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By GGGI
Dec 4 2019 (IPS-Partners)

MADRID – 4th December 2019 – Today, the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) signed a cooperation agreement on the sidelines of COP25 to launch the Mobilizing Article 6 Trading Structures (MATS) Program, a pilot project aimed at establishing Article 6 Activities under the Paris Agreement. The objective of this joint collaboration is to catalyze international trading of mitigation outcomes in support of the increased climate ambitions needed under the Paris Agreement. 

Under the agreement, SEA and GGGI will work to identify and structure mitigation activities and support the establishment of  governance frameworks within host countries as required under the developing rulebook of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, with the goal of completing transactions of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes or ITMOs.  How countries count the transfer of carbon credits (known as IMTOs) toward mitigation targets is crucial to avoiding double counting.

Although specific rules related to cooperative approaches under Article 6 have yet to be codified, Article 6 aims at supporting the authorization of international emissions trades while avoiding double counting and ensuring environmental integrity, permitting the movement of the related emission reductions between registries, and better linking national emission trading schemes, project-level transactions, and cooperative approaches.

“The Swedish Energy Agency is committed to supporting the global effort to reduce emissions to meet the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals and contribute to its implementation. As part of that commitment SEA is working hard to usher in a new wave of national and sectoral scale mitigation activities. With everything we have learned during the Kyoto Period, we feel that we have a lot to offer in terms of knowledge and lessons learned to be pioneers in the post 2020 period. We are thrilled to partner with GGGI in order to achieve common goals and overcome some of the inevitable challenges faced by early actors,” said Robert Andrén, Director General of the Swedish Energy Agency.

The SEA-GGGI MATS program takes a holistic approach towards supporting countries to refine existing – or create new, institutional frameworks, to make them Article 6 compliant and assess the mitigation potential of activities, and test the design of the framework through practical authorization of ITMO transactions under Mitigation Outcome Purchase Agreements (MOPAs).

 “GGGI is delighted to partner with SEA on this pioneering journey to help countries achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. The MATS program, a new priority area of work, will build on GGGI’s technical assistance   with Member and partners to support their achievement of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and further increase ambition through readiness activities, accessing climate finance and establishing Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems. Through its model of being embedded within government and working with partners, we feel that GGGI is well positioned to deliver the program in collaboration with SEA; leveraging on their wealth of experience in carbon markets,” said Susanne Pedersen, GGGI’s Assistant Director-General  and Head of Investment and Policy Services Division (IPSD).

The 3-year partnership builds on SEA’s work in developing capacity in low- and middle-income countries to implement mitigation activities bilaterally and via multilateral engagements.  Virtual pilots have been developed in a number of countries and core issues such as additionality, pricing, corresponding adjustments, and attribution have been studied in recent years. The MATS program was initiated and launched with intentions of building on this work to achieve implementable activities that produce transactable mitigation outcomes, which will be identified jointly by GGGI and SEA and then be developed against the emerging rulebook of Article 6. In addition, governance frameworks will be developed to establish sustainable mechanisms to allow approval of further transactions. Finally, activity stakeholders will establish the underlying architecture needed for successful signing of MOPAs and activity implementation.

GGGI is already engaged on Article 6-related activities with several donors, working with the Ministry of Climate and Environment of Norway on wider policy approaches and identifying potential transactions for the Klik Foundation program for Switzerland.

About SEA

SEA supports the Swedish Government and Society as well as external actors with facts, knowledge, and analysis of supply and use of energy in Sweden.  SEA provides funding for research on new and renewable energy technologies, smart grids, as well as vehicles and transport fuels. SEA also supports business development that promotes commercialisation of energy related innovations and ensures that promising cleantech solutions can be exported.  Official energy statistics, and the management of instruments such as the Electricity Certificate System and the EU Emission Trading System, are part of SEA’s responsibility.

Furthermore, SEA has long been the home of Sweden’s CDM and JI program; and is now actively participating in international climate collaborations under the Paris Agreement.

About GGGI

 

Based in Seoul, GGGI is a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization that supports developing country governments transition to a model of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. GGGI delivers programs for 33 Members and partners – in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific – with technical support, capacity building, policy planning and implementation, and by helping to build a pipeline of bankable green investment projects. To learn more about GGGI, see http://www.gggi.org and follow us on Facebook , Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

 

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Credit: United Nations

By Karin Pettersson
STOCKHOLM, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

The news-media industry has long lamented how the digital revolution has broken its business models. Today, a majority of digital advertising money goes to Facebook and Google, and media companies are struggling to reinvent themselves through digital subscriptions.

But the disruption hasn’t only affected advertising: it has also fundamentally changed and challenged journalism itself.

Historically, journalism has played a central role in shaping public discourse. News organisations have served as gate¬keepers and chosen what to amplify. They have always been good at catching the audience’s attention and driving engagement. This has, however, also been about ethics and purpose.

But the new public sphere has a different logic from the old. Today, journalism is just one of many actors providing information on what is going on in the world — only one of many providers of content, in an ecosystem which optimises for anger, fear and other strong emotions and where lies travel faster than the truth.

In this new world, journalism needs to change, and journalists need to learn the landscape and avoid the pitfalls. If we don’t, journalism risks becoming a mirror to the anger-driven, social-network logic — instead of a counterweight on the side of truth and reason.

Given these new challenges, here are five lessons for journalism in the age of rage.

Don’t get your news, angles or sources from Twitter

Twitter is, compared with the bigger social-network platforms, a small shop. But in the news ecosystem it is hugely important, and unfortunately often in a destructive way. Politicians and pundits are over-represented on the platform; so are propagandists and manipulators.

Still, many journalists spend a disproportionate amount of time on Twitter, looking for angles and topics. Since the platform is easy to manipulate for anyone with access to money or a network of bots, this makes them easy targets for manipulation.

The architecture of the new public sphere makes life harder for journalists. But it also makes their job more important than before.

Twitter also distorts journalism in more subtle ways. Journalists love engagement. Due to the nature of the platform, the content to which journalists get the strongest reactions on Twitter tends to be variations on the big topic of the day — the stories everyone is already covering.

When journalists spend too much time on Twitter, this can lead to a dumbing down of coverage, in a time when what we need is independent, thoughtful journalism, looking for the untold stories.

Don’t be a useful idiot

The tools of social networks were built to connect people and give them means of expression. It was never the plan, as the American tech journalist and thinker Danah Boyd says, that these ‘tools of amplification would be weaponized to radicalize people towards extremism, gaslight publics, or serve as vehicles of cruel harassment’.

That, however, is what has happened. The hard part for journalists is how to learn to avoid becoming useful idiots, playing into the hands of those using the platforms to amplify their agenda. To do that, journalists need to understand how manipulation works on social networks.

Boyd uses the example of the anti-Muslim pastor Terry Jones, who in 2010 began using social networks to threaten publicly to burn the Qur’an. His goal was to attract the attention of mainstream news media to promote his congregation, which had around 50 members.

A network of bloggers started to write about him, and finally the then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, issued a statement condemning him — which led to massive media coverage. When he finally burned the Qur’an, the event was covered by every news outlet. The incident led to riots in Afghanistan, and the deaths of 12 people.

The question is: was it necessary and important to cover this spectacle? Should the media report on intolerant provocations by marginal figures?

Distinguish political dismissal from relevant critique

The architecture of the new public sphere makes life harder for journalists. But it also makes their job more important than before.

It’s harder not only because they can’t single-handedly set the agenda but also because the undermining of journalism is a central part of the political programme of many right-wing populist parties currently on the rise.

The attacks on journalism — as ‘fake news’ — by government heads Donald Trump in the US, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Viktor Orbán in Hungary are not isolated events: they are part of a pattern.

