President Obama makes his fourth visit to Mexico and continues on to Costa Rica on what is also his sixth visit to Latin America. On this journey, the President hopes to highlight and reinforce the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America, and to promote economic growth across the region.
On Monday, the President met with Latino leaders who work both domestically and across borders to enhance social and economic development. The President heard various perspectives on how to strengthen collaboration in the region, further develop our economic relationship, and ideas for how the hemisphere can fit into broader strategic priorities. He emphasized that the long term trends in the hemisphere are clearly moving in the right direction, with growing middle classes, declining poverty and inequality in much of the region, and countries such as Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia taking a more active global role.
On Friday at the White House,business representatives offered strong support for measures intended to facilitate global and hemispheric trade, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. They highlighted the growing importance of the energy sector throughout the Americas and the need for infrastructure improvements to facilitate cross-border trade.
The President made clear that immigration reform continues to be a top legislative priority this year; business leaders agreed on the need to enact commonsense immigration reform as quickly as possible. The meeting also underscored that increased trade throughout the region translates into jobs and growth here in America.
On Friday, in Mexico City, President Obama spoke of what he considered a changing country — one making more headlines lately for economic optimism and potential political reforms than the drug cartels and organized crime violence that have claimed about 65,000 lives over the past six years.
The trip came as Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto shifts his new administration’s focus to economic and social matters, instead of fixating on security — which analysts say remains a serious issue in many regions of the country.
President Obama promised to promote immigration reform — an important issue for Mexico, which has more than 10% of its population living in the United States. He also pledged action on guns, many of which flow south from the United States and are used to commit violence in Mexico.
President Obama went so far as to Blame U.S. For Gun Violence In Mexico – “Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States,” President Obama said during a speech at Mexico’s Anthropology Museum. “I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will.”
“But at the same time, as I’ve said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. That can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States. It’s the right thing to do,” Obama added.
Following a 24-hour stay in Mexico President Obama continued to San Jose, Costa Rica. He was received by Tico astronaut Franklin Chang, Foreign Minister Enrique Castillo, and U.S. Ambassador Anne S. Andrew.The official welcome ceremony was held at the Foreign Ministry in downtown San José, where Obama met with President Laura Chinchilla – he, Chinchilla, and members of her Cabinet, held a bilateral meeting with the U.S. delegation. The stop in Costa Rica was the safest stop the US could have chosen in Central America these days.
Now back home, and the above trip must be seen in relation to Washington – Congress and Lobbyists.
We posted already about the US need to find a reasonable solution to the so called illegal immigrants to the US who are target to the various police levels and criminals in the US and Mexico systems. Most of them are also cheap labor because they are undocumented aliens, afraid to complain, and thus they are being exploited by US employers. They are a low paid working force in the US and a means to destroy the organized economy. This must come to an end as part of the reconstruction in US government policy. But this is just the beginning.
The GPS program of Fareed Zakaria on CNN today – Sunday May 5th, 2013, was all about a basic “Reset” of the US.
THE US MUST START DEALING MAINLY WITH ITS INTERNAL POLICIES – REFRAIN FROM FURTHER INVOLVEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND SWITCH ATTENTION TO THE PACIFIC – SOUTH AND EAST ASIA. PART OF THIS CHANGE INCLUDES A CLEAR-CUT SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEMS WITH MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA AS WELL. Mexico is a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well – so here another link to above general “RESET.”
First let us explain the need to step out from the Lebanon-Iraq-Syria morass – the three countries of the Levant with a minority rule of which the Christian Maronite minority in Lebanon and the Sunni minority in Iraq have already been deposed, and only the Alawite minority in Syria was still left hanging on to power. [The Alawite are a Shi'ite subsect that makes up 12% of the population, but it also draws some support from other minorities--Druze, Armenians and others--who worry about their fate in a majoritarian Syria. These fears might be justified. Consider what has happened to the Christians of Iraq. There were as many as 1.4 million of them before the Iraq war. There are now about 500,000, and many of their churches have been destroyed. Christian life in Iraq, which has survived since the days of the Bible, is in real danger of being extinguished by the current regime in Baghdad.] These situations were impossible to defend and the US entered situations of civil war destined to end with the minority loosing power. No sense what-so-ever for the US to allow itself be dragged into the Syrian internal war as well.
[In fact, we have seen atrocities much worse than those in Syria very recently, in Iraq under U.S. occupation only few years ago. From 2003 to 2012, despite there being as many as 180,000 American and allied troops in Iraq, somewhere between 150,000 and 300,000 Iraqi civilians died and about 1.5 million fled the country. Jihadi groups flourished in Iraq, and al-Qaeda had a huge presence there. The U.S. was about as actively engaged in Iraq as is possible, and yet more terrible things happened - AND CONTINUE TO HAPPEN - there than in Syria.]
If the objective is actually to reduce the atrocities and minimize potential instability, the key will be a political settlement that gives each side an assurance that it has a place in the new Syria. That was never achieved in Iraq, which is why, despite U.S. troops and arms and influence, the situation turned into a violent free-for-all. If some kind of political pact can be reached, there’s hope for Syria. If it cannot, U.S. assistance to the rebels or even direct military intervention won’t change much: Syria will follow the pattern of Lebanon and Iraq–a long, bloody civil war. And America will be in the middle of it.
With the Middle East pushed thus to the backburner – Fareed Zakaria’s team on GPS could focus on what is really important and achievable for the US Administration – the fixing of the US Home.
The US must deal with the Financial Sector – this is done by looking at the infrastructure, the education system starting with day-care centers, and the immigration bill as well. Then focus on Asia.
The immigration bill must be presented as a win-win rather then a loosing platform. There are three scenarios for allowing the legalization of these illegal people living in the US underground. Legalizing them will create new tax-payers and new income for the Social Security Taxes. But they will also help bringing aboard their employers who will start paying taxes as well. The growth rate will increase by 1% and the average GDP by $1,500. This alone will give a jolt to the US economy.
Fareed Zakaria had two great teams on his program today – Richard Haas of the Center on Foreign Relations and Princeton University’s Anne Marie Slaughter covering the political side, and then Rana Faroohar of the Economist and Gillian Tett of The Financial Times on the economy.
Then, to top it all a direct interview with Salman Rushdie who has been an immigrant twice – first from India to London then from there to the US. He had the gift of gab to express all of the above and tie it up neatly. The two economists had no problem agreeing among themselves.
So let us summarize the day – The US will be brought back into balance by allowing a settlement of its tens-of-millions illegals and bringing them into the positive circle of tax paying residents with rights to an education, health, and freedom to move up the jobs-ladder.
As we wrote earlier today, in addition the settling of bringing in new professionally needed immigrants as requested by the Silicon Valley CEOs will help bringing back jobs that go now overseas because the skills are not available in sufficient amount in the US.
When people will start earning more, they will be able to afford new housing and eventually new demand will help growth.
Then, again as we recently wrote, with non-fossil energy becoming more competitive, with a little further push, the US will clearly be able to embrace the green economy which again will lead to further savings by avoiding environmental damage and health problems.
OH my! We just described the NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION that starts with a friendlier look South-of-the-Border, arching to the true Orient and landing hard on those who opposed a betterment of the US economy by serving a 1% of the population aided by quite a few more naive followers that could not figure out by themselves that they were being had.
In sync: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (left) and Mongolian Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag hold a joint news conference in Ulan Bator following their meeting Saturday. | KYODO
Abe, Mongolian chiefs to cooperate on resource projects, North Korea
Kyodo,
ULAN BATOR – After meeting with Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj and Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag in Ulan Bator, Abe told a news conference the two sides will accelerate ongoing bilateral negotiations toward inking a free-trade accord. The two sides agreed to hold a third round of trade liberalization talks in the Mongolian capital from Tuesday.
“As Mongolia is rich in natural resources, Japan’s technological cooperation will lead to a win-win scenario for both countries,” Abe, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Mongolia in nearly seven years, said after the talks.
Abe also pushed the participation of Japanese companies in developing one of the largest coal deposits in the world, at the Tavan Tolgoi site in the Gobi Desert, during the talks. Japan hopes to secure cheaper supplies of natural resources abroad while its nuclear power stations remains stalled in view of the Fukushima disaster.
The suspension of atomic power plants will drive up utilities’ fuel costs for the operation of thermal power stations to a sky-high ¥3.2 trillion in fiscal 2012, which ends Sunday, far in excess of levels seen before the 2011 meltdowns crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
As well as its abundance of coal, Mongolia is also known for rich mineral resources such as gold, copper and uranium, while rare metals and rare earths deposits could also possibly be extracted.
Aside from economic issues, Tokyo also considers Mongolia an important ally from a diplomatic and security perspective since it has diplomatic relations with North Korea — unlike Japan, which has no formal ties with the communist country — and borders China to the south and Russia to the north.
On North Korea, Abe said the two countries had agreed to deal with its recent provocations to the international community in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions. Given Ulan Bator’s ties with Pyongyang, Abe was especially eager to secure its support in resolving the long-standing issue of the North’s abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and ’80s, government officials said.
Last November, Ulan Bator hosted the first talks between senior Japanese and North Korean officials since 2008 on the abduction issue.
Meanwhile, Japan, the largest donor to Mongolia, also intends to provide technical assistance to help the country cope with serious air pollution in the capital and assist the building of new transport infrastructure as a way of alleviating heavy traffic in and around it.
Japan was Mongolia’s fourth-largest trading partner last year, when the fast-growing country’s economy jumped 17.3 percent from a year earlier. China, Russia and the United States occupied the top three positions.
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ALSO: Japan-Mexico summit eyed in April Japan and Mexico are arranging to hold a summit for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Enrique Pena Nieto in Tokyo on April 8, when Japan will kick off its diplomatic campaign to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, government sources said.
[MORE] -> www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/31/national/japan-mexico-summit-eyed-in-april/
—————— Last post: Japan’s outdated model is dead; long live the emerging vision As of today, Roger Pulvers takes leave of Counterpoint, for which he has written weekly since its inception on April 3, 2005. In his final three columns, he set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is the concluding part of that trilogy.
[MORE] -> www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/03/31/commentary/last-post-japans-outdated-model-is-dead-long-live-the-emerging-vision/
We always keep wondering how business interests manage to convince themselves that what they feel is good for themselves is as well acceptable to others. One such preposterous US position is the belief that what is good for US business is as well good to the Latin States south of the border.
In effect the US problems with its immediate neighbors – Spanish-Speaking – is just that – you guess – they want a mind of their own.
I know that in effect I am unfair to the author of a new book reacting just to her title of her book – this without having read the book or even seen it.
My defense is that I just saw the title and did not like it – the title suggests just that – Mexico is tied to the US, and any Mexican who is not sold out to the US will tell you that they find it quite unfavorable to be in the proximity of the US – the big magnet that empties their country of content rather then what some North of the Border would love to call a cooperation for the benefit of both countries. After the title we find it hard to believe that the book can pick up the true side of things. {the editor of this website}
AS/COA Programs
AMERICAS SOCIETY/COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS
Has Mexico made it? While grisly tales of narcotics violence and corruption dominate U.S. headlines, the United States’ third largest trade partner has undergone an unprecedented political, economic, and social transformation in the last three decades. This year alone, Mexico’s GDP is expected to grow between 3 to 4 percent, outpacing growth in Brazil, China, and the United States. Still, serious challenges remain, including security and a host of untackled structural reforms.
Please join Shannon K. O’ Neil as she presents her book, Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead. The Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, O’Neil will discuss the overlooked successes of Mexico as well as the challenges of U.S.– Mexico relations including immigration, economic integration, and drugs.
Speaker:
Shannon K. O’ Neil
Author of Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead (April 2013) and the Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Discussant*:
Gray Newman
Managing Director, Chief Latin America Economist, Morgan Stanley
Moderator:
Christopher Sabatini
Senior Director of Policy, Americas Society/Council of the Americas and Editor-in-Chief, Americas Quarterly
*Additional Discussant to be confirmed.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Registration: 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Presentation: 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Book Signing and Reception: 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
WHERE: AS/COA 680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Book Launch: Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead by Shannon K. O’Neil
Press conference: Arms Trade Treaty with Control Arms coalition MONDAY 25 March, 2013.
Media Control Arms <media@controlarms.org>
March 24, 2013, 6:14 PM (8 minutes ago)
to undisclosed recipients
Media alert
Final Diplomatic Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty – Control Arms Coalition’s Reaction to the latest text
Monday March 25, 2013:
Press conference on the Arms Trade Treaty. Midway through the diplomatic conference, the Control Arms Coalition gives a critical analysis of the latest draft of the text, which was published on Friday March 22.
Where: UN Building – Dag Hammarskjöld Library @ 11:00 am to 12:00 pm
Who: Sponsored by the Government of Mexico
Chair: Allison Pytlak, Campaign Manager – Control Arms
Participants:
Anna MacDonald, Head of Arms Control – Oxfam
Jonathan Frerichs, Programme Executive – World Council of Churches (Geneva)
Roy Isbister, Head of Arms Transfer Controls – Saferworld
TPP foe: A protester holds a sign reading ‘We oppose Japan’s participation in the TPP talks’ during a Thursday rally in Tokyo against the Trans-Pacific Partnership accord. | AP
After taking time to lay the groundwork amid pressure from lobby groups and lawmakers from rural constituencies, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally announced Friday that Japan will join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks.
