A parched Syria turned to war, scholar says, and Egypt may be next.
Prof. Arnon Sofer sets out the link between drought, Assad’s civil war, and the wider strains in the Middle East; Jordan and Gaza are also in deep trouble, he warns.
Some look at the upheaval in Syria through a religious lens. The Sunni and Shia factions, battling for supremacy in the Middle East, have locked horns in the heart of the Levant, where the Shia-affiliated Alawite sect has ruled a majority Sunni nation for decades.
Some see it through a social prism. As they did in Tunis with Muhammad Bouazizi — an honest man who couldn’t make an honest living in this corruption-ridden part of the world — the social protests that sparked the war in Syria started in the poor and disenfranchised parts of the country.
Others look at the eroding boundaries of state in Syria and other parts of the Middle East as a direct result of the sins of Western hubris and Colonialism.
Professor Arnon Sofer has no qualms with any of these claims and interpretations. But the upheaval in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, he says, cannot be fully understood without also taking two environmental truths into account: soaring birthrates and dwindling water supply.
Over the past 60 years, the population in the Middle East has twice doubled itself, said Sofer, the head of the Chaikin geo-strategy group and a longtime lecturer at the IDF’s top defense college, where today he heads the National Defense College Research Center. “There is no example of this anywhere else on earth,” he said of the population increase. Couple that with Syria’s water scarcity, he said, “and as a geographer it was clear to me that a conflict would erupt.”
The Pentagon cautiously agrees with this thesis. In February the Department of Defense released a “climate-change adaptation roadmap.” While the effects of climate change alone do not cause conflict, the report states, “they may act as accelerants of instability or conflict in parts of the world.” Predominantly the paper is concerned with the effects of rising seas and melting arctic permafrost on US military installations. The Middle East is not mentioned by name.
But Sofer and Anton Berkovsky, who together compiled the research work of students at the National Defense College and released a geo-strategic paper on Syria earlier in the year, believe that water scarcity played a significant role in the onset of the Syrian civil war and the Arab Spring, and that it may help re-shape the strategic bonds and interests of the region as regimes teeter and borders blur. Sofer also believes that a “Pax Climactica” is within reach if regional leaders would only, for a short while, forsake their natural inclinations to wake up in the morning and seek to do harm.
Syria is 85 percent desert or semi-arid country. But it has several significant waterways. The Euphrates runs in a south-easterly direction through the center of the country to Iraq. The Tigris runs southeast, tracing a short part along Syria’s border with Turkey before flowing into Iraq. And, aside from several lesser rivers that flow southwest through Lebanon to the Mediterranean, Syria has an estimated four to five billion cubic meters of water in its underground aquifers.
From 2007-2008, over 160 villages in Syria were abandoned and some 250,000 farmers relocated to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities. The capital, like many of its peer cities in the Middle East, was unable to handle that influx of people. Residents dug 25,000 illegal wells in and around Damascus, pushing the water table ever lower and the salinity of the water ever higher.
For these reasons the heart of the country was once an oasis. For 5,000 years, Damascus was famous for its agriculture and its dried fruit. Since 1950, however, the population has increased sevenfold in Syria, to 22 million, and Turkey, in an age of scarcity, has seized much of the water that once flowed south into Syria.
“They’ve been choking them,” Sofer said, noting that Turkey annually takes half of the available 30 billion cubic meters of water in the Euphrates. This limits Syria’s water supply and hinders its ability to generate hydroelectricity.
In 2007, after years of population growth and institutional economic stagnation, several dry years descended on Syria. Farmers began to leave their villages and head toward the capital. From 2007-2008, Sofer said, over 160 villages in Syria were abandoned and some 250,000 farmers – Sofer calls them “climate refugees” – relocated to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities.
The capital, like many of its peer cities in the Middle East, was unable to handle that influx of people. Residents dug 25,000 illegal wells in and around Damascus, pushing the water table ever lower and the salinity of the water ever higher.
This, along with over one million refugees from the Iraq war and, among other challenges, borders that contain a dizzying array of religions and ethnicities, set the stage for the civil war.
Tellingly, it broke out in the regions most parched — “in Daraa [in the south] and in Kamishli in the northeast,” Sofer said. “Those are two of the driest places in the country.”
Professor Eyal Zisser, one of Israel’s top scholars of Syria, agreed that the drought played a significant role in the onset of the war. “Without doubt it is part of the issue,” he said. Zisser did not believe that water was the central issue that inflamed Syria but rather “the match that set the field of thorns on fire.”
Rebel troops transporting two women to safety along the Orontes River, which has shrunk in recent years and grown increasingly saline (Photo credit: CC BY FreedomHouse)
Since that fire began to rage in March 2011, the course of the battles has been partially dictated by a different sort of logic, not environmental in nature. “Assad is butchering his way west,” Sofer said. He believes the president will eventually have to retreat from the capital and therefore has focused his efforts on Homs and other cities and towns that lie between Damascus and the Alawite regions near the coast, cutting himself an escape route.
Sofer and Berkovsky envision several scenarios for Syria. Among them: Assad puts down the rebellion and remains in power; Assad abdicates and a Sunni majority seizes control; Assad abdicates and no central power is able to assert control. The most likely scenario, Sofer said, was that the Syrian dictator would eventually flee to Tehran. But he preferred to avoid that sort of micro-conjecture and to focus on the regional effects of population growth and water scarcity and the manner in which that ominous mix might shape the future of the region.
Writing in the New York Times from Yemen on Thursday, Thomas Friedman embraced a similar thesis, noting that the heart of the al-Qaeda activity in the region corresponded with the areas most stricken by drought. Sofer published a paper in July where he laid out the grim environmental reality of the region and argued that, as in Syria, the conflicts bedeviling the region were not about climate issues but were deeply influenced by them.
Egypt, Sofer wrote, faces severe repercussions from climate change. Even a slight rise in the level of the sea – just half a meter – would salinize the Nile Delta aquifers and force three million people out of the city of Alexandria. In the more distant future, as the North Sea melts, the Suez Canal could decline in importance. More immediately, and of greater significance to Israel, he wrote that Egypt, faced with a water shortage, would likely grow more militant over the coming years. But he felt the militancy would be directed south, toward South Sudan and Ethiopia and other nations competing for the waters of the Nile, and not north toward the Levant.
The Nile River, the lifeblood of Egypt’s 82 million people (Photo credit: CC BY Simona Scolari, Flickr)
As proof that this pivot has already begun, Sofer pointed to Abu-Simbel, near the border with Sudan. There the state has converted a civilian airport into a military one. “The conclusion to be drawn from this is simple and unequivocal,” he wrote. “Egypt today represents a military threat to the southern nations of the Nile and not the Zionist state to the east.”
The Sinai Peninsula, already quite lawless, will only get worse, perhaps to the point of secession, he and Berkovsky wrote. Local Bedouin will have difficulty raising animals in the region and will turn, to an even greater degree, to smuggling material and people along a route established in the Bronze Age, through Sinai to Asia and Europe.
Syria, even if the war were swiftly resolved, is “on the cusp of catastrophe.” Jordan, too, is in dire need of water. And Gaza, like Syria, has been battered by unchecked drilling. The day after Israel left under the Oslo Accords, he said, the Palestinian Authority and other actors began digging 500 wells along the coastal aquifer even though Israel had warned them of the dangers. “Today there are around 4,000 of them and no more ground water. It’s over. There’s no fooling around with this stuff,” he said.
Only the two most stable states in the region – Israel and Turkey – have ample water.
Turkey is the sole Middle Eastern nation blessed with plentiful water sources. Ankara’s control of the Tigris and the Euphrates, among other rivers, means that Iraq and Syria, both downriver, are to a large extent dependent on Turkey for food, water and electricity. That strategic advantage, along with Turkey’s position as the bridge between the Middle East and Europe, “further serves its neo-Ottoman agenda,” Sofer said.
He envisioned an increased role for Turkey both in the Levant and, eventually, in central Asia and along the oil crossroads of the Persian Gulf, pitting it against Iran. Climate change, he conceded, has only a minor role in that future struggle for power but it is “an accelerant.”
Israel no longer suffers from drought. Desalination, conservation and sewage treatment have alleviated much of the natural scarcity. In February, the head of the Israel Water Authority, Alexander Kushnir, told the Times of Israel that the country’s water crisis has come to an end. Half of Israel’s two billion cubic meters of annual water use is generated artificially, he said, through desalination and sewage purification.
For Sofer, this self-sufficiency is an immense regional advantage. Israel could pump water east to Jenin in the West Bank and farther along to Jordan and north to Syria. International organizations could follow Israel’s example and fund regional desalination plants, which, he noted, cost less than a single day of modern full-scale war.
Instead, rather than an increase in cooperation, he feared, the region would likely witness ever more desperate competition. Sofer said his friends see him as a sort of Jeremiah. But the Middle East, he cautioned, is a region where “leaders wake up every morning and ask what can I do today to make matters worse.”
Arnon Sofer, a longtime professor at the IDF’s National Defense College, sees a link between the war in Syria and the water shortages there (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/ Flash 90)
A dry check dam near Magadi, Kenya.?Photo:?Panos/Dieter Telemans
A UN climate change conference in Doha, Qatar, concluded in December 2012 with a new agreement called the “Doha Climate Gateway.” Its major achievements included the extension until 2020 of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a work plan for negotiating a new global climate pact by 2015, to be implemented starting in 2020.
Despite these commitments, the Doha conference made only limited progress in advancing international talks on climate change, and failed to set more ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
That failure increases the risk of a rise in average global temperatures by 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. The Emissions Gap Report 2012 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) stresses that if the world does not accelerate action on climate change, total yearly greenhouse gas emissions could rise to 58 gigatonnes by 2020 (compared to 40 gigatonnes in 2000), far above the level scientists say would likely keep temperature increases below 2°C.
Studies by the World Bank indicate that even with the current commitments and pledges fully implemented, there is roughly a 20% likelihood that temperature increases will top 4°C by the end of this century, triggering a cascade of cataclysmic changes, including extreme heat waves, declining global food stocks and a rising sea level, that will affect hundreds of millions of people.
All regions of the world will suffer if this happens, but the poor will suffer the most, and sustainable development in Africa will be set back considerably. Severe droughts in the Horn of Africa in 2011 and in the Sahel region in 2012 alarmingly highlighted Africa’s vulnerability.
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Not-so-fast finance
African countries are among those least likely to have the resources to withstand the adverse impacts of climate change. At the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations, developed countries committed to pay $100 billion per year by 2020 into the Green Climate Fund to help developing countries implement adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change. They also pledged to deliver $30 billion as “fast start finance” by 2012.
Disappointingly, a report by the African Climate Policy Centre of the UN Economic Commission for Africa shows that of the $30 billion promised in 2009, only 45% has been “committed,” 33% “allocated” and about 7% actually “disbursed.”
At the Doha conference, Germany, the UK, France, Denmark, Sweden and the EU Commission announced financial pledges totalling approximately $6 billion for the period up to 2015. Most developed countries did not make pledges. African countries thus left Doha with little more than they already had.
Bottom-up approach
Cost-effective measures need to be taken without delay to mitigate the effects of climate change in Africa. Fortunately, there are already many examples in Africa of bottom-up approaches that directly address national needs.
{MIND YOU – PROGRESS IS ATTAINED OUTSIDE THE UNFCCC COP SYSTEM – LET”S FACE IT – THE UN MADE NOISE BUT DID NOT BRING ABOUT THE PROMISED RESULTS. WHY? THIS IS SIMPLE TO ANSWER – IT GOT STUCK ON KYOTO -
A STALE-BIRTH FROM START. WHENEVER KYOTO IS MENTIONED - YOU CAN BET ON WASTED TIME – AGAIN, AGAIN, and AGAIN.This is a SustanabiliTank.info comment – further please note that this website has stopped numbering the meetings at Copenhagen – COP 15 of 2009 – and keeps noting those since then as – 15+1, 15+2, 15+3, and next one, this year, will just be 15+4}
The present article notes:
In Togo, for example, a water reservoir project provided accurate data for rehabilitating water dams. This data and expertise gained during the rehabilitation helped the government develop a proposal for rehabilitating all other water reservoirs in Togo. As a result, access to water has improved for most local communities, with rainwater harvested from rehabilitated. This because the last meeting that had some meaning was the one when President Obama went to China and convinced the Chinese to join the party.ted dams available for domestic and agro-pastoral consumption.
In Seychelles, a rainwater harvesting project in schools gave students a practical demonstration of adaptation to climate change, with harvested water used for school gardens, cleaning and flushing toilets. It also enabled the schools to save up to $250 per month on water bills, money that could be invested in other areas such as teaching and learning resources. Legislation is now under consideration to include rainwater harvesting systems in building codes.
However successful such initiatives may be, their scale is limited. Sizable increases in capital are needed to expand the reach of such adaptation projects. Yet it is unclear whether Africa will ever have sufficient funds to enable the most vulnerable people to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change.
Before the Doha conference, developing countries elaborated a common position that included the desire for a new climate treaty, financing and new technologies to help them make the transition to cleaner, “green” economic practices. “We all have a responsibility in some way to address climate change in order to achieve sustainable development,” said Ali Mohammed, Kenya’s permanent secretary in the ministry of environment and mineral resources. “Africa, small island developing states and least developed countries continue to suffer most from the effects of climate change.”