The undermining of the free press is at the centre of the political agenda for authoritarians across the globe. It is a difficult balancing act to be aware that journalism is under attack yet, at the same time, to stay open to justified criticism.

Cover Big Tech better

The rise of Big Tech is one of the most important stories of our generation. Facebook has over 2.3 billion monthly users and YouTube last year had 1.8 billion logged on. The majority of Americans get their news from social networks and the same is true of most European countries.

Individually, journalists need to find the strength and the motivation to go on, without retreating or becoming overly defensive.

Never in the history of humankind have companies existed with such reach and impact on information and human communication. These new global superpowers need to be reported on and scrutinised, not only from the ‘tech’ angle.

Some media organisations have come a long way in this regard but many are still lagging irresponsibly far behind. The tech giants’ operations affect democracy, innovation and politics here as well, and the coverage needs to reflect that.

Get used to the hatred

Journalists who learned the trade in the old days are not used to the hatred, criticism, threats and aggression, directed towards them, which flourish on social networks and elsewhere today. Since many of the attacks are politically motivated, it is unrealistic to believe they will simply go away.

Instead, journalism needs to learn how to thrive and stay focused in this new environment. On an organisational level, editors need to deal with the consequent stress and psychological pressure, and media organisations should set up smart and efficient security routines for their employees if they haven’t already done so.

Individually, journalists need to find the strength and the motivation to go on, without retreating or becoming overly defensive. While it may be small consolation, at the end of the day the attacks are testimony to the importance of the work they do.

Good journalism has never been as important as now, and never so hard. Journalism can and will survive. But it needs to learn how to navigate this new environment.

This article is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal.

*International Politics and Society (IPS) is published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

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Excerpt:

Karin Pettersson is director of public policy at Schibsted Media Group and chair of WAN-IFRA Media Freedom Board. She is a 2017 Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow at Harvard University and former political editor-in-chief at Aftonbladet, Scandinavia’s biggest daily newspaper.

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By PRESS RELEASE
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Dec 3 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The African Development Bank and technology firm Microsoft today launched the ‘Coding for Employment’ digital training platform, an online tool to provide digital skills to African youth, wherever they are across the continent.

The platform, launched at the 2019 African Economic Conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, aims to promote a continuous learning culture among young people and build their capacity to shape the continent’s future.

The high-level event drew heads of state and government, ministers and leaders from the private sector and academia to discuss how this new tool and other technological innovations could be used to spur development across the continent.

“The youth employment and skills development challenge is a complex issue that requires systemic thinking and bold partnerships … to address the existing skills gap and link youth to decent and sustainable employment,” said Hendrina Doroba, the African Development Bank’s acting director for Human Capital, Youth & Skills Development.

“The skills training platform launched today is a testament to the impact that such partnerships can achieve and the Bank looks forward to strengthening similar partnerships.”

The platform teaches technical courses such as web development, design, data science and digital marketing and will be constantly adapted to respond to market demand. It is accessible on mobile devices, even in low internet connectivity settings and has an affordable, easy-to-navigate, secured and private interface.

“A defining challenge of our time is ensuring that everyone has equal opportunity to benefit from technology,” Ghada Khalifa, Director of Microsoft Philanthropies for the Middle East and Africa, said at the launch.

“Forward-thinking initiatives such as the digital training platform represent our commitment to helping drive the momentum needed. Though there is still much work to be done, we believe that through dynamic partnerships such as these, we can help build a knowledge-based economy in Africa that leaves no person behind.”

The Coding for Employment Program is a crucial part of the African Development Bank’s strategic agenda to create 25 million jobs by 2025, and to equip 50 million African youth with competitive skills. The Bank piloted the program in five countries (Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire) in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation and Microsoft and is currently developing 14 ultra-modern centers specialized in ICT and entrepreneurship skills trainings for youth.

The goal is to scale up the program to 130 centers of excellence across the continent over a 10-year period. It will create nine million jobs by building synergies with the public and the private sector globally to deliver demand-driven, agile and collaborative skills to empower young people to become innovative players in the digital economy.

The Coding for Employment training platform can be accessed here across 54 African countries.

About the African Development Bank Group
The African Development Bank Group is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund and the Nigeria Trust Fund. On the ground in 41 African countries with an external office in Japan, the African Development Bank contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states. www.afdb.org

About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Contacts:
Kwasi Kpodo, Communication and External Relations Department, African Development Bank. Email: w.kpodo@afdb.org

Microsoft:
WE Communication, Email: MICROSOFT-ZA@we-worldwide.com

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The post Zimbabwe Food Crisis: Time to Act Is Now, Says UN Special Rapporteur appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Busani Bafana
MILAN, Italy, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

Global food systems are ripe for transformation if people are to be nourished and the planet sustainable, says Hilal Elver, Special Rapporteur of the Right to Food of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Hilal Elver, Special Rapporteur of the Right to Food of the United Nations Human Rights Council speaking at the 10th International Forum on Food and Nutrition convened in Milan. Credit: Busani Bafana / IPS

Elver, told delegates at the 1oth International Forum on Food and Nutrition convened in Milan by the Barilla Centre, that the world needs food citizens who will act responsibly in promoting food equality and reducing food waste, which underlie global food and nutrition insecurity in the world today.

Food citizens are responsible for protecting the right to food through multi-actor actions including promoting a conducive environment that will secure food for all while promoting dialogue around food access, production and equitable distribution.

Citing the situation in Zimbabwe, Elver said the food crisis was a blot on the right to food that the world must respond to with urgency.

“The situation in Zimbabwe in mind boggling,” said Elver who has just returned from a mission to Zimbabwe to access the situation. “We need to know what is going as we talk about the need to diet, many in Zimbabwe eat once a day if they are lucky and food aid basically maize, just one meal a day. .. This is a very serious issue that we do not know it beyond the sustainable.”

Elver spoke with IPS on her mission to Zimbabwe. Excerpts of the interview:

IPS: You have just come back from Zimbabwe, what did you see?

Zimbabwe is an amazing country but if it facing a lot of challenges. It does not have basic public services and only four hours a day electricity and I understand that and government buildings, companies and some restaurants are using generators. But also you need fuel for the generators and for your car – if you have money to buy gas (fuel). The system is collapsing. People do not have time to work, because they either have to wait for gas for hours and hours and have to wait in front of the banks to get cash and 24 hours and transportation is very expensive. It is a vicious cycle and something should give in internally and externally because this has affected the food situation in the country too.

What has these challenges mean for the right to food?

That is a major problem. The root causes are a man-made journey to starvation. Every person in Zimbabwe has a responsibility to act. It did not come from drought. Yes drought is there. Other countries had a drought. Zambia had a drought, Mozambique had a drought and Cyclone Idai but Mozambique had huge aid from outside and Zimbabwe only got ten percent of it because of the sanctions.

What has been the impact of sanction on food security?

The intentional community should consider lifting the sanction because sanctions in the 20 years have had multiple impacts on the ordinary people’s lives. They talk about the targeted sanction but the sanctions are targeted by US, UK and EU, they are living perfectly fine and they do not travel a lot outside as they are high level government officials. It is okay for them but for the ordinary people it is not. They are suffering because all the international aid is blocked in one way or another. Investment is not coming. No one wants to invest in a country under sanctions.

Ask the IMF or World Bank why they cannot give the money to them. All the money they try to help Zimbabwe with goes to the NGOs and international organisations. If you are given $100 million, the people on the ground only get 20 percent of it. This is bad and this must change.

Is lifting sanctions everything to get Zimbabwe out of its challenges?

That is an important question. The government should make some democratic reforms, the freedom of speech, and freedom of association and give the opportunities to the people because the people are peaceful. The first thing is that the government should sit together with the opposition and all parties in a democratic manner and to think about how they can help their people together.

