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Yu Youhan, We Will Be Better, 1995.

By Vijay Prashad
Jan 16 2020 (IPS-Partners)

On Wednesday, 15 January, China and the United States agreed to suspend their full-scale trade war. From February 2018, the United States placed tariffs on Chinese goods that entered the US market, and then China retaliated. This tit-for-tat game continued for almost two years, causing massive disruption in the global value chain. In October 2019, the International Monetary Fund’s G-20 Surveillance Note reported that the global GDP suffered by a 0.8% drop merely because of the tariffs on goods such as aluminium, steel, soybeans, and car parts between the United States and China. Western attacks on Chinese 5G technology – and on the tech firm Huawei – are part of the pressure on China to buckle before the US-led order. But China did not bend. As a prelude to the ‘phase one’ deal, the United State Treasury Department stopped calling China a ‘currency manipulator’, a term that has haunted China’s for decades.

The suspension of the trade war comes with a ‘phase one’ deal whose text includes nine chapters on topics such as intellectual property rights to financial services. Most significantly, China has agreed to stop asking firms that invest in China to share their technology; this is a major departure for the Chinese model of development. The ‘phase one’ deal is merely the first stage in an ongoing process of negotiations and confrontations, which will be expected to continue for a long time yet. If ‘phase one’ goes well, and if the implementation and dialogue mechanisms work, then the two countries will move to ‘phase two’. Chinese diplomats say that they do not anticipate an immediate return to the pre-confrontation period, namely before the trade war began in February 2018.

News of a potential trade deal immediately moved the International Monetary Fund to revise its 2020 growth forecast for China from 5.8% to 6%. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the GDP numbers for the United States would be boosted to 2.5% for 2020 (though the IMF continues to predict a 1.9% GDP for the United States). It is likely that the low expectations for the global economy (at 2.5% GDP growth for 2020) might also be revised upwards for the year, although predictions for a severe global contraction remain intact; Deloitte’s CFO Signals for the fourth quarter of 2019 suggests that US companies have begun to further constrain investment in anticipation of a serious downturn – but not a recession – of the economy. US firms lost at least $46 billion as a consequence of the trade war started by US President Donald Trump in February 2018. Pressure from US firms on the White House and Trump’s need to make his ‘victory’ in the trade war an election issue drove the US to the table. By the fourth quarter of 2018, China’s economic growth rate was the slowest it has been since 1990, which is why China had been willing to discuss outstanding issues since February 2018.

Shi Guorui, The Yangtze River, 2013.

In the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Dossier no. 24 – The World Oscillates Between Crises and Protests – there is an important section on the new ‘bipolar world’. It is widely recognised that US power has dwindled since the illegal attack on Iraq in 2003 and since the world financial crisis of 2007-08; at the same time, it is hard to deny the rapid growth of China’s economy and of China’s growing importance on the world stage. A decade ago, when China and Russia joined Brazil, India, and South Africa to form the BRICS, it appeared as if the global architecture was shifting from US unipolarity (with its allies as the spokes around the US hub) to multipolarity; but, with the deepening crisis in countries like Brazil and India, the new global architecture – according to Tsinghua University’s Institute for International Relations – will be one of bipolarity, with the US and China as the two poles of the global order.

China’s growth rates since the reform era began in 1978 remain perplexing. The attempt to explain this has spawned an enormous literature, some of it only partially explanatory but most of it petrified in clichés. Professor Wang Hui of Tsinghua University suggests that China’s policy framework is not along orthodox neoliberal lines, but that it has emerged out of the Chinese Communist Party’s commitment to sovereignty, out of the immense advances in health and education in the first decades of the revolutionary period, out of the enhancement of China’s economy by the socialist commodity economy of that period, out of the sustained struggles in the countryside to transform land relations, and out of the deep pragmatism of the Communists (‘cross the river by feeling for the stones’). Professor Hui warns that the stresses of market society have begun to engender new – and dangerous – contradictions for China. One of the overwhelming contradictions is the threats from the United States.

Zhang Xiaogang, Bloodline – Big Family no. 4, 1995.

The United States – which has the habit of dominance – tried its best to both manage and to prevent the growing global role of China. To manage China means to intimidate it to remain subordinate to US economic interests: Washington accused Beijing of currency manipulation and tried to get China to revise its currency to the benefit of the United States; this did not happen, and its failure to happen is a sign that China will not bow to US authority.

Accusations about the currency were quickly followed by claims that China had forced technology transfers or had stolen intellectual property, that China prevented access to financial services, and that it would not cut its industrial subsidies. Each US President over the course of the past decade – George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump – has accelerated the accusations against China and portrayed China as having advanced entirely by deceit.

When China refused to accept the US’ demands, and when it continued to develop its economic project – the Belt and Road Initiative – the United States moved to politically and militarily threaten China along several axes, some of these developed by Wu Xinbo, Dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University.

Indo-Pacific Strategy. In 2017, the United States and India began to develop an ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategy that would bring these two countries together against China’s Belt and Road Initiative (along the land of Eurasia) and its String of Pearls Initiative (in the Indian Ocean). The first Indo-Pacific Strategy document, produced by the US Department of Defence in June 2019, points its finger at China, which it says ‘seeks to reorder the region to its advantage by leveraging military modernisation, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce other nations’. The United States and India – alongside Japan and other smaller states – are to create a bloc to prevent the emergence of China as a continental and global power. It is with no irony that the US defence department complains about ‘influence operations’ and ‘predatory economics’, both of which are closely understood to be US policies (including the Indo-Pacific Strategy itself).

The Use of Taiwan. The Indo-Pacific document promotes the defence of Taiwan as an essential pillar in US strategy. China has long insisted on pushing for the diplomatic isolation of Taiwan and for its eventual incorporation into China. Since it does not have an embassy in Washington, Taiwan has had – since 1971 – a Coordination Council for North American Affairs and then the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office; Trump changed it to the Taiwan Council for US Affairs, a name that has incensed Beijing. Not only have Trump and his officials said that they would like to increase US-Taiwan relations; the US has sold Taiwan F-16 fighters and fully backed the re-election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party – which asserts Taiwan’s independence from China – in the January 2020 presidential elections.

Liu Bolin, Hiding in New York No. 9 – Gun Rack, 2013.

Hong Kong and Xinjiang. The Indo-Pacific document of the US Defence Department says that the US – and India – express ‘deep concern’ about the fate of the Muslim population in China; at the same time, the US has said that it stands with the protest movement in Hong Kong. The concern about Chinese Muslims is not credible coming from the US, where Trump’s Muslim Ban defines his own attitude, and from India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has driven a citizenship and refugee policy that is clearly anti-Muslim. The United States and its allies use the Hong Kong and Xinjiang cases to put pressure on China; people in Hong Kong and Xinjiang would be delusional if they believe that the US actually cares about democracy and Muslims.

In 1965, at the urging of several national liberation movements and governments in eastern Africa, the People’s Republic of China began to work with them to build the Tanzam Railway or the Great Uhuru Railway. This railway cut through old colonial boundaries that isolated Zambia and kept Tanzania from the interior of the continent. Mao told Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere that – despite China’s own poverty – as a national liberation project, the Chinese Revolution was ‘duty bound’ to assist their comrades in Africa to build the longest railroad on the continent. This is what they did.

China in Africa. For the past decade, the US and the Europeans have complained that China is the new colonial power in Africa. It is true that Chinese investment into Africa has increased astronomically, but in many countries the main economic partner remains the old colonial adversary. Nonetheless, this narrative of China as a colonial power is not about facts, but it is to serve a purpose – to disparage China’s commercial strategy in the Global South and the challenge that it poses to the hegemony of the US and its allies. The actual procedure from China is well-described in the 2013 Human Development Report: ‘China is providing preferential loans and setting up training programmes to modernize the garment and textile sectors in African countries. China has encouraged its mature industries such as leather to move closer to the supply chain in Africa and its modern firms in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, electronics and construction to enter joint ventures with African businesses’. A few years ago, I asked Tanzania’s former Foreign Minister Ibrahim Kaduma what he thought of Chinese commercial interests in Africa. ‘African states need to come up with their own assessment of their path forward’, he said; they should not be guided by Western fearmongering.

Ta Men, Snow, 2016.

From February 2018, various dispute settlement mechanisms – including the Strategic Economic Dialogue – set up by the US and China have failed to operate. The most recent ‘phase one’ deal creates new platforms for discussion and debate and provides a roadmap to settle the chaos unleashed by this trade war. But this agreement is a ceasefire – not a peace treaty. The contests will continue; instability will remain. ‘Chaos and disorder’, as the Tsinghua University scholars write, will be the way ahead.

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By PRESS RELEASE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 16 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The United Nations Country Team in Kenya is deeply distressed by the rising cases of terrorist attacks on schools, teachers and learners, especially in the north-eastern regions of Kenya. While we stand in solidarity with the affected communities, we reiterate that acts of terror and hate are even more egregious when they target innocent, unarmed civilians including children.

The bombings of schools and the killing of civilians violate international humanitarian law. We wish to remind all armed groups that whatever their grievances, they must uphold their obligations and cease targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, including schools. Key services and programmes, delivered by the government and other partners, for children and communities should not be targets of armed combat.

It is especially troubling that the most affected regions are already lagging behind in school attendance rates. We recognize that school staff who are traumatised by such incidents face the agonising dilemma of whether they should continue in the job under such threats. Acts of terrorism should not be another reason for the children in those regions to slip further behind.

As the UN Country Team in Kenya, we are determined to entrench our engagement with National and County Governments to implement the pillars of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, including addressing the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, building capacity to prevent and combat terrorism and ensuring respect for human rights and the rule of law as the fundamental basis for the fight against terrorism.”

We commit to working with other stakeholders as we pursue the UN value of making children’s human and civil rights a lived reality for all children in Kenya.

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Protesters forming the Hong Kong Way hold up their cell phone lights while standing on a busy road in Sham Shui Po, where double decker buses often passed through, on Aug. 23. Human Rights Watch has blasted China’s government for undermining global interests and interventions with regards to human rights issues. Credit: Laurel Chor/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 16 2020 (IPS)

China is currently under heavy scrutiny for its massive human rights violations across different sections, Human Rights Watch (HRW) head Kenneth Roth said on Wednesday. 

At the launch of World Report 2020, which focuses largely on China’s record of violating human rights for both its citizens domestically as well as abroad, Roth blasted the country’s government for undermining global interests and interventions with regards to human rights issues.

Roth, who was denied access to Hong Kong over the weekend, said at the launch that China is “using diplomatic clout to silence global institutions”. He also heavily criticised the United Nations Secretary General for not holding China accountable for its human rights abuses. 

“At the U.N. headquarters, a major Chinese government priority has been avoiding discussion of its conduct in Xinjiang,” he said. “U.N. Secretary General António Guterres has been unwilling to publicly demand an end to China’s mass detention of its Muslims.”

On Wednesday, Stéphane Dujarric, Guterres’ spokesperson told reporters during a briefing that the Secretary General had previously spoken out on this issue on a number of occasions and raised a number of issues with his Chinese counterparts. He reiterated the Secretary General’s position which is based on principles surrounding “full respect for the unity and territorial integrity of China,” protection of human rights in the “fight against terrorism” and the importance of “each community to “feel that its identity is fully respected.”  

He was unable to respond to specific allegations by Roth that China continues to “avoid discussion of its conduct in Xinjiang” at the U.N.  In September HRW released a report of the “Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of Turkic Muslims”. 

