“The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity” – a book
by Sir Nicholas Stern as presented by Joanne J. Myers to the Carnegie Council – Ethics in International Affairs, New York City – May4th, 2009.

 http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcrip…

The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity.

Ma4y 4, 2009

Introduction JOANNE MYERS: I’m Joanne Myers, Director of the Public Affairs Program. On behalf of the Carnegie Council, I’d like to welcome our members and guests, and to thank you for joining us on this rainy Monday morning.
Today, our speaker is a world-renowned economist, Nicholas Stern.

Lord Stern is a man of many achievements. But the one that is most relevant to our discussion this morning is his work on climate change. Since the release of the 2006 Stern Review on the economics of climate change, commissioned by Gordon Brown when he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, this seminal document and the ongoing debate on this subject has made Lord Nicholas the man to turn to when questions about the costs and benefits of dealing with global warming arise.

In fact, from what I’ve read, it seems as if almost every significant discussion of climate change since has drawn heavily on his findings. This report has now been transformed into a book for the general public and is entitled The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity.

In focusing on the economics of climate change, Sir Nicholas shifted the debate away from polar bears and unseasonable summers and reframed the argument in the cold language of the balance sheet. In The Global Deal, Lord Stern evaluates our economic future and the essential steps we must take to protect growth and reduce poverty while managing climate change. He is guided by three principles, those of effectiveness, efficiency and fairness. By proposing green technologies, international emissions trading, and financing to halt deforestation, he lays out the technological and economic foundations for new industries by which he believes we can overt a catastrophe.

At the heart of his work is a simple calculation, which is if the science of climate change is right, the transition costs incurred by switching to low-carbon economy will, however daunting, be a fraction of what we will face by averting disaster. In other words, the cost of doing nothing about global warming would be very high, while the cost of transforming our energy system would be relatively low.

Climate change is often an awkward issue for governments to address, as the costs are immediate, while benefits only accrue in the future. Even so, understandings will be vital this year, as the world’s nations and their negotiators count down toward a UN climate conference to be held in Copenhagen in December. This is a target day for concluding a grand new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that reduced carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions by industrial nations.

While we may be a planet in peril and the global financial crisis could distract us from the bigger task of tackling climate change, Lord Stern sees global warming as an opportunity to bring forward investments in low-carbon technologies. In the long-term, these efforts could provide sustainable and well-founded economic growth.

Please join me in giving a very warm welcome to a very distinguished guest. We are honored to have you with us.

——–

Remarks

NICHOLAS STERN: Thank you very much, Joanne. That was a very kind introduction. And thank you all very much for coming today.

Since the Stern Review was published two and a half years ago, much of my time has been spent, since I’m back in academic life, arguing with my fellow economics professors about the best way to look at these issues. And we’re doing all right with that. They’re starting to understand just how big this is and what that means for the kind of economics that they have to bring to bear. So I sort of went back into academic life and wrote academic papers, which you wouldn’t want to read unless you’re heavily into mathematical economics.

But the other part of what I’ve been doing is working with people around the world, particularly in developing countries, which was the big part of my professional life before I got involved in climate change. In Europe, my own country the U.K., still part of Europe, and the U.S., for two years or so, I’ve been intensely involved in these discussions. And these have shaped, in large measure, the structure of the book, and indeed, my motivation for writing the book.

So what I want to do in the time I’ve got is to explain something about the global deal. How would we come to an international agreement to tackle climate change? What would it look like? What principles should it be built on? But before you can do that, you have to understand yourself why it is that you need such an agreement. But also, the quantitative analysis of why you need such an agreement actually shapes the agreement itself in very large measure.

So what I want to do is to begin with the logic of the problem, why it’s so important, the scale of what we have to do, because that shapes everything else. The scale shapes everything else, and the logic of the problem itself, because it’s a risk management problem, with long time lags. That also shapes the kind of agreement that we should be putting together and the difficulties in putting it together. So let me explain, from the beginning, in a very simple and fast way, I hope, the basic science, how that shapes the economics you should bring to bear to analyze the problem. And then on the basis of those things, what the global deal should look like.

I know that most of you are not economists. There’s a lot of economics underlying what I will say. I won’t go into it in any detail. The fact that you’re not economists is your fault. Most of you would have had the opportunity at some point in your life, and you didn’t take it. But I am not going to dwell on that. But those of you who are economists will recognize that there’s quite a lot of difficult stuff underlying what I have to say.

So here is the problem. It starts with people and it ends with people. People, through their lives, their production consumption, the way they live, emit greenhouse gases. They emit more greenhouse gases than the earth can absorb. And therefore, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rises. So there is a flow stock problem. And that’s critical to the logic of the whole thing. The flow of emissions, because they’re not fully absorbed, adds to the stock.

The next link in the chain is from the increase in stocks of greenhouse gases to temperature increases. That’s the very simple greenhouse effect. It’s a piece of science that goes back nearly 200 years now to French mathematician and physicist, Fourier. By the end of the 19th century, the gases that were causing this effect were basically identified, and there was some initial quantitative work on how big some of these effects might be.

The greenhouse effect is very simple physics and chemistry. Those of you who have been in a greenhouse will have noticed that it’s warmer in the greenhouse than outside. The very good reason is that the glass in the greenhouse prevents some of the infrared energy escaping, and that’s how the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere works. It’s not mysterious or complex or dubious science. It’s just a very basic physics and chemistry effect.

So from global warming, from increased concentrations, increased temperatures, from increased temperatures to climate change. And the language of climate change is the language we should use, not global warming, because it’s climate change that causes the problem. And most of it’s through water, in some shape or form. Storms, floods, droughts, sea level, sea level rise. The temperature does have a direct effect, in some cases, through heat stress, changing the length of growing seasons and so on. But basically, it’s the effect of the increased temperature on the climate that’s the issue. And, of course, those effects, storms, floods, droughts, sea level rise, have a very direct impact on people.

So that’s the logic of the problem: Key aspects of that chain of events—there were five links in the chain, you were counting, that I just described. The logic of that problem shapes the economics and the politics of it all in a very profound way. First, the atmosphere doesn’t recognize where the greenhouse gases came from. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Los Angeles or Beijing or Johannesberg or London. They have the same effect. It’s global in its origins and it’s global in its impact. That global feature of the problem is absolutely fundamental.

There are lots of things that we do in life that damage what other people can do. When we take our car out, we slow other people down. If we emit, as we did in London and many other places, soot from coal fires, we give people bronchitis and heart disease. But you can see, in a very direct way, how these effects are working. They’re local, and the effects are fairly observable, and they’re fairly immediate. This is a global problem and many of these effects have long legs. So the links in the chain I describe, some of them take years or even decades to manifest themselves. That, again, affects the politics of all of this in a fairly profound way. So by the time you see these effects with their full force, it’s actually too late to head many of them off.

So you can see the way in which the logical structure here has a profound effect on what you should do and how you should do it and how you see your relationships with others. Also, this flow stock story is critical because it means the costs of delay are immense. When you have a collapse of WTO talks, as we do in life, you get together five years later, and it’s a pity that you lost those five years, but you resume roughly where you were. This is not the case with climate change, because you would have had those increased flows which increase the stocks. And you’re in a more difficult starting point five years down the track.

So this logical structure, the problem, is very important in what you can do in the politics of it all. I’ll come back to that in just a moment in one or two respects, although it runs right through what I’m saying in the book. But let me just describe the magnitude. And here, you will need a little bit of mental arithmetic. It’s not hard stuff. But it’s very important that we get a feel for the numbers. We start around where we are now, around 435 parts per million of CO2 equivalent. That’s the measure of the stock, the concentrations, at the moment, 435 parts per million of CO2 equivalent. 380-something of that is CO2. And then the rest is other greenhouse gases translated into CO2 equivalent. We’re adding about two and a half parts per million a year. And that two and a half is rising. So since the two and a half we’re adding a year is rising, averaged over a century, we would be adding, on average, well over three parts per million a year. So a century of that, it’s a bit over 300. Add a bit over 300 to 435. If we didn’t do much, at the end of the century, we’d be about 750 parts per million.

If we stopped it right there, what would the temperature eventually be within a decade or two or three? It would be about probably around five degrees centigrade, or roughly 50/50 probability of being above or below five degrees centigrade. All of this has to be expressed in probability. This is a risk management issue. What does five degrees centigrade look like? Well, we’re not sure because we haven’t been there for about 30 million years as a planet. We’ve experienced five degrees below that quite often. Well, very recently, actually, 10 or 12,000 years ago, the last Ice Age when the ice sheets came down roughly to New York and London, natural benchmarks for latitude.

But where were people? Of course, there were quite a lot of people around 10, 12,000 years ago. People have been around 100—well, it depends how you count people, but 100,000, 200,000, depending on your definition of Homo Sapiens, or depending on your definition of sapiens, I suppose. But 100/200,000 years, humans have been around, we haven’t seen five degrees centigrade for 30 million years. At that time, the Eocene period, the world was covered in swampy forests. Very little ice, anyway. Five degrees centigrade below, we have seen, much more frequently.

And, of course, both of these things, five degrees up or five degrees down, transform where people can be. They rewrite the rivers. They rewrite the coastlines. Most of where we are, as humans, is shaped by rivers and coastlines. Southern Europe would probably look like the Sahara Desert. People would have to move. People would move on an enormous scale, just as they moved when it was five degrees centigrade lower. People haven’t seen five degrees centigrade higher, nowhere near. Three degrees centigrade 2 or 3 million years ago.

Again, way, way before humans. So we don’t really know how we would react to that, other than to be able to say where we could live and how we could live would be radically different. The snows would go off the Himalayas, the big rivers of the world would get rewritten—I mean, the big rivers of the world, in terms of the populations that they present. The big majority of them, not all of them, of course, but the big majority of them arise in a few hundred square kilometers of the Himalayas. Now, if you just go clockwise around from the Yellow River to the Yangtze to the Ganges and the Brahmaputra and the Jumna and the Indus. You’re talking about rivers that are the main sources of water for countries with a couple of billion people, with a billion or so or more directly affected by those rivers. You would just rewrite where people would be. Populations would move. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would move, and we would have extended world conflict.

This is not Nick Stern, the economist, describing this. This is simply Nick Stern relaying to you what the science tells us in a very direct way. But I’m expressing it in a way that allows us to start thinking about this as an insurance story or a risk management story in what we’re ready to pay to reduce the odds. If we held these concentrations of greenhouse gases below 500 parts per million, which we could with strong action, and I’ll describe what it is and what it would cost, if we held those concentrations below 500 parts per million, that 50/50 probability being above five degrees centigrade would come down to something like 3 percent. And that’s a huge insurance gain, a huge rich risk reduction, if we did manage to hold it below 500 parts per million.

We can’t hold it below 450. We will be at 450 in about six years. I mean, we’re adding two and a half a year, and six times two and a half is 15. Add that to 435. You know, in six years, we’re at 450. But we can hold below 500. And we can also be thinking about how we bring it on down from there. It takes a while to do that, and even 500 is a very dangerous place to be. Far, far less dangerous than 750, obviously. But we could work out how to bring it on down from there.

What would it cost us? Very roughly speaking—I could have told the story in three, four, five, six degrees centigrade, but just to be specific and to cut down the time, I told it in terms of five. But it’s the whole distribution that counts, not just one particular temperature like five degrees centigrade. What would it cost us? Well, relative to business as usual, we would probably have to take out about 65 gigatons of CO2 equivalent. What do we have to do? We have to get down from the over 50 gigatons that we emit each year at the moment. We have to get down to about 20 gigatons by 2050. That’s, roughly speaking, the path associated with holding below 500. In 1990, we were at 40 gigatons. So getting down to 20 gigatons in 2050 is cutting by 50 percent, relative to 1990.

So globally, the kind of path I described of holding below 500 involves getting down to about 20 gigatons as a flow. 500 is the stock. Getting down to about 20 gigatons is a flow by 2050. And that involves —depends on how you define business as usual, but taking out around 65 gigatons. And now you have to do another piece of arithmetic. It’s only multiplication. It’s not hard. 65 gigatons. We could probably do that at an average, and an average costs about $30 a ton. So $30 a ton times 65 gigatons. Well, you’ve obviously got 195 in there or 1.95 or 19500, however you do the numbers, and, of course, you’ve got to get your decimal points in the right place when you do this sort of thing. You’ve got to remember that giga is billion. Scientists like giga. Economists like billion. But giga, billion, same thing. So it’s actually, when you multiply 65 gigatons or 65 billion tons by $30 a ton, it’s 1.95 trillion, 2 trillion dollars, close enough.

What will world income be in 2050? It’s a bit over 50 trillion now. If we’re sensible and follow good policies in climate and elsewhere, it could easily double. I mean, not if we don’t, but it could easily double. That makes the arithmetic and the percentages easy. We’re a bit over 50, so a bit over $100 trillion in 2050. So two in 100 or so is around 2 percent. So you can build this up through boring old economic models and so on. But it’s very important to get a feel for why these numbers are what they are.