Priority for adaptation
Greater adaptation efforts in Africa are essential, and they should be supported financially and politically by many different stakeholders in Africa and around the globe. Not only should the process of long-term climate financing from developed countries be accountable and transparent, but it should also be directed first and foremost to the most vulnerable developing countries.
There also needs to be a better balance. Currently, “fast start” finance, however slow in arriving, is largely directed toward “mitigation” projects, which tackle the causes of climate change, such as by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Against the 62% allocated for mitigation projects, only 25% is destined to finance “adaptation” actions, which are intended to minimize the consequences of actual and expected changes in the climate. The remaining 13% goes to countering deforestation, which can also be counted as mitigation, since forests help absorb greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Seyni Nafo, the spokesperson of the African Group at the Doha talks, insisted, “In Africa, we need to know how much is new, where it is coming from, and whether it will be directed to the adaptation projects that are desperately necessary.”
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Positive steps
Despite the limited advances on financing, African countries gained five positive developments from the Doha conference:
The formal extension of the Kyoto Protocol, with continued access to carbon-trading market mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism.
Financing for the formulation and implementation of national adaptation plans for all particularly vulnerable countries, not just the small island developing states and least developed countries, as previously.
The agreement to develop an international mechanism to address loss and damage, which would support countries affected by slow-onset events such as droughts, glacial melting and rising sea levels.
A programme for climate change education and training and for the creation of public awareness to enable the public to participate better in climate change decision-making.
The agreement to assess developing countries’ needs for green technology, as well as a pledge that no unilateral action will be taken on the development and transfer of technologies.
Effectively meeting the challenges of climate change will require a compromise of monumental proportions by all
countries. But climate change will not wait for the adoption of binding international climate change agreements. Nor should individual governments, businesses and others hesitate to take bottom-up action and support local grassroots initiatives.?
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Richard Munang is a policy and programme coordinator for the Africa Climate Change Adaptation Programme of the UN Environment Programme, and Zhen Han is an environmental policy graduate fellow of the Council of World Women Leaders at Cornell University in the US.
Introduction to a Green Economy: Concepts and Applications E-Learning Course, 3rd Edition
27 May – 19 July 2013
In order to provide interested stakeholders from government, business, civil society and academia with an introduction to the green economy concept UNITAR in partnership with UNEP, ILO and UNIDO is delivering the e-learning course “Introduction to a Green Economy: Concepts and Applications”, 27 May to 19 July 2013. Participants will learn about different concepts and facets of the green economy, including its contribution to addressing climate change. Special attention is given to global, national and sector-specific challenges and opportunities to advance low-carbon, climate resilient and socially inclusive development. Additionally, participants will begin to acquire basic skills for applying the green economy concept in an economic, policy-making and personal context.
The ability of national actors to act on the green economy is key for effective policy making and achieving tangible results. To address this challenge UNITAR is working closely with UNEP, ILO and UNIDO in a new Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), focusing on national capacity development.
Comprehensive information and registration details are available at:
Please feel free to disseminate information about this course through your networks, and don’t hesitate to contact us (envgov@unitar.org) should you need any further information.
Yours,
The UNITAR Environmental Governance Programme Team
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BACKGROUND
The concept of a green economy is receiving increasing international attention, as countries explore new patterns of development that take into account economic, social and environmental sustainability considerations. The recent UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), June 2012, reaffirmed the role of a green economy in achieving sustainable development. The ability of national actors to act on the green economy is key for effective policy making and achieving tangible results. To address this challenge, United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is working closely with UNEP, ILO and UNIDO in a new Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), with a focus on national capacity development.
In order to provide interested stakeholders from government, business, civil society and academia with an introduction to the green economy concept UNITAR, together with PAGE partners, is delivering an interactive e-learning course from 27 May to 19 July 2013.
TARGET GROUPS
The course targets groups and individuals that are interested in obtaining a general understanding about the green economy concept and latest developments. They include:
• Civil servants in national Ministries, provincial departments and local authorities
• Diplomats from Permanent Missions and Ministries of Foreign Affairs
• Environmental managers in private sector and civil society organizations
• Faculty, researchers and students
• Interested citizens
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will learn about different concepts and facets of the green economy, as well as global, national and sector-specific challenges and opportunities to advance low-carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive development. Additionally, participants will begin to develop basic skills for applying the green economy concept in a real world economic, policy and/or personal context.
After completing the course, participants will be able to:
Define the concept of a green economy and explain its value
Identify enabling conditions for greening national economies
Identify principal challenges and opportunities for greening key economic sectors
Describe national planning processes in support of a green transformation
Recognize international and regional initiatives and support services to foster green development
Apply the green economy concept to a real world economic, policy and/or personal context
METHODOLOGY
The course pedagogy is adapted to professionals in full-time work. Participants are provided with the opportunity to learn through various experiences: absorb (read); do (activity); interact (socialize); and reflect (relate to one’s own reality). The total number of learning hours is 40 over an 8 week period. During weeks 1-5 the reading of an e-book is complemented by a range of learning activities and experiences that include interactive exercises, discussion forums, and an applied case study. Weeks 6-8 are reserved for wrap-up and completing course assignments.
COURSE FEE AND REGISTRATION: The course participation fee is 600 USD. For details please contact the
UNITAR Environmental Governance Programme at envgov@unitar.org
Buchpräsentation – “AFRIKA UND KLIMAWANDEL. DER DRUCK STEIGT.”
Irene Giner-Reichl, Botschafterin Österreichs in China – presently Austria Ambassador to China but previously steeped in Development and Climate Change work with much experience at the UN on issues of Africa.
Stefan Mielke, CARE-Österreich
Elfriede-Anna More, BM für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft – Head of the International Environment Topics at the Austrian Life Ministry that includes the activities at the UN in handling the post-Rio Era, at a time that Austria will be Joining ECOSOC.
präsentieren die deutsche Version des Bandes Africa and Climate Change, der im Dezember 2011 aus Anlass der Klimakonferenz in Durban im Passagenverlag Wien erschien und diskutieren über die Arbeit von Hilfsorganisationen, den Gesellschaften in den betroffenen Ländern bei der Bewältigung der Folgen zu helfen. —– Which is the Book-presentation the NGOs had prepared for Rio 2012.
Die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels werden Afrika am stärksten betreffen. Welche Analysen gibt es von afrikanischen Experten und Entscheidungsträgern? Bereits heute sind am afrikanischen Kontinent ernste Auswirkungen des Klimawandels festzustellen. Niederschlagsmuster verändern sich, extreme Wettersituationen – Dürren wie Überschwemmungen – werden häufiger. Die Anpassung an den Klimawandel könnte eine der größten Herausforderungen für die Länder und Volkswirtschaften Afrikas werden.
Der vorliegende Band präsentiert afrikanische und internationale Stimmen zu einer der heißesten globalen Fragen mit signifikanten Auswirkungen auf den afrikanischen Kontinent.
Für die globale Hilfsorganisation CARE sind Klimawandel und seine Auswirkungen bereits seit Jahren ein zentrales Thema ihrer Arbeit weltweit und in Afrika, wo schon jetzt vor allem die Armen betroffen sind, und das auf dem Kontinent der den Klimawandel am wenigsten verursacht hat.
CARE arbeitet vor allem der Katastrophenvorsorge und der Klimawandel-Anpassung. Menschen in extremer Armut werden dabei unterstützt, sich an geänderte Umweltbedingungen besser anzupassen.
Anna Lindh Foundation Common Action Joint with The Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP).
THE MISSING SENSE OF TOGETHERNESS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SPACE AND ITS BORDERS.
Najat Abdulhaq, Historian and Economist, University Erlangen / Nürnberg
André Azoulay, President of ALF (tbc)
The Anna-Lindh Foundation (ALF) aims to bring people from across the Mediterranean together. Its objective is promoting intercultural dialogue and mutual respect between cultures. Since its launch in 2005, the Anna Lindh Foundation has launched and supported action across fields impacting on mutual perceptions among people of different cultures and beliefs, as well as developing a region-wide Network of over 3000 civil society organizations. The Common Action of the Austrian ALF Network has been planned, organized and implemented by different member institutions. Our aim is to raise awareness for the challenges and chances in regard to the EuroMed Region and increase the visibility of Anna Lindh and its activities.
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Karin Mendel
Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue
1190 Vienna, Armbrustergasse 15
IF President Obama blocks the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, he’ll do Canada a favor.
Canada’s tar sands formations, landlocked in northern Alberta, are a giant reserve of carbon-saturated energy — a mixture of sand, clay and a viscous low-grade petroleum called bitumen. Pipelines are the best way to get this resource to market, but existing pipelines to the United States are almost full. So tar sands companies, and the Alberta and Canadian governments, are desperately searching for export routes via new pipelines.
Canadians don’t universally support construction of the pipeline. A poll by Nanos Research in February 2012 found that nearly 42 percent of Canadians were opposed. Many of us, in fact, want to see the tar sands industry wound down and eventually stopped, even though it pumps tens of billions of dollars annually into our economy.
The most obvious reason is that tar sands production is one of the world’s most environmentally damaging activities. It wrecks vast areas of boreal forest through surface mining and subsurface production. It sucks up huge quantities of water from local rivers, turns it into toxic waste and dumps the contaminated water into tailing ponds that now cover nearly 70 square miles.
Also, bitumen is junk energy. A joule, or unit of energy, invested in extracting and processing bitumen returns only four to six joules in the form of crude oil. In contrast, conventional oil production in North America returns about 15 joules. Because almost all of the input energy in tar sands production comes from fossil fuels, the process generates significantly more carbon dioxide than conventional oil production.
There is a less obvious but no less important reason many Canadians want the industry stopped: it is relentlessly twisting our society into something we don’t like. Canada is beginning to exhibit the economic and political characteristics of a petro-state.
Countries with huge reserves of valuable natural resources often suffer from economic imbalances and boom-bust cycles. They also tend to have low-innovation economies, because lucrative resource extraction makes them fat and happy, at least when resource prices are high.
Canada is true to type. When demand for tar sands energy was strong in recent years, investment in Alberta surged. But that demand also lifted the Canadian dollar, which hurt export-oriented manufacturing in Ontario, Canada’s industrial heartland. Then, as the export price of Canadian heavy crude softened in late 2012 and early 2013, the country’s economy stalled.
Canada’s record on technical innovation, except in resource extraction, is notoriously poor. Capital and talent flow to the tar sands, while investments in manufacturing productivity and high technology elsewhere languish.
But more alarming is the way the tar sands industry is undermining Canadian democracy. By suggesting that anyone who questions the industry is unpatriotic, tar sands interest groups have made the industry the third rail of Canadian politics.
The current Conservative government holds a large majority of seats in Parliament but was elected in 2011 with only 40 percent of the vote, because three other parties split the center and left vote. The Conservative base is Alberta, the province from which Prime Minister Stephen Harper and many of his allies hail. As a result, Alberta has extraordinary clout in federal politics, and tar sands influence reaches deep into the federal cabinet.
Both the cabinet and the Conservative parliamentary caucus are heavily populated by politicians who deny mainstream climate science. The Conservatives have slashed financing for climate science, closed facilities that do research on climate change, told federal government climate scientists not to speak publicly about their work without approval and tried, unsuccessfully, to portray the tar sands industry as environmentally benign.
The federal minister of natural resources, Joe Oliver, has attacked “environmental and other radical groups” working to stop tar sands exports. He has focused particular ire on groups getting money from outside Canada, implying that they’re acting as a fifth column for left-wing foreign interests. At a time of widespread federal budget cuts, the Conservatives have given Canada’s tax agency extra resources to audit registered charities. It’s widely assumed that environmental groups opposing the tar sands are a main target.
This coercive climate prevents Canadians from having an open conversation about the tar sands. Instead, our nation behaves like a gambler deep in the hole, repeatedly doubling down on our commitment to the industry.
President Obama rejected the pipeline last year but now must decide whether to approve a new proposal from TransCanada, the pipeline company. Saying no won’t stop tar sands development by itself, because producers are busy looking for other export routes — west across the Rockies to the Pacific Coast, east to Quebec, or south by rail to the United States. Each alternative faces political, technical or economic challenges as opponents fight to make the industry unviable.
Mr. Obama must do what’s best for America. But stopping Keystone XL would be a major step toward stopping large-scale environmental destruction, the distortion of Canada’s economy and the erosion of its democracy.
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Thomas Homer-Dixon, who teaches global governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, is the author of “The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization.”
The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) is a centre for advanced research and teaching on global governance and international public policy, located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank on international governance, founded in 2005 as a not-for-profit institution on July 30, 2001. The organization was created through a $30-million endowment, including $20 million from Jim Balsillie and $10 million from Mike Lazaridis, co-CEOs of Waterloo-based telecommunications firm Research In Motion (BlackBerry).
The founding followed an early-2001 retreat, convened by Balsillie, that brought together experts, academics and other thought leaders to determine how Canada could increase its capacity to contribute to effective multilateral global governance.
