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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 23rd, 2009 OSI-New York, 400 West 59 Street, New York City, is the main headquarters of the Open Society Institute founded by financier George Soros. Along with OSI-Budapest, it provides administrative, financial, and technical support to the Soros foundations and also operates OSI initiatives, which address specific issues on a regional or network-wide basis, and other independent programs. OSI-New York is also the home of a series of initiatives that focus primarily on the United States. OSI-New York is now considering the establishment of an initiative that deals with aspects of Global Climate Change. in this regard, July 22, 2009, it arranged for a panel and webcast to discuss – “The Adaptation Imperative—Food Security and Climate Change.” It was chaired by Ross Gelbspan, a former editor and reporter at the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, author of two acclaimed books on climate change: “The Heat is On” (1997) and “Boiling Point” (2004) and is working now on his third book . The participants were: Mark Hertsgaard a journalist covering the environment for the Nation and an Open Society fellow, and Sara Scherr who serves on the United Nations Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger and is founder of Ecoagriculture Partners. It was announced that they will discuss the implications of – the somber reality that scientists calculate that temperatures will keep rising for the next 50 years, no matter how drastically we cut greenhouse gas emissions – for food production and global hunger – in a nutshell – “the implications of climate change for food production and global hunger” – this being clearly related to the main topics that OSI deals with – human rights and democracy – including the emerging and not-yet-emerging poor countries of the world. As we would like to hope that a new George Soros Initiative that fords the political waters of climate change will be a big deal indeed – I will start here by going over material from the Soros Foundations Network Report 2008. George Soros began supporting efforts to promote an open society back in 1978 and five years later established the foundation in Hungary which signaled the start of his network that operates now in all parts of the globe. Today, the President of his New York headquarters is famous human rights advocate Aryeh Neier. The Foundations have offices in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Nairobi for East Africa, Estonia, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Johannesburg for Southern Africa, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Dakar for Western Africa, then further US based offices that deal with Latin America and the Caribbean; Af-Pak, Turkmenistan, Middle East and North Africa; Albania, Bulgaria, Czech and Slovak Republics, Moldova and Rumania; the Caucasus, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan; The States that resulted from the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, the Baltics, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine; Turkey; Burma/South East Asia. The total expenditures of the network was in 2008 over $540 million. With above scope before us – so what was discussed last night? In his introduction, Ross Gelbspan made it clear that the Global Climate Change topic has not made it yet through the Global Press – and by saying so he clearly got my vote unconditionally. He also said that the authoritarian governments that disregard human rights also do little on climate change. Their people suffer and there is no respite. A properly constructed program on this subject could help create important dynamics. Most important – RENEWABLE ENERGY COULD DRIVE GLOBAL ECONOMY. The importance is global – just look at what Secretary of Energy Prof. Steven Chu has said – “while we talk about Africa we also talk about California.” We have already a major agricultural collapse in California. Sara Scherr moved to food security in West Africa. Very large areas in Africa will get drier and much higher temperatures. Even in those countries that get cooler, or get more water – there will be problems. There will be floods and diseases that did not exist earlier. There will be a need for change so there will not be gains as some were saying earlier. In short – even when one sees weather improvements this will not translate as desirable. There will be environmental refugees. GHG – over 30% come from the agricultural sector. Most of the forest emissions come from drivers in agriculture. There will be adaptation issues and there will be talk of irrigation issues. Mark Hertsgaard added that so far we focused on energy and overlooked agriculture. WHERE DO YOU GET MEAT IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE CAR! he said. How do we eat? On the mitigation side – agriculture is an important tool. One must get a way to pull the carbon out of the atmosphere he said. Changing the agricultural system we might start turning the clock back in so far as CO2 in the atmosphere. The pressure is to get agriculture high on the Copenhagen agenda he said. At Q&A time questions came about US agriculture and the cap and trade program for dealing with climate change. Is there real advantage in the way how emission permits will be distributed – what about additionality in the agricultural sector, what about the fossil fuels used by agriculture …and we got away from the original issue of Africa. There was talk of monocultures but there was no talk of self sustaining agriculture and what foreign aid in kind does to destroy local potential in agriculture. Can the small local farmer break into the market if there is this unfair competition? Indeed Ross spoke of the impact the press has by NOT bringing out the full facts of climate change, but then I felt that the speakers still thought that the UN is of help in these matters. I believe that it will take a George Soros push in order to level with a UN that for years did not allow the dissemination of the facts that the Darfur killings started because of the impact of climate change on the environment. Human rights do not exist when the land cannot support all its children. Here we have security problems, and built in future genocides. These are the kind of issues that must be put on the table, as former UK government did when it brought up the issues to the forefront at the UN Security Council in 2007 and finally broke the UN leadership taboos in this respect. The UN Department of Public Information still had difficulty reporting on African leaders talking about climate change, and they were even slow in disseminating positions that were taken by some on the UN task forces. They were not alone in this. Some known accredited journalists still wanted just figures of how many corpses were found in the killings , but had no interest in why those things happen – do not waste our precious time they said – and it is amazing which self inflated correspondents said this. NOW – HERE WE HAVE REAL MEAT FOR OSI – AND WE HOPE THAT THE BUDDING INITIATIVE WILL TRY TO PUSH GOVERNMENTS TO SUGGEST POSITIVE MOVES, FOR THEIR REAL ADVANTAGE, EVEN WHEN BUSINESS ATTITUDES MIGHT SUGGEST THAT THEIR INTEREST IS NOT TO ROCK THE BOAT. Could i.e. an OSI work with China to help Sudan avoid internal strife while still pandering for its oil? ———————— Regarding the planting of trees on farmlands – by coincidence we got now also the following: UNEP NEWS Trees on Farms Key to Climate and Food-Secure Future; Experts Call for Worldwide Adoption of Sustainable Farming Practices by 2030 ahead of Major International Agroforestry Congress, Nairobi, Kenya, 24 July 2009. The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are calling for the widespread uptake of ‘green’ agricultural practices that will deliver multiple benefits to the world’s rapidly growing populations – from combating climate change and eradicating poverty to boosting food production and providing sustainable sources of timber. The call was made at the launch of the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry, which will be held in Nairobi from 23-28 August 2009. Agriculture, deforestation and other forms of land use account for nearly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. With just a few months to go until the crucial UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, agricultural and environmental experts agree that all forms of land use should be included in a post-Kyoto climate regime. According to a UNEP report, the agricultural sector could be largely carbon neutral by 2030 and produce enough food for a population estimated to grow to nine billion by 2050, if proven methods aimed at reducing emissions from agriculture were widely adopted today. Key among these methods are agroforestry, reduced cultivation of the soil, and the use of natural nutrients such as fertilizer trees. A study by World Agroforestry Centre scientists, for example, on fertilizer trees that capture nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil indicates that their use can reduce the need for commercial nitrogen fertilizers by up to 75 per cent while doubling or tripling crop yields. “These results should make agroforestry appealing to farmers” noted Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre and Co-Chair of the Congress Global Organizing Committee. UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “Addressing the range of current and future challenges – from the food, fuel and economic crises to the climate change and natural resource scarcity ones – requires an accelerated transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy for the 21st century. Farming will be either part of the problem or a big part of the solution. The choice is straight forward: continuing to mine and degrade productive land and the planet’s multi-trillion dollar ecosystems or widely adopting creative and climate-friendly management systems of which agroforestry is fast emerging as a key shining example.” “If implemented over the next fifty years, agroforestry could result in 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere, about a third of the world’s total carbon reduction challenge,” Dr Garrity said. Researchers suggest that integrating agroforestry in farming systems on a massive scale would create a vital carbon bank. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates no less than a billion hectares of developing country farmland is suitable for conversion to carbon agroforestry projects. “Nations must seal the deal on a comprehensive and scientifically-credible new climate agreement in Copenhagen – there is a lot at stake, not least the future of agriculture and farmers’ livelihoods. One key step will be for nations to agree to a scheme for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) which will pave the way for preserving forests and other key ecosystems, as well as closing the gap in global demand for sustainable timber by shifting production from forest to farm,” Mr. Steiner stated. According to a UNEP report released in June, the farm sector has the largest readily achievable gains in carbon storage, if best management practices were widely adopted. Up to 6 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 equivalent, or up to 2 Gt of carbon, could be sequestered each year by 2030, which is comparable to the current emissions from agriculture. Many of the agricultural practices that store more carbon can be implemented at little or no cost. The majority of this potential – 70 per cent – can be realized in developing countries. The Carbon Benefits Project, launched in May 2009, is developing a standard and reliable method for accurately measuring, monitoring, reporting, and projecting how much carbon each kind of land use is storing. This global project makes use of the latest remote sensing technology and analysis, soil carbon modeling, ground-based measurements, and statistical analysis. Garrity noted that if nations agree to a scheme for REDD in Copenhagen, the work of the Carbon Benefits Project will provide a more credible basis for smallholders to receive payments for conserving forests, practicing conservation agriculture and increasing tree cover on their farms that sequesters carbon. The theme of the Congress is Agroforestry – the future of global land use. It will assess opportunities to leverage scientific agroforestry in promoting sustainable land use worldwide. Over 1,000 researchers, practitioners, farmers, and policy makers from all corners of the globe are expected to attend, including Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and renowned environmental activist, and M. S. Swaminathan, World Food Prize laureate and “Father of the Green Revolution in India”. Tree geneticists will explain successful processes for domesticating tree species such as rubber, coffee and indigenous fruits. Economists will present findings of studies on value-adding and improving access to markets. And soil scientists will debate the best tree-based systems for reversing land degradation. 