So for around 2 percent of GDP—I picked that for the year 2050, but it might look something like that for a while, for the next few decades—you buy this enormous reduction in risk. You make the difference between probably destroying the planet, as far as it is a place for life in any sense for humans, as we know it—that’s if you do nothing—but if you act sensibly and pay this very modest insurance premium, you can reduce the risks to levels which are probably manageable.

So that’s basically the story. What does it look like if you try to do this? Well, in the first place, a properly constructed green recovery would help us to get out of a recession. That’s the very, very short run. For the next two or three decades, we will create a technological revolution similar to, probably bigger than, the railways, electricity, the motor car, or IT. We will create a, those of you who like your economic history, we will create a Schumpetarian technology innovation investment-driven story of growth for the next two or three decades. When we get to low carbon growth, we will have something—because it’s the next three, four or five decades that’s the transition to that story—but when we get there, we will have a form of growth which is cleaner, more energy secure, quieter and more biodiverse.

And if we run the clock forward just a bit more, we will have reduced the risk of the transformation of the planet, which would occur as I just described it. This is a no-brainer. I mean, you’ve got the short run returns, you’ve got the driver of the technological story for the next two or three decades, you create a form of low carbon growth that’s much more attractive, and you drastically reduce the risks of major transformation of the planet. It’s just good sense, basic economics.

The wise investors and the wise business people are already out there seeing where this is going. And it’s even getting detailed. I mean, in Korea’s green recovery, they say, well, if the U.S. is going to build a smart grid, smart grids need smarter plants, they’re going to be made here in Korea. And people are already running through this story, seeing the opportunities.

But what we can’t do is pretend that there are no investment costs in this transition. There are investment costs in this transition. They’re serious. But they’re manageable. And they will happen, provided that the governments of the world set the right kind of framework for this to happen. And it means economic policy. It means a price for carbon, through attacks or a trading scheme or a bit of each. It means regulations. It means regulations on emissions. It means doing what we’ve just done in the U.K., announcing that there won’t be any more coal-fired power stations without carbon capture and storage. These are the kinds of policies it needs. It needs public, private partnerships in helping develop new technologies. It needs strong and clear policies to get there.

But basically, here we are. We know the kind of scale that we have to act on. We know the kinds of areas where we have to act, energy efficiency, low-carbon technology, and stopping deforestation. We know the economic instruments that we have to use. “Know,” in this sense, means have a good idea of. But we know enough to set off down the road. And we’re going to discover and learn like mad along the way. So we know the scale, we know the areas where we have to act, we know the kind of economic instruments. It’s now a matter of political will. And it’s this year that is absolutely crucial for putting that political will together.

I’ve already described, actually, one way or another, many aspects of the global deal. But let me now just pull out the global deal, from what I’ve said.

The global deal, if it’s going to be agreed and sustained, will have to be effective on the scale that’s necessary. I’ve already described that.

It will have to be efficient. That will be crucial because there will be serious costs of investing in the transition. It’s crucial to keep those costs as low as possible. If people think we’re wasting money pursuing those policies, then those policies will become politically fragile.

And it’s got to be equitable. Because otherwise, the different countries around the world, the different groups in the population will not support it or would not stay supporting it.

It has to be led by the rich countries. The rich countries, in terms of early action and I think it has to be led by the poor countries in terms of design. Because it’s the poorer countries of the world who are affected earliest and hardest, although we’re all affected, in the story I just described, in a very profound way.

But it’s the rich countries who have to take the lead in action. Why? Because they’re responsible, the 1 billion, out of the 6.7 billion, who live in rich countries, are responsible through their economic history for something like 60 to 65 percent of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now. They’re largely responsible, through the pursuit of high carbon growth; but this is a very difficult starting point.

We really wouldn’t have wanted to start from here. But we are where we are. And it’s the rich countries who are largely responsible through that pursuit of high carbon growth in the past. Of course, they’re better off, and they have the better developed technologies. So I think the responsibility for early and strong action clearly lie there.

Where do we have to go to in terms of what each country should look like now? Well, I’ve already said we’ve got to get down to 20 gigatons, and I’ve explained why. In 2050, there will be 9 billion of us, roughly speaking, plus or minus a few hundred million. There will be 9 billion. So if we’re emitting, as a world, 20 gigatons, and there are 9 billion of us, remembering again that giga and billion are the same thing, 20 divided by 9, you can all do that, even on a Monday morning, is just over 2. So we’ve got to be down to 2 tons per capita as well, roughly speaking.

Where are we now? Well, Europe, Japan is 10, 12 tons per capita. So to get from 10 to 12 to 2, divide by 5, cut by 80 percent. There’s nothing mysterious in the idea that rich countries should be cutting by 80 percent. 1990 to 2050, it just follows from the arithmetic.

Now, the United States is over 20 per capita. And Barack Obama said we’ll cut by 80 percent, 1990 to 2050. He really meant 90 percent. Because, you know, to get from over 20 down to 2, you’ve got to divide by 10, right? But never mind, we’re a very tolerant lot in Europe. The basic thing is if you set out strongly down the right road, a lot of the arithmetic, a lot of the technology is going to sort itself out later on.

We shouldn’t get overly hung up about exactly 80 or 90 percent. It does matter to have a strong view of where we’re going. And it does matter to set off down that path in a strong way. I mean, that’s what’s crucial. So when we get to Copenhagen, the 2050 will be the anchor for the arithmetic. There’s going to be some very hard bargaining, and there should be, over 2020. Because 2020 is surely an indication of whether we’re serious about getting to where we want to go in 2050. And that’s going to be where, I think, hard stuff is going to come. And it’s already coming in Copenhagen. The Waxman-Markey Bill talks about 7 percent reductions by 2020, relative to 1990 for the U.S. That’s a tough ask, actually, for the U.S., because they’re already 16, 17 percent above 1990. So to get back to 7 percent, below 1990, by 2020, as in Waxman-Markey, means taking off about a quarter in a decade.

Now, this is where the politics of this is going to get tough. Because there are two ways of looking at 2020. I’m sure there are many ways of looking at 2020, but here are two. 2020 is the midpoint between 1990 and 2050. They’re arithmetically unexceptionable. And 2020 is 10 years after 2010. Again, we can’t quarrel with the arithmetic. But the perspective is fundamentally different. Because in countries like the U.S. and Canada, and I was in Canada a couple of days ago talking to environmentalists and others, and there it’s a good deal higher in the U.S. relative to 1990. So to get, say, the U.S. as in Waxman-Markey, I take out of 25 percent in the next ten years is going to be tough.

But then, you know, sitting in India or China or Indonesia or Brazil or South Africa, you’re saying, “I see, you’re going to cut by 80 percent , 1990 to 2050. And at the halfway stage, 80 percent you’re going to take out in six decades. And after three decades, you’ve taken out 7 percent?” How serious does that sound?

So you can see why these two different perspectives on 2020 matter. And I think as a world, we have to recognize we’ve only been serious about this for two or three years. And we are getting serious about this. And that’s what makes me more optimistic about getting a global deal. So that’s going to be hard bargaining and very difficult. But I hope we can get there. It’s going to need a lot of mutual understanding.

But here it is. I more or less described the global deal. It’s 50 percent reductions overall, 1990 to 2050. If people keep going on about percentages, just bring them back to the 20 gigatons in 2050, because that’s what really counts, and the path to get there. 50 percent reductions overall, 80 percent reductions for rich countries.

None of this is going to work unless the developing countries are absolutely at center stage. 8 billion out of the 9 billion people in 2050 are going to be in currently developing countries. If the rich world was emitting precisely zero in 2050, then the average for the developing world would have to be not 2, but 2 1/2 tons per capita. This cannot work unless the big majority of people in the world are involved.

So that’s essentially a story which says that over the next ten years, the developing world will embark on climate change action plans. China described a climate change action plan two years ago, India one year ago, Brazil and South Africa at the end of last year. They’re starting to develop serious engagement in working out how to cut emissions. Now, where I see the global deal working out is the developing world explains to the rich world, these are the conditions. This is conditionality of the developing world on the rich world.

Take those 80 percent cuts you’re talking about. Be credible over the next decade. Develop the technologies. Share them with us. We’ll be developing technologies. We’ll share them with you also. The biggest producer of photovoltaics is in China. One of the biggest windmill producers for electricity is in India. They will be sharing technologies both ways. But develop the technologies, share them with us, help us with the finance, help us with adapting to climate change, because it’s really happening and it will happen, and we need to invest to protect ourselves against what’s going on and to pursue development in a more hostile climate.

You do all of these things, those are our conditions, and we will commit now to taking on targets, say from ten years time. In the meantime, here are our climate change action plans. Please help us with those, because the more you do, the more we can do. This is the way in which this discussion is starting to move, and I think it should move. But building on the kind of commitments, the rich countries are already indicating that they’ll take on.

Trading will be very important, both to bring the costs down, and to allow flows from rich countries to poor countries. The sharing of technologies, I’ve already described. We need explicit mechanisms for doing that. And I’m very happy to discuss those in questions. We have to stop deforestation. It’s responsible for 20 percent of emissions. There’s no way we can achieve these targets without stopping deforestation. China is reforesting, it’s not deforesting. India has declared for a target of 33 percent of the area forested. I think it’s about 22, 23 percent now, isn’t it? So if India makes it, that’s a big change too.

But, of course, it’s the tropical forests which really count—Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Congo, Central America, and so on. Those are the big things that really count there. We have to stop deforestation. That has to be a battle which is integrated into the whole development story. You can’t tackle deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil unless you help those governments create alternative opportunities, more productive agricultural opportunities outside agriculture, improving the ability to develop and enforce property rights and so on. It has to be integrated in the development story. So you’ve got to stop deforestation.

And we need to look, again, at the challenge of the Millennium Development Goals and beyond about financing for development. Because when we did those calculations—and I am partly responsible, it’s a shared responsibility, for not building climate change in as we should have, because I was Chief Economist at the World Bank when the UN had its Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey in 2002, and I led the writing of the Report for the Commission for Africa in 2005. And in each case, we understated the challenge of climate change for development. But we have to face up as a world to the extra costs of meeting development goals in the context of a changing climate.

So there you are. That’s the global deal. The targets, the trading, the technologies, the finance, the deforestation, and the adaptation story. Huge amounts of detail to work on. But it’s the framework that really counts.

Will we get there? I don’t know. But if we say it’s all too difficult, then nothing is ever going to work—and the U.S. is not going to give up its big hydrocarbon cars, and the British are too lazy to do anything, and the Chinese always cheat—you can tell, I can sit in a bar and tell the story. It’s very easy to do. But if you believe that, what is the consequence?

Well, you can’t wiggle out of the science. I mean, it’s basically clear and there. So if that’s what you really believe, you’re saying, well, we’ve got another 50, 100 years to go in terms of the kinds of life that we got used to leading. And we will, over that period so transform the planet, so that we’ll be living actually in very different and much more difficult ways. So if you’re negative and pessimistic about all this, it’s self-fulfilling. We won’t get there if you all say it’s all too difficult. And the consequences will be very severe. We must be honest about those consequences. So,buy a hat, some suntan lotion and write a letter of apology to your grandchildren. If you really want to push the negative part of the story. So the challenge is not, is it ever going to work? Yeah, it’s all too difficult. The challenge is what do we have to do to try to make it work?
Will we succeed? Of course there’s no guarantee that we’ll succeed. But we can see the way in which we have to try and the way in which we have to work together. And we can see the kinds of scale of activity. We can see the kind of technologies. We can see the kind of economic instruments. We know enough to embark down this road with purpose. If we don’t get a strong agreement in Copenhagen at the end of this year—not all the details, the details can be worked out later. But if we don’t get the basic framework, I would really worry about whether we’ll be able to put it together. Because it falls apart, people go away, and, you know, it might take a long time before we get back together again.

In the meantime, you’ve done a lot of damage in terms of increased concentrations. In the meantime, confidence in the markets that are going to sustain these kinds of investments would have been undermined. So not getting an agreement in Copenhagen, with the basic outlines, not all the details, would be very, very damaging. So this is a crucially important few months for the world really in terms of decision making.

And there’s no way that—you can’t negotiate with the basic scientific processes. You can’t negotiate with the concentrations in the atmosphere. They will be what they will be if we’re neglectful.

I’m much more optimistic than I was two or three years ago because you can see and hear the way in which the understanding and commitment on this issue has changed, whether it be in China or India or the United States or elsewhere. You can see the way that’s changed. The pace of change of technology has been quite remarkable. It’s impossible to give a talk like this to business people without going away with a pocket full of cards if somebody’s got some great idea about how to reduce emissions, how to pull the greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. If one tenth of these ideas work that are just sort of bubbling through, we can have a whole range of ways of acting, all of which will cost a bit, probably, but, you know, some will be more successful than others.

So in terms of the changing politics, in terms of changing technologies and investments, I’m much more optimistic than I was two or three years ago. I think we’re going to get there in Copenhagen. And the months that follow, I really don’t know. But we’ve got a chance there that we can blow now. And, you know, human beings are not bad at messing up opportunities. But there is an opportunity now to mess up. And one of the reasons I wrote the book was try to reduce the probability that we might. Thank you very much.