CIGI – Originally named the New Economy Institute, the resulting think tank was renamed The Centre for International Governance Innovation in 2002 to clarify its focus and mission. In 2003, CIGI obtained a matching $30-million donation in federal funding, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
In 2009, CIGI announced plans for the new CIGI Campus in Waterloo. The campus houses CIGI and the BSIA. In time, the campus may also be home to other academic and research institutions, including a proposed CIGI program of research and studies in international law. The $69-million CIGI Campus received federal and provincial funding totalling $50 million through the Knowledge Infrastructure Program and Ontario’s 2009 budget. The City of Waterloo donated the land for the campus through a 99-year lease.
Above tells us that the main goal of this institution is to do Canada good and to place Canada in a leadership position internationally.
By 2010, CIGI was producing over 100 publications annually and employing more than 30 global governance experts across its research programs. Some projects had considerable impact — most notably, CIGI’s proposals for innovation in the G8 system helped lead to the creation of the G20 leaders group.
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Abbreviation
BSIA
Formation
2007
Type
Centre for advanced research and teaching on global governance and international public policy
We find the following interesting for a different reason as well -
The use of these bulbs in relation to the introduction of decentralized solar and wind electricity. The bulb becoming its own battery! (ST editor)
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ARRIA FORUMULA MEETING ON THE SECURITY DIMENSIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
STATEMENT BY STEPHANIE LEE
CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES A.I.
15 FEBRUARY 2013
I thank Pakistan and the United Kingdom for refocusing the Security Council on this important issue.
In 2011 New Zealand supported the group of countries from the South Pacific and elsewhere who were calling on the Security Council to recognize the security implications of climate change. The fact that the Council adopted PPRST 2011/15 was a welcome step. But it was only a very modest beginning. A more intensive examination is now required.
While the global climate has always been variable, human-induced climate change is occurring at an unprecedented rate.It is not only small island states in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean that are threatened, but climate change is also having an impact on security in regions such as Africa where decreased rainfall is increasing competition for scarce water and food. It is now beyond argument that international security depends on our collective ability to manage climate impacts in a shorter timescale. Globally, there is a tremendous body of scientific knowledge: we have a good idea of what is going to happen and what we might be able to do about it. And the Security Council needs to be a part of the process of raising awareness.
We agree with the Secretary General’s report that the best way to avoid climate change impacts is through comprehensive adaptation and global mitigation action. In the UNFCCC, New Zealand is therefore committed to developing a comprehensive legally binding climate change agreement, whose design ensures the participation of all major emitters and an ambitious outcome. A rules-based system with bounded flexibility – and differentiation on a continuum of commitments – will support both of these essential goals.
But climate change is an issue that must also be addressed across most of the international agenda. While it is not the Security Council’s role to be the author of a new rules-based system, it can and should add its weight to the case for an effective global response.
Moreover the Council must step up its efforts for preventive diplomacy and conflict avoidance. Internationally, and especially here in the United Nations, we already have mechanisms that address the kind of security challenges posed by climate change, whether competition for scarce resources including land and water, food security or disaster response. Existing mechanisms, including the Security Council, must recognise the threat multiplier that is climate change.
Security threats can be most effectively mitigated where climate change is “mainstreamed” in sustainable development planning to build confident, resilient communities, who have choices about whether to relocate or remain. At a national level, building adaptive capacity allows countries to better cope with climate-related events before they spiral into major security challenges. Work under way in the UNFCCC to consider arrangements on loss and damage from the adverse effects of climate change in developing countries will be an important part of that.
Co-chairs,
In 2011 New Zealand had the privilege of chairing the Pacific Islands Forum – a regional body that represents some of the smallest and most vulnerable states on this planet.
We share the fundamental concern of Pacific Island countries, and other particularly vulnerable countries, about the impacts of climate change – including stresses on food, fresh water, and energy supplies, as well as an increase in extreme weather events. And we share the concern that the impacts threaten the viability of some communities and raise questions about relocation. Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have recognized the desire to continue to live in their own countries, which is vital to retaining the Pacific’s social and cultural identity. It is time to think hard, and quickly, about how solutions to climate change can reflect the desire of people to continue to live in their own countries.
It was for these reasons New Zealand stood alongside our Pacific neighbours in co-sponsoring the UN General Assembly Resolution on Climate Change and its possible security implications in 2009 and New Zealand now in 2013 calls on the Security Council to take up this issue again this year.
Co-Chairs,
Both climate change and the responses to it will have far-reaching impacts over the decades ahead. We ask the Council to listen to the voices of those countries that face the most difficult transitions, and do all within its purview to ensure that the path to a climate-resilient future is stable and secure.
(These irregularities in the title are in the original that seems to be guarded from us being able to correct it)
Source:
Fourm Name:
New York,15 February 2013
I would like to thank the distinguished Permanent Representatives of Pakistan and the United Kingdom for organizing this informal meeting of the Security Council to discuss the security dimensions of climate change. I would like to thank the panelists for their presentations and commend the Secretary General for his commitment to engage the United Nations in the global adaptation and mitigation effort against climate change.
Now I would like to stress a few points:
1-Climate change is a clear and present danger. Climate change is a reality. It leads to sea level rise that threatens the very existence of nations that are members of this organization. It leads to extreme weather events that have affected us here at the headquarters of the United Nations. Hurricane Sandy was a vivid example of what many Carribean and Pacific states endure every single year.
2-Climate change is an issue of vulnerability, equity, responsibility, accountability, sustainability, development, and therefore security. It has devastating implications that may trigger conflicts or exacerbate them. It has a very particular nature since those responsible for it are not necessary the ones who are mostly affected by it.
3-Africa, the continent to which Egypt belongs, is the continent that has less contributed to global climate change. Yet it is the most vulnerable to its adverse implications. It is not a coincidence that Africa occupies more than 70% of the Security Council agenda. It is the only continent where one of its worst conflicts has been directly linked to climate change. I am speaking about Darfur, where the Security Council has sent one of its biggest Peace keeping operations. The increasing drought and desertification is definitely exacerbating the causes of conflict in the Sahel. The Middle East, the other region to which Egypt belongs, is the most water scarce place in earth. Studies have predicted that future wars in these two regions would be water wars. The persistent practices of the occupying Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied State of Palestine include a systematic effort to dominate water resources and drive the Palestinians out of their arable land. These are all real conflicts that cause real loss of life and property.
4-Climate change is a disaster, yet it is man-made. The reasons behind it are well known. It is a very special phenomenon, since it hits more the ones that have not participated in causing it. This is why it needs special solutions. The special solution has been developed by the international community in a universal legally binding framework: the United Nations framework Convention on Climate Change.
5-This legal framework contains the agreed principles that address the special nature of climate change. These include the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities; historical responsibility and equity in the distribution of atmospheric space, the priority of development for developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol with its “Clean Development Mechanism” is an attempt to implement some of these principles.
6-This legal framework has passed through a number of important milestones in the last four years. The Copenhagen Accord that failed to convince the vast majority of countries that were not consulted during its negotiation. The Cancun Agreements that salvaged the valid points of the Copenhagen Accord, including the Green Fund that is supposed to gather 100 billion US$ a year by 2020 to adapt to and mitigate, climate change effects. The Durban Platform that aims at developing an additional legal instrument by 2015. The Doha Outcome that included the extension of the Kyoto Protocol.
7-This legal framework aims to redress the imbalance between those responsible for the bulk of climate change provoking emissions and those affected by it. This was a historical breakthrough that attempted to resolve sustainability and equity issues, compared to other frameworks that just formalize the status quo. We hope that the instrument that will be reached in 2015 does not divert from the “redressing approach”.
8-This legal framework has a compliance mechanism that has not worked properly so far. Despite the fact that the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol are the only legal framework available to address climate change in a collective manner, the international community did not exert enough efforts to ensure the universality of the Kyoto Protocol. It did not react to non-compliance with its provisions. It did not react to the withdrawal of one country from the Protocol in 2010. This encouraged others to follow suit.
9-Now we are in a situation where small island states face an existential threat. Where in Africa, the Middle East, and all other continents, conflicts are exacerbated and natural disasters are proliferating, while the international community is still thinking about the shape of the new agreement in 2015, while we all know but do not want to say, that the pledges of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will not be enough to stop the global increase in emissions and global warmth, and that the financial cost of adaptation and mitigation exceeds by far the targeted 100 US$ a year by 2020, if the target is reached at all.
HERE THE EGYPTIANS HAD A COUNTING PROBLEM – OR AN EDITING PROBLEM WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF TWO ADDED POINTS THAT BRING THEIR TOTAL TO 11. THESE LAST TWO POINTS TELL US THAT EGYPT SPEAKS FOR THE DEFENDERS OF OIL AND NOT FOR TRULY IMPOVERISHED AFRICANS. THE TRUE ISSUE IS THAT WHEN FIGHTING FOR BOMBASTIC MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS THIS DOES NOT BRING RESULTS, BUT JUST KICKS THE SOLUTION FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD. THE SOLUTION IS IN SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND HIS PRESENTATION IS RATHER ONE OF POLITICAL FIGHTING AND NOT SOLUTION FINDING. BRINGING THE TOPIC TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL IS AN EFFORT TO BREAK THE LOGJAM THAT HE SEEMS TO FAVOR. The positive presenter at the meeting was the New Zealand lady, Ms. Stephanie Lee, who simply asked those in the room to listen to the affected countries and to deal with their needs.
(These are our editorial comments – the SustainabiliTank.info editor)
9-The danger of climate change might not be as visible as that of a potential nuclear war. Yet it is definitely more imminent as it is affecting all of us today. We are enduring the impact of the climate war in our daily lives in the form of food insecurity, water scarcity, conflicts over natural resources, increasing costs of energy and the status of the global economy; this in addition to the brutal effects of natural disasters. Yet, in many cases we are looking the other way. The countries that have both the financial and technological capability to lead the global efforts to contain climate change are distracted by trade and competitiveness wars that prevent them from focusing on the real danger that is affecting us all. This is a situation similar to the one that failed to prevent world wars in the past century.
10-Finally, I would like to stress that the Security Council is not the United Nations Organ that is most relevant in addressing the issues of sustainable development including climate change. The main responsibility lies more with the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. We are aware that the Security Council itself is struggling to reach the necessary consensus among its members on a number of ongoing conflicts that are causing dramatic loss of life and property. Yet, we are confident that this informal discussion will at least raise the profile of climate change. It should complement the work of the General Assembly and the ECOSOC. It should contribute to mobilize the political will to act now before it is too late.
Water: Asia’s New Battleground, by Brahma Chellaney, was named winner of the 2012 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award for its outstanding contribution to advancing the understanding of contemporary Asia.
In his timely and insightful book, Dr. Chellaney describes water stress as Asia’s defining crisis of the 21st century, creating obstacles to continued rapid economic growth, stoking interstate tensions over shared resources, exacerbating long-time territorial disputes, and imposing further hardships on the poor.
23 January 2013
12:00pm – 2:30pm
725 Park Ave
(at East 70th Street)
New York, NY
Honoring 2012 Winner, ‘Water: Asia’s New Battleground,’ by Brahma Chellaney
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I read that Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the privately funded Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
Looking up the list of our postings on www.SustainabiliTank.info I found that in effect we have quite a few postings by him or about him.
This is an amazing versatility and I was glad to have the chance to listen to him in person at the Asia Society event.
Looking at the internet I found thatProfessor Chellaney is a Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, an independent think-tank; a member of the Board of Governors of the National Book Trust of India; and a nonresident affiliate with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London. He has been a Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, which through the Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize annually. He was formerly a member of the Policy Advisory Group headed by the External Affairs Minister of India.
Professor Chellaney is widely regarded as one of India’s leading strategic thinkers and analysts, and is also a well-known newspaper and television commentator on international affairs. Stanley Weiss in the International Herald Tribune, for example, called him “one of India’s top strategic thinkers,” while The Guardian has described him as “a respected international affairs analyst and author.” He is very well known as a commentator on regional and international issues in the field of strategic affairs, including larger Asian strategic issues and non-traditional subjects like water security, energy security and climate security.
He is one of the authors of India’s nuclear doctrine and its first strategic defense review. Those contributions came when Professor Chellaney was an adviser to India’s National Security Council until January 2000, serving as convenor of the External Security Group of the National Security Advisory Board, as well as member of the Board’s Nuclear Doctrine Group.
Now Professor Chellaney became the first Bernard Schwartz awardee – an Asia Society prize – living outside the Anglosphere. The topic of his book is:
China’s Hydro-Hegemony - and this translates into the clear vision that as the Tibetan Plateau is source for most rivers in Asia, and water is resource more important then oil, China is destined to be the most important power in Asia. As simple as that.
“Water: Asia’s New Battleground” (L) by Brahma Chellaney (R).
Mr. Chellaney, in his travel to publicize this last book published the following article about China in the International Herald Tribune: February 8, 2013, just several days after a posting of January 31, 2013 – “Neighbours leave India high and dry for its water supply.” Then we understand that Mr. Chellaney is already working on another volume – “ “Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis.”
ASIA is the world’s most water-stressed continent, a situation compounded by China’s hydro-supremacy in the region. Beijing’s recent decision to build a slew of giant new dams on rivers flowing to other countries is thus set to roil riparian relations.
