boilingspot

Satellites key to global conservation: Ice caps, forests feed $2.1B market

2012-02-13T22:19:00.001+07:00

Brazilian deforestation and melting polar ice caps are feeding a boom in demand in the $2.1-billion market for satellite data, images and services used to monitor the planet

By Chiara Remondini And Alex Morales | Bloomberg in The Windsor Star | February 13, 2012

More images means more satellites and that need has spurred the development of the European Space Agency's Vega rocket, which is scheduled to lift off from Kourou, French Guiana, today to release nine satellites into orbit on its maiden flight.

"We're adding this smaller brother to our launchers as there is more and more demand for Earth observation," Franco Bonacina, a spokesman for the Paris-based ESA, said in an interview. "There is an increased need to keep an eye on the environment."

Data sales and value-added services from Earth-observation satellites may more than double to $4.5 billion in the decade ending 2020, according to Northern Sky Research. Part of the growth may come from tracking deforestation, which the UN says makes up 17 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate envoys have made reducing forestry emissions a crucial component of the global talks.

Vega was designed to place small satellites made for science and planet observation. Today's main payload is the Italian space agency ASI's LARES laser relativity satellite, which is designed to measure the Lense-Thirring effect, part of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. The next satellite launch, set for the end of the year or beginning of 2013, will be the Proba-V - where V stands for vegetation - to monitor tree coverage and forests, Bonacina said.

"The planet needs a checkup and satellites are the best instrument to pursue it," said Axel Oddone, head of multimission data access at e-GEOS. "Environmental monitoring has grown very strongly in the past few years, and I expect this trend to accelerate. Durban has contributed to an awakening on environmental issues among governments."

Brazil, home to the Amazon rainforest, uses satellites to detail how deforestation is driven and is open to helping other developing countries do likewise, Brazilian lead climate negotiator Ambassador Andre Correa do Lago said in an interview in Durban. "Satellite monitoring is key to the conservation of forests," he said.

By combining hundreds of images from satellite coverage with software analysis, experts can analyze patterns of deforestation down to a single tree and calculate the emissions resulting from removing trees that would otherwise sequester carbon dioxide.

Satellites also serve to step up surveillance of illegal logging, said Mark Brender, executive director of the GeoEye Foundation, a non-profit organization set up by GeoEye Inc.

"Satellites are like a silent watchman in space looking down on Earth," Brender said, citing a project to unveil rosewood trafficking and illegally sourced timber in Madagascar.

As well as monitoring deforestation, a cause of global warming, satellites are used to observe its effects. In the Arctic, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center uses orbiting instruments to track the declining sea ice. Satellites can also track glaciers, coastal erosion and ocean currents.

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

Japan OKs fresh support for Fukushima nuclear plant

2012-02-13T22:01:00.001+07:00

Japan's trade minister approved nearly $9 billion in additional support for Tokyo Electric Power Co to help compensate victims of the Fukushima nuclear crisis on Monday, but said the government would not go ahead with a plan to inject tax money into utility unless it got adequate management say

By Yoko Kubota | Reuters | Feb 12, 2012

The crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No.4 reactor building is seen after the removal of debris on the upper side of the unit in Fukushima prefecture, in this handout picture taken on January 5, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Tokyo Electric Power Co./Handout

The utility's Fukushima plant was wrecked by a quake and tsunami last March, triggering the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years and swamping the firm with huge cleanup, compensation and decommissioning costs as well as a big fossil fuel bill.

Aside from the added 690 billion yen ($8.9 billion) in compensation support from a state-backed fund, the government has been planning to inject about 1 trillion yen in taxpayers' money into the utility, also known as Tepco, in what would be one of the world's biggest bailouts outside the banking sector.

But Trade Minister Yukio Edano, who also holds the energy portfolio, told reporters the public fund injection would not go ahead unless the government got adequate voting rights.

"If Tepco submits a business plan seeking a capital injection (from the government) without sufficient voting rights relative to the size of injection, I have absolutely no plans to approve it as long as I am in this position ," Edano told Tepco President Toshio Nishizawa in front of reporters.

Tepco has already bowed to the inevitable and agreed to accept the 1 trillion yen in public funds and appears resigned to the government taking more than a one-third share, which would give it veto rights at shareholders meetings.

But the utility has been resisting the idea of the government taking a big say in its management.

GOVERNMENT TIGHTROPE

The government is walking a tightrope between the need to keep Tepco afloat so it can pay compensation to disaster victims and supply power, and a desire to avoid looking lax on the politically powerful utility, which many voters feel mishandled the nuclear crisis and perceive as an arrogant monopoly.

The Fukushima crisis has prompted Japan to scrap a plan to boost atomic power to more than half of electricity demand by 2030 from about 30 percent before the accident, and is working to craft a new energy policy by summer.

Edano has urged Tepco to explain a decision to raise rates for companies by an average 17 percent from April, a painful hike for firms already struggling with a strong yen.

"Tepco on the one hand is a very well-established private sector company and ... from a 'zaikai' (business circle) point of view is very important. But with everything that has happened, the public is very skeptical of Tepco's intentions, so the government has to tread very carefully," said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University.

The firm, which will announce its financial results for the nine months ended in December later in the day, expects to post a net loss of 580 billion yen in the year to March 31, Jiji news agency said.

The state-backed Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund, which including the latest tranche is providing 1.6 trillion yen to help Tepco compensate victims of the Fukushima disaster, is working with the utility to draft a business reconstruction plan to be unveiled in March.

The Fund is backed by public money plus contributions from nuclear power operators, and Tepco is required to pay back the support in coming years.

(Additional reporting by Kentaro Hamada and Mayumi Negishi; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing byEdwina Gibbs)

© 2012 THOMSON REUTERS

Out of the woods: Emissions from deforestation

2012-02-13T21:56:00.001+07:00

Forests are chock-full of carbon. Some three-quarters of the stuff on the Earth's surface lies trapped in leaves, branches, stems and roots. Two to three times more is buried in the soil but it is hard to dislodge

The Economist | Feb 12th 2012

Vegetal carbon, by contrast, is released into the atmosphere whenever woods are engulfed by fire, pests or tree-uprooting winds. Or humans: some experts reckon that deforestation accounts for as much as 17% of global manmade emissions. Others, though, put the figure at as little as 6%.

The discrepancy arises because the data for exactly how much carbon is stored in forests is inconclusive. The generally accepted measure, the United Nations' "Global Forest Resources Assessment", is calculated from figures about forest size reported by individual countries. But some countries do not undertake such inventories. Much of the data from those that do is outdated. And the original purpose of the inventories—to estimate how much timber could be commercially useful—means that not all types of wood are tallied. It is hard putting a number on the amount of carbon stored in forests when nobody is quite sure how much forest there is.

A new study from the Woods Hole Research Centre uses remote-sensing technology (along with old-fashioned fieldwork) to measure more accurately how much carbon is stored in tropical forests. Researchers trudge into a forest to measure trees in a 500 square metre plot. This data is used to calibrate a technique called light detection and ranging (lidar). Like its cousins radar and sonar, lidar, works by broadcasting electromagnetic waves towards a target and then building up a picture from the reflection. In the case of lidar, the waves are in the form of an infra-red laser beam sent from a satellite. As a result, fewer boots on the ground are needed.

The researchers put the total amount of carbon in tropical forests at 229 billion tonnes. This is 21% higher than UN's latest estimates. They also calculated that the net emission of carbon into the atmosphere thanks to tropical deforestation from 2001-10 amounts to 1 billion tonnes per year, 10% less than previously thought.

Crucially, the data allowed the researchers to chart tropical regions' carbon density in unprecendented detail on a large-scale map: each pixel corresponds to a square patch 500 metres on each side. It offers a picture of how carbon is distributed not just across different countries, but also across different types of flora. For example, nearly half of tropical Africa’s carbon turns out to be locked up in non-forest vegetation like shrublands or savannah.

These findings ought to help tropical countries to meet the reporting requirements set out in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. More importantly, they may have far-reaching consequences for efforts like a scheme under which developing countries would be paid not to cut down trees. The latest findings bolster the idea that this scheme, known as "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation", or REDD, should cover not just forests but other plant patches, too.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2012. All rights reserved

With climate change, today's '100-year floods' may happen every three to 20 years: research

2012-02-13T21:47:00.000+07:00

Last August, Hurricane Irene spun through the Caribbean and parts of the eastern United States, leaving widespread wreckage in its wake. The Category 3 storm whipped up water levels, generating storm surges that swept over seawalls and flooded seaside and inland communities

by Jennifer Chu | Physorg | February 13, 2012

An atmospheric image of Hurricane Irene on the U.S. East Coast in August 2011. Image: NOAA - Enlarge

Many hurricane analysts suggested, based on the wide extent of flooding, that Irene was a “100-year event”: a storm that only comes around once in a century.

However, researchers from MIT and Princeton University have found that withclimate change, such storms could make landfall far more frequently, causing powerful, devastating storm surges every three to 20 years. The group simulated tens of thousands of storms under different climate conditions, finding that today’s “500-year floods” could, with climate change, occur once every 25 to 240 years. The researchers published their results in the current issue of Nature Climate Change.

MIT postdoc Ning Lin, lead author of the study, says knowing the frequency of storm surges may help urban and coastal planners design seawalls and other protective structures.

“When you design your buildings or dams or structures on the coast, you have to know how high your seawall has to be,” Lin says. “You have to decide whether to build a seawall to prevent being flooded every 20 years.”

Lin collaborated with Kerry Emanuel, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, as well as with Michael Oppenheimer and Erik Vanmarcke at Princeton. The group looked at the impact of climate change on storm surges, using New York City as a case study.

To simulate present and future storm activity in the region, the researchers combined four climate models with a specific hurricane model. The combined models generated 45,000 synthetic storms within a 200-kilometer radius of Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan.

They studied each climate model under two scenarios: a “current climate” condition representing 1981 to 2000 and a “future climate” condition reflecting the years 2081 to 2100, a prediction based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s projections of future moderate carbon dioxide output. While there was some variability among the models, the team generally found that the frequency of intense storms would increase due to climate change.

Once they simulated storms in the region, the researchers then simulated the resulting storm surges using three different models, including one used by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). In the days or hours before a hurricane hits land, the NHC uses a storm-surge model to predict the risk and extent of flooding from the impending storm. Such models, however, have not been used to evaluate multiple simulated storms under a scenario of climate change.

Again, the group compared results from multiple models: one from the NHC which simulates storm surges quickly, though coarsely; another model that generates more accurate storm surges, though less efficiently; and a model in between, developed by Lin and her colleagues, that estimates relatively accurate surge floods, relatively quickly.

Today, a “100-year storm” means a surge flood of about two meters, on average, in New York. Roughly every 500 years, the region experiences towering, three-meter-high surge floods. Both scenarios, Lin notes, would easily top Manhattan’s seawalls, which stand 1.5 meters high.

But with added greenhouse gas emissions, the models found that a two-meter surge flood would instead occur once every three to 20 years; a three-meter flood would occur every 25 to 240 years.

“The highest [surge flood] was 3.2 meters, and this happened in 1821,” Lin says. “That’s the highest water level observed in New York City’s history, which is like a present 500-year event.”

Carol Friedland, an assistant professor of construction management and industrial engineering at Louisiana State University, sees the group’s results as a useful tool to inform coastal design — particularly, she notes, as most buildings are designed with a 60- to 120-year “usable lifespan.”

“The physical damage and economic loss that result from storm surge can be devastating to individuals, businesses, infrastructure and communities,” Friedland says. “For current coastal community planning and design projects, it is essential that the effects of climate change be included in storm-surge predictions.”

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news : web)

This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching.

© PhysOrg.com™ 2003-2012

Community power projects urged to challenge big firms

2012-02-13T21:39:00.001+07:00

Community-run renewable energy projects should be promoted by ministers to break the grip that the Big Six power firms have over consumers, a leading think-tank director has said

Scotsman.com | 12 February 2012

Philip Blond, the director of Respublica and the man behind David Cameron’s Big Society, has cited examples of community energy projects in Scotland as a potential blueprint for ending the “closed shop” in the energy market.

