Probe at UN climate talks after Saudi sign smashed

Saturday, 12 June 2010 10:06
author:Reuters
POLITICS & ECONOMICS / NEWS
by Reuters, Saturday, 12 June 2010

UN climate negotiators agreed to an investigation on Friday after protesters smashed a sign emblazoned “Saudi Arabia” and dropped it in toilet after Riyadh blocked a study of deeper cuts in greenhouse gases.

Many countries condemned the protest, after Saudi Arabia blocked a request by small island states at the May 31-June 11 talks for a study of tougher cuts in greenhouse gases to help slow a rise in world sea levels.

Mexico’s delegate Luis Alfonso de Alba, whose country will host the main climate talks in late 2010, said he was initiating an investigation by the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

With the EU unraveling by the day and global money having moved elsewhere, it is natural that the US is following a policy of enlarging its circle of friends. From among the newly industrialized economies, China, Brazil, India, South Korea and other larger relative-newcomers including now also Turkey, it seems that the fact India is the largest democracy in the world may give it an advantage in closeness to the US. But this was not always easy, and may not be any easier today – except when compared to the alternatives. And worse, as we heard today from Professor Charles Kupchan, who at UN University told us his findings on “The Sources of Stable Peace” – compatible regimes are not really needed for successful cooperation between States.

President Bush already started driving nearer to India and President Obama took this on from the start of his Administration. it was no coincidence that the first gala evening in the Obama White House was the State Dinner, November 24, 2010, with India (the second such dinner, so far, was with Mexico May 19, 2010).

Since then there was a series of meetings – in the US and in India, and now we just witnessed something that was defined as the Inaugural US-India Strategic Dialogue that involved Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the US Department of State June 1-4, 2010 in Washington DC. A very impressive list of Indian guests participated. It was led by Ms. Clinton’s counterpart – Minister of External Affairs Sri S. M. Krishna.

The obvious topics of discussion revolved around a Strategic future in US-India cooperation in India’s immediate region – that includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Iran. We bet that China was also being discussed, but we wondered what about the follow up to Copenhagen – both – in preparation for Cancun but also on the bilateral level.

We had our chance to satisfy partly this curiosity when we had the chance to ask questions from Ambassador Robert Blake Jr. who is at present Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, and coincidentally was prior to his present position – US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. As such, we knew that already January 2007, Mr. Blake Jr., a professional diplomat, son of a professional diplomat, met with then President of The Maldives, Maumon Abdul Gayoom, to discuss renewable energy in the Maldives, and we assume they touched also upon the whole issue of global warming/climate change.  We thought it was fortunate to have him as spokesman for the meeting, as the prominence of the Maldives was clear at the run-up to Copenhagen.

A second topic we wanted to ask about is the issue we already brought up in -
 http://www.sustainabilitank.info/categor… and this is the potential of a financial US – India – Arab Gulf States triangle with a renewable energy orientation; US and Indian technology and Arab (former oil) money.

We were lucky, and because of the quality of the answers we got – I will copy in the full transcript of our two questions and the answers we got From The Read-out of the  U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue:

FPC (Foreign Press Centers in Washington DC and in New York City) Briefing.

by Ambassador Robert Blake Jr.
Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs

June 7, 2010

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Let’s go to New York so we don’t ignore them.

(A) Sustainable Development Media: I’m Pincas Jawetz from Sustainable Development Media:  I understand that you personally were ambassador to the Maldives before this position, and you had discussions with President Gayoom on renewable energy and our energy global problems.

Now India was part of the group with Brazil and South Africa and China and President Obama that saved somehow the Copenhagen meeting so it was not the disaster of the way how it was described, but actually there was some kind of a road map that came out of there.

But my question is now, thus with the Maldives, that were very prominent in Copenhagen, and India, what has actually happened since Copenhagen? And if this past week you had any discussions with India here in Washington?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Thank you for that question. As you say, I was accredited for the Maldives while I was ambassador in Sri Lanka and we had a number of good areas of cooperation with the Maldives that we started during that time, particularly in the solar and wind area. And we’re going to build on that cooperation with the Maldives going forward because President Nasheed and his team have really made climate change a very high strategic priority for their country because of the threats that they face from climate change if the current trends continue. I think all of us have been very grateful to the leadership that President Nasheed has shown, in addition to the leadership that Prime Minister Singh has shown.

As you correctly noted, the President welcomed the very important role that Prime Minister Singh played in the Copenhagen negotiations, to help bring those to a successful conclusion, and since then our two governments have been working very closely together, and India has formally now associated itself with that accord. India wants to work very closely with the United States and other countries to achieve a successful outcome in Mexico City.

So we had a conversation about this. Our climate change negotiator, Todd Stern, made a presentation during the Strategic Dialogue. Minister Jairam Ramesh was not, unfortunately, here for those talks. But he and Todd Stern remain in very close touch and I’d say that this is one of the many areas in which the United States and India are cooperating productively and closely on global issues.

——————

Moderator: We have time for two more questions. We’ll go to New York and take our last question here in Washington.

Sustainable Development Media: This is a different kind of strategic question. India has strong financial relationships in the Gulf area, especially with Dubai and Abu Dhabi; even in renewable energy. Now is there any chance for a triangular relationship between the United States, Emirates, maybe Qatar and India in these areas? My question is really on energy.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: We haven’t really discussed that yet, but that’s not a bad idea. What we have done, I’d say we have common interests in talking to the countries of the Gulf because many of those countries, not the governments themselves but elements within those countries, are providing support for the Taliban and for LET and for other groups like that. So I think we have a very important common interest in working together to address that financial threat. Again, indeed, that is a great focus in what we’re doing already with respect to the Taliban in Afghanistan. But I think there is scope for greater cooperation in that area.

——————

Looking at the above – the first cringe came when I learned that Indian Minister Jairam Ramesh was not in Washington for these June 2010 meetings.