——-

Questions and Answers

QUESTION: Lord Stern, thank you so much for a great talk. Are we being maybe even too optimistic? You paint a pretty bleak scenario, if we don’t do this. Should we have contingency plans in place that would suggest that we need not $30 a ton, but maybe $75 by 2015? Because what we are now seeing with the positive feedback loops, positive in a scientific sense, particularly the change in the Arctic, much more emissions of methane from both the tundra, undersea, et cetera, all of these things, which you know, which would suggest that the window we have to get this done may even be shorter. And therefore, we should be, contingency-wise, at least prepared intellectually to pay a higher cost because the time to get it done is perhaps much shorter than we think it is?
NICHOLAS STERN: These positive feedbacks, things like the melting of the permafrost and releasing a lot of methane, the collapse of the Amazon, which could well happen around three degrees centigrade, which we might be at in 50, 60 years, the decreasing acidity, so the increasing acidity of the oceans which decreases the absorptive capacity, all of these things actually are usually omitted from the formal scientific models. Complication, grounds, difficulty in quantification, but they’re very real possibilities. So it actually does look more worrying than when we were writing two and a half years ago, although all of the basic line of argument is the same.

I think that the description that I gave of cutting by 50 percent as a world, 1990 to 2050, is actually quite unambitious, relative to science. And indeed, many scientists will tell you very loudly what you’re doing, you’re telling me to cut by 50 percent? It should be 80 percent globally by 2050. Although, of course, it is quite ambitious in the point of view of the economics. And many people would draw the conclusion that you drew, that we should be acting faster and more strongly. And therefore, you would be thinking of higher, high costs. Because the faster you do it, the more it costs. So I think that relative to the magnitude of the real scientific problem, I’ve erred on the side of caution.

I’ve erred on the side of caution on the economics. I’ve erred on the side of recklessness, if you like, on the science. So if I were to be pushed to shift in a direction from the one I just articulated, I would certainly go in the direction that you described, that we should be stronger than I am describing, not weaker. And you can make that case, and perhaps you should. I should emphasize, I am talking about average costs. A lot of the costs of what we do actually are negative. I mean, if we’re sensible about a lot of the energy efficiency options we have, we save money. But it won’t all be negative costs. And on the margin, it will be, of course, a good deal higher.

–

QUESTION: One problem we face seems to be that we are locked in by the present technology that exists in the U.S., in China, in Europe. Every week, on average, a new coal-fired power plant is being opened in China, with the effect of about 1,000 megawatts. And it’s calculated for over 25 years. And today, as we speak, China is (inaudible) based on clean coal. If they continue to run these, according to their business plan, we will be far off the mark that you have indicated that we need to reach.

So those, the owners, the countries and the private owners of these plants seem, to me, to be unlikely to close down these plants without compensation or to retrofit them. And just imagine what it would cost to retrofit the power of coal fire power plants of this world with carbon capture and storage. It would also increase the energy price by today’s standard by, let’s say, 40 percent . This is, of course, site specific. So what we seem to need is a new set of economic incentives, which means going steps further from the Kyoto mechanisms, which provided some incentives which have worked in some countries, and to provide a larger global scheme that gives the developing countries where the emissions will increase the most, like China, positive incentives for change. And I haven’t seen, so far during the run-up to the Copenhagen, any proposal in pretty language which provides that scene and which links a positive cash flow with achieved reduction targets. I would like to hear your comment on what needs to be done in that direction.

NICHOLAS STERN: I think the ballpark you’re talking about, 40, 50 percent increases in prices of electricity around the world for a few decades, is probably roughly right. If you take a rich country, something like 4 percent of GDP would be primary energy. If you increase that cost by 50 percent , you get back to the 2 percent of national income I’m talking about. So if we’re talking about increasing the price of electricity 50 percent in many places for a while, that is a price that we should be quite ready to pay. And we probably would have to.

My acquaintance with India is much deeper than China. I’ve been living in India, on and off, for different parts of the last 35 years. But I’ve been living in China, again, on and off for 20 years. And the change in China in the last two or three years is quite remarkable in terms of their understanding of the issues. And the 11th five-year plan which finishes at the end of next year, had a a 20 percent reduction target of energy to output, which they probably will reach—of course, if output goes up by 40, 45 percent , and the energy use goes up by 20 some percent, which is what’s happened—but I think the 12th five-year plan, which starts in the end of next year, beginning of the year after—and they’re already working on it and preparing an energy strategy, which would actually precede the 12th five-year plan—I think is likely to have emissions targets rather than energy targets. This is all discussions over the last few months and weeks. But I think that’s where it’s going.

Will countries like China, in terms of growth ambitions, energy ambitions, will they achieve the kinds of transformations we’re talking about without substantial sharing of technology and substantial finance? The answer is no. I described briefly some importance of sharing technologies. But let’s look at the kind of schemes of the trading finance for RT that could do it. Some of you will know about the Clean Development Mechanism, which is a project by project trading arrangement. It’s designed under the Kyoto Protocol, but mostly driven by the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, whereby a firm that has to meet a target under the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, can buy a reduction in a developing country. But it’s organized on a project basis. And the firm itself in the developing country, which is selling it to the firm in the rich country, has to show and has to be approved by various committees at the country level in Bonn and so on has to show that it will be cutting its emissions relative to what it might have done.

“What it might have done” is counterfactual. You want to know what I might have done? Well, here is what I might have done. You know, it’s quite difficult to work with this kind of apparatus. And it’s very, very heavy. What we’re going to need for a while, I think for ten or 15 years, possibly more, and we do have to negotiate this at Copenhagen, is a successor to the Clean Development Mechanism, which is one-sided trading, in the sense that you get rewarded if you go down. But you don’t get penalized if you go up. Which can work on a wholesale way.

So the Province of China decides under its program that it’s going to have no further investment in coal-fired without carbon capture and storage. Then we can identify quite clearly the kind of reductions that would involve much more easily than the project by project scheme. And what we should be envisaging is wholesale funds, which arise from the ambitious kind of caps we’ve got in Europe and I trust we will have in the U.S., so that firms combined that fund, and that fund could take a slice of this Province of China that’s embarking on this program.

So I think if we replace the Clean Development Mechanism with something that’s much more suitable for wholesale, that’s programatic, as opposed to project-based, then we could envisage financial flows. And we’ve been modeling them a bit. And they probably would be of the order of somewhere between 100 and 200 billion a year by the 20s under these kind of trading arrangements. That’s the kind of financial structure, trading structure that we would need for a while to support these kinds of investments. And we’ve got to be quantitative and open and direct about what’s involved. There’s another story, of course, in proving that these carbon capture stories technologies work on a commercial scale. And that’s something we have to embark on again, as a world where different countries do different things. The Australians are doing a few, there are a few in the U.K., I’m sure. Canada is doing a few. I’m sure there will be more than a few in the U.S. So at the same time, as we work on the finance, we have to work on the sharing of the technology as well. But that’s exactly the kind of detail we have to work on. And we have to be frank about the scale of what’s involved.

–

QUESTION: Thank you again, Lord Stern, for that magisterial performance, which doesn’t surprise any of us. But since I suspect you’re largely preaching to the converted here, I wonder if I might ask you to rebut two of the more persuasive arguments being made by those who disagree with you and with the global warming, simply so we can get those arguments knocked down. And I hear them all the time.

The first is from sort of the view of the Bjørn Lomborg School of the skeptical environmentalist, who essentially sidesteps the case you’re making by saying that even if what you’re saying is true, with the expenditure required to deal with it now is excessive in relation to how much more good you can do to the world by spending a fraction of that money dealing with other things like Malaria and AIDS and development to stop poverty, and drinking water and things like that, and that this is, therefore, a misplaced sense of priority.

And a second argument is broadly what one might call the American conservative argument that says that expecting the world to organize itself today to impose costs upon itself now for possible dangers 100 years down the road is essentially politically irresponsible, that the technologies will find solutions before things ever get that bad. And in the meantime, we should leave well enough alone and let us take care of today’s people, who, of course, happen to be today’s voters, as well. You are going to be imposing short-term costs on people who are not going to necessarily see visible benefits for the costs and pain you’re inflicting upon them. I think those two arguments do require some sort of response from someone like yourself. And I’d love to hear it.

NICHOLAS STERN: I think the response is actually implicit in what I already said. But the challenge you’ve drawn out is absolutely right because this is what we do here. I know Bjørn Lomborg reasonably well. And he’s a rather engaging fellow. But I think he’s more of a stand-up comic than a serious contributor to this. And he’s not an economist or a scientist.

But that’s by the by. Let’s take the argument. What’s the argument? That there are better ways of investing. There’s a whole collection of mistakes in the argument. The first one, and in many ways, the most important, is to treat these as separate projects. The two defining challenges of our century are overcoming world poverty and managing climate change. I’ve spent the big majority of my professional life on the former. One of the reasons I feel so strongly about climate change is that is for the reasons I described, it would undermine the progress that we’ve made and reverse it. We succeed or fail on these two defining challenges together.

As I described it, most of the effects of climate change and their damaging form on human lives come in water in some shape or form. They’re inextricably interlinked. It is just a simple failure in logic to treat the problems of development and water management separately from those of climate change. So when you set it up as sort of separate investment projects with the internal rate of return, you’re just making a basic analytical mistake in relation to the logical structure of the problem. So the argument is just deeply flawed and deliberately misleading.

He also, very deliberately, understates the magnitude of the problem. And he takes lower estimates. He takes means. He doesn’t look at distributions. And he doesn’t look beyond the end of this century. So within that overall structural logical mistake, there are all kinds of subdiffusions of cooking the books along the way. It’s a kind I just described. Deliberately taking lower estimates, deliberately taking means and not looking at distributions, when this is a risk management problem, and deliberately curtailing the time period. I could go on. I mean, there’s mistake after mistake in there, including the discussions of discounting, in the context of a future that depends on what you do now in a very big way. Most of economics, when it discusses discounting, looks at some assumed growth path and thinks a little (inaudible) associated with investment projects around that path, which, again, is an analytical mistake of huge importance in this kind of context, when what the future looks like, including whether or not we’re better off, depends profoundly on what we do now.

So I could go on. But as I say, Bjørn tells a very good case, and he’s a very engaging guy, actually. You ought to listen to him, it’s worth going to, but just remember, he’s wrong.

The conservative story, as you portrayed it, is partly answered by what I’ve just said. Because implicit in the plausibility of that story is the notion that these effects down the track are not that big. So you’re saying, why should we give up what seems to be a lot now in return for something which, you know, is a bit uncertain and accrues to people who are going to be much richer, much richer than us? And more to the point they don’t have a vote.

Well, the answer to that is that you don’t have to give up that much now. And some of it looks very exciting and positive. I don’t want to say you don’t have to give up anything now. That would be wrong and misleading. You do have to invest now. But it has tremendous returns beyond simply the climate change story, which I described. So I think it’s very important to come back first with two things.

One is, that do you realize the magnitude of the changes that we’re potentially talking about here?

And secondly, point to the very positive parts of the story as well. But this is something which requires enormous leadership. When we gathered together as a world in 1944 at Bretton Woods, we had seen 30 years of global warfare and great depression. We could see, in a very direct way, what goes wrong if we don’t think ahead and we don’t collaborate. The evidence was, you know, in blood in very recent history.

This one, we’re having to say, look, this is actually much bigger, in many ways, than these World Wars and the Great Depression. But in 50 years, 100 years down the track, some things much earlier, but in terms of its big magnitude, this is a great test of rationality for human beings. It’s not simply that they can get scalded and say, getting scalded is not a good idea, I’ll avoid getting scalded. That’s the evolutionary approach to learning. This is a big challenge for us, in terms of rational human beings. We’ve got to anticipate this one. It doesn’t make it any less real. But it means it’s less real in terms of direct experience.

So that’s the great challenge for political leadership. That’s why communication is so important. That’s journalism communication is so important. I had a long discussion with Rahul Ghandi about how this can become a current political issue in India. In India, of all places, people understand the consequences of water, storms, floods, droughts. If ever there was a place in the world, no necessity to explain that to people, that they know. But it’s linking, linking that to action in India now, linking action in India now to what other people might do as a world. That’s the challenge of communication. I think it’s enormously important that we take that on.

JOANNE MYERS: I thank you really very much for bringing all of these issues to us today. They’re very important. And I want to thank you for making such a strong case. Thank you.

Call for Papers: Climate change and simulation/gaming

A special edition of Simulation & Gaming, an international journal of theory, practice and research (Sage Publications), will focus on the numerous pedagogical and investigative methods employed to examine climate change – methods that cross disciplines, from the natural and geo sciences, through the social sciences, to education. Climate change is a quintessential issue requiring rigorous analysis and careful understanding by scientists, educators, policy makes and global citizens. We seek submissions from multiple disciplines and perspectives, employing a variety of methods to understand and teach a broad variety of climate change dimensions – process, causes, consequences and responses – social, economic and geopolitical impacts such as international migration, reconfiguration of states, poverty, trade wars, etc. We encourage articles related to climate change utilizing such methods as games, role-plays, simulations, experiential learning exercises, case studies; internet-based and digital games; modeling, game theory, computer simulation, etc.; virtual reality, augmented reality, virtual environments.