His intervention comes as the Big Six energy firms, which include Scottish Power and British Gas, are expected to announce bumper profits of £15 billion in the coming weeks. Profits for 2011 are understood to be £2bn higher than the previous year due, in part, to a severe winter and rising energy prices.

The Big Six energy companies currently control 99 per cent of the energy market, and Blond believes that this needs to be challenged. In a new paper by his think-tank, Re-energising Our Communities: Transforming the energy market through local energy production, Blond argues that community enterprises are the best way to tackle the problem by utilising renewable energy sources.

He has highlighted the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust in the Hebrides, where islanders have managed to produce all their own energy needs through a series of developments since 2008, including wind farms, solar panelling on buildings and building a hydro dam.

The project is now producing profits as well as picking up a £300,000 renewable energy award in 2010 in a competition run by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

The report also mentioned the Fintry Renewable Energy Enterprise near Stirling, involving 15 wind turbines. The villagers will receive £50,000 profit until their loan on the development is repaid and then could be bringing in £400,000 a year for community projects and developments. The report says the UK Government must “broker in the social, environmental and economic benefits of community energy” by putting local communities at the heart of the development of projects and ensuring they enjoy more of the benefits from sustainable energy production.

The emphasis on community projects fits the Big Society blueprint at the heart of the Conservative manifesto in 2010, which the coalition government has struggled to pursue since against a background of cuts.

All rights reserved © 2012 Johnston Publishing Ltd

Cycle city Kathmandu

2012-02-13T07:46:00.001+07:00

Jennie O’Hara meets Nepali campaigners seeking to tackle pollution and inequality by transforming their capital into a cycle-friendly city

Jennie O’Hara | RedPepper | 13 Feb 2012

Commuting in Kathmandu is difficult, at best. Taxis are extortionately priced, buses are overcrowded, and the city is big enough that walking is often impractical. Increasingly, people are turning to bicycles as a remedy. Proponents are now emphasising the positive effects of cycling in terms of ecology, Nepali independence and improving safety on the streets. It is a dangerous, yet remarkably political mode of transport.

Unlike campaign groups that focus on the macrocosm of global climate change, Kathmandu Cycle City 2020 focuses on the city itself. Member Shail Shrestha describes Kathmandu’s air as ‘unimaginably polluted’, but adds that this pollution is caused by those who can afford private transport, while those who can’t are affected most – witness for example the many Nepalis who live in shacks on the ring road, a highway that leaves passers-by coughing from the fumes of cars, buses and motorbikes.

Kathmandu Cycle City 2020 sees its campaign as rallying against social inequality. As another member, Rajan Kathet, says: ‘The “have nots” have always been victimised by the “haves”.’ Shrestha believes that Nepal can set an example for other countries to follow: ‘If a developing country does this [promotes cycling], it could be an example for countries that pollute.’
Nepal is currently in the midst of a fuel shortage. Schools, small businesses and organisations are struggling to get fuel for their vehicles. There are mile-long queues at every petrol station. Nepali independence activists claim that fuel dependency on neighbouring India is inhibiting progress in Nepal. The fuel shortage is caused, they claim, by deficit and corruption within the Nepal Oil Corporation, which is entirely dependent on the Indian Oil Corporation—to which it is in debt. In order to eradicate this debt, the Nepali Oil Corporation last week announced they would add 10 Rupees (approximately 9 pence) to every litre of fuel sold. Even in UK terms, this is no small amount. It would make fuel unaffordable for many Nepalis. Fortunately the decision was reversed following a Kathmandu-wide strike at the end of January, led by 13 of the city’s Students’ Unions.

Many social organisations in Nepal talk about ‘improving the country’ in terms of making it fuel-independent. The strike action only implies a general consensus that greater sovereignty would be beneficial. Kathmandu Cycle City 2020 is instead keen to ‘do action’. It deems cycling to be the best way to move away from fuel dependence. Indeed, in the context of a fuel shortage, cycling is being increasingly recognised as a cheap, accessible and non-polluting way to keep the city operating. Cycling in Kathmandu has become synonymous with freedom.

Yet safety remains a major concern. Just a few months ago, the revered wildlife conservationist, Dr Pralad Yonzon, was killed whilst cycling on the road in Kathmandu. Refusing to be scared off by the number of accidents, Kathmandu Cycle City 2020 held a rally to promote better visibility and to encourage more people to use bicycles instead of motorbikes.

Although bicycles are in fact generally safer than motorbikes in Kathmandu, they are seen as less fashionable among younger Nepalis. Shrestha explains that, ‘there is an idea that people who cycle are those who can’t afford [motor]bikes’. By highlighting the number of deaths on motorbikes compared to those on bicycles, the group are hoping to challenge this belief.

Promoting cycling on such dangerous streets is the first hurdle that the group have to overcome. On January 11, the group gained one of their first wins. Following extensive lobbying by activists, the government announced that they intend to build cycle lanes on all roads over 22 metres wide. Meanwhile the number of cyclists in Kathmandu has risen since the start of the campaign.

The group’s main aim is that Kathmandu becomes a bicycle-friendly city by 2020. Along the way, they are making a real difference to regular people’s lives and to Nepal as a whole. With advocates like Kathet and Shrestha, it won’t be long before more Kathmanduites will, as the group’s motto says, ‘ride with pride’.

Find out more on Kathmandu Cycle City 2020’s website.

Central African rainforests disappearred from climate change

2012-02-13T07:38:00.001+07:00

Climate change combined with human activity caused the disappearance of tropical rainforests in central Africa 3,000 years ago, a study has found

The Economic Times | 12 FEB, 2012

According to the Prensa Latina news agency, an analysis of marine sediment of the Congo river shows that at that time there was the influence of a strong chemical erosion.

Experts from the French Research Institute for Marine Exploration (IFREMER) said this deterioration occurred with the arrival of tribal communities that brought agricultural and cast iron technologies to the region that is now known as Cameroon and Nigeria.

Increased exploitation of the earth along with climate change contributed to the degradation process, the researchers said.

Argentina: Oil behind British militarist threats over Malvinas

2012-02-13T04:54:00.001+07:00

“We support the right of self-determination of the habitants of the Falkland Islands [Malvinas]; what the Argentines having been saying recently is, in my opinion, much more similar to colonialism, because these people want to continue being British and the Argentines what them to do something different”

America XXI in Green Left Weekly | February 12, 2012

Such was the cynicism with which British Prime Minister David Cameron responded to a question in parliament on January 18 over the islands off Argentina's coast that are occupied by Britain.

The statement came shortly after Britain's defence minister said “contingency plans” were in place to rapidly deploy troops to the territory in the Atlantic Ocean.

Days earlier, Cameron called a summit of the National Security Council to discuss the defence of these islands. All this was justified by Britain as a response to a supposed plan by Argentine fisherpeople to invade the islands.

Britain has occupied the Malvinas Islands since 1833, when it dispossessed the original Argentine inhabitants. Since 1965, Britain has refused to abide by United Nations resolutions, maintaining its control over a territory more than 10,000 kilometres from its own.

Of the 16 surviving colonies in the world, 11 are British.

Last year, the British government announced budget cuts of more than US$45 billion for 2014-15. Reaffirming Britain's colonial position on the Malvinas is one way Cameron is seeking to distract attention from the consequences of such savage austerity and bolster his image.

Appealing to nationalism is an attractive tactic for politicians on the nose. It was useful for Margaret Thatcher (and the Argentine dictatorship) 30 years ago, which led to the two-month Falklands War.

But there are two important differences in the situation today: there is no possibility of war and the economic crisis is much deeper
All of Argentina’s political elites support the claim for sovereignty over the Malvinas.

In recent years, the Argentine government has tried to win support and recognition from the rest of the region for this demand. Its diplomatic campaign has borne fruit in various multilateral meetings and diverse organisations.

Latin America is far more committed to integration than when Argentina went to war in 1982. But Britain is not letting its arm be twisted.

The economic opportunities that the Malvinas presents in terms of the possibilities of exploiting fishing and oil resources is sufficient motive for Britain to keep its colonialist position.
It is precisely this economic aspect that sectors of the left have taken as their point of difference with the Argentine government regarding political strategy.

Opposition leaders have noted that, if the goal is recuperating sovereignty, the Argentine government should affect British investment in the country: land, hydrocarbons, food and drink, insurance companies, banks, mining and pharmaceuticals.

Different left groups marched on the British embassy in Buenos Aires on January 20, raising these slogans and demanding a break in relations with Britain. They denounced the lack of compliance with a law, passed in July last year, that bans companies operating in Argentina from taking part in the exploration, or planned exploration, of oil off the coast of the Malvinas.

Transnational mining companies are operating there in association with British oil companies. The same international financial groups that prop up Argentina's principal corporations own 33% of Rockhopper Exploration and Borders & Southern Petroleum, 25% of Desire Petroleum and 37.8% of Falkland Oil and Gas.

Natural resources are now at the centre of debate surrounding the Malvinas. Britain has offered concessions to explore for hydrocarbons in the maritime platform of the archipelago comprised by the Malvinas Islands, Sandwich Island and South Georgia Island, which encompasses 2,500,000 square kilometres of the Argentine Sea.

British media has reported that specialists believe that below this platform reserves exist equivalent to about 60 billion barrels of oil.

Rockhopper Exploration, one of the four companies operating in the zone, has already discovered exploitable reserves totalling about 700 million barrels.

In late January, a second British oil platform was installed off the island’s coast in the Argentine Sea, with plans to begin perforating two oil wells south and south-east of the archipelago.

The platform was contracted to Borders & Southern and Falkland Oil and Gas. Since 2010, Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration have perforated more than 20 oil and gas wells.
So far, the diplomatic campaign by Argentina has not stopped British plans to exploit these non-renewable resources off the coast of these usurped islands.

The article below has been translated by Federico Fuentes. It first appeared in the Latin America-wide magazine America XXI

Processed food and coronary capitalism

2012-02-12T21:16:00.001+07:00

The food industry is characterised by market failures that pass external costs on to consumers and to society

Kenneth Rogoff | Al Jazeera | 11 Feb 2012

More than one in six US children and adolescents are reportedly obese, triple the 1980 rate [GALLO/GETTY]

A systematic and broad failure of regulation is the elephant in the room when it comes to reforming today's Western capitalism. Yes, much has been said about the unhealthy political-regulatory-financial dynamic that led to the global economy's heart attack in 2008 (initiating what Carmen Reinhart and I call "The Second Great Contraction"). But is the problem unique to the financial industry, or does it exemplify a deeper flaw in Western capitalism?

Consider the food industry, particularly its sometimes malign influence on nutrition and health. Obesity rates are soaring around the entire world, though, among large countries, the problem is perhaps most severe in the United States. According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly one-third of US adults are obese (indicated by a body mass index above 30). Even more shockingly, more than one in six children and adolescents are obese, a rate that has tripled since 1980. (Full disclosure: my spouse produces a television and web show, calledkickinkitchen.tv, aimed at combating childhood obesity.)

Of course, the problems of the food industry have been vigorously highlighted by experts on nutrition and health, including Michael Pollan and David Katz, and certainly by many economists as well. And there are numerous other examples, across a wide variety of goods and services, where one could find similar issues. Here, though, I want to focus on the food industry's link to broader problems with contemporary capitalism (which has certainly facilitated the worldwide obesity explosion), and on why the US political system has devoted remarkably little attention to the issue (though First Lady Michelle Obama has made important efforts to raise awareness).

Obesity affects life expectancy in numerous ways, ranging from cardiovascular disease to some types of cancer. Moreover, obesity - certainly in its morbid manifestations - can affect quality of life. The costs are borne not only by the individual, but also by society - directly, through the healthcare system, and indirectly, through lost productivity, for example, and higher transport costs (more jet fuel, larger seats, etc).