Jairam Ramesh has been an elected member of the Indian Parliament representing Andhra Pradesh  since June 2004. He is the Indian Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment and Forests since May, 2009. He is also a member of the National Advisory Council. From January 2006 to February, 2009, he was the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry and from April 2008 to February, 2009 was also the Minister of State for Power in the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. He was the most prominent Indian Minister involved in the Copenhagen daily events.

From his biography we learned:

Ramesh bided his time after the Congress Party lost the 1989 elections and resurfaced in 1991 to provide intellectual inputs into Rajiv Gandhi’s election campaign. In recent years he has advised Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress party.

Following his 2009 re-election to the Indian Parliament, on May 28, 2009 Ramesh was given independent charge of Environment and Forests as Minister of State in the Congress-led administration. He was chief negotiator for India at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 to 18 December 2009.

Also – regarding the recent Bhopal verdict, a subject that is very much in India’s mind, Jairam Ramesh just said yesterday – June 9th, 2010:” The Verdict is Very Unsatisfactory.” In his 50′s now, Ramesh is a main factor when it comes to the environment.

————
NEW DELHI – by IANS - http://blog.taragana.com/law/2010/06/08/… – Terming the verdict in the Bhopal gas disaster “very unsatisfactory”, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh Tuesday said his ministry will focus on strictly implementing the environment protection law to ensure such incidents do not occur in future.

“It is a matter of deep anguish for me personally, and it has taken so long, and the verdict clearly is very unsatisfactory from every point of view. It has caused understandable furor, particularly among people affected by the tragedy, and civil society groups,” Ramesh told reporters here.

He said his ministry was concerned with implementing the Environment Protection Act, 1986, brought in by then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in the wake of the 1984 tragedy that killed thousands of people.

“What I can assure people is we will be strict without fear and favour in implementing the act so that future Bhopals don’t occur,” Ramesh said.

————

We bring this up as we thought he should have been in Washington in order to help align a joint US-India approach ahead of Cancun. But then we learned from another Indian source that – “On July 19-20, 2010 US Energy Secretary Chu will host a meeting of 20 of his colleagues (Ministers of Energy),  including India.    At that time he proposes to offer an invitation to join an initiative to promote white roofs to delay climate change, plus their familiar virtues.”   I assume thus that even without Mr. Ramesh, the presence of the Ministers of Energy at the meeting was helpful in coming up with practical ideas on climate issues.

But let us not sound negative. There is going to be on June 22, 2010 a meeting to receive the recommendations of a bilateral revitalized CEO Forum when U.S. and Indian cabinet secretaries gather again to meet with the CEOs and hear their thoughts on how our two governments can further relax restrictions and improve opportunities for trade and investment. It seems that above was said in context of joint developments in the energy sector using private enterprise and innovation – and “the United States plans to send a high level delegation of high tech and other innovation entrepreneurs to Delhi in the fall to develop new partnerships and initiatives in this area in advance of President Obama’s visit in November.”

So, there seems to be activity in those areas of our interest and agreements will be readied for President Obama’s trip to New Delhi in November 2010. This seems an extremely fast schedule when judged against the slow usually behaviour in Washington DC.

———————————-

FURTHER EXCHANGES IN ABOVE PRESS BRIEFING ON THE VARIOUS TOPICS OF INTEREST TO INDIA, US, AND OTHER FOREIGN MEDIA.

BUT FIRST THE INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE Jr. :

FPC Briefing
Robert Blake Jr.
Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs
Foreign Press Center
Washington, DC
June 7, 2010

Over the last ten years we’ve made a systematic, bipartisan effort to improve relations between the United States and India, probably highlighted by the civil nuclear deal in the last administration.

President Obama and Prime Minister Singh decided they would try to elevate our partnership further by establishing this Strategic Dialogue between the United States and India. It was announced last year during Secretary Clinton’s visit to India that you’re familiar with.

Our meetings on June 2nd and June 3rd marked the inauguration of our first Strategic Dialogue. Those meetings featured a wide range of both plenary sessions and bilateral meetings between the U.S. and Indian delegations. Let me just focus on the plenary session.

Secretary Clinton and Minister Krishna led a very wide-ranging two and a half hour discussion that was then followed by a lunch session. I think it was notable because for the first time in our history we had large numbers of cabinet level secretaries on our side and ministers on the Indian side to share ideas and to consider strategic initiatives on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues.

The Secretary and Minister Krishna asked the delegations to use the opportunity to really conduct a strategic look at how we could focus our future cooperation. Obviously many of the ideas that surfaced will now be worked, but let me just touch briefly on some of the matters that were discussed.

Security and counterterrorism cooperation was a top priority. We discussed collaboration on a Counterterrorism Cooperation Initiative to further improve information sharing and capacity building between our two countries, and we agreed to look at expanding cooperation in cyber security.

Energy cooperation was also a major focus. Charting a clean and lower carbon energy future is obviously very very important both to the United States and to India. The Indian side reaffirmed their commitment to moving forward with putting in place a nuclear liability regime that will open the door for U.S. companies to export civil nuclear technology to India.

We also discussed ways that the United States can help India to ensure that the massive infrastructure investments that will be made over the next two decades in India can benefit from Indo-U.S. cooperation on things like energy efficiency, smart grids, and many, many other new ideas that are being pioneered in both of our countries.

The United States also shared a draft Memorandum of Understanding with India on shale gas cooperation that both sides believe offers great promise in India.

On the economy, we discussed the importance of sustaining momentum in our trade growth which has doubled over the last five years. As you heard the Secretary say in her public remarks, she mentioned the important boost that India could give to trade and investment by raising some of the foreign direct investment caps that exist in areas such as retail, defense and insurance.

Both sides also look forward to receiving the recommendations of our revitalized CEO Forum when U.S. and Indian cabinet secretaries gather again on June 22nd to meet with the CEOs and hear their thoughts on how our two governments can further relax restrictions and improve opportunities for trade and investment.