Proposals may submitted now through the end of 2009. Proposal will be reviewed within one month. Manuscripts will be published on line as articles are accepted. A printed symposium will be available after all articles are printed online.

Proposals of one to two pages may be submitted electronically (.doc, not .docx). Proposals should contain your name, email, phone, fax, address, etc.; working title for proposed paper; and a set of objectives, an abstract and/or working plan.

Proposals may be submitted to the Guest editors: Klaus Eisenack, University of Oldenburg, Germany,  klaus.eisenack at uni-oldenburg.de, Mary Pettenger, Western Oregon University, USA,  pettengm at wou.edu, Diana Reckien, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany,  reckien at pik-potsdam.de, Richard Warrick, International Climate Change Exchange, New Zealand,  cearsr at waikato.ac.nz,   Niki Young, Western Oregon University, USA,  youngn at wou.edu.

Editor of Simulation and Gaming: A Sage Journal: David Crookall,  simulation.gaming at gmail.com.

The Renewable Energy Policy Network REN21 is pleased to announce that the
Renewables Global Status Report 2009 Update was released today. The report
Shows that the fundamental transition of the world’s energy markets
continues.
Download the report at: http://www.ren21.net/globalstatusreport

REN21 Secretariat
15 rue de Milan
75441 Paris Cedex 9
France

Breaking up Britain:
Four nations after a Union

Mark Perryman (editor)

‘This brilliant book helps us understand what Scots, Welsh, Irish and English neighbours, freed from an unhappy Union, might look like.’
Billy Bragg

May 2009 will be the tenth anniversary of the first elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. This was the beginning of a decade of change – which now includes the restoration of powers to Stormont – that is showing every sign of being an irreversible process.

Breaking Up Britain is a unique collection of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish contributors, featuring key political activists from the nationalist parties, commentators and campaigners, academics and journalists. Each writer explores the change that the break-up demands in their own nation, but also discusses its impact upon the whole.

This dialogue of differences is essential reading for anyone interested in the shape of politics and culture after a Union.

READ SAMPLE CHAPTERS:
Mark Perryman Introduction
Mark Perryman A Jigsaw State
Kevin Williamson Culture and the homecoming of Scottishness
Leanne Wood Greening the Welsh Dragon

Praise for Mark Perryman’s previous book Imagined Nation:
‘Some of the sharpest thinking around on both the pitfalls of nationalism and the potential for a progressive English identity’
Gary Younge
‘A kind of primer for post-Britons’
David Edgar

Contributors: Gerry Adams, Arthur Aughey, Gregor Gall, John Harris, Michael Kenny, Peadar Kirby, Guy Lodge, Inez McCormack, John Osmond, Mike Parker, Lesley Riddoch, Richard Thomson, Vron Ware, Charlotte Williams, Kevin Williamson, Leanne Wood and Salma Yaqoob.

Mark Perryman is a writer and regular media commentator on Englishness and football, and a research fellow in sport and leisure culture at the University of Brighton. He is convenor of the LondonEnglandFans supporters’ group, co-founder of Philosophy Football and author of a number of books, including Ingerland: Travels with a Football Nation and (as editor) Imagined Nation: England after Britain.

CONTENTS

Mark Perryman Introduction

BREAKING UP BRITAIN: Keynote essay
Mark Perryman A Jigsaw State

SECTION ONE: POST-DEVOLUTION NATIONAL IDENTITY
John Harris An English Realignment
Kevin Williamson Language and culture in a rediscovered Scotland
Charlotte Williams The melting pot and the British meltdown
Arthur Aughey Wild catastrophism to mild moderation in Northern Ireland

SECTION TWO: MODELS OF CIVIC NATIONALISM
Leanne Wood Greening the Welsh Dragon
Salma Yaqoob Muslim communities in search of a politics of common ground
Gerry Adams No more Mé Féin but ourselves alone, together and equal
Richard Thomson The social-democratisation of Scottish nationalism

SECTION THREE: FORMATIONS OF EXCLUSION
Vron Ware The ins and outs of Anglo-Saxonism
Inez McCormack A Northern Irish experience of shaping rights
Gregor Gall In search of a Scottish outside left
Mike Parker Independence – that’s when good neighbours become good friends

SECTION FOUR: STATES OF INDEPENDENCE
Lesley Riddoch Tartanspotting and the contradictions of being Scots
John Osmond Welsh independence in an era of interdependence
Peadar Kirby How the Celtic Tiger tames Irish dissent
Michael Kenny & Guy Lodge More than one English question

Paperback, 256pp, All rights L&W May 2009
ISBN: 9781905007967

Price: £16.99

THE AGE OF STUPID – the March 15, 2009 Premiere held simultaneously in a special solar tent on the grass of Leicester Square, London, and in many movie houses all over the UK. The producers asked people to go to the theaters in their areas and not to fly to London. The facts are that air-transport is the largest CO2  emitter and thus a very serious contributer to global warming. The movie is about global warming as seen backwards from a point in time – 2050 – from an observatory that was built so people later can have a way to see what life was before the global warming  catastrophe struck and ask themselves – did we have to be that stupid? Did we really not see what we were doing to the planet and thus to ourselves? But we did know! So we were that Stupid! Unbelievably Stupid!!

The point is that this movie should turn its viewers into activists – so we do change our ways because we do understand that we cannot have an uncontrolled growth and live as if we hadten planets to our disposal when we indeed have only one. There is still time to change our ways and the target time that Franny Armstrong (writer and Director) Lizzie G (excuse me, I do not have the full name in front of me)(sound), and Pete Poslethwaite (main performer and activist) see –  is December 6, 2009 – the start of the Copenhagen meeting on climate change which they love to note as CO2penhagen. Pete Poslethwaite feels so strong about all this that he threatened on camera that he will return his OBE if the UK Government insists on going ahead with the  controversial Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent – his original area.

The movie team has already spun off a “vote with your feet to stop climate chaosmovement” www.stopclimatechaos.org that is working on a December 5, 2009 “March in December” –  London – mass rally – with “Protect the Poorest” Quit Dirty Coal” “Act Fair & Fast” banners.

I came to London from New York, in a stop-over while timing myself to do so as part of a larger trip to Tel Aviv. This gave me the excuse to fly-in even though I understood the request that creating CO2 while being against it – is indeed a misrepresentation of policy.

I saw the action while at a VUE movie house in Acton, London, where all activity from the  solar tent in  Leicester Square was being  beamed in.

I write this from my hotel, after having returned there by way of the “tube” – the famed London Subway. In the tube I had the chance to rview what we saw with 5 young Britishers. My method was “rapid fire” – I wanted to know why Minister Miliband had on a purple tie. I understood he stands for dirty technologies. He seems to love nuclear power without going into actual details if it saves, and how much, of CO2 emissions, and what do you do with  radioactive byproducts? OK – that is  interests policy – but why in the UK a purple tie? He seems also to love coal – albeight  - he thinks in terms of clean coal or the hiding away somehow of the CO2. Franny Armstrong was not too kind to him and what she called his”cohorts” – read the UK government. Pete Posllethwaite said that “we told Tony Blair” not to go to Iraq – but he did” seemingly we tell now the government to do something about climate change but they do not. But why the purple tie? One of the Britisher ladies said it is the fashion now but perhaps Miliband wants to say he is independent. Aha! now we got a clue. It was the Red Republicans of Bush / Cheney that led Tony Blair into Iraq, but now it is the Blue Democrats that lead Obama to undo what the others did and do something where the others did nothing. So is  Britisher Miliband signaling that British  Labor is now only half-way in cahoots, because the cohorts still wink to the rear – that is to the American Republicans – and insist on not lining up with progressive forces that intend to march on CO2penhagen?

I asked my British co-travelers; what about Cameron? He is a  ”Greenwash” they said. Aha, so Miliband is purple  - the color that desribes one as in-between the Republicans and the Democrats in the US, while, he – a Britisher of Labor – has really only Greenwash on his right and on his  left. So the purple is that he really wants to say something but has little to line up with on the Islands – so he looks outside but does not want to look Eastwards to Europe – so he looks  westwards to the US.

This position is somehow strangely clear to us at www.SustainabiliTank.info  where we believe that led by the Bush lack of interest in Climate Change, and the Arab Oil States strong opposition to the subject, the UN undid the Poznan 2008 meeting with the purpose of turning Copenhagen 2009 into Poznan II rather then what some thought will be a Kyoto II formula, but many of us thought more realistically into a potential new Copenhagen I solution. Even so, I completely agreee with Franny and Pete that “THE AGE OF STUPID” must turn our heads around so we undoo that evolution and force the issue so that we will become the GENERATION THAT WAS NOT STUPID. That future does not belong to the  PURPLE but  to the GREEN. Purple in fashion is a  catastrophe of global proportions – Green should be our color – by law and by good business practices. The US needs a Stiglitz in Treasury and not a Goldman-Sachs Man. The UK needs something similar and the Germans and French may indeed help illuminate the way by saying that blind  stimuli are poison to the interests of turning away from being stupid. What is rather needed are regulations that smooth the way to being not stupid – and the timing of “The Age of STUPID” happens to be so that it is right before the UK meeting of the G-20 under Gordon Brown’s leadership. Did not President Obama just say so to Gordon Brown – that there is a special US-UK relationship? OK – will now Mr. Brown steer things so that he brings to a realignment of policy between the Merkel-Sarkozy line approach to capitalism and the old  coservative way of doing business as seen by the UK-US camp?

The movie was great. The points well presented – the melting glaciers, the destried beaches, the burning cities, the spoils of oil that are not money for the needy – but destruction and poverty – that is all there and more. The Indian entrepreneur who wants to turn a billion people into air travelers is just a good student of Harvard a Wharton – but he is also the “angel of death” not just for India but for all of us. Ah, Yes, I took pictures and a book of notes – these will be used in the future – now I just want to say – GO SEE THE MOVIE WHENEVER IT TURNS UP IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. Don’t travel to see it – but make your leaders see to it that it is shown to your people.

The Maldive Islands announced – for The Age of Stupid Premiere – that they will be the first UN State to be Carbon Neutral – they understand because they are allready going under water – right now!

Best regards to Franny, Lizzie, and Pete, from Pincas Jawetz at www.SustainabiliTank.info

THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT, fourth edition –   2008, An Alpha Penguin Book by Dr. Mitchell G. Bard, a foreign policy analyst. It is actually titled as an “Idiot’s guide” as part of such a library.

We picked up the following book at the Jerusalem Book-fair, February 2009, from the Steimatzky Israeli publishers and booksellers, and figured it will be a good read for the understanding of the Middle East Brew.
Reading the daily press everyone becomes an idiot – so this book is everyone’s guide.

A second book I picked up from the Steimatzky Book Publishers’ representatives at the Jerusalem Book-fair was the 6-th Hebrew edition of President Shimon Peres – “The New Middle East – framework and processes for an age of peace.”

His first edition was in 1993 and the edition I got was from 1999. Shimon Peres – now the old visionary for a better way – is one of the people trying to find a way out from the situation described in the idiot’s guide.

The Peres book has been translated into many languages and we expect it to be obligatory reading for everyone tinkering with Middle East Peace Making – the new Washington Administration is no exception – the 1999 edition is just right as during the Bush II Administration years very little was done in order to move towards peace, and the book can just be the place from where to begin the restart effort.

From:      thenewyorksynagogue at thenewyorksynagog…
Subject: Join Us Tomorrow for Sholem Aleichem’s 150th Birthday Celebration
Date: March 6, 2009

The Year Of Sholom Aleichem – His 150th Birthday.
March 4, 2009, The Jewish Week,
by Jonathan Mark, Associate Editor

In a Bronx winter, Sholom Aleichem turned 57 on March 2, 1916, eroded by tuberculosis, his prostate, diabetes and a broken heart – his son Misha had recently died in Europe after being denied entry at Ellis Island. His daughter was in Odessa. His “republic,” as he once laughingly called his large family, was scattered around this world and the Other World, let alone divided by the Great War’s trenches.

He could hear the elevated subway screech and rumble on Westchester Avenue as it entered and left the Intervale Avenue station, down the block from his Kelly Street walkup. Not long before, while on a speaking tour in Russia, he collapsed in Baranovich, was bedridden for weeks and his “beloved readers” spread straw on the street beneath his window so his sleep wouldn’t be disturbed by the clip-clop of horses over the cobblestones. There wasn’t enough straw in the Bronx to soften his landing. Life was grim and closing in. He was nearly broke, losing his wife’s inheritance in the Kiev stock market, losing money from publishers and theatrical producers who got the better of him, losing touch with so many of his readers behind the war’s eastern front.

He had two months to live. He wrote his own epitaph: “Here lies a plain man who wrote in plain Yiddish … And while the whole world was merry, and saw in him but gladness, poor man, he suffered on the quiet. God knows, but no one else did.”

The New York Times reported that more than 100,000 of his readers lined the streets for his funeral with “a crush that threatened to develop into a stampede,” to say goodbye. They loved him, and they knew he loved them back.

