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President Tusk received the letters of credentials from two new ambassadors to the European Union.

European Council President Donald Tusk congratulated Krisjanis Karins on his appointment as Prime Minister of Latvia.

President Tusk received the letters of credentials from two new ambassadors to the European Union.

Ha a karácsony nem is volt fehér, azért január elején kaptunk elég havat. Ennek meg is lett a böjtje, ugyanis a komáromi kórház sebészeti ambulanciáján több beteget kezeltek mint egy átlagos napon. Most újra megérkezett a havazás. Szóval tessék vigyázni az utakon, járdákon!

Die Schweizer Wirtschaft brummt. Das hat Auswirkungen auf das Angebot an Büroflächen in den Städten. In Zürich etwa schrumpfte der Leerbestand erstmals seit der Finanzkrise.

Le Conseil d’État genevois a finalisé sa réorganisation. Il l’a imposée à Pierre Maudet qui ne conserve pratiquement plus que la Direction du développement économique.

Adrar-Info - L’état-major des armées a annoncé le décès de l’officier doyen des parachutistes mauritaniens El Ghassem Ould Sabar. À...

Überwachungskameras, Roboter aus dem 3D-Drucker und medizinische Implantate, die sich selbständig abbauen. Die ETH-Zürich zeigt am WEF, wie die Zukunft aussieht.

A Google blogposztban jelentette be, hogy milyen bővítményekkel bővítik a Gmail eszköztárát.

Bangladesh should align its many different plans and goals related to climate change for a greater impact. PHOTO: REUTERS

By Saleemul Huq
Jan 23 2019 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Bangladesh has a long tradition of national development planning under the aegis of the General Economics Division (GED) of the Planning Commission, through the seven Five Year Plans prepared since we became an independent country. Recently, there have been a number of additional types of planning which will need to be well-aligned if we wish to achieve our goal of becoming a climate-resilient country by 2030. Some of these require examination and we need to discuss ways to ensure their mutual alignment going forward.

The first and longest-term one is the recently approved Delta Plan that has a time horizon up to 2100. Only the Netherlands has drawn up such a long-term plan and Bangladesh is the second country in the world to do so. It is more of an aspirational evolution towards our future development rather than a detailed plan, as the normal five-year plans will still remain the overriding planning vehicle, with the next one being the 8th Five Year Plan (8FYP)—which will start from 2021 onwards.

The second vehicle is to the year 2041 which is a perspective plan that is supposed to earn Bangladesh the middle-income status over the next few decades. This will also need to be translated into five-year segments to feed into the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th Five Year Plans to be implemented over that time period.

Then we have a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which have a time horizon of 2030 to be achieved. These goals are global goals agreed at the level of the United Nations for all countries to implement at the national level, using common metrics to measure progress towards each of the 17 goals. In case of Bangladesh, all 17 SDGs have been mapped onto different lead ministries and support ministries for each goal by the Planning Commission. In addition, a high-powered monitoring unit has been set up at the prime minister’s office to track progress by each ministry for each of the 17 SDGs.

In addition to these development-oriented goals, there is also a goal on disaster risk reduction under the global Sendai Framework which each country is supposed to try to achieve disaster resilience by 2030. In case of Bangladesh, the lead for this is assigned to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (DMDR). There are also civil society and military allies and actors that are involved in the implementation of this plan.

Finally, there are two climate change related goals agreed globally under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to be achieved by 2030. The first goal—which is about mitigation—is to reduce emissions of Greenhouse Gases that cause climate change so that global temperatures are kept below 1.5 Degrees Centigrade by achieving 100 percent reliance on renewable energy in every country by 2050. The second goal is to achieve transformational adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change in every country in order to make them climate-resilient by 2030. In case of Bangladesh, we have a number of planning documents under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC).

The first is the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), first prepared in 2009 and now being updated to take it to 2030. There is another called the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that every country has to prepare to show how it will achieve the mitigation goal of the Paris Agreement. The Bangladesh NDC has pledged to reduce the national emissions of Greenhouse Gases by 5 percent by 2030, and if we get additional funding and technology, then we can reduce them by up to 15 percent. Finally, we are about to develop the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) which every developing country has to prepare to chart its objective of becoming climate-resilient by 2030.

In addition to these plans and goals, there are also others in different sectors, such as health, energy, agriculture, and water development, which are being developed by the respective ministries and departments.

It is clear from the above discussion that there is a lot of potential overlaps and lack of synergies unless these are addressed from the very beginning to ensure that each plan is well-aligned and linked, where necessary, to the other relevant plan(s). Also, it is imperative that the Five Year Plans should be the main vehicles into which all the others will be mainstreamed, starting with 8FYP which we will have to start developing very soon.

There are three overarching ways in which we can ensure that such synergies and mainstreaming is effectively achieved over the coming decades.

The first is to ensure that all the plans are aligned with each other while the 8FYP is started and developed. This is the responsibility of each ministry to liaise with the General Economics Division in the Planning Commission to ensure that the 8FYP receives inputs from all the other plans and goals. It is up to the GED to lead this process.

The second major action that has to take place is a very robust monitoring system for all the plans and goals cutting across the different sectors. This has already been put in place by the prime minister under her own direction with a well-respected former civil servant in charge. This is indeed a very good development. In this connection, it will also be useful to add a section of academics and researchers so that in addition to simply monitoring progress, we also have genuine learning-by-doing to inform and improve future Five Year Plans after 8FYP.

