The United Arab Emirates, led by Abu Dhabi, is the first member of OPEC to associate itself with the so called Copenhagen Note by a Valentine’s day Association message to the World Community – we are with you – we take responsibility for action. This from Mari Luomi’s blog for the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

From:  Jones Andrew <Andrew.Jones@upi-fiia.fi>
date:    Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 4:17 AM
subject:  New UPI-FIIA publication – The EU and the global climate regime: Getting back in the game.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new publication by the International Politics of Natural Resources and the Environment Research Programme at The Finnish Institute of International Affairs (UPI-FIIA):

** – The EU and the global climate regime: Getting back in the game
 http://www.upi-fiia.fi/en/publication/10… Published 25.2.2010
by Thomas Spencer, Kristian Tangen, Anna Korppoo of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

The Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
 http://www.upi-fiia.fi/en/blog/269/ by  andrew.jones at upi-fiia.fi
web: http://www.upi-fiia.fi/
Tel: +358 206 111 734            GSM: +358 40 480 1655
Address: Kruunuvuorenkatu 4, 00160 Helsinki, Finland

** – and the Latest blog: The Opec state that clears its own, greener pat.

The Opec state that clears its own, greener path.
by Mari Luomi

ResearcherInternational Politics of Natural Resources and the Environment research programme. Published 26.2.2010

The United Arab Emirates, led by its wealthiest emirate Abu Dhabi, is finally taking the steps necessary to align its domestic and international policies in the field of climate change. Who would have thought just three years ago that the UAE would stand out as the only Opec state to associate itself to a controversial climate change accord, have a Climate Change Envoy, dub nuclear as clean energy, and, most importantly, set international climate change mitigation ahead of oil industry interests.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently became the first Opec member state to associate itself with the disputed Copenhagen Accord. It is also establishing a Directorate of Energy and Climate Change and has flirted with the possibility of announcing emission cuts in comparison to business-as-usual levels. What are the implications of these simultaneous moves for the country and, most interestingly, for the Opec bloc?

————–
The Association Letter:

The UAE’s association letter, sent to the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC) on Valentine’s day, was designed to be a clear message to the international community that the UAE is concerned about the negative impacts of climate change and is willing to do its fair share in mitigating climate change. This comes despite the fact that the UNFCCC places no commitments on the country to cut its emissions. The UAE is exempt from emission cuts because, despite its GDP per capita rank placing it in the global top-15, it is classified under the Convention as a developing country.

The association letter notes that the UAE has initiated ‘numerous domestic programmes’ that would reduce the UAE’s emissions to below business-as-usual levels. It also promises a more detailed follow-up on the issue. One would hope that this means that the UAE is planning to set a similar goal as, for example, Singapore, a high-income developing country, which has pledged to cut emissions by 16% in relation to BAU emissions by 2020.

Three issues are highlighted in the letter:
- The common but differentiated responsibilities principle;
- The economic impacts of climate change and its mitigation on oil exporting states and
- The importance of promoting carbon capture and storage, as well as nuclear energy technologies, under the international climate negotiating regime.

The importance of countries associating with the Copenhagen Accord is still contingent on the form and direction that the currently disarrayed international negotiations take over the coming months. Also, the content of the UAE letter has only a few surprises, including the potential emission target and the mention of nuclear energy.

What is significant, however, is that no other Opec state has so far associated itself with the Accord. Kuwait has explicitly rejected it. Saudi Arabia, which took part in the group of 25-30 countries that drafted the Copenhagen Accord, informally representing the voice and interests of the OPEC group, has not associated itself so far. Rather, in a submission to the UNFCCC in mid-February, the country states that the Accord ‘has no legal status within the UNFCCC, and thus can’t be used as basis or reference for further negotiations’.

If any Opec country should back the document, it is Saudi Arabia, given that it participated in negotiating the text, especially since the issue of the impacts of the so-called response measures (policies and measures taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions) and the need to assist countries vulnerable to them, which is one of the key demands of Saudi Arabia and the OPEC group, is included in the Accord.

—————

Climate Change Directorate:

Abu Dhabi’s major English newspaper The National reported today on the setting up of a new Directorate of Energy and Climate Change under the UAE’s Foreign Ministry. To understand the significance of this move, one must take a quick dive into the national context.

Abu Dhabi, owner of over 7% of the world’s proven oil reserves and nine tenths of the total oil reserves of the seven-emirate federation it presides over, has for roughly three years now been building itself an image of a ‘future energy giant’. It has declared itself to be the ‘green energy leader of the region’ and, to earn the title, it has built up an impressive list of alternative energy initiatives, most of which converge under the umbrella of the Masdar Initiative, an alternative energy and technology venture by the Mubadala Development Company. What is best, international media and governments have bought the brand: from the President of Maldives to Ban Ki Moon, the world is praising Masdar and Abu Dhabi for their efforts.

These two moves – the association with the Accord and the new Envoy – might mainly have been taken for branding purposes, but what is important is that they will potentially have far-reaching implications for Opec’s negotiating dynamics that have so far been dominated by a very different tone. They are also finally bringing the ambitious national projects of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s international climate policy closer to each other.

In a room where members of the Security Council met after us, the subject was “GLOBAL CRISIS, MORE THAN JUST ECONOMICS,” and we learned it is actually a Triple Crisis – Finance, Food, Climate – Crises – a global security problem.

The introducer/moderator was Dr. Jean-Marc Coicaud, Director of the United Nations University Office in New York.

The Presenters were from the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) of the UNU-WIDER in Helsinki: Professor Finn Tarp the Director of WIDER who is also Chair of Development Economics at the Department of Economics at the University of Copenhagen, and Professor Tony Addison the Chief Economist/ Deputy Director of WIDER who hails from the Universities of Manchester and London.

The Discussant was Joseph H. Melrose Jr., a retired US Ambassador with an illustrious career and stays with the UN during the 61st to 64th UNGA Sessions (2006-2009) and now Professor of International Relations at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania.

The Event Brief read: “As the global economy is passing through a period of profound change, the immediate concern is the financial crisis, originating in the developed world. The global South is affected by lower demand and decreasing prices for their exports, reduced private financial flows, and remittances. Simultaneously, climate change remains unchecked with the growth in greenhouse gas emissions exceeding previous estimates. Finally, malnutrition and hunger are on the rise, propelled by the recent inflation in global food prices. Seeking potential policy solutions, the discussion will address threats to development arising from the global economic crisis, food shortages and climate change.

To put this in simple words – there is a Triple Crisis:

(1) a Finance Crisis
(2) a Food     Crisis
(3) a Climate Crisis.

These three crises sit in their separate “POLICY SILOS” and undermine World Peace. A voice must be heard that this is not just a question of economics but it is a series of social problems that undermine World Peace.

The present economic downturn is the deepest in 60 years and let us remember that the UN is only 65 years old. Just a short few weeks ago we used to say that the world crisis has engulfed the whole world except MENA – now came the Dubai crisis and we see that nobody is safe. I would like to add here that the globalization process got us to this situation and now clearly – when there is a sneeze in one corner of the world its echo will thunder all over. Will the North respond to the need of increased assistance for development? The World Pie, or cake, has shrunk – but that means that the percentage for foreign aid must increase if the pace is to be held in place in what regards the needs by the poorer peoples of the world. Their needs become a question of security for all – Is it likely that the richer countries will increase their aid percentage wise? But see – aid did not increase since the late 80’s. We even look now at a world that will call for CARBON TAXES because of the need to react to climate change. What will be the impact on the economic development in the emerging countries?

Dr. Melrose pointed out that the US funded since 2006 activities on nutrition – last year there was a seminar on the subject. Good ……but?

A question from the room – Nobody mentioned demography & population increase – the population explosion!

Tony Addison – on the global food architecture & population – at $80/barrel of oil going to $200 – biofuels becomes attractive – so global food architecture calls for higher efficiency. 1.5 billion people in high poverty – institutions are needed – even remittance flows are drying up.

Fossil fuels subsidies are much higher then is the ecosystem aid. Watch the origins of conflict and energy resources and follow the lines of fossil fuels. That was the greatest finale I witnessed at a UN show. This could happen only in a Think tank environment and one would wish every country to send someone to these sessions – they might learn something about what makes human disasters happen. You just cannot paint man made catastrophes with the natural disaster hazard colors.

I am also thinking of our recent posting about Ethiopia, a country with 5.2 million people needing food help from abroad, while plans are being made to turn it into a new bread-basket for exports. Is this something that we should also look at closely? Is there someone who will help integrate local needs with export potential?

Saudi Arabia’s influence in the negotiations stems from a long-term strategy of obstructionism, the ultimate aim being to prevent an agreement from emerging. Because of the Saudi heavy dependence on oil revenues and its vast oil reserves, it regards global climate change mitigation as a greater threat to stability than climate change.

The Saudi approach to climate change negotiations is plain filibuster. They are neither a key player in the climate regime nor in the negotiations, however, due to the country’s perceived interests, allies in the Muslim world, among some of the G77, and  among oil industry north and south, inroads in UN personnel, thanks to financial resources and negotiating skills and strategy, they may considerably influence certain key issues, particularly adaptation.

But the Saudi strategy that evolved around the four pillars; preserving oil revenues, receiving compensation for the adverse impacts of climate change mitigation, avoiding commitments, and acquiring technology and capacity for adaptation, has turned away many of the G77 and practically all environmental and solid thinking NGOs.

Also, the country’s status as a developing country is increasingly contested due to its high GDP per capita figures. while its call for compensation for loses in oil revenues is strongly criticized. Yes, Saudi Arabia has yet tremendous developmental needs and that is what can perhaps provide for a basis for negotiations with them by those that would like to see an outcome at Copenhagen. This is what the author of the just published study from Finland has in mind.
 http://www.upi-fiia.fi/en/publication/95…

Briefing Paper 48 (2009)       ISBN 978-951-769-243-4

Bargaining in the Saudi bazaar: Common ground for a post-2012 climate agreement?
Published 1.12.2009
Mari Luomi
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Download PDF (0.84 Mb)
Suomenkielinen tiivistelmä:

Kaupantekoa ilmastosopimuksesta saudien basaarissa

Brazilian Multinational Vale S.A. establishes an academic foothold at Columbia University and pushes for doing the right thing for business, for developed and for developing countries – a marriage between ODA and FDI. Will it work?

Vale S.A., formerly Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), is a diversified mining multinational corporation and one of the largest logistics operators in Brazil. In addition to being the second-largest mining company in the world, Vale is also the largest producer of iron ore, pellets, and second largest (after Russia’s Norilsk) of nickel. Vale also produces manganese, ferroalloys, copper, bauxite, potash, kaolin, alumina and aluminum. In the electric energy sector, the company participates in consortia and currently operates nine hydroelectric plants. The company was established in the State of Minas Gerais as a Brazilian Federal government mining company in 1942, and privatized in 1997. Since November 2007 it is known by the Vale name.

Vale was started as the Brazilian center of iron mining, it diversified later into non-ferrous metals, and into coal with major operations in Australia and China. It further is conducting mining operations in many other counties including -  Finland, Canada, Mongolia, India, Angola, South Africa, Chile, Peru.

Vale is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro and has its logistical office in São Paulo. Vale also has offices all over the world:  Brisbane,  Buenos Aires,  Johannesburg,  Lima, London, Seoul,  Shanghai,  Singapore,  Tokyo,  Toronto, Vaud. Vale had an investment budget of $11 billion for 2008, the largest annual investment program ever undertaken by Vale or by any mining company in the world. The 2008 budget is part of the firm’s strategic plan and underpins the 5 year, $59 billion investment program,  as compared with the period 2003-2007, estimated at $18 billion.

Now we come to our point here – thanks to the fact that it is such a large multi-multinational company it is also involved in creating a more friendly image for the globalization of business.  At the UN Vale is involved in the Global Compact, that is looking at the social responsibilities of the Multi National Corporations. Vale went on one step beyond the UN Global Compact and established with the Columbia University School of Law and the Columbia University Earth Institute whose Director is Prof. Jeffrey Sachs who is active also at the UN as an advisor to that Institution’s 38th floor office holders – at this time UNSG Ban Ki-moon.

The VALE COLUMBIA CENTER (VCC) ON SUSTAINABLE INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT seems to have further direct support from the government of Finland, and is headed by Dr. Karl P. Sauvant as its Executive Director.