China — which already boasts more large dams than the rest of the world put together and has unveiled a mammoth $635-billion fresh investment in water infrastructure over the next decade — has emerged as the key obstacle to building institutionalized collaboration on shared water resources in Asia.
In contrast to the bilateral water treaties between many of its neighbors, China rejects the concept of a water-sharing arrangement or joint, rules-based management of common resources.
For example, in rejecting the 1997 United Nations convention that lays down rules on shared water resources, Beijing placed on record its contention that an upstream power has the right to assert absolute territorial sovereignty over the waters on its side of the international boundary — or the right to divert as much water as it wishes for its needs, irrespective of the effects on a downriver state.
Today, by building megadams and reservoirs in its borderlands, China is working to re-engineer the flows of major rivers that are the lifeline of lower riparian states.
China is the source of transboundary river flows to the largest number of countries in the world — from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to the states in the Indochina peninsula and southern Asia. This pre-eminence resulted from its absorption of the ethnic-minority homelands that now make up 60 percent of its landmass and are the origin of all the international rivers flowing out of Chinese-held territory. No other country in the world comes close to the hydro-hegemony that China has established.
Since the last decade, China’s dam building has been moving from dam-saturated internal rivers to international rivers. Most of the new megaprojects designated recently by China’s state council as priority ventures are concentrated in the country’s seismically active southwest, which is largely populated by ethnic minorities. Such dam building is triggering new ethnic tensions over displacement and submergence.
The state council approved an array of new dams on the Salween, Brahmaputra and Mekong rivers, which originate on the Tibetan plateau and flow to southern and southeastern Asia. The unveiling of projects on the Brahmaputra evoked Indian diplomatic concern at a time when water has emerged as a new Chinese-Indian divide, while the Salween projects end the suspension of dam building on that river announced eight years ago.
The Salween — known in Chinese as Nu Jiang, or the “Angry River” — is Asia’s last largely free-flowing river, running through deep, spectacular gorges and glaciated peaks on its way to Burma and Thailand.
Its upstream basin is inhabited by at least a dozen different ethnic groups and rated as one of the world’s most biologically diverse regions, home to more than 5,000 plant species and nearly half of China’s animal species. No sooner had this stunning region, known as the Three Parallel Rivers, been added to the World Heritage List by Unesco in 2003 than Beijing unveiled plans for a cascade of dams near the area.
The international furor that followed led Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to suspend work. The reversal of that suspension, significantly, comes before Wen and President Hu Jintao step down as part of the country’s power transition.
The third international river cited by the state council in its new project approvals has already been a major target of Chinese dam building. Chinese engineers have constructed six megadams on the Mekong, including the 4,200-megawatt Xiaowan, and a greater water appropriator, the 5,850-megawatt Nuozhadu, whose first generator began producing electricity last September.
Asia needs institutionalized water cooperation because it awaits a future made hotter and drier by climate and environmental change and resource depletion. The continent’s water challenges have been exacerbated by growing consumption, unsustainable irrigation practices, rapid industrialization, pollution and geopolitical shifts.
Asia has morphed into the most likely flash point for water wars. Several countries are currently engaged in dam building on transnational rivers. The majority of these dams are being financed and built by Chinese state entities. Most Chinese-aided dam projects in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar indeed are designed to pump electricity into China’s southern electricity grid, with the lower riparians bearing the environmental and social costs.
But it is China’s dam-building spree at home — reflected in the fact that it boasts half of the 50,000 large dams in the world — that carries the greatest international implications and obstructs the development of an Asian rules-based order.
China has made the control and manipulation of natural-river flows a fulcrum of its power and economic development. Although promoting multilateralism on the world stage, it has given the cold shoulder to multilateral cooperation among basin nations — as symbolized, for example, by the Mekong River Commission — and rebuffed efforts by states sharing its rivers to seek bilateral water-sharing arrangements.
Beijing already has significant financial, trade and political leverage over most of its neighbors. Now, by building an asymmetric control over cross-border flows, it is seeking to have its hand on Asia’s water tap.
Given China’s unique riparian position and role, it will not be possible to transform the Asian water competition into cooperation without Beijing playing a leadership role to develop a rules-based system.
Of all the natural resources on which the world depends, the supply and demand situation is most critical for water.
There are replacements for oil, but no substitute for water, which is essential to produce virtually all the goods in the marketplace.
Asia, not Africa, is the world’s driest continent. The gap between demand and supply is growing in China, India, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia.
This raises a question: can Asia remain the locomotive of the global economy if it cannot mitigate its water crisis?
India faces greater water distress than China. China’s population is not even 10 per cent larger than India’s, but its internally renewable water resources (estimated at 2,813 billion cubic metres per year) are almost twice as large as India’s. In aggregate water availability, including inflows (which are sizeable in India’s case), China has virtually 50 per cent more resources than India.
In 1960, India signed a treaty setting aside 80 per cent of the Indus-system waters for downstream Pakistan, in the most generous water-sharing pact in modern history. And its 1996 Ganges treaty with Bangladesh guarantees minimum cross-border flows in the dry season – a new principle in international water law. That treaty divides the flows of the Ganges almost equally between the two countries. And now India is under pressure to reserve about half of the Teesta River’s water for Bangladesh.
But India is downriver from China. About a dozen important rivers flow into India from the Tibetan Himalayas. Indeed, one third of India’s yearly water supply comes from Tibet, according to United Nations’ data. Nations from Afghanistan to Vietnam receive water from the Tibetan Plateau, but India’s direct dependency on Tibetan water is greater than any other country’s.
But Beijing, far from emulating India’s water munificence, rejects the very concept of water sharing and is building large dams on rivers flowing to other nations, with little regard for downriver interests. An extensive Chinese water infrastructure in Tibet will have a serious effect on India.
So India faces difficult choices. Its ambitious plan to link up its major rivers has remained on paper for more than a decade. The idea was to connect 37 Himalayan and peninsular rivers in a pan-Indian water grid, to fight shortages.
Although the grid was ridiculed by the ruling party’s heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi as a “disastrous idea”, the Supreme Court ordered last year that it be implemented in “a time-bound manner”. Will that really happen?
The experience of the Supreme Court-overseen Narmada dam project in Gujarat doesn’t leave much room for optimism. India has struggled for decades to complete Narmada, and yet it is designed to produce less than 7 per cent as much hydropower as China’s Three Gorges Dam, completed last year.
With water increasingly at the centre of inter-provincial feuds in India, the Supreme Court has struggled for years with water cases, but the parties keep returning to litigate again on new grounds.
Plans for large water projects in India usually run into stiff opposition from influential non-government organisations, so that it has become virtually impossible to build a large dam, blighting the promise of hydropower.
Proof of this was New Delhi’s 2010 decision to abandon three dam projects on the Bhagirathi River, a source stream of the Ganges in the Himalayas. One of these was already half-built; hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted.
The largest dam India has built since independence is the 2,000 megawatt Tehri on the Bhagirathi. Compare that with China’s 18,300 megawatt Three Gorges. China’s proposed Metog Dam, almost on the disputed border with India, is to produce nearly twice as much power as Three Gorges Dam. China is also building on the Mekong River.
Meanwhile India’s proposed river-linking plan seems like a dream: a colossal network to handle 178 billion cubic metres of water transfers a year in12,500km of new canals, generating 34 gigawatts of hydropower, creating 35 million hectares of irrigated land and expanding inland navigation. This is the kind of programme that only an autocracy like China can implement.
Government agencies say that by 2050 India must nearly double grain production, to over 450 million tons a year, to meet the demands of prosperity and population growth. Unless it has more irrigated land and adopts new plant varieties and farming techniques, India is likely to become a net food importer before long – a change that will roil world food markets.
More fundamentally, growing water shortages threaten to slow Indian economic growth and fuel social tensions. The government must fix its disjointed policy approach and develop a long-term vision for water resources.
India must treat water as a strategic issue and focus on three key areas. One is achieving greater water efficiency and productivity gains. Another is using clean-water technologies to open up new supply sources, including ocean and brackish waters and recycled wastewater. The third is expanding and enhancing water infrastructure to correct regional and seasonal imbalances in water availability, and to harvest rainwater, which can be a new supply source to ease shortages.
Boosting water supplies demands tapping unconventional sources and adopting non-traditional approaches, as well as improving the old ways of water-supply management.
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In the discussion that followed the January 23rd presentation at the Asia Society it became clear that these presentations had one major flaw. Mr. Chellaney, though clearly in full knowledge of the topic, in his eagerness to present water and the fact that we waste water, and grab water from our neighbors, did not present the technologies that will help us overcome such shortages in the future.
In fact, if we do not talk about new technologies of water desalination, and of water saving, it is as if we were saying that when talking about energy – that it is all about oil.
In reality it is new forms of energy supply that will save the day in the energy area, and desalination projects will help us overcome the described water shortages.
Nevertheless, the book and the presentations are valuable because they describe the magnitude of the problem and send us off to look for possible solutions before the shortages hit us with full force.
We will get back to this point in another posting that will deal with A UNESCO newly established Graduate School in Delft, Holland, that will be training development professionals with knowledge in water technologies as well.
Visitors top up their glasses with treated sea water at a desalination plant near Hadera (photo credit: Shay Levy/Flash90)
After years of constantly being urged to conserve water, the National Water Authority announced Tuesday that Israelis no longer need to fear droughts and that the country’s water worries are essentially over.
The solution for the longstanding problem comes not from the clouds, which have provided generous amounts of rainfall this winter, but primarily from the sea — and the desalination technology that enables transforming its waters into something you can drink.
“Already we are desalinating 25 percent of our consumable water with the aid of three active plants. And with two more in the works, we will increase that amount to 50%. The drought that has plagued us in recent years is definitely over,” said Avner Hermoni, CEO of Derech Hayam desalination.
A man swims in the Sea of Galilee, Feb 2012. (photo credit: Yaakov Nahumi/Flash90)
“Sea of Galillee water levels are no longer an issue,” added Danny Sofer, a regional director for the national Mekorot water company. He said that water from the northern lake now makes up only 10% of Israel’s sources.
The Sea of Galilee — Lake Kinneret — has already collected enough water to reach its average yearly total, with over 330 days left to round out the total.
Thanks to the heaviest winter rains Israel has seen in decades earlier this month, the lake hit the 1.57 meter mark late last week — the average yearly intake — raising it to 210.84 meters below sea level, the highest it’s been since 2006, and only two meters below the level at which water would have to be let out.
The technological advances, together with the wet weather, have led the Water Authority to nix its water conservation campaign after running it for years.
“You can now shower alone,” Sofer joked, though he added that wise use of water is always sound policy.
Unfortunately for the public, being wealthy in water hasn’t yet translated to cheaper prices. Desalination is expensive, and on January 1 the price of water increased by 3 percent for the first 3.5 cubic meters per person in the household, bringing it to NIS 9.09 ($2.43).
Beyond the allocated 3.5 cubic meters, water costs NIS 14.60 per cubic meter. The price increases adds up to a total 36% increase since 2010.
Now the questions are – will UNEP speak for Science and the Global Environment rather then bow, as until now, to the few leading Member States interested in keeping it low and far?
Back in 1972 it was sent off to far away Nairobi so it would not impact the ongoing in New York or Geneva. The result was indeed that the Environment continued to be left out from discussions of the Development and Social Agendas.
The UN celebrates now: “United Nations Environment Programme Upgraded to Universal Membership Following Rio+20″ and that is not funny. They also say now:
“UN General Assembly Strengthens UNEP Role in Addressing Global Environmental Challenges.Renewed Focus on Improving Access to Technology and Capacity Building” says the UN.
Will ECOSOC – the Economic and Social Council – be allowed now to embrace this newly empowered UNEP and be upgraded to a body that is UNIVERSAL as well, and deals with Sustainability including all three legs of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT – the Environment, Social Development and Economic Development? This at a time that sees the closing of the useless Commission – the UN CSD?
Will the new UNEP be charged to promote SUSTAINABLE ENERGY in the UN effort to provide Energy-4-All, the post RIO+20 other effort that will have its hub in Vienna? Sustainable Energy and the Global Environment are the twin pillars that will hold our arch to Future Generations.
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New York / Nairobi, 21 December 2012 –Another step forward to the ‘Future We Want’ was put in place today with a decision by the General Assembly of the United Nations to ‘strengthen and upgrade’ the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and establish universal membership of its governing body. The landmark resolution, aimed at increasing the role of UNEP as the leading environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, was adopted 40 years after UNEP was established by the General Assembly, following the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.
The General Assembly resolution also provides for UNEP to receive secure, stable and increased financial resources from the regular budget of the UN, and calls for other UNEP donors to increase their voluntary funding.
The decision allows full participation of all 193 UN member states at the UNEP Governing Council in February 2013, and follows commitments by world leaders at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) last June to improve the institutional framework for sustainable development.
The provisions contained in the resolution are among the first practical steps by the UN General Assembly to implement the outcomes of Rio+20.
