despite acknowledging damage related to climate change generally, the Parisian criminal court also dismissed the case. Again, it said there was insufficient evidence to link the activities of TotalEnergies and damage from extreme weather.

Between 2008 and 2024, significant advances were made in climate science that enable us to understand how specific activities affect the climate, and contribute to wildfires, extreme heat and flash floods. The science linking these disasters to fossil fuel giants remains insufficient in the eyes of courts, however.

A petrol station. — TotalEnergies won its case in 2024.
Tamer A Soliman/Shutterstock

That’s because climate attribution science generally fails to meet the necessary standard of legal evidence to assign liability. For example, a recent advisory opinion published by the International Court of Justice acknowledged that states have a responsibility to address climate change, and that it is possible to establish a link between a state’s wrongful acts or omissions and the damage resulting from climate change. Despite this, claimants still sometimes fail to prove such a link in court.

However, a new study has demonstrated a computer model that can reduce scientific uncertainty around linking emissions from a particular source to outcomes related to climate change. This end-to-end attribution model, as it is called, could strengthen legal claims against entities damaging the climate.

Tracing emissions to damages

The end-to-end attribution model uses a three-step process to assign liability for climate damage.

First, using historical emissions data from online databases such as Carbon Major, the model simulates two scenarios: one with all historical emissions (the real world), and the other where the emissions from a particular company are excluded. The difference in emissions between these two scenarios is then paired with the concomitant increase in the global temperature, which shows how much warming can be directly attributed to that company.

Using statistical methods, the model can then connect the relevant global temperature increase to changes in the intensity of heatwaves in a particular region. It could, for instance, calculate how much hotter the five hottest days of the year have become in a given year because of the company’s emissions.

The model estimates the economic impact of these intensified heatwaves. It can do this using data on the consequences of reduced productivity and crop losses for growth, for example. It calculates how much money a region lost because of the heatwaves linked to the company’s emissions and gives a dollar value for the damages.

By combining these three steps, the model traces the path from a company’s emissions to specific economic losses, theoretically making it possible to hold emitters financially accountable for climate damages.

A satellite image of a hurricane. — Economic losses from extreme weather are mounting.
Triff/Shutterstock

In doing so, the study estimated that emissions from Chevron alone caused between US$791 billion (£589 billion) and US$3.6 trillion (£2.7 trillion) in heat-related economic losses globally between 1991 and 2020, and that without emissions from 111 large oil, gas and coal producers (collectively referred to as “carbon majors”) such as ExxonMobil, BP, Saudi Aramco and Gazprom, the global economy would be US$28 trillion richer.

The advantages for claimants

Climate court cases in which claimants seek to assign liability to oil and gas companies are on the rise worldwide.

About 230 lawsuits have been filed against fossil fuel giants and trade associations since 2015. More than two-thirds of these were filed between 2020 and 2024, and many are awaiting a final decision. For such cases, end-to-end attribution could be helpful.

End-to-end attribution can assist claimants in meeting the commonly used “but for” test, by demonstrating that, but for a specific company’s emissions, certain climate-related damages would not have occurred. The method can also meet other liability tests. One is called proportional liability, and it attempts to quantify the extent to which a company’s emissions contributed to increased risk or the severity of damage. This flexibility strengthens the method’s applicability across different legal systems.

The end-to-end attribution method enables claimants to connect global warming to local disasters, such as the 2021 Pacific Northwest “heat dome”. This is crucial, as climate litigation focused on single, high-impact events is usually more successful.

It is well established that emissions from companies in the US and Europe have caused significant harm which is disproportionately suffered in the global south. End-to-end attribution strengthens the evidence base for such climate justice arguments in courtrooms.

There are no established standards for how courts worldwide evaluate scientific evidence. Consequently, while the end-to-end attribution method can link fossil fuel companies and climate-related legal injuries, the courts, depending on differences between jurisdictions and the context of each case, may require higher thresholds to trigger criminal or civil liability.

Additionally, fossil fuel companies often argue that any harm caused by their activities should be weighed against the benefits their products also provide. However, the benefits of fossil fuels should not exempt companies from climate-related liability, because climate change is an existential threat.

End-to-end attribution provides a vital scientific tool for making fossil fuel companies accountable, and could reshape climate litigation globally.

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Climate change: new method can more accurately attribute environmental harm to individual polluters – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-new-method-can-more-accurately-attribute-environmental-harm-to-individual-polluters-256002

August 1, 2025

School’s out – but as young people paint, skateboard and play with their friends, they’re still learning

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ioannis Costas Batlle, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of Bath

School holidays are underway across the UK. But while young people might be getting a break from the classroom and having a chance to spend more time on their hobbies, they are still learning – whether they’re playing video games, painting toy soldiers or out on their bike.

Learning doesn’t just happen at school, college, or university. For Danish learning expert Knud Illeris, any process not caused by biological maturation (for instance, growing from a baby into a toddler) counts as learning. Learning is both inevitable and ubiquitous: it is part of being alive. We cannot “not learn”.

We can chunk the enormity of what learning is into smaller digestible portions. These three portions (called learning contexts) are formal learning, non-formal learning and informal learning. We can think of them as an iceberg, with some parts visible and others hidden below the water.

Iceberg illustration annotated with formal learning, non-formal learning and informal learning — Learning iceberg.
Runrun2/Shutterstock (edited)

Different contexts

Formal learning is the very tip of the iceberg. This aims to intentionally teach someone something. It is provided by an education or training organisation that will give you a certificate or diploma to show what you have learned. Schools, colleges and universities are examples of formal learning contexts.

Non-formal learning extends beneath the iceberg’s tip but remains above the water level. Like formal learning, it is learning as the result of some kind of teaching. However, non-formal learning is not necessarily provided by an education organisation, nor is it necessarily recognised with a certificate or diploma. Music lessons, sports clubs, cooking classes, developing skills at work, or museum tours all count as non-formal learning.