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry website www.worldagroforestry.org The World Agroforestry Centre, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is the world’s leading research institution on the diverse role trees play in agricultural landscapes and rural livelihoods. As part of its work to bring tree-based solutions to bear on poverty and environmental problems, centre researchers – working in close collaboration with national partners – have developed new technologies, tools and policy recommendations for increased food security and ecosystem health. www.worldagroforestry.org For more information please contact: For more information on the 2nd World Congress of Agrofrestry, see http://www.worldagroforestry.org/wca2009… ——————— and from NPR: CLIMATE CONNECTIONS: SOLUTIONS by Richard Harris In response to droughts and threatening sand dunes, Niger villagers have grown trees with the help of international aid. Farmers are encouraged to scatter the trees throughout the land in order to grow crops on the same plot. Although farmers normally prune the limbs only, some farmers clear the land for profit. All Things Considered, NPR, July 2, 2007. Scientists studying vegetation patterns in the broad, arid region just south of the Sahara desert have discovered that trees are growing like crazy there. And while it’s a big unknown whether global warming will bring further drought to this impoverished region, these trees will be one of the things that help people in countries like Niger cope. A huge chunk of Niger is Sahara desert, and what’s not outright desert gets just a smattering of rain. You don’t expect to see a lot of trees in this land-locked, West African country. But that’s exactly what ecologist Mahamane Larwanou and geographer Gray Tappan see when they roll out a satellite photo of central Niger. Both are passionate about understanding why trees are making a big comeback in many parts of Niger . In Niger, trees aren’t just aesthetic. They are essential. Ninety percent of the nation’s energy comes in the form of firewood. Trees also feed animals, nourish the soil, provide wood for construction, and bear fruit and lucrative products, like gum Arabic. And unlike most crops, trees can survive the inevitable hard times when the climate suddenly turns even drier and more hostile. So to get a closer look at the hopeful trend in tree growth, Larwanou and Tappan pack up a couple of four-wheel-drive trucks with gear, food and helpers and head east out of the capital city. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is funding a study to monitor tree growth in Niger, part of which involves a two-week road trip by Larwanou and Tappan. As we wind through broad agricultural areas and across rocky plateaus, it’s the same thing everywhere: acacia trees, gum Arabic, ebony, tamarind. As we cross a plateau, Larwanou marvels that there’s actually greenery dotted around us. “Before, this was an unproductive area,” he says. “There was not a single tree, only stones.” We descend off the plateaus and make our way into the town of Adouna . Larwanou and Tappan stop on the outskirts of town to measure the trees and figure out how much wood they’re producing. “If we know the amount of wood that is being produced, we can figure out a sustainable rate of harvest of the wood for firewood,” Tappan says. First they set up their study plot. Then, they measure the height and width of each tree and bush. Eventually, they will be able to extrapolate these readings to measure tree growth over an area of Niger the size of West Virginia. That’s a lot of wood. Tappan works for SAIC, a contractor that helps the U.S. Geological Survey run a remote sensing center in South Dakota. He’s precise and a bit reserved, especially in contrast to Larwanou, who is everybody’s instant friend. Larwanou’s face is adorned with tribal markings that look like whiskers. That gregarious quality serves Larwanou well, because the researchers don’t just want to measure tree growth. They want to understand what people are doing to encourage trees. And to do that, Larwanou talks to the locals. We wander up a slope overlooking the study plot to talk to three women who have been looking down on us and laughing at the strange activity they see. The women are chopping up a branch that had been lopped off the tree. First, goats and sheep had a chance to eat the leaves. Now the women are taking the rest for firewood. The first thing we learn is that these trees aren’t all that old. Oomah, the oldest woman, tell us that, long ago, this area was dotted with trees. But during the early 1970s, there was a horrible drought throughout this region of West Africa and people used the trees to survive. “People suffered in a way that cannot be described. People were displaced by that crazy drought. Those who dared to stay, cut down the trees and took them to the markets to sell,” Oomah says. “That was their only way to get food.” Even so, the drought killed hundreds of thousands of people throughout Niger and other parts of West Africa . Gray Tappan picks up the story from there. “When the people were hit by a second drought within their living memory,” he says, “they realized that they have to consider other options to survive the next drought. Everybody knows that drought is a natural part of this environment here. It is only a matter of time before we see another drought.” Aid groups from Europe and the United States knew that trees could help people adapt during the bad years. So they planted trees extensively starting in the 1980s. This explains part of the story. “They know the importance of trees,” Larwanou says . “If there are no trees here, they are in trouble. That’s end of their lives.” Here in Adouna, there’s an extra twist to the story. Alhaja Ishmaila, brother to Adouna’s chief, says that the village had been surrounded by sand dunes. After the trees were cut down in the 1970s, the dunes moved in on the town. The dunes moved so quickly that the people in the village were on the verge of abandoning the town altogether, Ishmaila says. A European aid group volunteered to plant trees to stabilize the dunes — so long as the town’s people built fences to keep the trees safe from the camels, donkeys, sheep and goats. Today, the people in Adouna say those trees saved the village. The stories vary from one village to the next, but Tappan says the result is the same: Large swaths of Niger are getting greener. “As we go from village to village, what we are hearing from farmers is they consider themselves better off today than they were 20 years ago. We see less and less migration of youth to cities,” Tappan says. “Youth stay because they can actually make a living on the land today.” Trees here are really another crop. Farmers generally encourage them to grow scattered throughout their land, so there’s still enough space and light to grow grains on the same plot. But Tappan and Larwanou have also noticed a few curious places in the aerial imagery where trees are growing back much more densely. “This is literally a forest — there was nothing there in 1975,” Tappan says, looking at the photos. “It is the densest stand of vegetation we have anywhere near this village area.” So we pile back into the trucks, pass some nomads who are riding camels, and head out — slowly — across deeply- rutted fields. Across the river, the scene is not at all what Tappan and Larwanou expected. The farmer who owns this land has recently chopped down most of his trees. “This was all forest a year and a half ago, and now look at all of the stumps. They cut everything,” Larwanou says. “They burned the soil to avoid sprouting. I am highly disappointed. I am an ecologist, and I would like to see everything green. But the farmer has to eat.” He not only needs to eat, he needs to make his land produce more and more food every single year. That’s because the population here is growing at an astounding pace, doubling every 20 years. These circumstances are difficult, but Larwanou sees an alternative to poverty’s destructive effects on Niger’s trees. In today’s global carbon marketplace, Niger could receive credit for trees that are soaking up the carbon dioxide produced by rich countries. The World Bank is already funding a few tree plantations in Niger, so the country can earn cash for taking carbon out of the atmosphere. It is hard to see how individual subsistence farmers could benefit from this exchange. But if Larwanou can find a way for all to reap the benefits, that would be yet another reason for the people in Niger to let their trees grow tall. ————– So, we learn that there is a multipurpose for planting tres on African farmland – perhaps not all of this is what we would like to hear. We assume that a Soros Foundation Initiative would look at how to help the locals feed themselves first – this before they fall into a new trap of what is good for the people from affar. We say this even though we are clearly in the corner of the climate change fighting world brigade, but doing another rffort on the back of Africas marginal people is not our thing. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 9th, 2009 THURSDAY, JULY 09, 2009 from the IPS G8 Summit: The Five Throw a Challenge L’AQUILA, Italy, Jul 8 (IPS) – “The world needs a new global governance,” the G5 declared Wednesday, “the construction of which must be based on inclusive multilateralism.” As rhetoric goes, this might sound like more of the same. But the time and place of that declaration gave the words a new significance. The current G8 summit in Italy was billed as an occasion where developed and developing countries would come together to seek common solutions to such global problems as the economic crisis, climate change and food security. And some commonality is certain to emerge. But A Major Economies Forum is due to come up with a declaration Thursday on climate change. That declaration by a group of countries that includes the G8 and the G5 stops short of specific numerical targets. And the developing countries effectively blocked any move to sign them on to binding targets – while pledging to cut emissions on their own. So while agreement will be reached in general terms, there will be no individual or group targets for either developing or industrialised countries, according to a senior official close to the negotiations. The G5 campaigned collectively to ensure that the principles they support are respected – prime among them the recognition that the developed nations are the prime polluters, and therefore carry primary responsibility to cut emissions such as carbon dioxide that are believed to cause global warming, and consequently, damaging climate change. Through the climate change negotiations, an effective grouping among the developing nations is already fact. A strong message went out following their summit on Wednesday that they can stand together and bargain hard with the G8. Extraordinary, too, was the very range of issues on which they took a firm stand in relation to the perceived interests of the G8 countries (the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia). The G8 have also stepped up their campaign for reform of the U.N. system, most potently the United Nations Security Council. That demand, primarily for expansion of the Security Council’s five permanent members with veto powers, has the backing of several of the G8 countries as well, particularly Britain. The G5 issued a trade declaration separately from their political declaration. And that only firms up the position the developing countries have taken at talks so far that have blocked a deal on the principle that no deal is better than a bad deal.