Land reform has been done in the last 20 years gradually here and there and there has been some kind of complaints as to why white farmers need compensation and black farmers are dysfunctional, these are myths going round. Black farmers are dysfunctional because they did not get any help from the government. You need first of all credit and you need technical help and you need seed and the government is in a terrible shape to give all these things. Of course there is disfunctionality but they cannot access resources there is land but they cannot do anything with it. If people find one square metres of land they just produce on it. The main problem is this corn based reliance. People are so obsessed with sadza, who brought maize to Zimbabwe? We should think about that.

Are you saying food diversification is a solution to the food problem?

Of course. The traditional food in Africa is very much good for the environmental conditions. Traditional small grains do to need too much water like maize and they should go back to this.

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Credit: Busani Bafana / IPS

By Cecilia Russell
MILAN, Italy, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

A coffee producer will receive a cent and a half from a $2.50 cup of coffee. This one stark fact stood out as scientists, researchers, activists and grappled with solutions for change in food and nutrition practises, which would benefit the greater community.

While the solutions are many – slow food to artificial intelligence – it was clear that the delegates were united around one idea: Key to the solution is to ensure that the solutions need to be put in the hands of the broad community – not just in the hands of the powerful.

This also needs the commitment of every sector of society – from multi-national businesses to small scale local farmers.

This message was reinforced by Guido Barilla, founder of the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition at the 10th International Forum on Food and Nutrition. The forum had the theme of Fostering Business and Innovation while preserving Mother Earth.

He urged all stakeholders come together and educate on the importance of sustainable and virtuous food systems.

Professor Angelo Riccaboni agreed – cooperation between institutions, corporations, NGOs, philanthropic institution and academia was crucial for changing the trajectory.

Ertharin Cousin reminded delegates that biologist Paul Ehrlich once predicted large scale famines, particularly in India – but through innovation in the agricultural sector and community of actors involved in the Green Revolution, these grim visions were overcome.

Even so, she said the challenges are huge – and research suggests that by 2030 half the world’s population would suffer from some form of malnutrition, whether from a shortage of food or micronutrient deficiency.

Delegates debate at the 10th International Forum on Food and Nutrition in Milan. Credit: Busani Bafana / IPS

Jeremy Oppenheim, founder of Systemiq, who used the example of the cup of coffee pointed out how starkly pointed out how unequal the chain of production, processing, distribution, consumption and the way it is disposed of requires a radical overall.

The mixed signals were unhelpful, he said.

“We’re sending all these mixed signals, every single day to people … In the next in the run up to Christmas again in the UK, food companies, and retailers will spend, 100 billion pounds – advertising largely unhealthy food.”

Mattia Galletti , IFAD Technical specialist, pointed out 70 million people in the world belong to different indigenous people and in studies in the Amazon, for example, where indigenous farming is practised there was no deforestation.

Carlo Petrini, Founder and President, Slow Food International, agreed. Local communities had the solution in their “DNA” and had essential answers to the critical problems of climate change.

“The biggest challenge today is climate change, and politicians are still ridiculing youth asking for climate justice,” says Petrini.

However, he warned that the economy needed to change – one that was rooted in local communities and not in the hands of a few. It was only then that sustainable development could be achieved. Any other solution was just “blah, blah, blah”, he warned.

However, Galina Peycheva-Miteva suggested that the “idea of farming” had to change.

“Farming is not considered prestigious by the young generation. We have to modernize and digitize farming. We have to make farming attractive again.”

If the return to traditional technologies and systems was a big discussion, so too was the use of modern technologies and artificial intelligence as a solution to food security and diet. The technology could be harnessed for everything from testing the soil, to encouraging people, through the use of Apps, to follow healthy diets.

What is clear, though, is that there needs to be a shared agenda for the future.

“We need everyone to work together, we must travel the same road. We need lawmakers to enact clear rules,” Barilla concluded.

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“Sofia,” a 17-year-old tobacco worker, in a tobacco field in North Carolina. Benedict Evans/Human Rights Watch

By Margaret Wurth
NEW YORK, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

Legal action against British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the world’s largest tobacco firms, could see the company punished for profiting from child labor and force the industry to finally confront its treatment of vulnerable workers.

The case, brought by human rights lawyers on behalf of hundreds of tenant farmers and their children in Malawi, contends that the company is guilty of “unjust enrichment.” Martyn Day, a senior partner at Leigh Day, the firm bringing the case, told The Guardian that the tenant farmers cultivating tobacco for one of BAT’s main suppliers are paid so little and the work involved is so labor intensive that they are forced to rely on help from their children.

The claimants are suing for compensation, and their lawyers believe it could force the company to pay more for the leaf it buys to ensure proper livelihoods for the workers and farmers at the bottom of its supply chain.

BAT said it takes the issue “extremely seriously” and makes clear to all its farmers and suppliers that exploitative child labor “will not be tolerated.”

Driven by poverty, children work in tobacco farming to help their families make ends meet, to raise money for school fees or books, or to help their parents increase their earnings or save money on hired labor

Over the last six years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of child workers involved in back-breaking, dangerous work on tobacco farms in the United States, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe. The tobacco they help to produce ends up in products sold by the largest tobacco companies in the world.

The impossibly difficult situation that tobacco farming families in Malawi face mirrors what I’ve seen in all the countries where I’ve investigated child labor in tobacco farming. Driven by poverty, children work in tobacco farming to help their families make ends meet, to raise money for school fees or books, or to help their parents increase their earnings or save money on hired labor.

In the United States, I spoke with children as young as 7 and their parents. One farmworker, a single mother of five children, told me, “What I earn is not sufficient for my family. My children have to work to buy school supplies, clothes, the things you have to pay for at school.”

Small-scale tobacco farmers in Indonesia told me they were too poor to hire laborers, so their children often helped in the fields.

Poverty has also fueled child labor in tobacco farming in Zimbabwe, where children work to raise money for school fees or food. “I am looking for money for survival,” one 16-year-old tobacco worker told me. She earned just $3 a day on tobacco farms.

Work in tobacco farming is especially hazardous for children because tobacco plants contain nicotine, which can be absorbed through the skin and cause acute nicotine poisoning. Many child workers report nausea, vomiting, headaches, or dizziness while they work – all symptoms of the poisoning. Child workers are also often exposed to pesticides, and they work long hours in extreme heat, sometimes using dangerous tools or machinery.

For years, my colleagues and I have been urging tobacco companies to eradicate child labor in their global supply chains. Though most companies have policies against child labor, none of them prohibit children from all work handling tobacco—the best policy for protecting children from harm. And year after year, investigations in the tobacco sector show persistent problems with child labor.

Ending child labor requires action by governments and companies to provide children with quality education, to enact strong child labor laws and policies with serious monitoring and inspection, and – crucially – to address family poverty. In the tobacco sector, that means companies ensuring that the price they pay for tobacco leaf lets workers and small-scale tobacco farmers actually earn a living wage.

After years of work on this issue, I still can’t comprehend how – in 2019 – big tobacco companies can profit without penalties from tobacco produced by child workers who are exhausted, overworked, falling behind in school, and exposed to toxins that could have lasting effects on their brains and bodies.

That’s why news of the lawsuit gave me hope. Though it could take years, the case could force BAT to pay workers and farmers fairly and finally eradicate child labor in its supply chain.

Children shouldn’t need to sacrifice their health and education to help their families survive.

 

The post Case Against Tobacco Giant Could Protect Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Margaret Wurth is a senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch

The post Case Against Tobacco Giant Could Protect Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

Much recent unrest, such as the ‘yellow-vest’ protests in France and the US ‘Abolish the Super-Rich’ campaign, is not against inequality per se, but reflects perceptions of changing inequalities. Most citizens resent inequalities when it is not only unacceptably high, but also rising.