Beneath non-formal learning, shrouded under the sea, is the gargantuan base of the iceberg: informal learning. Unlike formal and non-formal learning, informal learning is generally unintentional, unplanned and unconscious. This could be absorbing social norms, such as how to greet someone you don’t know, or unexpectedly learning new words by listening to podcasts.

It’s a widely accepted assumption among academics that most of the learning we do is informal. And it makes sense when you think about how much young people’s development is unconscious and unplanned. For example, while being taught formally in school classrooms, they simultaneously informally learn values such as what it means to be – and behave like – a “good student”.

The iceberg illustrates why we often think of learning in a narrow way. We overvalue what is easily recognisable, such as the schooling that leads to an exam result. And we undervalue the much larger, but comparatively less visible remainder of the iceberg: non-formal and informal learning, such as through hobbies.

Young people, in particular, may overvalue formal learning for two reasons. First, it is tangible. It features physical buildings – schools, colleges and universities – where young people go almost every day to learn. In turn, they aim to leave these buildings with qualifications that “prove” what they have learned.

Second, even though across our lifespans we spend a tiny fraction in formal learning contexts compared to non-formal and informal ones, that tiny amount is disproportionately weighted towards our youth. Children and teenagers spend a huge amount of time being formally educated.

Learning through hobbies

To encourage young people to flourish as learners, we need to help them value non-formal and informal learning contexts. Hobbies are great for this. Hobbies are serious leisure activities which young people find interesting and fulfilling. They are serious because hobbies require perseverance to gain experience, a skillset and a knowledge base.

Whenever someone intentionally teaches a young person something hobby-related, that counts as non-formal learning. For instance, a coach explaining how to bounce a basketball, a music teacher describing how to hold a drumstick, or a friend explaining the rules to a board game.

Hobbies are equally infused with informal, unplanned and often unconscious learning. Playing video games inadvertently develops eye-hand coordination and cognitive function (storing and processing information). Stamp collecting can foster attention to detail. Skateboarding can improve resilience in the face of failure.

Part of the reason young people’s non-formal and informal hobby-related learning above is so difficult to recognise is because it is rarely described as “learning”. Instead, they “play” music and videogames; they “do” skateboarding and drawing.

Though play is one of the best ways young people learn, both young people and the adults in their lives may undervalue its impact. While adults may assume there is no relationship between play and learning, teenagers may perceive play as childish.

Too many young people think they are “bad learners” because they struggle in formal learning. However, I bet they are extraordinary learners when it comes to their hobbies. We simply need to help them recognise the value of non-formal and informal learning.

Ioannis Costas Batlle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. School’s out – but as young people paint, skateboard and play with their friends, they’re still learning – https://theconversation.com/schools-out-but-as-young-people-paint-skateboard-and-play-with-their-friends-theyre-still-learning-261125

August 1, 2025

What will it take for China to arrest its declining birth rate?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ming Gao, Research Fellow of East Asia Studies, Lund University

China’s central government introduced a childcare subsidy on July 28 that will provide families with 3,000 yuan (around £312) a year for each child under the age of three. The announcement came days after plans were unveiled to roll out free preschool education across the country.

These developments mark a shift from previous years, when the government largely left the issue of addressing China’s declining birth rate to local authorities. Many of those efforts, which range from cash incentives to housing subsidies, have made little difference. By stepping in directly, Beijing has signalled that it sees the situation as urgent.

Fewer Chinese women are choosing to have children, and more young people are delaying or opting out of marriage. This has contributed to a situation where China’s population shrank for a third consecutive year in 2024. An ageing population and shrinking workforce pose long-term challenges for China’s economic growth, as well as its healthcare and pension systems.

Before the central government’s recent roll-out, regions in China had already been experimenting with policies to increase birth rates. These include one-time payouts for second or third children, monthly allowances and housing and job training subsidies.

One of the most eye-catching local policies came from Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia province. In March 2025, the authorities there began offering families up to 100,000 yuan (£10,400) for having a second and third child, paid annually until the children turn ten.

The authorities in some other cities, including eastern China’s Hangzhou, have offered childcare vouchers or subsidies for daycare. Policies like these have seen the number of births increase slightly in a few regions. But uptake is generally low and none have managed to change the national picture.

There are several reasons why incentive-based policies have not moved the needle. First, the subsidies are generally small – often equivalent to just a few hundred US dollars. This barely makes a dent in the cost of raising a child in urban China.

China ranks among the most expensive countries in the world for child-rearing, surpassing the US and Japan. In fact, a 2024 report by the Beijing-based YuWa Population Research Institute found that the average cost of raising a child in China until the age of 18 is 538,000 yuan (£59,275). This is more than 6.3 times as high as China’s GDP per capita.

The burden is so widely felt that people in China jokingly refer to children as tunjinshou, which translates to “gold-devouring beasts”.

Second, the incentives largely don’t address deeper issues. These include expensive housing, intense education pressures, childcare shortages and some workplaces that penalise women for taking time off. Many Chinese women fear being pushed out of their jobs simply for having kids.

Some local authorities have attempted to tackle the structural realities that make having and raising children in China difficult, and have enjoyed some success. In Tianmen, for example, parents of a third child can claim US$16,500 (£12,500) off a new home.

However, these policies are confined to specific districts and villages or are limited to select groups. Support remains fragmented and insufficient, while the prospects of scaling these piecemeal initiatives nationwide are slim.

Third, gender inequality in China is still deeply entrenched. Women carry most of the childcare and housework burden, with parental leave policies reflecting that imbalance. While mothers are allowed between 128 to 158 days of maternity leave, fathers receive only a handful – varying slightly by province. Despite public calls for equal parental leave, major legal changes seem far off.

These factors have together given rise to a situation where, as in east Asia more broadly, many young people in China simply are not interested in marrying or having children.

According to one online survey from 2022, around 90% of respondents in China said they wouldn’t consider having more children even if they were offered an annual subsidy of 12,000 yuan (£1,250) – far more than the recently announced 3,000 yuan subsidy.

Is Beijing too late?