Abe’s government also unveiled its estimate of the possible economic impacts of joining the trade initiative, showing Japan’s participation would drive up its gross domestic product by 0.66 percent, or around ¥3.2 trillion, but that production in the farm, fishery and forestry sectors could decrease by ¥3 trillion annually if all tariffs are abolished unconditionally.
“The TPP is turning the Pacific Ocean into an inland sea and a huge economic zone,” Abe told reporters at his office.
As 11 member countries have already spent the last three years deciding rules to free up trade, services and investment in the Pacific Rim, Japan needs to actively engage in the talks to make them as advantageous as possible for the country, Abe said.
“This is the last chance. If we miss this opportunity, it would immediately mean that we would be left out of setting global regulations” on free trade, he said. “If Japan becomes only inward-looking, there will no longer be a chance of economic growth.”
At the same time, Abe admitted that “it will be difficult to overturn rules already set” by the 11 TPP member countries in past rounds of talks. But he also stressed that he will defend the nation’s interests throughout the discussions, which are scheduled to end by December, in particular by mitigating the negative impact on the domestic agriculture and fisheries industries.
He declined to answer whether Japan would withdraw from the discussions if it fails to persuade the other TPP members to allow existing tariffs on rice, pork, beef, wheat, dairy products and sugar to continue, as demanded earlier by Abe’s own Liberal Democratic Party.
“We will negotiate based on the national interests. Commenting on whether to withdraw (from the TPP) at this point won’t serve that purpose,” he said.
Still, Abe’s LDP administration faces an uphill battle with time running out for Japan to negotiate any exemptions — especially in the key areas of rice, sugar and dairy products — with the other 11 TPP member states, making it more difficult for Tokyo to exert much leverage and ensure the minimum damage to the domestic agriculture industry.
The founding members of the TPP talks have been hammering out a framework for the regional accord since 2010, and their number has swelled to 11 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand and Peru.
With little information available to nonmember nations, many are worried that Japan is taking its place at the table far too late if it hopes to amend agreements already settled by the current TPP participants.
“If (Japan) wants to take part in the talks, it needs to obey our ‘dress code,’ which has been already decided,” an official of one of the 11 countries reportedly said.
Led by the United States, the TTP members finished the 16th round of talks covering 21 trade and service areas Thursday in Singapore, and aim to reach a final agreement by the end of the year.
Japan’s participation requires the prior approval of every other TPP member, a process that is expected to take until mid-June to complete. That means the earliest opportunity for Japan to enter the fray could be a round of talks eyed for July, giving Abe’s government less than six months to negotiate any tariff exemptions before the final accord is inked.
But failing to join the regional trade zone would still be too big a risk for Japan to run, according to Abe and many experts.
The combined gross domestic product of the 11 TPP countries comes to around $21 trillion (around ¥2 quadrillion) and if Japan’s nearly $6 trillion (roughly ¥575 trillion) GDP is included, the bloc would account for 40 percent of total global economic output.
Yorizumi Watanabe, a former trade negotiator at the Foreign Ministry who is now a professor at Keio University, said Japan’s accession to the TPP is critical because it is likely to become a key platform for Asia-Pacific countries in setting rules for cross-border trade and services.
The Doha Round of tariff elimination talks at the World Trade Organization has remained stalled for years, he said, making it even more likely the TPP framework will serve as a template for future free-trade accords.
And with China and a number of other key economies showing interest in joining the TPP, Japan’s presence will be essential not only for its firms that are trying to tap overseas markets but also for those seeking to build production bases abroad, Watanabe said, adding, “It’s a big opportunity. Japan has wasted the past three years (by not joining the TPP talks).”
That said, the damage to Japan’s agricultural sector is likely to be equally substantial.
Prompted by farm lobbies, the LDP on Thursday adopted a resolution demanding Abe’s government prioritize the exclusion of rice, wheat, beef, pork and sugar from tariff exemptions in the TPP discussions.
Farmers argue that maintaining the current level of output is vital to ensure the nation can produce the minimum food supply that would be necessary in times of severe emergencies, such as wars or global food shortages.
Opening up rice and other sectors to foreign imports would devastate rural economies and communities, but Japan’s agricultural industry already seems to be dying a slow death despite the current protections against foreign products.
According to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, the average age of the nation’s 2.6 million farmers stood at 65.9 as of 2011, and most of them lacked successors. The farm industry, meanwhile, accounted for just 1 percent of Japan’s GDP that year.
“Rice consumption came to 12 million tons in 1994, but it has shrunk to 8 million tons at present,” said Kazuhito Yamashita, a former farm ministry official who now serves as research director of the Canon Institute for Global Studies. “(Agricultural) production will further shrink because of the aging society and decreasing population numbers.
“Japan will no longer be able to maintain its farm industry (at its current level). Everybody is aware of that.”
Yamashita also argued that Japan, if necessary, could still protect its farmers by providing them with direct payments if tariffs against foreign produce are scrapped. A similar policy has been adopted by many other major industrialized countries and is widely considered acceptable in a free-trade agreement like the TPP, he said.
To survive, some domestic farmers will need to begin exporting high-quality produce overseas, Yamashita argued, adding that in that sense, Japan’s participation in the TPP is essential.
Kyodo Graphic – How Participation in TPP may impact Japan – just click on to see it.
Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesAugustine Calicho, 45, separating the seeds from dried coca leaves in Villa Tunari in the Chapare region of Bolivia. More Photos »
Published in The New York Times: December 26, 2012
TODOS SANTOS, Bolivia — There is nothing clandestine about Julián Rojas’s coca plot, which is tucked deep within acres of banana groves. It has been mapped with satellite imagery, cataloged in a government database, cross-referenced with his personal information and checked and rechecked by the local coca growers’ union. The same goes for the plots worked by Mr. Rojas’s neighbors and thousands of other farmers in this torrid region east of the Andes who are licensed by the Bolivian government to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine.
President Evo Morales, who first came to prominence as a leader of coca growers, kicked out the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2009. That ouster, together with events like the arrest last year of the former head of the Bolivian anti-narcotics police on trafficking charges, led Washington to conclude that Bolivia was not meeting its global obligations to fight narcotics.
But despite the rift with the United States, Bolivia, the world’s third-largest cocaine producer, has advanced its own unorthodox approach toward controlling the growing of coca, which veers markedly from the wider war on drugs and includes high-tech monitoring of thousands of legal coca patches intended to produce coca leaf for traditional uses.
To the surprise of many, this experiment has now led to a significant drop in coca plantings in Mr. Morales’s Bolivia, an accomplishment that has largely occurred without the murders and other violence that have become the bloody byproduct of American-led measures to control trafficking in Colombia, Mexico and other parts of the region.
Yet there are also worrisome signs that such gains are being undercut as traffickers use more efficient methods to produce cocaine and outmaneuver Bolivian law enforcement to keep drugs flowing out of the country.
In one key sign of progress in Bolivia’s approach toward coca, the total acres planted with coca dropped 12 to 13 percent last year, according to separate reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. At the same time, the Bolivian government stepped up efforts to rip out unauthorized coca plantings and reported an increase in seizures of cocaine and cocaine base.
“It’s fascinating to look at a country that kicked out the United States ambassador and the D.E.A., and the expectation on the part of the United States is that drug war efforts would fall apart,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group. Instead, she said, Bolivia’s approach is “showing results.”
Still, there is skepticism. “Our perspective is they’ve made real advances, and they’re a long way from where we’d like to see them,” said Larry Memmott, chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy in La Paz. “In terms of law enforcement, a lot remains to be done.”
Although Bolivia outlaws cocaine, it permits the growing of coca for traditional uses. Bolivians chew coca leaf as a mild stimulant and use it as a medicine, as a tea and, particularly among the majority indigenous population, in religious rituals.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Rojas placed a few dried leaves into his mouth and watched the sun set over his coca field, slightly less than two-fifths of an acre, the maximum allowed per farmer here in this region, known as the Chapare.
“This is a way to keep it under control,” he said, spitting a stream of green juice. “Everyone should have the same amount.”
Mr. Rojas is a face of a changing region. He makes far more money growing bananas for export on about 74 acres than he does growing coca. But he has no intention of giving up his tiny coca plot. “What happens if a disease attacks the bananas?” he asked. “Then we still have the coca to save us.”
The Bolivian government has persuaded growers that by limiting the amount of plantings, coca prices will remain high. And it has largely focused eradication efforts, of the kind that once spurred strong popular resistance, outside the areas controlled by growers’ unions, like in national parks.
The registration of thousands of Chapare growers, completed this year, is part of an enforcement system that relies on growers to police one another. If registered growers are found to have plantings above the maximum allowed, soldiers are called in to remove the excess. If growers violate the limit a second time, their entire crop is cut down and they lose the right to grow coca.
Growers’ unions can also be punished if there are multiple violations among their members.
“We have to be constantly vigilant,” said Nelson Sejas, a Chapare grower who was part of a team that checked coca plots to make sure they did not exceed the limit.
But there is still plenty of cheating. Officials say they are going over the registry of about 43,000 Chapare growers to find those who may have multiple plots or who may violate other rules.
“The results speak for themselves,” said Carlos Romero, the minister of government. “We have demonstrated that you can objectively do eradication work without violating human rights, without polemicizing the topic and with clear results.”
Meri Pintas, 30, center, harvesting coca leaves with her children in the Yungas region of Bolivia. Thousands of legal coca patches are intended to produce coca leaf for traditional uses. More Photos »
A counternarcotics agent explained the eradication process to coca growers whose patch was two rows over the legal limit.More Photos »
He said that the government was on pace to eradicate more acres of coca this year than it did last year, without the violence of years past. A government report said 60 people were killed and more than 700 were wounded in the Chapare from 1998 to 2002 in violence related to eradication.
But even as Bolivia shows progress, grave concerns remain.
The White House drug office estimated that despite the decrease in total coca acreage last year, the amount of cocaine that could potentially be produced from the coca grown in Bolivia jumped by more than a quarter. That is because a large amount of recent plantings began to mature and reach higher yields; new plantings with higher yields replaced older, less productive fields; and traffickers switched to more efficient processing methods.
Yet the glaring paradox of Bolivia’s monitoring program is that vast amounts of the legally grown coca ultimately wind up in the hands of drug traffickers and are converted into cocaine and other drugs. Most of those drugs go to Brazil, considered the world’s second-largest cocaine market. Virtually no Bolivian cocaine ends up in the United States.
César Guedes, the representative in Bolivia of the United Nations drugs office, said that roughly half of the country’s coca acreage produces coca that goes to the drug trade. By some estimates, more than 90 percent of the coca in Chapare, one of two main producing regions, goes to drugs.
Two Chapare farmers explained that they generally sell one 50-pound bag of coca leaf from each harvest to the government-regulated market. The rest, often 200 pounds or more, is sold to buyers who work with traffickers and pay a premium over the government-authorized price. One of the growers said he recently delivered coca leaf directly to a lab where it would be turned into drugs.
The central question is how much coca is needed to supply traditional needs. Current government policy permits about 50,000 acres of legal coca plantings, although the actual area in cultivation is much higher. The United Nations estimated there were 67,000 acres of coca last year.
Whatever the exact figure, most analysts agree that far more is produced than is needed to supply the traditional market.
The European Union financed a study several years ago to estimate how much coca was needed for traditional uses, but the Bolivian government has refused to release it, saying that more research is needed.
The push to reduce coca acreage comes as the Morales government is lobbying other countries to amend a United Nations convention on narcotics to recognize the legality of traditional uses of coca leaf in Bolivia. A decision is expected in January.
On a recent morning just after dawn, a squad of uniformed soldiers used machetes to cut down a plot of coca plants near the town of Ivirgarzama.
They had come to chop down an old coca patch that had passed its prime and measure a replacement plot planted by the farmer. The soldiers determined that the new plot was slightly over the limit and removed about two rows of plants before going on their way.
“Before, there was more tension, more conflict, more people injured,” Lt. Col. Willy Pozo said. “This is no longer a war.”
Climate change was predicted to arrive tomorrow but it is happening today. For this reason, the moment for climate justice has arrived.
Edward Cameron, World Resources Institute and Tara Shine, Mary Robinson Foundation.
SOUTHNEWS
No. 20, 10 December 2012
SOUTHNEWS is a service of the South Centre to provide information and news on topical issues from a South perspective.
Visit the South Centre’s website: www.southcentre.org.
Green thinking takes root in midst of desert in Doha climate talks
Are oil-rich Gulf states, once a byword for waste and excess, really now leading the world on sustainable development?
The signing of a partnership between the Qatar Foundation and the Postdam Institute for a new climate change research institute in Qatar. (Photograph: IISD)
One of the great surprises for the 15,000 negotiators and others here in Doha for the climate talks is not the breakneck speed of development in the gas-rich emirate, or the displays of wealth and the giant construction projects, but the possible dawn of reality.
Until recently, the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states were the epicentre of unsustainable global development, a byword for waste, excess and ecological irresponsibility. Their huge consumption of natural resources and flouting of nature on the back of oil and gas production shocked even hard-nosed observers of global oil wealth.
Well, we may have to change our views. From my hotel window, I can see 14 monster buildings being built, each to a much higher energy standard than the law demands in the US or most of Europe. Down the road is a new $70m (£43m) test-bed for carbon capture, the beginnings of a 200 megawatt solar power station, a $1bn photovoltaic manufacturing plant, new waste treatment plants, a pilot project to grow food in the desert with saltwater, and a fledgling construction industry with waste plastic.