Anis Chowdhury

Even in the most egalitarian society, not everyone has the same income or wealth. Some inequality is widely considered inevitable, or even desirable to incentivize effort. But even excessive inequality is widely seen as fundamentally unfair. Even President Obama described “dangerous and growing inequality” as “the defining challenge of our time”.

Take the case of two people in a country in 1980, one with an income of $1 daily and the other $10. Let us say that the first person’s daily income is now $10, while the second person gets $100. Even though both incomes have increased by the same percentage, and ‘relative’ inequality between them has remained the same, ‘absolute’ inequality has gone up from $9 to $90.

Inequality in historical perspective
Deidre McCloskey claims ‘the Great Enrichment’ over the last two centuries has seen per capita incomes rise ten-fold, benefiting most, if not all. In response, Jason Hickel has exposed the Great Enrichment’s slavery, colonization and violent displacement of indigenous peoples.

A study found that “today’s global income inequality levels are much higher than they were in 1820, irrespective if measured in absolute or in relative terms.”

Relative within-country inequality in 1929 was similar to 1820, decreasing during 1950-1970, before rising from 1975. Globally, except during 1929-1950, absolute within-country inequality increased continuously, with large increases after 1950, growing faster after 1970.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) research found that both relative and absolute inequality increased substantially in North America, Europe, Central Asia, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa during 1975–2010. But while absolute inequality also rose in Latin America and East Asia, relative inequality fell.

The World Inequality Report 2018 revealed that the world’s richest 1% obtained 27% of global income between 1980 and 2016. By contrast, the bottom half got only 12%. Today, more than half of humanity still lives on US$7.40 a day or less, barely adequate for a decent life.

Oxfam’s Reward Work, Not Wealth reported that 82% of the wealth created in 2016 went to the world’s richest 1%, while the 3.7 billion people in the poorer half of humanity got next to nothing. Oxfam notes elsewhere that now, “seven out of 10 people live in countries in which the gap between rich and poor is greater than it was 30 years ago”.

The recent period has seen the biggest increase of billionaires in history, with a new one every two days, while billionaire wealth increased by US$762 billion in the year to March 2017, an increase which could end global extreme poverty seven times over if well spent.

Rising inequality’s implications
Studying long-term data, Nobel laureate Simon Kuznets suggested that economic development first raises and then lowers income inequality with the shift from agriculture, presumed to be characterized by modest income disparities, to industry, with larger income gaps.

However, the experiences of East Asian economies during their early phase of industrialization challenged Kuznets’ hypothesis. These economies grew quickly from the 1960s to the 1980s, without inequality rising. More recently, progressive redistribution lowered inequality and accelerated growth during the 2003-2011 Latin American economic boom.

Kuznets’ hypothesis also implied that rising inequality is desirable because the rich save more of their additional income than the poor. Hence, income distribution favouring the rich should lead to more savings and investments, propelling growth.

But land reforms in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan reduced inequality, enabling growth to take off. Meanwhile, over the centuries, high inequality in much of Latin America and the Caribbean – associated with colonialism, slavery and land ownership – has undermined growth.

‘Inclusive’ inequality?
Today, inequality is supposedly more ‘inclusive’, with a growing global middle class even as national inequalities rise. Others term it ‘positive-sum wealth production’, typically contrasted with ‘zero-sum wealth extraction’.

Advocates decry “the perception that billionaires make money for themselves at the expense of the wider population”, attributing their fortunes to successful investments, while highlighting their philanthropy and patronage of the arts, culture and sports.

Rutger Bregman – who chided billionaires at the 2019 Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) for avoiding tax – has argued that societies should not rely on the generosity of the rich. “Philanthropy is not a substitute for democracy or proper taxation or a good welfare state.”

Ambiguous politics of inequality
High and rising inequality is bad for sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. As the 2018 World Inequality Report warned, “if rising inequality is not properly monitored and addressed, it can lead to various sorts of political, economic, and social catastrophes”.

Some of history’s greatest thinkers – e.g., Plato and Aristotle – and classical economists – such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx – have emphasized the adverse effects of inequality on the social fabric. High and rising inequality is not only socially unfair, but negatively impacts political stability, crime and corruption, even undermining democracy.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz contends that economic inequality “translates into political inequality, which leads to rules that favour the wealthy, which in turn reinforces economic inequality”; rising inequality inevitably subverts democracy.

As Farhad Manjoo writes, extreme wealth “buys political power, it silences dissent, it serves primarily to perpetuate ever-greater wealth, often unrelated to any reciprocal social good.”

A recent Oxfam study has shown the many ways Latin American politics has been captured by the super-rich, with substantial financial backing for many new ethno-populist, racist and intolerant religious leaders.

The growing sense of vulnerability of many working people and seeming irrelevance of elitist social democrats have contributed to rising jingoist ethno-populisms in the rich West and elsewhere, blaming foreigners and other ‘outsiders’ for their problems.

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Credit: IPS

By Manuel Barange
ROME, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

This is a question we need to ask ourselves but before answering we need to acknowledge the diversity of expectations and aspirations that we all have for oceans, which cover more than two-thirds of the planet’s surface.

We all need to eat, and food does not come out of a magician’s hat. It has to be harvested on land or in water, in ways that almost always imply a level of transformation of the wild environment. Agreeing on the trade-offs so that food provision is secured for current and future generations is the panacea we all search for.

According to FAO 60 percent of all exploited fish stocks are at levels that produce their maximum yield. This is the level that countries would like all exploited fish stocks to be, as agreed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and many other international agreements. The problem is that 33 percent of fish stocks are overfished, and thus capable of producing more if they were allowed to rebuild to the appropriate biomass, while a further 7 percent of those assessed are underfished – this means that just like a forest where the trees are too close together, they would need to be fished further to ensure they produce to their full potential.

Maximizing the sustainable exploitation of our fish resources has broader considerations. 35 percent of the planet’s land surface is already devoted to agriculture, using 70 percent of all the water humans use. Land ecosystems may bear a heavy toll if demanded alone to support the 60 percent more food required to feed our growing population by 2050, So let’s ask again, what do we want from our oceans?

Sustainability is critical. FAO notes that overexploitation of fisheries is worsening in developing regions, where poverty, hunger, and inadequate investments in fisheries management systems are making things worse. In contrast, it is dramatically improving in developed regions: 91 percent of fish stocks in the United States of America are not subject to overfishing, in Australia it is 83 percent, while the reduction in fishing pressure in Europe’s Atlantic waters since 2002 has resulted in the majority of fish stocks now being fished sustainably.

With political will to support data collection, policy development, management programmes and enforcement, fisheries management can be highly effective. Without shoring these up, ocean protection will become more difficult to deliver, as will feeding the world.

We must not forget climate change, the greatest challenge of our time, and its impacts on the supply and composition of food from our ocean.

The best assessment is that maximum catch potential in the world’s fisheries are projected to decline by between 2.3 and 12.1 percent by 2050, depending on the effectiveness of greenhouse gas mitigation efforts. But that global projection obscures something we know: that the most detrimental effects are expected to happen in the tropics and in small Pacific Island states, home to some of the world’s poorest and most fish-dependent communities, and where fishing rules are patchily enforced.