VCC is a forum for discussion by scholars, policy makers, development advocates, other stakeholders, in issues of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the global economy – and paying special attention to concepts of the company investment to environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

Previously the above was part of ODA (Official Government Development Assistance – some like to call this as Overseas Development Assistance) that we know had little permanency even though money was made available – now it is the new mantra that public opinion will push big globalized corporations to come up with programs needed to make their own operations sustainable – as it also became clear that rape of host counties will not make anyway for long-term profitability for any such large globalized firm. Vale is thus a leader in this new endeavor.

Inquiries regarding the Center’s activities can be directed to Ms. Lisa Sachs at  LSachs1 at law.columbia.edu see also - www.vcc.columbia.edu

——————–

November 4, 5, and 6, 2009 VCC backed by The University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, the Vale Company and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, presented a series of important International Investment Workshops and Conferences.

First, on Wednesday November 4th there was a Workshop on “The Role of ODA in Promoting Sustainable Development in Developing Countries;” then on Thursday – Friday, November 5-6, there was the “FDI, the Clobal Crisis and Sustainanle Recovery” International Investment Conference. I was not present at the November 4 and 5 meetings, but I made it my business to go to the Concluding Roundtable on November 6th, titled – “FDI, the global crisis and sustainable recovery: the way forward,” that was chaired by VCC Head and had on his panel Karin Lisaker, former US Executive Director of the Board of the IMF and now Director of Revenue Watch Institute; Manfred Schekulin, chairperson OECD Investment committee; Daniel M. Price, a former assistant to President G.W.Bush; and Professor Jeffrey Sachs whose independent stands are known.

Before going to the Concluding Rountable, let me nevertheless glance over the events that I did not witness directly – specially the first day of the three days – for which there was made available already a Workshop Report (authored by Barry Herman, Research Director of VCC and former staff member of UNDP), courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland that is working with OECD on investment policy reform – the PFI ( “Policy Framework for Investment”) with South  Africa specifically in mind. http://formin.finland.fi

The idea is to use funds legislated by donor governments for ODA and revert them to ways that lead to more sustainable FDI in aid receiving countries – “in particular through support of policies and activities at the sub-national level.

The workshop participants numbered 16 experts from developed and developing country governments who came in their personal capacity to discuss two themes: (1) How ODA might leverage at national or sub-national levels so as to encourage FDI that meets sustainability criteria, and (2) How ODA might help foster linkages between the foreign firms operating in an economy and domestic firms, thereby enhancing local employment and stimulating domestic entrepreneurship.

An important observation was that developing counties, as all countries, need regional and urban development strategies rather then the conventional dealings with a central government. Without denying the responsibility of the national government to ensure coherence of local strategies with national priorities, it is nevertheless the local stakeholders that know best what they need. A conclusion of the report is thus to strengthen the national government’s capability to develop its representation in the sub-national levels. Donors might also encourage foreign affiliates operating in a country to monitor suppliers and enterprise customers with which they have relations as by sharing costs of trainers. Alternatively a donor could support an information hub locally, however the donor must align himself with the national government of the country.

Local enterprise development is also a priority for reaching out to the MDGs, and ODA in support of FDI linkage programs can be effective in this regard.

Those topic were addressed from different angles on the second day – i.e. Georgetown University Professor Theodore H. Moran spoke of CSR – “Enhancing the contribution of FDI to development: a new agenda for the corporate social responsibility community.  and for the UN, Assistant Sec-Gen. Robert Orr, Strategic Planning Unit in the office of the Secretary-General, spoke of “Climate Change, FDI and the Copenhagen Summit.” He is connected to the Global Compact unit at the UN.

Mr. Moran left behind a copy of his slides – so I know that he aimed at the relationship between the NGOs and the CSR Community which are the right companies that will attempt to do good because it is also good for them. There is skepticism of mere multinational corporate philanthropy – the correct approach is the realization of optimizing benefits – this is specially important in the extractive sector FDI.

He called for improving the extractive industry transparency by taking the route of the initiative (EITI).
It helps if you publish what you pay and spend – he said.

The usual wide canvas was painted by University Professor, Clombia University, Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz whose title was “US recovery, global sustainable development, and FDI.”

While in 2007 there was a peak of $2 trillion in global FDI, that figure was reduced by 14% in 2008 and it is expected to fall by 40-50% in 2009. It is thus important to look at the effect of crisis on social conditions, CSR, and resource nationalism – that was the topic in one or other form of most presentations.

Now to the summary session:

Speaking of the G-20 meeting, Manfred Schekulin, Chairperson of the OECD Investment Committee noted that there was no competence on the EU level at the table – only in some EU member states – thus the meeting reverted to a plain bilateral US-China event. {I must say that this vindicates many of our own comments on the fact that the EU pushes itself out from becoming that needed additional G – to put before us a G-3.

Daniel M. Price who was with the inner circle of the G.W. Bush Administration bemoaned that nobody said the “capitalism” word except Turkey, India and Russia. He said he agrees we need global roots, but with the bilateral agreements – you get in total global roots. Price tried hiss best to say that the US was the leader and mentioned in specifics – the Montreal agreement on ozone, on Cap and Trade in the sulfur area, on various aspects of Africa policy like malaria. He points out that this was during a Republican Administration.

Karen Lissakers of the IMF pointed out that there is a lot we do not know – things like who is drilling off-shore, who has the know-how, who will pay taxes or just disappear. Talking of global rules for investment as advocated by Manfred, she has the answer that we do not really know who invests.
Then Chair Sauvant, in a McGloghlin fashion says – It seems Transparency and Accountability and Global Rules are needed.

Price adds that China wants to grandfather things before an agreement – but is not ready to enumerate what. “The best investment is to marry the interests of the investor to make profit with the national needs of the host government.”

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs said that mining companies know how to run mines with competence but not about sustainability. Host governments do not know how to deal with this – they know little about commissions, royalties etc. How do they run the contracts? This results in mistakes and abuses. The contracts are related to high expenses and in the end neither shareholders nor the government see the profits.

Ms. Lissakers said that the IMF advises the government not to go for a contract before they have laws on the books only then you go for bids. South Africa listened; Liberia did not and now they get more and more lawyers. She said that many developing country cases point at having been locked into an agreement that was bad. Sorry – you got locked into a bad 25 year agreement because you had corrupt leaders, bad lawyers, wrong economic conditions … etc. You are stuck.

Sachs says the Clinton Administration achieved nothing in these areas and Bush just very little and this very little only in the last two years – it is just unfair to spend only 0.17% of the GDP on foreign aid to the developing countries.

Manfred said the US-China are converging and there will be another round of global negotiations.
Multinationals are on the payroll of governments – just like me except they are paid better.

Jeffrey says that a VP for Sustainability is not the same thing as a VP for Sustainable Development. Companies might be interested in Sustainability but cannot really be asked to take over sustainable Development – that is something for governments. A company will deal with toxicity and the environment.
If you open up a large area for farming there will be many problems to be dealt with.

Development has a triple bottom line:

(1) On the social level – you want to understand the effects on the local, national and global communities.

(2) on the eco-system level – like GHG emissions and climate change,

(3) On the economics level – the need of the investors and the transparency to the locals.

A project getting into a country might be the biggest thing they will see for years, but then situations might result like you have a pipeline and no domestic energy beyond coal – and this with the World Bank having been involved.

Jeffrey believes that major companies are ready to look into these problems right now.

This posting is very appropriately done on Halloween Day – but it is for real – and shows how contrite humans can be – AP Reports from the Turku shipyards, Finland, about “THE OASIS OF THE SEA” or the biggest floating contraption, four times the size of the Titanic, is fit to be a floating out-of-the-harbor resort with six neighborhoods. Despite many energy-saving devices, this is a slap to eco-tourism.
The ship’s first leg on its maiden trip to Port Everglades, Florida, will take it from nearby Helsinki to close to Copenhagen – pity this does not happen a month later so the climate convention minions will not have the chance to see it.
——————

Huge Cruise Ship Squeezes Under Bridge
MATTI HUUHTANEN of   AP News.
HELSINKI (Oct. 30) — It’s five times larger than the Titanic, has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. The world’s largest cruise ship is finally finished and Friday it began gliding toward its home port in Florida.
The Oasis of the Seas will meet its first obstacle Saturday when exits the Baltic Sea and must squeeze under the Great Belt Bridge, which is just 1 foot taller than the ship — even after its telescopic smokestacks are lowered.

To be on the safe side, the ship — which rises about 20 stories high — will speed up so that it sinks deeper into the water when it passes below the span, said Lene Gebauer Thomsen, a spokeswoman for the operator of the Great Belt Bridge.

Once home, the $1.5 billion floating extravaganza will have more, if less visible, obstacles to duck: a sagging U.S. economy, questions about the consumer appetite for luxury cruises and criticism that such sailing behemoths are damaging to the environment and diminish the experience of traveling.
Travel guide writer Arthur Frommer has railed against Oasis and other mega ships he calls “floating resorts,” suggesting that voyages on such large vessels are “a dumbing down of the cruise experience.”
Oasis of the Seas, which is nearly 40 percent larger than the industry’s next-biggest ship, was conceived years before the economic downturn caused desperate cruise lines to slash prices to fill vacant berths.
“Obviously we did not want or anticipate she’d be born into the most significant economic downturn since the Depression,” Royal Caribbean International President & CEO Adam Goldstein told The Associated Press in an interview earlier this month. “Even in this environment, we’re excited about her.”
It sets sail as cruise lines clamor to increase capacity, adding newer — and bigger — ships to their fleets.
The Oasis of the Seas has 2,700 cabins and can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members. Company officials are banking that its novelty will help guarantee its success.
The enormous ship features various “neighborhoods” — parks, squares and arenas with special themes. One of them will be a tropical environment, including palm trees and vines among the total 12,000 plants on board. They will be planted after the ship arrives in Fort Lauderdale.
In the stern, a 750-seat outdoor theater — modeled on an ancient Greek amphitheater — doubles as a swimming pool by day and an ocean front theater by night. The pool has a diving tower with spring boards and two 33-foot high-dive platforms. An indoor theater seats 1,300 guests.
Accommodations include loft cabins, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and 1,600-square-foot luxury suites with balconies overlooking the sea or promenades.
One of the “neighborhoods,” named Central Park, features a square with boutiques, restaurants and bars, including a bar that moves up and down three decks, allowing customers to get on and off at different levels.
The liner also has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children.
Frommer suggests that such ships should never even leave port: “Who would know the difference?”
“If the life on ship were a vital one, then you might justify building a ship so large,” Frommer told the AP in an e-mail exchange. “But when the activities program consists largely of ziplines, surf-boarding, rock-climbing, a boxing ring, and imitations of Cirque de Soleil, when the lecture program deals with napkin-folding (the subject matter on other humongous ships operated by the same company), then there doesn’t seem much appeal to well-read, intellectually curious people.”
Paul Motter, editor of Cruisemates.com, has said that other critics have also complained that these huge ships flood ports of call, dumping 5,000 people all at once in an area.
Motter said suites are sold out for most of the sailings. Junior suites are mostly sold out and there is availability in inside, ocean view and balcony rooms.
He said ticket prices are still high for the Oasis, running $1,299 to $4,829, compared with $509 to $1,299 on the company’s next most popular ship, Freedom of the Seas.
While environmentalists have said that the ship does not do enough to reduce air pollution and burns more fuel than a land-based resort, engineers at shipbuilder STX Finland said environmental considerations played an important part in planning the vessel. It dumps no sewage into the sea, reuses its waste water and consumes 25 percent less power than similar, but smaller, cruise liners.
“I would say this is the most environmentally friendly cruise ship to date,” said Mikko Ilus, project engineer at the Turku yard. “It is much more efficient than other similar ships.”
The Oasis of the Seas is due to make its U.S. debut on Nov. 20 at its home port, Port Everglades in Florida.

Xinjiang Crisis Creates Ripples Overseas.
Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Jul 29 (IPS) – In recent days, China’s mainland intellectuals have publicly displayed a wave of patriotic support for the Xinjiang cause. They have expressed anger against “hostile foreign forces”, whom they blame for inciting the recent violence in the ethnic Muslim area.

But much of this is suspected of being stage managed by the country’s communist leaders. And behind this fervent display, there is a welling up of anger in a section of the Chinese literati who are critical of Beijing’s policies towards its ethnic minorities. The Xinjiang crisis, which erupted in early July, claiming 197 lives, has now spilled far beyond the borders of China’s resource-rich western autonomous region.

Last week, this issue created ripples in Melbourne, which is hosting Australia’s largest film festival. Several Chinese film makers decided to boycott the festival in a gesture of protest against the inclusion of a documentary in the festival about Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uyghur leader accused by Beijing of instigating the unrest from abroad. Among the directors who withdrew their works from the festival is Jia Zhangke, one of China’s award-winning independent filmmakers.