The delegations also discussed a wide range of steps our two governments can take to ensure that innovation is a source of growth and dynamism for our two knowledge economies.

The United States plans to send a high level delegation of high tech and other innovation entrepreneurs to Delhi in the fall to develop new partnerships and initiatives in this area in advance of President Obama’s visit in November.

Minister Sibal, the Minister of Human Resources Development, also briefed on India’s hope to see passage this year of legislation that would allow foreign universities to establish campuses and offer degrees for the first time in India. We think this would open enormous new opportunities for American institutions of higher learning of all kinds and help drive new science and technology and other kinds of innovation.

One of the areas where we agreed that we will seek closer scientific collaboration is in the area of food security. Both sides agreed to establish working groups to develop concrete proposals for the United States and India to enhance food security in third countries; to strengthen farm to market links and food processing inside India; and also to develop an initiative to expand weather and crop forecasting.

The common theme underlying all of these discussions was what Secretary Clinton said in her remarks at the concluding press conference. How can the U.S. and India intensify our already wide cooperation to focus on how to deliver results that will make a difference in the lives of the people of the United States, of India, and of the wider world?

We capped the visit and the day with a very sparkling visit by our President who came over for a rare visit to the State Department to honor External Affairs Minister Krishna and his delegation. President Obama, as you all know, announced that he will visit India in November. And he emphasized that our partnership with India is one of his highest strategic priorities.

In sum, as the President says, the United States sees India as an indispensable partner as we move forward in the 21st Century. The Strategic Dialogue that we initiated last week took U.S.-India relations to unprecedented new levels of cooperation that will be highlighted during the President’s visit in November.

————————–

THE ISSUES WITH HIGHEST INTEREST TO THE PRESS  IN ABOVE PRESS BRIEFING:

———-

(a) ON INNOVATION:

India Abroad News Service: Aziz Haniffa, India Abroad.

You spoke about a high level innovation delegation preceding
President Obama’s trip to India. Is this going to be sort of a private/public partnership kind of delegation? And Foreign Minister Krishna on his first stop spoke about innovation in terms of his keynote speech at the USIBC.

What exactly are you looking for in terms of the innovation that you are talking about? In terms of this high-level delegation?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Again, I don’t want to get into too much detail because this is really up to them to decide, but the idea is to bring together mostly private sector entrepreneurs and to have them take a fairly wide look at where they see the big opportunities as we’ve done with the CEO Forum and other kinds of groups that we have. And for them to then make recommendations to the two governments, but also to our two private sectors about how we can further develop innovation partnerships between, mostly between our private sectors. But if there are steps that the governments can take to kind of nurture that and help that we certainly welcome those suggestions as well.

(b) WHAT ARE THE EXPECTED RESULTS FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA’S TRIP TO INDIA.

What I am asking, Mr. Ambassador, what is the outcome from this visit? Because President Clinton opened the doors between U.S. and India relations and President Bush widely opened the doors by this signing the civil nuclear agreement with India. What do we expect anything new from President Obama’s visit to India?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well, that’s exactly what we’re starting to work on right now is the details of what the President’s visit will entail, what will be the key areas of strategic focus, where will he visit, and all of these many important questions. But I can tell you that the President himself is looking forward to ambitious results, and again, sees our relations with India as one of the most consequential and indispensable of our partnerships in the world of the 21st Century. So we are going to develop a schedule and a series of results to match that.

(c) DO DOUBTS ON BOTH SIDES REMAIN REGARDING THE RELATIONSHIP?

The Hindu: Hi Ambassador, it’s nice to see you here.

My question is on a remark that the Secretary made during the course of the dialogue at one of the briefings, I think, where she said that doubts still remain on both sides regarding some aspects of the relationship. Just looking at the U.S. side of things, she did say that doubts remain on the U.S. side about whether India was ready to take up a certain position in the world and in this relationship, and specifically she mentioned loosening regulations in a wide range of areas. The economy, for example, but I would see that as applying also to the nuclear liability question, possibly the education sector.

So how serious are these doubts which the Secretary very clearly enunciated? And how do you see them being dispelled over the course of the next few months or this year?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I think the Secretary made reference to those doubts because there are doubters within our strategic community about the whole relationship. We’ve heard those doubts before.

I think the dialogue really helped to dispel many of those doubts. As I said earlier, the External Affairs Minister and his delegation reaffirmed their intention to seek passage of the Nuclear Liability Law this year. The same with the education bill that I referred to that would open India up to foreign investment by foreign universities. So I think those were helpful.

But obviously India is a democracy, and often a complicated one, so they’re going to have to wrestle with many of these issues. But from our side I have to say, just speaking as a government representative, a senior government representative, we don’t have any doubts that India’s going to be one of our most important partners in the 21st Century and already there’s been tremendous progress in our relations just in the last ten years. We expect that progress to continue as the Indian economy grows, as more and more Indians come to the United States to study here, as more and more Americans hopefully go to India to study, as the Indian-American community here continues to grow in importance and in size.

So we feel we have these common values and common interests that unlike almost any other country in the world we will really be able to use and benefit to help the peoples of our two countries and also increasingly the peoples of the world. So that’s a quite profound statement that you heard from the Secretary and from the President himself. That’s why I think we have mostly optimism about the future course of our relations. Certainly there are these short term obstacles that we’ve got to overcome, but again, I think there’s great and substantial optimism about the future.

—————–

(d) ON THE BHOPAL DISASTER AND ON THE NEW DAVID HADLEY CASE – IS THERE IMPUNITY FOR US BUSINESS?

CNN IBN: Welcome Secretary Blake. This is Indira Kannan from CNN IBN. I have two questions.

The first one is about David Headley. I want to understand if India and the U.S. have any sort of mechanism to verify any information that is being received from David Headley. Is he required to give this information under oath? If so, who is administering that oath?