Green baubles for the super-rich perhaps, but there is evidence that a real change of thinking is taking place. Schools, local authorities and mosques are now teaching about water and energy saving, and Gulf state governments are committing themselves to deeper cuts in emissions than the US or much of Europe.
Britain hopes to generate 20% of its electricity with renewables by 2030. But the Qataris will do that by 2020. Britain, with a population of more than 60 million, built about 100,000 new homes last year. Qatar, with 1.4 million people, will build a whole city to the highest green specifications for 200,000 people in not much more time.
And it’s not just Qatar. Other Gulf states are racing each other to rethink their development paths. The renewable energy world is moving to Abu Dhabi. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invested billions of dollars in projects there, as well as in Europe and north Africa. Even Dubai, which has indulged in a 20-year construction frenzy, is aiming at 7% renewables in 12 years – similar to Belgium. Even more remarkably, Saudi Arabia, fearful of its own escalating domestic electricity needs, will meet one-third of its electricity demand from solar by 2032.
None of this would have been conceivable even a few years ago. So what has changed? One senior adviser to the Qatari government put it like this: “There is a new direction. The GCC countries all move together like a herd. A desperate search is going on to find new ways of doing things. They need to find the answer for when the oil and gas is not there. They have seen the future and now they have fire in their arse.
“But they also know that the Arab spring countries all neglected people during development. They are learning. Education, health and welfare were all neglected. Environment has risen up the agenda. In the past, it was of no interest. Now it is a global necessity. Money is not the problem.”
The thirst for what Qatar, Abu Dhabi and other oil-rich states call a new “knowledge economy” would partly explain why Qatar on Wednesday committed to set up a global climate change centre in Doha with the German Potsdam Institute. It will employ around 200 researchers and sit beside a dozen other prestigious US, British and other academic centres, including Imperial College, which is now at Doha.
The founder of the institute, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, spelled out what was at stake: “Qatar is the only true desert state in the world with no surface water and 500km of flat coastline, where temperatures are already 45C in summer. With sea level rise expected to be up to 90cm by 2100 in the Gulf region and temperatures expected to rise [by] 5-8C, this place will be unlivable [if climate change is not brought under control].”
The Gulf states’ change of direction, he suggested, is being undertaken not out of any desire to be green but sheer pragmatism. What happens here could shape all our futures, says the adviser. “The next stage of modern civilization can be blueprinted here. Qatar can be a role model for the region and the whole planet.”
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Last-minute scramble for climate deal at UN talks
Negotiations continued through the night Thursday at United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar, with envoys trying to mesh procedure with political will. A key proposal is the annual delivery of $100 billion in aid by 2020 to pay for projects to cope with the effects of global warming. The lead negotiator from the Philippines, Naderev Saño, broke down in tears in the hall, saying, “I appeal to the whole world, I appeal to leaders from all over the world, to open our eyes to the stark reality that we face. … It cannot be a way of life that we end up running always from storms.”
Above tells us that the location and hosts had no effect on the negotiators that still attempted a North-South wrangle. A waste of time so far as we are concerned.
spills out for us to see the best diplomatic slippery beans:
8 December 2012: The UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar, took place from 26 November-8 December 2012, focused on ensuring the implementation of agreements reached at previous conferences. Following two weeks of negotiations, delegates adopted the package of “Doha Climate Gateway” decisions on the evening of Saturday, 8 December. The outcome includes amendments to the Kyoto Protocol to establish its second commitment period.The Doha Climate Change Conference included: the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8); the 37th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 37) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 37); the second part of the 17th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 17); the second part of the 15th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC (AWG-LCA 15); and the second part of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 1).
The DOHA conference drew approximately 9,000 participants, including 4, 356 government officials, 3, 956 representatives of UN bodies and agencies, intergovernmental organizations and civil society organizations, and 683 members of the media. {much lower figures then the above upbeat report}
Having been launched at CMP 1, the AWG-KP terminated its work in Doha. The parties also agreed to terminate the AWG-LCA and negotiations under the Bali Action Plan. Key elements of the outcome also included agreement to consider loss and damage, “such as” an institutional mechanism to address loss and damage in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Other outcomes of the Conference include the adoption of: a decision on gender and climate change; and the Doha Work Programme on Convention Article 6 (education and awareness raising).
While developing countries and observers expressed disappointment with the lack of ambition in outcomes on Annex I countries’ mitigation and finance, most agreed that the conference had paved the way for a new phase, focusing on the implementation of the outcomes from negotiations under the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA, and advancing negotiations under the ADP.
FOLLOWED BY THE UNUSUAL SHORT AND VERY MISLEADING UNSG BAN KI-MOON PRESS RELEASE THAT IN A FEW LINES DECLARES THE SECRETARIAT”S BANKRUPTCY IN ALL MATTERS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
10 December 2012
THE UNITED NATIONS
Secretary-GeneralSG/SM/14708
ENV/DEV/1333
Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York
Secretary-General Welcomes Doha Climate Change Conference Outcome, But Stresses Need for Accelerated Action to Limit Rise in Global Temperature.
SO WE ASK – WHAT DID THE MEETING ACTUALLY ACHIEVE? DIPLOMACY ASIDE _ WHO PAID AND WHO GAINED FROM THIS MIGRATION OF CLOSE TO 10,000 PEOPLE TO THE ISLAND OF QATAR, IN A CORNER OF THE SAUDI PENINSULA OF THE GREAT ARAB DESERT?
The following statement was issued on 8 December by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
The Secretary-General welcomes the outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference that concluded today in Doha, and he congratulates Qatar for a job well done in hosting the Conference.
Doha successfully concluded the previous round of climate negotiations, paving the way to a comprehensive, legally binding agreement by 2015.
The Secretary-General believes that far more needs to be done and he calls on Governments, along with businesses, civil society and citizens, to accelerate action on the ground so that the global temperature rise can be limited to 2° C.
He said he will increase his personal involvement in efforts to raise ambition, scale-up climate financing and engage world leaders as we now move towards the global agreement in 2015. * *** *
Will the UN Secretary General show now rhe decency to cancel the 2013 – 2014 meetings and advise the Member States to act in quiet diplomacy in preparations for a 2015 outcome?
Meeting before 2015 like the Cancun, Durban and Doha meetings – the last three yearly meetings that came after the Copenhagen COP 15 of the UNFCCC of 2009 – were nothing more then large exercises in migration that enhanced income from tourism in the host countries. Our own website has stopped listing the meetings after the Copenhagen meeting and we preferred to call them Copenhagen +1, Copenhagen +2, And now for Doha we reserved Copenhagen +3. That was because the last real step in the UNFCCC evolution happened on the way to Copenhagen when President Obama went first to Beijing and managed for the first time to get China to declare that they are indeed part of these negotiations. China then brought in India, Brazil, South Africa as well.
We are afraid that if nothing is done before the 2013 Warsaw meeting that meeting will be a waste as well. What has to happen is that the Obama II Administration steps forward with direct proposals to the other major emitters – specifically – China, India and Brazil – with or without South Africa – and seals direct agreements with them that can then become the base for multilateral negotiations. Indeed, there is no reason why one must have all nations on board.
In the past it was mainly the oil States of the Middle East that were the hindrance to an agreement – this even before one could tackle the large emerging emitters and the United States. Perhaps the Doha meeting provided the needed Climate Change education to the oil States, and thus a strong decision of President Obama and rolling over the climate deniers of the Republican oil-Lobby, could return the issue to multilateral diplomacy.
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Kyoto Protocol extended in climate compromise.
Is the title of the UN Foundation’s UN WIRE of December 10, 2012.
Delegates at the United Nations climate talks that ended Saturday in Doha, Qatar, agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol through 2020 and create a road map by 2015 to replace the pact. The world’s governments remained divided over who should pay the costs for helping the most vulnerable countries cope with the effects of climate change through 2020, when industrial nations are slated to contribute $100 billion annually from public and private sources. Reuters (12/9), The New York Times (12/8), IRINNews.org (12/9)
THE REUTERS REPORTS FROM DOHA ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Despair after climate conference, but UN still offers hope
DOHA, Dec 9 (Reuters) – At the end of another lavishly-funded U.N. conference that yielded no progress on curbing greenhouse emissions, many of those most concerned about climate change are close to despair.
As thousands of delegates checked out of their air-conditioned hotel rooms in Doha to board their jets for home, some asked whether the U.N. system even made matters worse by providing cover for leaders to take no meaningful action.
Supporters say the U.N. process is still the only framework for global action. The United Nations also plays an essential role as the “central bank” for carbon trading schemes, such as the one set up by the European Union.
But unless rich and poor countries can inject urgency into their negotiations, they are heading for a diplomatic fiasco in 2015 – their next deadline for a new global deal.
“Much much more is needed if we are to save this process from being simply a process for the sake of process, a process that simply provides for talk and no action, a process that locks in the death of our nations, our people, and our children,” said Kieren Keke, foreign minister of Nauru, who fears his Pacific island state could become uninhabitable.
The conference held in Qatar – the country that produces the largest per-capita volume of greenhouse gases in the world – agreed to extend the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol, which would have run out within weeks.
But Canada, Russia and Japan – where the protocol was signed 15 years ago – all abandoned the agreement. The United States never ratified it in the first place, and it excludes developing countries where emissions are growing most quickly.
Delegates flew home from Doha without securing a single new pledge to cut pollution from a major emitter.
So far, U.N. climate talks have missed just about every deadline. The rich nations of the world promised two decades ago to halt their rise in greenhouse gases. They failed. Next, they promised a sequel to Kyoto by 2009. They failed again.
Now they have a 2015 deadline to get a new global, binding deal in place, to enter into force after the extension of Kyoto expires in 2020. For the first time, it would apply to rich and poor countries alike. But with the world’s nations divided over who must pay the cost, the task of reaching accord seems beyond the capabilities of the vast corps of international delegates.
Meanwhile, the world’s weather is only getting more unstable. As the Doha talks dragged on, Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines left nearly 1,000 people dead or missing.
Hurricane Sandy last month was a reminder that even rich countries are not safe from extreme weather, which scientists say will become ever more common as the world heats up.
PROGRESS AT GROUND LEVEL
A series of reports released during the Doha talks said the world faced the prospect of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2F) of warming, rather than the 2 degree (3.6F) limit that nations adopted in 2010 as a maximum to avoid dangerous changes.
// BUT UN SERETARY GENERAL BAN KI_MOON STILL DREAMS AT A 2degrees LIMIT?!//
According to the World Bank, that would mean food and water shortages, habitats wiped out, coastal communities wrecked by rising seas, deserts spreading, and droughts both more frequent and severe. Most impact would be borne by the world’s poorest.
“The alarm bells are going off all over the place,” Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said. “We are in a crisis and treating it like a process where we can dither away for ever.”
Action at ground level has had a positive impact, even as the U.N. dithers. Investment in carbon-free renewable energy hit a record $260 billion in 2011.
In the United States, the discovery of techniques to produce natural gas from shale has cut the cost of gas, which has reduced emissions from the world’s biggest polluter by replacing coal, a bigger carbon emitter, for power generation.
But although U.S. emissions – nearly a quarter of the world’s total – have fallen, for the world as a whole this year they are expected to rise by 2.6 percent, up by 58 percent since 1990. Emerging economies led by China and India account for most of the growth.
Although frustrated by days and nights of haggling, ministers still back the United Nations as part of the solution.
“It’s clear to me that this process is the only global framework we have and since this is a global problem, it has to be addressed globally,” Denmark’s Energy Minister Martin Lidegaard told Reuters.
“But obviously, this can’t stand alone. Nations can’t continue to hide behind the process. There’s a direct link between what we deliver at home and here. We desperately need to combine action by regions, municipalities, citizens with this global approach. That is becoming more and more evident.”
Negotiators say ultimately politicians – distracted by other events – need to become engaged.
“It (the environment) is no longer on the front page with the political and financial crisis. That is the reason why heads of state have to turn to this,” the European Union’s chief negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger said.
CONVERTS
The conference is an easy target for cynics – not least because it was held in Qatar, a desert kingdom that exports carbon-producing fossil fuel and uses the proceeds to fund a lavish lifestyle for many of its 2.5 million people.
A country that burns fuel to desalinate water and build golf courses in the desert seems like an odd place to talk about curtailing consumption. But supporters say bringing producers like Qatar into the consensus for change is a step forward.
Business leaders are also getting involved.
“A lot of CEOs from the region have turned up. A lot of them are talking about sustainability and resource efficiency. That’s no longer a dirty word,” said Russel Mills, global director for energy and climate policy at Dow Chemical Co.
Dow, like many other big industrial firms, keeps a close eye on U.N. carbon policy because of the United Nations’ role as “a kind of central bank” for pollution allowances.
The most developed carbon trading scheme is the European Union’s, which has lurched from crisis to crisis. The value of EU Emissions Trading Scheme permits sank to a record low this month under the burden of surplus allowances during a recession.
But other jurisdictions such as Australia, California, South Korea and even China believe they can learn from Europe’s mistakes and are developing their own emissions trading. Such schemes could be the planet’s best hope of survival, and the United Nations is likely to play a role.