His refusal to participate in the Melbourne festival spurred Beijing to highlight that artists operating outside of the mainstream film umbrella are “patriots” who are unwilling to compromise on issues of national sovereignty. The Beijing Youth Daily reported that Zhangke felt repulsed by the idea of appearing on the same stage as Rebiya Kadeer.

“We feel that appearing with Rebiya in a thoroughly politicised festival, crosses the line of what our emotions and behavior can accept, and [it] is not appropriate. Therefore, Xstream (Jia’s production company) unanimously decided to withdraw, in order to express our attitude and position,” said the press statement released by Zhangke.

The film festival’s organisers said they were unable to verify whether his decision to withdraw was under duress. Zhangke has not been available for any independent comments since then.

But the walkout from the festival has been very publicly supported by a slew of famous film directors and film industry heavyweights. Director Feng Xiaogang, known as the master of sweet-sour modern Chinese dramas, told the state agency Xinhua last week that film festivals should be a platform for cultural and artistic exchanges.

“However, the Melbourne film festival organisers have turned it into a political drama by inviting Rebiya Kadeer, a political liar,” he said.

The works that were withdrawn from the festival were not state-endorsed film products by any standards. Zhangke’s “Cry me a river” is an elegy of lost idealism swept by the tides of China’s fast modernisation. “Petition”, another withdrawn film, by director Zhao Liang, is a documentary about the evolution of the ancient Chinese tradition of petitioning central authorities over the abuses by local officials.

Beijing’s chances of pushing its version of what happened in Xinjiang as legitimate have got a boost with artistic rebels like Zhangke appearing to be on its side.

Riots were reportedly ignited in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, on July 5, as college students other citizens protested against the death of two Uyghur migrant workers in a factory located in Shaoguan, Guangdong province.

But Beijing claims that the riots were instigated by Uyghur terrorist units from southern and western Xinjiang who had infiltrated Urumqi shortly before July 5.

Chinese leaders have blamed Rebiya Kadeer, a 62-year-old former business tycoon, now exiled in the United States, for inciting the violence. Beijing claims that the “East Turkestan forces” — a Uyghur independence movement accused by China of having terrorist links — have long portrayed Kadeer as an international spokesperson for Uyghur people, similar to the role Dalai Lama plays for Tibetans.

Beijing’s claims have received a mixed response overseas. Japan has irked China by issuing a visa to Kadeer despite Beijing’s repeated concerns that she might engage in “anti-China separatist activities”. India, however, showed more consideration for Beijing’s concerns and denied Kadeer a visa even before the July riots.

Domestically, Beijing has attempted to muzzle dissenting voices on the causes of the protests. But Chinese intellectuals have been prodding the roots of ethnic unrest since the Tibetan riots last year which exposed the facade of harmonious society painstakingly maintained by the leadership.

The debate on China’s dealings with its 56 ethnic minorities is gathering pace despite official frowns. Two polarised views have emerged. The first is about defending the right to development of the majority Han Chinese, who make up 91 percent of the country’s population. The other traces the roots of ethnic resentment among Tibetans and Uyghurs. Beijing’s imposed economic modernisation of their homeland, observers say, has led to the social marginalization of these ethnic groups.

Ma Rong, a professor of sociology at Beijing University, represents the former view. He argues that while Beijing did not grant its minorities the right to self-determination, as the former Soviet Union did, it did offer several social privileges that are currently being exploited by hostile elements.

Those rights include exemption from China’s “one-child” policy, educational privileges and a slew of financial and infrastructure programs aimed at boosting their economic development. Ma warns against treading the path of the former Soviet Union. The right of autonomy for its ethnic minorities led to the politicisation of ethnic identities and ultimately to the break up of the Soviet Empire.

“Modern China’s policies on ethnic minorities were hugely influenced by the Soviet Union’s theories on nation-building, and therefore there exists a clear danger of nationalist separation in China too,” Ma wrote in a research paper, excerpts of which were published in the Southern Weekend newspaper.

The opposing lobby argues that the lack of adequate rights to development has led to the flaring up of ethnic unrest. Investigating the causes for the wide-spread Tibetan riots in March last year, members of the liberal group Gongmeng, or Open Constitution Initiative, came up with a report detailing a list of grievances among ethnic groups.

Their paper, posted briefly in June on Chinese websites before being censored by the authorities, argues that Beijing has not given ethnic minorities a fair share of the profits from the exploitation of their homeland’s resources. It also states that ethnic Han Chinese migrants enjoy a monopoly on jobs in all service industries promoted by the central government as ways of ending poverty.

When the Urumqi riots broke out in July, investigative reports revealed the same picture. The two migrant workers who died in a toy factory brawl in southern China were part of a government-funded labour export scheme aimed at relieving poverty in a Xinjiang area, where jobs for locals were few and far between.

——————–

see more details: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/chi…

China-Turkey and Xinjiang: a frayed relationship.

The violent unrest in China’s western region has cast a chill over the prevously warming links between Ankara and Beijing. The deeper roots of their dispute lie both in history and modern geopolitics.

write Igor Torbakov and Matti Nojonen, 31 – 07 – 2009, from Finland, as reported on OpenDemocracy.net

Igor Torbakov is a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Matti Nojonen is director of the Transformation of the World Order programme at  FIIA.

The violent ethnic clashes in China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang on 5-6 July 2009 have had effects far beyond the region. The pressure from the Chinese government to halt the showing at the Melbourne film festival of a documentary film on the exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer – followed by the withdrawal of Chinese films from the programme and electronic harassment that disabled the festival’s website – is but one example.

The countries which host significant numbers of the Uyghur diaspora, or which have close ethnic or cultural ties with the Uyghurs, are among those that have expressed concern about the bloody events in Xinjiang and Beijing’s ruthless crackdown’s. Where such countries also have valuable economic and trading links with China, the potential for the violent episode to create political complications is evident.

This indeed is the situation with regard to Turkey, whose government has as result been torn between its desire to protect its economic ties with China and pressure from public opinion that it does something to stop the Chinese persecution of their Muslim and Turkic kin in “East Turkestan”.

In this position Ankara, under the leadership of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice & Development Party / AKP) of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,  is attempting to perform a delicate balancing-act. But the difficulties of the moment – reinforced by the AKP’s desire to be seen as no less nationalistic and pro-Uyghur than the opposition – raises concern that Turkey and China could be on a collision-course.

* * *

A positive dynamic

The two countries have forged a good economic and political relationship in recent years. This was symbolised only one week before Urumqi erupted, when the Turkish president (and former foreign minister) Abdullah Gul made an official state visit to China, which included a stopover in Xinjiang – the highest-level ever Turkish visit to the region.

[Also on the Xinjiang crisis in openDemocracy please go via the link:

James A Millward, "China's story: putting the PR into the PRC" (18 April 2008)

Henryk Szadziewski, "Kashgar"s old city: the politics of demolition" (3 April 2009)

Yitzhak Shichor, "The Uyghurs and China: lost and found nation" (6 July 2009)

Henryk Szadziewski, "The discovery of the Uyghurs" (10 July 2009)

Kerry Brown, "Xinjiang: China's security high-alert" (14 July 2009)

Dibyesh Anand, "China's borderlands: the need to rethink" (15 July 2009)

Temtsel Hao, "Xinjiang, Tibet, beyond: China's ethnic relations" (27 July 2009)

Ross Perlin, "The Silk Road unravels" (28 July 2009)]
The state visit had taken place on the invitation of the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. It reflects the Chinese leadership’s appreciation of Turkey’s positive efforts to promote constructive dialogue with Beijing – which has included Turkey’s repeated emphasis that Xinjiang is an integral part of China (including references to “Chinese Xinjiang”).

Indeed, Beijing’s trust in Ankara’s “one-China” stance is measured in its granting President Gul the rare opportunity to deliver a speech at Xinjiang University. In his 28 June address the president said that Xinjiang constitutes one of the most important bonds between the two countries, and that the Uyghur people in Xinjiang form a bridge of friendship between China and Turkey.

Many of Turkey’s economic ties with China have been through Xinjiang, one of China’s least developed areas. It seemed a good strategy for both sides: mainly low-end Turkish products cannot compete with domestic Chinese brands in the developed coastal regions of China, but could provide an entry-point for Xinjiang to international markets and help diversify China’s sources of foreign direct investment (FDI).

More widely, the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet reports that the visit to Beijing secured trade deals involving eight Turkish companies and worth $3 billion. There have also been expectations of more strategic ties, including a plan by the Chinese company Chery Auto to build a car-factory in Turkey (though this will depend on government support).

This gradual development of political trust and economic exchange makes the Xinjiang crisis – and the Turkish reaction to it – all the more unsettling for both countries.

* * *

Turkey’s dismay

The boisterous and competitive Turkish media intensively reported the Urumqi events from the start. The majority of victims of the initial rioting (197, according to the official death-toll) may have been Han Chinese, but many media outlets announced hundreds of casualties among the Uyghurs. This contributed to a steep rise in nationalist sentiment in Turkey in which the Uyghurs seemed confirmed as a close cousin of the Turkic family.

“China should know that when East Turkestan is hurt, Turkey is hurt”, one commentary in the Bügün daily warned. “East Turkestan is bleeding”, echoed Sabah; “Turkey cannot remain indifferent to the sufferings of its ancestral lands.”

Some Turkish commentators even invoked the idea of independent Xinjiang – an argument destined to enrage official Beijing. “Although the riots failed to be successful today, they will open the way of hopes for tomorrow”, wrote Sabah’s columnist Nazli Ilicak; she added that one day East Turkestan might free itself from China’s oppressive rule and become an independent country like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

The weight of press coverage, reflecting widespread public sentiment, had near-instant political effects. The opposition was quick to criticise the government’s initially muted response to the “Urumqi massacres”, leading the AKP leaders to toughen their own rhetoric. Regep Tayyip Erdogan, at the G8 summit in Italy – from where Hu Jintao had abruptly returned to China on  news of the unrest, described what had happened as amounting to “almost genocide” against the Uyghurs and urged China to stop the “assimilation” of its Uyghur minority.

Turkey’s prime minister was emphatic: “No state, no society that attacks the lives and rights of innocent civilians can guarantee its security and prosperity. Whether they are Turkic Uyghurs or Chinese, we cannot tolerate such atrocities. The suffering of the Uyghurs is ours.” Erdogan said that Turkey, as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, was determined to bring the issue of the Chinese crackdown onto the council’s agenda.

Bülent Arinc, a co-founder of the AKP and currently deputy prime minister, echoed his leader, saying “we have profound historical ties to our brothers in the Uighur region” including a 300,000-strong Uighur community in Turkey. The industry minister Nihat Ergün went even further when on 9 July he called on businessmen and consumers to boycott Chinese products (though this was followed by a qualified retraction).

These acerbic remarks have begun to impinge on the potentially disruptive issue of Turkey’s stance towards Rebiya Kadeer, the millionaire businesswoman-turned-political dissident living in the United States whom Beijing accuses of masterminding the Urumqi riots. Ankara has in fact twice refused to issue a Turkish visa to Kadeer, in an apparent wish to avoid upsetting the Chinese leadership. This attitude seems to be changing, with Erdogan (on 9 July) saying that a new visa application would be accepted.  Kadeer responded by telling the Cihan news agency that she planned to visit Turkey soon, and that believed “Turkey wouldn’t sell out the Uyghurs, who have Turkish blood in their veins.”

* * *

China’s retaliation

For its part, Beijing took a week before responding to the first official Turkish outcry. In an official statement China demanded that Turkey withdraw its leader’s remarks on genocide and assimilation, which the state-owned China Daily denounced as “groundless and irresponsible.” The Chinese foreign minister also made a personal phone-call to his Turkish counterpart strongly advising Ankara to retract its harsh words.

At the same time, the Chinese media reported the Turkish public commentaries in a quite restrained manner, certainly when compared to the frenzied denunciation of France’s government and media over perceived support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan protestors’ cause in 2008. Even the notoriously partisan Chinese blogosphere seemed not overly agitated, with writers confining themselves to warning Turkey about interference in China’s internal affairs or questioning the nature of the relationship between Uyghurs and Turkey; though some netizens are reported in official media as having called for Turkey to be “punished” over its attitude.

Beijing’s stance would of course significantly harden if Turkey’s leaders indeed host Rebiya Kadeer. The director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bulent Aliriza, says: “All hell is going to break loose if she shows up in Turkey, especially after the comment that Erdogan made.”