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 15th, 2009 From: UNCCD <land-day@unccd.int> UNCCD Newsbrief: With this issue, we introduce a fortnightly news digest, UNCCD Newsbrief. UNCCD Newsbrief will provide snapshots of the latest information available on our website, as well as relevant news and publications of interest to the UNCCD community and partners. The reports are in chronological order. From this issue, which is also a test case of its necessity, we welcome feedback on its usefulness and relevance, as well as possible content. See the contact information at the end. (Please note that the web-links may change over time). ——— From this we picked for posting the following: Land Grab or Development Opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa is the outcome of a collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agriculture and Development and the International Institute for Environment and Development. To access the report visit: http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/ak241e/ak2… UNCCD-UNDP Strategic Partnership Retreat: The UNCCD Secretariat and UNDP held a two-day retreat in Bonn, Germany, on 4-5 June 2009 with a view to forge a strong partnership to support the implementation of the Convention. Partnership in implementation constitutes one of the four Strategic Objectives of the UNCCD Ten-Year Strategic Plan adopted at the 2007 Conference of the Parties. For presentations and overview of the meeting, visit: http://unccd.int/publicinfo/undp/menu.ph… Land Day: This one-day event, organized on the margins of the first negotiating session for a post-Kyoto Agreement (the Climate Change Talks), took place on Saturday, 6 June 2009. It was attended by over 180 participants. For the opening and keynote statements, presentations made and press information visit: http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/landday/… World Day to Combat Desertification: This event will take place next week, Wednesday, 17 June 2009. Events in observance of this Day are planned in a number of countries including Fiji, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Pakistan, Portugal and Sri Lanka, and by the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Space Agency and United Nations Environment Programme. Read more at: http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/june17/2… UNCCD Photo Contest: Submissions for the Second UNCCD Photo Contest are open until 17 July 2009. The contest is an awareness raising initiative. The winner will receive the award during the upcoming session of the Parties to the Convention scheduled for September/October 2009 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Travel and accommodation costs will be fully paid. Read more about the contest at: http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/photocon… Forthcoming UNCCD Meetings and Events: The regional meetings in preparation for the ninth session of the Conference of the Parties begin later this month as follows: Latin America and the Caribbean Region from 29-30 June 2009 in Montevideo, Uruguay; Northern Mediterranean Region from 8-10 July 2009 in Rome, Italy; Asia region from 13-15 July 2009 in Bangkok, Thailand; and the African region from 27-31 July 2009 in Tunis, Tunisia. The date and venue for the regional meeting for Central and Eastern Europe will soon be determined. For more UNCCD events visit: http://www.unccd.int/secretariat/docs/wo… New Publications and Reports: World in Transition: Future Bioenergy and Sustainable Land Use was published in 2009 by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development. A summary report for policy-makers is available here: http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_jg2007_kurz_engl… The Natural Fix? The Role of Ecosystems in Climate Mitigation is a report by UNEP prepared for the 2009 World Environment Day and released on 5 June. It highlights the potential in drylands to sequester carbon, among other issues. Available online at: http://www.unep.org/publications/search/… Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 9th, 2009 The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD Programme) is a collaboration between FAO, UNDP and UNEP. A multi-donor trust fund was established in July 2008 that allows donors to pool resources and provides funding to activities towards this programme. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the cutting down of forests is now contributing close to 20 per cent of the overall greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. Forest degradation also makes a significant contribution to emissions from forest ecosystems. Therefore there is an immediate need to make significant progress in reducing deforestation, forest degradation, and associated emission of greenhouse gases. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agenda item on “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries and approaches to stimulate action” was first introduced at the Conference of the Parties (COP11) in December 2005 by the governments of Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, supported by eight other Parties. The challenge was to establish a functioning international REDD finance mechanism that can be included in an agreed post-2012 global climate change framework. Progress has been made and the need to meet the challenge is now reflected in the Bali Action Plan and the COP13 Decision 2/CP.13. A functioning international REDD finance mechanism needs to be able to provide the appropriate revenue streams to the right people at the right time to make it worthwhile for them to change their forest resource use behaviour. In response to the COP13 decision, requests from countries, and encouragement from donors, FAO, UNDP and UNEP have developed a collaborative REDD programme. The UN-REDD Programme is aimed at tipping the economic balance in favour of sustainable management of forests so that their formidable economic, environmental and social goods and services benefit countries, communities and forest users while also contributing to important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to generate the requisite transfer flow of resources to significantly reduce global emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The immediate goal is to assess whether carefully structured payment structures and capacity support can create the incentives to ensure actual, lasting, achievable, reliable and measurable emission reductions while maintaining and improving the other ecosystem services forests provide. ————————————– From: Charles McNeill MRV, MULTIPLE BENEFITS & GOVERNANCE: KEY ISSUES FOR REDD IMPLEMENTATION Tuesday, 9 June 2009 Solar Room, Ministry of Environment , Bonn Speakers: Peter Holmgren, Director, Environment, Climate Change & Bioenergy Division, FAO Barney Dickson, Head of the Climate Change & Biodiversity Programme, UNEP-WCMC Rosalind Reeves, Forest Campaign Manager, Global Witness & Charles McNeill, Senior Policy Advisor, UNDP Monitoring systems that will allow credible and affordable Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of REDD performance are critical for successful implementation of any REDD scheme. Many countries are in the early phases of designing such systems by preparing and testing technical methodologies for accurate measurements, including field measurements and remote sensing, to enable monitoring of emissions from forests and land use. MRV requirements under REDD are about trends in emission levels and therefore concern the stock and flows of forest carbon. Specific MRV requirements will be determined through the UNFCCC process, building on IPCC guidelines. Additionally, for REDD to be successfully delivered by countries, alignment with national development contexts is needed to address synergies and trade-offs among multiple benefits (including livelihoods, biodiversity and ecosystem services). The aim of the event is to support countries in developing appropriate institutional and governance mechanisms to operationalize MRV systems. Speakers will also describe ongoing work of the UN system on multiple benefits beyond carbon. Implementation issues at the national level including institutional capacities will be explored. The CSO speakers will address the governance and independent monitoring aspects of MRV for REDD. ——————— - Incentives to sustain forest ecosystem services: A review and lessons for REDD - Community-based adaptation to climate change: an update Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 7th, 2009 What Does Climate Change Do to Our Heads? by Sanjay Khanna A case in point: When researchers from the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health at the University of Newcastle in Australia conducted interviews in drought-affected communities in New South Wales in 2005, the responses suggested some of their subjects may have been suffering from a recently described psychological condition called solastalgia (pronounced so-la-stal-juh). Albrecht’s work among communities distraught by black-coal strip mining in New South Wales’ Upper Hunter Region convinced him that the English language needed a new term to connect the experience of ecosystem loss to mental health concerns. Albrecht’s stunning insight? That there might be a wide variety of shifts in the health of an ecosystem—from subtle landscape changes related to global warming to desolate wastelands created by large-scale strip mining—that diminish people’s mental health. In one such interview, a female farmer poignantly described the loss of her garden oasis. “Our gardens have had to die,” she said, “because our house dam has been dry…. So it’s very depressing for a woman because a garden is an oasis out here with this dust…you know, to come home to a nice green lawn is just… that’s all gone, so you’ve got dust at your back door.” While persistent drought and open-pit coal mining may be extreme cases, if the environmental degradation of the past hundred years is any indication, our contemporary lifestyles, built on a dwindling resource base, have failed to acknowledge how much the mental health of people and ecosystems is interrelated. This may imply that the unrelenting media focus on weather-related and economic aspects of climate change does not adequately take into consideration the challenge of mitigating the psychological impact of global warming. How might we feel when the heat is relentless and our surrounding environment changes irrevocably? How might our mental health be affected? In a recent Wired magazine article on Albrecht and the concept of solastalgia, Global Mourning: How the next victim of climate change will be our minds, writer Clive Thompson sensitively characterized as “global mourning” the potential impact of overwhelming environmental transformation caused by climate change. Thompson cogently summed up Albrecht’s view of what solastalgia might look like were it to become an epidemic of emotional and psychic instability causally linked to changing climates and ecosystems. Albrecht also emphasizes that feelings of melancholia and homesickness have previously been recorded among Aboriginal peoples in the Americas and Australia who were forcibly moved from their home territories by U.S., Canadian and Australian governments in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sanjay Khanna: You speak of psychoterratic and somaterratic illnesses. What are they? Glenn Albrecht: Psychoterratic illness involves the psyche or mind and terra or earth. So a psychoterratic illness would be an earth-related mental illness, where both nostalgia and solastalgia are examples of people being made “mentally ill” by the severing of “healthy” links between themselves and their home or territory. Somaterratic illness, on the other hand, involves soma or the body and relates to damage done to the human body, its physiology and/or genetics, as a result of the loss of ecosystem health by, for example, toxic pollution in any given area of land. SK: You note on your blog that there are antecedents to solastalgia. GA: Yes, David Rapport, a past professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, is a pioneer in the study of the health of natural ecosystems and their relationship with humans. In the 1970s, he described “ecosystem distress syndrome,” which was what happened when an ecosystem couldn’t restore its balance after an external disturbance. Once I fully appreciated this concept, I realized there must be a human equivalent to ecosystem distress syndrome, that is, a home environment so profoundly disturbed that it affected the balance of well being or the mental health of people within their social ecology. The interviews of affected people I conducted along with Nick Higginbotham and Linda Connor in strip-mined areas of the Upper Hunter Valley showed that people’s sense of place was being violated and that this was profoundly disturbing them. Their home environment was being desolated and it seemed to us that the vital link between ecosystem health and human health, both physical and mental, was being severed. SK: Can you tell us a little bit more about the origins of solastalgia? GA: Solastalgia’s Latin roots combine three ideas: The solace that one’s environment provides, the desolation caused by that environment’s degradation and the pain or distress that occurs inside a person as a result. Solastalgia brings into English a much-needed word that links a mental state to a state of the biophysical environment. The need for new concepts in the face of what is happening under climate change has seen other cultures develop new terms that have affinities with solastalgia. The Inuit, for example, have a new word, uggianaqtuq (pronounced OOG-gi-a-nak-took), which relates to climate change and has connotations of the weather as a once reliable and trusted friend that is now acting strangely or unpredictably. And the Portuguese use the word saudade to describe a feeling one has for a loved one who is absent or has disappeared. The upshot is that under the pressure of climate change, your preferred climate and ecosystem might well be thought of as a lover gone missing or turned bad. SK: How might your research impact on psychiatry and the diagnosis of psychoterratic illnesses such as solastalgia? GA: Alongside five other researchers, our four-person team co-wrote a summary of our research on the mental health impacts of mining and drought for psychological and psychiatric professionals. The paper, Solastalgia: the distress caused by climate change, was published in Australasian Psychiatry, a publication of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, in November 2007. Our team has mused that people badly affected by solastalgia would benefit from a set of professionally developed diagnostic tools so that solastalgia could be listed as a condition that required diagnosis and professional attention. We’re happy for other people to take that challenge up and there are some academic psychiatrists who are interested in exploring these ideas further. However, given that key aspects of solastalgia are existential, the traditions of environmental philosophy and medical psychiatry may not come together so harmoniously. The melancholia of solastalgia is not the same as clinical depression, but it may well be a precursor to serious psychic disturbance. That said, it’s worth remembering that up until the mid-twentieth century, the medical profession viewed nostalgia as a diagnosable psycho-physiological illness in which, for example, soldiers fighting in foreign lands became so homesick and melancholic it could kill them. Today psychiatrists would see the condition of rapid and unwelcome severing from home as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an outcome of an acute stressor such as warfare or a Hurricane Katrina. Solastalgia on the other hand is most often the result of chronic environmental stress; it is the lived experience of gradually losing the solace a once stable home environment provided. It is therefore appropriate to diagnose solastalgia in the face of slow and insidious forces such as climate change or mining. SK: Would you tell us a little bit about the transdisciplinary team that you participate on? GA: Nick Higginbotham, a social psychologist colleague who specializes in epidemiology and health matters, is working to gather empirical data for our solastalgia research. He has developed a much-needed environmental distress scale (EDS) that teases out the specific environmental components of distress from all the other things that go on in a person’s life. We will be using this scale in the new AUS$430K grant the team has received from the Australian Research Council to extend our earlier work by addressing “the lived experience (ethnography) of climate change” among people in the Hunter Valley. Linda Connor, an ethnographer and social and medical anthropologist, handles the ethnography or cultural experience of all this. So collectively we have empirical (Higginbotham), cultural (Connor) and philosophical (me) interpretations of health and climate change. Finally, Sonia Freeman, our research assistant, has co-authored a number of papers. SK: What implications might the recent apology by Kevin Rudd, the new Prime Minister of Australia, to the “stolen generations” of Australian Aborigines have in relation to solastalgia? GA: The apology by Kevin Rudd to the stolen generations is about seeking forgiveness for the government-sanctioned taking of Indigenous children from their families and from their home territories (their “country”) from 1909 until 1969. There have been profound mental and physical health impacts from this process and many of the remaining stolen generations are now ageing but with a 17-year shorter life expectancy on average than non-indigenous Australians. Those who are alive today may be experiencing genuine nostalgia for a once-sustainable past and solastalgia within contemporary pathological and depressed home environments. SK: Do you see a relationship between the conquest of Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia, the state of environmental degradation and the experience of loss that we are seeing today? If so, what is that relationship from your perspective and research? GA: The answer is, yes, there is a relationship between the two colonial cultures: the two continents were colonized only by the systematic dispossession of complex and formerly sustainable Indigenous societies. Traditional Indigenous cultures in the Americas and Australasia displayed a profound appreciation of the relationship between human and ecosystem health, something global culture is trying to rediscover under the label of sustainability. Remnant aboriginal cultures are still being pushed aside by the dominant global model of economic growth and progress. Even today, their chronic health problems are likely related to social and political issues that are connected to ongoing dispossession. I’ve had recent firsthand experience of the lives of Indigenous people leading semi-traditional lives in Northern Australia to see the importance of the connections between human health and ecosystem health. In Arnhem Land, Aborigines who live on what are called “outstations” have been able to maintain much stronger and healthier links to their traditional land. Their physical and mental health status is, as a consequence, much better than those whose links to their own land have been severed and who now live in crowded, dysfunctional communities. SK: Some of the solastalgia symptoms you describe are similar to the loss of cultural identity, including the loss of language and ancestral memory. Loss of place seems an extension of this new global experience of weakened cultural identities and Earth-based ethical moorings. GA: I have written on this topic in a professional academic journal and expressed the idea of having an Earth-based ethical framework that could contribute to maximizing the creative potential of human cultural and technological complexity and diversity without destroying the foundational complexity and diversity of natural systems in the process. Our history shows that some people and cultures have a tendency to create pathological ways of thinking, but if we want to support a life-affirming ethic in the twenty-first century, we are in need of reform and change. SK: In the context of accelerating environmental change, what would you say to young people about the planet they are inheriting? What does sustainability mean in the context of the overwhelming pace of environmental and economic change that we’re seeing today? GA: This is a tough one because the children of today face the double whammy of the escalating pace and scale of changes under the global forces of development and those of climate chaos. I’ve suggested to my own teenagers that what is happening is unacceptable ethically and practically and they should be in a state of advanced revolt about the whole deal. From my perspective, supporting and maintaining the status quo is no longer a reasonable response to these big picture issues. At every point, we must challenge and refute this kind of thinking in a society that is clearly on a non-sustainable pathway. Unfortunately, the lot in life of the youth today is to undo much of what has been done in the name of growth and progress in the last two hundred years. However, this does not mean a return to the past: As Herman Daly (the ecological economist) once said, you can have an economy that develops without growing. On a personal level, I’m an optimistic, energetic philosopher and I believe that we must get our values more life orientated. I’m not willing to give up on encouraging change towards sustainability even in the face of what look like overwhelming negative forces. The four-year grant recently awarded to our team will allow us to study the lived experience of climate change at a regional level. We’re happy that we’ll be able to start contributing data on how climate change is shifting culture, values and attitudes. The next four years are critical. As a member of a research team, I believe that we’re right at the leading edge of change research and we are very committed to supporting the network of ecological and social relationships that promote human health. There’s hope in recognizing solastalgia and defeating it by creating ways to reconnect with our local environment and communities. ### Sanjay Khanna is a writer and foresight researcher based in Vancouver, Canada. He can be reached at sk AT khannaresearch DOT com. His blog is at www.realisticsanctuary.com. More articles are available at www.huffingtonpost.com Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 6th, 2009 As we know that many of our readers are interested in the nexus of climate change and desertification, we thought that there might be interest in participatingin the following review studies and decided to post this e-mail. ————– Dear Scientific Colleagues and Stakeholders of the UNCCD. This is an invitation to review the first drafts of scientific analysis papers contributing to the world’s fight against desertification and land degradation. (or http://dsd consortium.jrc.ec.europa.eu/php/index.php?action=view&id=160) and click the button on the left entitled ‘Online Consultation’. You can download and read the papers in PDF format there if you prefer, but all comments must be received via the web feedback system that is accessed through the above path. ————— Background For one month, from 28 May to 28 June 2009, the first drafts of the white papers will be open for review by scientists and stakeholders worldwide. We look forward to your valuable contributions. Please visit the web link mentioned above to participate in the review process. Thank you for helping to enrich these papers with your knowledge, comments and suggestions. Sincerely, Head, Program Facilitation Unit (PFU), CGIAR Program for Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC) Coordinator, Regional Program of the International Center For Agricultural Research In The Dry Areas (ICARDA) for the CAC Region Mail Address: Program Facilitation Unit, P.O. Box 4564, Tashkent, 100000, Uzbekistan Phones: +99871 2372130, +99871 2372169, +99871 2372104 Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 26th, 2009 We hope that Copenhagen will not forget that its focus is on climate change/global warming.