“The decision by the General Assembly to strengthen and upgrade UNEP is a watershed moment. Universal membership of UNEP’s Governing Council establishes a new, fully-representative platform to strengthen the environmental dimension of sustainable development, and provides all governments with an equal voice on the decisions and actions needed to support the global environment, and ensure a fairer share of the world’s resources for all,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
“The resolution reaffirms UNEP’s role as the UN’s authority on the environment, and provides the mandate to enhance our ongoing work on bringing the latest science to policy-makers, directly supporting national and regional environmental efforts, improving access to technology, and other key areas. For UNEP and the environmental community, this is a truly historic day,” added Mr. Steiner.
Improved governance for the global environment
In the forty years since UNEP was established, the environmental challenges facing communities around the world – from diminishing water resources and desertification, to climate change and hazardous chemicals – have increased in number and complexity.
Yet international responses to such challenges are often fragmented and weak. The latest edition of UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook report, released in June 2012, assessed 90 of the most important environmental goals agreed by the international community, and found that significant progress had only been made in four.
The report warns that if current trends continue, several critical thresholds may be exceeded, beyond which irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet could occur.
The General Assembly decision reflects the commitment of member states to improve global cooperation on the environment in order to meet such challenges, and to promote the integration of the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable development, as well as improving coordination within the UN system.
Prior to the new resolution, UNEP’s Governing Council consisted of 58 members only. Previous efforts to ensure wider representation in the running of UNEP resulted in the creation of the Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GMEF), which brought together the world’s environment ministers for high-level meetings in parallel with the Governing Council.
Member states will have the role of implementing the provisions of the General Assembly resolution – including arrangements for the future of the GMEF – at the first meeting of the newly-enlarged Governing Council at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi on 18-22 February 2013. The meeting will be held under the theme ‘Rio+20: From Outcome to Implementation’. The General Assembly also stressed the important role of UNEP in providing the international community with comprehensive, science-based, policy-relevant global environmental assessments, such as the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) series, and others.
By endorsing the Rio+20 outcome document ‘The Future We Want’ in July 2012, and adopting the new resolution on UNEP, the General Assembly underlined the need for UNEP to work more closely with non-governmental organizations, youth, women, indigenous peoples, local governments, business, and other interest groups, and to formalize their participation at the UNEP Governing Council and in global environmental decision-making overall.
UNEP is also tasked with further strengthening the vital link between policy-makers and the scientific community.
In a separate resolution relating to another Rio+20 outcome, the General Assembly welcomed the adoption of the ten-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production patterns (10YFP), to which UNEP provides the secretariat.
The 10YFP is a global framework of action to enhance international cooperation on accelerating the shift towards sustainable consumption and production in developed and developing countries. The framework will support capacity building, and provide technical and financial assistance to developing countries.
The General Assembly also tasked UNEP with establishing a trust fund for sustainable consumption and production programmes in order to mobilize voluntary contributions from donors, the private sector, foundations, and other sources.
40 Years of UNEP
The General Assembly resolution marks the first major structural change to UNEP in its four-decade history.
The first UN agency to be headquartered in a developing country, UNEP is the voice of the environment in the UN system. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review, and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action.
UNEP also administers many multilateral environmental agreements and conventions, including the Ozone Secretariat and the Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and a growing family of chemicals-related agreements, among others.
Major UNEP landmarks and achievements over the past forty years include:
· 1979: Bonn Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) established. The agreement involves 116 member states and has overseen binding agreements and action plans to protect 120 migratory species.
· 1987: Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer established. One of the most successful multilateral agreements in UN history, the protocol has overseen a 98 per cent reduction of controlled ozone depleting substances, and delivered multiple health benefits, including millions of avoided cases of cancer and eye cataracts.
· 1988:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization. The panel delivers the world’s most influential, comprehensive and scientifically-reviewed reports on climate change.
· 1995:Basel Ban Amendment barring export of hazardous wastes adopted. Ratified by 70 countries and the EU, the agreement established a regime for minimization of health and environmental impacts of waste.
· 2002:Launch of Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles. Among other activities, the project has assisted countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to successfully phase out or begin the phase-out of leaded fuel. Associated health savings for the continent are estimated at US$92 billion per year.
· 2012: Launch of Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants: Voluntary initiative to reduce emissions of black carbon, methane, low-level ozone, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and other short-lived climate pollutants, to tackle climate change and improve human health. In less than 12 months, some 25 governments and additional partners have joined the coalition.
More UNEP milestones can be viewed at: www.unep.org/40th
Texts of all resolutions of the 67th session of the UN General Assembly are available at: www.un.org/en/ga/67/resolutions.shtml
Video: Adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution on UNEP universal membership: webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/general-assembly:-60th-plenary-meeting/1580695591001/
Rio+20 outcome document ‘The Future We Want’ (strengthening and upgrading of UNEP outlined in paragraph 88): www.uncsd2012.org/content/documents/727The%20Future%20We%20Want%2019%20June%201230pm.pdf
More information on the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production is available at: www.unep.fr/scp/marrakech/10yfp.htm
Climate change was predicted to arrive tomorrow but it is happening today. For this reason, the moment for climate justice has arrived.
Edward Cameron, World Resources Institute and Tara Shine, Mary Robinson Foundation.
SOUTHNEWS
No. 20, 10 December 2012
SOUTHNEWS is a service of the South Centre to provide information and news on topical issues from a South perspective.
Visit the South Centre’s website: www.southcentre.org.
Green thinking takes root in midst of desert in Doha climate talks
Are oil-rich Gulf states, once a byword for waste and excess, really now leading the world on sustainable development?
The signing of a partnership between the Qatar Foundation and the Postdam Institute for a new climate change research institute in Qatar. (Photograph: IISD)
One of the great surprises for the 15,000 negotiators and others here in Doha for the climate talks is not the breakneck speed of development in the gas-rich emirate, or the displays of wealth and the giant construction projects, but the possible dawn of reality.
Until recently, the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states were the epicentre of unsustainable global development, a byword for waste, excess and ecological irresponsibility. Their huge consumption of natural resources and flouting of nature on the back of oil and gas production shocked even hard-nosed observers of global oil wealth.
Well, we may have to change our views. From my hotel window, I can see 14 monster buildings being built, each to a much higher energy standard than the law demands in the US or most of Europe. Down the road is a new $70m (£43m) test-bed for carbon capture, the beginnings of a 200 megawatt solar power station, a $1bn photovoltaic manufacturing plant, new waste treatment plants, a pilot project to grow food in the desert with saltwater, and a fledgling construction industry with waste plastic.
Green baubles for the super-rich perhaps, but there is evidence that a real change of thinking is taking place. Schools, local authorities and mosques are now teaching about water and energy saving, and Gulf state governments are committing themselves to deeper cuts in emissions than the US or much of Europe.
Britain hopes to generate 20% of its electricity with renewables by 2030. But the Qataris will do that by 2020. Britain, with a population of more than 60 million, built about 100,000 new homes last year. Qatar, with 1.4 million people, will build a whole city to the highest green specifications for 200,000 people in not much more time.
And it’s not just Qatar. Other Gulf states are racing each other to rethink their development paths. The renewable energy world is moving to Abu Dhabi. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invested billions of dollars in projects there, as well as in Europe and north Africa. Even Dubai, which has indulged in a 20-year construction frenzy, is aiming at 7% renewables in 12 years – similar to Belgium. Even more remarkably, Saudi Arabia, fearful of its own escalating domestic electricity needs, will meet one-third of its electricity demand from solar by 2032.
None of this would have been conceivable even a few years ago. So what has changed? One senior adviser to the Qatari government put it like this: “There is a new direction. The GCC countries all move together like a herd. A desperate search is going on to find new ways of doing things. They need to find the answer for when the oil and gas is not there. They have seen the future and now they have fire in their arse.
“But they also know that the Arab spring countries all neglected people during development. They are learning. Education, health and welfare were all neglected. Environment has risen up the agenda. In the past, it was of no interest. Now it is a global necessity. Money is not the problem.”
The thirst for what Qatar, Abu Dhabi and other oil-rich states call a new “knowledge economy” would partly explain why Qatar on Wednesday committed to set up a global climate change centre in Doha with the German Potsdam Institute. It will employ around 200 researchers and sit beside a dozen other prestigious US, British and other academic centres, including Imperial College, which is now at Doha.
The founder of the institute, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, spelled out what was at stake: “Qatar is the only true desert state in the world with no surface water and 500km of flat coastline, where temperatures are already 45C in summer. With sea level rise expected to be up to 90cm by 2100 in the Gulf region and temperatures expected to rise [by] 5-8C, this place will be unlivable [if climate change is not brought under control].”
The Gulf states’ change of direction, he suggested, is being undertaken not out of any desire to be green but sheer pragmatism. What happens here could shape all our futures, says the adviser. “The next stage of modern civilization can be blueprinted here. Qatar can be a role model for the region and the whole planet.”
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Last-minute scramble for climate deal at UN talks
Negotiations continued through the night Thursday at United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar, with envoys trying to mesh procedure with political will. A key proposal is the annual delivery of $100 billion in aid by 2020 to pay for projects to cope with the effects of global warming. The lead negotiator from the Philippines, Naderev Saño, broke down in tears in the hall, saying, “I appeal to the whole world, I appeal to leaders from all over the world, to open our eyes to the stark reality that we face. … It cannot be a way of life that we end up running always from storms.”
Above tells us that the location and hosts had no effect on the negotiators that still attempted a North-South wrangle. A waste of time so far as we are concerned.
spills out for us to see the best diplomatic slippery beans:
8 December 2012: The UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar, took place from 26 November-8 December 2012, focused on ensuring the implementation of agreements reached at previous conferences. Following two weeks of negotiations, delegates adopted the package of “Doha Climate Gateway” decisions on the evening of Saturday, 8 December. The outcome includes amendments to the Kyoto Protocol to establish its second commitment period.The Doha Climate Change Conference included: the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8); the 37th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 37) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 37); the second part of the 17th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 17); the second part of the 15th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC (AWG-LCA 15); and the second part of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 1).
The DOHA conference drew approximately 9,000 participants, including 4, 356 government officials, 3, 956 representatives of UN bodies and agencies, intergovernmental organizations and civil society organizations, and 683 members of the media. {much lower figures then the above upbeat report}
Having been launched at CMP 1, the AWG-KP terminated its work in Doha. The parties also agreed to terminate the AWG-LCA and negotiations under the Bali Action Plan. Key elements of the outcome also included agreement to consider loss and damage, “such as” an institutional mechanism to address loss and damage in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Other outcomes of the Conference include the adoption of: a decision on gender and climate change; and the Doha Work Programme on Convention Article 6 (education and awareness raising).
While developing countries and observers expressed disappointment with the lack of ambition in outcomes on Annex I countries’ mitigation and finance, most agreed that the conference had paved the way for a new phase, focusing on the implementation of the outcomes from negotiations under the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA, and advancing negotiations under the ADP.
FOLLOWED BY THE UNUSUAL SHORT AND VERY MISLEADING UNSG BAN KI-MOON PRESS RELEASE THAT IN A FEW LINES DECLARES THE SECRETARIAT”S BANKRUPTCY IN ALL MATTERS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
10 December 2012
THE UNITED NATIONS
Secretary-GeneralSG/SM/14708
ENV/DEV/1333
Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York
Secretary-General Welcomes Doha Climate Change Conference Outcome, But Stresses Need for Accelerated Action to Limit Rise in Global Temperature.
SO WE ASK – WHAT DID THE MEETING ACTUALLY ACHIEVE? DIPLOMACY ASIDE _ WHO PAID AND WHO GAINED FROM THIS MIGRATION OF CLOSE TO 10,000 PEOPLE TO THE ISLAND OF QATAR, IN A CORNER OF THE SAUDI PENINSULA OF THE GREAT ARAB DESERT?
The following statement was issued on 8 December by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
The Secretary-General welcomes the outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference that concluded today in Doha, and he congratulates Qatar for a job well done in hosting the Conference.
Doha successfully concluded the previous round of climate negotiations, paving the way to a comprehensive, legally binding agreement by 2015.
The Secretary-General believes that far more needs to be done and he calls on Governments, along with businesses, civil society and citizens, to accelerate action on the ground so that the global temperature rise can be limited to 2° C.
He said he will increase his personal involvement in efforts to raise ambition, scale-up climate financing and engage world leaders as we now move towards the global agreement in 2015. * *** *
Will the UN Secretary General show now rhe decency to cancel the 2013 – 2014 meetings and advise the Member States to act in quiet diplomacy in preparations for a 2015 outcome?
Meeting before 2015 like the Cancun, Durban and Doha meetings – the last three yearly meetings that came after the Copenhagen COP 15 of the UNFCCC of 2009 – were nothing more then large exercises in migration that enhanced income from tourism in the host countries. Our own website has stopped listing the meetings after the Copenhagen meeting and we preferred to call them Copenhagen +1, Copenhagen +2, And now for Doha we reserved Copenhagen +3. That was because the last real step in the UNFCCC evolution happened on the way to Copenhagen when President Obama went first to Beijing and managed for the first time to get China to declare that they are indeed part of these negotiations. China then brought in India, Brazil, South Africa as well.
We are afraid that if nothing is done before the 2013 Warsaw meeting that meeting will be a waste as well. What has to happen is that the Obama II Administration steps forward with direct proposals to the other major emitters – specifically – China, India and Brazil – with or without South Africa – and seals direct agreements with them that can then become the base for multilateral negotiations. Indeed, there is no reason why one must have all nations on board.