If his last days were sad, his afterlife has been splendid. His name is associated with a twinkle; “Fiddler On The Roof” cemented his fame, bringing new readers to new translations. This month, his 150th birthday, there were celebrations in Tel Aviv. Limmud FSU launched “The Year of Sholom Aleichem,” with young Kiev activists visiting his Pereyaslav birthplace. Ukraine opened a Sholom Aleichem museum and issued a stamp, a coin and a cultural prize in his name.

A Ukrainian television crew flew to New York to cover events here: A Sholom Aleichem Shabbat (March 7) at the New York Synagogue on East 58th Street, featuring Sholom Aleichem’s granddaughter Bel Kaufman(a writer herself, most famously for “Up The Down Staircase,”) and a celebration at the Players Club, later that evening, with Kaufman, Theodore Bikel, “Fiddler” composer Sheldon Harnick and author Pete Hamill. Penguin Classics released a new translation of the Tevye and Motl stories, and Viking released a new edition of “Wandering Stars,” his novel about a Yiddish theater troupe, with a foreword by Tony Kushner, author of “Angels in America.”

But let’s return to an Odessa long ago, when little Bel Kaufman would get letters with a Bronx postmark: “Dear Belichka, I am writing you to ask you to hurry and grow up so you can learn to write, and write me letters. In order to grow up it is necessary to drink milk, have your soup and vegetables, and fewer candies. Regards to your dolls. Your papa, Sholom Aleichem, who loves you very much.”

Then came a three-word cable in English. Chaim Nachman Bialik, Kaufman’s neighbor in Odessa, came over to translate: “Papa very sick.”

“I’m almost 98,” says Kaufman today, “the only descendant of Sholom Aleichem who knew him, because I’m so old.”

She was separated from him, in his final years, and didn’t see her grandmother Hodel (Olga), for several years more because of war and revolution. She last saw her Papa when she was 3, vacationing with her cousin Tamar in Bavaria.

“He had a little goatee,” Bel recalls, “and velvet vests. He had blonde hair, longish in the style of the time. And he had pince-nez glasses at the end of a black ribbon. He was very happy, so youthful and full of fun.

“He adored us.” As they walked he’d say, “The harder you hold my hand, the better I write!” Bel squeezed tighter. “Do you see that mountain? I just gave it to Tamarichka. Do you see this lake? I’m making a present of it to Belichka.”

They walked through a zoo, stopping in front of a monkey on a branch. “Papa takes a piece of paper, folds it into a cone, fills it with water from a nearby fountain, and lifts it up so the monkey can drink. The monkey refuses. Papa bends down to me, and I can still hear his voice: ‘Belichka, it’s a spoiled monkey.’ Papa refills the paper cone and drank and drank, very thirstily. Only later did I realize he was suffering from diabetes. But even about that he’d joke, ‘At least I know I won’t die of hunger. I’ll die of thirst.”

“The German landlady made us lovely dinners,” remembers Bel. Then war was declared. “No more lovely dinners. We had to escape,” she to Odessa, he to New York.

When “Fiddler” opened in 1964, The New York Times asked Isaac Bashevis Singer to explain Sholom Aleichem to a burgeoning audience. Singer, who could be acidic about other writers, responded with reverence: “Can a folk writer be a genius, and can a genius think and feel just like an average man? If such a phenomenon is possible, Sholom Aleichem is its closest approximation.”

He loved everyone and everything Jewish. Even when he became less religiously observant as he grew older, he never stopped writing stories about the exhilaration of the holidays and their seasons.

He was fiercely against intermarriage, saying that his children could have “whatever religious convictions they will, but I beg of them to guard their Jewish descent.” If they didn’t, he would disown. He had Tevye say of his intermarried child, Chava, “She is no longer my daughter. She died long ago.”

And yet, in a story written less than two years before he died, Sholom Aleichem had Tevya and Chava reconcile. He had Tevye address Sholom Aleichem himself: “Please don’t think badly of me that tears come to my eyes when I remember this … After all, she was still my child … How can a person be so harsh when God says of Himself that is an all-forgiving God? … What do you say, Sholom Aleichem? You’re a Jew who writes books and gives advice to everybody. Tell me, what should Tevye have done?

“Goodbye,” says Tevye to Sholom Aleichem, “be well, and forgive me for filling your head with so many words. It will give you something to write about.”

Analysis: Surviving Two Billion Cars: China Must Lead the Way.

March 5, 2009 by Deborah Gordon and Daniel Sperling

Deborah Gordon is a transportation policy analyst who has worked with the National Commission on Energy Policy, the California Energy Commission, the Hewlett Foundation, and with the Chinese government to develop policies for its burgeoning auto fleet. She has also served as the director of the transportation and energy programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Daniel Sperling is professor of engineering and environmental science & policy at the University of California, Davis, and founding director of UC-Davis’s Institute of Transportation Studies. He also serves on the California Air Resources Board, and has authored 10 books and over 200 technical papers and reports on transportation and energy. They are the authors of the recently published book, “Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability.”

{From Oxford Press: “In this insightful and persuasive book, Sperling and Gordon highlight one of the biggest environmental challenges of this century: two billion cars. They rightly contend that we cannot avert the worst of global warming without making our cars cleaner and petroleum-free. Luckily the authors also offer a roadmap for navigating this problem that is both visionary and achievable.”–Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council

“The future of mobility should concern every citizen and government official. We have to tackle this together, but weve not been good at it, except in crisis. Now is the time to move forward. Two Billion Cars provides inspiration and a compelling pathway.”–John D. Hofmeister, Former President, Shell Oil company, and Founder and CEO, Citizens for Affordable Energy

“The authors make a compelling and urgent fact-based case that we must quickly expand the universe of affordable, low-impact transportation options if we are to survive the doubling of the worlds cars. They show how a combination of leadership, smart policy, the unleashing of a can-do technological revolution, and carefully understanding consumer motivations will save the day. It’s a must-read for anyone eager to be part of the solution.”–Kevin Knobloch, President, Union of Concerned Scientists

“Provocative and pleasurable, far-seeing and refreshing, fact-based and yet a page-turner, global in scope but rooted in real places. The authors make a convincing case that smart consumers driving smart electric-drive cars can find the critical path to a safer planet.”–Robert Socolow, Princeton University

“This book provides with considerable objectivity and foresight an analysis of the unsustainable pattern of transportation that human society has become accustomedindeed addictedto. In very simple terms the authors deal with the profound issues arising from the growing human desire for locomotion and mobility.”–R.K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Product Details: 320 pages; 33 b/w illus.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-537664-7ISBN10: 0-19-537664-1}

The number of vehicles worldwide is expected to reach two billion in the next two decades. Surprisingly, China – where the demand for cars has been skyrocketing – just may offer the best hope of creating a new, greener transportation model, say Deborah Gordon and Daniel Sperling.

From Shanghai to Sao Paulo, from Seoul to Tehran, conventional cars powered by conventional fuels are proliferating, intensifying economic, environmental, and energy stresses in the world’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas. Booming cities such as Bangkok and Moscow now have so many cars that their central thoroughfares look more like parking lots than streets. Unless we transform vehicles, fuels, and our concept of mobility, we will choke — literally and figuratively.

The globe now has more than 1 billion vehicles and is expected to hit the 2 billion mark within 20 years. And while the international economic crisis may have slowed things down momentarily, the desire for personal vehicles is powerful and the demand will not soon let up.

America pioneered the motorization of human society and leads the world in auto ownership today, with more than one auto for every licensed driver. But with vehicle growth rates over the past decade slowing to around 1 percent to 2 percent a year in the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan, most vehicle growth is now in emerging nations. As the world gets richer, private car use will zoom ahead, especially among the 2.4 billion citizens of China and India. Beijing alone now adds nearly 1,500 cars to its roads every day.

Automakers are increasingly focusing their efforts on these emerging markets, with their phenomenal growth potential. A mass migration to
In January, for the first time ever, more cars were sold in China than in the United States.
urban areas has been driving the demand for autos. Over the past decade, China has tripled its vehicle fleet to 45 million while India’s has doubled to 15 million. And these figures do not include tens of millions of motorcycles and small, rural vehicles in these nations. In January 2009, for the first time ever, more cars were reportedly sold in China than in the U.S.

The question is, by 2020, how will the world’s growing mobility demands be met? If we remain wedded to conventional vehicles powered by conventional fuels, then we will be in a lot of trouble. Instead, we need long-overdue transportation innovations that will lead to cleaner, more efficient, safer vehicles running on greener fuels, together with an overhaul of public transportation systems and land-use development. Nowhere is this more urgent than in China.

Whichever countries bring these transportation innovations to the marketplace stand to gain economically and, politically, as champions of the public interest. Nations such as Japan, France, and the U.K and U.S. states such as California are taking the lead in terms of policy innovation, crafting laws that creatively deal with air quality, climate, and energy solutions. California enacted the first vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards that take into account the entire fuel cycle, from the wellhead to the wheel. France has bundled incentives and disincentives together to simultaneously reward, or penalize, consumers who buy lower, or higher, carbon-emitting cars. But it is China — with its limited oil resources, rapid development, and polluted cities — that may emerge as a leader.

This is because China is a hotbed of innovation, well positioned to respond to internal demands and international initiatives. Novel technologies are already sweeping China. Electric two-wheelers are the most successful

University of California, Berkeley:
The popularity of electric two-wheelers in China may accelerate the growth of the electric-vehicle industry.
mass-marketed battery-powered electric vehicles in the world, with sales exceeding 15 million in China in 2007. They have immediate air-quality benefits, set the stage for a shift toward cleaner three- and four-wheel electric vehicles, and accelerate the development of the low-cost battery sector. Chinese automakers are also innovating with new ferrous batteries that could be much cheaper than lithium-ion or nickel-metal hydride batteries and could be recharged in 10 minutes. This breakthrough would enable large-scale introduction of electric vehicles in China, ahead of Western Europe and the United States.

Low-carbon vehicle fuels from coal are another innovation China is working on, aided by international support for carbon capture and sequestration technologies. And bus rapid transit (BRT), where dedicated bus lanes carry almost as many passengers as a metro rail system at a fraction of the cost, are gaining widespread acceptance in Beijing, Shanghai and, other cities.

China’s government is also playing an increasingly supportive role in fostering innovation. It has imposed fuel economy standards on vehicles that are more aggressive than those in America and has adopted tough tailpipe standards that are closing the gap with the United States. Chinese leaders are adopting fiscal measures to shift taxes to favor more fuel-efficient cars.

These ideas are not entirely new. But what China can do, with its massive size and economy, is foster these ideas until they are fully developed and then launch them abroad.

It will take more than technological innovation, however, to transform transportation in China and the developing world. Sprawling land use and vehicle use must be managed and restrained. This will take government intervention, both through regulations and fiscal policies such as gas taxes and emissions fees.

In China and elsewhere, cities are following different paths when dealing with the problems associated with a growing number of vehicles. In the name of congestion, safety, and even public image, certain cities — including Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai — severely restrict or ban motorcycles, small rural vehicles, small cars, and even bicycles. Shanghai caps the number of new private car registrations annually, auctions auto registrations, limits parking, and makes it difficult to obtain a driver’s license. The city is considering a plan to charge cars for entering the central business district, as now exists in London. Shanghai’s more restrictive policies have led to a slower rate of car growth. With about the same population and wealth as Beijing, Shanghai residents own only one car for every six in Beijing.

Chinese mobility isn’t yet fixated on cars, except maybe in Beijing, where pro-car policies mean that new highways are built as quickly as old ones fill up. An enlightened car policy is key. Stronger metropolitan institutions such as regional planning commissions are needed to protect the environment, manage land development, and provide public transportation. China’s increasingly entrepreneurial culture must be allowed to leapfrog to new technologies that thrive at home and could be exported abroad, such as lightweight, plug-in hybrid vehicles, new electric-car infrastructure advances, and real-time, wireless travel information devices.

—-

Will China actually play a leadership role in transforming vehicles, fuels, mobility, and land use? We think so, for a variety of reasons. For one, some in China are beginning to recognize the Faustian bargain of automotive industry success. They gain jobs, but suffer a raft of environmental, social, and even economic problems. China’s strong national and local governments could pave the way for precedent-setting fiscal and regulatory policies, such as emission-indexed vehicle user fees. The Chinese government is capable of strong and effective intervention, as demonstrated with its one-child policy. Imagine a similar policy applying to car ownership.

And then there are the Chinese people themselves. Despite sometimes harsh limits on personal freedom, they’re becoming more outspoken in demanding a cleaner environment. All of this could add up to positive results as consumers and governments pressure automakers, oil companies, and developers that seek to thrive in one of the world’s fastest-growing nations.

Yet China’s fate rests not only on well-orchestrated approaches within the country, but also on international policies aimed at China. As China speeds ahead, the rest of the world must help steer. Financial incentives, technical assistance, and political pressure from the United States and other nations
Following the U.S. down the wrong path toward fossil fuel-dependent motorization could be catastrophic.
are needed. For example, public-private investment funds targeted at clean transport technologies, multilateral government support to increase financing of sustainable transportation projects, and help developing zero-emission-vehicle policies could all spur China to pursue a more sustainable course. The most car-centric nations owe it to themselves to be involved as more than mere observers. It’s in their self-interest to enthusiastically and generously help China pursue a more benign transportation and energy path. When it comes to transportation, China’s missteps could be devastating, while its revolutionary innovations could be lifesaving for us all.