Michelle Obama has made efforts to raise awareness of combatting obesity [GALLO/GETTY]

But the obesity epidemic hardly looks like a growth killer. Highly processed corn-based food products, with lots of chemical additives, are well known to be a major driver of weight gain, but, from a conventional growth-accounting perspective, they are great stuff. Big agriculture gets paid for growing the corn (often subsidised by the government), and the food processors get paid for adding tonnes of chemicals to create a habit-forming - and thus irresistible - product. Along the way, scientists get paid for finding just the right mix of salt, sugar and chemicals to make the latest instant food maximally addictive; advertisers get paid for peddling it; and, in the end, the healthcare industry makes a fortune treating the disease that inevitably results.

Coronary capitalism is fantastic for the stock market, which includes companies in all of these industries. Highly processed food is also good for jobs, including high-end employment in research, advertising and healthcare.

So, who could complain? Certainly not politicians, who get re-elected when jobs are plentiful and stock prices are up - and get donations from all of the industries that participate in the production of processed food. Indeed, in the US, politicians who dared to talk about the health, environmental, or sustainability implications of processed food would in many cases find themselves starved of campaign funds.

True, market forces have spurred innovation, which has continually driven down the price of processed food, even as the price of plain old fruits and vegetables has gone up. That is a fair point, but it overlooks the huge market failure here.

Consumers are provided with precious little information through schools, libraries or health campaigns; instead, they are swamped with disinformation through advertising. Conditions for children are particularly alarming. With few resources for high-quality public television in most countries, children are co-opted by channels paid for by advertisements, including by the food industry.

Beyond disinformation, producers have few incentives to internalise the costs of the environmental damage that they cause. Likewise, consumers have little incentive to internalise the health-care costs of their food choices.

If our only problems were the food industry, causing physical heart attacks and the financial industry facilitating their economic equivalent, that would be bad enough. But the pathological regulatory-political-economic dynamic that characterises these industries is far broader. We need to develop new and much better institutions to protect society's long-run interests.

Of course, the balance between consumer sovereignty and paternalism is always delicate. But we could certainly begin to strike a healthier balance than the one we have by giving the public far better information across a range of platforms, so that people could begin to make more informed consumption choices and political decisions.

Kenneth Rogoff is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the IMF.

Global Fund Fights AIDS, TB and Malaria

2012-02-12T21:08:00.001+07:00

The long-awaited shake-up in the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Fund) finally became operational this month with the assumption of office of Gabriel Jaramillo, a former leading banker, as the new general manager. The change followed various unflattering audit reports of the Fund operations in some recipient countries that suggested money lost to corrupt practices and lax oversight

Chinua Akukwe | World Press | February 6, 2012

A pregnant Sudanese woman being treated for Malaria in a health center in Nyala. (Photo: Raul Touzon, National Geographic Society, Corbis)

In addition, a high-level panel recommended a far-reaching restructuring of the Fund to ensure tighter oversight of technical and ground operations as well as portfolio risk management.

Perhaps the last straw was the Fund's decision to temporarily suspend funding activities in recipient countries from 2014 due to flagging donor support and pledges. For supporters of the Fund, this remains an ominous sign. The Fund was established 10 years ago as a model global financing mechanism to prove, in part, that a lean, nimble, transparent, results-oriented international organization can deliver care to target populations in all corners of the globe. The current predicament of the Fund is unfortunate since donors in this difficult economic climate are unlikely to favor organizations that appear unable to manage resources prudently.

It is important to note that, despite ongoing problems, the Fund today remains an indispensable vehicle in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In the last decade, it committed $22.6 billion to more than 1,000 projects in 150 countries. At least 3.3 million people are on antiretroviral therapy due to the Fund, and 8.6 million people have received treatment for tuberculosis.

Reforms going forward

The first question is whether the Fund intends to be directly involved in country-level efforts to reach at-risk populations to ensure funded programs are verifiably making a positive difference in the health status of program recipients. If the answer is affirmative, this will drive the roadmap for all other reform decisions within the Fund. In addition, a positive response automatically elevates logistics of care delivery to the highest operational priority area of the Fund, with commensurate investments. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria predominantly kill people who are poor, have problems with timely access to quality care and are most likely to be living with other dangerous comorbidities. No organization can reach these individuals and make a difference on their health status without investments on the ground in target countries and communities.

It is critical that at-risk populations and recipient countries have a real, not just perceived, say in decisions. Despite the best efforts of the board and the secretariat of the Fund, the organization remains fundamentally a top-down entity. A strong mechanism needs to be created that can channel the goals, priorities and aspirations of at-risk populations and recipient countries in the decision-making processes.

The second reform-related question relates to the Fund's identity. Should it become an investment agency supporting other organizations that finance or manage the delivery of treatment? Should it be a strict financing entity that provides targeted financial support for programs already on the ground? Should it participate in the entire project cycle of healthcare delivery—including design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation—at country and community levels for its funded programs? A clear direction will drive any serious, sustainable reform effort. If done right, such an effort could tighten internal operational controls, reorganize operating structures, refine risk assessment and project portfolio management mechanisms, and adopt indicators for monitoring efficiency and effectiveness.

Assessment and accountability

The Fund should have valid measurement indicators that document how funded programs are preventing the transmission of disease among at-risk populations, measuring how well people actually responded to treatment protocols within specific populations. Population-based knowledge, attitude and perception (KAP) surveys can provide important clues as to whether funded programs are making a difference. Process indicators, especially program input and output indicators that dominated the global fund matrix in the last decade, while good for management reviews, are not adequate for measuring the impact of funded programs against communicable diseases. Process indicators are also unreliable in showing evidence of impact within at-risk target populations.

Applying to get financial support from the Fund is an onerous, time-consuming process. Country-level verification mechanisms and protocols can be simplified. The technical review process can also be simplified. Reports from the Fund look like lengthy academic review papers, reinforcing the perception of an agency that needs shoring up on operational issues. The Fund needs to become not only a lean operational entity but also transform itself into a financing mechanism that makes quick, clear technical decisions on funding support. Perhaps to accelerate this, the Fund can invest more on technical field visits, independent expert reviews, identification of projects ripe for scaling up, and an information-dissemination mechanism for various audiences and constituencies. In addition, the Fund should promote itself more aggressively in donor countries, showcasing its successes through simplified reporting mechanisms.

The next few years of the global fund against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria will be critical as its leadership seeks to reposition the organization. The next year will be important as the new general manager realigns operations, corrects deficiencies, simplifies processes and procedures, and reassures nervous donors and supporters. The future of the global fund remains bright. However, a lot of work remains ahead.

Dr. Akukwe is a professorial lecturer (professor) of global health and a professorial lecturer of preventive and community health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Healthcare Sciences, Washington, D.C. He is a former chairman of the Technical Advisory Board of the George Washington University Africa Center for Health and Human Security, Washington, D.C., where he served for five years. In addition, he is the executive chairman of the Steering Committee of the Africa Union Africa Diaspora Health Initiative.

Copyright © 1997-2012 Worldpress.org. All Rights Reserved

Rolling Out the Red Carpet for the Second Coming With Nuclear War

2012-02-12T20:57:00.000+07:00

On February 8 I posted about an online dialogue on evangelical Christians and nuclear disarmament. In March of last year, at A Deeper Story: Tales of Christ and Culture, site administrator Nish shared emails with Reverend Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, founder of the Two Futures Project, a groundbreaking evangelical disarmament group, as well as with commenters

By Russ Wellen | Foreign Policy in Focus | February 11, 2012

One of the commenters addressed what constitutes a sticking point about disarmament for evangelicals, as well as fundamentalists. To wit, many of them either look forward to the End Times or see no way of avoiding it. No matter how familiar we may be with this line of thinking, for progressives -- secular or religious -- chancing upon evangelicals and fundamentalists actually discussing it is surpassingly strange.

Here's commenter Josh defending his "what me worry?" outlook on nuclear weapons. First, he points out, "God's Word gives us some knowledge about how the world ends, and it doesn't look much like nuclear apocalypse. … I don't worry so much about *us* [sic] screwing up and destroying the world, because God's already told us how *He* [sic] intends for it to happen."

His reasoning: "The Mount of Olives does indeed split in half, but that mighty rending comes from the feet of Christ, not a nuclear detonation (Zechariah 14:4)." Josh also write that even if you think that the world ends in a nuclear holocaust "what's the point of advocating against the fulfillment of prophecy?" Furthermore:

The evil lies not in the hunk of materials and technology that compose an atomic bomb, but rather in the heart of the one who would detonate it in aggression against innocents. Now, getting rid of "that" evil seems a worthy goal – but once again, we know from Scripture that it will only be accomplished when God Himself renews all things.

To progressives it's clear: those who don't actually advocate nuclear weapons yet accept the possibility of their use evince a blatant fatalism to the point of a death wish. As with many evangelical, fundamentalist, or conservative positions -- especially within the Tea Party or on the Republican campaign trail -- progressives can't help but wonder, "Are you even listening to yourself?" Though, in fairness, evangelicals, fundamentalists, or conservatives wonder how progressives can be pro-choice when abortion to them is clearly murder.

Another commenter to the dialogue, April, writes of the quotidian consequences of an End Times view of the world.

I think Josh brought up some points that many Christians believe, and may not even acknowledge that they believe. Many of us are trained in eschatology, whatever version our denomination supports, and we end up with this belief that the world is going to crap in the end, anyway. [As] when I willfully throw away a 2-liter [bottle] instead of walk it out to the garage for recycling–this ungodly thought creeps up that God's going to create a new heaven and a new earth anyway…so…why recycle this time? … I do think that many Christians are exposed to this end-time theology where we fixate on pre-, post- or mid tribulation and what the antichrist will and wont do, etc–but we're not trained on the "so-what" of it all.

Displaying the extent of her awareness of that fatalism, she writes:

Do we believe that God is in the active work of redeeming the world, as creation groans to be released from this evil, or do we believe, without saying so, that God's coming, will pour out his wrath and will then hit the re-do button after the apocalypse[?]

Talk about your creative destruction. Meanwhile, Rev. Wigg-Stevenson (who wouldn't want to hear this, but he's arguably the most rational evangelical in the United States) responds to Josh (emphasis added):

One of our most important jobs as an organization is separating religious apocalypticism and eschatology from nuclear weapons. Our "two futures" [as used in the name of his organization, Two Futures Project -- RW] isn't "God'send vs. our nuclear apocalypse." In the end there is just one future and it belongs to the Lord. I don’t think nuclear weapons will bring the world to an end — if they did, the gospel's promises would be void. But the human race has done horrible things between the cross and the Second Coming, and we're trying to prevent this particular manifestation of sinfulness.

Nuclear technology, writes Rev. Wigg-Stevenson, is "a technology that we have a responsibility to control and manage to the best of our ability." For it "magnifies the potential impact of human sinfulness to an extraordinary degree."

As a sort of force multiplier for sin, then, nuclear weapons distort -- pervert, even -- the Second Coming as God sees it (if, like evangelicals and fundamentalists, one believes in a personal God, unlike your editor). Furthermore, eager anticipation of or fatalism about the End Times screams damaged childhood. Pathology is best addressed by domains secular, rather than religious, such as psychology and the other social services.

In fact, nuclear weapons in general is less a national security issue than a mental health one.

This work by Institute for Policy Studies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Ignores Fukushima, Green-Lights First New Reactors in 34 Years

2012-02-11T21:19:00.001+07:00

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted a construction and operating licenseto Southern Co. for two reactors to be added to its Plant Vogtle facility in Georgia. The OK is the first granted by the US regulator since 1978

by: Gregg Levine | Capitoilette in truthout | 10 February 2012

The NRC approved the license over the objections of its chairman, Gregory Jaczko, who wanted the license to stipulate that the units would meet new standards recommended by the agency’s Fukushima Near-Term Task Force (NTTF) report:

“I think this license needed something that ensured that the changes as a result of Fukushima would be implemented,” Jaczko said in an interview after the vote. “It’s like when you go to buy a house and the home inspector identifies things that should be fixed. You don’t go to closing before those things are fixed.”