25 May 2009: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a policy brief providing options for addressing agriculture in a global climate change agreement. The brief provides an overview over the technical mitigation potential in the agricultural sector, noting that most of this potential is in developing countries. It further lays out options for integrating mitigation in the agricultural sector in nationally appropriate mitigation action (NAMA) in developing countries, arguing that many mitigation actions have co-benefits for improved food security, sustainable development and adaptation. The brief suggests tailoring agricultural NAMAs to country conditions and circumstances such as the food security situation, intensity of production systems, dependency of the local population on agriculture and pressures for land conversion. The brief proposes a phased approach, starting with capacity building and national strategy development, followed by scaling up projects and implementing sectoral strategies where appropriate, and complemented by a NAMA carbon trading mechanism in the final stage. The policy brief presents three proposals for anchoring agriculture in a climate regime: including agriculture in NAMAs of developing countries by supporting the adoption of practices that support mitigation; ensuring financing for agricultural mitigation by expanding the scope of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and establishing new financing mechanisms with broader scope and more flexible approaches; and by developing a comprehensive landscape approach covering all land uses. [The Brief] Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 23rd, 2009
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched an online website today serving as a one-stop-shop for the latest information about the welfare of farm animals. The agency said that the Gateway to Farm Animal Welfare internet site is a source of reliable information on legislation and research findings on livestock, as well as on animal welfare standards, practices and policies. Giving developing country governments, professionals and producers online access to the latest information and the opportunity to contribute information relevant to their own situation, the portal will help to improve livestock welfare, health and productivity worldwide, FAO said in a news release issued to promote the site. FAO noted that since the 1990s, the core of the livestock production industry has shifted from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere with a few developing countries emerging as significant forces in the sector. Livestock production accounts for 40 per cent of the value of agricultural output around the world, and animal food products provide one-third of the global population’s protein intake, according to FAO. The agency noted that animals also contribute income, social status and security to roughly one billion people, including many of the world’s poor. “This portal meets a real information need in this extremely important area,” said Samuel Jutzi, FAO Director of Animal Health and Production Division. Among the animal welfare issues covered on the new FAO website are transport, slaughter and pre-slaughter management, animal husbandry and handling and the culling of animals for disease control. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 12th, 2009 From: kimo at iisd.org IISD Reporting Services has published a guest article, “Climate Change Mitigation: Tapping the Potential of Agriculture” by Alexander Mueller, Wendy Mann and Leslie Lipper of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the most recent issue of “MEA Bulletin.” The article can be found at http://www.iisd.ca/mea-l/guestarticle65…. and the entire issue of MEA Bulletin can be downloaded at http://www.iisd.ca/mea-l/meabulletin65.p… ———————————————————————- Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 5th, 2009 “UN COUNTER-TERRORISM TASK FORCE SHIFTS INTO NEW OPERATIONAL PHASE” as per UN News of March 5, 2009. The United Nations task force charged with coordinating the world body’s counter-terrorism efforts has entered a new operational phase, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointing a director for the body. Jean-Paul Laborde, who for many years led the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), will take up his position as the head of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) next month. Mr. Laborde, who is also one of the Task Force’s founding members, is currently serving as the President of the Chamber of the 2nd French Court of Appeals. The CTITF updated the General Assembly yesterday in an informal plenary meeting, marking a shift into a more operational chapter for the body, during which it will focus on concrete activities undertaken by its working groups which centre on issues including the financing of terrorism and terrorists’ use of the Internet. The Secretary-General has also transferred the leadership of the Task Force to the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), and seeks to bolster the CTITF office by stepping up funding for its activities. At yesterday’s meeting, Member States expressed support for securing its budget through the regular budget, as opposed to voluntary contributions. Representatives from nearly two dozen UN entities, as well as organizations such as INTERPOL, are members of the Task Force, which was established by the Secretary-General in July 2005 to ensure coordination and coherence in the world body’s efforts to counter terrorism. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 30th, 2009 From: tgray at iucnus.org A new IUCN report: Implementing Sustainable Bioenergy Production: a compilation of tools and approaches, urges governments, bioenergy producers and investors to learn from the environmental community and to start implementing sustainable approaches for bioenergy production. The publication addresses a range of sustainability issues from gender to invasive species; water management to landscape planning – some of which are rarely included in the bioenergy debate. Please see link below: In addition IUCN has also released a background paper for Davos which might also be of interest: Energy, ecosystems and livelihoods: Understanding linkages in the face of climate change impacts, which highlights the fact that a well-managed environment will maximize energy security. The paper argues that to sustainably increase future energy supplies, natural resources need to be well-managed and enhanced. For more information please contact Nadine McCormick: ————- Taffeta Gray ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 21st, 2009 VOICING OPTIMISM, BAN CONGRATULATES US PRESIDENT ON INAUGURATION Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today, “with great optimism,” congratulated Barack Obama on his inauguration as the new President of the United States, stressing that America and the Organization share a number of common goals. Challenges – such as economic turmoil, climate change, peace and security issues such as disarmament and non-proliferation, and the food, energy and development crises – are global in scope and “require strong and collective responses,” Mr. Ban said in a statement. In Mr. Obama’s inaugural address yesterday, he “was explicit in committing his administration to tackling all of these problems, urgently and decisively,” speaking of the need to tackle global warming, promote clean energy and cooperate with developing nations. “This is also the work of the United Nations. Our goals are shared,” the Secretary-General stated. “Together, United States of America and the United Nations can look forward to a new era of strong and effective partnership, delivering the results and the change we need.” ———- One of Mr. Obama’s main election promises was an energy policy to address climate change, spur job growth and curb US dependence on foreign oil and gas. He also said he planned to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 and create five million new environmentally friendly jobs. “Obama’s green jobs strategy could deliver a ‘quadruple win’ – dealing simultaneously with the economic recession, energy security, job creation and emissions,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. The incoming US administration is being hailed as “unprecedentedly green,” with the creation of the post of Energy and Environment Coordinator who will serve as Mr. Obama’s ‘Climate Czar.’ Other appointments include Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy and John P. Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard University, as the President’s Science Adviser. “These are not political figures [who came] to this issue yesterday,” Mr. Steiner said. “They are some of the most authoritative, competent and knowledgeable people.