As you’re aware, an Indian court has delivered a verdict on the Bhopal gas tragedy, and I understand that an earlier request by the Indian government to extradite Warren Anderson, the former Chairman of Union Carbide, was turned down by the U.S. Would the U.S. now be more receptive to any request for extradition of Warren Anderson or other American officials? And would the U.S. also be willing to exert any pressure on Dow Chemical in terms of compensation in the way that you are intending to do in the case of BP for instance?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: On the matter of Bhopal and the announcement that was made today by the Indian courts, that is an internal matter to India. So if you have any questions about that I’d just refer you to the courts themselves about that decision.  The question of extradition: as a matter of policy we never discuss extradition, so I can’t comment on that.

Times of India: Why is there such lack of clarity and candor? And do you realize that it leads to all kinds of suspicions in India? If you look at the kind of feedback that stories on this get, that the U.S. is protecting him, that you’re shielding him, that he’s a double agent, triple agent, and so on. And in fact since India mentioned Warren Anderson, for those of us who covered Bhopal and its aftermath, it actually reminds us of the kind of cooperation or non-cooperation that the U.S. administration offered when the terms were made to get at Mr. Anderson.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Let me just say that there’s been a great deal of transparency and close cooperation between our two governments. For obvious law enforcement reasons there are many things that we can’t share with the press, but again, I think we’ve had very good and close cooperation on this particular issue, and I think our Indian friends would confirm that.

Times of India: If I can follow-up, Ambassador. There are 172 families who lost members of families here, so I really wonder why is it necessary to hide it from the press or keep this from the press?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well it’s because the case is still going on. It’s much better not to comment on these things while such cases are ongoing. So again, there’s cooperation taking place that’s very constructive between our two governments that we can’t necessarily describe to the press.

News X: Ambassador Blake, Anirudh Bhattacharyya. I represent a couple of Indian news organizations, News X and the Sun Times. I have two questions. Unfortunately, the second one is about Headley, but I’ll come to the first one. It’s about Bhopal.

You know, this is a follow-up to a previous question. You’ve been putting pressure on BP in terms of the Gulf oil spill. Will there be pressure put on Dow in terms of reparations with regard to the Bhopal disaster? Is that going to happen from the U.S. side at this point in time?

The second question about Headley is, there have been a lot of reports in the Indian media about how he may not have been cooperating fully with the Indian investigators. My question is indirect. My question is basically, if he doesn’t cooperate fully, doesn’t that invalidate the terms of the plea bargain agreement itself? That says that he needs to cooperate fully with investigators.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Again, I’m not going to comment on Headley. I’m neither a lawyer nor a Department of Justice expert, so anything I say will probably not be well placed.

With respect to Bhopal, obviously that was one of the greatest industrial tragedies and industrial accidents in human history. Let me just say that we hope this verdict today helps bring some closure to the victims and their families. But I don’t expect this verdict to reopen any new inquiries or anything like that. On the contrary we hope this is going to help bring closure.

—-

(e) ON EXPORT CONTROLS:

Washington Trade Daily: Thank you. Jim Berger from Washington Trade Daily.

One item that was high in the Indian agenda for these talks anyway was easing of U.S. export controls as a follow-on to the nuclear agreement and the calls for high technology and so on. But the U.S., the administration is in the midst of reforming its controls as well as Congress. Were there any discussions of how India might be treated in a new export controls regime? Or is it just too early?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Well as you say, there are two separate processes going on here. One is a wider review on the part of the administration of the overall export control regime. I think you’ve heard Secretary Gates and others have made some quite detailed statements about that.

The second is the India-specific review that also is underway and in fact we will probably split off from the wide review. As you all know, we have made a great deal of progress over the last six years or so in reducing the export controls that apply to India. Now less than one-half of one percent of all exports require any sort of a license at all, and most of those are presumed to be approved. So again, there’s been a lot of progress, but there still are some controls and so there’s a reciprocal process underway now to seek the necessary assurances from the Indians about the strengthening of their own export control regime that would enable us to relax our restrictions.

So I anticipate that there is going to be further good progress on this and we had a good exchange during the Strategic Dialogue in which we shared ideas about how we could achieve that good progress. So I expect there will be some positive announcements to be made before the President’s visit, hopefully well before.

.
————–
(f) ON THE INDIA – PAKISTAN – US TRIANGLE AND THE FIGHT ON TERRORISM – AFGHANISTAN:

India Globe and Asia Today: Thank you, Mr. Blake. Raghubir Goyal, India Globe and Asia Today.

Mr. Ambassador, this was a very high level meet between the two countries, largest and oldest democracies, and many call it a big drama in Washington. But what I’m asking you, my question is that there is a triangle — India, Pakistan and the United States. Many people are concerned in India as there is terrorism across the border into India from Pakistan. What they are saying is that until, unless that is solved, they feel that U.S. may be a little soft as far as dealing with the terrorism against India is concerned. People in India live in fear, and people in the United States live under the fear of terrorism.

Where do we go from here? Because this is the most important issue for both countries. And I think around the globe for everybody.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: First of all let me say that the United States will never be soft on terrorism. This is our highest priority and this is the area that we have probably made the greatest progress in terms of our cooperation with India in terms of not only law enforcement cooperation, but also intelligence cooperation.

We take extremely seriously the threats against both of our countries because we believe that there is increasingly a syndicate that is operating in countries like Pakistan that threatens both of our countries. It also threatens Pakistan itself, and that’s a point that I’ve made frequently not only here but during my recent trip to Pakistan.

So we feel it’s in the interest of all three countries to address this very critical problem, to work together. So we have been in the forefront of countries urging Pakistan to not only continue the progress it has been making in Swat and South Waziristan, but also to address the problem in the Punjab, namely the Punjab based groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba that are operating against India, that have also targeted the United States in the Mumbai bombings and elsewhere.

Again, this will remain a very very high priority for us and you should not doubt the sincerity of that statement.

India Globe and Asia Today: May I have one more, Mr. Ambassador?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Sure.