The NTTF recommendations, geared toward improving safety and preventing another disaster like the one still evolving at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, have still not become official government rules–some are projected to take up to five years to draft and implement–and so, for now, the new reactor construction will get to pretend the Tohoku quake and tsunami, and the resulting core meltdowns and widespread radioactive contamination, never happened.

The Vogtle reactors are of a new (or, let’s call it “new-ish”) design. The AP1000 reactor was just approved by the NRC in December, over the objections of numerous scientists and engineers, who saw claims of innovation insufficient to counter the dangers native to any Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) design. Upon examination, many of the “improvements” to the AP1000 look more like ways to cut construction costs. Even so, a single new AP1000 is expected to cost anywhere from $8 billion to $14 billion dollars–and, it should be noted, no US nuclear facility has ever come in anywhere close to on time or on budget. The US government has already pledged over $8 billion in federal loan guarantees to cover construction of the Georgia reactors, since without the government backstop, no private financial institutions will invest in such a high-cost, high-risk project. Southern Co. has already spent $4 billion preparing the Vogtle site for the anticipated new construction.

“I cannot support this licensing as if Fukushima never happened,” said Gregory Jaczko after the Thursday vote–but thanks to the four other commissioners of his captured agency, licensing as if Fukushima never happened is exactly what the NRC did.

Gregg Levine is a regular contributor to Truthout and the former managing editor of Firedoglake. For more of his work, please visit his website, capitoilette. Follow Gregg on Twitter: @GreggJLevine

Somali famine 'will kill tens of thousands'

2012-02-11T21:14:00.001+07:00

The UN in Somalia says tens of thousands of people will have died of starvation by the time the famine in the Horn of Africa ends

BBC News | 15 January 2012

Many Somalis have fled across the border into Ethiopia to seek aid

The food crisis was declared in Somalia six months ago and levels of need are expected to remain high until July or August.

UN aid chief in Somalia, Mark Bowden, told the BBC malnutrition rates there were the highest in the world.

He said a quarter of a million Somalis were still suffering from the famine.

"We know that tens of thousands of people will have died over the last year," Mr Bowden, said, describing the rates of malnutrition as "amazingly high".

"Children will have suffered the most, malnutrition rates in Somalia were the highest in the world, and I think the highest recorded... up to 50% of the child population suffered from severe or acute malnutrition."

'Very high mortality'

Mr Bowden said malnutrition rates have begun to drop but the crisis was likely to continue for the next six or seven months.

"Fortunately they've started to come down across the board, but that does mean that there will have been a very high mortality," he said.

Somalia has not had a functioning central government for more than 20 years and has been wracked by fighting between militias.

Although $1.3bn (£84mn) worth of aid has been poured into the country, the BBC's Africa editor, Martin Plaut, says the scale of the suffering is immense.

Last year, tens of thousands of Somalis fled rural areas - many over the borders to Ethiopia and Kenya - in search of food. The UN estimates that a total of 1.5 million people have been displaced by the crisis.

The UN is calling for additional funds to replenish flocks of sheep, goats and camels so that people can re-build their lives.

Aid agencies have warned in recent months that conflict was jeopardising the aid effort, with Kenyan troops crossing into the country to fight al-Shabab - al-Qaeda-linked militants it blames for a spate of kidnappings.

Al-Shabab, which controls much of central and southern Somalia and has banned many Western aid agencies from its territory, has denied the allegations.

BBC © 2012

Eight ways Monsanto fails at sustainable agriculture

2012-02-11T19:12:00.001+07:00

Monsanto has held back the development of sustainable agriculture, and continues to do so. None of its competitors come close to matching its impact on global agriculture

The Union of Concerned Scientists in Climate and Capitalism | February 10, 2012

Monsanto Company is the dominant player in commercial genetically engineered (GE) crops, the biggest seed company in the world, and—to hear them tell it—a leader and innovator in sustainable agriculture.

Monsanto aggressively touts its technology as vital to achieving laudable goals such as ensuring adequate food production, responding to the challenge of global warming, and reducing agriculture’s negative impacts on the environment.

The reality is not so flattering. In fact, Monsanto has held back the development of sustainable agriculture, and continues to do so, in several ways:

Promoting Pesticide Resistance Monsanto’s Roundup Ready and Bt technologies lead to resistant weeds and insects that can make farming harder and reduce sustainability.
Increasing Herbicide Use Roundup resistance has led to greater use of herbicides, with troubling implications for biodiversity, sustainability, and human health.
Spreading Gene Contamination Engineered genes have a bad habit of turning up in non-GE crops. And when this happens, sustainable farmers—and their customers—pay a high price.
Expanding Monoculture Monsanto’s emphasis on limited varieties of a few commodity crops contributes to reduced biodiversity and, as a consequence, to increased pesticide use and fertilizer pollution.
Marginalizing Alternatives Monsanto’s single-minded emphasis on GE fixes for farming challenges may come at the expense of cheaper, more effective solutions.
Lobbying and Advertising Monsanto outspends all other agribusinesses on efforts to persuade Congress and the public to maintain the industrial agriculture status quo.
Suppressing Research By creating obstacles to independent research on its products, Monsanto makes it harder for farmers and policy makers to make informed decisions that can lead to more sustainable agriculture.
Falling Short on Feeding the World Monsanto contributes little to helping the world feed itself, and has failed to endorse science-backed solutions that don’t give its products a central role.

1. PROMOTING PESTICIDE RESISTANCE

Monsanto’s RoundupReady and Bt technologies lead to resistant weeds and insects that can make farming harder and reduce sustainability.

On its website, Monsanto lists an impressive set of benefits for its Roundup Ready weed control technology: profitability, efficiency, convenience, and sustainability. The company even calls Roundup Ready “a perfect fit with the vision of sustainable agriculture and environmental protection,” claiming that it allows farmers to reduce overall herbicide use as well as fuel consumption and soil erosion.

But there’s a catch.

Enter the Superweeds

Beginning around 2000, weeds growing in Roundup Ready crops began to develop resistance to Roundup (glyphosate), the Monsanto herbicide that Roundup Ready crops are genetically engineered to tolerate. By 2011, eight agriculturally important weeds in the U.S. had developed glyphosate resistance associated with Roundup Ready crops.

Glyphosate-resistant weeds now infest millions of acres of U.S. cropland—and this area has been growing rapidly over the past several years. Countries where Roundup Ready crops were more recently introduced are now beginning to see similar growth in resistant weeds.

These “superweeds” are causing huge problems for U.S. farmers, especially in the Southeast (but also spreading in the Midwest), where some of these weeds cannot be effectively or economically controlled. The impact on cotton production has led one scientist to compare a glyphosate-resistant weed to the notorious boll weevil, which devastated cotton production across the American South in the 1920s.

In response, farmers are increasing their overall herbicide use (see #2) and in some cases, returning to heavy tillage (plowing), which can increase soil erosion—thus reducing two of the sustainability benefits claimed for the Roundup Ready system.

Making Matters Worse

Why is this problem growing so fast? Because the Roundup Ready system encourages unprecedented reliance on a single herbicide—which, as biologists know, is likely to make resistance problems more severe. Pest resistance is not a new problem, but Roundup Ready technology has made it worse than before.

And Monsanto exacerbated the problem by discouraging farmers from employing typical resistance management approaches, such as alternating the types of herbicides used over time—which would have reduced the amount of Roundup used in any given year, and thus cut into the company’s bottom line. This led a group of academic weed scientists to publicly contradict Monsanto’s recommendations and reiterate scientifically-based methods for reducing the resistant weed problem.

Adding insult to injury, Monsanto representatives were described in a 2009 ABC News story as blaming farmers for overuse-related resistance problems.

Sacrificing Sustainability for Sales

Monsanto’s pronouncements and recommendations about its engineered crops and glyphosate herbicide fly in the face of established science and common-sense precautions. Its actions have undermined the goal of weed control and jeopardized long-term use of glyphosate—a less toxic, less persistent, and more effective herbicide than most others—in favor of the company’s annual bottom line. This is the opposite of good stewardship and sustainable practices. Monsanto’s denialism and inadequate responses are likely to contribute to greater environmental harm.

2. INCREASING HERBICIDE USE

Roundup resistance has led to greater use of herbicides, with troubling implications for biodiversity, sustainability, and human health.

Monsanto’s Roundup Ready system, which involves applying glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide to crops genetically engineered to tolerate it, was supposed to decrease overall herbicide use—and for a while, it did just that. However, this has changed drastically in recent years.

As we’ve already seen, the number and extent of resistant weeds have increased dramatically over the past decade. At the same time, some Roundup-susceptible weeds have been replaced by weeds inherently less easy to control with glyphosate. The result has been an increase in overall herbicide use—recently estimated at about 383 million pounds higher than would have been the case without Roundup Ready crops.

Meet the New Herbicide, Same as the Old Herbicide

Monsanto’s proposed solution is to develop and seek regulatory approval for new engineered herbicide-tolerant crops to augment Roundup Ready crops. Predominant among these new engineered crops are those with resistance to two of the oldest herbicides, 2,4-D and dicamba.

These herbicides may be more harmful in some respects than glyphosate. Both become volatile after application, which means they can spread to nearby wild vegetation—important for biodiversity and natural pest control—and to other susceptible crops.

There is also evidence that 2,4-D may increase the risk of some types of cancer.

More Herbicide = Less Biodiversity = More Insecticide

Because of the volatilization problem, increased use of the old herbicides may also harm neighboring crops that are not resistant to them—including locally grown fruits and vegetables.

A recent article estimates that risk to plants surrounding sprayed fields is from 75 to 400 times greater for the older herbicides than for glyphosate. The industry is working on formulations of these herbicides that may be less volatile, but that is unlikely to eliminate the problem—especially because the use of these herbicides is projected to increase tenfold.

Damage to plant biodiversity near crop fields may also reduce the abundance and diversity of beneficial organisms that thrive in those habitats (but not in monoculture crop fields). Recent research has shown that when agricultural landscapes are simplified by the reduction of plant and beneficial organism diversity, much more chemical insecticide is needed to control pest insects.

So if the volatilization problems are not eliminated, this “solution” to glyphosate resistant weeds may make matters worse, and may also lead to increased insecticide use—and possibly greater risk to people, especially farmers and farm workers.

3. SPREADING GENE CONTAMINATION

Engineered genes have a bad habit of turning up in non-GE crops. And when this happens, sustainable farmers—and their customers—pay a high price.

The history of genetically engineered crops shows that it is not a matter of whether they will contaminate other farmers’ crops, but when and how much. Monsanto jeopardizes the future of the fast-growing non-GE and organic food sectors—and the environmental benefits they provide—by threatening the purity of their products through gene contamination.

In a 2004 pilot study, UCS tested samples of conventional (non-GE) corn, soy, and canola seed and found low-level but pervasive contamination with DNA derived from GE varieties. Some 50 percent of the corn and soybean samples and more than 80 percent of the canola samples were contaminated, with Monsanto’s genes detected in all three crops.

Unapproved Genes in Food Products: Accidents Will Happen

Though they did not involve Monsanto products, a string of incidents over the last decade or so in which experimental or unapproved GE varieties were discovered in supplies of various crops and food products—including corn-based taco shells sold to consumers, long-grain rice bound for export, and cottonseed fed to livestock—shows that GE contamination of non-GE crops continues to occur, with serious economic implications.

In the Starlink taco shell incident in 2000, costs to farmers from recalls and export restrictions were estimated at between $26 and $288 million, while the LibertyLink rice contamination discovered in 2006 had a significant impact on the export market for U.S.-grown rice, resulting in a $750 million settlement for injured rice farmers.

Roundup Ready Alfalfa: Disaster is Blowin’ in the Wind

Monsanto’s recently-approved Roundup Ready alfalfa may pose an even greater contamination threat.