Suu Kyi’s ‘appalling’ efforts 

Meanwhile, Roth also echoed thoughts from experts who have previously said that one of the reasons the Security Council had not been able to take steps against Myanmar is because of pressure from China. 

In November, on the heels of a lawsuit being filed against Myanmar by the Gambia, Akila Radhakrishnan of the Global Justice Center expressed similar concerns to IPS.

“Security council has consistently failed to act because of China — there’s no possibility of any strong action,” Radhakrishnan had said, reiterating why it’s important for states to directly take action against Myanmar.  

In that regard, especially with Roth’s concerns about China “intimidation of other governments” with threats, one issue of concern would be China’s relations with the Gambia, which has grown in the past few years. 

When asked, Roth told IPS he wasn’t aware if the Gambia was going to suffer any threats from China given its actions against Myanmar, but he said Aung San Suu Kyi leading the defence in the case is “appalling.” 

“One element of this that is not generally appreciated is the initial hearing that took place a few weeks ago was actually not about the merits of the genocide case, it was about the provisional measures,” he said. 

Provisional measures in the case of international law ensures that the main concern at the centre of the suite is not destroyed while the case is pending, which in this case would mean Myanmar imposes measures to refrain from any acts of genocide against the Rohingya community, and would ensure protecting the Rohingya community still in Myanmar. 

“It was about protecting the roughly 450,000 Rohingyas who are still in Rakhine state, still within Myanmar,” Roth said. “So these are the people who are living terrified, displaced…unable to move. They are extremely at risk of the same violence that sent 730,000 compatriots fleeing to Bangladesh a couple years ago.”

He said Suu Kyi’s move implies that she isn’t just defending the past atrocities of Myanmar against Rohingya people. 

“It’s not just defending past action that she was there for,” he said, “she was defending the future.”

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Zimbabwe needs urgent economic and political reforms to transform its economy amidst a growing national crisis, researchers say as more than 7 million Zimbabwean are food insecure owing to a projected 50 percent fall in the 2019 cereal harvest. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jan 16 2020 (IPS)

Zimbabwe needs urgent economic and political reforms to transform its economy amidst a growing national crisis, researchers say in a new study that urges swift policy changes and a sound financial framework to attract investment.

The country has been reeling from one of the worst droughts in decades, with the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) identifying Zimbabwe as one of the 15 critical emergencies around the world at risk of crisis without rapid intervention.

• More than 7 million Zimbabwean are food insecure owing to a projected 50 percent fall in the 2019 cereal harvest. This month the WFP is doubling its assistance to reach 4.1 million people who are hardest hit in rural areas.

But the study, G20 Compact with Africa: No Reformers, No Compact- The Zimbabwean Case Study,  states that the G20 Compact with Africa (CwA) investment framework, initiated by the G20 countries in 2017, could support Zimbabwe’s economic transformation only if Zimbabwe was committed to undertaking reforms.

• The voluntary compact has been signed by 12 African countries to date, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia. Zimbabwe is not a signatory.
• The compact seeks to stimulate economic growth, create employment and nurture investment. Through this partnership, African governments are responsible for spearheading reforms that will make their countries attractive to international investors.
• The focus of the CwA is to promote a sustainable development framework in those African countries that accepted the invitation to be part of the initiative, in an attempt to attract private investors. The framework is a three-tiered approach to reforming three economic fundamentals – macroeconomics, business and finance.

“As a reform strategy, the CwA framework has the potential to support Zimbabwe’s economic transformation agenda,” the study published last week by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), an independent public policy think tank, stated. It further noted that the compact was relevant to Zimbabwe’s re-engagement agenda and the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), which was introduced in 2018 as a blue print to turn around the economy.

But a crisis of governance and financial stewardship has long been stalking Zimbabwe, a Southern African nation that was once a model of economic success and democracy in Africa. Life has become difficult for its citizens who have to battle with a high cost of living and many things are in short supply from water to electricity to monetary currency, jobs, food and even political freedoms.  

The report pointed out that Zimbabwe’s economic woes are multi-faceted — a result of a combination of factors, including economic mismanagement, chaotic land reform, indigenisation policies, political instability and fiscal mismanagement driven by corruption.

Cold reception for compact

Yet despite its relevance, the compact has failed to raise enthusiasm among Zimbabwean policymakers, and few economic stakeholders are aware of it, the study found, pointing out that the Zimbabwe government is desperate and preoccupied with finding a quick solution to the economic crisis.

The study also made a note that there is no reform culture among the custodians of reforms in Zimbabwe.

Besides, the country’s multilateral debt, estimated at over $8,2 billion, has prevented any potential inroads with the international organisations involved with the compact.

“Clearance of multilateral debt arrears: the sanctions rhetoric seems to have taken the centre
stage ahead of reform implementation,” noted the study, adding that, “This behaviour has promoted corruption and stands in the way of reforms; hence there is no CwA for Zimbabwe.”

Economic analyst, John Robertson, said nobody agrees with the government on the point of economic sanctions imposed by the Western countries on individuals accused of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

“The sanctions are not applied to the country; the sanctions did not cause the country’s failure. The failure is caused by our decision to close down our biggest industries,” Robertson told IPS, referring to the destruction of the agriculture sector and the collapse of the manufacturing sector.

Poor policy choices

“The policy choices that we made have caused so much damage to our productive sectors starting with agriculture,” said Robertson, adding, “We imposed upon ourselves a serious handicap when we said the land in the country no longer has market value land so [people with] land can no longer borrow against ownership rights to that land because the land is now the property of the state.”

David Moore, researcher and political economist at the University of Johannesburg, told IPS that if the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) party had maintained its neo-liberal and white-farmer-friendly economic promises it might have kept the “west” on its side.

But cabals and corruption cannot be dismantled – they are the pillars of the party, he said. And so the military-party complex so tight that it cannot be untied: they are integral parts of the country’s political economy.

Academic and social commentator, Rudo Gaidzanwa, concurred saying it will take pushing to get ZANU (PF) ruling party and its military allies to undertake political and social reforms.

“The types of political and economic reforms that the civilians want will undermine the interests of the militarist elements in the state and the security sector,” Gaidzanwa, a Sociology Professor at the University of Zimbabwe, told IPS.

“ZANU won’t stand for anything that undermines their hold over the state and the society. It is not likely that any meaningful reform will occur unless dramatic social and political changes occur in Zimbabwe,” she said, adding that the ZANU PF led-government and elites have used economic sanctions as a convenient excuse to evade responsibility for economic and social crises.

Sanctions have not prevented the president and his cohorts from pillaging mineral resources. The current chaos was ideal for pillaging resources and undermining the rule of law and democracy, she said.

• Zimbabwe’s late president Robert Mugabe, who was ousted from power in November 2017, is believed to have looted hundreds of millions of dollars, though no exact figure has been given.
• Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s finance minister between 2009-2013, told Deutsche Welle that Mugabe and his family where not the only ones responsible for looting the state and that during his term of office some $15 billion had “disappeared through other channels”.
• Last July the country’s auditor general released a report that since Mugabe’s ouster, executives at state-owned enterprises had mismanaged millions of dollars, spending the money to their personal benefit.

“Rigged elections are an issue because they prevent the will of the people from prevailing,” Gaidzanwa told IPS. “The present situation over contested presidential elections between (Nelson) Chamisa and (Emerson) Mnangagwa is symptomatic of that struggle…These issues have dogged our elections for decades and remain unresolved hence our dire economic and political situation.”

• After Mugabe was ousted from power Zimbabweans went to the polls in July 2018 to elect a new leader, with Mnangagwa winning 50.8 percent of the voted compared to Chamisa’s 44.3 percent.
• The results were disputed.

Economist and former parliamentarian, Eddie Cross sees the situation differently, saying Zimbabwe, despite its current challenges, has a good start to turn around its economic fortunes.

“We have a fiscal surplus, government salaries are down to a third of the budget from over 95 percent, we have a balance of payments surplus and nearly $1 billion in bank accounts,” Cross said, adding that Zimbabwe’s domestic debt has been devalued and exports are highly profitable.

“[Political] Stability is no longer an issue – it’s a done deal, what is a problem is financing and this is going to be a challenge because we really have to look after ourselves,” Cross, a member of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Monetary Committee, told IPS in an interview. “A couple of billion dollars would be useful. Perhaps we can persuade Mrs. [Grace] Mugabe to bring some money back from abroad.”

Cross believes Zimbabwe can benefit from the G20 CwA even though the country is a pariah state.

“I think Brexit is important and also the IMF and if we play our cards right and get on with reforms I see no reason why we cannot be in a very different place in 2021.”

Related Articles

• Zimbabwe’s Inflation Makes it Hard to Keep Track of Cost of Living
• Zimbabwe’s ex-President Robert Mugabe Leaves a Mixed Legacy
• Zimbabwe’s Resettled Farmers Hawking Cigarettes to Survive

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By Pierpaolo Grippa, Jochen Schmittmann, and Felix Suntheim
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 16 2020 (IPS)

Climate change is already a reality. Ever-more-ferocious cyclones and extended droughts lead to the destruction of infrastructure and the disruption of livelihoods and contribute to mass migration.

Actions to combat rising temperatures, inadequate though they may have been so far, have the potential to drive dislocation in the business world as fossil fuel giants awaken to the need for renewable sources of energy and automakers accelerate investments in cleaner vehicles.

But measuring economic costs of climate change remains a work in progress. We can assess the immediate costs of changing weather patterns and more frequent and intense natural disasters, but most of the potential costs lie beyond the horizon of the typical economic analysis.

The economic impact of climate change will likely accelerate, though not smoothly. Crucially for the coming generations, the extent of the damage will depend on policy choices that we make today.

Policymakers and investors increasingly recognize climate change’s important implications for the financial sector. Climate change affects the financial system through two main channels (see Chart 1).

The first involves physical risks, arising from damage to property, infrastructure, and land. The second, transition risk, results from changes in climate policy, technology, and consumer and market sentiment during the adjustment to a lower-carbon economy.

Exposures can vary significantly from country to country. Lower- and middle-income economies are typically more vulnerable to physical risks.

For financial institutions, physical risks can materialize directly, through their exposures to corporations, households, and countries that experience climate shocks, or indirectly, through the effects of climate change on the wider economy and feedback effects within the financial system.

Exposures manifest themselves through increased default risk of loan portfolios or lower values of assets. For example, rising sea levels and a higher incidence of extreme weather events can cause losses for homeowners and diminish property values, leading to greater risks in mortgage portfolios. Corporate credit portfolios are also at risk, as highlighted by the bankruptcy of California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric.

In what The Wall Street Journal called the first “climate-change bankruptcy” (Gold 2019), rapid climatic changes caused prolonged droughts in California that dramatically increased the risk of fires from Pacific Gas and Electric’s operations.

Tighter financial conditions might follow if banks reduce lending, in particular when climate shocks affect many institutions simultaneously.

For insurers and reinsurers, physical risks are important on the asset side, but risks also arise from the liability side as insurance policies generate claims with a higher frequency and severity than originally expected.

There is evidence that losses from natural disasters are already increasing. As a result, insurance is likely to become more expensive or even unavailable in at-risk areas of the world.

Climate change can make banks, insurers, and reinsurers less diversified, because it can increase the likelihood or impact of events previously considered uncorrelated, such as droughts and floods.

Transition risks materialize on the asset side of financial institutions, which could incur losses on exposure to firms with business models not built around the economics of low carbon emissions.

Fossil fuel companies could find themselves saddled with reserves that are, in the words of Bank of England Governor Mark Carney (2015), “literally unburnable” in a world moving toward a low-carbon global economy.