This isn’t charity. While China would benefit from aid and partnerships, so would the rest of the world. There are other awakening giants in our midst. Vehicle ownership in India, Brazil, Russia, and many other countries is rising rapidly. China might offer them a global model to follow.

Instead of overlooking or decrying the growing demand for cars in China, India, and elsewhere, the U.S. needs to encourage innovative solutions. As the global economy rebounds, China is poised to regain its phenomenal growth in affluence and mobility. Following the U.S. down the wrong path toward fossil fuel-dependent motorization could be catastrophic. Charting another course could be immensely beneficial.

We all win if tomorrow’s vehicles, fuels, and land use are transformed according to a new vision, one that accommodates the desire for personal mobility but with a reduced environmental footprint. It’s a vision that accommodates two billion vehicles, but rejects a transportation monoculture that isn’t going to take us where we need to go.

POSTED ON 05 Mar 2009 IN Business & Innovation Asia

    From:        transatlanticinstitute.org
&n… Subject:     New TAI Publication: “Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb” by Emanuele Ottolenghi
    Date:       March 2, 2009

The Transatlantic Institute proudly announces the publication of a new book:

“Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb”
by Emanuele Ottolenghi

Published by Profile Books, London (2009)

Since Iran’s illicit nuclear programme was exposed to a stunned world in 2002, Tehran has defied the international community and continued to pursue its nuclear goals. What drives this seemingly apocalyptic quest? Are Iran’s aims rational or not? Under a Mushroom Cloud analyses this catastrophic and murky situation, and examines Iran’s dual-track approach of accelerating its nuclear activities while weaving itself ever more tightly into the fabric of the European economy. Thriving trade between Europe and Iran, and heavy European involvement in Iran’s energy industry, have weakened Europe’s will to impose robust sanctions – but imposing them is the only practical way of protecting Europe’s strategic interests and ensuring the stability of the region.

Under a Mushroom Cloud offers a clear and compelling answer to this dilemma. Drawing on extensive research, including interviews with senior officials and security and intelligence personnel from many countries involved in the effort to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb, it provides a comprehensive account of a serious strategic threat to Europe, and offers an original list of practical recommendations for European policymakers who must confront it.

Click here to buy the book.

Advance Praise:

‘Under a Mushroom Cloud considers Europe as the prime mover vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear ambitions. How Europe will use this unaccustomed power is the big question at the heart of this timely book.’

– François Heisbourg, Special Adviser, Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, Paris

‘This is an important contribution to the debate about Europe’s approach to Iran. As one would expect, Dr Ottolenghi has written a well-informed, perceptive and sobering book. I hope our European leaders, and those who study this potential flashpoint, will read what he has to say.’

– General The Lord Charles Guthrie, Chief of the British Defence Staff (1997–2001), Colonel Commandant of the Life Guards and the Special Air Service

‘How to deal with Iran is one of the most pressing foreign policy issues of the day. Dr Ottolenghi provides a useful guide to the challenge and thoughtful suggestions on how to meet it.’

– Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies and Vice-Principal, King’s College London

‘For almost three decades, conventional wisdom has presented Iran as a problem for the United States. In this seminal study, Dr Ottolenghi shows that a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic could be more of a threat to Europe, which, in one of those bitter ironies of history, has helped the Khomeinist regime not only to survive but also to build its arsenal of deadly weapons. A work of impeccable scholarship, this book is also a political wake-up call to European democracies.’

– Amir Taheri, syndicated columnist, former Executive Editor of Kayhan, Iran’s largest daily paper

SUNNI EXTREMISM OR SHIIA EXTREMISM – THINK PLEASE – IS THERE REALLY A DIFFERENCE?

- ON THIS DAY -

On Feb. 26, 1993, a bomb exploded in the garage of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
 http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/…

Buy this front page.
 http://www.nytimes.com/nytstore/historic…

——————-

New York Times Editorial – February 26th 2009:

A Promise of Reform in Saudi Arabia
King Abdullah has demonstrated a desire to modernize Saudia
Arabia, but he must make bolder changes to meet the needs
of his people and set an example for the region.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/opinio…

EDITORIAL
A Promise of Reform in Saudi Arabia.

Published: February 25, 2009
Saudi Arabia is notoriously change-averse, but four years after assuming the crown, King Abdullah may finally be ready to fulfill his promise to lead his country toward greater tolerance and modernity.

We welcome his decision to name several reformers to top posts in his government — and his even more surprising decision to oust certain hard-line leaders of the country’s powerful religious establishment. We hope it means that Saudi Arabia will soon grant full civil and legal rights to women and all who reside in the kingdom.

Most of the attention has centered on the king’s appointment of the first female deputy minister, who will focus on women’s education. That is an important first step. But there is still a very long way to go before women have anything approaching equality.

Saudi women need permission from their husbands or fathers to work, travel, study or even receive health care. They cannot drive. While more than half of the university students are women, their job prospects are severely limited.

The ordeal of the “Qatif girl” is a horrifying reminder of the insecurity and injustice of women’s lives in Saudi Arabia. In 2006, the young woman was gang-raped and later was nearly victimized again when the religious-dominated justice system sentenced her to 200 lashes for being alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married. She was only spared after King Abdullah heeded international protests and pardoned her.

Last week, King Abdullah challenged the conservative establishment even more directly, firing the chief of the widely feared religious police and the leader of the kingdom’s highest tribunal, the Supreme Council of Justice. The ousted chief justice issued a ruling last September saying that it would be permissible to kill the owners of TV channels broadcasting “immorality.”

Moderates also were added to the Grand Ulema Commission, an influential body of religious scholars from all branches of Sunni Islam. Regrettably, the king stopped short of adding minority Shiites to the mix.

Since the 9/11 attacks — 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudis — Saudi Arabia has pledged to reform a hard-line religious-based education system that is seen as encouraging extremism. And Saudi officials say that the king’s new education minister, Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, is a committed reformer. He also is the king’s son-in-law, so there can be no more excuses if Saudi textbooks continue to spew hateful views of non-Muslims.

King Abdullah has demonstrated a laudable desire for change, but he must make even bolder changes to meet the needs of his people and to set an example of moderation and tolerance for the rest of the Arab world.

For that, he will have to carve out more space for political debate and citizen participation and create modern political institutions. That is the only way to ensure his reforms will continue no matter who is advising the king in years to come — or who is king.

Mexico Launches Wind Farm, Projected to be Largest in Latin American. By Mark Stevenson, AP, January 22, 2009. “Mexico inaugurated one of the world’s largest wind farm projects Thursday as the nation looks for alternative energy, in part to compensate for falling oil production. Mexico is trying to exploit its rich wind and solar potential after relying almost exclusively on petroleum for decades. With oil production down by 9.2 percent in 2008, Mexico now is turning to foreign companies, mainly Spanish, to tap its renewable riches… The new, $550 million project is in a region so breezy that the main town is named La Ventosa, or ‘Windy.’ It’s on the narrow isthmus between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, where winds blow at 15 mph to 22 mph (25 to 36 kph), a near-ideal rate for turbines… Spanish energy company Acciona Energia says the 6,180-acre (2,500-hectare) farm should generate 250 megawatts of electricity with 167 turbines, 25 of which are already operating. The rest should be on line by the end of the year, making the project the largest of its kind in Latin America. It will produce enough energy to power a city of 500,000 people, while reducing carbon monoxide emissions by 600,000 metric tons each year, according to the company.”

Maine Launches New England’s Largest Wind Farm.By Nick Sambides Jr., Bangor Daily News, January 23, 2009. “New England’s largest wind farm went on line Thursday highlighting what Gov. John Baldacci said makes Maine the region’s leader in the creation of clean, oil-free wind power. First Wind officials expected to transmit the project’s capacity, 57 megawatts, to the New England grid by day’s end. Combined with the company’s 28-megawatt Mars Hill farm, the Stetson operation makes Maine New England’s leading wind farm state, said Baldacci. The state’s first two wind farms are the cornerstone of the administration’s aggressive 3 ½-year pursuit of alternative energy.”

Cape Wind Project Gets a Green Light. By Mike Seccome, Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, January 23, 2009. “After more than seven years of investigation and controversy, Cape Wind’s proposal to build 130 massive turbines across 25 square miles of Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound now seems all but sure to go ahead, following a favorable environmental assessment. The final Environmental Impact Statement from the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) found the project posed no serious environmental threat. The 2,800 page final report differed little from a draft report, released almost exactly a year ago, which identified no lasting major adverse impacts on wildlife, navigation, fishing, tourism or recreation. Some minor regulatory hurdles remain to be cleared, and the prospect remains of delaying legal action from the project’s opponents, but the MMS report was the most significant hurdle the project, which would be sited in federal waters, had to clear. Certainly the proponents believe the wind is now blowing strongly their way. In a press release issued after the MMS report was released Friday, Cape Wind Associates said it hoped all remaining necessary permits would be in place by March.”

 http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/119745/

Washington Monthly, January/February 2009

Our Man in Tel Aviv: What will be Hillary Clinton’s strategy for Middle East peace? The memoir of
her husband’s ambassador to Israel may provide hints.

By Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the Century Foundation, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

Innocent Abroad:
An Intimate Account of American Peace
Diplomacy in the Middle East
by Martin Indyk
Simon & Schuster, 512 pp.

Just the thought of another book about Middle East policy under President Bill Clinton might make the most stout-hearted reader quake; but he or she would be well advised to consider Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East, by Martin Indyk. Indyk, who was (twice) U.S. ambassador to Israel, and now directs the Saban Center of Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, has managed to write a new, very readable chronicle of Mideast policy during the Clinton years. Rather than focusing narrowly on the Oslo Accords, Camp David, and all things Israeli-Palestinian, Indyk methodically works us through the broader Israeli-Arab peace process, Iran, and Iraq as they feed off one another in a regional context. It is precisely those policy linkages that will have to be redrawn by the new Obama administration, and that theme is clearly uppermost in Indyk’s mind.

The timing of the publication of Innocent Abroad is fortuitous. Indyk, who was responsible for Near Eastern affairs at both the State Department and the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, is particularly well positioned to advise a new Democratic president gearing up to tackle a Middle East in devastating disarray, especially given the recent events in Gaza; and he is doing so with a Clinton at his side at Foggy Bottom. All good reasons for a little recap of how the last Democratic president approached the region. (It’s also worth noting that Indyk has remained close to the Clintons and advised the New York senator during her presidential bid.)

The book at times has a disjointed feel—it was apparently edited down from a much larger manuscript—giving the impression that linking material is sometimes missing. As a narrative, Innocent Abroad has something for everyone—hawks, realists, neoconservatives, and peaceniks alike—and there are plenty of “gotcha” moments, but they are sufficiently varied as to provide sustenance to both right and left. That can be frustrating. Indyk’s conclusions, however, are less polygamous: American efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict are central to re-stabilizing the region, and America should discard the policy of regime change as it engages with both Syria and Iran.

The book reminds us of the series of peace breakthroughs in the 1990s—the various Oslo agreements, for instance, under Israeli Labor and Likud leaders: Gaza-Jericho, Oslo B, Hebron, and Wye River. In addition, there was the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, and real progress in defining the parameters for a possible comprehensive deal between Israel and Syria, alongside the largely effective dual containment of Iran and Iraq (a policy framing of Indyk’s own invention). Indyk also points to the shortcomings of the Clinton era and to the weighty, unfinished business on the Obama menu. While he is often scathing about Bush’s Middle East policy, Indyk notes the not insignificant ways—from the extension of the no-fly zones over Iraq to the support of an official policy of regime change—in which the Clinton administration helped to seed the ground for the disaster that followed.

If President Obama is to pursue a policy of “I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place,” then he will also have to jettison some of that mindset’s inheritance from the Clinton years. Doing that with a Clinton as his most senior diplomat is not unrealistic, particularly if the evolution in Indyk’s thinking is at all indicative of Hillary’s approach. And, as Indyk reminds us, the United States limits both its options and its influence when it is talking to fewer actors in the region.

Indyk’s recounting of Israel and Syria’s attempts at a rapprochement makes for some compelling reading. The not inconsiderable (although not exclusive) blame Indyk assigns to then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for the failure of those talks has already caused a stir in Israel, where the Hebrew version of Innocent Abroad was released last summer. His blow-by-blow account of the Israeli-Syrian process, in particular from 1999 to 2000, of the summit at Shepherdstown, and of Clinton’s fury at Barak for “gaming” him, is riveting. (Barak had insisted on a summit with the Syrians and then backtracked on his own proposals. When he again called on Clinton to host a parley with the Palestinians at Camp David, the U.S. dutifully played host. This time around, as Indyk tells it, Barak informed him on the flight to Andrews Air Force base that “he had not had time to prepare for the meeting.” This in spite of the fact that “he alone had insisted upon” the confab.) The ultimate demise of these efforts came on March 26, 2000, in Geneva, when an exhausted American president (on his way back from Asia) met an ailing Syrian leader, Hafez al-Assad, who passed away just two months later.