The new measures show that Beijing is taking China’s declining birth rate seriously. But it might be too late. Fertility decline is hard to reverse, with research showing that social norms are difficult to snap back once they shift away from having children.

South Korea has spent decades offering its citizens generous subsidies, housing support and extended parental leave. Yet, despite a recent uptick, its birth rate has remained among the lowest in the world.

Projections by the UN paint a stark picture. China’s population is expected to drop by 204 million people between 2024 and 2054. It could lose 786 million people by the end of the century, returning its population to levels last seen in the 1950s.

Still, the recent announcements are significant. They are the first time the central government has directly used fiscal tools to encourage births, and reflect a consensus that lowering the cost of preschool education can help boost fertility. This sets a precedent and, if urgency keeps rising, the size and scope of support may increase as well.

However, if China hopes to turn things around, it will need more than cash. Parenting must be made truly viable and even desirable. Alongside financial aid and free preschool, families need time and labour support.

This also means confronting cultural expectations. Raising a child shouldn’t be seen as a woman’s job alone. A real cultural shift is needed – one that treats parenting as a shared responsibility.

My generation, which was born under the one-child policy, grew up in a time where siblings were heavily fined. I was one of them. But, just as fines didn’t stop all of those who wanted more children, cash rewards will not easily convince the many who don’t.

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Ming Gao receives funding from the Swedish Research Council. This research was produced with support from the Swedish Research Council grant “Moved Apart” (nr. 2022-01864). Ming Gao is a member of Lund University Profile Area: Human Rights.

– ref. What will it take for China to arrest its declining birth rate? – https://theconversation.com/what-will-it-take-for-china-to-arrest-its-declining-birth-rate-261717

August 1, 2025

Trump’s new tariff regime has begun after months of chaos and uncertainty. But is his approach working?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Conor O’Kane, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Bournemouth University

The beginning of August marks the latest deadline for US president Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff policy. This era of chaos and uncertainty began on April 2 and the situation remaims fluid. With the deadline for partners to secure a deal with Washington now passed, it’s a good time to take a broader view and consider if Trump’s trade gamble is paying off.

The objectives of the tariff policy include raising tax revenues, delivering lower prices for American consumers, and boosting American industry while creating manufacturing jobs. The president has also vowed to get better trade deals for the US to reduce its trade deficit and to face down China’s growing influence on the world stage.

But recently the US Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates unchanged at 4.25% to 4.5%, despite pressure from Trump to lower them. In his monthly press briefing, Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, said they were still in the early stages of understanding how the tariff policy would affect inflation, jobs and economic growth.

On tariffs, Powell did say that revenues had increased substantially to US$30 billion (£22.9 billion) a month. However, only a small portion of the tariffs are being absorbed by overseas exporters, with most of the cost being borne by US import companies. In comments that will concern the Trump administration, the Fed said the cost of the tariffs was beginning to show up in consumer prices.

The Fed expects inflation to increase to 3% by the end of the year, above its 2% target. US unemployment remains low, with Powell saying the economy is at or very close to full employment.

While Powell’s decision to hold interest rates probably irritated Trump, economic theory suggests that lowering them with the US economic cycle at full employment would be likely to increase inflation and the cost of living for US consumers. A survey by Bloomberg economists suggests that US GDP growth forecasts are lower since April 2025, specifically because of its tariff policy.

In terms of boosting US employment, the US administration can point to significant wins in the pharmaceutical sector. In July, British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZenica announced plans to spend US$50 billion expanding its US research and manufacturing facilities by 2030. The announcement follows a similar pledge from Swiss pharmaceuticals firm Roche in April to invest US$50 billion in the US over the next five years.

Tougher times for US manufacturing

The impact of tariffs on traditional US manufacturing industries is less positive. The Ford Motor Company has warned that its profits will see a sharp drop. This is largely down to a net tariff impact that the firm says will cost it US$2 billion this financial year. This is despite the company making nearly all of its vehicles in the US.

Firms such as Ford are seeing an increase in tariff-related costs for imports. This dents their profits as well as dividends to shareholders.

In recent months the US has announced major new trade agreements, including with the UK, Japan, South Korea and the EU. Talks on a trade deal with China continue. But rather than trade deals, these announcements should be thought of as frameworks for trade deals. No legally binding documents have been signed to date.

It will take many months before a clear picture emerges of how these bilateral deals will affect the US trade deficit overall. Meanwhile, in Washington, a federal appeals court will hear a case from two companies that are suing Trump over the use of his International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977.

VOS Selections Inc, a wine and spirits importer, and Plastic Services and Products, a pipe and fittings company, are arguing that the president has “no authority to issue across-the-board worldwide tariffs without congressional approval”.

With so much in play, it is difficult to judge whether Trump’s tariff policy can be viewed as a success. Higher tariff revenues from imports as well as significant investments from the pharmaceutical industry can be seen as clear wins.

But increasing consumer costs through rising inflation, as well as tariff costs hurting US manufacturers, are clear negatives. While several framework trade deals have been announced, the real devil will of course be in the detail.

Perhaps the greatest impact of the tariff policy has been the uncertainty of this new approach to trade and diplomacy. The Trump administration views trade as a zero-sum game. If one side is winning, the other side must be losing.

This view of international trade harks back to mercantilism, an economic system that predates capitalism. Adam Smith and David Riccardo, the founders of capitalist theory, advocated for free trade. They argued that if countries focused on what they were good at making, then both sides could benefit – a so called positive-sum game.

This approach has dominated global trade since the post-war period. Since then, the US has become the largest and wealthiest economy in the world. By creating and the institutions of global trade (the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization), the US has advanced its interests – and American-based multinationals dominate, especially in areas such as technology.

But China and others now threaten this US domination, and Trump is tearing up the economic rulebook. But economic theory clearly positions tariffs as the wrong policy path for the US to assert and further its economic interests in the medium to long term. That’s why Trump’s course of action remains such a gamble.