As many fish species are free to migrate, ocean warming will trigger a number of distributional shifts and cause ecosystem reorganizations, some of which can lead to very negative outcomes. When lionfish moved into the Caribbean, they provoked a sharp decline in native fish populations that were the customary targets of local communities. Lionfish are now in the Mediterranean, where they prosper thanks to overfishing of a potential rival, the grouper. As species move, fisheries management systems will have to adapt and evolve. This will increasingly entail negotiations between countries to deal with resources that cross or straddle national jurisdictions, as well as adaptable fishing fleets and strategies. Hands-off initiatives such as marine-protected areas have little impact on rising temperature and acidification levels and may not boost stocks as much as hoped. We should pursue very hands-on strategies. This means more and better management, not less.

Consumers will also help make the ocean sustainable by adjusting culinary preferences. Anchovies and red mullets, beloved in the Mediterranean, are proving a hard sell in Britain, where they are increasingly available. The namesake fish of Cape Cod, an elite resort in the U.S., is now imported from Iceland while locally caught dogfish struggles for recognition and ends up exported – all while the main difference for customers is the name.

It is imperative to embrace -– as many cultures have – an open mind about what is edible. And that too is eminently possible; consider how North American lobsters evolved from “trash” fed to prisoners to an icon of upscale dining. In particular, we should foster appreciation of smaller fish, which are particularly big sources of micronutrients that paradoxically are often in short supply in the tropical countries that export them.

One shorthand way to achieve a better and acceptable vision of the role of the oceans as a provider of food is to consider fisheries as part of the global food system and incorporate them into coherent strategies. Once again, optimizing the required trade-offs means more and better management, not less.

Beyond capture fisheries, it’s evident that aquaculture – the fastest growing food production system over the past half a century – is a strategic and promising tool. Aquaculture fosters smart use of animals lower in the food chain, and while largely an inland activity also accounts for more than one-fourth of the fish oceans provide us.

These and related issues will be discussed at a four-day high-level international symposium hosted by FAO, and lie at the core of negotiations to take place at COP25, the UN Climate Change Conference in Spain in December.

There are an estimated 821 million undernourished people in the world today, a figure that increased in the last four years. To change this trend, we will need all the tools in our toolbox. The ocean, occupying 71 percent of the planet’s surface, provides just two percent of our calorie intake. We will not make hunger history without changing this ratio. Appropriate recognition of what the ocean can do for us should help us focus our time, money and ideas with the clarity that the challenge demands.

The author is Director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

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Credit: UNICEF

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

The greatest single climate-induced threat facing the world’s 44 small island developing states (SIDS) is rising sea waters which could obliterate some of the low-lying states, including Maldives, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Palau and Micronesia.

The Marshall Islands alone, says the UN, has seen more than a third of its population move abroad in the last 15-20 years. Many have moved for work, healthcare and education – but climate change is now threatening those who have chosen to stay.

At the Conference of Parties (COP25) on climate change in Madrid December 2, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointedly warned that rising sea levels were twice as deadly today as it was many moons ago: while oceans are rising, he said, they are also being poisoned.

“Oceans absorb more than a quarter of all CO2 in the atmosphere and generate more than half our oxygen. Absorbing more and more carbon dioxide acidifies the oceans and threatens all life within them”, he added.

But bigger cities have not been spared either.

In an article titled “Warming Ocean Waters Have Fish on the Move”, The New York Times reported December 2 that Iceland, whose economy has depended largely on commercial fishing, has discovered that warming waters associated with climate change are causing some fish to seek cooler waters elsewhere beyond the reach of Icelandic fishermen.

Pointing out the hazards of climate change, Guterres says ice caps are melting. And in Greenland alone, 179 billion tonnes of ice melted in July. Permafrost in the Arctic is thawing 70 years ahead of projections. And Antarctica is melting three times as fast as a decade ago, he told delegates at COP25 which is scheduled to conclude December 13.

But there are two proposals before the UN, both aimed primarily at safeguarding the high seas: a Global Network of Ocean Sanctuaries and a Global Ocean Treaty.

Scientific expeditions in recent years have revealed that the high seas, 200 nautical miles from coastal shores, harbor an incredible array of species that provide essential services for life on Earth. Credit: The Pew Charitable Trusts

Louisa Casson, an Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace UK, told IPS that scientists and governments have coalesced around the concept of a global network of fully protected ocean sanctuaries, covering at least 30% of the world’s ocean.

The creation of this network is not just realistic, but of fundamental importance to the health of our planet, she said.

A new report, “Greenpeace’s 30×30: A Blueprint for Ocean Protection” authored in collaboration with the Universities of York and Oxford, sets out a scientifically robust and clear vision for a global network of ocean sanctuaries, totally off limits to human exploitation, which would give oceans and the wildlife that calls it home the space needed to recover and thrive.

To deliver this network, she said, governments at the United Nations must agree on a strong new Global Ocean Treaty in 2020.

“This treaty would help fix the currently broken system of ocean governance, which has allowed our ocean to be exploited to the brink of collapse.”

Such a treaty, she said, would provide a clear legal duty and process for nations to protect and restore ocean health through a network of sanctuaries, and set out a robust institutional framework for creating and effectively managing the network through a Conference of the Parties.

A new treaty should also provide clear enforcement obligations for all governments, and monitoring and review mechanisms to ensure the treaty is being properly implemented by all, said Casson.

The world’s high seas, which extend beyond 200 nautical miles, are deemed “international waters” to be shared globally– but they remain largely ungoverned justifying the need for a new treaty.

The world’s oceans have steadily undergone environmental destruction, including illegal fishing and overfishing, plastics pollutions, indiscriminate sea bed mining and degradation of marine eco systems.

Dr Palitha Kohona, a former co-chair of the ‘U.N. Working Group on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity Beyond Areas of National Jurisdiction’, told IPS the concept of ocean sanctuaries and protected areas has been on the table for some time.

He said it is high on the agenda of Western NGOs and many European countries.

And there is a historic compromise in place between the Group of 77 developing countries (G77) and the European Union (EU) on the outlines of this concept and benefit sharing, he noted.

“Properly identified and policed, ocean sanctuaries and marine protected areas (MPAs) will help to protect the habitat of identified species and the breeding grounds of diverse marine life forms which took millions of years to evolve,” he said.

It is hoped that agreement on these will at least help to arrest the decline in the number of marine species, said Dr Kohona a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations.

However, a longstanding demand for benefit sharing by developing countries also needs accommodation. A compromise can be achieved. There are precedents which can be adapted, he said.

Biological diversity in the oceans could very well provide the impetus for the next wave of innovations in the pharmaceutical industry and the developing world is acutely conscious of being excluded from it benefits.

“We know that species extinction is occurring at an unprecedented pace, including in the seas and oceans. Global warming is contributing substantially to this phenomenon”.

At the same time, species adaptation to changing weather and climate factors is threatening the livelihood of millions who depend on the oceans and seas for their living.

He said fish swim away from familiar habitats to areas where the temperature is more conducive to their existence.

Attempts to arrest global warming have received storms of verbal support but not much by way of practical action. Some in positions of power have even challenged the overwhelming scientific view in order to cultivate uninformed electoral support, he noted.

“At COP 25 in Madrid, we need to encourage thinking that would balance economic consolidation and advancement and the conservation of the environment for our children. Our future must not be left to whims of those who thrive in ignorance,” he declared.

Casson pointed out there is wide agreement on the need for a new Global Ocean Treaty.

However, governments have been negotiating on a new treaty for years now, and as industrial vested interests step up their lobbying there is a serious risk of the treaty failing to change the status quo, leaving governments unable to deliver effective ocean protection.

She said governments that are truly supportive of proper marine protection must step up when the United Nations meets next year, and fight for the strongest Global Ocean Treaty possible.

“Without a robust new treaty, the ocean crisis will only worsen, which will have wide implications for our planet’s health and for all of humanity,” she warned.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has proclaimed a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) to support efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health.