These firms could see their earnings decline, businesses disrupted, and funding costs increase because of policy action, technological change, and consumer and investor demands for alignment with policies to tackle climate change.

Coal producers, for example, already grapple with new or expected policies curbing carbon emissions, and a number of large banks have pledged not to provide financing for new coal facilities.

The share prices of US coal mining companies reflect this “carbon discount” as well as higher financing costs and have been underperforming relative to those of companies holding clean energy assets.

Risks can also materialize through the economy at large, especially if the shift to a low-carbon economy proves abrupt (as a consequence of prior inaction), poorly designed, or difficult to coordinate globally (with consequent disruptions to international trade).

Financial stability concerns arise when asset prices adjust rapidly to reflect unexpected realizations of transition or physical risks. There is some evidence that markets are partly pricing in climate change risks, but asset prices may not fully reflect the extent of potential damage and policy action required to limit global warming to 2˚C or less.

Central banks and financial regulators increasingly acknowledge the financial stability implications of climate change. For example, the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), an expanding group that currently comprises 42 members, has embarked on the task of integrating climate-related risks into supervision and financial stability monitoring.

Given the large shifts in asset prices and catastrophic weather-related losses that climate change may cause, prudential policies should adapt to recognize systemic climate risk—for example, by requiring financial institutions to incorporate climate risk scenarios into their stress tests.

In the United Kingdom, prudential regulators have incorporated climate change scenarios into stress tests of insurance firms that cover both physical and transition risks.

Efforts to incorporate climate-related risks into regulatory frameworks face important challenges, however. Capturing climate risk properly requires assessing it over long horizons and using new methodological approaches, so that prudential frameworks adequately reflect actual risks.

It is crucial to ensure that the efforts to bring in climate risk strengthen, rather than weaken, prudential regulation. Policies such as allowing financial institutions to hold less capital against debt simply because the debt is labeled as green could easily backfire—through increased leverage and financial instability—if the underlying risks in that debt have not been adequately understood and measured.

Climate change will affect monetary policy, too, by slowing productivity growth (for example, through damage to health and infrastructure) and heightening uncertainty and inflation volatility.

This can justify the adaptation of monetary policy to the new challenges, within the limits of central bank mandates. Central banks should revise the frameworks for their refinancing operations to incorporate climate risk analytics, possibly applying larger haircuts to assets materially exposed to physical or transition risks.

Central banks can also lead by example by integrating sustainability considerations into the investment decisions for the portfolios under their management (i.e., their own funds, pension funds and, to the extent possible, international reserves), as recommended by the NGFS (2019) in its first comprehensive report.

Carbon pricing and other fiscal policies have a primary role in reducing emissions and mobilizing revenues (see “Putting a Price on Pollution” in this issue of F&D), but the financial sector has an important complementary role.

Financial institutions and markets already provide financial protection through insurance and other risk-sharing mechanisms, such as catastrophe bonds, to partly absorb the cost of disasters.

But the financial system can play an even more fundamental role, by mobilizing the resources needed for investments in climate mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (building resilience to climate change) in response to price signals, such as carbon prices.

In other words, if policymakers implement policies to price in externalities and provide incentives for the transition to a low-carbon economy, the financial system can help achieve these goals efficiently.

Global investment requirements for addressing climate change are estimated in the trillions of US dollars, with investments in infrastructure alone requiring about $6 trillion per year up to 2030 (OECD 2017). Most of these investments are likely to be intermediated through the financial system.

From this point of view, climate change represents for the financial sector as much a source of opportunity as a source of risk.

The growth of sustainable finance (the integration of environmental, social, and governance criteria into investment decisions) across all asset classes shows the increasing importance that investors attribute to climate change, among other nonfinancial considerations.

Estimates of the global asset size of sustainable finance range from $3 trillion to $31 trillion. While sustainable investing started in equities, strong investor demand and policy support spurred issuance of green bonds, growing the stock to an estimated $590 billion in August 2019 from $78 billion in 2015.

Banks are also beginning to adjust their lending policies by, for example, giving discounts on loans for sustainable projects.

Sustainable finance can contribute to climate change mitigation by providing incentives for firms to adopt less carbon-intensive technologies and specifically financing the development of new technologies.

Channels through which investors can achieve this goal include engaging with company management, advocating for low-carbon strategies as investor activists, and lending to firms that are leading in regard to sustainability. All these actions send price signals, directly and indirectly, in the allocation of capital.

However, measuring the impact that sustainable investments have on their environmental targets remains challenging. There are concerns over unsubstantiated claims of assets’ green-compliant nature, known as “greenwashing.”

There is a risk that investors may become reluctant to invest at the scale necessary to counter or mitigate climate change, especially if policy action to address climate change is lagging or insufficient.

The analysis of risks and vulnerabilities—and advising its members on macro-financial policies—are at the core of the IMF’s mandate. The integration of climate change risks into these activities is critical given the magnitude and global nature of the risks climate change is posing to the world.

An area where the IMF can especially contribute is understanding the macro-financial transmission of climate risks. One aspect of this is further improving stress tests, such as those within the Financial Sector Assessment Program, the IMF’s comprehensive and in-depth analysis of member countries’ financial sectors.

Stress testing is a key component of the program, with these stress tests often capturing the physical risks related to disasters, such as insurance losses and nonperforming loans associated with natural disasters.

Assessments for The Bahamas and Jamaica are recently published examples, with a scenario-based stress test analyzing the macroeconomic impact of a severe hurricane in the former and a massive natural disaster in the latter.

More assessments of this kind are in progress or planned for other countries. The IMF is also conducting an analysis of financial system exposure to transition risk in an oil-producing country.

The IMF has recently joined the NGFS and is collaborating with its members to develop an analytical framework for assessing climate-related risks.

Closing data gaps is also crucial. Only with accurate and adequately standardized reporting of climate risks in financial statements can investors discern companies’ actual exposures to climate-related financial risks. There are promising efforts to support private sector disclosures of such risks.

But these disclosures are often voluntary and uneven across countries and asset classes. Comprehensive climate stress testing by central banks and supervisors would require much better data.

The IMF supports public and private sector efforts to further spread the adoption of climate disclosures across markets and jurisdictions, particularly by following the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (2017). Greater standardization would also improve the comparability of information in financial statements on climate risks.

The potential impact of climate change compels us to think through, in an empirical fashion, the economic costs of climate change. Each destructive hurricane and every unnaturally parched landscape will chip away at global output, just as the road to a low-carbon economy will escalate the cost of energy sources as externalities are no longer ignored and old assets are rendered worthless.

On the other hand, carbon taxes and energy-saving measures that reduce the emission of greenhouse gases will drive the creation of new technologies. Finance will have to play an important role in managing this transition, for the benefit of future generations.

*This article draws on Chapter 6 of the October 2019 Global Financial Stability Report and was prepared under the guidance of Martin Čihák and Evan Papageorgiou of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department.

The post Climate Change and Financial Risk appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Pierpaolo Grippa is a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Jochen Schittmann is the IMF’s resident representative in Singapore and Felix Suntheim is a financial sector expert in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department*.

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Planeta Hatuleke, a small scale farmer of Pemba District in Southern Zambia, stands in a maize field. This year, she hopes that she will not be one of the country’s 2.3 million food insecure people thanks to the climate smart agriculture techniques she implemented while planting her crop in November. Courtesy: Friday Phiri

By Friday Phiri
LUSAKA and PEMBA DISTRICT, Zambia, Jan 15 2020 (IPS)

It is early Saturday morning and Planeta Hatuleke, a small scale farmer of Pemba District in Southern Zambia, awakens to the comforting sound of rainfall. As the locals say, the “heavens have opened” and it is raining heavily after a prolonged dry spell. 

“This is welcome after two weeks of a dry spell,” says Hatuleke with a sigh of relief. “The rainfall pattern has not been consistent so far; we could be headed for a repeat of last season” she adds pessimistically.

• The 2018/19 farming season was characterised by drought and prolonged dry spells, which, according to the government Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU), left 2.3 million people severely food insecure and in need of humanitarian food assistance.

Hatuleke along with her 8-member family members are part of the hunger stricken population. Last farming season, the family harvested only five 50Kg-bags of maize, 10 short of their annual food requirements.

“It has not been easy to feed my family since the five bags finished. I am grateful to government for relief food support but for big families like mine, we have to supplement through other means,” says the 55-year old widow. “As a family, we have been surviving on sales from our gardening activities.”

• Statistics from DMMU show that at least 70,000 metric tonnes of relief food (maize grain and maize meal) has been distributed to the affected people between September 2019 and January 2020.
• According World Food Programme (WFP) country director for Zambia, Jennifer Bitonde, the United Nations’ food agency “requires $36 million to effectively support the government in responding to the crisis.”
• WFP is currently supporting the government’s response by delivering government-supplied maize meal, as well as by procuring and delivering pulses to ensure a nutrition-sensitive food basket. WFP is also working closely with partners to monitor food distributions and guarantee that resources reach those most in need.
  • In a statement after receiving a contribution of $3.39 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help meet the immediate food needs of drought-affected people in Zambia, Bitonde added that “USAID’s contribution represents approximately 10 percent of the total needs and will allow WFP to ensure that drought-affected people will not go to bed hungry during this year’s lean season.’’
  • Other partners who have made a contribution to WFP Zambia include the Swedish government, which has contributed $2 million, and the Italian government with a contribution of $ 610,000.

Last October, the three U.N. food agencies—the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and WFP—called for urgent funding to avert a major hunger crisis and for the international community to step up investment in long-term measures to combat the impact of climate shocks and build the capacity of communities and countries to withstand them.

They warned that a record 45 million people across the 16-nation Southern African Development Community would be severely food insecure in the next six months starting from October 2019.

At the time, they reported that there were more than 11 million people experiencing “crisis” or “emergency” levels of food insecurity (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Phases 3 and 4) in nine countries: Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, Eswatini and Lesotho. 

“Late rains, extended dry periods, two major cyclones and economic challenges have proved a recipe for disaster for food security and livelihoods across Southern Africa,” said Alain Onibon, FAO’s Sub-Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa.

“As it could take many farming communities at least two to three growing seasons to return to normal production, immediate support is vital.  Now is the time to scale up agricultural emergency response. We need to ensure farmers and agro-pastoralists take advantage of the forecasted good rains, assuming they happen, as this will be crucial in helping them rebuild their livelihoods.”

While Southern Africa has experienced normal rainfall in just one of the last five growing seasons, persistent drought, back-to-back cyclones and flooding have wreaked havoc on harvests in a region overly dependent on rain-fed, smallholder agriculture.

Interestingly, Zambia is experiencing both climate extremes at the same time. While farmers in the southwestern parts of the country are anxious about the rainfall pattern that has been erratic so far, their counterparts in the northeast are battling flash floods, adding pressure on the already overstretched resource base.

Over 300 families have been reported as being affected by floods in the Mambwe and Lumezi districts of Zambia’s Eastern Province.

And Zambian President Edgar Lungu, continues to urge government technocrats to work at finding a lasting solution to the climate problem.

“So as we provide relief, I think that we should put our heads together. My Permanent Secretaries are here so we can work together to find a lasting solution,” said Lungu when he toured and interacted with flood victims on Jan 9.  

• It is unanimously agreed globally that climate change is due to human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment. Such activities include overexploitation of natural resources, pollution and deforestation, among others.

Experiencing a critical energy deficit, with over 2 million food-insecure people to feed due to a climate-induced droughts and flash floods in a single year, are key lessons for leaders and ordinary people alike.