Conor O’Kane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump’s new tariff regime has begun after months of chaos and uncertainty. But is his approach working? – https://theconversation.com/trumps-new-tariff-regime-has-begun-after-months-of-chaos-and-uncertainty-but-is-his-approach-working-262448

July 31, 2025

Will the latest diplomatic moves to end the war in Gaza work?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email newsletter. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

It feels as if things are moving at completely different speeds in Gaza and in the outside world. From the embattled Gaza Strip the narrative is depressingly familiar. Dozens more Palestinian civilians have been killed in the past 24 hours as they try to get hold of scarce supplies of food.

Aid agencies report that despite air drops of supplies and “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting, the amount of food getting through to the starving people of Gaza remains pitifully insufficient.

Two more children are reported to have died of starvation, bringing the total number of hunger-related deaths to 159, according to Palestinian sources quoted by al-Jazeera.

US envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Jerusalem for more talks as the US president Donald Trump posted his latest bout of social media diplomacy on his TruthSocial site, a message which appears pretty faithful to the Netanyahu government’s position: “The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!”

Both sides continue to reject the other side’s demands, bringing ceasefire negotiations to an effective standstill.

In the outside world, meanwhile, events seem to be gathering pace. A “high-level conference” at the United Nations in New York brought together representatives of 17 states, the European Union and the Arab League, resulting in “a comprehensive and actionable framework for the implementation of the two-state solution and the achievement of peace and security for all”.

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What first catches the eye about this proposal, which was signed by Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Egypt and Jordan, is that it links a peace deal with the disarming and disbanding of Hamas. It also condemns the militant group’s savage attack on southern Israel on October 23 2023, which was the catalyst for the latest and arguably most grievous chapter of this eight-decade conflict. It’s the first time the Arab League has taken either of these positions.

The New York declaration, as it has been dubbed, envisages the complete withdrawal of Israeli security forces from Gaza and an end to the displacement of Palestinians. Government will be the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and a conference to be scheduled in Egypt will design a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, much of which has been destroyed in the 20-month assault by the Israel Defense Forces.

It is, writes Scott Lucas, a “bold initiative” which, “in theory could end the Israeli mass killing in Gaza, remove Hamas from power and begin the implementation of a process for a state of Palestine. The question is whether it has any chance of success.”

Lucas, an expert in US and Middle East politics at the Clinton Institute of University College Dublin, is not particularly sanguine about the short-term prospects for a ceasefire and the alleviation of the desperate conditions for the people of Gaza. But what it represents more than anything else, is “yet another marker of Israel’s increasing isolation”.

He points to recent announcements that France, the UK (subject to conditions) and Canada will recognise the state of Palestine at the UN general assembly in September. The prospect of normalisation between Israel and Arab states, at the top of the agenda a few short years ago, is now very unlikely. And in the US, which remains Israel’s staunchest ally, a Gallup poll recently found that public opinion is turning against Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

But how important are the declarations by France, the UK and Canada of intent to potentially recognise Palestinian statehood, asks Malak Benslama-Dabdoub. As expert in international law at Royal Holloway University of London, who has focused on the question of Palestinian statelessness, Benslama-Dabdoub thinks that the French and British pledges bear closer examination.

The French declaration was made on July 24 on Twitter by the president, Emmanuel Macron. Macron envisages a “demilitarised” state, something Benslama-Dabdoub sees as a serious problem, as it effectively denies the fundamental right of states to self-determination and would rob a future Palestinian state of the necessary right to self-defence.

The declaration by the UK prime minister that Britain may also recognise Palestinian statehood in September is framed as a threat rather than a pledge. Unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire, allows the UN to recommence humanitarian efforts and engages in a long-term sustainable peace process, the UK will go ahead with recognising Palestine at the UN.

You have to consider that the UK government’s statement said that the position has always been that “Palestinian statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people”. So to frame this as a threat rather than a demand is arguably to deny that “inalienable right”.

Paul Rogers also sees serious problems with the pledges to recognise Palestinian statehood. Demands for Hamas to disarm and play no further role in Palestinian government he sees as a non-starter as is the thought of a demilitarised Palestine. “Neither plan has the slightest chance of getting off the ground.”

Rogers, who has researched and written on the Middle East for more than 30 years, also thinks that without the full backing of the US there is very little chance that a peace plan could succeed.

Rogers finds it hard to believe that Washington will change tack on the Palestinian question, “unless the US president somehow gets the idea that his own reputation is being damaged”. There’s always a chance of this. News from the Gaza Strip is relentlessly horrifying and the aforementioned polls suggest many voters are reassessing their views of the conflict. But Trump is heavily indebted for his re-election to the far-right Christian Zionist movement, who wield a great deal of power with the White House.

The other thing that might influence the conflict is if enough of the IDF’s top brass recognise the futility of waging what has always been an unwinnable conflict. This, writes Rogers, is whispered about in Israel’s military circles and one eminent retired general, Itzhak Brik, has come out and said: “Hamas has defeated us.”

These, writes Rogers, are currently the only routes to an end to the conflict.

Inside Trumpian diplomacy

We mentioned earlier that the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has also pledged to recognise the state of Palestine in September. This was immediately greeted by Trump with the threat that he does so it will derail a trade deal with the US. Whether this will cut any ice with Carney, who had to make concessions to get the trade deal done in the first place, remains to be seen.

But there’s a broader point here, writes Stefan Wolff. As Wolff reports, this week the foreign ministers of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda got together in Washington to sign a ceasefire deal, brokered by the US. Trump also claims to have successfully ended a conflict between India and Pakistan at the end of May and hostilities between Thailand and Cambodia earlier this month.

Meanwhile his efforts to secure peace deals, or even a lasting ceasefire, in Gaza or Ukraine have been unsuccessful.

Wolff considers why some countries respond to Trump’s diplomatic efforts while others don’t. There are a number of reasons, principally the US president’s ability to apply leverage through trade deals or sanctions and the differing complexity of the conflicts.