India Globe and Asia Today: As far as the presidential announcement to India is concerned, this will be President Obama’s first official visit to India and he was looking forward even before he was senator. This announcement was taken very seriously and with joy toward India. They are looking forward to welcome him.

VOA Pashto/Urdu: Thank you very much. Iftikhar Hussain for Voice of America Pakistan, Afghanistan, border region service.

First of all the Strategic Dialogue of the United States with India was in broader terms, but India is indispensable partner. Pakistan is a strategic ally. Was there any concern from India in respect to relations with Pakistan in the current situation? Or in some way it is hindering the U.S. efforts in the region? Did it come up during talks with the United States officials?

And secondly, we have been listing in media reports last week about the Shazad, the New York failed plot accused. Did any take on the U.S. [inaudible] was traced back to Pakistani soil? And there is an option if Pakistan in a sense doesn’t cooperate fully on that. So what we are hearing on that front from Pakistan to cooperate with the United States. And I’m not sure if you can tell us on.

On the third question, the jirga, consultative peace jirga three-day, which is held in Kabul, in Afghanistan, and just ended and issued a statement demanding peace and also talks with the Taliban. So how the United States is looking to the developments in the region?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Let me just stick to the topic at hand which is the Strategic Dialogue. Let me say there was a discussion that was chaired by our Under Secretary Burns and Foreign Secretary Rao in which they touched briefly on Pakistan, but again, this is an area that really, as you know, our longstanding position is that this is something that needs to be resolved by India and Pakistan, and the pace and scope and character of that dialogue between your two countries is really up to your two countries to decide.

I said earlier that we’ve taken a strong position on terrorism that is emanating from Pakistan soil. That remains our very strong conviction, that it’s in Pakistan’s own interest to address that and we’ll continue to encourage our Pakistani friends to do that.

But really in terms of the Strategic Dialogue, there was much more time spent on issues like Afghanistan where, again, I think our two countries are working very productively together not only to help with the civilian reconstruction of Afghanistan and to help build the Afghan economy and provide capacity building, but also to discuss the very important reconciliation process that is now beginning.

I think we had a very good conversation in which the Indian side I think had many of their questions answered. Obviously I’ll let them speak for their own concerns, but again, I think it was a good and productive discussion.
VOA Afghanistan: Thank you. This is Ashiqullah, Voice of American Afghanistan Services. Thank you, sir.

My question is particularly about the proxy war that there have been reports of proxy war going on in Afghanistan, between Pakistan and Afghanistan. A couple of places have been attacked in Afghanistan for which Pakistan was accused, and the same thing happened in Pakistan for which India was accused. And we understand that Afghanistan being on the top priority of foreign policy of the United States and the United States has always asked the support of regional countries, of which India is one, and the neighboring countries, Pakistan is one. And this burden cannot be taken by the U.S. alone. It has to be shared by the regional countries and also the international community.

The proxy war of India and Pakistan is undermining U.S. and international efforts in Afghanistan. Was this issue in any way discussed in the Strategic Dialogue between the U.S. and India, or on the sidelines of the Strategic Dialogue? Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I wouldn’t say it was a major focus of what we talked about. Again, we were much more focused on the future of Afghanistan and how the training effort is going and the reconciliation process and the whole process of rebuilding the economy and so forth. But in the past we have talked about it. The United States has expressed its condolences to India for the losses that it suffered in the attacks on the guest house that you mentioned and also the attacks on its own emabassy that have taken place. But we also have reaffirmed our support for the very important work that India has undertaken there and our determination to see if we can find ways to work together more in Afghanistan. Because we do believe that India is playing a constructive role. So that may be a new area of cooperation for us.
(g ) ABOUT NEPAL:

AFP: Shaun Tanden with AFP.

I know this isn’t the topic at hand, but I was wondering if you had any perspectives on developments in Nepal. There was –

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Let me stick to India, but I’d be happy to talk about Nepal another time, or we can have a separate interview about that if you want to.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: Ma’am. And then we’ll go to New York afterwards.

India This Week & Express India: Geeta Goindi with India This Week and Express India.

You just mentioned a lot of reasons, you just praised India a lot. Given its phenomenal progress and it’s the largest democracy with over a billion people. It’s difficult to comprehend why it doesn’t have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. I want to ask you, given that the U.S. is supporting India’s rights and being so vocal about that, shouldn’t it be more vocal about India’s seat on the council?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY BLAKE: I think Under Secretary Burns addressed that question in the very important speech that he gave last Monday, a week ago now, at the Council on Foreign Relations in which he said that India’s expanding global influence will naturally make it an important part of any future consideration of UN Security Council reform. And that’s I think the most forward leaning statement we’ve made so far about this. But it does reflect, again, our growing confidence in India’s positive influence in the world.

But we’ve also made clear that there’s an ongoing process within our government about the whole question of UN Security Council reform and how to expand the council while at the same time maintaining the effectiveness of the council. And that’s really where the debate is now focused within our own government.

——————————

Indian-American community here continues to grow in importance and in size.

So we feel we have these common values and common interests that unlike almost any other country in the world we will really be able to use and benefit to help the peoples of our two countries and also increasingly the peoples of the world. So that’s a quite profound statement that you heard from the Secretary and from the President himself. That’s why I think we have mostly optimism about the future course of our relations. Certainly there are these short term obstacles that we’ve got to overcome, but again, I think there’s great and substantial optimism about the future.

Energy Use in the US & Global Agri-Food Systems: Implications for Sustainable Agriculture.

by Shirin Wertime

June 05, 2010

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/652/1/

Was received from Jan Lundberg of Culture Change <info@culturechange.org>

During the 20th century, access to cheap and abundant sources of energy helped transform the world in countless ways. Extraction of fossil fuels led to a massive expansion in economic growth and agricultural production, and was one of the bases of a six-fold increase in human population. Petroleum, the most sought after fossil fuel, had the largest role in this transformation. Because of its versatility and liquid form, oil is today the world’s primary transportation fuel (Heinberg 1) and leading source of energy (Brown 27).