Alfalfa, the fourth most widely grown crop in the United States (behind corn, soybeans, and wheat), is pollinated by various species of bees. Pollination between alfalfa fields, which can spread pollen from GE to non-GE alfalfa, has been detected at four kilometers—and honey bees can fly up to five miles. Feral alfalfa growing outside cultivated fields can act as a further bridge for contamination.

Moreover, alfalfa seeds are very small, and thus can be blown by wind into neighboring fields. Experts say that widespread planting of Monsanto’s GE alfalfa is almost certain to contaminate organic and non-GE alfalfa.

Such an outcome could spell economic disaster not only for those alfalfa growers but also for organic and pasture-based dairy farmers, who depend upon access to organic alfalfa to feed their cows in the winter. The organic dairy sector was valued at $3.9 billion in 2010, representing nearly six percent of the total U.S. market for milk products.

Contamination and self-seeding of organic alfalfa in perennial pasture could require expensive roughing and re-planting, with no assurance that some GE alfalfa would not emerge years later from buried seed.

4. EXPANDING MONOCULTURE

Monsanto’s emphasis on limited varieties of a few commodity crops contributes to reduced biodiversity and, as a consequence, to increased pesticide use and fertilizer pollution.

Large-acreage field crops—corn, cotton, soybeans, canola, and now alfalfa—make up the bulk of Monsanto’s products, in part because of the high cost of developing engineered traits. And the approach to agriculture that this product line encourages—monoculture, the production of only one crop in a field year after year—is not a sustainable one.

When Simpler Is Not Better

Monsanto’s approach to insect and weed management depends upon the heavy use of a few biocides to control pests. And most of these pests are large problems mainly because of the biological simplification of the agricultural system.

This simplification—represented by huge areas devoted to only one or two crops on very large farms, with little uncultivated area—requires more pesticide, because pests can more easily build up on crops when they are adapted to these crops and practices.

Many pests are selective about the crops they infect or consume, so alternating (or rotating) crops reduces the need for pesticides (see sidebar). For example, in much of the Corn Belt, corn rootworms are not big problems when corn is rotated with soybeans or other crops, because rootworms only thrive on corn.

Although Bt corn has reduced the amount of insecticide needed to control its target pests (unless resistance spreads), this reduction has been largely offset by increases in the treatment of corn seed with neonicotinoid insecticides. Neonicotinoids have recently been associated with honey bee colony collapse disorder and other bee mortality. And about 35 percent of U.S. crops rely on bees and other pollinators to be productive.

Simplified cropping systems also exacerbate the serious water pollution that results from the application of nitrogen fertilizers. Much of the fertilizer is not utilized by crops like corn.

By contrast, complex crop rotations that include cover crops (see sidebar) have been shown to take up excess nitrogen in the soil, keeping it from passing into groundwater. When the cover crop is incorporated into the soil in the spring, it makes this nitrogen available to the crops that follow.

A Growing Resistance Movement

As we’ve seen, over-reliance on a small number of pest control methods increases resistance problems. Bt insect-resistant corn has resulted in a reduction in integrated pest management (IPM), which relies on multiple means to control pests. Robust IPM is more sustainable and typically uses less pesticide than methods that rely heavily on chemical pesticide application or on GE insect-resistant crops.

Surveys have found that large numbers of growers use Bt varieties even when pest pressures are low and they are not needed. These surveys have also found that about 40 percent of growers say they cannot get high-quality non-GE varieties from Monsanto and other seed companies. This could interfere with their ability to plant non-GE refuges to prevent resistance from developing.

5. MARGINALIZING ALTERNATIVES

Monsanto’s single-minded emphasis on GE fixes for farming challenges may come at the expense of cheaper, more effective solutions.

Given the way Monsanto promotes its genetically engineered products as indispensable game-changers for agriculture, you might wonder how farmers could ever manage without them.

In fact, non-GE methods can be more effective—and often far more cost-efficient.

Classical breeding methods — sometimes augmented with newer methods that use enhanced understanding of crop genetics—usually outperform GE, producing a stream of new crop varieties with desirable properties like increased yield and improved nitrogen use efficiency (which can reduce the fertilizer pollution that contributes to dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay).

In recent years, classical breeding has produced varieties of corn resistant to corn rootworm, as well as crops with drought tolerance, disease resistance, improved nutritional characteristics, and reduced susceptibility to fungi that produce harmful toxins.

Agroecological farm management practices – used by organic farmers and others—such as cover crops, mulches, manure, and more complex crop rotations—also reduce pest incidence (see #2 and #4), soil erosion, and pollution, and build soil fertility.

Cover crops can remove excess nitrogen from the soil. Long crop rotations in the Midwest can greatly reduce pesticide and fertilizer use while maintaining or increasing crop yields.

Telling a Lopsided Story

Monsanto’s extensive advocacy of engineered crops marginalizes these approaches despite their lower cost for purchased inputs like fertilizer and pesticides and their often superior results. A recent industry-sponsored survey found that the average cost for developing a new engineered trait is about $136 million, while a typical classically-bred trait in corn has been estimated to cost just $1 million.

Monsanto and other companies use classical breeding as well as GE. But by suggesting that its patented genes GE have achieved higher crop yields and generated other benefits, when in fact classical breeding and improved farming techniques are primarily responsible for those gains, Monsanto obscures better choices farmers might otherwise make.

6. LOBBYING AND ADVERTISING

Monsanto outspends all other agribusinesses on efforts to persuade Congress and the public to maintain the industrial agriculture status quo.

Like many other corporations and organizations, Monsanto engages in a variety of activities to influence policy makers and opinion leaders. From lobbying members of Congress and other federal officials and contributing to their election campaigns, to advertising aimed at reaching those officials and their constituents, the company spends millions of dollars every year pushing an agenda that runs counter to sustainable agriculture.

Lobbying Congress and Federal Agencies

Among agribusiness companies and interest groups, Monsanto is far and away the biggest spender on lobbying to protect and maintain industrial agriculture’s dominance over our food system.

In 2008—the last year a federal Farm Bill was negotiated—the company reported a whopping $8.8 million in lobbying expenditures (see table below) intended to influence decisions in Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies.

Quarterly disclosure reports filed with Congress show that Monsanto’s lobbyists worked to:

Push through a short-lived crop insurance program called the Biotechnology Yield Endorsement, which provided cut-rate USDA-backed crop insurance to farmers who planted specific genetically engineered varieties of corn developed and sold by Monsanto.
Defeat or weaken a patent reform effort in Congress.
Protect Monsanto and other biotechnology companies from liability when their patented genes contaminate non-GE farmers’ crops.
Prevent labeling of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormones on milk packaging.
Enable further agribusiness consolidation, which could allow Monsanto to further reduce already poor competition for seed sales, leading to higher prices and even fewer choices of non-engineered seeds.

Between Farm Bills, Monsanto’s lobbying efforts haven’t let up. The company racked up $8 million in lobbying expenses in 2010 and another $6.37 million in 2011. Monsanto lobbied for approval of its RoundupReady alfalfa and sugarbeets, the widespread planting of which will further increase application of the company’s Roundup herbicide and could cause additional resistant weeds.

In addition, the company lobbied to:

Increase production of inefficient corn-based biofuels, which require massive water use and lead to devastating water pollution.
Weaken or prevent the EPA’s issuance of voluntary guidance to reduce pesticide “drift” from industrial farms. This could be devastating if new crops resistant to 2,4-D and dicamba are approved, because these herbicides cause much greater harm from drift than glyphosate.
Weaken or defeat the Food Safety Modernization Act, a bill that Congress ultimately passed, which will give the FDA the authority to force companies to recall contaminated food, and also reduce undue corporate influence over federal food safety agencies.

In addition, Monsanto reported lobbying in early 2011 for the creation of a so-called “modern agriculture” caucus in Congress. Unsurprisingly, in February of that year, the Congressional Caucus on Modern Agriculture was established.

Contributions to Politicians

Monsanto also wields influence on policy makers through campaign contributions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the company consistently ranks among the top political check-writers in the agricultural services and products industry. Monsanto gave more than $420,000 in campaign gifts during the 2010 Congressional election cycle, and appears on track to meet or exceed that in 2012.

7. SUPPRESSING RESEARCH

By creating obstacles to independent research on its products, Monsanto makes it harder for farmers and policy makers to make informed decisions that can lead to more sustainable agriculture.

Good policy is impossible without good information. Smart choices about the role of biotechnology in agriculture will depend on how much we know about its costs, benefits, and risks.

But multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto, have fought independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they’ve set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.

In 2009, 26 academic entomologists wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that because patents on engineered genes do not provide for independent non-commercial research, they could not perform adequate research on these crops. “No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions involving these crops,” they wrote.

A Purdue University entomologist who signed the letter put it more succinctly to a reporter for a scientific journal: “Industry is completely driving the bus.”

Keeping Decision Makers in the Dark

Independent research is needed to determine how well these crops work, how best to use them, their possible risks, and how they compare with alternatives such as classical breeding or ecologically based farming methods.

Without that research, farmers, policy makers, and research granting agencies are not able to make the most well-informed decisions possible. To the extent that those decisions would work toward improving sustainability, these research restrictions reduce our ability to move agriculture in a more sustainable direction.

Moving in the Right Direction—But Not Far Enough

Monsanto has attempted to take cover in a voluntary agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that gives the agency’s agricultural scientists access to the company’s genetically engineered seeds for a wide range of research; Monsanto has also had agreements with some universities.

Several other seed companies are said to be negotiating voluntary deals with universities in the wake of the entomologists’ letter to the EPA. And the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), a trade group of which Monsanto is a member, is also developing guidelines to improve access to new seeds.

These are positive steps, but they don’t go far enough.

More Transparency Needed

For one thing, the deals and the trade association rules are not binding. The companies can back out of them. They are also opaque; the public really has no idea how far these deals go or how common they are. And what about scientists at research institutions that aren’t party to voluntary agreements?

Moreover, few if any of the agreements guarantee opportunities for every kind of independent research. The Monsanto agreement with the USDA covers research into crop production practices, for example, but not research into issues such as the health risks of genetically engineered crops.

Ultimately, patent law needs to change to allow independent science to function as it needs to. Monsanto should back such a change in the law. Until then, it and other large seed companies should post a list of the agreements that have been made so far with research institutions and individual scientists, and the conditions of those agreements. Monsanto’s behavior to date suggests that it is not really serious about addressing this problem.

8. FALLING SHORT ON FEEDING THE WORLD

Monsanto contributes little to helping the world feed itself, and has failed to endorse science-backed solutions that don’t give its products a central role.

The 21st century is going to be a time of enormous challenge for agriculture across the globe. Population growth, global warming, urbanization, and other factors are expected to put increasing pressure on the food supply. Somehow, the world’s farmers must find a way to meet this growing demand and feed us all.

Monsanto claims that its biotechnology products will be crucial to the success of this effort. Yet experts, such as the hundreds of international scientists that contributed to the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)—a report supported and endorsed by several UN agencies, the World Bank, and dozens of countries—have said that non-GE approaches that cost less and are more effective should be prioritized.

But instead of accepting the results of the detailed analysis of the IAASTD, Monsanto and several other large seed and chemical companies backed out of the process at the last minute and refused to endorse it. This makes it harder for the important recommendations of the report to gain acceptance.

A Vision that Won’t Travel Well

The vision of “sustainable” agriculture proposed by Monsanto includes high-tech seeds, reduced tillage, and GPS-guided precision application of fertilizers.

This prescription was written for the large industrial monocultures of the midwestern United States. This approach is likely to remain highly dependent on fossil fuel-based fertilizer and pesticides at the expense of regional biodiversity. And because it is very capital- and machinery-intensive, it is not viable for many small, poor farmers around the world.

On the other hand, data show that small farms can be more productive per acre than large ones on an overall (rather than single-crop) basis. In addition, many agroecological approaches outperform more expensive GE approaches—for example, the simple but elegant push-pull system for grains such as corn in eastern Africa (see sidebar).