He also points to the depleted resources of the US state department, Trump’s use of personal envoys with little foreign affairs experience and the US president’s insistence on making all the important decisions himself. He concludes: “The White House simply may not have the bandwidth for the level of engagement that would be necessary to get to a deal in Ukraine and the Middle East.”

One US government department whose resources haven’t been depleted under Donald Trump is the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as Ice. Part of the Department of Homeland Security, Ice has been responsible for identifying and detaining non-citizens and undocumented migrants.

Their agents carry guns, wear masks and typically operate in plain clothes, although they often wear military kit. The agency received massive funding via Trump’s One Bzig Beautiful Bill Act earlier this month, which will allow the agency to recruit hundreds, if not thousands, of new agents. The number of arrests is increasing steadily, as is the disquiet their operations are prompting in many American cities, where opposition protests are also growing.

Dafydd Townley, an expert in US politics at the University of Portsmouth, explains how Ice operates and where it sits in Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of illegal migrants from the US.

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– ref. Will the latest diplomatic moves to end the war in Gaza work? – https://theconversation.com/will-the-latest-diplomatic-moves-to-end-the-war-in-gaza-work-262380

July 31, 2025

European gloom over the Trump deal is misplaced. It’s probably the best the EU could have achieved

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Maha Rafi Atal, Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow

The trade deal between the US and the European Union, squeezed in days before the re-introduction of Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, is reflective of the new politics of global trade. Faced with the threat of 30% baseline tariffs from Washington, as well as additional levies on specific sectors, the EU has secured a partial reprieve of a flat 15% tariff on all goods.

Was this the best the bloc could have achieved? In the time available, it may well have been. The 15% rate is higher than the UK secured earlier this year, but it’s significantly below the level applied to China and Mexico, and on par with Japan.

The EU has also managed a “zero-for-zero” tariffs deal on some hi-tech goods, notably semiconductors vital for products like phones and laptops. This is something the UK did not push for or secure in its own framework agreed with the US president.

What’s more, EU leaders have argued that agreeing to the deal has security benefits in protecting dwindling US support for European defence. The urgency of Europe’s security concerns in Ukraine made these talks different from trade negotiations in the first Trump administration, when Europe could afford to be more aggressive.

The biggest winners in this deal are Europe’s carmakers. The US has collapsed various sector-specific duties on goods like aircraft, cars and automotive parts into the 15% ceiling. This effectively reduces tariffs on EU-made cars (from 27.5%).

American automakers, meanwhile, rely heavily on parts from Mexico and China – still subject to higher tariffs at the time of writing. This makes EU vehicles more competitive for US consumers than “American” cars that rely on overseas parts.

Most importantly however, like the UK deal before it, the new EU agreement is a statement of understanding between the White House and the European Commission, rather than a formal treaty. A treaty would be subject to parliamentary ratification on both sides.

But the semi-formal nature of this agreement allows both Trump and European leaders to portray the deal as a “win” by playing fast and loose with what’s actually in it.

For example, the Trump administration will celebrate an EU commitment to buy US$250 billion (£189 billion) in US energy imports annually. Yet the concession holds no legal weight in the EU. The European Commission, which negotiated with Trump, does not buy any energy nor does it manage the power grid inside its 27 member states.

The commission can encourage, but cannot compel, those states to buy American. (Indeed, it might want to do so anyway, since it helps it to pivot away from Russian gas). But ultimately, member states and businesses decide where their energy supply comes from, and they are not direct parties to the deal. Only a formal treaty ratified by the European parliament would compel them.

No guarantees from Trump

The informal nature of this agreement also allows EU member states to protest against what they see as capitulation to Trump’s demands without real consequence. After all, there is not yet a treaty text they would be required to vote on or implement.

The Trump administration similarly imposed its sweeping tariff threats in early spring without a vote from Congress, and has been making ad hoc changes to the rates in the same way.

On the one hand, this means European countries may not ultimately be required to implement some of the deal’s less savoury elements such as the energy purchases or lowering the bloc’s own tariffs on US goods.

On the other hand, this means the Trump administration – notorious for abrupt changes of turn – can also renege at any time. In reality, there is little the EU can do about this. The question of leverage looms large. Trump’s longstanding antipathy towards the EU – seeing it less as an ally and more as a rival – meant that Brussels was never negotiating from a position of strength.

The fact that the EU avoided the worst-case scenario, protected key sectors and secured other sector-specific advantages suggests a deal shaped not by triumph, but by containment of Trump. Since the deal was announced, the picture emerging from many European leaders has been one of gloom. True, the EU didn’t win – but it survived. And that, for now, is probably enough.

Maha Rafi Atal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. European gloom over the Trump deal is misplaced. It’s probably the best the EU could have achieved – https://theconversation.com/european-gloom-over-the-trump-deal-is-misplaced-its-probably-the-best-the-eu-could-have-achieved-262369

July 31, 2025

By building the world’s biggest dam, China hopes to control more than just its water supply

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Harper, Lecturer in International Relations, University of East London

China’s already vast infrastructure programme has entered a new phase as building work starts on the Motuo hydropower project.

The dam will consist of five cascade hydropower stations arranged from upstream to downstream and, once completed, will be the world’s largest source of hydroelectric power. It will be four times larger than China’s previous signature hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtse river in central China.

The Chinese premier, Li Qiang, has described the proposed mega dam as the “project of the century”. In several ways, Li’s description is apt. The vast scale of the project is a reflection of China’s geopolitical status and ambitions.

Possibly the most controversial aspect of the dam is its location. The site is on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo river on the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau. This is connected to the Brahmaputra river which flows into the Indian border state of Arunachal Pradesh as well as Bangladesh. It is an important source of water for Bangladesh and India.

Both nations have voiced concerns over the dam, particularly since it can potentially affect their water supplies. The tension with India over the dam is compounded by the fact that Arunachal Pradesh has been a focal point of Sino-Indian tensions. China claims the region, which it refers to as Zangnan, saying it is part of what it calls South Tibet.