This December, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25), Zambia’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources Ndashe Yumba highlighted the adverse effects of climate change on his country’s natural resource-sensitive sectors, such as energy and agriculture, and how the country was moving away from a business-as-usual approach.

“There is still increasing evidence that climate change is negatively impacting critical sectors of our country,” said Yumba during a high-level event at COP25.

“In the recent past, drastic reduction in precipitation and rising temperatures in Zambia has led to a reduced agricultural productivity by about 16 percent and subsequently slowed down our economic growth. While Zambia is still pursuing her aspirations on socio-economic development, it is mindful of the need to maintain a healthy environment in order to achieve sustainable development…a recipe to a healthy climate is a healthy environment,” he added.

Back in Pemba District in Southern Zambia, Hatuleke is hoping that climate smart agricultural principles which are routed in sustainable environmental management, and which she has recently implemented, will bring her a better harvest this year. 

“I ripped my field and planted early; just after the first rains in mid-November and as you can see, my maize is at tussling stage,” she says. “I am hopeful of a good harvest, provided it consistently rains in the remaining half of the season.”

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• Net Food Importer Turkey Grapples with Challenges of Food Self-sufficiency

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A U.S. soldier stands watch at the Kindi IDP Resettlement Center near Baghdad, Iraq, Nov. 16, 2009. Credit: U.S. Navy Photo

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 2020 (IPS)

Pat Buchanan, a senior advisor to three US Presidents and twice candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, once infamously described the United States Congress as “Israeli-occupied territory” -– apparently because of its unrelentingly blind support for the Jewish state.

Never mind post-1967 Gaza, West Bank and the Golan Heights.

And now, with Iraq threatening to “kick out” the US military and the Trump administration refusing to leave the country, is Iraq turning out to be “US occupied territory”?

Last week the Iraqi parliament demanded, in a vote mostly by Shia legislators, that US troops numbering over 5,200 leave Iraq.

But the Trump administration has refused to concede to the demand prompting Iraq to accuse the US of violating sovereign territory and perhaps the UN charter.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco who has written extensively on Middle East politics, told IPS: “This is a clear violation of Iraqi sovereignty”.

Having foreign forces within a country’s international border against the wishes of the host government and without a treaty commitment allowing them to be there is in effect a foreign military occupation and would give the Iraqis the legal right to use military force against them, said Zunes who serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies.

Currently, the US has several military bases in Iraq, most of them described as Forwarding Operating Bases (FOB) going back to 2003.

These include Contingency Operating Base (COB), Contingency Operating Site (COS), Combat Outpost (COP), Patrol Base (PB), Outpost, Logistic Base (Log Base), Fire Base (FB), Convoy Support Center (CSC), Logistic Support Area (LSA) and Joint Security Station (JSS).

Perhaps most vital is the Green Zone a 10-square-kilometer (3.9 sq mi) area in central Baghdad, that was the governmental center of the Coalition Provisional Authority during the occupation of Iraq after the American-led 2003 invasion and now remains the center of the US and international presence in the city.

When the Iranians retaliated against the drone-killing of Major General Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, they hit the US military base Ayn Al Asad in western Iraq with a barrage of missiles last week.

That base hosts the largest number of US troops in Iraq.

And Iraq accused both the US and Iran of violating its national sovereignty with dual military attacks on Iraqi territory.

Since the US invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration in 2003, there have been more than 200,000 civilians who have been killed or injured—an invasion described as Washington’s greatest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened to impose sanctions on Iraq if it continues to demand US withdrawal from the country.

“If they do ask us to leave, and if we don’t do it on a friendly basis” President Trump was quoted as saying, “we will charge them sanctions, like they’ve never seen before ever. It will make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

The US also argues that its military presence in Iraq is to help Iraqis fight ISIS designated a “terrorist group” by the US State Department.

Norman Solomon, founder and executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA), a consortium of policy researchers and analysts, told IPS “history shows that respect for Iraqi sovereignty has never figured into the U.S. government’s calculations.”

“Rhetoric has sometimes sounded nice, but the actual policy has revolved around the precept of “might makes right“

What’s happening now is consistent with that policy, sometimes more gracefully implemented with liberal verbiage from the White House, he pointed out.

The latest dynamics involve an approach to geopolitics that reflects a belief in Washington that the United States has the right to work its will on the world as much as feasible, said Solomon, IPA’s coordinator of its ExposeFacts program.

Zunes said Trump’s refusal to consider a withdrawal is not surprising, however.

Republicans, along with some leading Democrats and prominent media pundits, insisted that President Obama should have kept U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline by which President Bush and the Iraqi government had agreed to complete the withdrawal.

This would have also been illegal. Obama was roundly criticized for his insistence on living up to the agreement and international law.

“It will be interesting to see how Congress and the media react to Trump’s defiance”, said Zunes, who is also senior policy analyst for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies .

Asked if there was a possible intervention by the UN, Solomon said what the United Nations can do about such matters is contingent on the extent to which the UN can extricate itself from U.S. veto power and intimidation of governments with political, military and economic blackmail.

“There is little that’s coherent about U.S. policies beyond flagrant self-interest for its extreme arrogance and military-industrial complex”, said Solomon, author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”

Asked about the issue of sovereignty and violation of the UN charter, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters January 13: “ The status… as far as I understand, the status of US forces in Iraq is under a Status of Forces Agreement, which is negotiated bilaterally between Iraq and the United States, and those discussions should take place between the United States and Iraq.”

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Children drink from a tap during recess at a UNICEF supported primary school inside Bukasi internally displaced people's camp, in Maiduguri, Borno state, Nigeria. Credit: UNICEF/Gilbertson

By Esther Ngumbi
ILLINOIS, United States, Jan 15 2020 (IPS)

United Nations World Food Program recently released 2020 Global Hotspots Report. According to the report, millions of citizens from Sub-Saharan African countries will face hunger in the first half of 2020 for several reasons including conflict, political instability and climate-related events such as below-average rainfall and flooding.

Focusing in on the latter, climate-related extreme events have already caused 52 million people across Africa to go hungry and over 1 million people to be displaced by flooding. Of course, African countries are not alone in this challenge and Italy, Southern California, and Southern France have recently been impacted by flooding linked to the changing climate.  Australia has equally suffered from massive bushfires linked to the changing climate.

It is clear already that tackling recurring and persistent food insecurity challenges brought about by climate-related extreme events is by no means an easy task. So, how can countries navigate a future that will consistently be challenged by these types of climate change-related disasters? How can countries improve the strategies and approaches they are currently employing to mitigate climate change?

First, to deal with unpredictable and catastrophic climate-related events and ensure citizens have food to eat, countries must strengthen their predictive frameworks.  Foresight is key.

How can countries navigate a future that will consistently be challenged by climate change-related disasters? How can countries improve the strategies and approaches they are currently employing to mitigate climate change?

Many African countries are strengthening their predictive capabilities. For instance, there are several centers that provide climate-hydro-agricultural monitoring and outlooks including AGRHYMET in West Africa, The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre in Eastern Africa, and SADC drought monitoring center in southern Africa.

Furthermore, in 2019, three Southeast African countries, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, along with four Southwest Indian Ocean countries launched the Disaster Risk Reduction Management Platform, with the goal of sharing disaster prevention information.

In addition, individual countries are doing their best to implement predictive frameworks. Kenya, for example, has a Predictive livestock early warning system to help pastoralist communities. Uganda has a National Climate Change Policy, a supporting political structure for its implementation and has continued to step up its efforts on addressing climate change. Ghana has a national climate change adaptation strategy and in 2018, UNEP worked with Ghana to implement a drought early warning system.

Beyond Africa, the international community is helping developing countries to improve it predictive capabilities. Recently, twelve international organizations launched the Alliance for Hydromet Development initiative, committing to ramp up actions that strengthen capacities of developing countries to deliver high-quality weather forecasts, and early warning systems among other services.

However, even with so many predictive frameworks initiatives, the African continent is yet to protect its citizens from climate-change related disasters. Clearly, disaster predictive frameworks can only go so far.

Thus, African countries must double down and implement many other complementing efforts to mitigate climate change and help farmers and citizens of African countries to stay on top. After all, even if predictive frameworks succeed, farmers must still be able to prevent disastrous climate change impacts such as drought.

Once crops have been planted, for example, farmers are still limited in actions they can take to protect their growing crops from extremities such as drought and flooding.

The foundation of resilient agriculture begins with healthy soil. Healthy soils, that have soil organic matter, improve the activities of microorganisms that live in the soil, which in turn help plants to utilize nutrients and cope with climate-related stresses such as drought and flooding while combatting pests and diseases.

Of course, it matters what crop varieties that farmers plant. As such, there is need for more investment on science that is geared towards developing crop varieties that are resilient to drought and flooding.

More than ever, initiatives such as stress tolerant maize, the Wheat rust resistant seed  and initiatives aimed at breeding disease resistant and improved cassava plants, must be sustained, and the varieties developed from these efforts must be deployed to farmers.  But, only with healthy soils as a base will all the complementing measures fully deliver on their promise.

Equally important is the need to have investments and funds by African governments and other stakeholders such as the Rockefeller Foundation and African Development Bank that are heavily committed to help the African Continent cope with climate change.

These funds can be set aside to finance promising innovations for solving climate change and to finance grand challenges to find efforts that can help those who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

It is exciting to see the formation of initiatives such as the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, an initiative of over 60 public and private investors and institutions continue with the efforts that include financing crop insurance schemes and providing technical assistance and subsidized-rate loans or guarantees to smallholder farmers in West Africa.

Finally, investments, which support climate smart agriculture, an integrated approach that addresses both the challenges of food security and climate change with the aim to enhance resilience, increase productivity and reduce emissions, must continue.

The World Bank is currently working with several African countries including Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, in an effort to identify concrete actions that these countries can take to boost and scale up climate-smart agriculture.

Climate-smart agriculture success stories coming out from African countries show that indeed, adopting these practices has the potential help African citizens to deal with the new and harsh realities accompanying the changing climate.

It is clear that climate-related disasters and food insecurity will continue to challenge many sub-Saharan African countries in 2020. By strengthening predictive frameworks and doubling up by planting drought and flooding tolerant crop varieties as well as continuing to invest in climate-smart agriculture, governments and citizens can confront these challenges while building the resilience they need to rebound back when disasters strike.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the Entomology Department, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute and has written opinion pieces for various outlets including NPR, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Aljazeera and New York Times. You can follow Esther on Twitter @EstherNgumbi.

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Kangaroos in Bawley Point on the south coast of New South Wales. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Jan 14 2020 (IPS)

The chatter of cockatoos and lorikeets has given way to an eerie silence in smoke enveloped charred landscapes across south-eastern Australia. The unrelenting bushfires have driven many native animal and plant species to the brink of extinction and made several fauna more vulnerable with vast swathes of their habitat incinerated.

As many as 13 native animal and bird species may become locally extinct following the devastating bushfires, according to an initial analysis by national environment organisations, including the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Australia.

These vulnerable species include, Koalas, Regent Honeyeater, Blue Mountains Water Skink, Brush-Tailed Rock Wallaby and Southern Corroboree Frog in areas of New South Wales; Glossy Black Cockatoo and Kangaroo Island Dunnart in South Australia; Greater Glider and Long-footed Potoroo in East Gippsland in Victoria; and Quokkas and Western Ground Parrots in areas of Western Australia.

“Early estimates indicate the number of vertebrate animals affected since the fires started in September 2019 could be as high as one billion, with most of these likely to have been killed immediately by the severe fires, or dying soon after as burnt landscapes leave them with little or no food and shelter,” said the Acting Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in a statement.