The marine realm, says the UN, is the largest component of the Earth’s system that stabilizes climate and support life on Earth and human well-being.

The impact of multiple stressors on the ocean is projected to increase as the human population grows towards the expected 9 billion by 2050.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Russia Ambassador Dmitry Maksimychev with WFP in April 2019. Credit: WFP

By PRESS RELEASE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 3 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The Government of Russia has announced a voluntary contribution of 1 million US Dollars to the World Food Programme of the United Nations for food assistance to Kenya. WFP will coordinate with the Kenyan authorities the distribution of food supplies to reach families most in need of assistance.

“This support is an expression of solidarity of the Russian people with the people of Kenya. It will contribute to the achievement by Kenya of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Government of Kenya’s Big Four Agenda in food security,” said the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Kenya Dmitry Maksimychev. It also reflects the spirit of the recent Russia – Africa Summit, he added.

H.E. Amb. Macharia Kamau, Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kenya, said: “Kenya welcomes the cooperation and support of the Russian Federation. And particularly that this support and cooperation is in line with the Big Four priorities of the President targeting food security. This especially welcome given that it came so soon after the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, which President Kenyatta attended”.

The current floods have amplified the effects of drought experienced in the earlier part of the year, which affected at least ten counties, mostly in northern and North-eastern Kenya and rendered about 3,1 million people food insecure.

“I would like to deeply appreciate the Government of Russia for this support to the people of Kenya through the United Nations World Food Programme. We stand with the people of Kenya and remain committed to relieving those suffering from hunger,” said UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee when receiving the announcement from the Ambassador of Russia. He further said that in this age, no Kenyan should suffer from hunger and pledged that the UN Kenya Country Team will continue to deliver as one support the government and all its partners to transform the county into a food-basket for the region and the world.

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Rohingya after they fled Myanmar in 2017 arrive at Shahparir Dip in Teknaf, Bangladesh. On Nov. 11, the Gambia filed a lawsuit against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice for the southeast asian country’s atrocities against the Rohingya population. Credit: IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 3 2019 (IPS)

On Nov. 11, the Gambia filed a lawsuit against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice for the southeast asian country’s atrocities against the Rohingya population. 

Over the past years, hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh for refuge, sparking one of the more dire refugee crises of the decade. They continue to remain in camps in Bangladesh, where they are vulnerable to human trafficking and other forms of violence.

Even though the crisis has been ongoing for decades, it’s a crucial time for the lawsuit to be filed, advocates say. And the Rohingya people’s continuing refusal to go back is only testament to the lack of security for them in Myanmar. 

“No one has been held accountable,” Akila Radhakrishnan, President of Global Justice Center (GJC), told IPS. “It’s the same forces [that] remain in Rakhine state, they remain kind of [as a] part of the military with no punishment. There’s no feeling that there’s safety and security to go back to Myanmar.”

Radhakrishnan pointed out that even though the lawsuit may be “far away” from when the crisis began, the continued fear of Rohingyas to return to their home shows how deeply the crisis persists. 

“I think there’s a recognition of the impossibility of the return of the Rohingya, a solution to the humanitarian crisis,” she said, adding that the lawsuit will push for the Myanmar government to take actions that focus on changing the laws and policies that enabled the genocide. 

The lawsuit by the Gambia is supported in large part by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and is being led by Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Gambia Abubacarr M Tambadou, who decided to pursue actions after a recent visit to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, a region where about 900,000 Rohingya refugees are living in camps in that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has termed the world’s biggest refugee camp. 

Tambadou, who also worked to bring justice for the case of the Rwandan genocide, immediately recognised a similar pattern and was moved to take action, he said during an event held during U.N. General Assembly in September. 

One of the key things being asked in the lawsuit is the request for provisional measures that would require the Myanmar government, on a basis of “extreme urgency”, to set a hearing date for Myanmar government to “restrain certain conduct” by Myanmar that’s enabling the genocide, Paul Reichler, head of Foley Hoag, the law firm leading the lawsuit, explained to IPS. 

“When you file a suit, you want to make sure the very object of the suit is not destroyed while the case is pending in court,” he explained. “The Gambia will be asking the court to order Myanmar to cease all acts of genocide against the Rohingya.”

But a challenge remains here: how can Myanmar stop actions they don’t acknowledge as genocide denial? 

“The court may wish to define what kind of acts should be stopped so the order makes clear what Myanmar is prohibited from doing,” Reichler said. “[The] main thing we’re asking for is final judgment…in the interim to prevent further irreparable harm.” 

In case Myanmar does not comply with the requirements of the lawsuit, Reichler says the court can take further actions or the international community “can react with political measures”. 

Within a few days of the lawsuit being filed by the Gambia, a lawsuit was filed by Argentina against leaders in Myanmar, including Aung San Suu Kyi, who is the first Nobel peace laureate to face such legal charges.  

Suu Kyi, however, has not budged from her position. She continues to justify the torture of Rohingyas while branding them as “terrorists” owing to a 2017 attack that sparked the most recent exodus. 

In the aftermath of the lawsuit, her government has set up a legal unit while she aims to lead the country’s defence at the ICJ, with a hearing expected on Dec. 10.  

“Aung San Suu Kyi and the civilian government failed to act against genocide in Rakhine State with any level of urgency and have taken no steps to hold the military to account,” Radhakrishnan said in a statement for Suu Kyi’s announcement.

“Now, they are going to defend the military and government’s genocidal actions on one of the world’s largest and most influential stages. The international community should no longer have illusions where Suu Kyi and the civilian government stand and must act to support the Gambia and take other measures to hold Myanmar accountable.”

Related Articles

• Little Hope of Justice for Rohingya, Two Years after Exodus
• With Poor Human Rights Record, Repatriation Not Possible
• Damning U.N. Report Outlines Crimes Against Rohingya As Children Suffer from Trauma One Year Later

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By External Source
MADRID, Dec 2 2019 (IPS)

A green economy is “not one to be feared but an opportunity to be embraced”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, in a keynote speech to delegates at the opening of the COP25 UN climate conference in Madrid on Monday.

The tasks are many, timelines are tight, every item is important

Mr. Guterres outlined the work programme for what will be a busy two-week event covering multiple aspects of the climate crisis, including capacity-building, deforestation, indigenous peoples, cities, finance, technology, and gender. “The tasks are many”, he said, “our timelines are tight, and every item is important”.

“Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

The conference must convey a firm determination to change course, demonstrate that the world is seriously committed to stopping the “war against nature”, and has the political will to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, he continued.

COP25 marks the beginning of a 12 month process to review countries’ “Nationally Determined Contributions” or NDCs (the commitments made under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement), and ensure that they are ambitious enough to defeat the climate emergency.

 

Overcome divisions, put a price on carbon

Encouraging signs of progress, noted Mr. Guterres, came out of the UN’s Climate Action Summit, held in September, which saw initiatives proposed by small island nations and least-developed countries, major cities and regional economies, as well as the private and financial sectors.

The stated intention of some 70 countries to submit enhanced NDCs in 2020 – with 65 countries and major economies committing to work for net zero emissions by 2050 – while governments and investors are backing away from fossil fuels, were also cited as positive signs.

The UN chief called for leaders to end division over climate change, and reach consensus on carbon pricing, a crucial tool for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Doing so, he said, will “get markets up and running, mobilize the private sector, and ensure that the rules are the same for everyone.”

 

Is this the generation that ‘fiddled while the planet burned?’

However, failing to decide on a price for carbon will, warned Mr. Guterres, risk fragmenting the carbon markets, sending a negative message that can undermine efforts to solve the climate crisis.