“Economy-wide carbon pricing, whether carbon taxes or cap and trade, is the only approach that can conceivably achieve the targets scientists advocate,” Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard in the United States, said.
“Also, it will be most the cost-effective and therefore in the long run the most politically-viable approach.”
Still, even with the best of intentions, U.N. diplomats are unlikely ever to deliver change at the pace scientists seek.
“Science is demanding immediate and drastic action,” Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. “Policy, economics and financing cannot move in drastic fashion.”
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and the IRIN NEWS Report:
IRIN – standing for Integrated Regional Information Networks – has its head office in Nairobi, Kenya, with regional desks in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Dakar, Dubai and Bangkok, covering some 70 countries. The bureaus are supported by a network of local correspondents, an increasing rarity in mainstream newsgathering today.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Snapshot of wins and losses at the Doha talks.
Talks in Doha at the futuristic Qatar National Convention Centre dragged on overtime
JOHANNESBURG, 9 December 2012 (IRIN) – Like last year’s UN climate change talks, this year’s conference in Doha culminated in an all-night session to hammer out a deal on preventing further global warming and protecting people from the effects of climate change. While some promising compromises were made, the absence of a strong commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions and help vulnerable populations adapt to climate change was evident in the conference’s 39 decisions.
IRIN provides a snapshot of the three overarching themes of the decisions that came out of the 18th session of the Conference of Parties (COP18) to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and what these decisions mean for humanitarian actors.
Loss and damage
Tweeting out of the conference, one of Argentina’s negotiators said the decisions don’t feel “ground-breaking” but are “more likely saving face”. “What we got for it, only loss and damage and nothing else”, he said.
[The] decisions don’t feel ground-breaking but are more likely saving face. What we got for it, only loss and damage and nothing else
Poor countries, including small island states and the least developed countries, were looking for a decision to create an international mechanism to address losses and damages caused by climate change. The mechanism would open the door to possible compensation from affluent countries for poor countries facing the mounting costs of extreme climate events. It would consider both their economic and non-economic losses, and possibly explore technological interventions.
In the end, they had to settle for the possibility of this happening in the COP19 talks taking place in Poland next year. Still, the fact that the possibility of such a mechanism was mentioned in the decision at all was considered a breakthrough.
Additionally, a work programme collecting data on loss and damage caused by slow-onset disasters – such as droughts – received an extension. The programme will also consider climate change’s impact on migration patterns and displacement, as well as efforts to reduce risk.
The decisions on loss and damage echoes much of a framework proposed by a group of NGOs earlier in the conference, which had recommended focusing on the international mechanism, the work programme, and consideration of non-economic losses. But ultimately, the decisions are subject to money being made available for development of the work programme.
What it means: With the extension of the work programme, more information on possible policy approaches will be forthcoming. This will help humanitarian organizations better scale-up responses to extreme climate events, which are increasing in frequency and intensity.
But NGOs and the civil society will likely have to wait a long time for affluent countries to make firm commitments on funding, risk transfer mechanisms such as insurance, and technology to help poor countries improve their resilience to climate change. Given that money to help vulnerable populations adapt has been ad hoc and insufficient, there is little optimism for funds being made available for compensation.
Adaptation finance
In 2009, developed countries promised to provide US$30 billion by 2012 to help poor countries adapt to climate change. They also promised to provide $100 billion a year from 2020 onwards.
Developed countries reported in Doha that they had reached the $30 billion target, but this was disputed by academics and civil society.
“It is very difficult to know where that finance went and how,” said scientist Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development. “We need to come up with procedures for monitoring, reporting and verification of these finance figures. We need to agree on some format so that money can be tracked effectively. It hasn’t been tracked previously.”
The developed countries further indicated that, with the global recession, they are unable to make firm commitments to finance poor nations’ efforts to adapt. Instead, a decision was made to set up a work programme in 2013 to help developed countries identify ways to raise this money.
What it means: No global funding pledge has been for the interim period between 2013 and 2020. Individual pledges by five European countries – including the UK, France and Germany – have been made, but cumulatively, these fall far short of the $60 billion that developing countries had requested for the interim.
It is also not clear if the five pledges are specifically for climate change adaptation or if they are part of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) that developed countries provide to the developing world. The UNFCC requires that developed countries provide money for climate change adaptation that is additional to their ODA.
Emission cuts
The good news to emerge from the talks is that the Kyoto Protocol – a global agreement to cut emissions that was set to expire in 2012 – has been extended to 2020.
They also agreed that a roadmap to create a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol should be ready in 2015.
But meanwhile, there are no firm commitments to take on deeper emissions cuts. And with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and the US opting out of the Kyoto Protocol, the protocol applies to only 15 percent of current global greenhouse gas emissions.
What it means: Scientific organization, including the UN Environment Programme have warned that failing to further cut emissions could increase global temperatures by over four degrees Celius by the turn of the century. The internationally embraced goal is to limit this warming to two degrees Celsius, but the International Energy Agency has shown that achieving this goal grows more difficult and expensive with every passing year. This means poor countries and aid agencies will have to contend with the possibility of more frequent and intense climatic events and the mounting costs associated with prevention, relief and recovery.
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
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A ‘low ambition’ outcome at Doha climate change conference
By Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, Doha, 9 December 2012
The annual UN climate conference concluded in Doha last Saturday (8 December) with “low ambition” both in emission cuts by developed countries and funding for developing countries.
Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted many decisions, including on the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period in which developed countries committed to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases.
Many delegates left the conference quite relieved that they had reached agreement after days of wrangling over many issues and an anxious last 24 hours that were so contentious that most people felt a collapse was imminent.
The relief was that the multilateral climate change regime has survived yet again, although there are such deep differences and distrust among developed and developing countries.
The conflict in paradigms between these two groups of countries was very evident throughout the two weeks of the Doha negotiations, and it was only papered over superficially in the final hours to avoid an open failure. But the differences will surface again when negotiations resume next year.
Avoidance of collapse was a poor measure of success. In terms of progress towards real actions to tackle the climate change crisis, the Doha conference was another lost opportunity and grossly inadequate.
The conference was held at the end of a year of record extreme events. News of typhoon in the Philippines which killed 500 and made 300,000 homeless reminded the conference participants of the reality of the climate crisis.
However, the dictates of economic competition and commercial interests unfortunately were of higher priority, especially among developed countries, which explains their low ambition in emission reduction. They also broke their promises in the legally binding UNFCCC to provide funds and transfer technology to developing countries.
The most important result in Doha was the formal adoption of the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period (2013 to 2020) to follow immediately after the first period expires on 31 December 2012.
However, the elements are weak. With original Kyoto Protocol Parties Russia, Japan and New Zealand having decided not to join in a second commitment period, and and Canada have left the Protocol altogether, only Europe, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and a few others (totalling 35 developed countries and countries with economies in transition) are left to make legally binding commitments in the second period.
Also, the emission cuts these countries agreed to commit to are in aggregate only 18% by 2020 below the 1990 level, compared to the 25-40% required to restrict global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.
A saving factor in the Kyoto Protocol decision is the “ambition mechanism” put in by developing countries, that the countries will “revisit” their original target and increase their commitments by 2014, in line with the aggregate 25-40% reduction goal.
Also, the decision severely limited the amount of credits or surplus allowances that can be used during the second period. These credits were accumulated in the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period by countries that cut their emissions more than the targeted level.
According to the decision, these countries cannot use or trade most of the surplus allowances as a means to avoid current emission cuts.
The most important country affected is Russia, and on Saturday it strongly objected to the way the President of the Conference, Abdullah Hamad al-Attiyah of Qatar, bulldozed through the Kyoto Protocol decision even though it and two other countries tried to object.
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// DO YOU REMEMBER THOSE KYOTO HOT AIR CLOUDS RELEASED BY THE COLLAPSE OF THE ANTIQUATED SOVIET BLOC INDUSTRY?//
Just look at what happened at Doha – here something we heartily applaud:
The final “wrangling” took place in the closing plenary on Saturday afternoon between those wanting to limit the use of excess AAUs to ensure the “environmental integrity” of the emission reduction commitments put forward and those arguing that “overachievement” of commitments should not be punished by a limitation in the use of AAUs. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus attempted to block the adoption of the AWG-KP outcome during the CMP closing plenary, but the nimble COP President gaveled its adoption before appearing to notice Russia’s raised flag. A round of applause welcomed the adoption of the decision, which limits the amount of surplus AAUs that can be used and provides that only parties taking on second commitment period QELRCs can use them. Russia objected to what he said was a breach of procedure by the President, while the COP President responded he would do no more than reflect his view in the final report. This action on the part of the COP President brought back echoes of the events of Cancun when Bolivia’s objections to the adoption of the Cancun Agreement were overruled/ignored in much the same way. It also made many wonder whether this was becoming a trend in the climate negotiations; as many have repeated, consensus does not mean the right of one party to block progress.
NOW – IF THIS KILLED SOME HOT-AIR BALLOONS – POWER TO QATAR – WE LOVE THEM.
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A second major criticism of the Doha decisions is the lack of funds to be provided to developing countries to take climate actions.
In 2010, the Conference of Parties in Cancun decided that developed countries would mobilize climate finance of US$100 billion a year starting in 2020; and that US$30 billion of fast track finance would be given in 2010-2012.
But there is a gap between 2013 and 2020. Despite the demand by developing countries that there be US$60 billion by 2015, the decision adopted on Saturday does not specify any number as a commitment. It only “encourages” countries to provide at least as much as they had in the 2010-2012 period.
The lack of a credible finance commitment led to an outcry by developing countries on the plenary floor. This lack of funds curtails their ability to undertake actions to combat climate change, especially since they have agreed in the 2010 Cancun and 2011 Durban Conferences to take on more mitigation efforts.
The Doha conference also adopted a set of decisions under its working group on long-term cooperative action under the UNFCCC. The developing countries were pleased with paragraphs on equity, unilateral trade measures, technology assessment and a vague reference to the effects of intellectual property.
However these decisions were very weak. Even then the United States registered its disagreement or reservations to these decisions, after the adoption of the text, giving a foretaste of how they will continue to object to future discussions on these issues.
A positive decision made in Doha was to prepare for the setting up by next year’s Conference of an “international mechanism” to help developing countries deal with loss and damage caused by climate change. This also resulted from intense negotiations.
Activities meanwhile will include an expert meeting and preparing technical papers on this issue. Developing countries hope that this programme will lead to new funds being channelled to those countries suffering from flooding, drought, sea level rise and other forms of damage linked to climate change.
The Doha conference also adopted a work plan for the new working group on the Durban Platform that was set up in December 2011. There were major fights in Doha over this, with many developing countries insisting that mention be made that the Durban Platform will operate on the basis of equity and common and differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), the operating principle of the UNFCCC.
The final text did not mention this principle, and even the reference to the June 2012 Rio Plus 20 Summit which endorsed the equity and CBDR principle was removed at the insistence of the United States.
What remained in the text was a reference that the Durban Platform’s work will be guided by the principles of the Convention. Even then, the United States in the final plenary placed a reservation that they reject the use of this phrase in the negotiations in the Durban Platform group. (The phrase is in the 2011 decision that established the working group – after the United States rejected any reference to explicit inclusion of “equity” or “CBDR” the final compromise was “under the Convention”.)
This reveals how much lacking in the spirit of international cooperation that the United States and some other developed countries have become.
They are no longer willing to assist the developing countries, and incredibly are even objecting to the principles of the Convention being applied to negotiations to set up a new agreement that will be under the Convention.
More than anything else, this shows the tragic paradox of the Doha conference. It succeeded in adopting many decisions and kept the functioning of the multilateral climate regime alive, but the actual substance of actions to save the planet from climate change was absent, as was a genuine commitment to support the developing countries.
Author: Marin Khor is Executive Director of the South Centre. Contact: director@southcentre.org.
An earlier version of this article was published in The Star of 10 December 2012.
To view other articles in SouthNews, please click here.
For more information, please contact Vicente Paolo Yu of the South Centre:
Email yu@southcentre.org, or telephone +41 22 791 80 50.
The list of the Climate Change Convention Conferences of the Parties held todate:
COP 19/MOP 9, were approved for Warsaw, Poland, even that they hosted quite recently the 2008 meeting.
The meeting at Doha Decided to accept with appreciation the offer by the Government of Poland to host the nineteenth session of the Conference of the Parties and the ninth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Warsaw, Poland, from Monday, 11 November to Friday, 22 November 2013, subject to confirmation by the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties and the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that all logistical, technical and financial elements for hosting the sessions are available, in conformity with United Nations General Assembly resolution 40/243, and subject to the successful conclusion of a Host Country Agreement;
Toward a New Generation of Development Goals – A Day of Informal Discussions
Monday November 26, 2012, 9:30 am – 5:40 pm
United Nations, New York, NLB Conference Room 1
as per e-mail from the UN-NGLS — the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service.
Background:
Following the Rio+20 Summit, and as the world and UN system move closer to the milestone of 2015 for
realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), many discussions are underway concerning the future
of the MDGs and their relation to the new generation of development goals that will succeed them.