• Australia is one of 17 countries described as being ‘megadiverse‘. The continent country is home to between 600,000 and 700,000 species, many of which are endemic, that is they are found nowhere else in the world. These include, for example, 84 percent of plant species, 83 percent of mammals, and 45 percent of birds.
• “It is estimated that most of the range has already burnt for between 20 and 100 threatened species of plants and animals, putting them at even greater risk of extinction”, the IUCN statement added. 
• Some species have had large parts of their entire habitat burned, for example, the native grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) and the spectacled flying fox or spectacled fruit bat.

ACF’s nature campaigner Jess Abrahams told IPS, “Flying foxes are particularly vulnerable to heatwaves. Spectacled flying foxes are just one of Australia’s many threatened species that are being pushed to the brink by the climate crisis. A heatwave in Cairns in November 2018 killed 23,000 endangered spectacled flying foxes — almost one-third of the total population in Australia — and the current devastating summer is killing thousands more”.

“The fate of our wildlife is intimately connected to our own fate; the loss of a key pollinating species like the grey-headed flying-fox, would have huge impacts on our future food supply,” Abrahams added.

• Some 34 species and subspecies of native mammals have become extinct in Australia over the last 200 years, the highest rate of loss for any region in the world. In October 2019, over 200 scientists in an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison had expressed concern about the alarming rate at which Australia’s native species were disappearing and cautioned that another 17 animals could go extinct in the next 20 years.

The bushfire crisis may have undermined decades of conservation gains. With trees and foliage burnt and no vegetation cover, the surviving wildlife will be more at risk of predation, exposure to environmental conditions – heat, cold and wind, and more vulnerable to starvation. Besides wildlife, tens and thousands of sheep, cattle and other farm animals have perished in the fires or sustained burn injuries. 

The prolonged drought and bushfires have also led to more animals vying with communities for the scarce water resources, especially in remote regions of this second driest continent on earth.

In a five-day aerial culling operation, about 10,000 camels were to be killed in drought-ravaged Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia.

According to the Australian Department of the Environment and Energy (DEE) spokesperson, “During droughts, feral camels congregate in large herds seeking water. At these times they damage infrastructure, compete with livestock for food and water, threaten people in remote communities, destroy native vegetation and foul natural water holes. Culling to manage camel numbers is the only option at this time to protect these assets and people.”

“Alternatives such as trapping and removal for domestic or overseas consumption, or live export, have prohibitive logistics and costs because of the extreme remoteness and specialised infrastructure required. There are also animal welfare concerns with trapping and transporting wild camels for overseas markets,” the spokesperson added.

Culling animals is decided on a case by case basis. Australian state and territory governments have primary responsibility for management of animals and their welfare.

APY Lands General Manager Richard King told IPS, “The Traditional Owners have requested this intervention, but they have not taken this decision lightly. We are simply doing the best we can in a dire situation. Increasing population of feral animals, such as camels, has squeezed out animals that were part of traditional Aboriginal food and also many of the bush tucker (native bush food) – berries, plums and tomatoes – as camels eat a large range of flora. This makes it hard for Aboriginal people to hunt and gather as they have done for thousands of years to survive.”

Besides camels, kangaroos, horses, donkeys and pigs are also culled to manage sustainable feral populations as they are unfettered by the normal constraints of population growth, such as predators, disease and parasite load.

Arthur Georges from University of Canberra’s Institute for Applied Ecology told IPS, “In the Australian Capital Territory, the strategy is to take off a fixed number of kangaroos each year rather than wait for numbers to build up and cause a crisis where more animals need to be culled. This is a sensible strategy as some level of control, preferably using the meat and other products, is sensible from both a conservation and an animal welfare perspective. In the broader context, culling is also beneficial from an agricultural perspective because of the biosecurity risk and the impact on production.”

The Australian Federal Government on Monday announced an initial investment of AUD 50 million, drawn from the government’s AUD 2 billion bushfire recovery fund, for wildlife and habitat recovery.

Welcoming the announcement as an important first step, WWF-Australia CEO, Dermot O’Gorman said, “Significantly more funding will be required to help our threatened species recover.”

As this ecological tragedy continues to unfold, Professor David Lindenmayer from Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society said in a media release, “Fires burn patchily, and small unburnt patches, half burnt logs and dead or fire-damaged trees are commonly left behind. Our research has demonstrated that these patches and remaining woody debris are very important to recovering wildlife populations. Standing fire-damaged trees as well as dead trees and fallen logs also provide many resources to surviving and recovering wildlife such as food, shelter and breeding hollows. Many trees that look dead will still be alive.”

The ACF, together with other environment groups, have written to Australia’s Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley with a five-point plan, including funding to provide feed, water and habitat structures in worst hit areas, and establishing breeding programs, to fast track recovery efforts for the most at-risk wildlife.

Arid Recovery, an independent not-for-profit organisation which runs wildlife reserve in South Australia, has come up with a simple design of water fountains that can be made from basic materials with little skill required.

Its General Manager Katherine Tuft told IPS, “We developed them to support native wildlife in the drought-affected reserve that we manage and shared the design via social media for people in bushfire-affected areas to assist animals and potentially livestock. At least 30 different individuals or groups have made their own, including the NSW Environment Department who have put a factsheet together for their staff and volunteers to make them.”

Meanwhile, wildlife hospitals, zoos, veterinarians and volunteers have been caring for displaced and injured wildlife with generous donations from the community. People have been knitting mittens for signed paws, donating blankets for joeys, making bird boxes and putting out birdbaths and bird feed. Officials in New South Wales have been air-dropping carrots and sweet potatoes into the fire-ravaged habitat of the endangered brush-tailed rock-wallaby.

It may be months, if not years, before the impact of the bushfires on Australia’s biodiversity will be determined.

Related Articles

• Australia’s Bushfires Bring Mounting Pressure to Reduce Greenhouse Gases

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Credit: International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

By David Lipton
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 14 2020 (IPS)

Last March, Operation Taiex led to the arrest of the gang leader behind the Carbanak and Cobalt malware attacks on over 100 financial institutions worldwide.

This law enforcement operation included the Spanish national police, Europol, FBI, the Romanian, Moldovan, Belarusian, and Taiwanese authorities, as well as private cybersecurity companies. Investigators found out that hackers were operating in at least 15 countries.

We all know that money moves quickly around the world. As Operation Taiex shows, cybercrime is doing the same, becoming increasingly able to collaborate rapidly across borders.

To create a cyber-secure world, we must be as fast and globally integrated as the criminals. Facing a global threat with local resources will not be enough. Countries need to do more internally and internationally to coordinate their efforts.

How to best work together

To begin, the private sector offers many good examples of cooperation. The industry deserves credit for taking the lead in many areas—developing technical and risk management standards, convening information-sharing forums, and spending considerable resources.

International bodies, including the Group of 7 Cyber Experts group and the Basel Committee, are creating awareness and identifying sound practices for financial sector supervisors. This is important work.

But there is more to be done, especially if we take a global perspective. There are four areas where the international community can come together and boost the work being done at the national level:

First, we need to develop a greater understanding of the risks: the source and nature of threats and how they might impact financial stability. We need more data on threats and on the impact of successful attacks to better understand the risks.

Second, we need to improve collaboration on threat intelligence, incident reporting and best practices in resilience and response. Information sharing between the private and public sector needs to be improved—for example, by reducing barriers to banks reporting issues to financial supervisors and law enforcement.

Different public agencies within a country need to communicate seamlessly. And most challenging, information sharing between countries must improve.

Third, and related, regulatory approaches need to achieve greater consistency. Today, countries have different standards, regulations, and terminology. Reducing this inconsistency will facilitate more communication.

Finally, knowing that attacks will come, countries need to be ready for them. Crisis preparation and response protocols should be developed at both the national and cross-border level, so as to be able to respond and recover operations as soon as possible.

Crisis exercises have become crucial in building resilience and the ability to respond, by revealing gaps and weaknesses in processes and decision making.

Connecting the global dots
Because a cyberattack can come from anywhere in the world, or many places at once, crisis response protocols must be articulated within regions and globally.

That means the relevant authorities need to know “whom to call” during a crisis, in nearby and, ideally, also in faraway countries. For small or developing countries, this is a challenge that needs international attention.

Many rely on financial services or correspondent lines provided by global banks for financial connection. Developing cross-border response protocols will help countries understand their respective roles in a crisis and ensure a coordinated response in the event of a crisis.

The Group of 7 countries has made an excellent start at building collaboration on cybersecurity, but this effort needs to be broadened to each and every country.

Here the IMF can play an important role. With a much broader representation than most of the standard-setting institutions, the IMF has the ability to raise the concerns of emerging-market and developing countries to a global level.

Because any place is a good place to start an attack, it is in the ultimate interest of advanced economies to work with other countries to share information, coordinate actions, and build capacity.

At the IMF, we work with countries that need to build this capacity, developing the skills and expertise needed to recognize and effectively counter cybersecurity threats. Our international partners are doing the same, and we work regularly with an array of stakeholders in the public and private sector.

Successful cyber-attacks have the potential to hamper financial development by creating distrust, especially if personal and financial data are compromised.

If we want to reap the benefits of new technologies that can develop markets and expand financial inclusion, we have to preserve trust, and ensure the security of information and communications technologies.

With cybersecurity, there is always more to be done simply because the pace of change is breathtakingly fast.

*Prior to joining the IMF, David Lipton was Special Assistant to President Clinton, and served as Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the National Economic Council and the National Security Council at the White House

IMFBlog is a forum for the views of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff and officials on pressing economic and policy issues of the day.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF and its Executive Board.

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Excerpt:

David Lipton* is First Deputy Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a position he has held since 2011.

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The world’s oceans are under siege. Wide ranging projects and innovative financing are needed to clean up the seas before it is too late. Photo: Francesco Ricciardi

By Ingrid van Wees
Jan 14 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Cleaning the world’s oceans and keeping them clean is a gargantuan task that will involve far-reaching projects backed by innovative forms of financing

The world’s oceans are running out of breath. In the past 50 years, we have lost nearly half our coral reefs and mangrove forests and the size of marine populations has halved. A third of global fish stocks are already depleted.

If trends continue, it is estimated that there will be no stocks left for commercial fishing by 2048 in the Asia-Pacific region alone. By 2052 oceans might contain more plastic than fish by weight and 90% of coral reefs may be lost.

The “blue economy”, which includes livelihoods and other economic benefits derived from oceans, is estimated at between $3 trillion to $6 trillion per year globally. Oceans contribute significantly to the gross domestic product of many developing countries—as much as 13% in Indonesia and 19% in Viet Nam.

Thirty-four million people in our region are engaged in commercial fishing. In Southeast Asia alone, the export value of the fish caught was $19.5 billion in 2015. But the cost of overfishing far exceeds this amount. Overfishing reduced the aggregate net benefit of global fisheries by $83 billion in 2012, with two-thirds of this loss occurring in Asia.

A ‘source to sea’ rescue plan

Saving our blighted oceans is a key development challenge, with the future viability of so many economies and livelihoods at stake. Clearly, the declining health of the world’s oceans is an issue that does not just affect a single industry, country or sector. It is a threat to the entire planet and all of its residents. The solution, therefore, must be broad and far-reaching as well.

This involves strategies that cut across multiple sectors and countries of the region in a holistic, “source to sea” approach. Governments, NGOs, businesses and other stakeholders all need to do their part. This includes reducing marine pollution at the source while protecting and restoring coastal and marine ecosystems and rivers.