Throughout his speech, the Secretary-General was crystal clear about the urgent, existential level of the climate crisis. Failure to act, he said, will be the path of surrender: “Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

The signs of potential disaster are unmissable, he declared. For example, the current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is comparable to that seen between 3 and 5 million years ago, when the temperature was between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius warmer than now and sea levels were 10 to 20 metres higher than today.

Other indicators include the fact that the last five years have been the hottest on record, and have seen extreme weather events and associated disasters, from hurricanes to drought to floods to wildfires. Ice caps are melting at a rapid rate, sea levels are rising, and oceans are acidifying, threatening all marine life.

Meanwhile, coal plants continue to be planned and built, and large, important parts of the global economy – from agriculture to transportation, from urban planning and construction to cement, steel and other carbon-intensive industries – are still run in ways that are unsustainable.

“There is no time and no reason to delay”, concluded Mr. Guterres. “We have the tools, we have the science, we have the resources. Let us show we also have the political will that people demand from us. To do anything less will be a betrayal of our entire human family and all the generations to come”.

 

Time for politicians to lead, not follow

Speaking at a roundtable with Heads of State and government attending COP25, Mr. Guterres urged them to lead, and not follow, at a time when public opinion over the environment is evolving very quickly, and cities, regions and the business community are taking action to tackle the climate crisis.

The Secretary-General reminded them that at the recent G20 meeting of the world’s leading economies in Osaka, a group of asset management companies, representing some $34 trillion dollars had asked political leaders to enhance climate action, end subsidies to fossil fuels, and put a price on carbon.

The private sector, he added, is increasingly demonstrating a strong commitment to move forward, and complaining that it’s governments who are lagging behind: regulation is inadequate, fiscal systems are not favourable, subsidies are still going to fossil fuels, and companies face obstacles to climate action.

With a head of steam building for action, it is for political leaders to “to be able to take profit of this movement and to lead, for us to be able to defeat climate change”.

 

Climate crisis mostly affecting ‘those least responsible for it’

The Secretary-General also addressed a forum of “climate vulnerable” countries, where he pointed out the “great injustice” of climate change: its effects fall most on those least responsible for it.

He cited examples, including Mozambique and the Caribbean, ravaged by storms that cause devastation, in terms of lives lost, communities uprooted, and economies crippled; and drought in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

Nevertheless, some of the most vulnerable nations are in the forefront of climate action, showing leadership at September’s Climate Action Summit: Mr. Guterres expressed his hope that their example will be followed by the world’s big emitters.

 

This story was originally published by UN News

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Family photo at the opening of the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) on climate change, taking place in Madrid Dec. 2 to 13. Credit: UNFCCC

By Emilio Godoy
MADRID, Dec 2 2019 (IPS)

Tens of thousands of delegates from state parties began working Monday Dec. 2 in the Spanish capital to pave the way to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change, while at a parallel summit, representatives of civil society demanded that the international community go further.

Calls to combat the climate emergency marked the opening of the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in light of the most recent scientific data showing the severity of the crisis, as reflected by more intense storms, rising temperatures and sea levels, and polar melting.

Pedro Sánchez, acting prime minister of Spain – selected as the emergency host country after the political crisis in Chile forced the relocation of the summit – called during the opening ceremony for Europe to lead the decarbonisation of the economy and move faster to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the greenhouse gas generated by human activities.

“Today, fortunately, only a handful of fanatics deny the evidence” about the climate emergency, Sánchez said at the opening of the COP, held under the motto “Time to act” at the Feria de Madrid Institute (IFEMA) fairgrounds.

COP25 is the third consecutive climate conference held in Europe. The agenda focuses on issues such as financing for national climate policies and the rules for emission reduction markets – outlined without specifics in the Paris Agreement, which was agreed four years ago and is to enter into force in 2020.

It will also address the preparation of the update of emissions reductions and funding of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, designed to assist regions particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

In the 1,000 square metres where COP25 is being held, 29,000 people – according to estimates by the organisers – including some 50 heads of state and government, representatives of the 196 official delegations and civil society organisations, as well as 1,500 accredited journalists, will gather until Dec. 13.

But the notable absence of U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not give cause for optimism.

These include the leaders of the countries that produce the most greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making their lack of interest in strengthening the Paris Agreement more serious.

On Nov. 4, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he submitted a formal notice to the United Nations to begin the process of pulling out of the climate accord.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said during the opening ceremony that “The latest, just-released data from the World Meteorological Organisation show that levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached another new record high.

“Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

In its Emissions Gap Report 2019, the U.N. Environment Programme warned on the eve of the opening of COP25 of the need to cut emissions by 7.6 percent a year between 2020 and 2030 in order to stay within the 1.5 degree Celsius cap on temperature rise proposed in the Paris Agreement.

Many delegations admitted that the world is off track to achieving the proposed 45 percent reduction in GHG by 2030 and to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

In fact, delegates pointed out on Monday, emissions reached an alarming 55.3 billion tons in 2018, including deforestation.

One of the hopes is that more countries, cities, companies and investment funds will join the Climate Ambition Alliance, launched by Chile, the country that still holds the presidency of the COP, and endorsed by at least 66 nations, 10 regions, 102 cities, 93 corporations and 12 large private investors.

More than 70 countries and 100 cities so far have committed to reaching zero net emissions by 2050.

Social summit

Parallel to the official meeting, organisations from around the world are gathered at the Social Summit for Climate under the slogan “Beyond COP25: People for Climate”, which in its statement to the conference criticises the economic model based on the extraction of natural resources and mass consumption, blaming it for the climate crisis, and complaining about the lack of results in the UNFCCC meetings.

“The scientific diagnosis is clear regarding the seriousness and urgency of the moment. Economic growth happens at the expense of the most vulnerable people,” says the statement, which defends climate justice “as the backbone of the social fights of our time” and “the broadest umbrella that exists to protect all the diversity of struggles for another possible world.”

The first week of the COP is expected to see the arrival of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who has unleashed youth mobilisation against the climate crisis around the world.

In terms of how well countries are complying, only Gabon and Nepal have met their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the mitigation and adaptation measures voluntarily adopted, within the Paris Agreement, to keep the temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

But these two countries have practically no responsibility for the climate emergency.

The plans of Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia and the Philippines involve an increase of up to 2.0 degrees, while the measures of the rest of the countries range from “insufficient” to “critically insufficient”.

Latin America “has to be more ambitious: although progress has been made, the measures are insufficient. We need a multilateral response to the emergency. We have only 11 years to correct the course and thus reach carbon neutrality in 2050 and meet the goal of keeping the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, global head of Climate and Energy at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The Marshall Islands already submitted their NDCs 2020, while 41 nations have declared their intention to update their voluntary measures and 68 nations – including those of the European Union – have stated that they plan to further cut emissions.

In its position regarding the COP25, consulted by IPS, Mexico outlined 10 priorities, including voluntary cooperation, adaptation, climate financing, gender and climate change, local communities and indigenous peoples.

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Climate change effects, such as extreme weather events, drive up environmental remediation costs. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Farhana Haque Rahman
ROME, Dec 2 2019 (IPS)

Mass public pressure backed by the weight of scientific reports is starting to bring governments to their senses as the annual UN climate summit kicks off in Madrid today.

But despite warnings that the planet is reaching critical tipping points, the two weeks of talks with nearly 30,000 participants and dozens of heads of government attending may still end in that familiar sense of disappointment and an opportunity missed.

The annual Conference of the Parties, this year being COP25, was to have been a highly arcane if crucial process of finding agreement on carbon markets, known in the jargon as Article 6 of the ‘rulebook’ to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement on stopping the planet from overheating.

Highly contentious, and in part pitting developing countries like Brazil, China and India against others, the Article 6 debate could not be resolved at last year’s summit – COP24 in Katowice, Poland – nor at meetings in Bonn in June and hence was left for COP25 to try and fix. The other big elephant in the room – setting more ambitious national targets to reduce carbon emissions – was conveniently going to be left to be settled at next year’s COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.