China’s sensitivity over Rebiya Kadeer is clear in the formulaic comment of Qin Gang, China’s foreign-ministry spokesman: “We resolutely oppose any foreign country providing a platform for her anti-Chinese, splittist activities.”

The pressure on Turkey could escalate. China squeezed the French nuclear and aircraft industries in the wake of the Tibet controversy in 2008, and citizens’ boycotts of French goods targeted Carrefour department-stores. France refused to make the unilateral apology China demanded, but the two sides did agree a joint communiqué on 1 April  2009 in which both sides “(reiterated) their commitment to the principle of non-interference” and France affirmed its (objection) to all support for Tibet’s independence in any form whatsoever.” The question now arises: does Turkey have the economic and political leverage to demand a politically face-saving joint communiqué, or will it too have to yield to making a unilateral apology?

Turkey might already be looking for ways to compromise. A group of Turkish parliamentarians plans to visit Xinjiang, and intend (according to the Turkish media and the head of parliament’s human-rights committee) to be “careful” – neither interfering in China’s internal affairs nor harming Sino-Turkish economic relations. A Turkish media delegation that has already been allowed to visit Urumqi (representing mainly the state-run media outlets) was instructed to make conciliatory noises. There were no problems between Turkey and China, one member of the delegation was quoted as saying.

* * *

Ankara’s isolation

There are three strong reasons for Turkey to avoid embracing too zealous a nationalistic or even outright pan-Turkist stance over the Xinjiang events. First, it risks isolation. The international community – including the United States – is in no mood to annoy the Chinese leadership at a time when it needs China’s cooperation over managing the global financial crisis and addressing climate change. Most powerful states are preoccupied more with China’s stability than seeing it progress toward democracy and inter-ethnic harmony.

China in any case has already dismissed Erdogan’s proposal to discuss the crisis at the UN Security Council, saying the incident was of no concern to the outside parties, a position backed at the Yekaterinburg summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on 12 July (in which China plays a leading role together with Russia).

It is indeed striking that Ankara appears to have found itself diplomatically isolated, globally and even regionally, in its pro-Uyghur position. The prominent foreign-policy analyst Cengiz Candar noted that “we don’t see any Turkic republics or a single Muslim country or a single western ally standing beside Turkey.” This state of isolation, Candar warns, makes Ankara vulnerable to possible “fierce” retaliation by China.

* * *

A volatile region

It might appear that in the brutal calculus of modern geopolitics, Ankara has made tactical mistakes over the Xinjiang violence. But in a broader historical context, the tensions provoked by the incidents in Urumqi are near-inevitable: rooted in the political, cultural, and national fault-lines of the larger region.

The territories of greater central Asia were divided between the Chinese (Qing) and the Russian (Romanov) empire in the 19th century. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of five independent “Stans” in what used to be Russian-ruled Turkestan released powerful social forces – including the nationalisms of the local Turkic peoples and the rise of Islam. It is only natural that these same factors are at play across the Chinese border in Xinjiang – historic East Turkestan. It should also come as no surprise that, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s unravelling, Ankara’s interest in the “Turkic world” – an interest that lay dormant since the time of the Young Turks and Enver Pasha’s (and the historian Ziya Gökalp’s) fantasies of Turkish central-Asian empire – has undergone a certain revival.

These lands are a mosaic of utmost social, cultural and ethnic complexity. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have sizable Uyghur populations – there are 50,000 in Kyrgyzstan and 300,000 in Kazakhstan (including the country’s prime minister, Karim Masimov). The pattern works the other way, with an estimated 1 million ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang. The “Stans” today live in the shadow of China’s rising power, mindful of their own vulnerability, and keen to partake in Beijing’s financial largesse; these considerations to a great extent undercut any particular interest in promoting the Uyghur independence cause.

Amid these regional complexities, Turkey is trying to position itself as a rising regional (even global) power – making a degree of tension with China natural, even if there are many contingencies in the current situation. Ankara’s policy elite sees its ethnic, cultural and religious ties to the Turkic world as valuable strategic capital; and its ability successfully to mediate in the security and political crises that punctuate the region as a sure way to enhance Ankara’s international stature.

So long as the lands of historic Turkestan remain volatile and their geopolitical status uncertain, the outside powers’ competition for influence in the region – often quiet, occasionally sharp and vocal – will continue. It seems that Turkey intends to press its claim to be one of these main players – alongside China, Russia and the United States. This means that, however the current Xinjiang crisis ends, Ankara and Beijing might well again collide over “greater Turkestan”.

 From the following it seems obviously that the Poznan exercise may be doomed from start without a US strong favorable position – so we blame those in favor that is Messrs. Stavros Dimas and Yvo de Boer – that knowingly the US timetable that clearly suggested December 2008 to be a total deadbeat for US change -and they did not postpone the meeting at least to March 2009. Possibly they did not want to see the Czech Presidency represent the EU at that time as Vaclav Klaus, its President, is a nonbeliever in global warming like   British MEP Roger Helmer. Whatever, keeping it in December 2008, and with a US only on the horizon, it will be those Finish MEPs that might indeed derail the effort also in the EU. We can only pray to the weather to keep us out of disaster.

Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, writing ahead of next month’s UN climate change conference in PoznaÅ„, argues that now is not the time for faint hearts and warns EU governments “that we do not have to make a choice between addressing the financial crisis and taking action to address climate change.   We can, and should, do both.”

Also touching on the link between climate change and the economic downturn, the UN’s top climate change official Yvo de Boer calls for Europe’s leaders to send the world a “vital signal” when they meet in Brussels during the second week of December to agree the EU’s flagship energy and climate change package. “Europe needs to continue to show leadership in reducing its own emissions [and] it must also continue to play a leading role in the fields of international cooperation.”

***

Finnish MEPs Satu Hassi and Eija-Riitta Korhola also comment on the climate change agenda, with the latter arguing that the EU’s strict emissions trading scheme is causing Europe to become increasingly isolated from other countries and hindering negotiations towards a climate change agreement….. Our feature ends with a different perspective on climate change, with British MEP Roger Helmer writing that fears about global warming are grossly exaggerated, and what we should all be more concerned about is the approaching ice age.

Melting ice in the Arctic, but the lure of resources is just too strong. Europe’s Arctic adventure – The new cold rush for resources.
LEIGH PHILLIPS, the EUobserver, November 7, 2008. THIS ARTICLE FROM TROMSO, NORWAY.

EUOBSERVER / TROMSO – PART ONE – There’s this grizzled old guy in the hospital with worsening lung cancer. The doctors can’t tell him whether it’s fatal yet, but each new test shows a rapidly deteriorating condition.

He’s been a heavy smoker all his life, although he’s trying to quit, but one day, while he’s wandering the corridors, he comes across a long-abandoned storeroom and it’s rammed to the gills with cigarettes, cigars, roll-your-own tobacco of every brand and region. There are Cuban cigars, Moroccan apple-flavoured nargileh tobacco, Swedish snus and jars of aromatic pipe shag. It’s an Aladdin’s cave of tobacco left over from the days when hospital cafeterias still sold cigarettes, and the nurses and security staff are nowhere to be seen.

The man briefly thinks that he should just forget he ever opened the storeroom door and get back to the business of quitting, but he’s dazzled by the hoard and instead stuffs as much of it into his pyjamas as he can to take back to his bed and puffs his nicotine-addled brains out.

There’s no tobacco hoard in a cupboard somewhere in the Arctic, but there is however a quarter of the world’s remaining undiscovered oil and gas now within reach as a result of the far north rapidly melting.

Like the old man in the hospital, the European Union and countries on the shores of the Arctic sea have said to themselves: “There may be a chance that we can slow down and reverse global warming, so we really should give up our addiction to fossil fuels. But how can we turn our backs – and our wallets – on such a bonanza, even if it’s full of the very stuff that caused the problem in the first place?”

Or is such an environmentalist caricature unfair to the people of the northern regions, for the most part long shut out from the industrial development and the wealth of the more southerly parts of Europe, Canada, Russia and the United States?

Many of those living in the Arctic are aboriginal people, who have historically borne the double burden of underdevelopment in their regions and racial prejudice. And until recently very little has been available to anyone up north apart from far-from-bountiful farming and the occasional mine that inevitably closes down.

Can we really say “No” to improving the standard of living in the north through development, especially if it can be done sustainably?

With recent months in particular seeing both a cascade of truly alarming news on how fast the Arctic is changing and pronouncements from the European Union and other circumpolar powers on plans for exploitation of newly accessible resources, the EUobserver decided to visit Europe’s patch of the Arctic, the northernmost tip of mainland Norway – still outside the EU, but very much Brussels’ advance guard up in the high north – to find out the reality behind the headlines about the coming “scramble for the Arctic”, and look at all sides in the debate over the Arctic’s future.

***

Methane burps:

The situation at the top of the world has taken a sharp turn for the worse just in the last few weeks.

On 6 September, leading European and American ice specialists at the US National Ice Center reported that for the first time, a ring of navigable waters around the Arctic ice cap opened up the fabled Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic archipelago – the maritime Holy Grail of a faster trade route from Europe to Asia sought for centuries by explorers – and the Northern Sea Route, also known as the Northeast Passage, over Eurasia, at the same time.

Then, in late September, Swedish and Russian scientists found the first evidence that millions of tonnes of methane – a gas that is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – is bubbling up from beneath the Siberian Arctic seabed.

The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is greater than the world’s remaining global stores of coal and it is now rising up from the bottom of the ocean through “methane chimney” discovered by scientists aboard the research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.

Days later, British scientists aboard the James Clark Ross found hundreds of plumes of methane burping up from the Arctic seabed to the west of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole.

NASA’s top climate scientist, James Hansen, says that the release of methane clathrates from permafrost regions and beneath the seabed will unleash powerful feedback forces that could produce runaway climate change that cannot be controlled – the so-called methane time bomb – a prediction of radical environmental transformation far worse than the worst-case scenarios theorised by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Then on Tuesday (28 October), the European Space Agency reported that Arctic sea ice was thinning at a record rate, with the thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic having declined by as much as 19 percent last winter compared to the previous five winters.

***

Last days of the ‘ice bear:’

“The Arctic is warming at two times the rate of the rest of the world,” says Nalan Koc, a senior scientist with the polar climate programme at the Norwegian Polar Institute, in Tromso, explaining why all of this is happening.

Tromso, in the far north of Norway and home to the world’s northernmost university, at the same time is preparing itself for the economic bonanza that the melting will bring.

Nalan Koc, however, is not as excited as other Tromso inhabitants. In a Power Point presentation of this Arctic apocalypse, she starkly lists the myriad ways in which the environment is fundamentally altering. “Amplified by positive feedback, the Arctic is seeing increased precipitation, declining snow cover, rising river flows, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers, retreating summer sea ice, rising sea levels, and ocean salinity changes making the water less saline.”

The talk, despite its subject, is deceptively banal. Where are the four horsemen? A moon turned blood-red? Instead, the end of days is being announced not by skeletonous biblical heralds but in bullet points and embedded videos that take three minutes to load.

The permafrost is melting under tundra that previously was stable, she explains, buckling roads and highways as the ground beneath them gives way.

In the marine environment, sea temperatures are rising and the ice cover is melting. Ice-dependent species such as the polar bear, which the Norwegians more accurately call “isbjorn” or “ice bear,” as well as the walrus and the ringed seal all face an uncertain future. Some scientists believe the polar bear will be extinct by mid-century.

“When you’ve been around up here for as long as I have, you begin to see it with your own eyes from year to year,” she says. “You can feel it in your bones.”

Last year saw a record low extent of Arctic sea ice cover – 4.3 million square kilometres – more than 40 percent below averages in the 1980s and more than 20 percent below the previous record low in 2005. “But more important than the extent is the volume of the ice. Most of the older thicker ice is not surviving from one summer to the next. As of 2007, most of the ice was three or four-year-old ice. As of 2008, most ice is just one year old.”

The massive ice loss and thinning is forcing scientists to quickly ratchet lower even their worst expectations – the 2007 melting came some 30 years ahead of model predictions.

In 2004, it was predicted that the ice would have melted sufficiently to allow commercial traffic in the Arctic Ocean by 2090. In 2007, it was predicted that commercial traffic would be able to cross by 2040. As of 2008, the predictions are for some time in the next five years, with the first start-up possibly in 2009. Models now predict an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the summer some time between 2013 and 2040.

The last time the Arctic Ocean was ice-free in the summer was over a million years ago.