Resistance (Again)

With overuse of biotechnology, as we’ve already seen, comes resistance and related problems. Resistance of stem borer on Bt corn in South Africa has recently been reported. And in China, after initial reductions in insecticide use on Bt cotton, secondary pests not controlled by Bt have greatly increased, pushing chemical insecticide use back up. This has hurt income because farmers pay almost as much for insecticide—and a lot more for Bt cotton seed. In addition, Bt cotton may be contributing to increases in secondary pests moving from cotton to other fruit and vegetable crops, causing further damage.

Reliance on expensive GE seeds leaves poor farmers vulnerable to other factors, such as drought, floods, and the many pests that can harm crops but are not controlled by engineered genes. Agroecological approaches—which base farming on an understanding of the ecological relationships between crops and the environment—typically build broad resilience to pests and other challenges.

It has been suggested that GE traits are scale-neutral, and therefore small farmers may benefit as much or more as large farmers. But higher-priced seed and accompanying expensive inputs may be beyond the reach of poor farmers.

There are no panaceas, but there are accumulating data that support approaches other than those pushed by Monsanto for most poor farmers.

===================

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Why are we singling out Monsanto?

It’s true that Monsanto isn’t the only company promoting products and practices that impede the progress of sustainable agriculture. But none of Monsanto’s competitors come close to matching its impact on U.S. agriculture—or, thanks to its huge investment in lobbying and advertising, on farm policy.

What exactly do we mean by sustainable agriculture, anyway?

There are many definitions of sustainable agriculture out there, but most of them share some common threads. At a minimum, to be sustainable, an agricultural system must be:

economically viable (farmers who use it must be able to maintain thriving businesses);
ecologically sound (it must preserve the natural systems and resources it depends on, so that future generations can continue to use them);
socially beneficial (it must meet the human needs of both the farm itself and the wider communities it serves).

Are we saying that Monsanto’s products have no sustainability benefits at all?

It’s true that Monsanto’s impact on sustainability can’t be painted in black and white. Some of the company’s products have indeed produced some real benefits, though we would argue that these benefits have not, in most cases, come close to outweighing their costs. And when weighed against truly sustainable alternatives, Monsanto’s solutions fall drastically short.

Several genetically engineered crops have been associated with desirable effects such as decreases in chemical insecticide use and increases in conservation tillage, which reduces soil erosion (especially no-till, a system that avoids plowing).

However, it’s debatable how significant these benefits are, and how much credit Monsanto really deserves. In the case of no-till, most of the observed increase in the U.S. came before the introduction of Monsanto’s GE crops, and it’s unclear how much of the increase since then is a result of their adoption. This shows that no-till can generally be accomplished without GE crops.

The benefits of reduced insecticide use in Bt corn in the U.S. are largely offset by insecticide seed treatments—so the actual environmental impact of insecticide use may not have decreased at all, although health benefits may remain. And the increase in uncontrolled insect species on Bt cotton in China is leading to insecticide application levels approaching pre-Bt days.

Copyright © 2007 Climate and Capitalism

Capitalism's destructive car mania detailed

2012-02-11T10:34:00.001+07:00

The car, say Canadian authors Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler, who took a bus ride across the United States, is a doomed jalopy going nowhere. It fails, especially in the “home of the car”, on every green count

By Phil Shannon | Green Left Weekly | February 5, 2012

Cars cause about 40,000 deaths a year in the US.

Stop Signs: Cars & Capitalism ― On the Road to Economic, Social & Ecological Decay
By Bianca Mugenyi & Yves Engler
RED Publishing & Fernwood Publishing
2011, 259 pages,
$27.95 (pb)

Cars are the single largest contributor to US noise pollution and 40,000 people in the US die from car accidents each year (one million across the globe).

Traffic congestion creates stress and induces aggression, particularly towards cyclists, pedestrians, traffic lights and speed limits ― anything that might slow the mighty car down.

Toxic pollutants from tailpipe and particulate matter from tyre rubber (treated with dozens of carcinogens, neurotoxins and heavy metals) create health havoc from respiratory disease to cancer. Cars also “make you fat”, with all the attendant diseases of obesity.

The car is a huge devourer of space ― roads, garages, petrol stations and parking make up between one-third and one-half of the total space in US cities.

The two million cars added to the US automotive fleet each year require asphalting space equivalent to 400,000 football fields, paving over prime farmland. Parking is an omnipresent visual blight on the urban landscape and the car promotes an ugly urban housing sprawl.

The car is economically wasteful, chewing up 20% of GDP in the US (compared with 9% in Japan with its mass transport system). The cost of running a car soaks up one third of the working life of the average US citizen.

Inefficiency is its byword ― only 30% of a car’s petrol is turned into actual motion to carry just 10% of its weight, so only “3% of the fuel’s energy actually moves what needs to be moved”, Mugyenyi and Engler write.

The ecological tyre-print of the car is huge even before it leaves the sales yard. Each car requires huge quantities of water, metal and rubber, while generating tonnes of solid and airborne, often toxic, waste.

The car’s life-blood, oil, is one of the most environmentally dirty industries globally. The transport sector in the US is the nation’s leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The petrol-driven, internal combustion engine guzzles 63% of the 20 million barrels of oil consumed each day in the US. “Peak oil” and rising petrol prices are spurring on the rise of even dirtier “unconventional” fuels such as tar sands, shale oil, genetically-modified ethanol, deep sea oil and liquefied coal.

Importantly, the authors puncture the desperate delusion that “alternative” fuels can solve “the ecological catastrophe that is the private car”.

Corn-based ethanol produces more CO2 than oil-based petrol “if all the energy used in the growth phase is properly accounted for”. Corn-as-fuel also takes up five times more land than corn-as-food.

Using hydrogen or electricity to power US cars would need more dirty coal as an energy source. Either that or an area as large as the state of Massachusetts for solar panels, or New York State for wind turbines, or 200 new nuclear energy plants.

“There is no such thing as a green car,” the authors conclude. “Unsustainable” would barely describe the car’s environmental failure if the rest of the world were to adopt US patterns of car ownership and driving behaviour.

So why is the car such a protected species, culturally celebrated and immune from radical policy review? Because, the authors say, the car is integral to the capitalist economy and thus any criticism of the car is taboo.

Since 1925, the automotive industry has been the leading sector of the US economy, and, of the world’s 10 largest corporations, three are car manufacturers and six are oil companies.

The logic of maximising corporate profit through the car, they write, is compelling to all manner of capitalist industries that sell vastly more glass, rubber, steel, aluminium, plastic, paint and other products for the car than they ever would for the puny bike or efficient train.

With this economic power of the “auto-industrial complex” comes political power and access to huge government welfare programs. This offloads the private costs of the car onto the public purse for roads, police, hospitals and environmental repair, while government tax concessions, grants, bailouts and other subsidies are freely on offer.

Public transport, denied the aura of corporate profit, is the sickly runt of the transport litter whose strongest offspring gorge on the teat of public welfare.

This need not be so, say the authors. Raising the costs of driving and restricting car space are necessary sticks to the necessary carrots of investments in pedestrian, cycling and public transport infrastructure and people-centric urban design.

Making public transport free is essential, they argue. They cite Belgium’s third biggest city (Hasselt), which enjoyed a 1300% increase in public transport use over 10 years of free mass transit, and Ockelbo in Sweden, which had a 260% rise with half the new public commuters being former drivers.

All that stands in the way of a green transport future is the “concentrated private power of corporations” in the oil and auto industries.

The car and capitalism stand together. They must fall together too.

Going with the flow

2012-02-11T10:25:00.000+07:00

To fix the country’s long-term problems, action needs to start now

The Economist | Feb 11th 2012

Arid debates

FOR MILLIONS SUFFERING the misery of the past two years’ floods it must seem the cruellest of jokes, but Pakistan is one of the world’s most arid countries. Average annual rainfall is less than 240mm, and the total availability of water per person has fallen from about 5,000 cubic metres in the 1950s to about 1,100 now, just above the 1,000 cubic-metre-per-head definition of “water-scarce”. A shortage of water is a more serious peril than any of the others mentioned in this report. Combined with continued fast growth in its population, it is the true existential threat to Pakistan.

Pakistan is arranged along the Indus river basin and the world’s largest contiguous irrigation system which it feeds. From the air much of Pakistan looks brown, dusty and infertile. Only about one-quarter of the land is cultivated. According to a 2009 study by the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, at least 90% of Pakistan’s fresh water is used for irrigation and agriculture. But, it says, “intensive irrigation regimes and poor drainage practices have caused waterlogging and soil salinity throughout Pakistan’s countryside. As a result, vast expanses of the nation’s rich agricultural lands are too wet or salty to yield any meaningful harvests.”

The study forecasts that by 2025 Pakistan’s annual water supply will fall short of demand by around 100 billion cubic metres, about half of the entire present flow of the Indus. In parts of the country the shortage of water is already acute.

Around Quetta in Balochistan, for example, the water table is now 330-400 metres (1,000-1,200 feet) below the surface and estimated to be falling by 3.5 metres a year. Over 2,000 tube wells have dried up. Electricity subsidies encourage expensive pumping of scarce water.

John Briscoe, a water specialist who used to work for the World Bank and is now engaged in a study for the Friends of Democratic Pakistan, a donor group, says that in any event some 60% of water supplies around Quetta are unaccounted for—leaked or stolen. The only solution, he argues, is to stop pumping except for urban use and put a price on it. Without some drastic action, Quetta, with more than 1m people, may have to close down.

Quetta’s thirst could become a national phenomenon. Already more than two-fifths of Pakistan’s population lacks access to safe drinking water. The glaciers of the western Himalayas, whose snowmelt and rains provide the Indus with its water, are dwindling as the world warms up. In the short term this, and spectacular rains such as those seen in the past two years, could lead to more floods. In the longer run, river flows could fall by what the World Bank calls a “terrifying” 30-40%.

Much could be done to avert disaster: repairing and modernising canal systems; developing spate irrigation schemes that divert flash floods to replenish aquifers; stopping electricity subsidies that encourage water-intensive agriculture; and building small and medium-sized dams. But many experts believe that Pakistan also needs some megadams, which are more controversial. They point out that, whereas America and Australia have dams that can hold 900 days-worth of river run-off, Pakistan can barely store 30 days-worth in the Indus basin.

For Mr Briscoe, storage would be the main benefit offered by Diamer Bhasha, besides the much-needed electricity generation and flood control. Another big dam, Kalabagh, under discussion for years, may never be built, because it would be in Punjab province and Sindh has objected.

For some, despairing of Pakistan’s perpetually messy politics, such disputes are reasons for suspending democracy. Only a strong government, they argue, undistracted by the quotidian dealmaking and corruption of parliamentary politics, can take the tough decisions needed: to combat Islamist extremism, broaden the tax base, curb political violence and counter the environmental and demographic threats to Pakistan’s future.

Such were the hopes for decisive, impartial, “executive” government that accompanied Mr Musharraf when he took over. And in Pakistan, it is still to the army that people look for strength. But military rule is not the answer. After all, it has been tried for half of Pakistan’s existence. What has not been tried is truly civilian rule backed by a wholly supportive army.

It is too much to hope that the army will withdraw from politics altogether. But it is not too much to dream that an enlightened high command might try to put its house in order. It might realise that the flirtation with terrorist groups has become a threat to the nation’s future as well as to its own image; that a true peace with India is in Pakistan’s interests; that politics would be less messy if the army meddled less; and even, at a mundane level, as a member of parliament said of the ISI last November, that “when they can finance political parties and interfere in democratic affairs, why can’t they pay electricity bills?”

Bananas are not the only fruit

The BBC documentary that prompted cable operators to block the channel indefinitely included an interview with Amrullah Saleh, a former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence services. He describes a meeting in 2007 with Mr Musharraf, Pakistan’s president at the time, at which he was told of Afghan suspicions that bin Laden was living in a settled area of Pakistan. Mr Musharraf lost his temper and shouted: “Am I the president of the Republic of Banana?” He need not have worried. The only sense in which Pakistan is a banana republic is that parts of the army are out of civilian control, and unaccountable.