Finally, it is important to recognise that one of the biggest differences between the past and the future of the country is the shift from public sources of investment to private sources and also for the private sector to implement most of the plans. Hence, the country will have to become better at ensuring a whole-of-society approach rather than just a whole-of-government one with regard to both the planning and implementation of all these tasks. Bangladesh would do well to ensure that we find synergies and alignments among all the different plans.

Saleemul Huq is Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB).
Email: Saleem.icccad@iub.edu.bd

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Aligning climate plans for a greater impact appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Auch 150 Millionen Dollar für ein Haus sind viel. Und doch hofft der Besitzer einer Luxusvilla in Los Angeles (USA), dass er zu diesem Preis endlich einen Käufer findet. Immerhin käme dieser in den Genuss von einem grossen Rabatt.

Im Fürstentum Liechtenstein haben am Mittwoch die Bevölkerung, die Politik und das Fürstenhaus mit den Feierlichkeiten zum 300 Jahre-Jubiläum begonnen. Der erste Tag war gleich einer der wichtigsten des Geburtstagsjahres.

Eine durch eine Strompanne verursachte unterirdische Explosion hat am Mittwoch in Genf bei den dortigen US-Behörden einen Sicherheitsalarm ausgelöst. Das US-Konsulat in der Rhonestadt wurde deshalb am Nachmittag geschlossen.

Szerencsére melltartót venni azért nem felejtett el.

Credit: Getty Images

By Chandra Bhushan
NEW DELHI, Jan 23 2019 (IPS)

As I was attending the 24th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—to create a rulebook to operationalise the Paris Agreement—in Katowice, Poland, it dawned on me, like never before, that the negotiations were taking place in a make-believe world.

There was a stark disconnect between what is required to contain the impacts of climate change and what representatives of 197 parties were trying to achieve.

The world is reeling under the effects of climate disasters. From Kerala to California, extreme weather events are killing people, destroying properties and businesses.

This, when the global temperature has only increased by 1.0°C from preindustrial levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C makes it clear that the impacts are going to be substantially higher at 1.5°C warming and catastrophic at 2.0°C.

The worst part is that most countries, including the US and the European Union, were not even on track to meet their meagre commitments to curb emissions.

So why is it that three years after the “historic” Paris Agreement was signed, the global collective effort is in tatters? The reason is the architecture of the Paris Agreement itself.

The Paris Agreement is a voluntary agreement in which countries are free to choose their own climate targets, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Developed countries and rich developing countries were expected to take higher emission reduction targets than poor developing countries.

But if a rich country doesn’t commit to a higher emissions cut, no one can demand a revision of targets. Worse, if a country fails to meet its NDCs, there is no penalty. The agreement, therefore, based on the goodwill of countries.
Herein lies the catch.

Since the beginning, climate negotiations have been viewed as an economic negotiation and not as an environmental negotiation. So, instead of cooperation, competition is the foundation of these negotiations. Worst still, the negotiations are viewed as a zero-sum game.

For instance, Donald Trump believes that reducing emissions will hurt the US economy and benefit China, so he has walked out of the Paris Agreement. China too believes in this viewpoint, and despite being the world’s largest polluter today, it has not yet committed to any absolute emissions cut.

The fact is every country is looking for its own narrow interest and not the larger interest of the whole world. They are, therefore, committing to as little climate targets as possible.

This is the Achilles heel of the Paris Agreement. This is the reason why the Paris Agreement will not be able meet its own goal of limiting global warming well below 2°C. The negotiations, however, are devoid of this realisation.

We need to understand that the interest of countries and the interest of the world are two sides of the same coin. Climate change demands countries cooperate and work together to reduce emissions.

But this can only happen if the climate change negotiations move from being a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game. Today, it is possible to make this changeover because reducing emissions and increasing economic growth are no more incompatible to each other.

Costs of technologies such as batteries, super-efficient appliances and smart grids are falling so rapidly that they are already competitive with fossil fuel technologies.

So the reason for countries to compete with each other for carbon budget is becoming immaterial. If countries cooperate, the cost of low and no-carbon technologies can be reduced at a much faster pace, which will benefit everyone.

The bottom line is negotiations cannot continue in a business-as-usual fashion. The time has come to devise new mechanisms for a meaningful international collaboration to fight climate change.

The link to the original article:
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/cop24-sum-and-substance-of-climate-diplomacy-62483

The post Sum & Substance of Climate Diplomacy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Bundespräsident Ueli Maurer hat den neuen brasilianischen Präsidenten Jair Bolsonaro am Weltwirtschaftsforum in Davos getroffen. Thema war dabei auch das für die Schweiz wichtige Freihandelsabkommen mit dem Mercosur.

The 1.9km structure spanning the River Gambia is set to revolutionise trade with Senegal.

A Szlovák Állami Vasutak (ŽSR) mellett működő szakszervezetek képviselői egyelőre nem egyeztek meg a vasúttársaság vezetésével a béremelésről. Erről Michal Lukáč, a ŽSR szóvivője tájékoztatott szerdán, miután véget ért a kollektív szerződésről szóló tárgyalások hatodik köre.

Sahara Medias - Le ministre mauritanien du pétrole, de l’énergie et des mines Mohamed O. Abdel Vetah a déclaré que l’accord...