Alternative livelihood and business opportunities need to be created. Port and coastal infrastructure is overdue for modernization. There’s an urgent need for ocean-friendly infrastructure including integrated solid waste management, ecologically-sensitive port facilities, and municipal and industrial wastewater and effluent treatment. Equally crucial are sustainable agribusinesses that reduce runoff of fertilizers, agrochemicals, waste, and soil erosion, as well as a sustainable aquaculture sector.

Attracting the scale of finance needed

The key challenge to implementing these far-reaching solutions is financing. Large-scale investments are required to support these projects and the private sector is the only source with the vast financial resources needed. However, attracting private investors can be tricky for ocean health-related projects.

The private sector needs a return on its investment which is usually achieved through charges to a ‘user’ base, either a beneficiary or a polluter. As with other global public goods however, it’s often impossible to ascribe direct charges for a project (such as those addressing coastal erosion) given the lack of an identified ‘user’ base. Moreover, when user charges can be applied, their level is constrained by affordability considerations, such as in municipal wastewater projects. This results in a volatile or at least uncertain revenue model, compromising bankability and constraining the flows of private capital.

“Blue funds” have huge potential to help overcome these challenges. Arranged by governments or development finance institutions, they could provide much-needed credit enhancement to projects in the form of ‘blue credits’. These credits are similar to carbon credits as they provide revenue support based on the value of the avoided costs from doing a high impact project. Such funds could also support issuance by underlying project sponsors of more creditworthy blue bonds to raise competitive long-term capital from the markets.

Multilateral development banks can help by developing blue project selection criteria and policy frameworks, creating financial instruments and products, blue funds or similar financial mechanisms, mobilizing concessional finance, and preparing bankable project pipelines.

Green financing has already beaten a path for blue financing to follow. Green instruments aim to pool projects together to diversify risks and enable wider access to financing by tapping the capital markets through green equities and bonds. By enhancing the bankability of a project, these instruments can encourage a scaling up of investments in renewable energy, reforestation, watershed management, air quality, and clean transport.

Blue finance investments can make the difference

ADB has issued $2.2 billion of Green Bonds since 2010. With additional support, blue investments can be similarly successful. Given the urgency and scale of the problem, these investments need to gain traction rapidly. They are not yet well understood and currently perceived as slow and risky, so it may take decades to realize, verify, and capitalize on conservation benefits.

But there is hope that it won’t take long. Blue funds offer an avenue to work with governments to improve the risk-return profiles of projects and structure pooled investment products that can unlock private capital. For blue finance to become mainstream, governments and the general public need to be convinced of the urgency of financing projects that support ocean health. Development partners like ADB can help quantify the real costs and benefits of blue investments for both governments and the private sector. As these benefits are better understood, we expect more willingness to finance the related costs.

The local knowledge of development organizations, as well as their strong relationships with national and municipal governments and other development partners, will be critical to ensuring that the right blue investments are made in the region. This is why ADB has launched a new Action Plan for Healthy Oceans and Sustainable Blue Economies.

Deep-cleaning our oceans is a massive undertaking, and the price tag will be similarly large. Blue finance offers a way to share the funding of these initiatives. However, we must act now, while there is still time.

This story was originally published by ADB-Asian Development Blog

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 14 2020 (IPS)

Many argue that China’s impressive growth for last four decades has been due to deliberate exchange rate undervaluation, promoting exports and discouraging imports. Last year, the Trump administration accused China of engaging in currency manipulation.

Post-war US hegemony
When the US Treasury Department accuses a country of ‘currency manipulation’, it authorizes retaliatory US action for ostensible exchange rate management intended to gain ‘unfair’ advantage in international trade.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

After it came through the Second World War relatively unscathed and primed, the US current account and trade deficits have grown since the 1960s saw the end of its early post-war surpluses after European and Japanese economic recovery, reconstruction and industrialization.

Since then, US dollar (USD) foreign exchange (forex) reserves accumulation – especially by Japan, China and oil-exporting states investing in US Treasury bills – has long financed the US current account (consumption over production, and investments over national savings) and fiscal (government spending over revenue) deficits.

Chinese exchange rate undervaluation
China’s rapid export-led growth with low wages, raising savings and investments from profits, has been attributed by some to rapid forex reserves accumulation to keep its exchange rate low.

Like most other developing and ‘socialist’ economies, following the end of the Bretton Woods arrangements under President Nixon’s watch in the early 1970s, the renminbi (RMB) real exchange rate during the 1980s was weak, arguably reflecting its trade account then.

The RMB exchange rate was considered undervalued for much of the 1990s. Initially, it declined until 1993, then strengthened over the following three years, before weakening again with other East Asian currencies during the 1997-1998 regional financial crises.

Chicken and egg economics
China’s exchange rate competitiveness’ contributions to export growth and the current account surplus are undeniable. However, the evidence that its export-led industrialization was due to deliberate exchange rate undervaluation – owing to forex reserves accumulation – remains weak.

Instead, China’s exchange rate competitiveness was mainly due to its efforts to achieve exchange rate and currency stability by managing an informal peg of the RMB to the USD. Following the Hongkong dollar’s seemingly successful USD peg from 1983, and the failure of various earlier exchange rate arrangements, the managed peg became policy as China’s growth stalled in 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square incident.

Although the resulting exchange rate competitiveness undoubtedly enabled rapid industrialization and growth, with exports supplementing domestic demand, there is no strong economic rationale for insisting that forex reserve accumulation is most growth-enabling.

RMB appreciation
China reluctantly gave in to US-led pressures for the RMB to appreciate from the early 21st century. Long dominant in the Bretton Woods institutions, the G7 and the G20, the US accused China of ‘currency manipulation’ to gain an ‘unfair’ advantage in international trade, causing ‘global imbalances’, including the huge US current account deficit.

The RMB appreciated from 2002, as the ratio of Chinese to US prices increased from 22% in 2002 to over half during 2011-2018, reducing China’s export competitiveness, lowering its exports/GDP and investment/GDP ratios, thus slowing growth.

The RMB’s real exchange rate – understood as the ratio of Chinese to international prices, as measured by the ratio of its dollar GDP at the official exchange rate to its purchasing power parity GDP – then rose for over a decade during 2003-2013, especially during 2006-2011.

China’s growth slowdown
As growth and trade fell in the 2008-2009 Great Recession, China’s domestic stimulus response accelerated the transition to greater domestic consumption, as wage incomes rose, profits slipped and RMB appreciation slowed. These developments undoubtedly reduced China’s economic, export and forex reserves growth, as the RMB’s real exchange rate strengthened.

After China’s exports’ share of GDP peaked at 35% in 2005, the RMB real exchange rate appreciated fastest during 2006-2011, causing the RMB to be over-valued for a decade until its 2018 depreciation in response to Trump’s trade war.

RMB appreciation has undoubtedly reduced export competitiveness, export/GDP ratios, externalities from exports, and export-led growth. Meanwhile, China’s reserves to GDP ratio has been declining as forex reserves accumulation ended a decade ago.

Meanwhile, declining unemployment and underemployment, with rising labour force utilization, have improved wage remuneration and working conditions, eroding into profits from previous, largely uncompensated labour productivity increases.

Savings, investments and growth have thus declined as domestic consumption has risen. Excessive RMB appreciation over the last decade has thus slowed rapid Chinese growth, but its modest depreciation after 2018 may not reverse this adverse effect sufficiently.

The story has changed
Contrary to the popular narrative of a continuously and deliberately weakened RMB exchange rate, China was forced by US-led international pressure to reverse RMB undervaluation almost two decades ago.

Higher incomes, reduction of earlier fast-rising income inequalities and the stronger RMB have significantly increased Chinese mass consumption, with less left for corporate profits, savings and investments, as slowing Chinese growth over the last decade suggests.

As RMB overvaluation for much of the last decade until 2019 was not demanded by the US or others, there has been no support from US allies for the Trump administration’s latest charge of ‘currency manipulation’ by China.

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Credit: UN Women

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Jan 14 2020 (IPS)

To live in a home with family, to have a safe environment, food and basic human necessities, are some of the essentials that most people expect to have without giving it all much thought. When a child is born, parents or caregivers are likely to provide these things. These expectations get renewed whenever someone gets married and moves to a new home, a different neighborhood, or a city. We can hardly find someone who will say that they were not expecting happiness and safety when stepping into a new relationship, or starting a new chapter of life. But these expectations of a better life turn disastrous for millions of people when they step into another country as a dependent.

For most immigrants coming to the United States of America, it seems like a golden gate to happiness, safety, security and all the perks of life. First generations of immigrants come with a mentality of struggling and achieving their dreams while maintaining their traditional and cultural ways. They invest in making their dreams come true, but at the same time, they long for the lost traits of their old home and societal practices as they adjust to new ways of life. They try to hold strongly to their roots and expect their children to be moral citizens of the United States, successful and accomplished, yet having a love for their home country which they, themselves left behind. The second generation of Immigrants has their lives a little bit more sorted. They are given steadier lives compared to their parents, but in return, they face the constant challenge of adjusting to two types of very different societal paradigms and customs. For instance, when it comes to people from the Asian community, the children born and raised in the United States, are expected to marry a girl or boy from the country of origin of their parents. The spouse is expected to be an ideal person who upholds family values and cultural norms. Many times people from developing countries aspire to get their children married to someone who is from the United States, in hope of someday making their way into this country of dreams and in hope of their children having a better life. This mindset gives birth to a population of dependent spouses.

The spouses of the second generation, and sometimes even of the first generations who migrate to the United States are a unique segment of people who in most cases remain solely dependent on their partner to enter the United States and also for their livelihood after migration. A portion of them integrate well into society, study and hold jobs eventually after the move. But the majority fails to spread their wings, becoming a burden and potential targets for abuse. They remain dependent on their spouses for a long period of time, and are severely governed by the spouses, in-laws and are forced to stay imprisoned in their own homes. The real scenarios, truth, and consequences remain in a gray zone, silenced and hushed. Women become victims of other’s high expectations. They become the means by which others carry out frustration.

To understand such domestic violence, even if we listen to the voices of the immigrants’ wives and women, we will only get to see only a fraction of the picture. The numbers of reported abuse and violence against women are alarming as is. In a study carried by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crimes in 2019, it is estimated that of the 87,000 women who were intentionally killed in 2017 globally, more than half (50,000- 58 percent) were killed by intimate partners or family members, meaning that 137 women across the world are killed by a member of their own family every day. From the Global Database on Violence against Women, some national studies were done and it shows that up to 70 percent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.

The United States is a developed first world country, provides benefits and assistance to anyone under threat and abuse, and that is a relief to hundreds of people. Thankfully, it is the existence of the various organizations, NGOs, governmental institutions and social workers that many women and children seek assistance and are saved from the grave and severe situations at home. However, the number of people seeking out or coming across help is very little and may be viewed as the tip of an iceberg. The segment of victimized individuals mostly lives under the poverty line, not mixing much with the society and remaining invisible for most parts. The language barrier, lack of friends and family in this country, helplessness, and void of financial stability makes matters exponentially worse.

Newly arrived immigrant women whose immigration status has not been permanently established, or are undocumented, conditional residents or whose visas have special needs, somewhat live at the mercy of their partners. Most often than not, these women are manipulated with unsettled immigration status as a means of continuing their abusive relationships. Their passports, social security cards, certificates or any other important documents are held by the partner or by the families they come into. They are constantly harassed and intimidated by threats of abandonment, emotionally and mentally tortured, their children are threatened to be separated and harmed if they communicate with others, and their entire financial situation is monitored and handled by the abusers. Many times it is heard that the abusers threaten to harm their family back home too.