At the same time, the dam presents Beijing with a potentially formidable geopolitical tool in its dealings with the Indian government. The location of the dam means that it is possible for Beijing to restrict India’s water supply.

This potential to control downstream water supply to another country has been demonstrated by the effects that earlier dam projects in the region have had on the nations of the Mekong river delta in 2019. As a result, this gives Beijing a significant degree of leverage over its neighbours.

One country restricting water supply to put pressure on another is by no means unprecedented. In fact in April 2025, following a terror attack by Pakistan-based The Resistance Front in Kashmir, which killed 26 people (mainly tourists), India suspended the Indus waters treaty, restricting water supplies to Pakistani farmers in the region. So the potential for China’s dam to disrupt water flows will further compound the already tense geopolitics of southern Asia.

Concrete titans

The Motuo mega dam is an advertisement of China’s prowess when it comes to large-scale infrastructure projects. China’s expertise with massive infrastructure projects is a big part of modern Chinese diplomacy through its massive belt and road initiative.

This involves joint ventures with many developing nations to build large-scale infrastructure, such as ports, rail systems and the like. It has caused much consternation in Washington and Brussels, which view these initiatives as a wider effort to build Chinese influence at their expense.

The completion of the dam will will bring Beijing significant symbolic capital as a demonstration of China’s power and prosperity – an integral feature of the image of China that Beijing is very keen to promote. It can also be seen as a manifestation of both China’s aspiration and its longstanding fears.

Harnessing the rivers

The Motuo hydropower project also represents the latest chapter of China’s long battle for control of its rivers, a key story in the development of Chinese civilisation.

Rivers such as the Yangtze have been at the heart of the prosperity of several Chinese dynasties (the Yangtse is still a major economic driver in modern China) and has devastated others. The massive Yangtse flood of 1441 threatened the stability of the Ming dynasty, while an estimated 2 million people died when the river flooded in 1931.

France 24 report on the construction of the mega dam project.

Such struggles have been embodied in Chinese mythology in the form of the Gun-Yu myth. This tells the story of the way floods displaced the population of ancient China, probably based on an actual flooding at Jishi Gorge on the Yellow River in what is now Qinghai province in 1920BC.

This has led to the common motif of rivers needing human control to abate natural disaster, a theme present in much classical Chinese culture and poetry.

The pursuit of controlling China’s rivers has also been one of the primary influences on the formation of the Chinese state, as characterised by the concept of zhishui 治水 (controlling the rivers). Efforts to control the Yangtze have shaped the centralised system of governance that has characterised China throughout its history. In this sense, the Motuo hydropower project represents the latest chapter in China’s quest to harness the power of its rivers.

Such a quest remains imperative for China and its importance has been further underlined by the challenges of climate change, which has seen natural resources such as water becoming increasingly limited. The Ganges river has already been identified as one of the world’s water scarcity hotspots.

As well as sustaining China’s population, the hydropower provided by the dam is another part of China’s wider push towards self-sufficiency. It’s estimated that the dam could generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year – about the same about produced by the whole UK. While this will meet the needs of the local population, it also further entrenches China’s ability to produce cheap electricity – something that has enabled China to become and remain a manufacturing superpower.

Construction has only just begun, but Motuo hydropower project has already become a microcosm of China’s wider push towards development. It’s also a gamechanger in the geopolitics of Asia, giving China the potential to exert greater control in shaping the region’s water supplies. This in turn will give it greater power to shape the geopolitics of the region.

At the same time, it is also the latest chapter of China’s longstanding quest to harness its waterways, which now has regional implications beyond anything China’s previous dynasties could imagine.

Tom Harper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. By building the world’s biggest dam, China hopes to control more than just its water supply – https://theconversation.com/by-building-the-worlds-biggest-dam-china-hopes-to-control-more-than-just-its-water-supply-261984

July 31, 2025

Your dog can read your mind – sort of

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura Elin Pigott, Senior Lecturer in Neurosciences and Neurorehabilitation, Course Leader in the College of Health and Life Sciences, London South Bank University

Your dog tilts its head when you cry, paces when you’re stressed, and somehow appears at your side during your worst moments. Coincidence? Not even close.

Thousands of years of co-evolution have given dogs special ways to tune in to our voices, faces and even brain chemistry. From brain regions devoted to processing our speech to the “love hormone” or oxytocin that surges when we lock eyes, your dog’s mind is hardwired to pick up on what you’re feeling.

The evidence for this extraordinary emotional intelligence begins in the brain itself. Dogs’ brains have dedicated areas that are sensitive to voice, similar to those in humans. In a brain imaging study, researchers found that dogs possess voice-processing regions in their temporal cortex that light up in response to vocal sounds.

Dogs respond not just to any sound, but to the emotional tone of your voice. Brain scans reveal that emotionally charged sounds – a laugh, a cry, an angry shout – activate dogs’ auditory cortex and the amygdala – a part of the brain involved in processing emotions.

Dogs are also skilled face readers. When shown images of human faces, dogs exhibit increased brain activity. One study found that seeing a familiar human face activates a dog’s reward centres and emotional centres – meaning your dog’s brain is processing your expressions, perhaps not in words but in feelings.

Dogs don’t just observe your emotions; they can “catch” them too. Researchers call this emotional contagion, a basic form of empathy where one individual mirrors another’s emotional state. A 2019 study found that some dog-human pairs had synchronised cardiac patterns during stressful times, with their heartbeats mirroring each other.

This emotional contagion doesn’t require complex reasoning – it’s more of an automatic empathy arising from close bonding. Your dog’s empathetic yawns or whines are probably due to learned association and emotional attunement rather than literal mind-mirroring.

The oxytocin effect

The most remarkable discovery in canine-human bonding may be the chemical connection we share. When dogs and humans make gentle eye contact, both partners experience a surge of oxytocin, often dubbed the “love hormone”.

In one study, owners who held long mutual gazes with their dogs had significantly higher oxytocin levels afterwards, and so did their dogs.