Simultaneous discussions have emerged about whether the world needs a new development paradigm, and if
so, what sort of framework must underpin it, what aspirational goals will guide it, and what targets and
indicators will be used to measure and evaluate its progress. This new framework will not be built in the same
way we achieved the MDGs, which were distilled from key international agreements reached during the major
development conferences of the 1990s. The current state of international agreement regarding the future of
development is not yet at the point of consensus reflected in the Millennium Declaration and MDGs. Now, in
addition, the field of development actors has broadened: the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in
Busan, Korea, in 2011 culminated in a Partnership Agreement that—for the first time—established a framework
for development co-operation that includes traditional donors, South-South co-operators, the BRICS, civil society
organisations and private funders. All of these actors, as well as the G20, now have a major influence in the
shaping of development post-2015.
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Purpose and Format:
The purpose of this day of informal discussions is to bring together key participants in the relevant stakeholder
groups – in civil society, the UN system and among political decision-makers – to further ongoing discussions on
what is needed in order to move toward a new generation of development goals. The day’s discussions are
divided into three panels that will focus on what is needed to: 1) determine the guiding principles and values for
a joint MDG/SGD agenda, 2) define the core concepts and main elements of a new development paradigm, and
3) ensure coherence in bringing the different processes together. The need to bring the remaining work on
MDGs together in a single track along with the development of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) according
to the outcomes of Rio+20 is imperative and as such is a guiding principle for the day’s discussions.
9:30 am – 9:45 am
Opening: Welcome Remarks
Rubén Campos, Programs Coordinator, Club de Madrid
Patricia Espinosa, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Government of Mexico
Werner Puschra, Executive Director, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New York Office
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9:45 am – 11:30 am
Panel 1: Guiding Principles and Values for a Joint MDG/SDG Agenda
The Millennium Summit of September 2000 was the culmination of a decade of intense international debate on
aid in which both governments and civil society were strongly engaged. The resulting Millennium Declaration
put forward the human-rights based values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature, and
shared responsibility. This set of guiding principles informed the development of the MDGs, but the process
towards them led to the imperfect capture of the ideals of the Millennium Declaration.
Nevertheless, the Millennium Declaration is and must be the touchstone for the principles and values that will
guide a joint MDG/SDG agenda. Additionally, the UN Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda has
proposed “a vision for the future that rests on the core values of human rights, equality and sustainability” that
is “reorganized along four key dimensions of a more holistic approach: (1) inclusive social development; (2)
inclusive economic development; (3) environmental sustainability; and (4) peace and security.” Panel 1
therefore brings together a set of speakers representing different stakeholder perspectives, from political
decision-makers, leaders from civil society and members of the UN Secretariat, to debate these and other
overarching principles and values that should guide the UN’s development agenda moving forward.
Moderator: Werner Puschra, Executive Director, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New York Office
Inputs from: Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru (2001-2006); Member, Club de Madrid
Shamshad Akhtar, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, UN Department of
Economic and Social Affairs
Maria Teresa Mesquita Pessôa, Minister Plenipotentiary, Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United
Nations
H.E. Mr. Jun Yamazaki, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations
Telma Viale, Representative, Special Representative to the United Nations and Director, International
Labour Organization
Mwangi Waituru, Co-Chair, Executive Board, Beyond 2015; Director, Seed Institute; National Cocoordinator,
GCAP Kenya
Reflections: From members of the High-Level Panel on post-2015 framework:
Patricia Espinosa, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Government of Mexico
John Podesta, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Chair and
Counselor, Center for American Progress
Stefano Prato, Advisor to SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda Member Betty
Maina, Kenya; Managing Director, Society for International Development (Italy)
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11:30am – 1:00 pm
Panel 2: Main Elements of a New Development Paradigm
The UN Inter Agency Task Team’s report to the Secretary General, “Realizing the Future We Want For All”,
proposes a more holistic approach toward a post-2015 development agenda. The Task Team’s recommendation
is that principles (human rights, equality and sustainability), broad objectives (environmental sustainability,
inclusive economic development, inclusive social development, and peace and security) as well as specific goals
and targets related to the objectives be embedded in an enabling environment which is characterized by
elements such as a fair and stable global trading, macroeconomic and financial system, sustainable food and
nutrition security, sustainable use of natural resources and democratic and coherent global governance
mechanisms.
Panel 2’s discussion is based upon an embrace of the idea that envisioning coherent and related national,
regional and global policy areas necessary for an enabling environment is an essential step in the creation of a
new and sustainable development paradigm. This panel will be an opportunity for interlocutors from civil society
and Member States to question and engage members of the Task Team and the broader Secretariat as well as to
present their own visions of the necessary enabling elements.
Moderator: Clem McCartney, Policy and Content Coordinator, Shared Societies Project, Club de Madrid
Inputs from: Homi Kharas, Executive Secretary, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post 2015 Development Agenda; Deputy
Director, Global Economy & Development Program, Brookings Institution
Rob Vos, Director of Development Policy, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Claire Courteille, Director, Equality Department, International Trade Union Confederation
David O’Connor, Chief, Policy Analysis and Networks Branch, Division for Sustainable Development,
UN-DESA
Kalissa Regier, Coordination Committee, International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society
Mechanism; Representative National Farmers Union of Canada to Via Campesina
Richard Morgan, Senior Advisor, Post 2015 Agenda, UNICEF
Manish Bapna, Executive Vice President & Managing Director, World Resources Institute
Jose Dallo, Programme Specialist, Bureau for Development Policy, UN Development Programme
Minh-Thu Pham, Director of Public Policy, UN Foundation
Corinne Woods, Director, UN Millennium Campaign
Panel 3: Ensuring Coherence—Bringing the Different Processes Together
Panel 3 gives the opportunity for a variety of Member States to elaborate upon ideas and proposals for how the
UN System can bring the MDG and SDG processes together to achieve coherence. It will be an interactive
discussion moderated by Barbara Adams, a member of the Civil Society Reflection Group, first with
representatives of Member States and then opening up a question and answer session with the audience,
including taking questions remotely from those around the world who will be watching via livestream webcast.
Moderator: Barbara Adams, Senior Policy Advisor, Global Policy Forum.
3:00 pm-3:45 pm
Inputs from: H.E. Mr. Luis-Alfonso de Alba, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of
Mexico to the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Gérard Araud, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of France to
the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Enrique Román-Morey, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of
Peru to the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Hans Peter Wittig, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of
Germany to the United Nations
H.E. Sir Mark Lyall Grant, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the
United Kingdom to the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Mootaz Ahmadein Khalil, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission
of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations
3:45 pm-4:00 pm
Reflections: From members of the High-Level Panel on post-2015 framework:
Betty Maina, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Chief Executive
Officer, Kenya Association of Manufacturers
Patricia Espinosa, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Government of Mexico
4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Q&A Session: Moderated by Barbara Adams
Questions and comments to Member State panelists and High-Level panelists will be taken from the
audience as well as via social media from those watching the livestream.
5:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Concluding Reflections
Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary General, United Nations
Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru (2001-2006); Member, Club de Madrid
5:30 pm – 5:40 pm
Organizers’ Wrap-up
Clem McCartney, Policy and Content Coordinator, Shared Societies Project, Club de Madrid
Werner Puschra, Executive Director, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New York Office
SEATTLE – In two weeks, adults in this state will no longer be arrested or incarcerated for something that nearly 30 million Americans did last year. For the first time since prohibition began 75 years ago, recreational marijuana use will be legal; the misery-inducing crusade to lock up thousands of ordinary people has at last been seen, by a majority of voters in this state and in Colorado, for what it is: a monumental failure.
That is, unless the Obama administration steps in with an injunction, as it has threatened to in the past, against common sense. For what stands between ending this absurd front in the dead-ender war on drugs and the status quo is the federal government. It could intervene, citing the supremacy of federal law that still classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug.
But it shouldn’t. Social revolutions in a democracy, especially ones that begin with voters, should not be lightly dismissed. Forget all the lame jokes about Cheetos and Cheech and Chong. In the two-and-a-half weeks since a pair of progressive Western states sent a message that arresting 853,000 people a year for marijuana offenses is an insult to a country built on individual freedom, a whiff of positive, even monumental change is in the air.
In Mexico, where about 60,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence, political leaders are voicing cautious optimism that the tide could turn for the better. What happens when the United States, the largest consumer of drugs in the world, suddenly opts out of a black market that is the source of gangland death and corruption? That question, in small part, may now be answered.
Prosecutors in Washington and Colorado have announced they are dropping cases, effective immediately, against people for pot possession. I’ve heard from a couple of friends who are police officers, and guess what: they have a lot more to do than chase around recreational drug users.
Maine (ever-sensible Maine!) and Iowa, where the political soil is uniquely suited to good ideas, are looking to follow the Westerners. Within a few years, it seems likely that a dozen or more states will do so as well.
And for one more added measure of good karma, on Election Day, Representative Dan Lungren, nine-term Republican from California and a tired old drug warrior who backed some of the most draconian penalties against his fellow citizens, was ousted from office.
But there remains the big question of how President Obama will handle the cannabis spring. So far, he and Attorney General Eric Holder have been silent. I take that as a good sign, and certainly a departure from the hard-line position they took when California voters were considering legalization a few years ago. But if they need additional nudging, here are three reasons to let reason stand:
Hypocrisy. Popular culture and the sports-industrial complex would collapse without all the legal drugs that promise to extend erections, reduce inhibitions and keep people awake all night. I’m talking to you, Viagra, alcohol and high-potency energy drinks. Worse, perhaps, is the $25 billion nutritional supplement industry, offerings pills that make exaggerated health claims and steroid-based hormones that can have significant bad consequences. The corporate cartels behind these products get away with minimal regulation because of powerful backers like Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah.
In two years through 2011, more than 2,200 serious illnesses, including 33 fatalities, were reported by consumers of nutritional supplements. Federal officials have received reports of 13 deaths and 92 serious medical events from Five Hour Energy. And how many people died of marijuana ingestion? Of course, just because well-marketed, potentially hazardous potions are legal is no argument to bring pot onto retail shelves. But it’s hard to make a case for fairness when one person’s method of relaxation is cause for arrest while another’s lands him on a Monday night football ad.
Tax and regulate. Already, 18 states and the District of Columbia allow medical use of marijuana. This chaotic and unregulated system has resulted in price-gouging, phony prescriptions and outright scams. No wonder the pot dispensaries have opposed legalization — it could put them out of business.
Washington State officials estimate that taxation and regulation of licensed marijuana retail stores will generate $532 million in new revenue every year. Expand that number nationwide, and then also add into the mix all the wasted billions now spent investigating and prosecuting marijuana cases.
With pot out of the black market, states can have a serious discussion about use and abuse. The model is the campaign against drunk driving, which has made tremendous strides and saved countless lives at a time when alcohol is easier to get than ever before. Education, without one-sided moralizing, works.
Lead:
That’s what transformative presidents do. From his years as a community organizer — and a young man whose own recreational drug use could have made him just another number in lockup — Obama knows well that racial minorities are disproportionately jailed for these crimes. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 25 percent of its prisoners — and about 500,000 of them are behind bars for drug offenses. On cost alone — up to $60,000 a year, to taxpayers, per prisoner — this is unsustainable.
Obama is uniquely suited to make the argument for change. On this issue, he’ll have support from the libertarian right and the humanitarian left. The question is not the backing — it’s whether the president will have the backbone.
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And The New York Times Editorial Of Today:
Editorial
An Ineffective Way to Fight Crime.
Published: November 22, 2012
More than a year has passed since Commissioner Raymond Kelly of the New York Police Department issued a memorandum ordering officers to follow a 1977 state law that bars them from arresting people with small amounts of marijuana unless the drug is being publicly displayed. Even so, a lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society in June and pending in state court makes the case that the police are still arresting people illegally in clear violation of both the commissioner’s directive and the state law. More than 50,000 possession arrests were made last year.
{For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.}
Law enforcement officers have often described these arrests as a way of reining in criminals whose other, more serious activities present a danger to the public. But state statistics show that of the nearly 12,000 teenagers arrested last year, nearly 94 percent had no prior convictions and nearly half had never been arrested.
Now a new study by Human Rights Watch further debunks the main premise of New York City’s “broken windows” law enforcement campaign, which holds that clamping down on small offenses like simple marijuana possession prevents serious crime and gets hard-core criminals off the streets.
The study tracked about 30,000 people arrested for marijuana possession in 2003-4 — none of whom had prior convictions — for periods of six-and-a-half to eight-and-a-half years. The study found that about only 1,000 of them had a subsequent violent felony conviction. Some had misdemeanor or felony drug convictions, but more than 90 percent of the study group had no felony convictions whatsoever. The report concluded that the Police Department was sweeping “large numbers of people into New York City’s criminal justice system — particularly young people of color — who do not subsequently engage in violent crime.” This wastes millions of dollars and unfairly puts people through the criminal system.
In 1990, fewer than 1,000 people were arrested for minor possession. The 1977 law was intended to stop police officers from jailing young people for tiny amounts of marijuana and to allow prosecutors to focus on more serious crimes. It made possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana a violation and punishable by a $100 fine for the first offense. To discourage open use of the drug, however, lawmakers made public display a misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in jail and a fine of $500.
In the past decade, civil rights lawyers have complained that police officers were arresting and charging people with public display of the drug, even though officers had found the contraband while rifling people’s pockets or after tricking them into exposing it.
Those arrested for minor possession — even if their cases are eventually dismissed — can endure grave collateral consequences. They can lose job opportunities, access to housing and can be turned away when applying for military service.