In the past it was mainly the oil States of the Middle East that were the hindrance to an agreement – this even before one could tackle the large emerging emitters and the United States. Perhaps the Doha meeting provided the needed Climate Change education to the oil States, and thus a strong decision of President Obama and rolling over the climate deniers of the Republican oil-Lobby, could return the issue to multilateral diplomacy.
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Kyoto Protocol extended in climate compromise.
Is the title of the UN Foundation’s UN WIRE of December 10, 2012.
Delegates at the United Nations climate talks that ended Saturday in Doha, Qatar, agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol through 2020 and create a road map by 2015 to replace the pact. The world’s governments remained divided over who should pay the costs for helping the most vulnerable countries cope with the effects of climate change through 2020, when industrial nations are slated to contribute $100 billion annually from public and private sources. Reuters (12/9), The New York Times (12/8), IRINNews.org (12/9)
THE REUTERS REPORTS FROM DOHA ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Despair after climate conference, but UN still offers hope
DOHA, Dec 9 (Reuters) – At the end of another lavishly-funded U.N. conference that yielded no progress on curbing greenhouse emissions, many of those most concerned about climate change are close to despair.
As thousands of delegates checked out of their air-conditioned hotel rooms in Doha to board their jets for home, some asked whether the U.N. system even made matters worse by providing cover for leaders to take no meaningful action.
Supporters say the U.N. process is still the only framework for global action. The United Nations also plays an essential role as the “central bank” for carbon trading schemes, such as the one set up by the European Union.
But unless rich and poor countries can inject urgency into their negotiations, they are heading for a diplomatic fiasco in 2015 – their next deadline for a new global deal.
“Much much more is needed if we are to save this process from being simply a process for the sake of process, a process that simply provides for talk and no action, a process that locks in the death of our nations, our people, and our children,” said Kieren Keke, foreign minister of Nauru, who fears his Pacific island state could become uninhabitable.
The conference held in Qatar – the country that produces the largest per-capita volume of greenhouse gases in the world – agreed to extend the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol, which would have run out within weeks.
But Canada, Russia and Japan – where the protocol was signed 15 years ago – all abandoned the agreement. The United States never ratified it in the first place, and it excludes developing countries where emissions are growing most quickly.
Delegates flew home from Doha without securing a single new pledge to cut pollution from a major emitter.
So far, U.N. climate talks have missed just about every deadline. The rich nations of the world promised two decades ago to halt their rise in greenhouse gases. They failed. Next, they promised a sequel to Kyoto by 2009. They failed again.
Now they have a 2015 deadline to get a new global, binding deal in place, to enter into force after the extension of Kyoto expires in 2020. For the first time, it would apply to rich and poor countries alike. But with the world’s nations divided over who must pay the cost, the task of reaching accord seems beyond the capabilities of the vast corps of international delegates.
Meanwhile, the world’s weather is only getting more unstable. As the Doha talks dragged on, Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines left nearly 1,000 people dead or missing.
Hurricane Sandy last month was a reminder that even rich countries are not safe from extreme weather, which scientists say will become ever more common as the world heats up.
PROGRESS AT GROUND LEVEL
A series of reports released during the Doha talks said the world faced the prospect of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2F) of warming, rather than the 2 degree (3.6F) limit that nations adopted in 2010 as a maximum to avoid dangerous changes.
// BUT UN SERETARY GENERAL BAN KI_MOON STILL DREAMS AT A 2degrees LIMIT?!//
According to the World Bank, that would mean food and water shortages, habitats wiped out, coastal communities wrecked by rising seas, deserts spreading, and droughts both more frequent and severe. Most impact would be borne by the world’s poorest.
“The alarm bells are going off all over the place,” Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said. “We are in a crisis and treating it like a process where we can dither away for ever.”
Action at ground level has had a positive impact, even as the U.N. dithers. Investment in carbon-free renewable energy hit a record $260 billion in 2011.
In the United States, the discovery of techniques to produce natural gas from shale has cut the cost of gas, which has reduced emissions from the world’s biggest polluter by replacing coal, a bigger carbon emitter, for power generation.
But although U.S. emissions – nearly a quarter of the world’s total – have fallen, for the world as a whole this year they are expected to rise by 2.6 percent, up by 58 percent since 1990. Emerging economies led by China and India account for most of the growth.
Although frustrated by days and nights of haggling, ministers still back the United Nations as part of the solution.
“It’s clear to me that this process is the only global framework we have and since this is a global problem, it has to be addressed globally,” Denmark’s Energy Minister Martin Lidegaard told Reuters.
“But obviously, this can’t stand alone. Nations can’t continue to hide behind the process. There’s a direct link between what we deliver at home and here. We desperately need to combine action by regions, municipalities, citizens with this global approach. That is becoming more and more evident.”
Negotiators say ultimately politicians – distracted by other events – need to become engaged.
“It (the environment) is no longer on the front page with the political and financial crisis. That is the reason why heads of state have to turn to this,” the European Union’s chief negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger said.
CONVERTS
The conference is an easy target for cynics – not least because it was held in Qatar, a desert kingdom that exports carbon-producing fossil fuel and uses the proceeds to fund a lavish lifestyle for many of its 2.5 million people.
A country that burns fuel to desalinate water and build golf courses in the desert seems like an odd place to talk about curtailing consumption. But supporters say bringing producers like Qatar into the consensus for change is a step forward.
Business leaders are also getting involved.
“A lot of CEOs from the region have turned up. A lot of them are talking about sustainability and resource efficiency. That’s no longer a dirty word,” said Russel Mills, global director for energy and climate policy at Dow Chemical Co.
Dow, like many other big industrial firms, keeps a close eye on U.N. carbon policy because of the United Nations’ role as “a kind of central bank” for pollution allowances.
The most developed carbon trading scheme is the European Union’s, which has lurched from crisis to crisis. The value of EU Emissions Trading Scheme permits sank to a record low this month under the burden of surplus allowances during a recession.
But other jurisdictions such as Australia, California, South Korea and even China believe they can learn from Europe’s mistakes and are developing their own emissions trading. Such schemes could be the planet’s best hope of survival, and the United Nations is likely to play a role.
“Economy-wide carbon pricing, whether carbon taxes or cap and trade, is the only approach that can conceivably achieve the targets scientists advocate,” Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard in the United States, said.
“Also, it will be most the cost-effective and therefore in the long run the most politically-viable approach.”
Still, even with the best of intentions, U.N. diplomats are unlikely ever to deliver change at the pace scientists seek.
“Science is demanding immediate and drastic action,” Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. “Policy, economics and financing cannot move in drastic fashion.”
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and the IRIN NEWS Report:
IRIN – standing for Integrated Regional Information Networks – has its head office in Nairobi, Kenya, with regional desks in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Dakar, Dubai and Bangkok, covering some 70 countries. The bureaus are supported by a network of local correspondents, an increasing rarity in mainstream newsgathering today.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Snapshot of wins and losses at the Doha talks.
Talks in Doha at the futuristic Qatar National Convention Centre dragged on overtime
JOHANNESBURG, 9 December 2012 (IRIN) – Like last year’s UN climate change talks, this year’s conference in Doha culminated in an all-night session to hammer out a deal on preventing further global warming and protecting people from the effects of climate change. While some promising compromises were made, the absence of a strong commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions and help vulnerable populations adapt to climate change was evident in the conference’s 39 decisions.
IRIN provides a snapshot of the three overarching themes of the decisions that came out of the 18th session of the Conference of Parties (COP18) to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and what these decisions mean for humanitarian actors.
Loss and damage
Tweeting out of the conference, one of Argentina’s negotiators said the decisions don’t feel “ground-breaking” but are “more likely saving face”. “What we got for it, only loss and damage and nothing else”, he said.
[The] decisions don’t feel ground-breaking but are more likely saving face. What we got for it, only loss and damage and nothing else
Poor countries, including small island states and the least developed countries, were looking for a decision to create an international mechanism to address losses and damages caused by climate change. The mechanism would open the door to possible compensation from affluent countries for poor countries facing the mounting costs of extreme climate events. It would consider both their economic and non-economic losses, and possibly explore technological interventions.
In the end, they had to settle for the possibility of this happening in the COP19 talks taking place in Poland next year. Still, the fact that the possibility of such a mechanism was mentioned in the decision at all was considered a breakthrough.
Additionally, a work programme collecting data on loss and damage caused by slow-onset disasters – such as droughts – received an extension. The programme will also consider climate change’s impact on migration patterns and displacement, as well as efforts to reduce risk.
The decisions on loss and damage echoes much of a framework proposed by a group of NGOs earlier in the conference, which had recommended focusing on the international mechanism, the work programme, and consideration of non-economic losses. But ultimately, the decisions are subject to money being made available for development of the work programme.
What it means: With the extension of the work programme, more information on possible policy approaches will be forthcoming. This will help humanitarian organizations better scale-up responses to extreme climate events, which are increasing in frequency and intensity.
But NGOs and the civil society will likely have to wait a long time for affluent countries to make firm commitments on funding, risk transfer mechanisms such as insurance, and technology to help poor countries improve their resilience to climate change. Given that money to help vulnerable populations adapt has been ad hoc and insufficient, there is little optimism for funds being made available for compensation.
Adaptation finance
In 2009, developed countries promised to provide US$30 billion by 2012 to help poor countries adapt to climate change. They also promised to provide $100 billion a year from 2020 onwards.
Developed countries reported in Doha that they had reached the $30 billion target, but this was disputed by academics and civil society.
“It is very difficult to know where that finance went and how,” said scientist Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development. “We need to come up with procedures for monitoring, reporting and verification of these finance figures. We need to agree on some format so that money can be tracked effectively. It hasn’t been tracked previously.”
The developed countries further indicated that, with the global recession, they are unable to make firm commitments to finance poor nations’ efforts to adapt. Instead, a decision was made to set up a work programme in 2013 to help developed countries identify ways to raise this money.
What it means: No global funding pledge has been for the interim period between 2013 and 2020. Individual pledges by five European countries – including the UK, France and Germany – have been made, but cumulatively, these fall far short of the $60 billion that developing countries had requested for the interim.
It is also not clear if the five pledges are specifically for climate change adaptation or if they are part of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) that developed countries provide to the developing world. The UNFCC requires that developed countries provide money for climate change adaptation that is additional to their ODA.
Emission cuts
The good news to emerge from the talks is that the Kyoto Protocol – a global agreement to cut emissions that was set to expire in 2012 – has been extended to 2020.
They also agreed that a roadmap to create a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol should be ready in 2015.
But meanwhile, there are no firm commitments to take on deeper emissions cuts. And with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and the US opting out of the Kyoto Protocol, the protocol applies to only 15 percent of current global greenhouse gas emissions.
What it means: Scientific organization, including the UN Environment Programme have warned that failing to further cut emissions could increase global temperatures by over four degrees Celius by the turn of the century. The internationally embraced goal is to limit this warming to two degrees Celsius, but the International Energy Agency has shown that achieving this goal grows more difficult and expensive with every passing year. This means poor countries and aid agencies will have to contend with the possibility of more frequent and intense climatic events and the mounting costs associated with prevention, relief and recovery.
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
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A ‘low ambition’ outcome at Doha climate change conference
By Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, Doha, 9 December 2012
The annual UN climate conference concluded in Doha last Saturday (8 December) with “low ambition” both in emission cuts by developed countries and funding for developing countries.
Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted many decisions, including on the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period in which developed countries committed to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases.
Many delegates left the conference quite relieved that they had reached agreement after days of wrangling over many issues and an anxious last 24 hours that were so contentious that most people felt a collapse was imminent.
The relief was that the multilateral climate change regime has survived yet again, although there are such deep differences and distrust among developed and developing countries.
The conflict in paradigms between these two groups of countries was very evident throughout the two weeks of the Doha negotiations, and it was only papered over superficially in the final hours to avoid an open failure. But the differences will surface again when negotiations resume next year.
Avoidance of collapse was a poor measure of success. In terms of progress towards real actions to tackle the climate change crisis, the Doha conference was another lost opportunity and grossly inadequate.
The conference was held at the end of a year of record extreme events. News of typhoon in the Philippines which killed 500 and made 300,000 homeless reminded the conference participants of the reality of the climate crisis.
However, the dictates of economic competition and commercial interests unfortunately were of higher priority, especially among developed countries, which explains their low ambition in emission reduction. They also broke their promises in the legally binding UNFCCC to provide funds and transfer technology to developing countries.
The most important result in Doha was the formal adoption of the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period (2013 to 2020) to follow immediately after the first period expires on 31 December 2012.
However, the elements are weak. With original Kyoto Protocol Parties Russia, Japan and New Zealand having decided not to join in a second commitment period, and and Canada have left the Protocol altogether, only Europe, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and a few others (totalling 35 developed countries and countries with economies in transition) are left to make legally binding commitments in the second period.
Also, the emission cuts these countries agreed to commit to are in aggregate only 18% by 2020 below the 1990 level, compared to the 25-40% required to restrict global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.
A saving factor in the Kyoto Protocol decision is the “ambition mechanism” put in by developing countries, that the countries will “revisit” their original target and increase their commitments by 2014, in line with the aggregate 25-40% reduction goal.