This oxytocin feedback loop reinforces bonding, much like the gaze between a parent and infant. Astonishingly, this effect is unique to domesticated dogs: hand-raised wolves did not respond the same way to human eye contact. As dogs became domesticated, they evolved this interspecies oxytocin loop as a way to glue them emotionally to their humans. Those soulful eyes your pup gives you are chemically binding you two together.

Beyond eye contact, dogs are surprisingly skilled at reading human body language and facial expressions. Experiments demonstrate that pet dogs can distinguish a smiling face from an angry face, even in photos.

Dogs show a subtle right-hemisphere bias when processing emotional cues, tending to gaze toward the left side of a human’s face when assessing expressions – a pattern also seen in humans and primates.

A woman looking at her cute beagle puppy. — When dogs and humans make eye contact, both experience a surge of oxytocin.
Dmytro Zinkevych/Shutterstock.com

Dogs rely on multiple senses to discern how you’re feeling. A cheerful, high-pitched “Good boy!” with a relaxed posture sends a very different message than a stern shout with rigid body language. Remarkably, they can even sniff out emotions. In a 2018 study, dogs exposed to sweat from scared people exhibited more stress than dogs that smelled “happy” sweat. In essence, your anxiety smells unpleasant to your dog, whereas your relaxed happiness can put them at ease.

Bred for friendship

How did dogs become so remarkably attuned to human emotions? The answer lies in their evolutionary journey alongside us. Dogs have smaller brains than their wild wolf ancestors, but in the process of domestication, their brains may have rewired to enhance social and emotional intelligence.

Clues come from a Russian fox domestication experiment. Foxes bred for tameness showed increased grey matter in regions related to emotion and reward. These results challenge the assumption that domestication makes animals less intelligent. Instead, breeding animals to be friendly and social can enhance the brain pathways that help them form bonds.

In dogs, thousands of years living as our companions have fine-tuned brain pathways for reading human social signals. While your dog’s brain may be smaller than a wolf’s, it may be uniquely optimised to love and understand humans.

Dogs probably aren’t pondering why you’re upset or realising that you have distinct thoughts and intentions. Instead, they excel at picking up on what you’re projecting and respond accordingly.

So dogs may not be able to read our minds, but by reading our behaviour and feelings, they meet us emotionally in a way few other animals can. In our hectic modern world, that cross-species empathy is not just endearing; it’s evolutionary and socially meaningful, reminding us that the language of friendship sometimes transcends words entirely.

Laura Elin Pigott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Your dog can read your mind – sort of – https://theconversation.com/your-dog-can-read-your-mind-sort-of-261720

July 31, 2025

Why some underwater earthquakes cause tsunamis – and others, just little ripples

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Blackett, Reader in Physical Geography and Natural Hazards, Coventry University

After a massive earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia, on July 30 2025, the world watched as the resultant tsunami spread from the epicentre and across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet plane.

In some local areas, such as in Russia’s northern Kuril Islands, tsunami waves reached heights of over three metres. However, across the Pacific there was widespread relief in the hours that followed as the feared scenario of large waves striking coastal communities did not materialise. Why was this?

Not all underwater earthquakes result in tsunamis. For a tsunami to be generated, the Earth’s crust at the earthquake site must be pushed upwards in a movement known as vertical displacement. This typically occurs during reverse faulting, or its shallow-angled form known as thrust faulting, where one block of the Earth’s crust is forced up and over another, along what is called a fault plane.

It is no coincidence that this type of faulting movement occurred at a subduction zone on “the Pacific ring of fire”, where the dense oceanic Pacific plate is being forced beneath the less dense Eurasian continental plate.

These zones are known for generating powerful earthquakes and tsunamis because they are sites of intense compression, which leads to thrust faulting and the sudden vertical movement of the seafloor. Indeed, it was the ring of fire that was also responsible for the two most significant tsunami-generating earthquakes of recent times: the 2004 Indonesian Boxing Day and March 2011 Tohoku earthquakes.

Why did the Indonesian and Japanese earthquakes generate waves over 30 metres high, but the recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Kamchatka (one of the strongest ever recorded) didn’t? The answer lies in the geology involved in these events.

In the case of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, the sea floor was measured to have risen by up to five metres within a rupture zone of 750,000 sq km.

For the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, estimates indicate the seafloor was thrust upwards by nearly three metres within a rupture zone of 90,000 sq km.

Preliminary data from the recent Kamchatka event has been processed into what geologists call a finite fault model. Rather than representing the earthquake as a single point, these models show where and how the crust ruptured, including the length of that rupture in Earth’s crust, its depth and what direction it followed.

The model results show that the two sides of the fault slipped by up to ten metres along a fault plane of 18°, resulting in about three metres of vertical uplift. Think of it like walking ten metres up an 18° slope: you don’t rise ten metres into the air, you only rise about three metres, because most of your movement is forward rather than upward.

However, since much of this occurred at depths greater than 20km (over an area of 70,000 sq km) the seabed displacement would probably have been reduced as the overlying rock layers absorbed and diffused the motion before it reached the surface.

For comparison, the associated slippage for the Tohoku and Indonesian events was as shallow as 5km in places.

An added complication

So, while the size of sea floor uplift is key to determining how much energy a tsunami begins with, it is the processes that follow – as the wave travels and interacts with the coastline – that can transform an insignificant tsunami into a devastating wall of water at the shore.

As a tsunami travels across the open ocean it is often barely noticeable – a long, low ripple spread over tens of kilometres. But as it nears land, the front of the wave slows down due to friction with the seabed, while the back continues at speed, causing the wave to rise in height. This effect is strongest in places where the sea floor gets shallow quickly near the coast.

The shape of the coastline is also important. Bays, inlets and estuaries can act like funnels that further amplify the wave as it reaches shore. Crescent City in California is a prime example. Fortunately however, when the wave arrived in Crescent City on July 30 2025, it reached a height of just 1.22 metres – still the highest recorded in the continental US.