About 80 percent of those arrested are black or Hispanic. This has led the legal scholars Amanda Geller and Jeffrey Fagan to label the city’s marijuana campaign “a racial tax” because it takes a heavy toll on minorities, while bringing little or nothing in the way of crime reduction.
The Legislature could go a long way toward ending unfair prosecutions by adopting Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposalNOT to make public display of a small amount of marijuana a violation, unless the person was smoking the drug in public. {the editorial has omitted the word NOT seemingly by mistake}
Enrique Pena Nieto’s pending ascendancy to the presidency in Mexico has raised questions concerning his stance on climate change legislation recently enacted by current President Felipe Calderon. Under Calderon’s leadership, Mexico rose to the forefront of climate change politics, culminating in the national law he signed in June. It is unclear how Pena Nieto, who pledged in his campaign to increase Mexico’s GDP growth to around 6 percent each year, plans to implement the measure.
Pena Nieto will represent the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) when he assumes the presidency this December, bringing back the party that had a 71-year reign over Mexico prior to its loss in the 2000 elections to the Vicente Fox-led National Action Party. It is believed that the change in parties is rooted in Mexico’s stagnant economic growth, which has averaged only 2.6 percent over the last 20 years. Pena Nieto ran on a platform that promised to reinvigorate a sagging industrial sector and reform Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, to allow for more private investment. Because much of PRI’s resources during Pena Nieto’s election run came from the industrial sector and his platform has focused largely on economic issues, policy experts believe that the president-elect will take a very cautious approach to Calderon’s climate change law in the first few years of his presidency.
Mexico’s climate law aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent from business-as-usual levels by 2020 and by 50 percent by 2050. It also calls for a major increase in the use of renewable sources to supply up to 35 percent of all electricity consumption in the country and imposes mandatory reporting requirements on all major economic sectors. However, the legislation necessitates the implementation of several mechanisms, including financial incentives and an emissions trading system, to give its provisions full effect. As Calderon’s window of opportunity closes, all eyes are on Pena Nieto to see how he approaches the legislation. It is clear that the president-elect is in a privileged position regarding the future of Mexico’s approach to climate change.
For many years, strategists have debated whether Turkey would be a “bridge” or a “gully” between predominantly Christian Europe and the Arab/Muslim Middle East. If Turkey were admitted to the European Union, it would be a bridge binding these two worlds. If it were kept out of the E.U., it could become a gully separating the two.
It turns out that Turkey these days is neither a bridge nor a gully. It’s an island — an island of relative stability between two great geopolitical systems that are cracking apart {each one in its own region – just cracking by themselves – our interpretation!}:
the euro zone that came into being after the cold war, and the Arab state system that came into being after World War I {and became of real importance as a source of oil – after WW II- again our interpretation} are both coming unglued.
The stresses are getting to everyone. The reactions range from the truly horrific murders perpetrated by the Assad mafia family clinging to power in Syria to the disturbing fight that broke out last Thursday on a morning TV talk show in Greece, where the spokesman of a far-right party tossed water in the face of a woman from the left-wing party on the show and then smacked another woman panelist in the face three times.
The island of Turkey has become one of the best places to observe both these worlds. To the east, you see the European Monetary Union buckling under the weight of its own hubris — leaders who reached too far in forging a common currency without the common governance to sustain it. And, to the south, you see the Arab League crumbling under the weight of its own decay — leaders who never reached at all for the decent governance and modern education required to thrive in the age of globalization.
Europeans failed to build Europe, and that is now a big problem because, as its common currency comes under pressure and the E.U. goes deeper into recession, the whole world feels the effects. The Syrians failed to build Syria, the Egyptians failed to build Egypt, the Libyans failed to build Libya, the Yemenis failed to build Yemen. Those are even bigger problems because, as their states have been stressed or fractured, no one knows how they’ll be put back together again.
To put it another way: In Europe, the supranational project did not work, and now, to a degree, Europe is falling back into individual states. In the Arab world, the national project did not work, so some of the Arab states are falling back onto sects, tribes, regions and clans.
In Europe, the supranational project did not work because the European states were never ready to cede control over their budgets to a central authority that would ensure a common fiscal policy to back up a common currency.
In the Arab world, the national project did not work — in many, but not all cases — because the tribes, sects, clans and regional groups that make up these Arab states, whose borders were drawn up by colonial powers, were unwilling or unable to meld genuine national communities.
So the E.U. today has many citizens, but no single supranational nation state to which everyone is ready to cede economic authority. And the Arab world has many national states, but few citizens.
In Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Bahrain, you have one sect or tribe ruling others by force — not because they forged a voluntary social contract with one another.
Egypt and Tunisia, you have more homogeneous societies and a stronger sense of citizenship, which is why they have a better chance at transitioning to more consensual politics.
In fairness, in Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Iraq, you have many people, particularly young rebels, who want to be citizens. They want to live in states where people have rights and obligations and multiethnic parties. But it’s not clear they have the leadership and educated middle classes needed to forge modern political identities out of atavistic ones.
One question historians will puzzle over is why both great geopolitical systems fractured at once? The answer, I believe, is the intensifying merger of globalization and the information technology revolution, which made the world dramatically flatter in the last five years, as we went from connected to hyperconnected. In the Arab world, this hyper-connectivity simultaneously left youths better able to see how far behind they were — with all the anxiety that induced — and enabled them to communicate and collaborate to do something about it, cracking open their ossified states.
In Europe, hyperconnectedness both exposed just how uncompetitive some of their economies were, but also how interdependent they had become. It was a deadly combination. When countries with such different cultures become this interconnected and interdependent — when they share the same currency but not the same work ethics, retirement ages or budget discipline — you end up with German savers seething at Greek workers, and vice versa.
And us? America’s flexible federal system makes it, theoretically, well-suited to thrive in a hyperconnected world, but only if we get our macroeconomic house in order and our education up to par (or better).
We should be the world’s island of stability today. But we’re not. As Mohamed el-Erian, the chief executive of the bond giant Pimco, puts it, “We’re just the cleanest dirty shirt around.”
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What above article is short off – is the reference to the new emerging global SUPERPOWERS – the China India and Brazil movers and shakers – the first two with billion plus people on the way to become consumers in new mega-States, and Brazil with the potential to unite the other major blocs of people in Latin America and Africa, with the potential of becoming another billion people bloc that though less united – but finding it convenient to hang out together – like the old G77 used to do in the past.
Last night I witnessed a great presentation in Vienna by a Professor from Boston, USA, that analyzed the EU and US situation, and to my surprise also did not mention the rest of the World – what we call the real world that is growing up right in front of our eyes and we refuse to see it in our analysis of our own problems in the Tansatlantic region, that will need to incorporate eventually Russia in order to become another billion plus peoples’ bloc. Oh well! Thomas Friedman made nevertheless some very important points in his material by telling us about citizenry needed for Nation building, and economic rules that come ahead of currency.
Join us as we explore how trade influences and is influenced by sustainable development at three exciting events taking place on the sidelines of Rio+20. These events will provide an opportunity to hear dynamic presentations from some of the most distinguished academics, policy makers, private sector and civil society representatives and other practitioners in the field of trade and sustainable development.
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Trade and Sustainable Development Symposium Tuesday, 19 June 2012 | Rio Othon Palace Hotel (Copacabana)
This full-day symposium will act as a forum to generate dynamic thinking, analysis, and dialogue on issues related to trade, environment, and sustainable natural resource management. The event will delve into an array of issues at the core of Rio+20, which are grouped under six themes: trade and sustainable natural resource management; sustainable energy trade initiatives; innovation and green technology diffusion; subsidy reform for sustainability; trade opportunities in a green economy transition; and trade in certified sustainable products. For further information on substantive issues related to the sessions and speaker biographies, please visit ictsd.org/rioplus20. The Trade and Sustainable Development Symposium is jointly organised by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and Centro Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (CEBRI). There will be official shuttle transport between the Rio Centro and Rio Othon Palace Hotel.PLEASE CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.
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Green Trade Opportunities for Developing Countries Monday, 18 June 2012 | Rio Othon Palace Hotel (Copacabana)
This full-day event will provide a venue for major stakeholders from a variety of disciplines to identify green trade opportunities for developing countries in the context of the transition to a green economy. Discussants aim to generate ideas on how to channel these opportunities in ways that will help enhance development opportunities, promote poverty eradication, and advance social equity. The dialogue will draw pertinent policy lessons based on concrete examples. This Multi-stakeholder Dialogue on Trade Opportunities in the Context of a Green Economy Transition is jointly organised by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), the International Trade Centre (ITC), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). For more information, please visit ictsd.org/i/events/dialogues/134108/. There will be official shuttle transport between the Rio Centro and Rio Othon Palace Hotel.PLEASE CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
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Official Rio+20 Side Event on Green Economy and Trade Friday, 15 June 2012, 9.30-11.00 | Rio Centro Convention Centre
This Rio+20 official side event will focus on the trade opportunities associated with the transformation to a green economy. A recent study which maps and analyses the existing trade-related opportunities for developing countries in the transition to a green economy will be presented. The study was jointly undertaken by the organisers of the event: the International Trade Centre (ITC), the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ‘Green Economy and Trade – Assessing Risks and Opportunities’ will be held in Room T-3 of the Rio Centro Convention Centre (official side event venue). For more information, please see ictsd.org/i/events /dialogues/134116/
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Green Economy and Trade – Assessing Risks and Opportunities
Organizing Partners: International Trade Centre (ITC) – Lead partner, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD)
Much of the dialogue on the green economy and trade in the context Rio+20 have focused on the risks associated with a transition to a green economy. However, the transition to a green economy also presents numerous trade opportunities for developing countries. It is crucial to identify these trade opportunities, together with the policy reforms that can create and strengthen developing country capacity to benefit from the opportunities.
In order to inform the Rio+20 dialogue on trade and green economy, this side event will focus on the trade opportunities associated with the transformation to a green economy. A recent study completed by UNEP, ITC and ICTSD will be presented, mapping and analysing existing trade related opportunities for developing countries in the transition to a green economy.
There are compelling reasons for moving towards a green economy, not least of which are planetary limits imposing constraints to economic growth as traditionally measured. UNEP’s report entitled “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradiation”, makes the case for investing in the green economy and outlines the policies that governments can use to promote a green economy transformation. One policy area which is critical across economic sectors and for all countries is international trade. Trade can allow international demand to deplete natural resources and lead to increased pollution and carbon emissions. However, trade also has the potential to drive a green economy by fostering sustainable resource use, generating economic opportunities and employment, and by contributing to poverty eradication.
Much of the dialogue on the green economy and trade in the context of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) have focused on the risks associated with a transition to a green economy. In particular, several developing countries have voiced concern over the potential for the concept of a green economy to provide cover for protectionist measures or restrictions on international trade. Although much of the international focus has been on risks, the transition to a green economy presents a number of trade opportunities for developing countries. It is crucial to identify these trade opportunities, together with the policy reforms that can create and strengthen developing country capacity to benefit from the opportunities.
To date there have been limited opportunities for governments and other stakeholders to consider the issue of trade in relation to a transition to a green economy. In cases where events have taken place, the focus has largely been on the potential trade risks from a transition to a green economy rather than the trade opportunities. This side event will contribute to the Rio+20 dialogue by providing a platform for stakeholders to engage in an open and in-depth dialogue on trade and green economy related issues and by enabling an exchange of perspectives and best practices on green economy and trade. ITC, UNEP and ICTSD will present the findings from a recent study, mapping and analysing green economy related trade opportunities available for developing countries in the transition to a green economy. The event is aimed at governments, regional organizations, civil society groups, trade unions, and other stakeholders to discuss what the green economy means for trade and identify key trade opportunities and challenges.
This side event will contribute to achieving the following results:
- Analysis of trade opportunities in a green economy will provide guidance to policy makers; and
- Dialogue on trade and green economy in the context of Rio+20 will benefit from further trade related analysis and examples of existing and potential trade opportunities.
RIO+20 got the money for the upcoming conference in order to look at what was achieved and what is yet to be achieved from those items codified in AGENDA 21, and within the guidelines of the 1992 Rio Principles. The money was not given to the organizers of the 2012 Conference in order to re-invent the wheel. Also, that Algerian diplomat who abused the chair in Working Group II last month, by sitting there and putting brackets around the word SUSTAINABLE when it was written in front of DEVELOPMENT – was demonstrating that he was still in the mid 1970s – that is the RIO-20 period or the STONE AGE of DEVELOPMENT. We hope thus that countries like Bangladesh, Mexico, Brazil, and the smaller States of the SIDS, will eventually walk out from those G-77 and create a progressive G that knows what is needed and will insist at the effort to get it!
Power to those that understand what they demand!
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Pacific Civil Society Releases Rio+20 Statement: The Future We Demand!
Pacific civil society organizations have released an urgent appeal to UN Member States attending the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012. “The Future We Demand” is signed by local, national and regional organizations, networks and allies, including the Pacific Network on Globalization, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, the Pacific Conference of Churches, and Development Alternatives for Women with Women for a New Era (DAWN).
The statement calls for strong political leadership, and urgent action towards real and transformative solutions. It reaffirms the Rio Principles and Agenda 21, and highlights the fragility and resilience of Pacific Island States, and makes a strong call for results at Rio: “The future that the peoples of the Pacific demand in solidarity with others around the world, is one of social justice and human rights for all, and a recognition of the need to balance the three pillars of sustainable development – environmental, social and economic sustainability.”