Less than 200 years ago, however, all of the planet’s food energy was derived from the sun through photosynthesis (Pimentel, Pimentel & Karpenstein-Machan 3) and almost all work was done by human or animal muscle power (Heinberg 2). Practically all of our energy presently comes from non-renewable resources whose stocks are being depleted at an ever-faster rate.

The benefits we derive from oil are so numerous and of such great convenience that we have built our entire way of life around its use.

Now we are entering a period of declining oil supplies and rising prices that threaten not only food security for increasing numbers of people globally, but also many aspects of political and economic stability as well — a new phenomenon for a world that became accustomed to growing supplies of oil and relatively stable prices. Unless we begin quickly to a move away from fossil fuel dependence to a different energy regime and a radical lifestyle and societal change, the transition to a post-petroleum world could be devastating for Americans and people throughout the world. Food, the basis of all life, will be at the forefront of this upheaval.

Agriculture is one of many features of modern life that have been drastically altered by the availability of cheap and abundant oil. The American and most other agri-food systems are almost entirely dependent on fossil fuel energy for everything from food production to transportation to food preparation and storage. The structure of industrialized agriculture under a capitalist system, aided and abetted by government policies, including that of the United States, has spurred the expansion of farm specialization and consolidation, monocultures, the delocalization of agricultural production, and the adoption of industrial farming practices (Altieri 78-9). The technological innovations of the Green Revolution drastically reduced a farmer’s labor input time and greatly increased agricultural yields. Thanks to modern mechanization, the time input necessary to raise a hectare of corn is 110 times less than that required by hand-produced crops (Pimentel 464). Since 1950, the world grain harvest has more than tripled. This growth in productivity resulted from a ten-fold increase in fertilizer use, a near tripling of land irrigation, and the development of high yielding crop varieties (Brown 36-7). Countering the benefits of modern industrialized agriculture is the massive amount of fossil energy needed to power the petroleum-fueled farm machinery and to produce indispensable fertilizers and pesticides. Increases in production notwithstanding, the shift to industrialized agriculture has brought about a host of ecological and social problems in its wake.

The increase in globalized food production, which has come at the expense of local production, is possible only for as long as cheap energy supplies can subsidize the transportation of goods across long distances. The price of food will inevitably climb as oil becomes more and more expensive and drives up the cost of production and transportation. This will disproportionately impact the world’s poor, especially those who depend on food assistance and cheap North American grain. Only by taking steps toward creating a sustainable food system of a radically new kind can we hope to attenuate the looming crisis in agri-food systems in this country and abroad. As Patricia Allen argues, any effort to create a truly sustainable food system must take into account the relationships humans have with each other as well as with their environment, which they have molded and influenced in many significant ways (1). Agricultural dependence on fossil fuels is a man-made problem. It will take not just scientific and ecological solutions but also deep-rooted structural and institutional changes as well as lifestyle changes on the part of individuals, their governments, and societies to transition to a more sustainable, non-petroleum based food system which oil depletion and rising costs will inexorably force on us. Before dealing with the implications of oil depletion and rising costs for the agri-food system and human survival, a closer look at the dominant role oil plays in the agri-food system is in order.

Oil is a finite natural resource whose global rate of production will eventually peak and begin an inevitable decline. According to petroleum geologist Colin Campbell, the peak of oil production is passed when about half of the total resources have been extracted. Richard Heinberg notes that the basic concept of Peak Oil is derived from observations over the past 150 years of all older oil fields which have peaked and then declined in output (12). Indeed, the United States, once the world’s biggest producer of oil, reached its peak of oil extraction in 1970 and has since experienced declining output (Heinberg 12). Today, 90 percent of the United States’ oil deposits have been extracted and the country, once a net exporter of oil, now imports over 65 percent of its oil (Pimentel 459).

Worldwide, the discovery of new oil deposits peaked in the 1960s and since 1981 the amount of oil extracted has surpassed the amount discovered by an increasing margin (Campbell). According to the oil giant ChevronTexaco, 33 of the world’s 48 major oil-producing nations are already experiencing declining production (Heinberg 13). There is uncertainty, however, as to when exactly global oil production will reach its peak. Some experts believe we have already reached Peak Oil while almost all agree that it will occur sometime during the first half of this century.

Although other sources of energy exist, such as nuclear, coal and wind power, none of these can produce liquid fuels. Some have hailed crop-based ethanol as a replacement for petroleum, but the negatives of ethanol production seriously outweigh any potential benefits. In 2007, one-fifth of the United States’ entire grain harvest was transformed into ethanol, but the 8.3 billion gallons of ethanol produced that year could only supply less than 4 percent of the country’s automotive fuel (Brown 39). Moreover, it takes 65 percent more energy to produce 1000 liters of ethanol than the energy that is derived from those 1000 liters. Thus, ethanol production has a negative energy balance (Pimentel et al. 15-6). Diverting a large portion of the U.S. grain harvest to ethanol production has serious ramifications for the world’s poor. Worldwide, grain prices have increased dramatically, with the price of wheat more than doubling in 2007, setting off food riots in countries across the globe that same year (Brown 40). Ethanol production in its current form has no place in sustainable agriculture because it actually presents a net energy loss and because it is pricing food out of reach for the world’s poorest people.