Also, the decision severely limited the amount of credits or surplus allowances that can be used during the second period. These credits were accumulated in the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period by countries that cut their emissions more than the targeted level.
According to the decision, these countries cannot use or trade most of the surplus allowances as a means to avoid current emission cuts.
The most important country affected is Russia, and on Saturday it strongly objected to the way the President of the Conference, Abdullah Hamad al-Attiyah of Qatar, bulldozed through the Kyoto Protocol decision even though it and two other countries tried to object.
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// DO YOU REMEMBER THOSE KYOTO HOT AIR CLOUDS RELEASED BY THE COLLAPSE OF THE ANTIQUATED SOVIET BLOC INDUSTRY?//
Just look at what happened at Doha – here something we heartily applaud:
The final “wrangling” took place in the closing plenary on Saturday afternoon between those wanting to limit the use of excess AAUs to ensure the “environmental integrity” of the emission reduction commitments put forward and those arguing that “overachievement” of commitments should not be punished by a limitation in the use of AAUs. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus attempted to block the adoption of the AWG-KP outcome during the CMP closing plenary, but the nimble COP President gaveled its adoption before appearing to notice Russia’s raised flag. A round of applause welcomed the adoption of the decision, which limits the amount of surplus AAUs that can be used and provides that only parties taking on second commitment period QELRCs can use them. Russia objected to what he said was a breach of procedure by the President, while the COP President responded he would do no more than reflect his view in the final report. This action on the part of the COP President brought back echoes of the events of Cancun when Bolivia’s objections to the adoption of the Cancun Agreement were overruled/ignored in much the same way. It also made many wonder whether this was becoming a trend in the climate negotiations; as many have repeated, consensus does not mean the right of one party to block progress.
NOW – IF THIS KILLED SOME HOT-AIR BALLOONS – POWER TO QATAR – WE LOVE THEM.
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A second major criticism of the Doha decisions is the lack of funds to be provided to developing countries to take climate actions.
In 2010, the Conference of Parties in Cancun decided that developed countries would mobilize climate finance of US$100 billion a year starting in 2020; and that US$30 billion of fast track finance would be given in 2010-2012.
But there is a gap between 2013 and 2020. Despite the demand by developing countries that there be US$60 billion by 2015, the decision adopted on Saturday does not specify any number as a commitment. It only “encourages” countries to provide at least as much as they had in the 2010-2012 period.
The lack of a credible finance commitment led to an outcry by developing countries on the plenary floor. This lack of funds curtails their ability to undertake actions to combat climate change, especially since they have agreed in the 2010 Cancun and 2011 Durban Conferences to take on more mitigation efforts.
The Doha conference also adopted a set of decisions under its working group on long-term cooperative action under the UNFCCC. The developing countries were pleased with paragraphs on equity, unilateral trade measures, technology assessment and a vague reference to the effects of intellectual property.
However these decisions were very weak. Even then the United States registered its disagreement or reservations to these decisions, after the adoption of the text, giving a foretaste of how they will continue to object to future discussions on these issues.
A positive decision made in Doha was to prepare for the setting up by next year’s Conference of an “international mechanism” to help developing countries deal with loss and damage caused by climate change. This also resulted from intense negotiations.
Activities meanwhile will include an expert meeting and preparing technical papers on this issue. Developing countries hope that this programme will lead to new funds being channelled to those countries suffering from flooding, drought, sea level rise and other forms of damage linked to climate change.
The Doha conference also adopted a work plan for the new working group on the Durban Platform that was set up in December 2011. There were major fights in Doha over this, with many developing countries insisting that mention be made that the Durban Platform will operate on the basis of equity and common and differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), the operating principle of the UNFCCC.
The final text did not mention this principle, and even the reference to the June 2012 Rio Plus 20 Summit which endorsed the equity and CBDR principle was removed at the insistence of the United States.
What remained in the text was a reference that the Durban Platform’s work will be guided by the principles of the Convention. Even then, the United States in the final plenary placed a reservation that they reject the use of this phrase in the negotiations in the Durban Platform group. (The phrase is in the 2011 decision that established the working group – after the United States rejected any reference to explicit inclusion of “equity” or “CBDR” the final compromise was “under the Convention”.)
This reveals how much lacking in the spirit of international cooperation that the United States and some other developed countries have become.
They are no longer willing to assist the developing countries, and incredibly are even objecting to the principles of the Convention being applied to negotiations to set up a new agreement that will be under the Convention.
More than anything else, this shows the tragic paradox of the Doha conference. It succeeded in adopting many decisions and kept the functioning of the multilateral climate regime alive, but the actual substance of actions to save the planet from climate change was absent, as was a genuine commitment to support the developing countries.
Author: Marin Khor is Executive Director of the South Centre. Contact: director@southcentre.org.
An earlier version of this article was published in The Star of 10 December 2012.
To view other articles in SouthNews, please click here.
For more information, please contact Vicente Paolo Yu of the South Centre:
Email yu@southcentre.org, or telephone +41 22 791 80 50.
The list of the Climate Change Convention Conferences of the Parties held todate:
COP 19/MOP 9, were approved for Warsaw, Poland, even that they hosted quite recently the 2008 meeting.
The meeting at Doha Decided to accept with appreciation the offer by the Government of Poland to host the nineteenth session of the Conference of the Parties and the ninth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Warsaw, Poland, from Monday, 11 November to Friday, 22 November 2013, subject to confirmation by the Bureau of the Conference of the Parties and the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that all logistical, technical and financial elements for hosting the sessions are available, in conformity with United Nations General Assembly resolution 40/243, and subject to the successful conclusion of a Host Country Agreement;
International Earth Condominium Conference. 16 and 17 January, 2013. Gaia, Portugal.
from: Soraia Taipa
to Sustainable
Dear all,
On the 16th and 17th of January 2013 the International Earth Condominium Conference will take place in the city of Gaia (Portugal). Participation is free but subscription is required.
The Earth Condominium Project proposes that the world’s climate and oceanic systems are recognized as a Global Intangible Heritage of Mankind. This may form the basis for a legal framework and a common accounting system for ecosystem services. This will allow the economic value of these contributions to be integrated into the economy, moving towards an economic system that drives towards ‘ecosystem-service growth’, while maintaining the use of ecosystem services within a safe operating space.
In the upcoming conference we wish to create a space of open discussion that addresses the following main themes:
Natural Intagible Heritage of Mankind;
Planetary boundaries;
Economic externalities;
Failed markets,
Rights of Future generations;
World Environmental Organization.
The conference will take place in ‘Parque Biológico de Gaia’. For a detailed program, which includes members of the panels and information on how to subscribe please check the following links:
The following comes from a BBC posting of October 30, 2012 via a UNWIRE posting of November 5, 2012.
The issue is that global warming and climate change in many developing countries, situated in the tropics – maize, rice and wheat will be replaced by lower calorie content cowpeas, cassava, barley. As well, potatoes will be replaced by higher altitude banana varieties.
—————————————————————–
Bananas could replace potatoes in warming world.
By Matt McGrath Science reporter, BBC World Service
Developing-world yields of the world’s top three calorie-rich crops — corn, wheat and rice — could decline because of climate change, prompting changes to diets and a move to hardier crops including cassava, yam and barley, according to researchers from the CGIAR agricultural partnership. The potato also is likely to suffer against higher temperatures, paving the way for banana varieties as a replacement, researchers said.
Bananas could take the place of potatoes in some developing countries
When the farmers see the problems they are having with production, they really are willing to shift”
End Quote Bruce Campbell CCAFS
Responding to a request from the United Nations’ committee on world food security, a group of experts in the field looked at the projected effects of climate change on 22 of the world’s most important agricultural commodities.
They predict that the world’s three biggest crops in terms of calories provided – maize, rice and wheat – will decrease in many developing countries.
They suggest that the potato, which grows best in cooler climates, could also suffer as temperatures increase and weather becomes more volatile.
The authors argue that these changes “could provide an opening for cultivating certain varieties of bananas” at higher altitudes, even in those places that currently grow potatoes.
Cassava could help meet food needs in South Asia
Dr Philip Thornton is one of those behind the report. He told BBC News that while bananas and plantains also have limiting factors, they may be a good substitute for potatoes in certain locations.
“It’s not necessarily a silver bullet, but there may be places where as temperatures increase, bananas might be one option that small-holders could start to look at.”
The report describes wheat as the world’s most important plant-derived protein and calorie source.
But according to this research, wheat will face a difficult future in the developing world, where higher prices for cotton, maize and soybeans have pushed wheat to marginal land, making it more vulnerable to stresses induced by climate change.
One substitute, especially in South Asia, could be cassava – which is known to be tolerant to a range of climate stresses.
But how easy will it be to get people to adjust to new crops and new diets?
Bruce Campbell is programme director of the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security research group (CCAFS) which co-ordinates work among leading institutions around the world. He told BBC News that the types of changes that will happen in the future have already happened in the past.
Protein under pressure
“Two decades ago there was almost no rice consumption in certain areas of Africa, now there is. People have changed because of the pricing: it’s easier to get, it’s easier to cook. I think those sort of shifts do occur and I think they will in future.”
One of the big concerns among researchers is how to tackle the need for protein in the diet. Soybeans are one of the most common sources but are very susceptible to temperature changes.
The scientists say that the cowpea, which is known in sub-Saharan Africa as the “poor man’s meat” is drought-tolerant and prefers warmer weather and could be a reasonable alternative to soya. The vines of the cowpea can also be used as a feed for livestock.
In some countries, including Nigeria and Niger, farmers have already moved away from cotton production to growing cowpeas.
There are also likely to be developments in animal protein sources says the report, including a shift to smaller livestock.
“This is an example of something that’s happening already,” said Dr Campbell. “There’s been quite a shift from cattle keeping to goat keeping in southern Africa in face of droughts – when the farmers see the problems they are having with production, they really are willing to shift.
“Change is really possible. It’s not just a crazy notion.”
THIS ARTICLE HAS IN IT A LOT OF TRUTH – BUT PLEASE – DO NOT REACH OUT TO OIL INDUSTRY EXPERTS WHEN THE ISSUE IS HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD LESS DEPENDENT ON MIDDLE EAST OIL AND SAFER AND MORE SECURE IN REGARD TO THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
ALSO, TODAY’S REPUBLICANS, BACKED BY MONEY FROM LUMINARIES LIKE THE KOCH BROTHERS AND Mr. ADELSON, PEOPLE THAT DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE EFFECTS OF CO2 EMISSIONS AND BACKED GROUPS LIKE THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE, IN ORDER TO EXTEND THE AGE OF OIL THAT BUILT THEIR FORTUNES. LOTS OF AMERICANS HAVE INVESTED IN OIL,GAS, COAL, THE OLD AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY, AND THE WALL STREET THAT THRIVES ON THOSE INDUSTRIES, AND HAVE FOUGHT AGAINST THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES THAT DECREASE THE USE OF OIL AND PROVIDE FOR ALTERNATE SOURCES OF ENERGY. MAKING IT HARD TO BRING IN THESE OTHER TECHNOLOGIES. THEY ACHIEVED THE GOALS THEY SAT OUT TO PROMOTE – THE SAFEKEEPING OF THE IS AND AVOIDANCE OF THE BETTER.
DAVID BROOKS IS RIGHT – THESE FOLKS WON AND THEIR CHAMPION TODAY – Mr. ROMNEY HAS FORCED THE DEBATE TO MOVE AWAY FROM ATTEMPTS AT CHANGE.THE THIRD AND LAST DEBATE – THE ONE THIS COMING MONDAY AT LYNN UNIVERSITY IN BOCA RATON, FLORIDA, WILL DEAL WITH FOREIGN POLICY AND HAS THE CHANCE TO COVER THE FORCED DEPENDENCE OF THE WORLD AT LARGE ON MIDDLE EAST OIL THAT IS ALSO THE CAUSE OF THE WEST’S INTRUSION IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD, THE BACKING OF THEIR DICTATORSHIPS AS GUARDIANS OF THE OUTFLOW OF OIL, AND THE NEW CLASH WITH ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS THAT FIRST ROSE AGAINST THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS AND THEN ATTACKED THEIR GOVERNMENTS’ FRIEND – THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
GETTING BACK TO SQUARE ONE – DEPENDENCE ON OIL AND GAS FROM ANY SOURCES – EVEN WHEN PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES – IS A NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE FOR THE UNITED STATES – A VERY CONSERVATIVE CONCEPT THAT TRUE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES OUGHT TO UNDERSTAND. JOBS AND MIGRATION ARE ISSUES THAT CAN BE TACKLED IF DISCUSSED WITH OPEN MINDS RATHER THEN UNDER PRESSURE FROM A FEW SELF-SERVING MULTI-BILLIONAIRES THAT HAUL ALONG MANY MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS AFRAID OF MEANINGFUL CHANGE.