Her colleague, Kit Kovacs, the Biodiversity Research Programme leader at the institute says: “The changes are happening so rapidly that scientists are having trouble processing it all. From initial tests to publishing papers takes at a minimum months or a couple of years, but change is happening much faster than that.

“The biodiversity loss is just as profound as if there were a loss of the Amazon rainforest within the space of five years.”

***

Oil and gas bonanza:

What looks like the end for the polar bear, however, looks like Christmas for resource companies and European energy security concerns.

Johan Petter Barlindhaug, the chair of North Energy, a northern-Norway-based oil-and-gas start-up currently exploring energy sources on the Norwegian continental shelf, says the melting Arctic could offer northern peoples, who have historically lived in a very much underdeveloped region, a chance to have similar standards of living as those who live in the cities and towns further south.

“Climate change poses lots of threats, but it also opens up a range of possibilities,” he says.

Oil companies like North Energy and Norwegian energy giant Statoil Hydro believe the Arctic holds as much as 25 percent of the worlds undiscovered oil and gas deposits – as much as the combined reserves of Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Russia’s Gazprom already has approximately 34 trillion cubic metres (113 trillion cubic feet) of gas under development in the Barents Sea and Moscow is claiming territory in the Arctic that contains an estimated 586 billion barrels of oil.

Mineral resources may also abound, particularly coal, iron, lead, copper, nickel, zinc and sulphides, as well as precious minerals such as gold and diamonds. Recent diamond discoveries in the Canadian Arctic have made the country, which previously didn’t produce any of the stones, the third biggest exporter of diamonds in the world.

On maps that place the North Pole at the centre of the world, instead of the equator, Mr Barlindhaug shows how a melting Arctic also opens up three different shortcuts for shipping goods between Europe and Asia – routes that will save shipping firms, exporters and importers, and the world’s navies and smugglers – billions of euros.

The shipping industry is hoping for a 20 percent saving, he enthuses, with still greater savings for the megaships that cannot fit through the Suez or Panama canals and have to sail round the tips of Africa or South America.

Although Mr Barlindhaug believes that the third shortcut – straight across the pole – offers the most potential.

“The Northwest and Northeast Passages aren’t as important as building ports on Iceland and in Norway and Russia,” he says. “This is because the Canadians view the Northwest Passage as domestic, and there’s something of the same with the Northeast Passage, which is within Russian borders.

“In any case, international waters closer to the North Pole provide routes that are much shorter. But it’s also a matter of speed and cost. Between the Canadian or Russian islands, you can’t pick up much speed while you’re navigating through them. It’s too narrow.

“But at 20-25 knots across the pole, then you’re really saving some money. It would take just five days to cross from the Bering Sea to the Barent Sea. It doesn’t need to be completely ice free.”

He then moves on to the expanded fishing opportunities and potential for discoveries of new medicines derived from invertebrates living in extreme polar environments that round out the economic bounty becoming available as the climate warms up.

Some 10 percent of global white fish stocks swim through the waters of the Barents Sea, the Bering Sea, and near Iceland, offering catches worth billions of euros.

Nonetheless, “bio-prospecting” for new medicines is by far the greater catch, believes Mr Barlindhaug: “These invertebrates are chemical factories that will produce the next generation of medicines. They’re far more important than the fish that is up there.”

In a visit to brand-spanking new labs at the University of Tromso, Jeanette Andersen, of Mabcent-SFI, a public-private bio-prospecting outfit launched last year with €20.5 million (180m NOK) in funding, explains the potential for new treatments and cures coming from molluscs that poison passing fish or colourless mini-starfish that love the cold.

“The marine environment in the high Arctic is unparalleled with respect to combination of temperature and light regimes,” she says. “This implies evolution of organisms with unique physiological and biochemical adaptations.”

She says that the potential is enormous, from antibiotics, chemotherapy, and painkillers to anti-bacterials, anti-oxidents, anti-inflammatory medicines, but Mabcent also hopes to discover creatures that have cosmetic and industrial applications, and even better food and drink preservation.

“But all high-profit,” she enthuses, describing how her biologist and chemist colleagues dive off into the depths of the Arctic Ocean like a team of submariner Indiana Joneses, before they race back to the university to freeze the hundreds of different specimens. They then grind them into a pulp that is investigated by viking boffins at stupidly expensive machines who identify the wild new molecules produced by the exotic biochemistry of these nigh-on alien creatures.

“Living in environments that range from 1.8 to 8 degrees celsius, these organisms are adapted to cold temperatures. As you warm up the metabolism, you speed up the effectiveness of enzymes, so the thinking is that enzymes existing at these temperatures will work faster in warm humans.”

However, some of the different industries opening up as Arctic waters open up pose a threat to others.

Pooh-poohing the idea that oil and gas exploration threatens the environment, North Energy’s Mr Barlindhaug reckons it’s a massive expansion of unsustainable fishing practices and illegal fishing that pose the greatest threat, particularly to bio-prospecting.

“Bottom trawling is much more damaging than oil and gas exploration, as the you find oil all over the rocks and sand on the sea bed. These creatures are used to it – there’s nothing to worry about from oil and gas exploration.

“Bioprospectors should be more scared about increased fishing activity. That’ll damage these organisms much more,” he insists.

Jeanette back at Mabcent is not so sure: “We need to be worried about oil and gas exploration. What Mr Barlindhaug said is too easy an answer to the question of oil spills. Some organisms will adapt, yes, but others are very vulnerable.”

In the second part of the EUobserver’s look at the politics and business of the melting Arctic, appearing on Monday, we look at Kirkenes, a small harbour town sometimes called ‘Little Murmansk’ for its 10 percent Russian population, and how it is set to be transformed by the oil and gas bonanza opening up as the ice disappears.

Arctic Oil and Gas Rush Alarms Scientists.

Stephen Leahy, IPS, from UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 8, 2008, (brought to our attention by Roberto Savio).

As greenhouse gas pollution destroys Arctic ecosystems, countries like Canada are spending millions not to halt the destruction but to exploit it.

Late last August, Canada announced a 93.7-million-dollar prospecting programme to map the energy and mineral resources of the region. There are “countless other precious resources buried under the sea ice and tundra,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said during the announcement. The government’s mapping effort is expected to trigger 469 million dollars in private sector resource exploration and development.

“Many experts believe this new rush to the polar regions is not manageable within existing international law,” says A.H. Zakri, director of the United Nations University’s Yokohama-based Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), co-organisers of the conference with Iceland’s University of Akureyri.

***

“Pressure on Earth’s unique and highly vulnerable polar areas is mounting quickly and an internationally-agreed set of rules built on new realities appears needed to many observers,” Zakri said in a statement.

“Climate change is the number one issue for the polar regions. Iceland experienced its hottest day in history this summer,” Leary told IPS from Akureyri in northern Iceland. “I expect some strong recommendations on climate change to come from this meeting.”

***

As climate change opens the Arctic Ocean to shipping, fishing, and other resource exploitation, pollution will pose another major threat to the region, he said.

“Arctic sea routes are among the world’s most hazardous due to lack of natural light, extreme cold, moving ice floes, high wind and low visibility,” said Tatiana Saksina of the World Wildlife Fund’s International Arctic Programme.

“Accidents are going to happen. How will an oil spill be cleaned up? Who will rescue crew and passengers?” asked Leary.

***

Last November, a tourist ship carrying more than 150 people capsized off the tip of Antarctica after hitting some ice. Fortunately, other ships were close by and everyone was rescued. There was no oil spill. However, not all accidents will be so fortunate, he said.

“There is an urgent need for a comprehensive international environmental regime specially tailored for the unique arctic conditions,” noted the WWF’s Saksina.

The urgency stems from the reality that the ice in the Arctic is melting quickly, leaving the region without a solid-ice cover in summer starting just five years from now, according to some estimates. Without international environmental rules, unplanned and unregulated development is likely to damage the very resources most necessary for a sustainable future in the Arctic, she said.

“There is no time to waste and no reason to wait,” Saksina concluded.

[Comment] Who will look after the Arctic?
Arctic resources should be used in a sustainable manner that preserves biological diversity

By LISBETH KIRK, EUobserver Comment/Opinion, September 9, 2008.

 The vulnerable Arctic Region is vital to the global climate and environment, but its future is dependent on striking a delicate balance between conservation and use.

The geographical position of the Nordic countries entails a special responsibility for ensuring that national interests are not allowed to get in the way of the international community making a difference in the Arctic. The Nordic Region must take the lead in promoting sustainable development in the Arctic – and it is a matter of the greatest urgency.

Since much of its territory, both on land and at sea, falls within the Arctic Circle, the Nordic Region is heavily committed to addressing the issues faced by this unique yet vulnerable area.

The Nordic countries already work together to support the Arctic population’s social, economic and cultural development, however, as a political unit, the Nordic Region would also like to make sure that Arctic resources are used in a sustainable manner that preserves biological diversity.

Although the global economy creates new challenges for the people of the Arctic, it also provides them with new opportunities. It is vital that we make the most of these opportunities to raise the standard of living in the area in a sustainable manner.

***

It is essential that the EU also assumes a high degree of responsibility for the Arctic Region. Under the Danish EU Presidency in 2001, the Arctic Window became part of the union’s work on the Northern Dimension, which in turn received a further boost under the Finnish Presidency in 2007.

The Nordic Region still needs to draw greater attention to Arctic issues in the EU, however, especially those relevant to the integrated maritime policy and the EU’s leadership role in international climate negotiations.

To this end, the Nordic Council of Ministers has just published a report on the impact on the Arctic Region, direct and indirect, of the EU’s many policy areas. Its findings reveal that although the EU already exerts a major influence in the Arctic Region, it does not have a coherent policy for the area.

In order to involve the EU, its member states and other important stakeholders in Arctic questions, the Nordic Council of Ministers is organising a conference, “Common Concern for the Arctic,” in Greenland, beginning on Tuesday (9 September).

***

One positive development is that the EU, under the current French Presidency, is working on an Arctic communiqué to be published in the autumn.

But active commitment to the Arctic is required from the EU and the rest of the international community – and it is a matter of the greatest urgency.

***

The Arctic’s global significance must not and shall not be underestimated. The Nordic Region, along with the people of the Arctic, must lead the way and strike the right balance between conservation and use. We cannot do it on our own, however. We need to bring other stakeholders on board.

Cristina Husmark Pehrsson is Minister for Nordic Cooperation in Sweden and Halldor Asgrimsson is Secretary General of The Nordic Council of Ministers

Finland and Sweden revive debates on NATO membership.
VALENTINA POP, September 1, 2008, the EUobserver.

Until recently, discussion of possible NATO membership has not been a lively political topic in neutral Finland and Sweden, but Russia’s actions in Georgia have encouraged those who back membership to become more vocal.

“We need to reconsider our security policy,” said the Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb in an interview with Austria’s Die Presse on Saturday, August 30, 2008.

Traditional conflicts are making a comeback in the post-9/11 era – he argued – saying Finland needs to begin to consider NATO membership, that the Georgian conflict has highlighted the UN’s problems and the need for a more active security policy.

***

“The talk about how nothing has changed is inconceivable to me,” said the conservative Mr Stubb, who represents the smaller coalition party in the government.

“It makes sense now to take into consideration a NATO bid. The time for a decision in this regard has not come yet, but we need to be flexible and quickly adapt our security policy. This must not take place in slow motion.”

In Sweden, the liberal People’s Party – a government coalition partner – is also trying to launch a NATO membership debate.

Allan Widman, the party’s foreign policy spokesman, championed his country’s membership to NATO in an interview with the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

The People’s Party has always been in favour of membership, but respected the coalition agreement not to place the topic on the public agenda. This has changed since the Russian invasion of Georgia.

The leader of the Social-Democrat opposition strongly rejects Sweden’s NATO bid, however. The Scandinavian country has had a long tradition of being a neutral country, even though neighbours Denmark and Norway are part of the Western security alliance.

Finnish NATO split: In Finland, Mr Stubb was appointed earlier this year as foreign minister, after being a member of the European Parliament for four years. He is a vocal supporter of his country’s membership in NATO but promised to be reserved on the issue in his new job, due to internal division within the governing coalition.

The Centre Party lead by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is split on the issue, as are the Social Democrats.

The current president, Social Democrat Tarja Halonen, is a strong opponent of the NATO bid. Her mandate ends in 2012.

Finland has a 1,200 km long border with Russia, something that caused much consternation for Finnish foreign policy during the Cold War. The country inched closer to NATO in March when it announced its intention to join future operations of the alliance’s rapid reaction force. It has developed technical capacities alongside NATO for several years and would be ready to join quickly if the decision was made.