{Pincas Jawetz comment – We have a 30 year old feud with David Pimentel on this particular subject – the energy balances and the place of ethanol in an energy policy – so let us say I disagree with the author and her source of information on above point.}

In 2002, the U.S. food system consumed 17 percent of the country’s total fossil fuel use (Eshel & Martin 2). The availability of seemingly unending fossil fuel resources has led to the highly unsustainable situation whereby “the U.S. food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces in food energy” (Pfeiffer 4). Much of the food system’s heavy dependence on fossil fuels stems from the capitalist structure under which it operates. United States government policies have also encouraged the expansion of large corporate farms and farm specialization by subsidizing over production and the export of goods to international markets. Although large specialized farm owners benefit from economies of scale, they must in turn increase their use of synthetic chemical inputs and petroleum fueled farm machinery, creating a serious dependence on fossil fuels. The use of synthetic fertilizers accounts for 20 percent of energy use on American farms (Brown 34), and annually one billion pounds of pesticides are applied to farms across the nation (Pimentel 463). The dramatic increase in urbanization over the past century, coupled with a move away from mixed farming systems in favor of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has deprived farms of natural sources of fertilizer and resulted in the massive expansion of commercial fertilizer use (Pimentel 464). The capitalist system encourages the food system’s unhealthy reliance on fossil fuels because as long as oil is cheap and plentiful, large profits can be made by ensuring the system remains unsustainable.

Farming itself is the least profitable and least energy intensive segment of the entire economy of agriculture. Of the roughly 2,000 liters of oil required per year to feed each American (Pimentel 459), only one-fifth of that energy is actually used for agriculture, with the rest going toward transport, processing, packaging, marketing, and food preparation and storage (Brown 35). The transformation of farm products into consumer commodities, along with the provision of farm inputs, are the biggest moneymakers in the American food system, and not surprisingly, the sectors dominated by large agrifood corporations. Farmers operating under the capitalist system must sell their products on the open market, which usually means selling to the large transnational corporations that dominate the market. Similarly, there are a handful of large companies that produce the fossil fuel-dependent farm inputs purchased by American farmers. Today, farming only accounts for 10 percent of the total food dollar, while 25 percent pays for farm inputs and 65 percent for transportation, processing and marketing (Lewontin 95). A century ago, the value added by farming was closer to 40 percent of the food dollar and most farm inputs were produced by the farmers themselves by using draft animal power, storing seeds, and using animal manure for fertilizer (Lewontin 95).

The dramatic rise in monocultures and the increasingly globalized scale of agricultural production have essentially destroyed the localized food infrastructure in the United States. For example, in 1870 almost all the apples consumed in Iowa were produced locally, but a little over a century later that number had dropped to 15 percent (Pfeiffer 25). In the United States today, less than five percent of food is locally produced (Pfeiffer 68), and so our food travels an average of 1,500 miles before being consumed (Pimentel 467). The transportation of food from farm gate to dinner plate constitutes 14 percent of the energy used in the entire food system (Brown 35). Transporting a head of lettuce from California to New York City by refrigerated truck requires 4,140 kcal of fuel per head of lettuce, while actually growing the head of lettuce consumes only 750 kcal of fossil energy (Pimentel 467-8).

Given that 90 percent of global transportation is fueled by oil or oil by-products (Heinberg 4), declining oil supplies will most likely impede the transportation of produce internationally, and even across the United States. Fresh produce imports from the Southern Hemisphere will likely be one of the first casualties of rising fuel prices. Ultimately, higher transportation costs will be reflected in the price of goods, placing many of the items we enjoy today out of the reach of a majority of people. On the surface, the United States might appear to be food secure, but a cutoff in transportation would lead to serious local shortages of food and other goods.

Oil production will inevitably decline and eventually come to a halt once all accessible oil deposits have been exploited. As this trend intensifies, industrial agriculture in its current form will become impossible. Already, since 1985, fertilizer production worldwide has declined by 23 percent because of fuel shortages and high prices (Pimentel et al. 12). This downward trend will likely continue as petroleum becomes increasingly expensive. Sadly, much of the world’s soil has been so degraded by the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that without the continued use of these synthetic inputs, the land cannot produce yields large enough to feed the world’s population (Heinberg 5). One study has shown that in the United States, soil is being lost at a rate 10 times faster than it can naturally be replaced (Hough). Fossil fuel fed irrigation is leading to water scarcity as countries overpump their underground aquifers to the point of depletion. Irrigation currently accounts for 70 percent of all water use and 19 percent of farm energy use in the United States (Brown 69). Once groundwater sources are largely depleted, the amount of land available for cultivation will diminish substantially.

Another limiting factor of post-peak agricultural production is population growth. Over the past decade the per capita availability of cropland has declined by 20 percent worldwide (Pimentel 461), and still, 78 million people are added to the planet each year. It will prove increasingly difficult to feed the world with diminishing fertile land and water resources.

Ironically, while 862 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, another approximately 1.6 billion people suffer from excessive caloric intake (Brown 107). In the United States, it is usually the most marginalized among us, the poor and minority groups, who experience obesity and a lack of nutritious food in their diets. The sale of processed food, which makes up 82 to 92 percent of food sales, is entirely subsidized by fossil fuels. By exploiting the availability of cheap energy, the agri-food industry has created a situation in which the most processed, energy intensive food is also the cheapest. The average American consumes a diet of 3,747 kcal a day, which is greatly in excess of the FDA recommended intake of 2,000 to 2,5000 kcal per day (Pimentel 459). By simply reducing their caloric intake and consuming less processed food, Americans could greatly reduce the fossil fuel energy used in food production. Of course, in order to be able to start eating healthier, everyone must have access to nutritious foods, which is not the case in the current agri-food system. Another potential energy savings could come from a transition to diets that are lower in meat and dairy consumption and more seasonally based. Currently, one third of the calories in a typical American diet come from animal sources (Pfeiffer 22). A strictly vegetarian diet of equivalent caloric intake, however, consumes 33 percent less fossil fuel energy (Pimentel 459). These are only a few of the simple lifestyle changes that Americans could adopt to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels.

On small farms across the country, agricultural techniques are being implemented to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Harking back to the days of pre-industrialized agriculture, some people have advocated a return to the use of draft animals as a replacement for fuel powered farm machinery. In a post-petroleum world, animal and human muscle power could very well be the most accessible forms of agricultural labor power. Although one horse can help manage 25 acres of farmland a year, that one horse in turn requires one acre of pastureland and 1.5 acres of hayland for its maintenance (Pimentel 464). Furthermore, the additional land that would be required to grow food for draft animals is currently being cultivated to produce food for humans. This needed cropland for draft animals will come from that presently reserved for humans.