WE COVERED THE RIO2012 CONFERENCE AND CAME BACK WITH THE NEW GLOBAL CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FOR ALL NEEDED IN ORDER TO BUILD A BRIDGE OF SUSTAINABILITY TO FUTURE GENERATIONS. THIS IS THE LONG TERM CONCEPT THAT WILL PREVAIL AFTER THE DUST SETTLES FROM THE ELEPHANT AND DONKEY FIGHT IN THE US. EVEN A ROMNEY ADMINISTRATION COULD NOT AVOID THIS UNLESS THEY CONCENTRATE ON THE CONQUEST OF ANOTHER PLANET AFTER HAVING CLASHED WITH CHINA, INDIA AND BRAZIL, THE EU, AND RUSSIA, EXITED AFRICA, ASIA AND LATIN AMERICA – JUST TO REPAY A FEW SPONSORS AND A MASS OF IGNORANT AMERICANS.
POINTING A FINGER AT Mr. AL GORE FOR HAVING EARNED A PITTANCE OF $100 MILLION FROM THE TECHNOLOGIES HE PROMOTED OPENLY, IS NOTHING MORE THEN CHECKING INTO THE PLACE OF BIRTH OF THE US PRESIDENT – THE BAMBOOZLE THAT AVOIDS DEALING WITH REAL ISSUES. THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE BROOKS ARTICLE IS THE ONE THAT TELLS ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF ALL THESE OTHER COUNTRIES THAT MOVED INTO THE ALTERNATE ENERGY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY AREAS MORE VIGOROUSLY THEN THE US – AND THUS CAME OUT AHEAD OF THE US. WE KNOW THE PRESIDENT OF AL GORE’S COMPANY AND WHAT THESE PEOPLE DID WAS SIMPLY TO MOVE AHEAD AND TOOK RISKS IN AN AREA THEY BELIEVED IN – SOME OF THEM GOT CLOBBERED BECAUSE OVERSEAS THERE WAS MORE ENTHUSIASM WITH THESE NEW TECHNOLOGIES. IN THE END, THOSE COUNTRIES WILL BE AHEAD OF THE US AND THEIR ECONOMIES WILL THRIVE.
Uri Avnery of Israel made the following comment: “By the way, Barack Obama’s inept performance (the whole thing is a performance, after all) in the first debate was most glaring when Romney sneered at Obama’s “green” donors. That should have been the cue for Obama to jump and attack Romney’s donors. I suppose Obama was just not listening to his opponent, but thinking about his own next line – always a fatal error in a debate.”
The period around 2003 was the golden spring of green technology. John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bipartisan bill to curb global warming. I got my first ride in a Prius from a conservative foreign policy hawk who said that these new technologies were going to help us end our dependence on Middle Eastern despots. You’d go to Silicon Valley and all the venture capitalists, it seemed, were rushing into clean tech.
From that date on the story begins to get a little sadder.
Al Gore released his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006. The global warming issue became associated with the highly partisan former vice president. Gore mobilized liberals, but, once he became the global warming spokesman, no Republican could stand shoulder to shoulder with him and survive. Any slim chance of building a bipartisan national consensus was gone.
Then, in 2008, Barack Obama seized upon green technology and decided to make it the centerpiece of his jobs program. During his presidential campaign he promised to create five million green tech jobs. Renewable energy has many virtues, but it is not a jobs program. Obama’s stimulus package set aside $90 billion for renewable energy loans and grants, but the number of actual jobs created has been small. Articles began to appear in the press of green technology grants that were costing $2 million per job created. The program began to look like a wasteful disappointment.
Federal subsidies also created a network of green tech corporations hoping to benefit from taxpayer dollars. One of the players in this network was, again, Al Gore. As Carol Leonnig reported in The Washington Post last week, Gore left public office in 2001 worth less than $2 million. Today his wealth is estimated to be around $100 million.
Leonnig reports that 14 green tech firms that Gore invested in received or directly benefited from more than $2.5 billion in federal loans, grants and tax breaks. Suddenly, green tech looks less like a gleaming beacon of virtue and more like corporate welfare, further enriching already affluent investors.
The federal agencies invested in many winners, but they also invested in some spectacular losers, from Solyndra to the battery maker A123 Systems, which just filed for bankruptcy protection. Private investors can shake off bad investments. But when a political entity like the federal government makes a bad investment, the nasty publicity tarnishes the whole program.
The U.S. government wasn’t the only one investing in renewables. Governments around the world were also doing it, and the result has been gigantic oversupply, a green tech bubble. Keith Bradsher of The Times reported earlier this month that China’s biggest solar panel makers are suffering losses of up to $1 for every $3 in sales. Panel prices have fallen by three-fourths since 2008. Manufacturers will need huge subsidies far into the future — as Bradsher writes, “a looming financial disaster.” The U.S. share of the global market, meanwhile, has fallen from 7 percent to 3 percent since 2008.
The biggest blow to green tech has come from the marketplace itself. Fossil fuel technology has advanced more quickly than renewables technology. People used to worry that the world would soon run out of oil, but few worry about that now. Shale gas, meanwhile, has become the current hot, revolutionary fuel of the future.
Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Daniel Yergin projects that in 2030 the worldwide fuel mix will not be too different than what it is today. That is, there will be more solar and wind power generated, but these sources will still account for a small fraction of total supply. Fossil fuels will still be the default fuel for decades ahead.
The Financial Post in Canada recently surveyed the gloom across the clean energy sector. “Revenues from renewable and alternative energy fell a little more than 12%” in 2011, the paper reported. Research and development spending on renewables is set to decline next year, according to United Nations figures, while the oil and gas sector is investing a whopping $490 billion a year in exploration.
All in all, the once bright green future is looking grimmer. Green tech is decidedly less glamorous, tarnished by political and technological disappointments.
The shifting mood was certainly evident in the presidential debate this week. Global warming was off the radar. Meanwhile, President Obama and Mitt Romney competed to see who could most ardently support coal and new pipelines. Obama is running radio ads in Ohio touting his record as a coal champion.
This is not where we thought we’d be back in 2003.
Global warming is still real. Green technology is still important. Personally, I’d support a carbon tax to give it a boost. But he who lives by the subsidy dies by the subsidy. Government planners should not be betting on what technologies will develop fastest. They should certainly not be betting on individual companies.
This is a story of overreach, misjudgments and disappointment.
POST-RIO TO POST-2015:
PLANNING INTERNATIONAL STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
(OCTOBER 21-22, NEW YORK, VENUE TBC)
The two-day meeting, organised by UNEP in partnership with UNDESA, Stakeholder Forum and The Green Economy Coalition will provide an opportunity for Major Groups and Stakeholders from across the globe to come together to discuss the outcomes of Rio+20, agree on action items to accelerate these outcomes, and address areas where no progress or agreement was made.
Representatives of Major Groups and Stakeholders will:
Take stock of the overall outcomes of Rio+20, including determining the successes and implications for the Major Groups model of participation;
Discuss the role of Major Groups and other stakeholders in the implementation of the Rio+20 outcomes;
Discuss the new governance architecture post Rio+20, including the space for engagement and the role of stakeholders;
Look forward to the post-2015 development agenda, in particular the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the role of Major Groups in the design and implementation;
Discuss and agree on the input into UNEP’s Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in February 2013, as well as the 20th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 20) in May 2013.
Major Groups Stakeholders Branch
Division for Regional Cooperation (DRC)
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Block 1, Level 1, South Wing
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel. 00 (25420) 7623437
[From Europe or North America dial 39-0-831-243000 then dial 9 and Extension 3437
e-mail jose.demesa@unep.org
Website: www.unep.org
BUT WHEN WE TRIED TO REGISTER WE GOT THE FOLLOWING:
Post-Rio to Post-2015: planning international stakeholder engagement
Last September, The Climate Reality Project asked you: What can change in a day?
One year ago, we brought together millions of partners and supporters like you from around the world to join us in 24 Hours of Reality, a multimedia journey spanning 24 time zones in 13 different languages, to present the unfiltered science on climate change and show how extreme weather affects us all.
As a valued partner, I want to invite you to a major announcement that I’ll be making on Sunday that begins with the simple premise: Will you join us again?
The media is finally beginning to connect the dots on the link between extreme weather and the climate crisis. In the past year, we have seen more devastating storms and heat waves around the world, and the United States experienced the worst drought in decades. It’s never been more important to spread the truth and fight back against the deniers. And that’s where The Climate Reality Project comes in.
On Sunday, September 23 at 2:45 p.m. Eastern Time, I will join Climate Reality Project CEO Maggie L. Fox, former Senator and UN Foundation Chairman Tim Wirth, and Alex Fitzpatrick of Mashable at the Social Good Summit in New York City to make a special announcement concerning our newest effort to connect global audiences with the realities of extreme weather.
See – The Everest peak and the Dead Sea Low – decorated with Nepal and Israeli flags – now that is a good view of planetary reality!
Israelisch-nepalesische Briefmarke vorgestellt
Was haben Israel und Nepal gemeinsam? Sie lieben die Extreme – jedenfalls, was Höhe angeht.
Die beiden Länder haben eine gemeinsame Briefmarke herausgegeben, die den höchsten und den tiefsten Punkt der Erde vorstellt.
Die Briefmarke, die in Israel den Wert von fünf Shekeln (etwa ein Euro) hat, trägt ein Bild des 8.848 Meter hohen Mount Everest und des Toten Meeres, das 422 Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel liegt.
Die Briefmarke wird außerdem von der nepalesischen und der israelischen Flagge geziert und ist auf Hebräisch, Nepalesisch, Arabisch und Englisch beschriftet.
Woolly mammoths faced extinction between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago. (photo: Unknown)
The Sixth Extinction Menaces the Very Foundations of Culture
By Jonathan Jones, Guardian UK
08 September 2012
Human culture is profoundly rooted in nature, yet human activity endangers the survival of entire species of plants and animals.
n a cave in south-west France an extinct animal materialises out of the dark. Drawn in vigorous black lines by an artist in the ice age, a woolly mammoth shakes hairs that hide its face and vaunts slender tusks that reach almost to the ground.
We didn’t mean to help make the mammoth extinct. The wonderful portrait of a mammoth in Pech Merle cave reveals that early homo sapiens was fascinated by these marvellous creatures. This masterpiece of cave art is as acute as any modern work of naturalist observation. The hunters who painted in caves showed the same passion for the natural world as their descendants do. Their culture must have been bereft when the mammoth vanished – even as they helped it on its way.
In the 21st century the same paradox endures. Human activity endangers entire species, yet human culture is profoundly rooted in nature. The loss of a species is also a loss of the images, stories, symbols and wonders that we live by – to call it a cultural loss may sound too cerebral: what we lose when we lose animals is the very meaning of life. Those first artists in ancient caves portrayed animals far more than they portrayed people. It was in the wild herds around them that the power of the cosmos and the mystery of existence seemed to be located.
No species in modern times embodies that fascination more fully than the tiger, one of today’s most endangered predators. Since the Romantic age tigers have been endowed in art and literature with the marvellous essence of life itself, a primeval power like the enigmatic strangeness the stone age artist saw in a mammoth. “What immortal hand or eye,/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” wonders William Blake in his 1794 poem The Tyger. That same childlike awe – Blake’s poem appears in his child’s eye Songs of Innocence and Experience – is shared by Henri Rousseau’s 1891 paintingSurprised! of an archetypal tiger in a fantastic jungle.
These artistic hymns to the tiger are just the noblest expressions of an imagery that pervades modern culture from tigers who come to tea to tigers with neat feet. It just seems unimaginable that a creature so familiar in our shared dreams should vanish from the natural world. Human culture would lose immeasurably from such a disappearance. And what about sharks? More ancient than dinosaurs,under threat for the first time in their mind-bogglingly long history, these creatures feed modern culture some of its darkest folklore. Shark films and scare stories are the modern equivalent of stone age hunters telling tales about bears and wolves around the fire. We fear them, but our culture needs them.
Cute creatures as well as scary ones inspire the stories and myths that humans cannot live without. Amphibians, most threatened animal group of all, are among the most universal stars of culture. While Blake was marvelling at tigers, the Grimms recorded the folk tale of the frog-prince. Long before that Plato said the ancient Greeks were like frogs around a pond. Aristophanes wrote a comedy called The Frogs. American frogs were depicted by the Aztecs as well as providing Amazonian peoples with arrow poison. The very naming of poison dart frogs reveals how deeply they are associated with cultures that are themselves on the brink of extinction.
In Britain too, the amphibious denizens of threatened waterlands have always inspired imaginations. Could our culture survive without Toad of Toad Hall?
Not so long ago British beaches were seasonally covered with “mermaid’s purses”, the eggs of sharks and rays. The name reveals how deeply nature feeds folk culture, in Britain as in the Amazon. Is it possible still to find masses of mermaid’s purses on the Welsh rocks where I used to wonder what they were? I have to look for them with my daughter soon, before it is too late. The range of animals and plants threatened by the sixth extinction - as covered by the Guardian over this fortnight – is such that it menaces the foundations of culture as well as the diversity of nature. We are part of nature and it has always fed our imaginations. We face the bare walls of an empty museum, a gallery of the dead.
[The] decisions don’t feel ground-breaking but are more likely saving face. What we got for it, only loss and damage and nothing else
Cassava could help meet food needs in South Asia
n a cave in south-west France an extinct animal materialises out of the dark. Drawn in vigorous black lines by an artist in the ice age, a woolly mammoth shakes hairs that hide its face and vaunts slender tusks that reach almost to the ground.