This weekend, as expected, the TV was plastered with the Russians in Georgia and the Beijing Olympics.

President Bush and Secretary Condaleezza Rice said that Russia will not get away with this like it happened in Hungary.

On CNN, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the man with the Kosovo and Bosnia experience, said this was not Kosovo. The Russians were ready to stage this action already two years ago. It happened now because there was a Russian provocation and there has been indeed a real ethnic cleansing going on in Ossetia and in Abkhazia that caused many thousands of refugees pouring continuously into Georgia. The US says the number is 150,000 displaced people.

Holbrooke looks back into history and thinks of Budapest of 19956, Prag of 1966, Afghanistan of 1968 – so this is the invasion of Georgia that was executed in similar methodology.

Dmitry Simes, President of the Washington DC Nixon Center, and Rose Gottemoeller, Director of Carnegie, Moscow, agree to the above and say that the fact that this happened again at the time of the Olympics, just shows the Putin self confidence and that Putin does not worry that this will harm Russia’s Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014. That area is in fact just across the border from were fighting was going on now.

Governor Bill Richardson stressed that this is not time for high US talk, simply, “we have no leverage on Russia,” so we have to engage them and not isolate them. He knows the area, problems, has been there – all as part of his UN Ambassadorship.

Georgia was incorporated into Russia in 1801 and stayed under Russian rule for 190 years. They re-emerged as an independent state only in 1991. The Ossentians always considered themselves different from the Georgians – and also not similar to the Russians. The same goes for Abkhazia and Azaria as per Rick Stengel, editor of Time Magazine, who was this Sunday’s coordinator of the GPS program that is usually brought out by Fareed Zakaria.

So, can one ostracize Russia from world business? Will this bring about a renewal of the Cold War?

He does not think that Russia has become a revisionist State and that it is fighting for a larger Russia. His idea is that the area is specially complicated – something like the Balkans, and that there were many reasons to what went on.

———

***

Cold Friends, Wrapped in Mink and Medals.

By BILL KELLER
Published in The New York Times August 16, 2008

Writing in The Financial Times last week, Chrystia Freeland recalled Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay “The End of History?,” which trumpeted the definitive triumph of liberal democracy. The great nightmare tyrannies of last century — the Evil Empire, Red China — had been left behind by those inseparable twins, freedom and prosperity. Civilization had chosen, and it chose us.

Related
Map
Russia Marches, Neighbors Check Their Cards (The New York Times, August 17, 2008)
Specter of Arrest Deters Demonstrators in China (The New York Tines, August 14, 2008)

Chrystia Freeland’s Article: The New Age of Authoritarianism  www.ft.com August 12, 2008)

So much for that thesis. Surveying the Russian military rout of neighboring Georgia and the spectacle of China’s Olympics, Ms. Freeland, editor of The Financial Times’s American edition and a journalist who started her career covering Russia and Ukraine, proclaimed that a new Age of Authoritarianism was upon us.

If it is not yet an age, it is at least a season: Springtime for autocrats, and not just the minor-league monsters of Zimbabwe and the like, but the giant regimes that seemed so surely bound for the ash heap in 1989.

The Chinese have made their Olympics an exultant display of athletic prowess and global prestige without having to temper their impulse to suppress and control. From the dazzling locksteps of that opening ceremony, to the kowtowing international V.I.P.’s, to the carefully policed absence of protest, this was an Olympics largely free of democratic mess.

Individualism has been confined between lane markers. The pre-Olympics promises that attention would be paid to international norms of behavior went unredeemed. The New York Times’s Andrew Jacobs followed one citizen who decided to take up the government’s Olympic offer of designated protest zones for aggrieved parties who had filed the proper paperwork. Zhang Wei applied for the requisite license and was promptly arrested for “disturbing social order.” Take that, International Olympic Committee.

The striking thing about Russia’s subjugation of uppity Georgia was not the ease or audacity but the swagger of it. This was not just about a couple of obscure border enclaves, nor even, really, about Georgia. This was existential payback.

It turns out that if 1989 was an end — the end of the Wall, the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire, if not in fact the end of history — it was also a beginning.

It gave birth to a bitter resentment in the humiliated soul of Russia, and no one nursed the grudge so fiercely as Vladimir V. Putin. He watched the empire he had spied for disbanded. He endured the belittling lectures of a rich and self-righteous West. He watched the United States charm away his neighbors, invade his allies in Iraq, and, in his view, play God with the political map of Europe.

Mr. Putin is, in this sense of grievance, a man of his people, as visitors to the New York Times Web site can see in the sampling of breast-beating commentary from Russian bloggers. It is safe to assume that Mr. Putin’s already stratospheric popularity at home has grown to Phelpsian proportions, not least among the long-suffering military.

In China, 1989 was the year that a spark of liberal aspiration flickered on Tiananmen Square, and was decisively extinguished. That was another beginning, or at least a renewal: of Chinese resolve. In May of that year, in the midst of the Tiananmen euphoria, Mikhail S. Gorbachev visited Beijing, and two visions of a new communism stared each other in the face.

The protesters on the Chinese pavilion held banners welcoming Mr. Gorbachev as a champion of the greater freedom they sought. Meanwhile, the visiting Russian delegation marveled at the abundance in Chinese stores, the bounty of a policy that chose economic liberalization without political dissent.

The Chinese and Russians scorned each other’s neo-Communist models, but in some ways they have evolved toward one another. Both countries now tolerate a measure of entrepreneurship and social license, as long as neither threatens the dominion of the state. Both countries have calculated that you can buy a measure of domestic stability if you combine a little opportunity with an appeal to national pride. (The Chinese “street” felt no more sympathy for restive Tibetans than the Russian blogosphere felt for Georgia.) And both have discovered that if you are rich the world is less likely to get in your way.

President Bush was mocked from both sides for his seeming impotence. Neoconservatives were appalled by photos of President Bush sharing a laugh with Mr. Putin in Beijing while Russian armor gathered at the Georgian border. For a president who has made the export of democracy his signature doctrine, that looked to the stand-tough crowd like a “Pet Goat” moment.

Others argued that this was a crisis Mr. Bush tacitly encouraged by talking up Georgia’s rambunctious president as a friend and NATO candidate. By midweek, possibly goaded by the wailing of neoconservatives and the aggressively anti-Putin rhetoric of Senator John McCain, Mr. Bush had abruptly amped up his opprobrium and dispatched an American airlift of humanitarian aid. And by the weekend there was a cold war chill in the air.

But Mr. Bush’s predicament is not just his. The question of how to deal with these reinvigorated autocracies bedevils the Europeans and will surely rank high among the legacy issues that confound Mr. Bush’s successor.

This time it is not — or not yet — the threat of nuclear apocalypse that limits the West’s options toward our emboldened Eastern rivals. The Chinese, in fact, are acting as if they have gotten past the saber-rattling stage of emerging-power status; they lavish diplomacy on Taiwan and Japan, and deploy the might of capital instead. The Russians may be in a more adolescent, table-pounding stage of development, but Mr. Putin, too, prefers to work the economic levers, bullying with petroleum.

The United States, meanwhile, is mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, estranged from much of the world, and bled by serial economic crises.

History, it seems, is back, and not so obviously on our side.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, covered the last years of the Soviet Union for the newspaper.

***

——————

The New Age of Authoritarianism.
By Chrystia Freeland
Published: August 12 2008 in The Financial Times.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, democracy was on the march and we declared the End of History. Nearly two decades later, a neo-imperialist Russia is at war with Georgia, Communist China is proudly hosting the Olympics, and we find that, instead, we have entered the Age of Authoritarianism.

It is worth recalling how different we thought the future would be in the immediate, happy aftermath of the end of the cold war. Remember Francis Fukuyama’s ringing assertion: “The triumph of the west, of the western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to western liberalism.”

Even in the heady days of 1989, that declaration of universal – and possibly eternal – ideological victory seemed a little hubristic to Professor Fukuyama’s many critics. Yet his essay made such an impact because it captured the scale, and the enormous benefits, of the change sweeping through the world. Not only was the stifling Soviet – which was really the Russian – suzerainty over central and eastern Europe and central Asia coming to an end but, even more importantly, the very idea of a one-party state, ruthlessly presiding over a centrally planned economy, seemed to be discredited, if not forever, then surely for our lifetimes.

That collapse brought freedom and prosperity to millions of people who had lived under Soviet rule. Moreover, the implosion of Soviet communism inspired hundreds of millions of others around the world to embrace freer markets and demand more responsive governments. The great global economic boom of the past 20 years, which has brought more people out of poverty more quickly than at any other time in human history, would not have been possible had the Soviet way of ordering the world not been discredited first.

Yet today, in much of the world, the spread of freedom is being checked by an authoritarian revanche. That shift has been most obvious in the petro-states, where oil is casting its usual curse. From Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, the black-gold bonanza has given authoritarian regimes the currency to buy off or to repress their subjects. In Russia, oil has fuelled an economic boom that prime minister Vladimir Putin, and some of his foreign admirers, mistakenly attribute to his careful demolition of the chaotic democracy of the 1990s.

For Russians, that argument is strengthened by the fact that the rising economic power of the moment – China – is unashamedly sticking to its faith in one-party rule. The end of the cold war made it tempting to believe that as countries opened up their markets, and became richer in the process, they would inevitably open up their societies, too. George W. Bush, US president, reiterated that hopeful thesis on his Asia tour last week, insisting: “Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas.”

But the Chinese mandarins and the Russian siloviki are taking a different view – and acting on it. As China scholar David Shambaugh recounts in his new book, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation , the CCP studied the collapse of Soviet communism with great care. And rather than seeing it as proof of the inevitable, global triumph of western liberalism, the Chinese comrades treated the Russian example as a textbook case of what a ruling Communist party ought not to do.

In this version of history, sinologist Andrew Nathan tells me, 1989 is also a turning point, but not because that was when communism’s most notorious wall came down. Instead, the key event of that year was the bloody suppression of protesters in Tiananmen Square: “As a propaganda position they have put it out that we had a crackdown in 1989 and we saved the party and we saved the country,” he says. “We didn’t have a failure of will like the Russians. Without that, we wouldn’t have been a great, modern power.” That’s a point of view Mr Putin has embraced, too, describing the collapse of the Soviet Union as a tragedy and his own reconstruction of a neo-authoritarian state as the only way to restore Russian “greatness”.

The west has been remarkably sanguine about this resurgence of authoritarianism, and one reason is that, this time, the comrades have money. Even as the Kremlin repeatedly confiscates the assets not just of its own businesspeople but of foreign ones, too, investment bankers, and plain old investors, are flocking to a Moscow flush with petro-roubles. The same is true of the Gulf states. China, on a path to become the world’s largest economy, is the most attractive of all.

But the Age of Authoritarianism is bad news for all of us, not just the human rights campaigners that businesspeople and practitioners of realpolitik love to dismiss. Like all overly rigid objects, authoritarian regimes conceal a tremendous fragility in their apparent strength – and their leaders know it. It is this realisation that has driven Mr Putin’s systematic destruction of all forms of civil society – an eminently pragmatic measure, although it has mystified some outside observers, who wonder why so popular a leader needs to be so heavy-handed. China’s chiefs have figured this out, too, hence their anxiety about everything from the Muslim Uighurs to the internet to the former Soviet Union’s “colour revolutions”.

Of course, another way to ensure popular support for your authoritarian regime is by playing up nationalist sentiment. We are more tolerant of our home-grown bullies if we think we need them to fight our enemies abroad – as even democratic America has demonstrated in recent years. Mr Putin has understood this all along, launching a brutal attack on Chechnya even before his coronation as president in 2000.

Russia’s expert taunting of the hotheads in Georgia, followed by immediate and massive retaliation the moment Tbilisi took the bait, is the latest evidence that, for the Kremlin, neo-imperialism is an essential bulwark of neo-authoritarianism. Bringing down the walls really did make the world safer. Now that so many leaders are building them back up again, figuring out how to contain the 21st century’s monied authoritarians is our most pressing foreign policy dilemma.

 chrystia.freeland at ft.com

Nordic Climate Solutions – Scandinavia ´s annual marketplace for low carbon economy leaders – takes place on November 25th and 26th, 2008, in Copenhagen. The event is jointly organized with the Nordic Council of Ministers and a series of industry leaders from the Nordic Region.

Nordic Climate Solutions takes form as a combined conference and trade show. While the conference identifies current challenges and opportunities, the tradeshow presents state of the art solutions for achieving a low carbon economy.

Towards and beyond the Copenhagen UN Summit, NCS gathers a significant number of business and industry leaders. In 2007 the event gathered more than 600 decision makers. This year more than 1000 delegates are projected for the event in November.