So, not every powerful undersea earthquake leads to a devastating tsunami — it depends not just on the magnitude, but on how much the sea floor is lifted and whether that vertical movement reaches the ocean surface.

In the case of the recent Russian quake, although the slip was substantial, much of it occurred at depth, meaning the energy wasn’t transferred effectively to the water above. All of this shows that while earthquake size is important, it’s the precise characteristics of the rupture that truly decide whether a tsunami becomes destructive or remains largely insignificant.

Matthew Blackett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why some underwater earthquakes cause tsunamis – and others, just little ripples – https://theconversation.com/why-some-underwater-earthquakes-cause-tsunamis-and-others-just-little-ripples-262352

July 31, 2025

A World of Water exhibition asks: ‘Can the seas survive us?’

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change, University of East Anglia

Water is at the heart of the disruption wrought by climate change. The seas, once seen as vast and stable, are now unpredictable and restless.

That tidy, looping diagram of the water cycle once pinned up in primary school classrooms – clouds, rivers, evaporation and rain – now reads more like a fragmented recollection than a dependable process. Human impact has cracked that once-stable loop wide open.

Sea levels inch upward year on year. Droughts grow more prolonged and severe. Rainfall becomes erratic and violent. What was once spoken of in future tense is now present and pressing.

In Norfolk, land and sea have long coexisted in an uneasy truce. Here, the threat of sea level rise is not a speculative concern, it is data-backed, visible and accelerating.

According to research from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, vast swathes of Norfolk risk being submerged by rising seas if global temperatures rise by even two degrees celsius. It is one of the most at-risk areas in the UK.

Against this backdrop comes the Sainsbury Centre’s exhibition, A World of Water (part of the Can the Seas Survive Us? season). In the show, water is explored as subject, medium and metaphor. It is both agent and witness, shaping civilisations, sustaining life, and now challenging our ability to coexist with it.

Curated through an interdisciplinary lens, the exhibition was shaped by deep collaboration with scientists, artists, ecologists, activists and coastal communities. Rooted in lived experience, from a two-day walk along the Wherry Man’s Way to a 36-hour sail aboard a 1921 fishing smack, the curatorial process traced fragile coastlines and the North Sea’s rapid transformation into an industrial nexus of energy infrastructures.

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The curatorial approach to the show embraces the multifaceted nature of water by weaving together maritime history, Indigenous knowledge and contemporary works rooted in the artists’ experiences.

Many of the participating artists hail from communities already wrestling with rising tides and the realities of climate disruption. Their contributions form three thematic currents: Mudplume, Water Water Everywhere and In a State of Flux.

These overlapping threads investigate how water connects, nourishes and imperils. Rather than positioning the sea as a line of division, the exhibition reframes it as a living, connective tissue linking culture, history and ecology.

A curatorial geomorphology of the sea

Guidance for the exhibition’s conceptual framework came, fittingly, from water itself. Its mutable nature – solid, liquid, vapour – shaped the rhythm of the curatorial process. Rather than impose a rigid thesis, the exhibition offers an ever-shifting constellation of perspectives.

The exhibition journey begins with sound. Visitors are welcomed by a low murmur, tides lapping, water dripping, echoing through the museum entrance. This leads to Spiral Fosset (2024), a sculptural work by the Dutch collective De Onkruidenier.

Mirroring the central staircase of the museum, the piece suggests the brackish confluence where fresh and saltwater mingle. From here, the viewer descends into the lower galleries, reimagined as an estuary.

Within the lower galleries, artworks unfold like coastal mudflats at low tide. Seventeenth-century Dutch seascapes hang alongside photographs, video works and sculptures made from plastic waste. Sands from the beaches of Cromer, Happisburgh and Cley are featured, anchoring the exhibition in local terrain.

East Anglia’s centuries-old ties with the Low Countries form a steady through line. Hendrick van Anthonissen’s View of Scheveningen Sands (1641) shares space with works by Norwich School masters such as John Sell Cotman, John Crome and Robert Ladbrooke.

This approach privileges resonance over chronology. The exhibition avoids a linear march through time in favour of prioritising association, connection and drift. For instance, Shore Compass by Olafur Eliasson (2019) sits in subtle dialogue with Jodocus Hondius’s 1589 Drake Map an early cartographic rendering of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world.

Created during the height of European maritime expansion and colonialism, the map illustrates the interplay between empire, navigation and power. Time, like tide, is allowed to meander.

The exhibition adopts what might be called a “curatorial geomorphology”: a way of curating that draws on the sculpting force of water. In the natural sciences, geomorphology examines how landscapes are formed and reshaped by flowing water, storms and tides, while hydrology traces water’s movement through the environment.

This curatorial approach translates those scientific ideas into a cultural and creative practice. Like a river, it flows through histories, stories and meanings. What unfolds is a tidal narrative, an estuary of thought where time loosens, the present deepens and new futures begin to surface.

Visitors to A World of Water can expect something different from a traditional gallery experience. It invites you to think with the seas, to tune into their rhythms, tensions and secret lives.

As you wander through the galleries, you enter a realm shaped by flux, expect to feel and reimagine a world where land, water and life move as one. And perhaps, by moving as water does, we may begin to sense an answer to the question: Can the Seas Survive Us? Not in certainty, but through our collective and individual actions toward a more regenerative and sustainable future.

A World of Water is at the Sainsbury Centre Norwich until August 3. It’s part of a six-month season of interlinked exhibitions and events that explore the question: “Can the seas survive us?”

John Kenneth Paranada received funding from the John Ellerman Foundation; the Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant; the Association of Art Museum Curators’ EPIC Curatorial Fellowship Award; the Mondriaan Fund’s International Art Presentation Grant; the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ Cultural Diplomacy Grant; and Arts Council England’s National Lottery Fund for the project A World of Water: Can the Seas Survive Us? at the Sainsbury Centre.

– ref. A World of Water exhibition asks: ‘Can the seas survive us?’ – https://theconversation.com/a-world-of-water-exhibition-asks-can-the-seas-survive-us-262057