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2012. All rights reserved

Community Radio Saves Lives and Livelihoods

2012-02-11T09:12:00.001+07:00

Fisher Wanka Masani, 25, has been inseparable from his two- dollar transistor ever since a community radio (CR) station started up in this coastal town. The square black box blares popular songs while Masani waits for his brothers to land the daily catch

By Manipadma Jena* | Inter-Press Service | Feb 10, 2012

A two-dollar FM transistor, receiving community radio, has changed fisher Masani's life. Credit:Manipadma Jena/IPS

Radio Namaskar (the traditional Indian greeting), on the air since February 2010, offers much more than entertainment to the 2,000 active fishers from a 10,000-strong settlement of mud hut dwellers along Odisha state’s Chandrabhaga coastline on the Bay of Bengal.

Cyclonic storms often threaten the fragile vessels of the fishers, and their lives. Television weather forecasts are unreliable because power supply in these parts is erratic.

"Radio Namaskar broadcasts high wind and cyclone warnings at short intervals; its range extends 35 km out into the sea," says Gengri Mania, 40, who carries a radio when he accompanies his brother-in-law on fishing trips.

Heavy rains and high floods often leave families stranded and huddling on rooftops, sometimes for days together, as happened in the Gop administrative block in September 2011.

"Radio Namaskar’s dedicated mobile phone line was a life-saver," says Ali Akbar Shah, 37, whose house was among the first to be hit by a huge body of water when the Kushabhadra river embankment was breached.

Shah managed to grab a brace of seven mobile phone sets from his mobile repair shop with which he kept up staedy communication with the CR on all the three days that he and his neighbours were stranded on rooftops.

"The local mosque announced the breach at 9.30 in the night. We just had time to move the sleeping children and essentials to the asbestos roof when the rooms started filling with water," remembers Shah.

Artarana Behera, who runs a bicycle repair shop in nearby Helari village, also hit by this flood, says his joint family of 13 members, including his aged parents and small children, had to seek refuge on his roof.

"We survived on two kg of beaten rice that we ate on the first day and kept up communication through Radio Namaskar’s community phone call number 9040904904 dedicated to SoS messages from flood victims."

More than a thousand calls were recorded from flood-affected people on this dedicated phone number over that week.

Identifying from these calls spots where relief material was needed on priority, the administration rushed food packages, candles and tarpaulin sheets for shelter from the rain.

"Radio Namaskar broadcast flood updates every 10 minutes, 24X7, for the three days that the water level stayed high. The administration too used the CR to make announcements. I am happy I could be of service," says Shah.

After Radio Namaskar’s crucial role as intermediary between stranded victims and relief and rescue operations on the other, many villagers saw the CR on FM 90.4 MHz frequency as a saviour and bought the two- dollar sets made by a firm in Kolkata city and already selling well there.

Subas Nayak, 34, Konark Municipality Councillor, representing the fishers’ community, says CR has transformed life on the coast and helped fishers from being cheated by middlemen.

"The five local cold-storage owners who are also big fish buyers would decide on prices of commercial varieties prior to fish landings everyday and control the auction prices," Nayak said.

The fishers could do nothing because they had no infrastructure to hold their catch. But, once Radio Namaskar began announcing daily prices of fish varieties in the markets of Kolkata city, where Konark’s fish catches are sold, the game was up. The fishers now have a say in deciding fair prices.

The popularity of the CR can be gauged from its most popular programme ‘Janata Darbar’ (People’s Court) and ‘Sir, Tike Sunibe?’ (Sir, Can you Kindly Lend Your Ear?) on which communities air their problems and grievances through focused 30-minute discussions, seeking redress from government agencies or elected leaders.

"Ninety percent of our success stories are women-led," says Naseem Ahmed Shah Ansari, 36, founder and chairperson of Radio Namaskar.
All the 72 listener groups are led by women, he says, adding: "We want women to be the change makers in our predominantly rural setting."

The women’s groups ensure quality food reaches the ‘anganwadis’, a government scheme that provides food supplements to children, pregnant and lactating mothers. They intervene to get dalit (low caste) girls admission into schools and widows get their pension.

Programmes are broadcast at listener-convenient timings for eight hours daily, covering youth, local self-governance, agriculture and citizen rights and recordings on compact disc handed over to the local administration for action.

Because of limited funds, the CR runs its programme entirely through 25 volunteers, ranging from Narayan Das, 62, a retired school teacher, to 18-year-old Sharup Saha, a student.

"Neither the federal government nor funding organisations have any specific policy in place yet for funding CRs in India," laments Ansari.
The initial funds too were hard to come by: of the 22,000 dollars invested half came from Radio Namaskar’s parent organisation, Young India, while the rest was loaned interest-free by other non- government organisations.

"Revenue from government advertisements is eyewash. We get a pittance and payments are invariably delayed," says Ansari who is now looking at private advertisements, allowed for 5 minutes per hour of broadcast, as additional revenue.

For now, garnering listenership by being relevant to the community is Radio Namaskar’s main focus, he said.

This story was produced with the support of UNESCO*.

Copyright © 2012 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.

Is China Reentering the Great Game?

2012-02-11T09:03:00.000+07:00

Many countries have contributed to Afghanistan’s reconstruction. But it’s only been since 2007 that China has attracted attention with its investments. In November 2007, the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) won the tender to invest over $2.9 billion to develop the Aynak copper mine, which is the second-largest copper deposit in the world

By Dong Yu | Foreign Policy in Focus | February 9, 2012

This was not only the second-largest investment in Afghanistan in recent years – equivalent to one-third of all foreign aid spent in the country between 2002 and 2007 – but it also raised China to the top tier of investors. In a more recent deal in October 2011, the PetroChina Company Ltd (CPNC) plans to invest about $300 million in three oil fields in northern Afghanistan.

As China becomes more and more concerned about the impact of the power vacuum created by the imminent U.S. withdrawal, it has begun to accompany its economic investments with contributions on the security side as well. Although China has sent its Snow Leopard Special Operation forces to protect its most important assets (such as the Chinese embassy) and personnel in this unstable region, the number of guards is very limited. Many more Chinese workers and businesses rely on the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. security contractors for protection. As a consequence, the United States and China, which have developed a competitive relationship around resource extraction around the world, might find common ground for cooperation in Afghanistan.

Whether China becomes more active in Afghanistan to protect its investments security depends on the scale of Chinese involvement and the priority of Afghanistan in China’s regional strategy. At a time of rising tensions between Beijing and Washington, cooperation around Afghanistan could be a win-win for all concerned.

Jewel in China’s Crown?

After the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, China increased its foreign engagement with its western neighbors in Central Asia and South Asia. It established and operated regional political, military, and economic cooperation mechanisms with Russia and the five Central Asia countries beginning in 1995. It also re-balanced its position between India and Pakistan, deepening its relations with India, the rising regional great power. After adopting a "Western Development" policy in 2000, Beijing has been constructing an energy transit network and consolidating defense in its western provinces, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet.

Besides its unique strategic position, Afghanistan's less known feature, its abundant mineral resources, is very attractive to resource-hungry China. China has become the second-largest net oil importer in the world since 2009. According to an International Energy Agency scenario, Chinese oil imports are estimated to grow from 4.3 million barrels a day in 2009 to 12.8 million barrels a day in 2035, rising from 53 percent to 84 percent of its total demand. It is also dependent on foreign imports of copper and iron for 80 percent and 53.6 percent of its needs respectively, and its consumption will grow by 5-10 percent per year in the future.

In 1960s and 1970s, Soviet geological exploration revealed numerous mineral reserves in Afghanistan. After 2001, the U.S. Geological Survey updated these findings and estimated that the untapped mineral deposits are worth $1 trillion.

Three kinds of resources are most valuable to China. Deposits in the Aynak region contain about 240 million metric tons of copper, one of the largest copper reserves in the world.

The largest iron deposit in the country, meanwhile, is the Hajigak deposit. The region contains 1.8 billion tons of iron ore, an enormous amount of which is world-class quality. Finally, most crude oil occurs in the Afghan-Tajik Basin, and most of the natural gas is located in the Amu Darya Basin. The estimated mean volumes of petroleum were 1,596 million barrels of crude oil, 444 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and 562 million barrels of natural gas liquid. On top of these traditional resources, U.S. surveyors recently discovered a rare earth element reserve with at least 1 million metric tons of lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium in the Khanneshin area of Helmand province.

The Drivers of China's Involvement

After the U.S. invasion in 2001, Beijing reestablished official diplomatic contact with the Transitional Authority and provided over $200 million in foreign assistance. Chinese state companies have conducted seven infrastructure construction projects, including important highways in Kondoz (2003-2005) and in Jalalabad (2003-2006). A province-owned enterprise helped to rebuild the water conservancy in Parvan in 2004. The twin telecom giants, Huawei and ZETA, also won some contracts of reconstructing and maintenance of the telecom systems in Kabul and Kandahar. These early contracts were at a relatively low scale, and Chinese firms followed their government’s foreign aid policy rather than their own economic interests. In bilateral trade, the total amount has increased 40-fold since 1999 to $716 million in 2011, but it is a one-sided exchange. Chinese exports of manufactured goods flood the Afghan local market, but China only imports about $12 million (about 1 percent of the total amount).

China so far has devoted most its energy and money to the Aynak Copper mine located in Logar Province, 30 miles south of Kabul. According to the contract, MCC will build a complete production line of exploitation, concentration, and smelting, as well as a 400-megawatt power plant, vital transport infrastructure (probably the railway linking Afghanistan to Tajikistan), and social amenities (schools, clinics, and mosques) for the local communities. It is scheduled to begin operations around 2012 and 2013. The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) estimates the annual 19-percent royalties can bring an average $300-million annual income to the Afghan government and shift the focus of the Afghan economy away from the opium trade. It will create 5,000 direct and 30,000 indirect jobs. Both Kabul and the international community see this long-term investment as vital to Afghan reconstruction and development.

Another important energy contract, CPNC's $300-million oil exploitation project, concerns northern Afghanistan. The three oil fields in Zamarudsay, Bazarkhami, and Kashkari, which contain a total of 88 million barrels, are adjacent to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Little is known about the terms of the contract, but the investment will include a production facility and a transport network (pipeline). Considering the low population in the region, there will be less local development of infrastructure investment than in Aynak.

These two investments comprise over 90 percent of Chinese FDI in Afghanistan. But this Chinese FDI amounts to little over 10 percent of the total FDI flowing into Afghanistan.

Emerging Security Concerns

Because of the Taliban’s resurgence, it now operates in 80 percent of the country, including the provinces in the west and north. The number of violent incidents began to increase in 2009 and reached a high in 2010. Most attacks targeted the local population and the security forces. Personnel connected to investment, business, and infrastructure projects have experienced a low incidence of violence. Nor is it evident that the Taliban and other Islamic extremists have specifically targeted Chinese. In 2004, in the only reported attack in Afghanistan that specifically targeted Chinese, militants killed 11 Chinese employees working on a Jalalabad highway project. The Aynak copper project is located in Logar province, a base for the Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin and the Haqqani Network. This makes the investment in Aynak more insecure compared to the oil project in Faryab and Sar-E Pol province of the northern Afghanistan.

Complicated tribal politics and rivalries also add uncertainty to China’s investment strategy. Although the central government in Kabul has welcomed Chinese investors and guaranteed their security, the Chinese still face complex tribal politics in local areas. Moreover, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which has a direct relationship with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, has set up camps in the two provinces to recruit and train Afghans. The IMU might instigate anti-Chinese sentiment and attack Chinese investments.