As we would like to offer our delegates key insight from experts WE ARE CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR SPEAKERS for the following sessions:

- Building the Future – Energy Efficiency:

What energy and carbon savings could be realized if older commercial buildings had the energy consumption of the newer commercial building stock? How can we improve the incorporation of different energy efficiencies into different types of domestic and non-domestic buildings? And what will it take to achieve mass deployment of carbon neutral buildings?

- Adaptation in the Third World – Markets Beyond China and India:

As a global problem, climate change demands global solutions – yet the majority of the technology and financing for these solutions are not accessible to emerging economies and developing nations. India and China are naturally the center of attention when it comes to CDM projects or other climate action projects and policies, but how can we ensure that countries in Africa, Asia and South and Central America also have the capacity and the technology to develop in a sustainable and climate friendly manner?

- The Future of CDM – The Post 2012 Scene:

At the moment, there are more than 3,000 CDM projects in progress. What is the potential of the CDM on the post 2012 scenario and what concrete measures will be presented a the COP15 to improve this mechanism and ensure that it is contributing to global emission reductions and to technology transfer to all developing nations

Climate Solutions for China:

China is on its way to become the largest energy market in the world, with the greatest environmental challenges. This creates an enormous potential for the Nordic companies. The current five-year plan of China contains 250 billion dollar for investments in energy savings and environmental considerations and a range of ambitious goals.

Thinking Outside the Barrel:

President George W. Bush has stated that: “America is addicted to oil.” At times when the price approaches $150 per barrel – it is an expensive addiction to have. Fortunately, several alternatives exist.

The Finance of Climate Change – A Guide for Governments and Corporations:

The financial markets hold an increasingly important role in government and corporate initiatives designed to fight climate change and make the transition to the low carbon economy.

Less is More – Energy Efficiency (End Use):

Improved energy efficiency is often the most economic and readily available means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, there exists a difference between the actual level of investment in energy efficiency and the higher level that would be economically beneficial from the consumer’s point of view.

The Local Market of the Nordic: Russia:

Recently the Russian economy has been developing at a very high pace and significant investments are being made in the energy and environmental sector, as well as in restructuring.

Adaptation – Urban Climate Solutions:

Even with substantial reductions in emissions today, the delay in the climate system means that emissions we have already released into the atmosphere will continue to affect the climate for years to come. The impact on cities and the people living there will be significant.

De-linking Economic Growth from Emissions – Bypassing the Western Route to Low Carbon Economy:

The interrelations between economic growth, energy and CO2 have a tremendous influence on the possibilities of a global ambitious treaty being drafted at the COP15.

EU – Framework Conditions:

This year a new EU energy market package has been submitted. The ambition is to create framework conditions for efficient and functioning sustainable energy markets. How can the EU balance energy policies between the aims of security of supply, competitiveness and sustainable energy?

Renewable Energy Production;

With a raising stream of billions of dollars into the sector, the investments in renewable energy production reach new records each year.The Nordic Region has great experience in renewable energy production from a wide spectrum of sources. How may this experience and knowledge be utilized in the global market and what are the barriers to expanding the renewable portfolio standard?
If you are an expert who could speak on any of these issues or know someone who is, we would greatly appreciate any recommendations you could pass on.

Please reply to  mwi at mm.dk

Thank you for any guidance/recommendations you can provide.

Meik Wiking
Project Manager
Nordic Climate Solutions

Monday Morning
Huset Mandag Morgen A/S
Valkendorfsgade 13
P.O. Box 1127
DK-1009 København K

T: +45 33 93 93 23
F: +45 33 14 13 94
E:  mwi at mm.dk
W: www.mm.dk

NORDIC CLIMATE SOLUTIONS – NOVEMBER 25TH AND 26TH – 2008.

WWW.NORDICCLIMATESOLUTIONS.COM

Opinion: Polar Race.
Monday 28 July 2008
by: Guy Taillefer, Le Devoir
 http://www.truthout.org/article/polar-ra…

Guy Taillefer argues in Le Devoir that the US Geological Survey’s most recent evaluation of the polar depths – that they contain 412 billion barrels of oil, or a third of the planet’s proven reserves – will put additional strain on the already-fragile international understandings with respect to polar sovereignty and development.

The North Pole. Guy Taillefer writes, “Northern governments and oil companies have never salivated to quite the same extent over the Arctic, which becomes all the more hospitable to them as the ice melts … If one were a cynic, one would say that in this instance it is altogether to Ottawa’s advantage to drag its feet in the fight against greenhouse gases …”
Four hundred and twelve billion barrels of oil. A third of the planet’s proven reserves. That’s what the depths of the Arctic contain, according to the US Geological Survey’s most recent evaluation. One may count on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to take advantage of the opportunity to reassert Canada’s “unquestionable” sovereignty over the North – and to reduce the debate over the development of the circumpolar world to a war of flags and icebreakers.
Last Wednesday, after four years of research, the US Geological Survey, the American scientific agency specialized in hydrocarbons, delivered the first exhaustive estimate of potential oil and gas situated north of the polar circle: 90 billion barrels of crude, three times as much natural gas, 20 percent of the probable global reserves of liquefied natural gas…. The news is guaranteed to have a strong impact, given the present context of tightening energy supplies, surging prices at the pump, and the extraordinary growth of demand in developing countries. Northern governments and oil companies have never salivated to quite the same extent over the Arctic, which becomes all the more hospitable to them as the ice melts…. If one were a cynic, one would say that in this instance it is altogether to Ottawa’s advantage to drag its feet in the fight against greenhouse gases.
Moreover, quite by chance, the US Geological Survey estimates were made public one year, almost to the day, after two little Russian sailors dove to a depth of 4,000 meters in the beginning of August 2007 to plant a flag on the North Pole. This striking gesture – without any legal effect, however – relaunched the debate on the subject of sovereignty over the Arctic in great style.

Cut to the quick, then-Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay decreed that the region Russia coveted was “unquestionably” Canadian.
Unquestionably? That remains to be seen. Experts from the UN, guarantors of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, will say between now and 2013 which between Ottawa and Moscow has the better-founded pretensions from a scientific perspective. At the moment, however, it seems that Russia is better placed to prove geologically that the Lomonossov Dorsal, a chain of undersea mountains that cross the Arctic, is the prolongation of the Russian continental plateau, and not of the Canadian plateau.
Politicians, unfortunately, don’t bother much with such scientific details in their communications with the electorate, preferring to play a nationalistic rhetoric that is easily digested. So the bad scenario would be that, in this race for the summit of the world, the sharing of the Arctic will be less the result of a UN judgment and multinational dialogue than of power struggles between the five countries involved – Canada, Russia, the United States, Denmark, and Norway. That scenario is altogether plausible.
“The Canadian Arctic is at the heart of our national identity,” Stephen Harper declared last year. He has announced, among other military measures in the last year, an investment of $7 billion over 25 years for buying naval patrol boats. A depressing prospect: that Canada seeks to take on its northern identity is laudable, that it proposes to get there by emphasizing military defense to the detriment of social, ecological and diplomatic initiatives, is much less so. It is difficult in any case to imagine that pugnacious Prime Minister-President Vladimir Putin will allow himself to be intimidated.
Nonetheless, the Harper way remains very questionable, in that it is a thousand leagues from the Canadian Way – based on dialogue and cooperation. Still, the most recent decades have demonstrated that it’s by balancing its own interests with those of its circumpolar neighbors – and not by sticking out its chest – that Canada has succeeded in preserving its Arctic sovereignty.
Moreover, in order to calm tensions, the five held a big meeting last spring, which ended in the participants’ commitment to settle any litigious question “in an orderly way,” to “strengthen their cooperation based on mutual trust and transparency” and to “assure the protection and preservation of the fragile marine environment of the Arctic Ocean.” Empty phrases? The future will show how these beautiful promises that we’d like to see kept will withstand the lust for 412 billion barrels of oil.
———————

We posted several days ago: “Reuters Reports That China Is Planting its Flag in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions. Actually they started already at least in 2003, so this is not just a reaction to the Russian Flag-posting of August 2007.”

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 27th, 2008
by Pincas Jawetz ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com)

So, face up to it – China is also in this game. And why should not Nauru or Grenada also be entiled to some of the profits? if they cannot afford the expense of drilling – bet you Brazil or Japan, even Korea and India, and who knows who else – can!

OK – Now Let Us Sit Down And Talk. For Once We Are Behind China and Expect The Dragon To Stand Its Ground.

The North Pole. Guy Taillefer writes, “Northern governments and oil companies have never salivated to quite the same extent over the Arctic, which becomes all the more hospitable to them as the ice melts … If one were a cynic, one would say that in this instance it is altogether to Ottawa’s advantage to drag its feet in the fight against greenhouse gases …” (Photo: NASA GSFC Direct Readout Laboratory / Allen Lunsford).

OPEN CALL FOR PAPERS - “Development futures in a changing climate: shaping the invisible.”

To be held at DSA Annual Conference 2008, DEVELOPMENT’S INVISIBLE HANDS,

Saturday, 8th November 2008, Church House, Westminster, London.

A maximum of four papers will be selected for presentation at the DSA
Annual Conference due to the panel’s time constraints. However, as there are
high levels of interest in this topic, we propose to select a larger number
of papers to present at the DSA Study Group on Climate Change and Development
meeting in September 2008. This will enable presenters to receive specialist
feedback from participants, and will provide material for a special journal
issue on climate change and development which will be linked to these two sessions.

The Study Group meeting will be held in London during the last two
weeks of September; date and location to be confirmed.

Dates:
Deadline for abstracts (750-1000 words) for the Panel and Study Group: 20th June 2008.
Selection for the panel and Study Group: 15th July 2008.
Deadline for full papers: 15th September 2008.

Panel convenors: Dr Emily Boyd, Dr Natasha Grist, Dr Sirkku Juhola and Valerie Nelson.

For any further information, please contact: Dr Sirkku Juhola, Senior
Researcher, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University
of Jyvaskyla, Finland.  sirkku.juhola at yfi.jyu.fi

Climate change is arguably the greatest threat of the 21st Century to
developing countries, a threat that will become an increasingly visible
and irrefutable determinant of development. The urgency of climate change
puts development in a completely new light. Land degradation, food insecurity,
extreme weather events, migration and social fragmentation are some of
the anticipated effects that will exacerbate millions of vulnerable
livelihoods globally. Funds for climate adaptation are slowly being pledged and
carbon offsets for development are marketed to individual consumers in the North.

Aid organizations are starting to consider new frameworks (e.g.
resilience) to better understand the intertwined nature of climate change,
development and the environment. However, will these efforts positively transform
existing linear forms of risk management, underlying knowledge-power
structures, and ultimately, poor people’s lives in a globalising, urbanising, context-specific reality?

The panel aims to analyse the theoretical and practical challenges facing
the future of development resulting from climate change. The papers
will reflect on concepts and application of resilience, sustainable development,
adaptation and mitigation at different scales of decision-making. They will
seek to answer the question: what are the patterns and futures of
development in the light of climate change, and how can these be influenced
to benefit the global poor most effectively?

We propose to focus on five current development and climate themes in
our considerations:
i) food security: the challenge of responding to both climate
change and development imperatives;
ii) disaster risk reduction: lessons for climate policy;
iii) carbon markets and considerations for development: ethics,
policy and practice;
iv) development futures: strategising and operationalising change;
v) climate knowledge and power.

Sirkku Juhola, PhD
Senior Reseacher (Social and Public Policy)
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy
University of Jyväskylä
PL 35 (MaB)
40014 University of Jyväskylä
Finland

Office hours Wed 9-11 (MaB217)
Email  sirkku.juhola at yfi.jyu.fi
Puh +358 (0)14 260 2828
Fax +358 (0)14 260 3101
 http://www.jyu.fi/en/

News from the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER).

For further details and links see www.wider.unu.edu

Wiley-Blackwell announce UNU-WIDER special section papers free online:

Review of Development Economics Volume 12, Issue 2 – Edited by E. Kwan Choi.

Special Section: Poverty and Inequality in China (in collaboration with UNU-WIDER)

Guest Editor: Guanghua Wan
The current issue of the Review of Development Economics includes a special section on Poverty and Inequality in China; the result of a collaboration between the journal and the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki. The section includes papers emerging from UNU-WIDER’s 2004/2005 research project on poverty and inequality in China. The research project was directed by Guanghua Wan, who also serves as guest editor for this section. You can read the special section free online at www.blackwell-synergy.com or through the links below.