Still, it is the section on the Syria track where Innocent Abroad is groundbreaking. Indyk shares largely new material on the details of talks between Syria’s Riad Daoudi and Israel’s General Uri Saguy as they negotiate the thorny issues of demarcating a future Israeli-Syrian border and re-delineating the 1967 boundaries between the two states.

As a new administration takes office, there is some debate as to whether the United States should give priority to peace talks between Israel and the Syrians or Israel and the Palestinians. Indyk suggests that resolving the Palestinian conflict is the priority (and I agree with him on this), but that the U.S. should also reengage bilaterally with Syria and support the ongoing Israeli-Syrian talks currently being mediated by Turkey. He persuasively explains the effect that progress with Syria would have both in reducing Iran’s regional leverage and in facilitating progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian deal—by, for instance, causing Hamas to recalibrate its regional options and probably soften its negotiating stance. In doing so, Indyk rejects the “Syria first” line sometimes promoted in Washington.

I agree with Indyk’s logic, but with one caveat: Indyk seconds the conventional wisdom that Israel cannot pursue deals on the Syrian and Palestinian tracks simultaneously, but I believe this thinking may well be outdated. In fact, only a comprehensive deal may now make sense, one that both closes bilateral peace deals between Israel and its neighbors and articulates a regional peace based on the Arab League/Saudi peace initiative of 2002, whereby Israel would have normal and secure relations with all of the Arab world.

While the best of Innocent Abroad is in Indyk’s prescriptions for a future Middle East policy, there are some charming stories he tells of his tenure in the diplomatic service. There is, for instance, the special handshaking technique developed by U.S. diplomats to ensure that the “no-kissing rule” was adhered to when greeting PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. Or the sometimes extreme lengths that Secretary of State Warren Christopher would go to in order to avoid overnighting in Arab capitals because of his delicate stomach.

In his concluding chapter, Indyk wisely reprises the Clinton Parameters, presented by the departing president in December 2000, offering the only official American guidelines ever written for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The document clearly outlines what a Mideast peace deal might look like and the role America would need to play in making that happen. Indyk suggests a few tweaks to the Clinton Parameters (which he had a hand in preparing), notably when he suggests that a special international regime be created in the Holy Basin–Old City area of Jerusalem. Some of the recommendations (such as engaging in peace efforts early in a new administration, and not waiting, as Bush did, until year eight) would be on most people’s checklist. Others are more innovative in the Washington context: Indyk supports a more active role for the Arab states. To build Palestinian national reconciliation he would like to see the deployment of multinational forces to help facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state (without replacing one occupying power with another), and have international support for Arab efforts to co-opt rather than confront Hamas. (I would be in favor of all of these, including the last, although unlike Indyk I would suggest that no single Arab state play an exclusive role in mediating internal Palestinian dialogue.)

Martin Indyk is candid and self-critical enough to acknowledge that the peace team sometimes had “tin ears” when it came to understanding the true intentions of Israel’s leaders and were “poorly informed” on intra-Palestinian politics. Unfortunately, his book occasionally lapses into its own tin-eared moments. When there are dismissive references to the Palestinian “sense of entitlement” to all the territories occupied in 1967 or to a “perception of increased settlement activity” during the 1990s (the settler population did increase, by more than 100,000), the credibility of the book is harmed, as it is when the Israeli-Jordanian peace and King Hussein’s outreach to the Israeli public is described as a model for securing future Israeli concessions. What concessions? Israel essentially withdrew from no land and gave up no settlements in making peace with Jordan.

These nuances may be trivial, but they can skew the U.S.-Israel relationship or U.S. policy in a way that is utterly unhelpful to both U.S. and Israeli interests. Innocent Abroad is full of anecdotes (some with explicit lessons, some implied, others perhaps unintentional) that, taken together, produce an inescapable policy prescription: that the management of the U.S.-Israel relationship needs to be recalibrated, for everyone’s benefit. We are told that on many occasions the Clinton administration “took an Israeli idea and turned it into an American proposal.” The result of this was that the very deals from which Israel, the United States, and others would have so greatly benefited were made more difficult to achieve. America’s diplomats are frequently depicted as dancing to a tune spun out in Jerusalem. And the outcome is rarely pretty, for either the U.S. or Israel. (It is notable that American presidents have a slightly better track record when it comes to handling recalcitrant leaders of the right—no small thing, given the prospects that Benjamin Netanyahu will return to the Israeli premiership after February’s election.)

To suggest that the United States play the role of honest broker in the Middle East is almost seen as taboo in American political discourse, yet a reasonable reading of this book’s narration of the Clinton years suggests that only by taking a more balanced approach (note: more balanced, not totally balanced) can the U.S. be an effective broker. Part of that will depend on the team assembled to handle these matters under Obama. As Indyk reminds us, Clinton’s peace team was described in the Arab media as “the five rabbis,” and a bit of diversity would certainly not be a bad thing. But that diversity is as much about openness to different approaches as it is about backgrounds. For example, take Robert Malley or Daniel Kurtzer, both “rabbis” according to the above definition, and who both served under Clinton in different capacities and have spent the last eight years challenging parts of the conventional thinking and talking to a more inclusive array of regional actors. While that might make them controversial picks, it also makes such voices indispensable around the U.S. policymaking table. Including Malley and/or Kurtzer in the Obama administration would send a signal that some of the lessons contained in Innocent Abroad have been internalized.

New thinking is also required in Congress. When discussing Iran policy, Indyk describes how “our own zealots on Capitol Hill” managed to split the United States from its European allies by passing the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act in 1996, thereby undermining Clinton administration efforts to maintain a united front in containing Iran. The knee-jerk congressional habit of running to the right of the executive (any executive—Congress even outflanked Bush from the right in opposing Palestinian aid, for instance) needs to be redressed.

Indyk is very critical of the Bush policy on Iran, of subcontracting the negotiations to the Europeans and placing preconditions on direct U.S.-Iranian talks, favoring engagement across the range of bilateral issues. The point that he constantly returns to in discussing the Iran file, both in the past and in the future, is the need for a credible American initiative to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict as a vital component in reducing Iran’s regional influence and leverage. A book that is organized around the tapestry of interacting issues in the Middle East, in which “everything is connected here,” inevitably ends up advocating for a more thoughtful connecting of the dots in regional policy, and the central dot is the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I would read Indyk as an antidote to the naysayers who insist that “[t]he time for peace isn’t ripe, Israelis and Palestinians are in disarray, little can be done.” It is not enough to say that one needs to effectively address Israel-Palestine; one must also chart a course of how to do it: ripeness can be created, the regional strategic context can be reshaped, and many of the ingredients are contained in Innocent Abroad. I might add some, and blend them slightly differently, but Indyk gives us a good baseline recipe with which to start experimenting.

————-

Hillary Clinton’s Plan for Middle East Peace
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 7:11 AM on January 14, 2009.

We learned a fair amount today about Hillary Clinton’s thinking on the peace process in the Middle East. As part of her confirmation hearings, the likely next Secretary of State talked about diplomatic contacts with Iran and Syria, bringing Israelis and Palestinians to the table, and the recent history about U.S. policy in the region, most notably during her husband’s presidency.

And speaking of which, Martin Indyk, the Clinton administration’s ambassador to Israel, has a new book out, Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the Century Foundation, a former adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative, takes a closer look at Indyk’s book in the next issue of the Washington Monthly.

To suggest that the United States play the role of honest broker in the Middle East is almost seen as taboo in American political discourse, yet a reasonable reading of this book’s narration of the Clinton years suggests that only by taking a more balanced approach (note: more balanced, not totally balanced) can the U.S. be an effective broker. Part of that will depend on the team assembled to handle these matters under Obama. As Indyk reminds us, Clinton’s peace team was described in the Arab media as “the five rabbis,” and a bit of diversity would certainly not be a bad thing. But that diversity is as much about openness to different approaches as it is about backgrounds. For example, take Robert Malley or Daniel Kurtzer, both “rabbis” according to the above definition, and who both served under Clinton in different capacities and have spent the last eight years challenging parts of the conventional thinking and talking to a more inclusive array of regional actors. While that might make them controversial picks, it also makes such voices indispensable around the U.S. policymaking table. Including Malley and/or Kurtzer in the Obama administration would send a signal that some of the lessons contained in Innocent Abroad have been internalized.

New thinking is also required in Congress. When discussing Iran policy, Indyk describes how “our own zealots on Capitol Hill” managed to split the United States from its European allies by passing the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act in 1996, thereby undermining Clinton administration efforts to maintain a united front in containing Iran. The knee-jerk congressional habit of running to the right of the executive (any executive — Congress even outflanked Bush from the right in opposing Palestinian aid, for instance) needs to be redressed. [...]

I would read Indyk as an antidote to the naysayers who insist that “[t]he time for peace isn’t ripe, Israelis and Palestinians are in disarray, little can be done.” It is not enough to say that one needs to effectively address Israel-Palestine; one must also chart a course of how to do it: ripeness can be created, the regional strategic context can be reshaped, and many of the ingredients are contained in Innocent Abroad. I might add some, and blend them slightly differently, but Indyk gives us a good baseline recipe with which to start experimenting.

To get a sense of the kind of peace strategy Clinton might pursue, Indyk’s book, and Levy’s review, offers a helpful starting point.

 From:      christina.voigt at jus.uio.no
Subject: New book on climate change and WTO law
Date: January 14, 2009

For those   who are interested in the WTO implications of climate
change regulation, I would like to draw your attention to my recently
published book:

‘Sustainable Development as a Principle of International Law – Resolving
Conflicts between Climate Measures and WTO Law’(Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, January 2009, 426p. ISBN 978-90-04-16697-4).

The book provides a legal analysis of potential normative conflicts
between climate measures as provided by by the Kyoto Protocol, in
particular the flexibility instruments of emissions trading and the
Clean Development Mechanism, and the rules of the WTO.

In this context the argument is made that sustainable development as a
general legal principle of integration can be applied to the resolution
of these conflicts.

The book takes on several important, timely and demanding tasks related
to the urgent global challenge of climate change and the capacity of
international law to deal with complex and multifaceted issues. It
addresses in particular:

• The relations between various international legal regimes, especially
between international trade law and climate law,
• The legal status of sustainable development as a principle of
international law, and
• The analysis of interpretative methods and of principles that address
conflicts between rules pertaining to different legal
regimes.

The book’s preface is written by the series editor David Freestone.

Dr. Christina Voigt is lecturer and researcher at the Department of
Public and International Law and the Research Group for Natural
Resources Law, University of Oslo, Norway

For more information please see attachments or:
 http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=…

Kind regards,
Christina Voigt

–
Dr. juris Christina Voigt, LL.M.(Envir)
post doc.

University of Oslo, Department of Public and International Law
P.B. 6706, St. Olavs Plass
0130 Oslo
Norway

Visiting address: 47 Karl Johans gate, Domus Bibliotheca, office 311

Tel.: 0047-228-59412
Fax:   0047-228-59420
 http://www.jus.uio.no/ior/ansatte/voigt….

 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsBy…

From:        paul at davidsuzuki.org
Subject: New Resource for Businesses to Measure, Reduce, and Offset Emissions
Date:         January 12, 2009

The David Suzuki Foundation is pleased to announce a new publication,
‘Doing Business in a New Climate: A Guide to Measuring, Reducing and
Offsetting Greenhouse Gas Emissions’.

In these uncertain economic times, businesses are looking for ways to
become leaner, more productive, and reduce their exposure to risk. The
good news is that taking action on climate change can be an effective
way to improve the bottom line — not only by saving money through
reduced fuel and energy consumption, but also by motivating employees,
enhancing brands, and boosting competitive advantage.

‘Doing Business in a New Climate’ provides the best-practice tools and
resources needed to set up a greenhouse gas management program,
including guidance on how to:

* Create a customized business case by assessing climate change risks
and opportunities;
* Measure, reduce and optionally offset greenhouse gas emissions to
become carbon neutral;
* Engage employees and other stakeholders with the program; and
* Build an effective communications strategy.

The guide also profiles over fifty leading businesses from around the
world that are benefiting from greenhouse gas management.

‘Doing Business in a New Climate’ can be downloaded for free at:
 orders at davidsuzuki.org

We hope you find this publication useful, and welcome your comments.