Nevertheless, an increasing number of farmers across the country are choosing to adopt organic farming techniques. In the organic farming system, the need for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides is replaced by the use of crop rotation and leguminous cover crops, which naturally replenishes nutrients back into the soil. The application of compost and manure produced on the farm can replace the need for synthetic fertilizers to a large degree. Moreover, a shift to minimum and no-till agricultural practices on about two fifths of U.S. cropland has helped reduce direct use of petroleum based fuel on American farms by 3.5 billion gallons from 1973 to 2005 (Brown 34).

Although the knowledge needed to transition to localized, sustainable agriculture exists, the current structure of power relations and resource control in the United States prevents the widespread move away from fossil fuel based agriculture. Those in positions of power within the United States government and in agribusiness have no interest in altering a system from which they greatly benefit. Without a change in the status quo, however, small local and sustainable producers will have a difficult time competing against the fossil fuel subsidized overproduction of agribusiness which finds its way into our grocery stores. The adoption of sustainable agriculture can only be truly transformational if we broaden its scope to focus on the relationship between social, economic and ecological factors within the agri-food system. In order to move away from conventional agriculture, it is necessary to understand why it functions the way it does and who are the winners and losers in the equation. Sustainable agriculture is not just about practicing organic farming techniques, but rather it is a way to address the structural inequalities in the current agri-food system and to guarantee that all people have access to nutritious and affordable food. Although this vision of sustainable agriculture might seem Utopian and unrealistic given the current nature of things, it is the only acceptable way to ensure the wellbeing of the planet and its inhabitants.

The fact of the matter is that the present agricultural system cannot be maintained for much longer. Decreasing oil production and rising oil prices will effectively bankrupt the American agri-food system. Without petroleum and all of its benefits, there will be little choice but to revert to a system of local, organic production and consumption. The experience of Cuba with peak oil could possibly serve as a model for a transition to post-peak agricultural production. Cuba, which lost the majority of its oil imports and half of its food imports with the collapse of the USSR, now produces almost all of its food organically (Pfeiffer 56). Urban gardens are an important source of produce, providing over 60 percent of the vegetables consumed by Cubans (Pfeiffer 61). The example of Cuba shows that it is possible to feed an entire nation with organic agriculture, but it also demonstrates the hardships involved in moving away from fossil fuels. In the first few years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, the average Cuban’s daily caloric intake decreased by 36 percent and protein consumption by 40 percent, while undernourishment increased by 15 percent (Pfeiffer 57). It must be noted that Cuban government policies played a critical role in helping to ensure that the collapse of industrialized agriculture did not turn catastrophic. There has also been a change in attitude towards farming amongst the Cuban people. Cubans now see farming as an important and profitable endeavor and many families have migrated to rural areas to become farmers or have started urban gardens (Pfeiffer 60).

Peak oil is a real phenomenon with the potential to turn our entire world upside down. Modern industrialized agriculture is headed for disaster and unless we begin immediately to change our patterns of agricultural production and consumption, many people will suffer. At the individual level, a lifestyle change is needed whereby we start to consume local products, rely less on oil-powered modes of transportation, eat lower on the food chain, have fewer children and reconnect with the land by participating in the growing of our own food. Structurally there ought to be a return to localized, small-scale photosynthesis-based, appropriate-tech agricultural production and an end to the domination of economic and power structures that place profit above all else. Broad based culture change will be a necessary component of any successful transition to a post-petroleum world. We can no longer afford to live isolated from one another and from nature. Of course, the rate of oil depletion is an unknown variable, and as Richard Heinberg observes the time interval before peak oil occurs will likely be too short to painlessly adapt to a new energy regime and way of life (3). However, if the United States, which is the world’s top oil consumer, can drastically reduce its use of oil, we might be able to buy time for the world to transition to a post-petroleum era (Brown 45). Clearly, weaning ourselves off of our addiction to oil will not be easy, but the alternative will be much worse.
Shirin Fatemeh Wertime, a 2010 Boren Scholarship winner, wrote this report for a sociology class at College of William and Mary, course # SOCL 440, on 5/11/10. She is the daughter of John Wertime, whose review of Robert Engelman’s book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want appears on Culture Change.

* * * * *

Bibliography

Allen, Patricia. 1993. Connecting the Social and Ecological in Sustainable Agriculture. In (ed.) P. Allen Food for the Future. New York: John Wiley, 1-16.

Altieri, Miguel A. 2000. Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture and the Possibilities for Truly Sustainable Farming. In (eds.) F.Magdoff, J.B. Foster and F. H. Buttel, Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review, 77-92.

Brown, Lester Russell. Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to save Civilization. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.

Campbell, Colin J. “About Peak Oil.” ASPO International | The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Web. .

Eshel, Gidon, and Pamel Martin. “Diet, Energy and Global Warming.” Earth Interactions (2005): 1-36.

Heinberg, Richard. The Oil Depletion Protocol. New Society, 2006.

Hough, Andrew. “Britain Facing Food Crisis as World’s Soil ‘vanishes in 60 Years’ – Telegraph.” Telegraph.co.uk: News, Business, Sport, the Daily Telegraph Newspaper, Sunday Telegraph – Telegraph. 3 Feb. 2010. Web.

Lewontin, R.C. 2000. The Maturing of Capitalist Agriculture: Farmer as Proletarian. In (eds.) F.Magdoff, J.B. Foster and F. H. Buttel, Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review, 93-106.

Pfeiffer, Dale Allen. Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2006.

Pimentel, David, Marcia Pimentel, and Marianne Karpenstein-Machan. “Energy Use in Agriculture: An Overview.” (1998): 1-32.

Pimentel, David, Sean Williamson, Courtney Alexander, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Caitlin Kontak, and Steven Mulkey. “Reducing Energy Inputs in the US Food System.” Human Ecology 36 (2008): 459-71.