I myself am a survivor of 15 years of emotional, financial and physical abuse by my partner. I am also an immigrant woman and mother of three daughters. My children and I were abandoned in Asia, despite being citizens of the United States of America. We were barred from coming back, denied access to our home in the United States of America, and left without any sort of financial help. Moreover, I faced identity theft and my social security details were compromised after being announced deceased by my spouse. From my own personal journey, starting from the detection and identification of abuse, speaking up and seeking help, reaching out to the proper authorities, participating in therapy and counseling for myself and for my children, going through phases of self-restoration and healing periods, and lastly through rebuilding our lives, I have gathered valuable insights about patterns of abuse and overcoming it. I have been working closely with various organizations in New York City and have met and talked with hundreds of women who are victims of abuse by their spouses, partners, and family members, and are from immigrant families. I have volunteered and sought help from organizations named SAKHI: for South Asian Women, Safe Horizon, Chaya CDC NYC, Sanctuary for families, Safest community-based NGO in Bronx, WOMANKIND: I am Womankind, and with Make the Road New York.

I wish to shed some light on the topic of domestic abuse among immigrant women of the Asian demographics from my personal point of view and experiences. It is my hope that others can be brought to awareness through the sharing of my story, and through the discussions of the root causes that can cause these situations.

Sources:
1.World Health Organization, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, South African Medical Research Council (2013). Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence, p.2. For individual country information, see UN Women Global Database on Violence against Women.

2. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2019). Global Study on Homicide 2019, p. 10.

3. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures

The post In the Elusive Grip of an Abusive Partner: A Migrant’s Story appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A fire in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, December 30, 2019. Photo by Ned Dawson for Victoria State Government.

By John Leary and Lindsay Cobb
SILVER SPRINGS, Maryland, Jan 13 2020 (IPS)

“Unprecedented.” “Hell on Earth.” “Catastrophic.”

In Australia, these terms are being used to describe 17.9 million acres of burned land so far. While fires of this magnitude are certainly unprecedented, they’re far from unexpected.

Climatologists have warned that the changing climate will have vast implications for our planet’s weather patterns and natural disasters. But these warnings have done little to drive urgent climate action.

More and more it seems that the world needs anthropologists, not climatologists, to understand the real trajectory of climate change, trends, long-term impacts, “Band-Aid” solutions, and to pinpoint the root causes.

The reason for the magnitude of these fires is complex and certainly requires attention to climate, but it can all be traced back to one thing: How we grow our food.

Fire Begets Food

Humans have been influencing the land and environment for the sake of food for centuries.

Australia’s landscape did not always look like it does today. Historians and scientists can point back to a time when humans’ need for food completely altered the continent’s natural makeup.

50,000 years ago, Australian Aboriginals used “fire stick farming” as a way to hunt large animals. Equipped with torches, humans burned forests to drive out, trap and kill things to eat.

This tactic happened on such an extreme level in Australia that humans were able to drive hairy rhinoceroses, massive birds, giant kangaroos, wombats, and other massive marsupials to extinction. Humans forever changed Australia’s plant and wildlife.

Sadly, this practice is still in use today and we’ve seen it up close in places such as Mali and Central African Republic. But a different form of “fire farming” is used on a much larger scale in the 21st century.

The modern global food system is dependent on open land because monocropped cereal grains are at the core of our diets. Growing rows of grain is cost-effective, it can be fed to animals, and it is easily turned into processed food.

The agriculture industry and farmers of every kind have cleared trees at a rate of 5 million hectares a year to make room for crops like corn, wheat, and soy. The easiest ways to do this are either spray the area with an herbicide that kills plants or by lighting fires to burn and clear the land of trees, shrubs, and grasses.

This is called swidden, or slash-and-burn agriculture. It has plagued farmers for centuries and it is exactly what is happening to the Amazon.

Food Begets Fire

Setting aside the lasting developmental and health implications of the global diet, the destructive land use practices to achieve this diet are 1) unsustainable and 2) the leading cause of climate change.

As the population increases, our need for food production increases. Humans work to grow more food and clear more land. As forests are burned and cleared, carbon is released into the atmosphere and ecosystems are strained.

Excess carbon has nowhere to go and increases temperatures. Higher temperatures exacerbate drought and the breakdown of ecosystems and environmental health. It becomes harder to grow food in these conditions, so more land is cleared to feed the growing population.

High temperatures and drought also mean wildfires are more likely to burn out of control. This negative feedback loop is cut and dry: fire causes warming, warming causes fire.

In a cruel irony, often the offenders on the ground do not experience the worst of these effects. Weather systems and patterns are liable to change around the world, affecting the most vulnerable people first.

This is true for the smallholder farmers in Trees for the Future’s Forest Garden program. Farming families in developing countries are subject to the impacts of climate change with no control over seed supply, no crop insurance, and few municipal programs for a safety net.

Although, there is one major outlier in the disproportionate effects of climate change: Australia. Long-standing climatic predictions have suggested that Australia would be an exception – a developed country facing the dramatic repercussions of man-made climate change, despite its GDP.

“The country was founded on genocidal indifference to the native landscape and those who inhabited it, and its modern ambitions have always been precarious: Australia is today a society of expansive abundance, jerry-rigged onto a very harsh and ecologically unforgiving land,” writes David Wallace-Wells in An Uninhabitable Earth.

Wood Burns, Woods Don’t

A healthy forest is full of wood and yet, it cannot burn.

Why? Consider how to build a campfire: A camper needs tinder, kindling, and fuel. Tinder and kindling are critical in turning a spark into a flame. Once the flame is truly established, the camper adds fuel to the fire in the form of logs and the logs are able to maintain the burn.

Even in the dry season, where there may be small isolated fires across a dry landscape, a forest should not burn uncontrollably. But today, many forests around the globe are surrounded by “tinder.”

A common form of tinder is brush and grassland maintained for grazing animals like cow or sheep. Another is parched crops or what is left behind after harvest: crop residue, the stubble of a cut grain still attached to the root.

Farmers around the globe – American, Iraqi, and Australian – are all too familiar with the danger a lightning storm poses in the dry season. A lightning strike can literally destroy hundreds of acres of a crop or grasslands in a matter of minutes.

Put that field next to a forest during prolonged drought and a spark from a transformer or lightning storm has plenty of dry tinder and kindling to get started.

The Australian fires burning right now are countless. Fires are raging all over the country; bushland, forests, national parks, and farmland now burning were all parched in the wake of record-breaking heat and drought.

The country is a veritable tinderbox, and with plenty of fuel in their path, little can be done to stop the fires as they envelope swaths of countryside.

How We Fix It

Food production is the problem, but it’s also the solution.

When the agriculture industry and smallholder farmers embrace sustainable farming methods, incorporate trees into the growing process, and find alternatives to monocropping, their impact on the environment will change for the better.

Farmers have historically fought suggestions of man-made climate change because of the implications for their bottom line. But as they start to feel the effects of a warming climate and recognize that land use is a major contributor to the problem, many farmers are turning a corner and becoming climate activists themselves.

In Australia, nonprofit Farmers for Climate Action supports “farmers to build climate and energy literacy and advocate for climate solutions both on and off farm.” It’s groups like this that will be integral in shifting public understanding and support of a transformational food system.

Trees for the Future works with farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who have long practiced slash-and-burn tactics to clear land for monocrops like maize or peanuts. These farmers are contributing to deforestation, and the prolonged periods of drought they suffer through are evidence that they’re feeling the impacts of man-made climate change.

Fortunately, shortly after they integrate trees and sustainability into their farming, these farmers see vast improvements in their soil health, biodiversity, and micro-climates. Abandoning monocrop techniques for agroforestry and regenerative methods also increases their production and incomes – proving that changing the way we farm does not translate to a decrease in profits, but rather the opposite.

Much like financial diversity, crop diversity helps to ensure resilience in the face of unexpected challenges and environmental strains.

“Trees once provided natural protection, acting as dug-in soldiers shielding countries from typhoons, hurricanes, and monsoons. They covered the country sides, cooled the land, brought the rain and channeled excess water back into the ground,” write John Leary in One Shot: Trees as Our Last Chance for Survival.

“Trees provide both CO2 reduction and mitigation, serving as a nonpartisan weapon that is exempt from climate politics, whose beneficial existence is not subject to scientific evidence or debate. So their value should be recognized, right?”

When we stop clearing our trees and start embracing their benefits, we’ll see a shift in the negative climate trends plaguing regions subject to natural disasters.

We can create a positive feedback loop wherein planting more trees and ending deforestation results in predictable weather patterns, healthier ecosystems, and fewer trees lost to unprecedented, catastrophic wildfires.

*Learn more about Trees for the Future’s work with smallholder farmers, and visit their Forest Garden Training Center to learn how to implement regenerative agriculture practices.

Remember to give responsibly when donating to Australia wildfire response efforts. Trees for the Future is working to end hunger and poverty for smallholder farmers through revitalizing degraded lands. Learn more about Trees for the Future and see their latest data in their 30th Anniversary Special Edition 2019 Impact Report.

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Excerpt:

John Leary is Executive Director Trees for the Future* & Lindsay Cobb is Marketing and Communications Manager

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Members assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Detachment Pacific in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire, July 15, 2019. Courtesy: CC by 2.0/U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ford Williams

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 13 2020 (IPS)

While the United States is busy with foreign operations such as killing Qasem Soleimani, a key figure in Middle East Politics, behind the scenes it is reportedly considering a change that experts worry might be of grave concern: a potential withdrawal of troops from West Africa. 

A December report in the New York Times claimed the Pentagon was planning to reduce its military activities in West Africa or even pulling out entirely, which some say would make a significant change in U.S. foreign policies.

According to the Times report, this is part of a general overhaul in defence spending where the focus would be redirected to other concerns such as China and Russia. 

But there are nuances to be considered, says John Campbell, an Africa fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC who has served in Nigeria as political counsellor in the past. ons. 

“We have to be fairly nuanced about this,” Campbell told IPS. “The size of U.S. forces in Africa is extremely small; it’s only about 7,000 people and only half of them are in Djibouti; the orientation is towards the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.”

Campbell further cited a defence review from a year ago, and added that it “essentially said there would be a shift in the emphasis from countering terrorism that would require a redeployment of U.S. forces”. 

The troops, Campbell told IPS, have primarily been involved in training local militaries. 

If they are pulled out, there are general concerns about what it will mean for the local fights against terrorism and, according to the Times report, might even risk create a larger pool of refugees to Europe, the Times report claims. 

On the heels of this deliberation, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, United Nations Special Representative and Head of the U.N. Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), reminded the Security Council on Jan. 8 about the rising concerns of terrorism in the region. 

“The geographic focus of terrorist attacks has shifted eastwards from Mali to Burkina Faso and is increasingly threatening West African coastal States,” he said, adding that it was also increasing the number of displaced peoples. 

According to the Times report, Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper, who is at the heart of this decision to pull out, has said that it’s question of whether or not they’re being “efficient as possible with our forces”.

Meanwhile, other analyses question not only the efficiency of the forces but whether or not the presence of the force may have added further to the crises. 

An analysis by TRT World drew a direct increase of “terror-related incidents” that coincided with the presence of U.S. military in the region — they reportedly went up from 41 to 2,498 in less than two years. 

There were also countless abuses and human rights atrocities conducted by the U.S. military personnel themselves or by local military backed by the U.S.  