Latin America seemingly buckles under pressure from outside and inside the continent.
Seemingly – Mercosur is not growing larger as expected. It is made up by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. A reaction t this, under leadership of Brazil and Argentina, Mercosur will increase tariff on imports from non-Mercosur States.
Closer allies of the US – Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, are eying the Pacific region, and tend to get closer business relations with the other side of the Pacific under a Pacific Alliance with US as main pivot. Chile seems to be interested to lead this group so there is less of a Brazil – Mexico competition in Latin America.
The left leaning ALBA States include Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, and some of the Caribbean Islands, while the Caribbean Island States still have their CARICOM that looks to Mexico.
This posting comes about because of our expectation that June 2012 will prove to be an important month for Latin America, considering the Mexican hosts of the G-20, and the Brazilian hosts of RIO+20 – both meetings with potential high power influence on global economic structure at least in these next few years. Will the US be helpful, or harmful, to the creation of a more united Latin America?
Bonn Climate Change Conference – May 14-25, 2012 tells us that the while attention is riveted to RIO+20 in effect not only the UN Commission on Sustainable Development is bankrupt, but also the process that was started by the UN Convention on Climate Change is also bankrupt. THAT IS WHY WE SAY FOR A WHILE THAT THE MEETING IN RIO 2012 IS IN EFFECT A RIO MINUS TWENTY.
The following is the Analysis of the May 2012 Bonn Meeting as suggested by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
The Bonn Climate Change Conference took place from 14 to 25 May 2012 in Bonn, Germany. The conference comprised the 36th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). It also included the 15th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (AWG-LCA), the 17th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the first session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP).
Under the SBI, key issues discussed included loss and damage, national adaptation plans (NAPs), and reporting by Annex I and non-Annex I parties. The SBSTA focused on agriculture, research and systematic observation, and methodological guidance on REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries). Technology and response measures were considered under both the SBI and SBSTA.
Under the AWG-KP, the focus was on issues that need to be finalized to adopt a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and for the AWG-KP to conclude its work at the eighth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8). These include: matters relating to quantified emission limitation or reduction objectives (QELROs) with a view to adopting these as amendments to Annex B to the Kyoto Protocol and carry-over of assigned amount units (AAUs). While discussions under the AWG-KP advanced understanding of these issues, many outstanding questions remain, including the length of the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and carry-over of surplus units.
Under the AWG-LCA, parties initially debated the agenda and whether it adequately reflected progress since the adoption of the Bali Action Plan at COP 13 in 2007. After agreement on the agenda, debates continued on which issues require consideration so that the AWG-LCA can finalize its work at COP 18 in Doha. Developed countries stressed “significant progress” and the various new institutions established in Cancun and Durban. They called for a focus on specific tasks mandated by Decision 2/CP.17 (Outcome of the work of the AWG-LCA). Developing countries identified the need to continue discussing issues, such as finance, technology, adaptation, capacity building and response measures in order to fulfill the mandate in the Bali Action Plan.
Under the ADP, discussions centered on the agenda and election of officers. After nearly two weeks of discussions, the ADP plenary adopted the agenda and agreed on the election of officers during the final day of the conference.
At the close of the Bonn Conference, many felt that the atmosphere had been “tense,” especially under the ADP. They expressed hope that this would not have a lasting impact, putting at risk efforts to rebuild trust in the process over the past two years since Copenhagen and the “delicate balance” of interests reflected in the Durban Package.
A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF THE BONN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE
Six months ago, many delegates left the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban basking in the warm glow of success, imbued with the infectious spirit of “Ubuntu,” or unity and interconnectedness. The conference had agreed on several landmark decisions including: the establishment a new Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) and “a process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force applicable to all parties” to come into effect from 2020 onwards; a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol; and agreement to terminate the Ad HocWorking Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and Ad Hoc Working Group on Annex I Parties’ Further Commitments under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) in Doha. Many saw these decisions as heralding a new era of multilateralism and turned to 2012 with anticipation, vigor and purpose.
Six months later, the pressure was on delegates in Bonn to live up to the promise of Durban. Delegates faced a heavy workload, including the tasks needed to operationalize the institutions and mechanisms established in Cancun and Durban. Parties also had to try to demystify what it was they had actually agreed to during the waning hours of the frenzied COP 17. However, negotiations in 2012 got off to an inauspicious start and the Bonn Climate Change Conference was marred by mistrust and unabashed posturing. The meeting was almost paralyzed by prolonged procedural wrangling, which many described as “unprecedented.” This analysis will discuss the underlying reasons for the disputes in Bonn and examine the implications for COP 18 in Doha, Qatar, in another six months.
UNRAVELING DURBAN’S CONSTRUCTIVE AMBIGUITY
Many could not begin to imagine how difficult it would be to begin implementing the Durban decisions. The new platform established in Durban introduced the notions of a “post-2012 or pre-2020” landscape; and a “post-2020” period, that will be covered by the new “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all parties” to be developed by the ADP.
The Durban Package, which had been negotiated sensitively to accommodate the myriad of parties’ interests, presented challenges and complexities in Bonn, when parties began the business of interpreting its ambiguous language. For example, while many parties see mitigation as the core of the ADP, some developing countries insisted that all elements, including financing, adaptation, capacity building and technology transfer, should also be central to the ADP’s mandate.
For many, enhancing ambition to close the “mitigation gap” was a crucial part of Decision 1/CP.17. The decision establishes that the ADP process for the post-2020 regime shall raise the level of ambition and also launches a post-2012 work plan on enhancing mitigation ambition for all parties. However, the decision does not stipulate when and which body will implement the work plan. While some developing parties supported addressing pre-2020 mitigation ambition under the AWG-LCA, many others insisted on addressing it under the ADP.
The reason why some preferred to address enhancing mitigation ambition under the AWG-LCA is that the Bali Action Plan affirms the Convention’s core principles, including common but differentiated responsibilities. This implies that developed countries have commitments, while developing countries only take nationally appropriate mitigation actions contingent on support from developed countries. This level of comfort is missing under the ADP for developing countries. Indeed, the decision adopting the ADP does not include references to the Convention’s principles nor does it make a distinction between developed and developing countries. As one insider highlighted, “some parties have started to panic about the ADP; they feel as if they are walking into a dark room and don’t know if there is anything there or where anything is.” This uncertainty manifested in disagreements over both the AWG-LCA and the ADP agendas. On the ADP agenda, parties ultimately agreed to address two work streams, one on the post-2020 regime and the other on the post-2012 work plan on enhancing the level of ambition.
Uncertainties also arose when considering the termination of the AWG-LCA in Doha. Decision 1/CP.17 extends the AWG-LCA’s “mandate for one year in order for it to continue its work and reach the agreed outcome pursuant to decision 1/CP.13 (Bali Action Plan)”, until COP 18 at which it “shall be terminated.” However, Durban left room for different interpretations on how to proceed with the inconclusive work beyond Doha. The lack of clarity on the AWG-LCA termination provided room for discussions on whether the AWG-LCA should finish after the Bali Action Plan was accomplished or if the Bali Action Plan was accomplished by the termination of the AWG-LCA. Some parties, particularly a group of developing countries, wanted to assess the progress achieved toward fulfilling the Bali Action Plan, including some elements that were not agreed upon in Durban but were reflected in a compilation document referred to as “CRP.39,” such as intellectual property issues in relation to technology, rights of Mother Earth, trade, and response measures. Meanwhile, many developed countries wanted to focus on specific issues mandated by COP 17. They highlighted that many issues mandated by the Bali Action Plan had already been properly addressed and forwarded to the permanent subsidiary bodies or other relevant institutions created for that purpose, such as the Technology Executive Committee, the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Committee and the Durban Forum on Capacity Building.
Nevertheless, the extent to which the permanent subsidiary bodies and the new bodies can address these issues is limited to their technical nature or their particular mandate. Moreover, many of the established bodies still need to be operationalized, as many highlighted. The fact that progress towards their operationalization was not achieved in Bonn did not help to enhance the environment of cooperation. On finance, the Philippines provided examples of this phenomenon, underscoring that the GCF is still “an empty shell, and the Standing Committee is not standing.”
In Durban, under the AWG-KP track, parties agreed to “decide that the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol shall begin on 1 January 2013.” However, it is clear to everybody that to “really adopt” the second commitment period parties will have to agree on its length, put forward QELROs and adopt the necessary amendments to the Kyoto Protocol in Doha. Some questions remain on key issues such as how to ensure a smooth transition to the second commitment period, how to deal with excess units from the first commitment period, how rules can be continued and, in particular, how to continue with the flexibility mechanisms, including who will be able to participate, given that some countries indicated they would not be part of a second commitment period. In Bonn, developing countries reiterated that parties intending to participate in the second commitment period should submit ambitious QELROs in line with the goal of limiting temperature increase to below 2°C. Venezuela vociferously demanded that Annex I parties “show their QELROs” as opposed to pledges. The EU highlighted their submission of QELROs and also called upon his Annex B colleagues to follow suit.
Moreover, in order to finish shaping the second commitment period and properly adopt it in Doha, parties have to agree on its length and on the text of the Kyoto Protocol amendment, but negotiations in Bonn did not lead to any further progress in this regard. With so many relevant details to be defined before Doha, developing countries expressed fear that parties are “jumping from the Kyoto Protocol ship” by shifting the focus on the ADP. The EU and other developed countries argued, in turn, that their agreement on a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol was based on a transition to a global and comprehensive post-2020 climate treaty to be negotiated under the ADP.
EVOLVING DYNAMICS IN A CHANGING WORLD
If anything, the Bonn session brought to the fore the universally acknowledged fact that the UNFCCC, drafted in 1992, reflects a reality light years away from the 2012 global landscape. Since the negotiation of the Convention, the outlook for many G-77/China members has changed dramatically and resulting tensions from these divergences are increasingly playing out in the negotiating rooms. For several years now, many have been wagering bets on how long the G-77/China tinderbox diplomacy can prevail, when it is evident that many of the members appear to sit uncomfortably around the same table. A discernible chasm was evident in Bonn. As one delegate said, “Members of the group are now washing their dirty linen very publically.” The group did not have a common negotiating position on the ADP and many other issues. Moreover, they had trouble agreeing on fielding one non-Annex I candidate for the position of ADP Chair. As one practitioner explained, the UNFCCC governance structure assumed certain things, including that parties fall neatly into two groups: Annex I and non-Annex I countries. This “binary” dynamic has changed. As one delegate noted: “GRULAC and the Asian Group are the dominant forces but they do not represent the interests of the entire group.” This means that, in addition to the traditional distinction between developed and developing countries, a third category of “emerging developing countries” or “advanced developing countries” may need to be factored into the mix.
Ultimately, the specter of having to vote for the ADP officers and the resulting damage to the process proved too much for parties to stomach, and they eventually agreed to a “delicate arrangement,” where the candidate from the Asia-Pacific Group will serve an initial one year term from 2012-2013, with his counterpart from an Annex I party, and the subsequent Co-Chair from GRULAC will serve for a term of 18 months. Many said that creating a voting precedent under the UNFCCC would be difficult, almost unfathomable but, at times during the meeting it appeared as if the taboo would be broken.
Other dynamics also played out within the G-77/China, which caught many practitioners by surprise. Bonn witnessed the emergence of a group of approximately 40 countries primarily comprised of the Arab Group, Latin American countries, including Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, as well as India and China, who, on the face on things, appear to have forged an alliance to uphold the Convention’s principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and equity, as well as developed countries’ historical responsibility for climate change. They maintain that any outcome under the ADP must be equitable so that “universality of application” does not become “uniformity of application.”
In contrast, another group of developing countries, including members from AOSIS, LDCs, and some Latin American countries, such as Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Peru and Panama, are looking for such action on mitigation from developed and developing countries and for action to be “incentivized for all countries,” which they describe as the “beginning of a new paradigm for responding to climate change.”
Reflecting on the developments within the G-77/China, one insider said “history is being made and the wedge within the group is helping to bring about an exciting geo-political shift, which is about how countries deal with each other politically and economically and also a reflection of where they are and where they will be.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Bonn demonstrated that, as many have said, Durban was a carefully negotiated package contingent on all elements of the outcome moving forward in tandem. However, what is clear is that parties have a very different perspective of what the future looks like in terms of, inter alia, the ADP’s mandate, how to terminate the AWGs and what to focus on for effectively addressing climate change. As evidenced in Bonn, constructive ambiguity results in uncertainty that can sometimes breed mistrust. This mistrust is often manifested through disputes over procedure and consequently hampers progress. Looking ahead, parties have their work cut out to accomplish tasks they agreed to in Durban. They will need to exercise goodwill, integrity and congeniality in order to deliver on the ultimate objective of meaningful mitigation action for the post-2012 era.
No future without justice – Report of the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives
The world faces an unprecedented coincidence of global crises. They testify to the failure of the dominant model of development and economic progress that is oriented on a technocratic modernisation path, is blind to human rights and the ecological limits of the global ecosystem, confuses growth of Gross Domestic Product with progress in society, and regards poverty as a primarily technical challenge in which categories of inequality and social justice are neglected.
The Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives brought together 18 civil society activists and scholars from different disciplines from around the globe. Its members jointly drew lessons from the current crises, looked beyond conventional development concepts and goals, questioned the models and measures of development and social progress, and presented alternatives.