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 24th, 2008 “INNOVATION AFRICA” The volume (405 pages) was edited by Pascal C.Sanginga, Ann Walter-Bayer, Susan Kaaria, Jemimah Njuki, and Chesha Wetlasinha. Earthscan, is a publishing house for a sustainable future, based in Dunstan House, 14a St. Cross st., London EC1N 8XA, UK – with a branch at 22883 Quicksilver Derive, Sterling, VA, USA. www.earthscan.co.uk The project, meeting and book, were sponsored jointly by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the roof of the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The goal is tp promote African agricultural development through capacity-building, research and pilot testing of interventions. At the Kampala meeting participated 140 practitioners and the best 24 articles appear in the 5 parts of this volume. The conclusions led to five observations, and I will mention here just the fifth – that says that real innovation emerges by encouraging creativity, and that is not achieved by over-engineering a multiple level of bureaucracy that poses the risk of stifling real discovery. So, it is better to create enabling conditions and incentive structures that encourage information exchange, cooperation and policy changes that unleash bottom-up or lateral innovation. The first article is of 26 pages on “Conceptual and Methodological Developments in Innovation,” presented by Niels Roeling. I found interesting his use of “innovation” as a noun – denoting a technology or even a product i.e. hybrid maize. Then he talks about the “diffusion curve” of introducing this innovation for gain by the users. That was the way the subject was taught in the American Mid-West. Eventually he mentions that his thinking was affected by the observation from Landcare in Australia, that “erosion, salination, desiccation and other environmental problems” resulted from the introduction of European farming practices to a continent to which they were not suited. Thus we reach out to grassroots innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the book presents many ways of organizing this sort of development of agricultural knowledge and information systems. The book ends up presenting many conceptual and methodological developments in promoting innovation by showcasing on-the-ground experiences in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, South Africa, Nigeria. The volume mentions the changes in global agriculture, the use of biofuels, the increase in meat consumption, droughts and extreme weather caused by climate change, and the resulting increase in the price of food, and asks if those events will make African smallholders competitive in African urban markets. The author is nevertheless not over optimistic. It is the global “treadmill” that prevents African farmers from contributing to global food security and African countries from gaining food sovereignty. The imports of food haveinterfered with the marketting of the local produce beyond the subsistence level. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 20th, 2008 From: Elizabeth.Migongo-Bake at unep.org 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry – 3rd Announcement Theme: “Agroforestry – The Future of Global Land Use” The Congress will assess opportunities to leverage scientific agroforestry in promoting sustainable land use worldwide. -share new research findings, lessons, experiences, and ideas that will help influence decisions that impact on livelihoods and the global environment -explore new opportunities and strengthen existing partnerships in agroforestry research, education, training, and development -form new networks and communities of practice, and nurture old ones. enquiries: WCA2009 at cgiar.org Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 17th, 2008 DLDD = Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought. The high-level policy dialogue (the “Dialogue”) on the theme “Coping with today’s global challenges in the context of the Strategy of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification” (UNCCD), took place on Tuesday, 27 May 2008, in Bonn, Germany. The Dialogue was intended to facilitate a targeted exchange from a number of stakeholders on the ten-year strategic plan (“the Strategy”) and to foster awareness of and buy-in among relevant policy and decision makers. There were over 120 participants, including ambassadors, ministers, country representatives, intergovernmental organizations, UN agencies, NGOs and the private sector. The Dialogue consisted of three segments, each of which comprised presentations and discussion among participants. Above as reported by IISD from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) – UNCCD HIGH-LEVEL POLICY DIALOGUE in Linkages: www.iisd.ca/vol04/enb04208e.html Now We have a new PRESS RELEASE FROM A UNCCD Conference: Istanbul, Turkey, 14 November 2008 - A major United Nations conference ended today with significant steps taken to combat desertification and land degradation as well as to mitigate the effects of drought, known as DLDD. Delegates from the 193 countries who are the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) took significant actions to resolve difficult scientific problems within the Convention process. By drawing in the scientific and technological community more intensively to create indicators that can be used at national levels and beyond, the Convention will win more confidence of the stakeholders. In addition, the reporting process from the Parties is to be mainstreamed so that both affected countries and development partners can see where the Convention reaps large benefits and retain them, while eliminating less effective ones. “The delegates here in Istanbul took a big stride to guide the next year’s ninth Conference of the Parties (COP9) [the decision making body of the Convention]. We are all on the same page. But it has to be remembered that without proper action by stakeholders, both in developing and developed countries, some 50 million people could be displaced by desertification and land degradation within the next ten years,” said Mr. Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD. The Seventh Session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 7) and the first special session of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST-S1) were held in Istanbul from 3 to 14 November. At the first special session of the Committee for Science and Technology (CST-S1), the scientific advisory body of the Convention, delegates confirmed that promoting the participation of the national science and technology correspondents (STC) in the activities of the committee would enhance its work. The Committee, in consultation with STCs, is now moving forward to select a minimum set of indicators to measure the impact of the implementation of the Convention. Mr. Gnacadja said that these indicators would be applicable to all countries so that a common standard can make analysis at the national, sub-regional, regional, and the global level feasible. It will also increase the effectiveness of the implementation of the Convention. The set of indicators will be finalized during regional scientific meetings next year towards the submission to COP9. *** At the seventh session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 7), which followed the CST-S1, the delegates agreed on reporting principles which measures the Convention’s implementation progress. Through the reporting process, affected countries and development partners would understand “what works, what doesn’t” in implementing the Convention. Assessment of national capacity to implement the Convention will be conducted in all regions in order to design a comprehensive capacity building approach. The new reporting format will provide opportunities for affected country Parties to address their success and constraints in implementing the Convention in its 10-year strategic plan. For developed country Parties, future reporting should focus on providing information about how the Convention has been mainstreamed into their development cooperation strategies. Another significant step was the concrete proposal to strengthen the involvement of integration civil society organizations in the review process. “Recommendations made at the conference have several significant implications. First, the reporting guidelines will increase credibility of the Convention. Secondly, by Parties agreeing to the establishment of the workprogramme, taking a result-based management approach, the Convention will increase accountability. Further, the cooperation among the Convention institutions will increase efficiency of the implementation process of the Convention.” commented Mr. Gnacadja. “This is a certain step-forward for making the Convention a systemic and worldwide response to global environmental issues affecting land and its ecosystems.” The new recommendations would entail a wider use of the information generated by countries and would achieve a higher level of accountability as desired by the Parties, according to the UNCCD Executive Secretary. These will be addressed at the next Conference of the Parties in autumn 2009. “The pieces have fallen together here in Istanbul to fight DLDD. Now is the time to act,” concluded Mr. Gnacadja. Media interested in more information about the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification can call Marcos Montoiro at +49-228-815-2806 or send an e-mail to press at unccd.int ********************** Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 24th, 2008 `We blew it’ on global food, says Bill Clinton. UNITED NATIONS Headquarters, New York City — Former President Clinton told a U.N. gathering Thursday that the global food crisis shows “we all blew it, including me,” by treating food crops “like color TVs” instead of as a vital commodity for the world’s poor. Addressing a high-level event marking Oct. 16′s World Food Day, Clinton also saluted President Bush — “one thing he got right” — for pushing to change U.S. food aid policy. He scolded the bipartisan coalition in Congress that killed the idea of making some aid donations in cash rather than in food. Now skyrocketing prices in the international grain trade — on average more than doubling between 2006 and early 2008 — have pushed many in poor countries deeper into poverty. *** U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the gathering that prices on some food items are “500 percent higher than normal” in Haiti and Ethiopia, for example. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the number of undernourished people worldwide rose to 923 million last year. *** “Food is not a commodity like others,” Clinton said. “We should go back to a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency. It is crazy for us to think we can develop countries around the world without increasing their ability to feed themselves.” He noted that food aid from wealthy nations could itself be a tool for bolstering agriculture in poor countries. Canada, for example, requires that 50 percent of its aid go as cash — not as Canadian grain — to buy crops grown locally in Africa and other recipient countries. U.S. law, however, requires that almost all U.S. aid be American-grown food, which benefits U.S. farmers but undercuts local food crops. Bush proposed earlier this year that 25 percent of future U.S. aid be given in cash.
Clinton also criticized the heavy U.S. reliance on corn to produce ethanol, which increased demand for the crop and helped drive up grain prices worldwide.