Introduction to the Special Section: Poverty and Inequality in China
Guanghua Wan
 ” title=”http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2008.00449.x” target=”_blank”>http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs…

Gender Earnings Differential in Urban China
Meiyan Wang and Fang Cai
 ” title=”http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2008.00451.x” target=”_blank”>http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs…

Review of Development Economics is published by and available from Wiley-Blackwell
 http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/ROD…

Also published by and available from Wiley-Blackwell is the Review of Income and Wealth, wherein volume 53, number 1 comprised a special issue arising from UNU-WIDER’s inequality and poverty in China research. It too is available free online:
 http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/rod…

—————————————
The next regular email announcement from UNU-WIDER will be made on 5 May.

=========================================

For more information onWIDER/UNU activities and the website, please contact:
Ara Kazandjian –  ara at wider.unu.edu

For more information on our publications, please contact:
Adam Swallow –  swallow at wider.unu.edu

World Institute for Development Economics Research
of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER)
Katajanokanlaituri 6 B, 00160 Helsinki, Finland
Tel. +358-9-6159911, Fax. +358-9-61599333
 http://www.wider.unu.edu

For details on the activities of the United Nations University
and its international network of research and training centres/programmes:
 http://www.update.unu.edu/

This week – 31 March – 6 April – the European Commission will discuss plans designed to better sell the EU to its own public.

Known as “Plan D”, the concept was launched after the shock of the NO votes to the EU constitution in France and the Netherlands three years ago. The commission realized then that   they better go back to the drawing board to re-examine its public image.

Since then it has concentrated on churning out less legislation, and more attention to spelling out the benefits to citizens – with the famous example being its fight to lower tariffs for mobile phoning abroad.

EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom will present an update of the plan on Wednesday.

The following day, her external relations colleague Benita Ferrero Waldner will publish a report detailing the progress made in the bloc’s neighbourhood policy.

The policy covers eastern European states as well as Mediterranean and North African states. The commission says it tailors its agreements to the particular country concerned but several complain that the deals are too formulaic. Ukraine and Georgia, in particular, want more political commitment from the EU.

On Tuesday, the constitutional affairs committee will vote on a report by Finnish centre-right MEP Alexander Stubb on setting out rules for the thousands of lobbyists that work the institution to try and influence EU legislation.

The main sticking point is whether there should be a mandatory or voluntary register for the lobbyists, of which there are around 3000 permanently accredited to the parliament.

Tuesday will also see internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy address the economic and monetary affairs committee, with continued turmoil on the financial markets providing the backdrop.

Click to view the article that takes you to the interactive interactive display

Courtesy: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/natur…

At the five years’ mark, we still think that deposing Saddam was right – staying in Iraq for oil was wrong. Investing that over half trillion dollars waisted (costs are already over $800 billion considering also the fight to depose Saddam) in creating an economy less dependent on oil would have been a much more reasoned choice. What now?

www.SustainabiliTank.info posts the following Washington Post article as a memorial to what we were saying since the start of our website. Sure – the surge has started to work, but to what end? Will the US be able to hold Iraq together as one state common to all its communities? Is it really important to have it as one integrated oil exporting source, at a time that we will anyway start to decrease our economy’s dependence on oil? After removing Saddam we could have left the Iraqi’s to sort out their future by themselves. Had they come up with a Saddam-alike, the US could have gone in a third time – less cost and nothing lost. If the US still insists in keeping Iraq in one piece – will this not push the country even more into future collusion with Iran? The Shiia are the majority and the only part of Iraq that really seeks independence are the Kurds. Why hold them back from achieving their goal? Even Turkey starts to understand that a secure Kurdistan, cards played right, could be to their advantage, and the EU, without pressure from the US, would also shine some light in that direction. The Sunni monarchs of the League of Arab States are yet years away from understanding the emerging new neighborhood in which extreme religious interpretation is bound to highjack also their own states – this because they had that false hope that the oil-money can help them deflect the ire of their own people to targets abroad – the likes of Israel, and even their own benefactor – the United States. This sounds sick – but sick it is. It was that oil-money, that to different degrees, paved the way and paid for the radicalization of the world’s two billion Muslims.

And what did all of this do to the value of the dollar and to US economy at large?

Surely, The Washington Post does not make our points, but then it presents a reasonable description of how sad America feels on this day – after five years of war and just one year after the start of a real attempt to manage that war.

The EU Observer looks into the damages the continuation of the war did to EU-US relations and to the split it created within the EU. What is the value loss to the US from above? How long will take the healing process?
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…

 http://euobserver.com/9/25856/?rk=1

Five Years In Iraq
Iraqis and Americans Offer Perspectives on the War
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 19, 2008; A01

The planning ministry in Baghdad explodes after being hit during the second day of U.S. raids on the Iraqi capital March 20, 2003. (Faleh Kheiber – Reuters)

For a majority of Americans, today marks the fifth anniversary of the start of an Iraq war that was not worth fighting, one that has cost thousands of lives and more than half a trillion dollars. For the Bush administration, however, it is the first anniversary of an Iraq strategy that it believes has finally started to succeed.

It has been about a year since Army Gen. David H. Petraeus arrived to command U.S. forces in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker took over as the chief U.S. diplomat, and the military deployed 30,000 more troops to protect and rebuild neighborhoods.

Officials now running the U.S. effort express frustration that the gains wrought by their new political, security and economic policies — in particular, sharply reduced violence — are continually weighed against the first four years of the war, when Iraq unraveled in insurgency and sectarian strife.

“I came to Washington to describe what we’re doing,” Charles P. Ries, Crocker’s senior deputy in charge of reconstruction and the Iraqi economy, said during a visit last week. “At almost every meeting, somebody wants me to describe what we used to do. . . . I know why people raise these questions, but I don’t feel it’s something I can speak to. The times were different then.”

Today’s policy is fundamentally different from the impatient mind-set of 2003, in both lowered U.S. expectations and a less imperious approach to dealing with Iraqi authorities. “In those days,” Ries said, “we decided what [the Iraqis] needed, and we built it.” Today, he said, Iraqis are asked what they want, and then told that while the United States will help, they will have to pay for most of it themselves.

Yet as the administration requests additional war funding and calls for a pause in promised troop withdrawals, some question its right to a second chance. “Like a tourniquet,” the troop increase “has stopped the bleeding,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a former Army Ranger and senior member of the Armed Services Committee, reported last week after his 11th trip to Iraq. What he has not seen, Reed said, are the surgery and recovery that would begin to heal the wound that Iraq has become. And even U.S. officials acknowledge that the “surge” has not led to the political reconciliation the administration had hoped for.

Others see the past year’s successes as fragile and reversible, and less consequential than the pain that preceded them. “I think they have it righter than they ever have before,” Daniel P. Serwer, an Iraq expert with the U.S. Institute of Peace, said of the administration. “But the fact is that those four other years did exist, and they condition a lot of what can and cannot happen now. There’s a history here, there’s a lot of blood and guts on the floor — literally.”

The White House tends to dismiss such longer memories. While it recognizes the inclination to “relitigate the past” when a milestone such as the fifth anniversary is reached, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, “our focus is on the way ahead and making sure that the current situation and the future situation gets better.”

In addition to new directions on the ground in Iraq, officials point to a newly effective structure designed to avoid the kind of ad hoc decision-making that led to early bureaucratic gridlock and mistakes, such as decrees dissolving the Iraqi army and banning Baath Party members from government jobs. President Bush’s appointment last spring of Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute as deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan has “helped streamline the process and made sure that there is . . . a senior-level official who can devote his full, undivided attention” to the subject, Johndroe said.

The once-bickering State Department and Pentagon are reporting new levels of cooperation. Diplomats who recall Donald H. Rumsfeld’s insistence that the Defense Department control all aspects of early postwar policy note approvingly that it was his successor as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, who recently called on Congress to increase the State Department’s budget.

Many U.S. officials participating in the new efforts talk about those years as though they belonged to another administration. “We weren’t here five years ago,” said one who, like several interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity about past policy on the grounds that it would undermine the present.

“In the early days, they had an idea of something, a plan, of how it was going to be,” the official said. “They would remove Saddam, and democracy would flower. They took this plan and rammed it down into the reality of Iraq, which nobody understood. What did they know about Iraq? Who were they listening to?” In the past year, the official said, “there has been a coming to grips across the board with Iraqi reality.”

One of the more troublesome realities is that Iraqi leaders have been slow to take advantage of the “breathing space” that the troop increase was supposed to create. The administration has often noted that Washington and Baghdad operate on different clocks, with the U.S. timetable for demonstrable progress running far faster than its Iraqi counterpart. In an interview last week, Petraeus, the U.S. military commander, acknowledged that “no one” in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation” or in the provision of basic public services.

In congressional testimony scheduled for early next month, both Petraeus and Crocker are expected to make the case that enough forward movement has been made to justify continuing the current strategy, and to warn that an abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops could jeopardize the gains of the past year.

But while a strong congressional appearance by the two men last September quieted talk of funding cutoffs and brought a brief rise in public attention, their upcoming testimony appears to have sparked little anticipation.

As the administration struggles to focus on Iraq’s future, it is competing with a presidential race locked in debate about how the war began and how to end it, a Democratic Congress determined to fight over every additional dollar, and a weary, distracted public.

Indeed, once a top public concern, Iraq has been muscled aside by the economy and the political campaigns. In a survey released last week by the Pew Research Center, more people knew the names of the head of the Federal Reserve Board and the president of Venezuela than knew the approximate number of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

Some public views about the situation in Iraq have eased over the past year. But others, including baseline judgments about the war itself, have hardly budged. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly two-thirds said the war was not worth waging. Less than half, 43 percent, think the United States is making significant progress, and majorities continue to judge the war’s benefits as not worth its costs.

Polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.

——————————-

And From the EUobserver – Iraq and the EU: Five Years On.

20.03.2008 – 09:21 CET | By Renata Goldirova from Brussels.
It has been five years since the United States began its military operation dubbed ‘Iraqi Freedom’. The war resulted in a deep rift in transatlantic relations, caused a split within the European Union and made Iraqis the single largest group seeking refuge in Europe.

On 20 March 2003, thousands of troops from four countries – the US (250,000), the United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000) and Poland (194) – invaded Iraq. The invasion led to a quick defeat of the Iraqi regime, with its leader, Saddam Hussein, being captured in December 2003 and executed in December 2006.

The US and its allies cited allegations that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the invasion. However, no evidence of weapons of mass destruction have been found in the country’s territory.

“Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting … The answer is clear to me: removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision,” US president George W. Bush said on Wednesday (19 March).

Some estimates suggest that up to one million Iraqis have been killed since 2003, while the financial burden amounts to some $9 billion for London and $845 billion for Washington. Former head of the IMF Joseph Stiglitz has recently estimated the cost to be as high as $3 trillion.

But Mr Bush referred to the costs of the war as “exaggerated estimates”. “No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure – but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq,” he said.

EU split:

The issue of military intervention against Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian regime became the biggest ever test for the EU’s common foreign and security policy, as member states were not able to speak with one voice.

Several countries, led by France and Germany, were opposed to US-led invasion, while others took part.

At the time, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld exacerbated the divisions by saying: “Germany has been a problem and France has been a problem.”

“You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe,” Mr Rumsfeld famously said.

Since 2003, a number of EU countries such as Italy, Lithuania, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and the Netherlands have withdrawn their soldiers from the violence-torn country, mainly due to public opinion.

At the same time, troops from Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Romania and the Czech Republic remain deployed in Iraq.

Pressure from Iraqi refugees:

According to fresh numbers released by the UN high commissioner for refugees earlier this week (18 March), asylum requests from Iraqis climbed to 38,286 in 2007, a sharp increase from the 19,375 claims in 2006.

A number of non-governmental organisations have therefore blamed the EU for not doing enough over a major refugee crisis, pointing to the fact that the treatment of Iraqis varies significantly from one member state to another.

For example, Sweden’s reception facilities have been under huge pressure, as the Scandinavian country is the only one within the 27-nation bloc granting refugee status or other protection to almost all Iraqi asylum seekers. A total of 9,065 Iraqis applied for refugee status there in 2006, compared to 2,330 the previous year.

The EU “cannot continue to ignore one of the world’s major displacement crises,” says a statement of a group of eight NGOs, including Amnesty International and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles.

In general, it is estimated that six million people inside Iraq need urgent humanitarian assistance as a result of the conflict. Some 2.5 million are internally displaced, while an additional two million are hosted by neighbouring countries such as Syria and Jordan.