Meanwhile, it’s a relationship that locals don’t approve of either. In 2018, thousands protested in Ghana against their country’s military deal with the U.S. The U.S. has had a difficult time establishing trust in the region, the Reuters report claimed, and more so after President Donald Trump referred to the region as “shithole countries”.

But Campbell says the U.S. pulling out their military forces from the region would not create any significant difference. 

“We’re talking about a force that in some countries has been able to contribute to the training of local militaries,” he said. “We’re not talking about a force which is particularly transformative.” 

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A friendship of trust, President Kenyatta and UN Secretary General Guterres exchange notes during the UNGA 2019 in New York. Credit: PSCU

By Mukhtar Ogle
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 13 2020 (IPS)

One of the highlight activities as the United Nations commemorates its 75th anniversary this year will be the launch of an “annual temperature check” on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress. With only ten years left to the final whistle for the Goals, this activity that will take place each September will provide a snapshot of what’s working, and where countries need more action.

As a citizen of this great country, I am proud that Kenya was one of the leaders and architects of the open working group that led to the realization of the SDGs, led by our very own PS of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Macharia Kamau.

The globally-agreed Goals provided the roadmap towards ending poverty and hunger everywhere; to combating inequalities within and among countries; to building peaceful and inclusive societies; to protecting human rights and promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensuring the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources.

It is the time to consider our own progress in Kenya. Around the country, there are signposts of progress: maternal and child mortality are down, devolution is bringing development to what were once considered remote areas and school enrollment rates are rising.

The biggest challenge in Kenya, as in much of Africa, is that this progress is fragile and unequal and many in the country still feel they are being left behind. That is why President Kenyatta launched the Big 4 development agenda with a clear intention of leaving no one behind.

Corruption remains a scourge that is undermining the progress Kenya is making. The President is personally leading the fight against corruption and we are pleased that the UN is in full support.

With all the SDGs having time-bound targets, the Government of Kenya and the UN in Kenya are accelerating initiatives that will give the country respectable scores by 2030, in key sectors including health, education, employment, agriculture, affordable housing, energy, infrastructure and the environment.

There are encouraging signs that in this UN Decade of Action, the tide will turn, with the clearest sign of this being the new paradigm in SDG implementation mechanisms brought by the reforms in the UN.

The structural reforms led by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres have ushered in a new era of strengthened implementation founded on leadership, cohesion, accountability and results. In Kenya, the UN Country Team is moving very well towards being more integrated, more aligned and more effective in its response to national government priorities.

With the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office led by Siddharth Chatterjee as the hub, there is visibly better coherence in policy, partnerships and investments around the responses.

The UN Country Team has substantially increased engagement with the relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies towards implementing the current UN Development Assistance Framework, (UNDAF) whose overall agenda is delivering on the transformative Big Four Agenda and the specific country targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Key features of this engagement now include joint work planning, better monitoring and transparency. In previous years, the engagement has been pulled back by insufficient coordination, with none other than President Uhuru Kenyatta flagging this shortcoming.

The UNDAF National Steering Committee is now focussed more on people and less on process, more on results for those left farthest behind, and more on integrated support to the SDG Agenda and less on “business as usual”.

This out-of-the-box approach is being recognised for its concrete footprint, as exemplified by the recent initiative to tackle cross-border challenges between Uganda and Kenya, a brainchild of the President of Kenya and fully supported by the UN teams in the two countries that was launched in September 2019.

The initiative is an example of the Government and the UN responding in new ways to the new threats we face, and specifically the new emphasis on prevention and sustaining peace for development.

The 2030 Agenda will require bold changes to the UN development system for the emergence of a new generation of country teams, centred on a strategic UN Development Assistance Framework and led by an impartial, independent and empowered resident coordinator says Amina J Mohammed, the UN Deputy Secretary General, in a video message.

No doubt, the challenge of Agenda 2030 are monumental and will require that our engagement is innovative in unlocking doors to financing and technologies, reaching out to other partners such as the private sector, foundations and philanthropies.

This is the thinking behind the co-creation of an SDG innovation lab between the Government of Kenya, the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley, Rockefeller Foundation and the UN. The Lab will kick off with support for the delivery of Kenya’s Big Four agenda.

In the run-up to 2030, there is much that must be done to meet the tests of our time. The litmus test for the Government of Kenya and the UN will be measured through tangible results & impact on the lives of Kenyans.

Mukhtar Ogle, EBS, OGW, is the Secretary for Strategic Initiatives, Executive Office of the President of Kenya. He is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

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By Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 10 2020 (IPS)

Iran announced its fifth breach of the 2015 nuclear deal Jan. 5, stating that it “discards the last key component of its operational limitations” put in place by agreement.

In the Jan. 5 statement Iran said its nuclear program “no longer faces any operational restrictions,” however Foreign Minister Javad Zarif did say that Iran will still continue to “fully cooperate” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Zarif’s statement implies that Tehran intends to abide by the additional monitoring and verification measures put in place by the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Zarif also reiterated Iran was willing to return to compliance with the accord if its demands on sanctions relief are met.

The extent to which Iran’s breach increases the proliferation risk posed by the country’s nuclear program depends on what specific steps Tehran takes to act on the Jan. 5 announcement. The government’s statement did not provide details but mentioned that the cap on installed centrifuges was the only remaining limitation that Tehran has not breached.

Under the terms of the JCPOA, Iran is limited to 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz for enriching uranium and 1,044 IR-1 centrifuges at Fordow for isotope production and research.

Iran has continued to abide by those limits according to the most recent IAEA report in November, although it did resume uranium enrichment at Fordow in November in violation of the 15-year restriction on uranium activities at that site. Iran has also already breached the limits on the number of advanced centrifuges it is permitted to test.

Before the JCPOA, Iran had installed about 18,000 IR-1 centrifuges, of which about 10,200 were enriching uranium, and about 1,000 advanced IR-2 centrifuges, which were not operational.

Fordow housed about 2,700 of the IR-1 machines, of which 700 were enriching uranium. The remaining machines, including the IR-2s, were installed at Natanz. The JCPOA required Iran to dismantle excess machines and store them at Natanz under IAEA monitoring.

Iran’s statement that its nuclear program will now be guided by “technical needs” provides little insight into how many centrifuges Tehran may choose to install and operate. Iran has no need for enriched uranium at this time.

Its nuclear power reactor at Bushehr is fueled by Russia and the JCPOA ensures that Iran will have access to 20 percent enriched uranium fuel for its research reactor. The Trump administration has continued to waive sanctions allowing fuel transfers.

The ambiguity of the announcement gives Iran considerable latitude to calibrate its actions. Iran could choose to remain on its current trajectory by slowly installing additional IR-1 machines and enriching uranium to less than five percent.

Similar to Iran’s earlier steps, this will slowly and transparently erode the 12 month breakout time, or the time to produce enough nuclear material for one bomb, established by the JCPOA. The action would also be reversible, in line with Iran’s earlier violations, to keep open the option of returning to compliance with the accord.

Alternatively, if Iran wants to increase pressure more quickly, it could quickly install and begin operating its more advanced IR-2s and remaining IR-1s. There is also the possibility of further violating the provisions of the JCPOA that Tehran breached in 2019. Iran exceeded the limit on uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent uranium-235 in July by slightly increasing levels to 4.5 percent.

Resuming enrichment to 20 percent uranium-235, for example, could significantly shorten the breakout time. Iran enriched to the 20 percent level before negotiations on the JCPOA and officials have threatened to return to it.

While Iran’s breach of the deal came just two days after the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian General and head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qassim Soleimani, Tehran’s Jan. 5 announcement was expected and not a response to Soleimani’s death.

Since Iran announced in May 2019 that it would respond to the U.S. violation and withdrawal from the JCPOA with its own breaches, Tehran has taken steps every 60 days to violate the accord.

Unlike past violations, Tehran did not specify that it will take another step to breach the deal in 60 days and referred to the announced action Jan. 5 as the “final remedial” breach. Iran still could take additional steps to further violate provisions put in place by the deal or reduce compliance with the JCPOA’s monitoring provisions.

The likelihood of further actions may increase if tensions continue to escalate after the death of Soleimani and Iran’s reprisal strike on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq.

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Excerpt:

Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation policy at Arms Control Association, and Julia Masterson is research assistant

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A girl runs outside a small community school in Korioume, Mali, where children lack basic equipment, including notepads and pens. Parts of the school have been attacked and in 2013 the village was a Jihadist stronghold. Credit: OCHA/Eve Sabbagh

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 9 2020 (IPS)

The top UN official in West Africa and the Sahel updated the Security Council on Wednesday, describing an “unprecedented” rise in terrorist violence across the region.

“The region has experienced a devastating surge in terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets,” Mohamed Ibn Chambas, UN Special Representative and Head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), told the Council in its first formal meeting of the year.

“The humanitarian consequences are alarming”, he spelled out.

In presenting his latest report, Chambas painted a picture of relentless attacks on civilian and military targets that he said, have “shaken public confidence”.

A surge in casualties

The UNOWAS chief elaborated on terrorist-attack casualties in Burkina Faso Mali and Niger, which have leapt five-fold since 2016 – with more than 4,000 deaths reported in 2019 alone as compared to some 770 three years earlier.

“Most significantly,” he said, “the geographic focus of terrorist attacks has shifted eastwards from Mali to Burkina Faso and is increasingly threatening West African coastal States”.

He also flagged that the number of deaths in Burkina Faso jumped from about 80 in 2016 to over 1,800 last year.

And displacement has grown ten-fold to about half a million, on top of some 25,000 who have sought refuge in other countries.

Chambas explained that “terrorist attacks are often deliberate efforts by violent extremists” to engage in illicit activities that include capturing weapons and illegal artisanal mining.

Intertwined challenges

Terrorism, organized crime and intercommunal violence are often intertwined, especially in peripheral areas where the State’s presence is weak.

“In those places, extremists provide safety and protection to populations, as well as social services in exchanged for loyalty”, he informed the Council, echoing the Secretary-General in saying that for these reasons, “counter-terrorism responses must focus on gaining the trust and support of local populations”.

“Farmer-herder clashes remain some of the most violent local #conflicts in the region” said SRSG Chambas to the #UNSC

The Special Representative outlined that governments, local actors, regional organizations and the international community are mobilizing across the region to respond to these challenges.

On 21 December, the ECOWAS Heads of State summit “adopted a 2020-2024 action plan to eradicate terrorism in the sub-region”, he said.

Calling “now” the time for action, Chambas drew attention to the importance of supporting regional Governments by prioritizing “a cross-pillar approach at all levels and across all sectors”.

Turning to farmer-herder clashes, which he maintained are “some of the most violent local conflicts in the region”, the UNOWAS chief highlighted that 70 per cent of West Africa’s population depend on agriculture and livestock-rearing for a living, underscoring the importance of peaceful coexistence.

The Special Representative also pointed to climate change, among other factors, as increasingly exacerbating farmer-herder conflicts.

“The impact of climate change on security also spawns a negative relationship between climate change, social cohesion, irregular migration and criminality in some places”, he upheld.

Stemming negative security trends

The UNOWAS chief noted that in the months ahead, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Niger would be democratically electing their leaders and maintained that “all-too-worrying” security trends must not distract from political developments.

“Unresolved grievance, incomplete national reconciliation processes and sentiments of manipulation of institutions and processes carry risks of tensions and manifestations of political violence”, he warned.

In the months ahead, Chambas stressed that UNOWAS would continue to work with partners on the national and regional levels to promote consensus and inclusiveness in the elections.

“As UNOWAS’ mandate is renewed, we count on the Council’s continued full support”, concluded the Special Representative.

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