*** In opening the meeting, Ban expressed dismay at the potential impact of the global financial crisis on world hunger. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 18th, 2008 Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008, The Japan Times nline. Moving from Christian to Muslim democracy. By JAN-WERNER MUELLER
*** A breakthrough came with the Italian Popular Party’s founding in 1919. Its leader, Don Luigi Sturzo, wanted it to appeal to tutti i liberi e forti — all free and strong men. The Vatican, having prohibited Italian Catholics from participating in the political life of newly united Italy for almost 60 years, lifted its ban. Mussolini soon outlawed the Popolari, and in any event, the Vatican had had a strained relationship with the party, appearing more comfortable supporting pro-Catholic authoritarian regimes in countries like Austria and Portugal. While Christian democracy got nowhere politically between the world wars, momentous changes were initiated in Catholic thought. In particular, the French Catholic thinker Jacques Maritain developed arguments as to why Christians should embrace democracy and human rights. During the 1920s, Maritain was close to the far-right Action Francaise, but the pope condemned the movement in 1926 for essentially being a group of faithless Catholics more interested in authoritarian nationalism than Christianity. Maritain accepted the pope’s verdict and began a remarkable ideological journey toward democracy. He criticized France’s attempts to appear as a modern crusader, incurring the wrath of Catholics in the United States in particular. More importantly, he began to recast some of Aristotle’s teachings and medieval natural law doctrines to arrive at a conception of human rights. He also drew on the philosophy of “personalism” — which was highly fashionable in the 1930s as it sought a middle way between individualist liberalism and communitarian socialism — and insisted that people had a spiritual dimension that materialistic liberalism supposedly failed to acknowledge. Maritain also insisted that Christians, while they should take into account religious precepts, had to act as citizens first. Acceptance of pluralism and tolerance were central to his vision and he forbade one-to-one translation of religion into political life. He was rather skeptical of exclusively Christian parties. Maritain participated in the drafting of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, and the Second Vatican Council eventually approved many of the ideas that he had been propounding since the 1930s. He also influenced the Christian Democratic parties that governed after 1945 in Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries and, to a lesser extent, France, and which consolidated not only democracy but also built strong welfare states in line with Catholic social doctrine. By the 1970s, the parties even began to stress that one didn’t have to be a believer to join. Maritain’s example disproves the claim that the analogy between Christian and Muslim democracy fails. It wasn’t the Vatican that took the lead in creating Christian democracy; it was innovative philosophers like Maritain (who never served in the Church hierarchy, though he was briefly French ambassador to the Vatican) and political entrepreneurs like Sturzo (a simple Sicilian priest). Of course, Muslim democracy will not be brought about by intellectuals alone. After all, Christian democracy’s success is also explained by its strongly anti-communist stance during the Cold War. Some of the philosophies used in the European Catholic transition to democracy — such as personalism — were rather nebulous, although it was probably their vagueness that helped to bring as many believers as possible on board. But the point remains that ideas matter. So the creation of a liberalized Islam by self-consciously moderate and democratic Muslim intellectuals is crucial. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 16th, 2008 UN DAILY NEWS from the WORLD FOOD DAY REMINDER OF DAILY CRISIS BORNE BY MILLIONS, SAY UN OFFICIALS As the eyes of the world continue to watch the ups and downs of global markets amid the current financial turmoil, United Nations officials are calling attention today to another global crisis – hunger – which affects millions daily and kills a child every six seconds. “This year’s World Food Day comes at a time of crisis,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon states in his message for the occasion. “Global financial turmoil is exacerbating concerns about rising food and fuel costs, which have already driven 75 million people deeper into the abyss of hunger and poverty.” Mr. Ban notes that this “colossal human tragedy” is unfolding as the world fights to keep the promise made in the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) – to reduce hunger and poverty by half by the year 2015. Even before prices started rising, 800 million people were going to sleep hungry every night, the Secretary-General points out. And now, with energy costs rising and the price of food having more than doubled in the past year alone, an additional 100 million people could be pushed into hunger and poverty. “These are life-and-death matters that we must confront with serious thought and resolute action,” he adds, calling on Governments, organizations and citizens to forge meaningful partnerships to overcome these challenges so the world can meet all the MDGs and, ultimately, usher in a world free of hunger and poverty. The head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) agreed that at a time when the world’s attention is consumed by the financial crisis, it is appropriate to focus today on the global hunger crisis, which is a daily reality for families across the globe. “Rapidly rising food shortages, dramatic increases in fuel costs, and profound changes in climate conditions conspired this year to bring new dimensions of suffering and hardship to the poor, depriving almost one billion people of the food they need to live a healthy life,” Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in her message for the Day. “On this day, we remember those who have lived with the ache of hunger, for too long . . . and who now need our help even more,” she added. World Food Day is observed annually on 16 October, the day on which the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was founded in 1945. At a ceremony today at FAO headquarters in Rome, Director-General Jacques Diouf called for a political and financial push to boost sustainable agriculture in the world’s poor countries, double global food production and free the world of hunger and malnutrition. “I wish to reaffirm that we know what needs to be done to eradicate the hunger of 923 million people in the world. We also know what needs to be done to double world food production and feed a population that is expected to rise to 9 billion people by 2050.” He noted that $22 billion was pledged to promote global food security earlier this year, but that only 10 per cent of this has so far materialized – mainly for emergency food aid. “What we need … is political will and delivery on financial commitments, if we are to be able to make the essential investments that are needed to promote sustainable agricultural development and food security in the poorest countries of the world,” he stated. Describing the situation of hunger in the world as “alarming,” the independent UN expert on the right to food has called for a new production system to tackle the global food crisis. In a message to mark the Day, UN Special Rapporteur Olivier De Schutter states that “the violation on a daily basis of the right to food for hundreds of millions of people worldwide has its roots in an outdated and inadequate production system, rather than in the actual quantity of food available. “But there is hope in this crisis,” he adds. “Indeed, if the right choices are made now, this shock may even prove salutary, for it provides governments and international agencies with an opportunity to learn from what happened.” Among the activities planned in over 150 countries to mark this year’s World Food Day is the popular Run for Food, which will take place in Rome on 19 October involving 4,000 people with a similar event to be held on the same day in Milan. Other major events are also planned in Albania, Egypt, Morocco, Republic of Korea and a number of Asian and Latin American countries during this month. Former United States President Bill Clinton will participate in a World Food Day ceremony at UN headquarters in New York on 23 October. Permalink |
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Decentralized Renewable Energy Technologies in Adaptation to Climate Change in Developing Countries. Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 16th, 2008 From: nath at southcentre.org South Centre, the Geneva-based intergovernmental organisation and thinktank of the developing countries, has published the paper: “Role of Decentralized Renewable Energy Technologies in Adaptation to Climate Change in Developing Countries” and is available in the electronic format at:
On the other hand, the reinforcement of adaptation to climate change needs a strong effort to shift toward a low-carbon energy pathway ��� both in terms of the energy infrastructure and the energy production and consumption patterns ��� that nevertheless would continue to support continued sustainable development in developing countries while lessening the level of their GHG emission increases. In this context, DRETs may represent an important way for developing countries to support adaptation and enhance development, representing a more ecological development pathway with emphasis on the introduction and use of clean and resource-efficient technologies, social and environmental sustainability and improved social equity. You may register yourself at http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?opt… to stay updated on new South Centre publications, and join www.INSouth.org to meet other intellectuals working on climate change and other issues of interest to the South. Best regards, —- 17-19 chemin du Champ d’Anier Email: nath at southcentre.org Website: http://www.SouthCentre.org Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 27th, 2008