This report is the main outcome of the joint deliberations. It describes the root causes of the multiple crises, reconfirms the framework of universal principles and rights, reconsiders development goals and indicators, and draws conclusions for the post-2015 development agenda. It seeks to stimulate debates about alternative development paths, participatory and inclusive governance structures, and the transformation in politics and societies that future justice for all will require.
Activists Call for Creation of High Commissioner for Future Generations at Rio+20
By Stephen Leahy * at Roberto Savio’s blog – Other News.
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 5, 2012 (Tierramérica) – The theme of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) is “The Future We Want”, but there is no official role for youth nor a spokesperson for future generations who will inherit that future.
Now there is a growing call for the creation of a United Nations High Commissioner for Future Generations to be one of the outcomes of the summit, which will take place Jun. 20-22 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“I was born in 1992, the year of the first Earth Summit in Rio. The world has changed a lot since then,” says Vincent Wong of Burlington, Canada.
Wong will be going to Rio+20 as part of a delegation from Students on Ice, a Canadian organisation that offers educational expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic for students, educators and scientists.
“We want to bring the voice of our generation. They will be making decisions on our behalf,” Wong told Tierramérica.
“Who can be opposed to protecting the rights of future generations?” asks Alice Vincent of the World Future Council (WFC) in London, UK.
“The proposed High Commissioner for Future Generations would act to balance the short-term nature of government electoral cycles by advocating for the interests and needs of future generations,” Vincent told Tierramérica.
According to Kathleen Dean Moore, distinguished professor of philosophy at Oregon State University, “The injustice of climate change, resource depletion, etc. is that those who will suffer the most terrible consequences – future generations – had no role in creating them.”
“They will gain nothing from the ransacking of the Earth that is going on all around us, but they will bear the consequences: the floods, the droughts, the disrupted food systems, shortages, and violent weather,” Moore told Tierramérica.
“A U.N. Commissioner for Future Generations can stand up against the unjust treatment of those not yet born, which future generations, of course, cannot do for themselves,” she added.
Nothing like a Commissioner for Future Generations exists in the UN system or at national level, with one or two exceptions, such as the Ombudsperson for Future Generations in Hungary, said Vincent of the WFC, which championed the idea.
The WFC is a charitable foundation based in Hamburg, Germany and London, focused on bringing the interests of future generations to the centre of policy making.
Working with partnering civil society organisations, they have managed to have a proposal for a High Commissioner for Future Generations included in the draft of the Rio+20 official outcome document.
As many as 50,000 people are expected at Rio+20, including more than 130 world leaders, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin as well as the prime ministers of India, Manmohan Singh, and China, Wen Jiabao. U.S. President Barack Obama has not yet confirmed his attendance.
Rio+20 is being held 20 years after the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, or Earth Summit, hosted by the same city. The 1992 summit gave birth to three major environmental treaties on climate change, biodiversity anddesertification.
No international treaty is expected to be signed in Rio. Instead, an “outcome document” will serve as the world’s agreed roadmap to sustainable development.
That “zero draft” of the outcome document has been the subject of intense negotiations. The suggestions and recommendations submitted by U.N. member states and major civil society organisations led the draft to balloon to 4,000 pages.
The latest known version is 80 pages long, but is still far from being a consensus document. In response to the many disagreements that persist, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon convened an emergency session May 29-Jun. 2 at U.N. headquarters in New York to continue negotiations.
The final document is intended to be around 20 pages when world leaders meet to vote on its contents in Rio at the end of the month.
“Our proposal for a new high commissioner has survived, but it has been weakened,” said Vincent from the negotiations in New York.
In the May 28 version of the zero draft, nations only agree to “consider” the establishment or appointment of a High-Level Representative for Sustainable Development and Future Generations, which would likely be located within an existing U.N. agency, not independent.
But is crucial that the high commissioner have a strong mandate to pursue its own agenda, in which the needs of future generations are considered alongside present interests, Vincent stressed.
“We envision one High Commissioner for Future Generations, with a small office (10 people) with a multi-disciplinary staff working in cooperation with existing institutions, agencies and stakeholders,” she added.
With an annual budget of two to three million dollars, the commissioner’s office would offer advice on implementation of existing intergovernmental commitments respecting the needs of future generations.
It would also promote and facilitate participation by the public in the discussion and identification of issues affecting future generations and what the solutions might be, said Vincent.
The European Union is highly supportive of the proposal, with countries like Canada, Australia, Norway and Switzerland showing interest, according to Oregon professor Moore. However, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and the hard bargaining and bottom lines will start coming out as the negotiation days dwindle, she said.
As the name suggests, the May 28 version of the zero draft added a new role for the high-level representative as a promoter of sustainable development, over the objections of Vincent and other supporters of the position. The commissioner’s mandate goes much further than just sustainable development, such as protecting cultural heritage for future generations, Vincent explained.
“I have become very suspicious of this combination of sustainable development and the rights of future generations. Continuing development cannot be sustained. What we need is sustainable balance, or sustainable thriving,” said Moore.
Nations need to reject “the Western view that endless economic growth is necessary and good,” she concluded.
*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
at Rio de Janeiro June 11-15, 2012 – this in parallel to the last round of negotiations at RIO CENTRO.
Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development.
Linking science and policy at Rio+20…
A major five-day Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development in the days just prior to the Rio+20 conference in Rio de Janeiro.
The Forum brings together leading international scientists and policy-makers to explore the key role of interdisciplinary science and innovation in the transition to sustainable development, a green economy and poverty eradication.
The aim is to help establish the research, technology and policy agendas that will be needed after Rio+20.
Green economy and rethinking social and economic models.
Friday 15 June, 9.00-12.00
Session co-conveners
Anantha Duraiappah, Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP)
Ivan Turok, Professor, Deputy Executive Director, EPD, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa
Speakers:
Tim Jackson, Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey, UK, and Director of the ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment.
Liz Stanton, Ph.D., Senior Economist, Stockholm Environment Institute, U.S. Center, Tufts University
Fabio Feldmann Consultores, Environmentalist, Consultant, Former Secretary for the Environment of the State of São Paulo (1995-1998) and winner of Global 500 prize
Neil Hawkins, Vice President, Dow Sustainability & EH&S, The Dow Chemical Company
Davinder Lamba, Director, Mazingira Institute, Nairobi, Kenya
Joan Martinez Alier, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Economic History, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
Background
The session will be divided into two parts:
The Green Economy: Helping or Hampering Development?
The Green Economy: New Indicators of Progress
The Green Economy: Helping or Hampering Development?
The idea of a green economy has provoked a debate about whether on balance it implies slower growth or whether it is a growth enabler. It may constrain growth by imposing additional costs on economic activity in higher environmental standards and carbon taxes. However, it may also facilitate growth by opening up new markets and encouraging new technologies. Many questions arise:
Are these green opportunities genuinely new, or are the government resources to support green initiatives displaced from other activities? There may be a lot of hype around the green economy as vested interests seek to skew development agendas in ways that favour themselves.
Is it a question of timescale – in the short-term there are costs of the transition to a green economy, but in the long-term this generates considerable efficiencies and new economic opportunities?
Does the equation differ between the global North and South, with a drag on growth in developing countries (because of raised environmental standards) but a spur to growth in advanced economies (e.g. through the new technologies)?
The winners and losers may also vary within countries – some regions gain from the green agenda while others lose (e.g. energy producing regions).
The purpose of this part of the session is to debate the trade-offs and synergies between the ‘green’ and the ‘economy’. We also hope to discuss policy solutions, and whether the green economy requires a paradigm shift in economic models, or whether it is compatible with competitive markets, commodification of resources, ever-expanding consumption and globalisation.
The Green Economy: New Indicators of Progress
The green economy has been commonly defined as an economy that results “in improved human well-being and social equity, whilst significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities”. Using an old management saying, we can only manage what we measure, the question that arises is if whether using present indicators of progress such as GDP per capita, the Human Development Index or the Environmental Sustainability Index are sufficient or a more fundamental approach is needed to measure the progress a green economy makes. And are new measures needed both at the individual level as well as at the macroeconomic level? These in turn lead to many more questions:
First, should we develop a measure that reflects well-being of the present generation as well as that of future generations?
Second, should the measure not only reflect economic factors but also include social and environmental components, as well as their interdependencies?
Third, can a measure be developed to provide information for policymakers in designing investment mechanisms and incentives?
The purpose of this part of the session is to debate on the questions posed above and provide the basis for a discussion to highlight some of the key principles a measure of performance should have and also discuss whether the green economy requires a paradigm shift in measuring progress, and it’s compatibility with sustainability.
Structure of the session:
The session will be divided into two discussions:
The Green Economy: Helping or Hampering Development?
Chair: Ivan Turok
Tim Jackson
Liz Stanton
The Green Economy: New Indicators of Progress
Chair:Anantha Duraiappah
Fabio Feldmann Consultores
Neil Hawkins
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FRIDAY’S SIDE EVENTS DURING LUNCH-TIME 12:30 – 13:oo:
Leading scientists associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be present at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), which takes place in Rio de Janeiro from 20 to 22 June, 2012, with preparatory meetings starting the previous week. The task of the IPCC is “to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation”. This task is of central importance to sustainable development, the theme of Rio+20. The links between climate change and two of the summit’s seven critical issues — energy and disasters — were the subject of special reports by the IPCC over the past year.
The IPCC is holding two high-profile events during the conference. On Friday 15 June, the IPCC is organizing a side event at the UNCSD, at the RioCentro Convention Center, entitled “Connecting the dots: science, the IPCC and the policy picture”. Earlier that day, as part of the Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development, organized by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the IPCC is holding a side event on “Science for decision-making: the role of IPCC assessments” at the Pontifical Catholic University.
Both events will feature members of the IPCC Bureau and lead authors of recent IPCC reports, senior officials from partner organizations and government representatives.
The events will examine the interface between science and policy-making, and how it can be strengthened by assessment reports and other products from the IPCC and other international organizations, taking as examples the IPCC’s regular major assessments, and its two recent reports, the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) and the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX).
Accredited media representatives are welcome to attend these events.
For those that do not have UN Press Accreditation – NGO ON-LINE BONA FIDE NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED MEDIA or not – the venue to interact with the IPCC is at:
“Applying science to Sustainable Development - How the IPCC brings science to the policy-makers.”
Friday 15 June, 12.00-13.30
Side event at the “Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development”
Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-Rio), Room B8
IPCC Bureau members and authors will
• Discuss how the IPCC works and supports decision-makers, and
• Present findings of two recent Special Reports:
• Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance
climate change adaptation (SREX)
• Renewable energy sources and climate change mitigation (SRREN)
A panel discussion with authors and users will follow.
Applying science to Sustainable DevelopmentHow the IPCC brings science to the policy-makersFriday 15 June, 12.00-13.30 Side event at the “Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development”Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-Rio), Room B8IPCC Bureau members and authors will• Discuss how the IPCC works and supports decision-makers, and • Present findings of two recent Special Reports:• Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation (SREX)• Renewable energy sources and climate change mitigation (SRREN)A panel discussion with authors and users will follow.
FINALLY, ATTENTION IS FOCUSED ALSO ON LOS CABOS – THE PLACE WHERE ALL HEADS OF STATES WITH POWER, AND SUFFERING SMALL ISLAND STATES – mainly from the CARICOM - WILL BE ON THE EVE OF THE OPENING OF THE RIO CONFERENCE. COULD THEY TAKE A DECISION IN MEXICO AND BRING THAT DECISION TO RIO?
From: Will Bates - 350.org organizers@350.org Dear Friends,
This is huge. - Two weeks ago we joined a diverse coalition to launch an all-out offensive to end fossil fuel subsidies, and we weren’t quite sure how it would turn out. Well, we’ve currently got 958,422 signatures on our combined global petition — almost a million people strong!
Once we get a million signatures, we’ll move on to phase two: a surround-sound campaign to put the pressure on world leaders at the G20 Summit in Mexico and at the “Rio+20 Earth Summit” coming up in Brazil.
We’ll be honest: we won’t win the campaign to end fossil fuel subsidies with a petition alone — and we won’t be able to wrap this up by the end of the Rio Earth Summit.But being a million strong is a powerful starting point, and our massive numbers will send an unignorable message to world leaders.
The truth is that ending these subsidies will take an ongoing and escalating campaign — which is why we’re digging deep on multiple fronts. As I type this, 350.org staff and volunteers are putting together a cutting-edge social media plan, planning a series of hard-hitting actions in countries around the world, and working on game-changing research that will expose just how massive the issue of subsidies is.
Our work on subsidies will continue in the weeks and months ahead — but with the global summits in Mexico and Rio happening in just a few weeks, we have a unique moment to shine a light on a topic that all too often gets hidden and ignored. And we can’t ignore it any longer — the issue of subsidies is just too important. New research shows that getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies would lead to massive reductions in the emissions that are super-heating our planet — and could help level the economic playing field and trigger a clean energy revolution around the world.
One more thing: we’re saving June 18 for something special. It’ll be the day when we’ll deliver our collective petition to world leaders, but also a day where we’ll try something a bit different — and a day to take our message to the halls of power in a brand new way.
Click to enlarge
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Slide Show 
[The] decisions don’t feel ground-breaking but are more likely saving face. What we got for it, only loss and damage and nothing else