But action is needed now, and senior officials representing nearly 200 countries have been put on notice that the climate emergency in all its forms is dominating the public sphere across the world. Just last week we saw student-led demonstrations and strikes in many places that appropriately fell on Black Friday, delivering a broadside against rampant consumerism as well as government inaction.

Farhana Haque Rahman

“Striking is not a choice we relish; we do it because we see no other options,” youth leaders Greta Thunberg of Sweden, Luisa Neubauer of Germany and Angela Valenzuela of Chile declared in a joint statement.

“We have watched a string of United Nations climate conferences unfold. Countless negotiations have produced much-hyped but ultimately empty commitments from the world’s governments—the same governments that allow fossil fuel companies to drill for ever-more oil and gas, and burn away our futures for their profit.”

UN Secretary General António Guterres has told COP25 that “the point of no return is no longer over the horizon”.

“In the crucial 12 months ahead, it is essential that we secure more ambitious national commitments – particularly from the main emitters – to immediately start reducing greenhouse gas emissions at a pace consistent to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. We simply have to stop digging and drilling and take advantage of the vast possibilities offered by renewable energy and nature-based solutions,” Guterres said.

Just last month the UN Environment Programme’s annual Emissions Gap Report warned that the Paris Agreement ambition of keeping average temperatures within 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times was “on the brink of becoming impossible”.

Global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 would have to be under 25 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to reach that target but, at current rates of growth, emissions are projected to reach more than double that level. Clearly drastic action is needed.

Reinforcing the sense of emergency, the World Meteorological Organization reported that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases reached new record highs in 2018. China is the world’s largest emitter.

Spain stepped in to offer Madrid as a venue for COP25 after Chile withdrew as host because of mass anti-government unrest. However Chile is still leading the conference and together with Spain will be pushing countries to act quickly to raise the ambition of their carbon emission reduction targets. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says the goal is for “the largest number of countries” to commit to net zero emissions by 2050.

From 2020 to 2030, emissions must be cut 7.6% a year to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal, the UNEP says.

However the main negotiation process in Madrid is expected to focus on the unfinished business of the market-based mechanisms to create and manage new carbon markets under the Paris Agreement. This would allow countries and industries to earn credits for above-target emission reductions that can then be traded. Big developing countries have already accumulated huge amounts of carbon credits under the previous but now largely discredited carbon credit scheme. It is a highly complex tangle of interests.

Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate website, says the Article 6 debate has the potential to “make or break” implementation of the Paris Agreement which comes into force next year.

“To its proponents, Article 6 offers a path to significantly raising climate ambition or lowering costs, while engaging the private sector and spreading finance, technology and expertise into new areas. To its critics, it risks fatally undermining the ambition of the Paris Agreement at a time when there is clear evidence of the need to go further and faster to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” Carbon Brief explains.

While Article 6 is a highly technical area, the underlying issues are political, with some countries forming unofficial alliances to defend their own interests rather than the common good of the planet. But politicians have been put on notice that this time the world’s public is watching closely. Horse-trading cannot be allowed to put our futures at risk.

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Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

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The post Care for Economic Development, Then Care for Food Nutrition, Food Researcher Tells Africa’s Politicians appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Inter Press Service (IPS) journalist Busani Bafana sat down with Busi Maziya-Dixon, a Senior Food and Nutrition Scientist at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) ahead of the 10th International Forum on Food and Nutrition. Maziya-Dixon warns there is no country which will achieve economic development with an undernourished population.

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In Africa, climate change has caused drought, change in distribution of rainfall, the drying-up of rivers. Intense flooding causes landslides and in Kenya, residents of West Pokot County are currently grappling with with the deaths of 50 people who were last week buried alive by landslides following heavy rainfall that continues to pound the East African region. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADRID, Dec 2 2019 (IPS)

During the 25th round of climate change negotiations starting today in Madrid, Spain, African civil society organisations will call on governments from both developing and developed nations to play their promised roles in combating climate change.

“We’re fatigued by COP [Conference of Parties] jamborees which have become a ritual every year,” said Dr Mithika Mwenda of the Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) – an umbrella organisation that brings together over 1,000 African climate and environment civil society organisations.

“We know the science is clear about the level [in which] we need to act, yet we procrastinate and prevaricate while maintaining our profligate lifestyles,” he told IPS in an interview.

The 25th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP 25) comes a week after the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) released a report warning that unless global greenhouse gas emissions fall by 7.6 percent each year between 2020 and 2030, the world will miss the opportunity to get on track towards the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement is an agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, France, where the world’s nations undertook a determined course to reduce climate change. Among the commitments was to reduce the increase in global temperatures.

The annual Emissions Gap Report, which was released on Nov. 26 warns that even if all current unconditional commitments under the Paris Agreement are implemented, temperatures are expected to rise by 3.2°C, bringing even wider-ranging and more destructive climate impacts.

“Any slight change in global temperatures can have a devastating effect on millions of livelihoods, and could expose people to life-threatening heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding,” said Dr Mohammed Said, a climate change research scientist based in Kenya.

According to his research in Kenya’s Arid and Semi Arid regions, people in counties that experienced increased temperatures in the past 50 years have suffered significant loss of livelihoods with some having to change their lifestyles altogether.

“In Turkana County for example, the temperatures increased by 1.8°C, and as a result, the cattle population declined by 60 percent, and now residents have been forced to turn to more resilient camels, goats and sheep,” he told IPS.

It is the same situation all over the world. A study published in Nature Climate Change points out that if global warming causes a rise of 1.5°C or 2°C, then there will be extremely hot summers across Australia, more frequent drought conditions and more frequent heat leading to bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

Another study by the United Kingdom’s Met Office reveals that the changing climate will make heat waves a common phenomena worldwide and even intense in the U.K..

In Africa, climate change has caused flooding, drought, change in the distribution of rainfall, and the drying up of rivers. It has affected agriculture, food security and human health. And it has also led to conflicts over resources, impacting national security in various countries.

In Kenya, residents of West Pokot County are currently grappling with the deaths of 50 people who were last week buried alive by landslides following heavy rainfall that continues to pound the East African region.

According to the Kenya Meteorological Department, the above-normal rainfall has been caused by sea surface temperature anomalies in the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans caused by global warming. Floods in the region, which have already displaced hundreds of households and have swept away bridges, roads and property, are expected to continue for the next three weeks, according to the meteorological focus.

However, Mwenda believes that all is not lost. He notes that though the Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) are inadequate to lead to emission levels required by science and justice, there is still hope that momentum building on their implementation won’t be compromised.

“We will not be tired of telling our leaders that the future generations will judge them harshly as they have failed to rise to the occasion even when science is very clear that we have exceeded planetary boundaries,” he said.

In order to address climate change adequately, civil society is also calling for a dedicated financial mechanism to be established in Madrid to support Loss and Damage with a clear agreement on new sources of finance.

During the 19th round of negotiations in Poland, the COP established the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (Loss and Damage Mechanism), to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

“As we head to Madrid, we expect that all countries will endeavour to deliver on ambitious commitments in climate finance, especially in regard to loss and damage, strong national targets, and clear rules on trading emissions between countries,” said Robert Bakiika, the Executive Director of EMLI Bwaise Facility, a Ugandan NGO and one of the admitted observer organisations at the UNFCCC.

Related Articles

• Parts of Kenya are Already Above 1.5˚C
• Extreme Floods, the Key to Climate Change Adaptation in Africa’s Drylands
• Let’s Walk the Talk to Defeat Climate Change – African Leaders Told

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