The Columbia University World Leaders Forum, September 26, 2008, Became The Podium For Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark To Make Known A Roadmap To The December 2009 Climate Change Meeting in Copenhagen. The Prime Minister Is Keenly Interested That The Copenhagen Event Becomes The Turnaround Point From Our Present Descent Towards Global Environmental Disaster, and He Negotiated This Week A Roadmap With The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and The Two Candidates For The US Presidency. We Wished Him All The Luck He Needs; Nevertheless We Expressed Some Skepticism. The Columbia Forum brings to campus, during all months of the academic year, leaders involved with all sorts of ongoing problems, and at the time of the September High Level meetings of the UN General Assembly, it picks up special speed, and manages to pick up speakers that may have fallen in between the cracks when organizations like the Asia Society and the Americas Society, or the Foreign Policy Association, or the Council on Foreign Affairs, set up their schedules. This time it was really not the case. Prime Minister Rasmussen came to Columbia University because he has high esteem for the work done at the Earth Institute that is the home for a large number of scientists that were involved in the readying of the IPCC reports. Having said that, we must also note that rather then having the people from The Earth Institute involved in the Forum, the University chose to go all out with Columbia University President, Lee C. Bollinger, and University Professor of Economics and Law, Jagdish Bhagwati, a specialist on globalization and development, being the official hosts. The above august Columbia University reception caused Mr. Rasmussen to start by saying: “I congratulate you on your work. I am impressed by the contribution of The Earth Institute to both the development agenda and the Millennium Development Goal. Issues I had the opportunity to discuss yesterday with other world leaders. Today, I will be speaking about another major topic for The Earth Institute and for many leaders including myself: CLIMATE CHANGE. I will focus on three key elements: THE CHALLENGE, THE VISION, and THE DEAL.” The introduction said to us clearly – the Prime Minister does not want to see the reality of climate change being submerged under tons of other global problems. The task of his leadership towards a Copenhagen 2009 agreement is to lead to an agreed timetable for the decrease of CO2 emissions from human made causes – it is this, rather then the maze of other linked problems, that he intends to tackle. He laid bare the problem in his first two segments – but his aim is the third segment – THE DEAL. We intend to post his whole presentation – but for this fast posting we want to go directly to the DEAL, point out questions that came up in follow up discussions, and the full information that was then provided to the very few members of the media present at a follow up press conference. *** The Prime Minister wants to see in the December 2009 declaration a deal based on four key elements: FIRSTLY: A Long Term Vision for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 1990 baseline by 2050. This in order to set out targets for businesses in planning their investments. SECONDLY: An Ambitious Medium Term Goal for the industrialized countries modeled after the European commitment to 30% reduction by 2020. “A tall order, I know, but it meets the challenge and creates opportunities.” But that is not enough. The Major Emerging Economies will also have to join this endeavour by taking actions. They must stabilise, and subsequently reduce, their emissions. This obviously taking in consideration the different levels of development of the individual countries. IN THIS PRESERVATION OF FORESTS WILL PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE. Without clear 10 to 15-year reduction commitments from the industrialized countries it will not be possible to develop cost effective measures. THIRDLY: The Technology aspect requires the development and dissemination of low carbon technologies and INNOVATION within a global collaborative effort that promotes programs and policies that sustain economic development while ensuring decreased emissions. We must encourage investment and financing of low-carbon technologies. FOURTHLY: Dealing with the special needs of the most vulnerable developing countries that contributed least to global warming and suffer the hardest consequences, they must be given a safety net which includes financial support for their efforts including adaptation. The Prime Minister wants to see cost-effective, market-based instruments – efficiency standards and national, regional, and global carbon markets. He looked further at places that such moves were started already – the EU, China, in many countries in Asia, other emerging economies. “I believe the Chinese business sector and government have understood the prospects for low carbon technology. They can see a double benefit. Firstly their economy and, secondly, their participation in the global economy. They are already out there seeking to be part of the next generation of smart, low-carbon technologies” – he said. Mr. Rasmussen did not mince words: “Following the last oil crisis Toyota started to build smaller and more fuel-efficient cars. General Motors did not. Today Toyota is the most sold car in America.” “In China, cars are produced according to strict fuel efficiency standards. At the same time, US manufacturers are struggling with old fashioned fuel intensive models” – he said. “DO I NEED TO SAY MORE?” From here Mr. Rasmussen pointed out that much did actually happen in many US individual States that have also established regional carbon markets and energy efficiency standards – so – he wants to see America lead again by example, by entrepreneurship – politically as well as economically. “I know,” he said, “that many people fear competition from China, especially in energy intensive sectors. And Yes, no deal can address climate change without both China and the United States being part of it. But do not deceive yourself: with emissions at 24 tons per capita the USA has a long way to go and cannot afford to wait for others. There are huge gains to be won by moving rapidly and with determination.” The choices that will be made in 2009 are not short of shaping actually the future of planet earth for the next century – but Mr. Rasmussen does not think that his goals are unattainable – they are not impossible and they are not unaffordable – they are actually absolutely vital for our survival – he said – and he offered also that they are vital for our economic recovery and growth. “We could continue to wring our hands, watching helplessly as the oil price rises and falls. Watch weather systems spreading havoc. Continue to transfer huge amounts of wealth to autocratic regimes and rely on unstable supplies of oil and gas. Watch our planet grow more unlivable every day. But that is not an option. We are not going to do that.” *** Professor Bhagawati, in his remarks mentioned, in reference to the present calamity of the US financial sector, also with application to the issues here at hand, that we were once used to the image of a ship captain standing in a position of salute when his ship was going down, this after putting his passengers into the lifeboats. Now we see the captains leaving in the lifeboats and leaving the passengers behind to go down instead. He also suggested that from Kyoto I we will probably not go to Kyoto II, but rather to Copenhagen I. He wants to have in Poznan, Poland, in December 2008, already the agreement to go to 50% reduction of emissions, and during 2009 the negotiations for the intermediary steps with the consideration of different responsibilities for different stages of development, taken in full account. *** We brought up the question about the timetable from now to December 2009, with the intermediary stop at Poznan in December 2008. We explained that the US elections in November 2008 will have produced a new President-elect, but no practical change in the US representation – what-so-ever – at the Poznan meeting. Simply – the US has only one President at one time. This will make it impossible to deal with the US in order to come up with the Poznan decision, that is needed in order to reach an agreement that Mr.Rasmussen expects at the Copenhagen meeting in 2009. Mr. Rasmussen answered that he is already in contact with both US Presidential campaigns, and both said that they will be ready with their plans when they take over on January 20, 2009. But this is also no solution – this because of the fact that a US negotiator will have to be approved by Congress – and it is hardly possible of having such an approval before March to the earliest. Really, as cabinet positions will have to be approved first – let me say that this will not happen before April. With Poznan having become a dud, negotiations April – November 2009, can hardly be expected at turning Copenhagen of being more then a Poznan II, rather then a Kyoto II or Copenhagen I. *** The Prime Minister is optimistic nevertheless and expects the EU to push for renewable energy and energy savings, and lead by example. He also puts his hope for Europe’s energy in the construction of pipelines from Central Asia that bypass Russia. Furthermore, as it is true that climate change is with us for a long time – and it only got worse in the last two century because of the man-caused emissions, nevertheless, it is the confluence of that reason, with the present political reason, the fact that huge amounts of money are transferred to unstable regimes in payment for the energy, is strengthening our resolve to take action now. We must now brake our addiction to oil. The Prime Minister also told us of a “Troica meeting” with the UN Secretary-General: Indonesia, Poland, Denmark – or the organizers of the Bali (2007), Poznan (2008) , and Copenhagen (2009) meetings, which just happened, a day earlier, at this reunion at the UN. So, there was already a promise of 50% by 2050 / as per 1990, that was put on the table in Bali, and then backed by the G8 meeting in Japan.These answers to questions from the floor got then further amplified in the meeting with the four members of the Press that participated at the follow up session. And this is what I call now the Roadmap: The year 2009 will involve Heads of State. (a) In February – March 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will hold a Heads-of-State Meeting at the UN in order to start the process rolling. (b) In July 2009, probably in Rome, there will be a meeting of the G8 ++ – that is the major evolving countries – probably 5 of them if not more. This to reach an agreement that can then be brought to all Heads-of-State in a September Session of the UN. (c) thus an energy/climate change UN High-Level September meeting at the UN headquarters in New York City. (d) The December 2009 Copenhagen meeting. Further, we wanted to know what the Prime Minister thinks about a US that will be spending now $1.5 trillion on the Wall Street Bailout – so where will the money come for doing the right things needed in regard to climate change? But the fighting optimist believes that really this is not a question of money, but political will. Again, I felt compelled to wish good luck and to mention that we are all with him and hope he can pull it through. Last comment for this first report is that I watched in amazement how the Prime Minister was accosted at the Columbia Forum reception by an Iranian young lady student, who for perhaps 15 minutes was trying him out on those famous cartoons, and how he tried to explain to her the workings of a democracy and the fact that freedom of speech, the press, religion, mean that one religion cannot be imposed on others, and that the government has no right to intervene in a democracy, even though this student seemed not to want to accept this reality. Columbia University must really have succeeded in bringing on board all sorts of students – and we wish the school luck also, in the attempt to forge well behaved citizens even with hard to reach individuals that surely must come from the leading families of political strata of some of the most repulsive regimes. Finally, another student, waiting in line to talk to the Prime Minister, felt compelled to say – “let’s go back to energy questions.” A different student, without offering a question, thanked the Prime Minister for his strong stands. ——–
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