Sincerely,

Paul Lingl

Paul Lingl
Campaigner, Climate Change Program
David Suzuki Foundation
Suite 219, 2211 West 4th Ave.
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6K 4S2
Phone: (604) 732 4228 x.233
Toll free: 1-800-453-1533
Fax number: (604) 732-0752
Email:  paul at davidsuzuki.org
  Permalink | |  Email This Article
Posted in Book reviews, Canada, Futurism, Global Warming issues, Green is Possible, Job Offers

Discuss this article

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller Cloth | March 2009 | $24.95 / £14.95 264 pp. | 6 x 9

The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, “animal spirits” are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity. Akerlof and Shiller reassert the necessity of an active government role in economic policymaking by recovering the idea of animal spirits, a term John Maynard Keynes used to describe the gloom and despondence that led to the Great Depression and the changing psychology that accompanied recovery. Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government–simply allowing markets to work won’t do it. In rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of animal spirits in contemporary economic life–such as confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes–and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for them. Animal Spirits offers a road map for reversing the financial misfortunes besetting us today. Read it and learn how leaders can channel animal spirits–the powerful forces of human psychology that are afoot in the world economy today. George A. Akerlof is the Daniel E. Koshland Sr. Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. Robert J. Shiller is the best-selling author of Irrational Exuberance and The Subprime Solution (both Princeton). He is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University. Endorsements: “This book is a sorely needed corrective. Animal Spirits is an important–maybe even a decisive–contribution at a difficult juncture in macroeconomic theory.”–Robert M. Solow, Nobel Prize-winning economist “This book is dynamite. It is a powerful, cogent, and convincing call for a fundamental reevaluation of basic economic principles. It presents a refreshingly new understanding of important economic phenomena that standard economic theory has been unable to explain convincingly. Animal Spirits should help set in motion an intellectual revolution that will change the way we think about economic depressions, unemployment, poverty, financial crises, real estate swings, and much more.”–Dennis J. Snower, president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy “Animal Spirits makes a very timely and significant contribution to the development of a new dominant paradigm for economics that acknowledges the imperfections of human decision making, a need which the panic in financial markets makes all too apparent. I am not aware of any other book like this one.”–Diane Coyle, author of The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters “Akerlof and Shiller explore how animal spirits contribute to the performance of the macroeconomy. The range of issues they cover is broad, including the business cycle, inflation and unemployment, the swings in financial markets and real estate, the existence of poverty, and the way monetary policy works. This book is provocative and persuasive.”–George L. Perry, Brookings Institution Other Princeton books by Robert J. Shiller: Irrational Exuberance: Second Edition. The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century. The Subprime Solution: How Today’s Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It.

Shiller’s ‘no shill’ solution, Tony Curzon Price
Robert Shiller was at London’s ippr talking about the subprime crisis and another prescient book of his:

Of many fascinating things he said, three stood out:

1. that there should be publicly funded financial advisors who are not also selling products. As he said, only the rich get real advice about financial products. Imagine, he said, a world in which we had only drugs companies and no doctors … This is what we have when it comes to financial health.

This is and further ……

Of many fascinating things he said, three stood out:

1. that there should be publicly funded financial advisors who are not also selling products. As he said, only the rich get real advice about financial products. Imagine, he said, a world in which we had only drugs companies and no doctors … This is what we have when it comes to financial health.
This is an application of Lessig’s “no shill” principle—this times proposed by Shiller about our shillings:

2. a New Deal is not a return to the Old “New Deal”: we have to realise that economic policy, especially in such extreme circumstances, works on animal spirits. And the new spirit that the New Deal ushered in cannot be ushered in by copying the policies. We need to implement policies — including reflationary policies — that make sense in the context of the next 100 years, not in the context of the next 100 days. Thinking about 100 days will not change the animal spirits … indeed quite the opposite.

3. (… and this followed from a question I asked him prompted by “2″): Economists have to become more like Keynes: an understanding of animal spirits requires an understadning of sociology, history, psychology, and responsible economists are one who will integrate all of these in policy pronouncements. He said something like: “I did not become a theoretical physicist. Many economists wish they were theoretical physicists. I admire theoretical physicists. But our responsibility is to understand the wider world.” Bloomberg apparently video’d the event. I’ll post a link to it if I find it on the free side of their web site.
Since Shiller seems so good at timing his books with great prescience, I think it is important to know that he has a book with George Akerlof on Animal Spirits coming out in March that will be talking about sociology in economics. Now, we just need to work out why that will have been so prescient…

UNU Presents Panel Discussion and Book launch 0f “THE POLITICS OF HYDROGEN”

In New York City:

New York: December 4, 2008
Washington DC: December 5, 2008
THE POLITICS OF HYDROGEN
In Washington DC:
New York: Dec. 4, ‘08
Washington DC: Dec. 5, ‘08
Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I have the pleasure to invite you to a United Nations University (UNU) panel discussion cum book launch for the book titled “Making Choices about Hydrogen: Transport Issues for Developing Countries”, UNU Press, Tokyo, Japan (October 2008).

It will be organized at two separate locations in succession: New York and Washington DC.

New York:
4 December ‘08 | 1:15pm to 2:45pm
Conference Room 8, the United Nations Headquarters, New York.

Washington DC:
5 December ‘08 | 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Global Environment Facility (GEF) Secretariat, 1818 H Street, NW, MSN G6-602, Washington, DC.

The event at Washington DC is in collaboration with the GEF. Light snacks and beverage will be provided to the attendees.

The discussion will assess the practicality of the idea that hydrogen can be used as potential clean replacement for ‘oil’ in near future.

The speakers for this event will be: Dr. Lynn K. Mytelka, Coordinator of the UNU Hydrogen Fuel Cell project and co-editor of the book; and Dr. Boni Mehlomakulu, Group Executive of Research, Development and Innovation, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of South Africa.

The book “Making Choices about Hydrogen: Transport Issues for Developing Countries” explores a broad range of choices/issues that developing countries face in planning for their long term energy security. It argues that while major challenges remain – including cost and reliability issues – a hydrogen economy is possible if policymakers make radically new choices now. The book includes a series of case studies from China, Brazil, India, Iceland, South Africa, Egypt, Malaysia, USA, Canada and Nigeria.

If you would like to attend this event, please register online by Wednesday, December 3, ‘08 at http://www.ony.unu.edu
or the following direct links;

If you have any questions, please contact   Mr. Durlabh Maharishi on tel: 212-963-6387 or email:  durlabh at ony.unu.edu.

Jean-Marc Coicaud,

Head, United Nations University
Office at the United Nations in New York

“INNOVATION AFRICA”

The volume (405 pages) was edited by Pascal C.Sanginga, Ann Walter-Bayer, Susan Kaaria, Jemimah Njuki, and Chesha Wetlasinha.

Earthscan, is a publishing house for a sustainable future, based in Dunstan House, 14a St. Cross st., London EC1N 8XA, UK – with a branch at 22883 Quicksilver Derive, Sterling, VA, USA.

www.earthscan.co.uk

The project, meeting and book, were sponsored jointly by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the roof of the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The goal is tp promote African agricultural development through capacity-building, research and pilot testing of interventions.

At the Kampala meeting participated 140 practitioners and the best 24 articles appear in the 5 parts of this volume.

The conclusions led to five observations,   and I will mention here just the fifth – that says that real innovation emerges by encouraging creativity, and that is not achieved by over-engineering a multiple level of bureaucracy that poses the risk of stifling real discovery. So, it is better to create enabling conditions and incentive structures that encourage information exchange, cooperation and policy changes that unleash bottom-up or lateral innovation.

The first article is of 26 pages on “Conceptual and Methodological Developments in Innovation,” presented by Niels Roeling.

I found interesting his use of “innovation” as a noun – denoting a technology or even a product i.e. hybrid maize. Then he talks about the “diffusion curve” of introducing this innovation for gain by the users. That was the way the subject was taught in the American Mid-West. Eventually he mentions that his thinking was affected by the observation from Landcare in Australia, that “erosion, salination, desiccation and other environmental problems” resulted from the introduction of European farming practices to a continent to which they were not suited. Thus we reach out to grassroots innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the book presents many ways of organizing this sort of development of agricultural knowledge and information systems.

The book ends up presenting many conceptual and methodological developments in promoting innovation by showcasing on-the-ground experiences in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, South Africa, Nigeria.

The volume mentions the changes in global agriculture, the use of biofuels, the increase in meat consumption, droughts and extreme weather caused by climate change, and the resulting increase in the price of food, and asks if those events will make African smallholders competitive in African urban markets. The author is nevertheless not over optimistic. It is the global “treadmill” that prevents African farmers from contributing to global food security and African countries from gaining food sovereignty. The imports of food haveinterfered with the marketting of the local produce beyond the subsistence level.

November 18, 2008, an evening at the old Woolworth Building across from New York City Hall, ay the NYU Center for Global Affairs, Which is part of the New York University School of Continuing And Professional Studies.

This was the second evening, in a series of four such evenings, in a joint program with Foreign Affairs Editor James F. Hoge Jr.

The TITLE OF THE EVENING WAS CHALLENGES FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION – but the content was anything but that.

The two members of the panel, chaired by Mr. Hoge, in speaking order, were:

Jacob Weisberg, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Slate Group that is run by The Washington Post Company; Columnist, The Financial Times. Since 2006 he serves on the Board of the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME).
He also wrote: “The Bush Tragedy” – on The   New York Times Best Sellers’ List (2008); “in an Uncertain World” he co-authored with former Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin (2003); ‘In Defense of Government” (1996).

Philip Gourevitch, Editor, Paris Review; Staff writer, New Yorker. he also wrote – “Standard Operating Procedure” (2008) and “A Cold Case” (2001), that were translated into ten languages; “We wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (1998).

Both these speakers are terrific journalists.

To be fair to Mr. Hoge, who himself is a terrific journalist, and under him as editor   his bimonthly magazine has pocketed four Pulitzers, he called this series of evenings “In Print” and made sure that all above mentioned five books were available for sale last night.

My problem was that the evening did not live up to the title that implied the suggestion that it had anything to offer to an incoming new Administration. as I said in Private to Messrs. Weisberg and Hoge, “the evening did cover very well what was done and should not have been done – but had nothing to offer to what should have been done but was not done.” I admit that I chewed their ears, but this was friendly criticism – this because I think that both are capable of doing much more then selling books about past mistakes – they really do have the intellect to suggest the right way in areas that do not surface if we only point fingers at the terrible disgrace of Abu Ghuraib and Guantanamo, and focus on the psychology of President Bush in order to figure out his kind of leadership. January 20, 2009 George W. Bush Will Be History and Obama will be left not just with needed corrections but with a country and a world in need of new direction.

Jacob Weisberg’s bestseller is a terrific research of the Prescott Bush and Walker family roots – he leads us to a better understanding of the US isolation on the world map. on the other hand, humanist Philip Gurevitch looks at the atrocities committed, explains why, and passes correctly the blame to all of us. he is right and the fact that the questions from the audience delved further into these realities, just shows how he and Mr. Hoge managed to score the points that clearly state – WE MUST HAVE BETTER PRISONS IN THE FUTURE AND MAKE SURE THAT SUBHUMAN BEHAVIOR IS NOT TOLERATED.

But now my point? Is it a more humane behavior in regard to suspects – even if we rethink this whole concept of terrorism –   is this the promise of the Obama horizon?

***

I sat there through one and a half hours without hearing the word oil even once. Climate Change was not mentioned. The financial crisis was not mentioned – the whole set of crises (in plural) of the whole US economy and what it did to the rest of the global economy was not investigated – simply said – absolutely nothing with relevance to Obama came up during the evening beyond the obvious areas that we will improve prisons and return to be humans.

I suggest thus, that the terrific members of last night’s panel start considering that when the Financial institutions collapsed, and the figures of GDP and stock values fell to more realistic values – indeed not a single dollar was actually lost or taken out of circulation. What I mean is that those dollars did not exist at all. When you play the derivatives Ponzi game with mortgages based on loans that you know will never be repaid, a fictitious gain caused by a sell at a higher level – has not created additional wealth. It was a fiction of the imagination of people that were very happy with the ongoing system. Obama has to restart an economy from a new reading of the reality – here you have a vast field to cultivate with new and positive ideas – yes ask Stiglitz, Soros, Buffett, and write it up for Obama, and please come to tell us this at NYU also.

Further, talking for one and a half our, on what was basically Iraq, and not mentioning that the war was a war for securing a source of oil, then change the Middle East that all other sources of oil continue to be nice and safe – all this at the time we know the use of oil undermines world geography and human security – not because of lack of oil – but rather because of the use of oil – this is very disingenuous.

I do not want to say that the arguments were fake – no they were not fake – but the goal was fake and presents the danger that instead of waking us up to the real world, a meeting like the one of last night just puts us to sleep in a different bed, where we will have a new set of nightmares. I trust Obama Will try to build new doors when he moves to the White House.

 

Download this information in PDF format: cdm-book-lutken-michaelowa2008.pdf

*****

Søren E. Lütken and Axel Michaelowa find an inconvenient truth about the CDM in their new book “Corporate Strategies and the Clean Development Mechanism
- Developing Country Financing for Developed Country Commitments?”, published with Edward Elgar.

The book discusses whether CDM promotes the use of developing country financing to reach developed country commitments.

A brief introduction and information on ordering the book is attached and can be found at Edward Elgar’s website,
 http://www.e-elgar.co.uk//Bookentry_DESC…

From – Axel Michaelowa

Institute of Political Science / University of Zurich
and
Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS)
Hirschengraben 56
8001 Zurich
Switzerland

Phone:   +41 433550073
Mobile: +41 762324004
Fax:       +41 448204206
 axel.michaelowa at pw.uzh.ch