The primary security issue for Chinese business representatives is transportation of the extracted resources out of landlocked Afghanistan. Currently, there are two major transportation routes between China and Afghanistan: land transport from Kabul to Karachi, then by ship to China, or land transport from Kabul to Bandas Abbas, then by ship to China. For the Aynak cooper mine, both the southern (Kabul-Karachi) and the western (Kabul-Bandas Abbas) routes are practicable. However, both routes are expensive and time-consuming. The southern route also crosses through the unstable areas in eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, where insurgent attacks are frequent. MCC plans to solve this transportation problem with a rail link between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. For the oil fields in the north, pipeline transit will be a much safer method than road/railway transportation. China can plug the new pipeline into the existing grand pipeline system in Central Asia, but this might involve further negotiation with neighboring Turkmenistan.

China's Central Asia Strategy

China has been actively participating in almost every issue in Central Asia since the 1990s. On one hand, this reflects China's rising in economic and political influence and military strength over the past two decades. On the other, China can’t avoid engaging in the region given Central Asia's strategic centrality in geopolitics.

Consider, for instance, the twin issues of separatism and terrorism in China’s troubled Xinjiang province. The tensions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region are an important factor behind Beijing's eagerness to tie itself with Central Asia. In the 19th and 20^th centuries, Uighurs and other Turkic ethnic groups made several failed attempts to establish an independent East Turkestan state. In addition to suppressing these rebels, China has also adopted special political, economic, social, and cultural policies to suppress the separatist sentiment, integrate local populations, and enhance their recognition within the PRC.

After the Central Asian states gained their independence in 1991, separatists gained popular sympathy both in the Central Asian states and in Turkey, reinforcing separatist sentiment. Poor governance in Central Asia not only enabled the smuggling of weapons and personnel across borders but also encouraged the emergence of Islamic extremism in the region, such as the IMU. What's more, the Central Asian Islamic extremist groups started to establish links with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Some Uighur rebels and members of ETIM had received training both in al-Qaeda and IMU camps. In response, China used trade and investment as tools to pressure Central Asian countries to end their support of the Xinjiang separatists. It further initiated multilateral military cooperation against the "Three Evil Forces" (terrorism, separatism, and extremism) in the region within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). China included Afghanistan as a guest observer in the SCO and expressed its concerns about anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan. In this sense, Afghanistan is a geographically peripheral but strategically integral component of Chinese anti-separatism and anti-terrorism strategy in Central Asia.

The second component of China's strategy in the broader Central Asian region involves energy. The increased international dependence on oil and gas, as well as China’s growing thirst, has sharpened competition over these fuels. At the same time, China has been diversifying its sources of energy in order to reduce its dependency on oil from Middle East. Given the fragility of the maritime supply line via the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca in wartime, these factors make it more important to control Central Asia, as it is both a producer and a transit region. Therefore, China has pursued the exploitation rights of several oil and gas fields in Central Asia through bids and purchases, including two agreements with Kazakhstan for $5 billion in oil-field development and $9 billion in pipeline construction. Both countries recently signed an accord to expand a pipeline network by more than 80 percent in September 2011. Moreover, China's state-owned enterprises have also committed $100 to 120 billion to projects in Iran(mostly in its oil fields), despite the long-term sanctions by the United States and Europe. Although facing political and economic difficulties, the Sino-Iranian network of oil pipelines would be another most important transit line on the continent. As such, Chinese investment in Afghanistan oil fields is part of its overall resource diversification in the region.

An equally important geopolitical factor is how China’s further involvement in Afghanistan will affect stability in South Asia. The complicated interactions among Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan have produced a comparably complex policy in Beijing. China worries that Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan influence not only Uighur separatism and security in Xinjiang, but also the effective governance of Pakistan, which is important for the further development of Sino-Indian relations. On the other hand, China realizes it cannot ignore Pakistan's sense of insecurity that has been heightened by more Indian involvement in Afghanistan. It also sees India as both a strong competitor for Afghan natural resources and an encircling external power (through Afghanistan). Beijing has thus used its engagement with Islamabad to balance New Delhi’s influence. China's higher profile at the Istanbul International Conference on Afghanistan in November reflects this approach.

Superpower Cooperation?

As the current great power in the region, the United States is the major variable influencing China's policy making. Traditionally the United States has had few critical interests in Central Asia and has seldom made the region a high priority, except when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. During the 1990s, the only U.S. strategic interest in the region was the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Only after 9/11 did the United States turn its attention back to the region. Now with the announcement of its new Asia strategy in October, the White House is shifting its focus to the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, Washington is not eager to see China expand its influence in Afghanistan and its environs.

From a strategic perspective, then, China does not want to attract too much attention with its grand strategy in Central Asia. The United States and India have been very concerned about the westward expansion of China’s influence into the Indian Ocean since 2006. They claim that China has a vision of a "string of pearls," trying to gain access to the Indian Ocean through strategic investments and military base constructions in Hainan Island, Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and the Gwadar port in Pakistan. If China further increases its involvement, such as sending military personnel to protect its investments in Afghanistan or to help train Afghan security force, Washington will take notice.

Chinese economic interest in Afghanistan may not be as important as its interests in other countries. Its investment in Afghanistan represents only a tiny proportion of its total overseas investment stocks — $168.6 million out of $3.1 trillion — which is even lower than its investments in Sudan and other African countries. Moreover, China has been diversifying its acquisition of resources by making deals with many different countries around the world. It has also used mergers and acquisitions to secure stakes in mining, oil, and gas sectors.

Considering the importance of its investment security and Afghanistan's role in geopolitics, China will probably increase its involvement in Afghan issues alongside the gradual withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces. However, traditional geopolitical, strategic, and economic factors greatly constrain China's ability to become more active in Afghanistan.

Many articles and statements in the Chinese press support Chinese cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan reconstruction. For instance, as far back as 2004, Men Honghua of the International Strategic Institute of the Central Party School discussed potential Sino-U.S. cooperation in failed states, including Afghanistan. According to a WikiLeaks cable, China has “expressed interest in cooperating with the U.S. for delivery of non-lethal aid to Afghanistan” since 2006. But the Chinese government formally rebuffed the possibility of military cooperation in Afghanistan—namely the opening of a supply route for U.S. forces—in 2009.

Particularly as U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan War decreases, U.S.-China cooperation can still go forward in the economic and cultural realms. China sends its workers to dangerous areas where U.S. personnel are reluctant to go for construction and other infrastructure projects. In a region of great conflict, the United States and China might eventually find greater common ground.

This work by Institute for Policy Studies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Earth Summit is doomed to fail, say leading ecologists

2012-02-11T08:53:00.001+07:00

We can forget about fixing the planet's ecosystems and climate until we have fixed government systems, a panel of leading international environmental scientists declared in London on Friday. The solution, they said, may not lie with governments at all

by Fred Pearce | New Scientist | 10 February 2012

Concerted action 20 years back has produced few concrete results (Image: Sipa Press/Rex Features)

"We are disillusioned. The current political system is broken," said Bob Watson, the UK government's chief environmental science advisor, who chaired the meeting.

The panel, all winners of the prestigious Blue Planet prize, often seen as the Nobel prize for environmental science, were meeting to prepare a statement for the Earth Summit 2012, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June – 20 years after the original Earth Summit in that city.

The world has wasted the intervening years, the group said. Ecosystems are disappearing ever faster, the world is still warming, and two 1992 treaties, on climate change and species loss, have failed to achieve their aims. Governments, the group said, were largely to blame.

"Last time in Rio we had an unreasonable faith in governments. Since then we've lost our innocence in believing government was wise and benevolent and far-sighted. That's been blown completely out of the water," said Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, a non-profit organisation based in London.

Not remotely sustainable

"Essentially nothing has changed in 20 years. We are not remotely on a course to be sustainable," Watson said.

"What's most discouraging is a loss of feeling that government would help us," said Harold Mooney, a veteran biologist from Stanford University.

No one held out much hope that the forthcoming summit would usher in a new era. Politicians do not seem interested. The 1992 summit lasted two weeks, attracted most of the world's leaders and garnered huge headlines. But this year's event will last just three days, and so far China's president Hu Jintao is the only head of state scheduled to attend.

"The UN text [for the summit declaration] is weak," said energy researcher José Goldemberg, who was Brazil's environment secretary at the time of the first summit.

Key priorities

The top priorities, according to Watson, are ending the fossil-fuel era to curb climate change, and investing in limiting population by making contraception available to all.

But neither were likely to happen because, said Syukuro Manabe, a climate modeller at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "the political system is not motivated to worry about the future".

The laureates said leadership was most likely to come from local government, NGOs and corporations, rather than national leaders or the UN. "Decision-makers should learn from and scale up grass-roots action and knowledge in areas like energy, food, water and natural resources," the panel declared.

"We do believe that the political system can be reformed, and that there will be technical solutions. But time is not on our side," Watson said.

© Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Lead kills 400 Nigerian children

2012-02-11T08:46:00.001+07:00

400 Nigerian children dead of lead poisoning due to gold mining

Disaster News Network | February 10, 2012

The hunt for gold in northern Nigeria has left 400 children dead of lead poisoning and many more ill in the past two years, a human rights organization says.

Human Rights Watch said in a release Tuesday thousands of Nigerian children need immediate medical treatment and dozens of villages are contaminated by pollution from artisanal gold mines throughout Zamfara state.

The organizations says children are exposed to lead dust when they process ore in the mines, when relatives return home from working in the mines covered with lead dust and when the lead-filled ore is manually or mechanically crushed at home. Children can also come in contact with lead in contaminated water and food.

Healthcare workers in Zamfara state say there also have been high rates of infertility and miscarriage among adults, the rights group said.

"Zamfara's gold brought hope for prosperity, but resulted in death and backbreaking labor for its children," said Babatunde Olugboji, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. "People living in Zamfara state should not have to trade their lives, or their children's lives, for the chance to mine gold and make a living."

The group said more than 1,500 children have been treated for acute lead poisoning but thousands more have gone without the chelation therapy treatment that removes lead from the body.

Efforts to decontaminate the affected villages also have fallen short, Human Rights Watch said.

© 2012 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Copyright © Village Life Company . All Rights Reserved

Strong Sustainability

2012-02-11T08:43:00.001+07:00

In order to achieve sustainability, we need scenarios of where we want to go: not only warnings and plans, but also reports as if we'd already made the transition. Who would have suspected they'd come from the south Pacific?

by Craig K. Comstock | Feb 10 2012 by The Huffington Post in Energy Bulletin | Feb 10 2012

New Zealand, apart from supplying the setting for The Lord of the Rings, is a good place to think about sustainability. A small nation, it is relatively free from imperial delusions. Surrounded by water, it's heavily dependent on foreign trade, exporting (for example) dairy products, meat, wool, and wood. Foreign trade would be adversely affected by a sharp rise in the price of oil. One analyst who takes account of the global peak of oil production, argues that New Zealand may be one of the first countries to achieve sustainability, driven in part by need.

This island nation also has some advantages. Over half of its electricity is generated by hydro, which is renewable; and according to a recent study, the nation has enough land to feed its small population.

In any case, at least two groups in New Zealand have given us scenarios of their country as if it had made the transition to sustainability. An institution called Landcare published Four Scenarios for New Zealand in 2005 (followed by a second edition in 2007), and then Hatched: The Capacity for Sustainable Development in 2009.

New Zealand also has the advantage of containing more than one culture, so some people there are accustomed to thinking in terms of alternatives. (Landcare's name in the other official language of the country, Maori, is Manaaki Whenua.)

Another striking report comes from Sustainable Aotearoa New Zealand. (Aotearoa is Maori for "land of the long white cloud," an ancient name for the islands.) The report is called Strong Sustainability, though as SANZ board member K. Bosselmann notes, "In fact, there is only 'sustainability,' not a weak and strong version, just as there is no weak or strong version of justice, freedom and equality. You either follow these foundational principles or you don't." Bosselmann heads the Centre for Environmental Law at the University of Auckland.

SANZ adopted the rubric of "strong sustainability," I gather, to distinguish its approach from token or fledgling versions that began a quarter century ago with the sometimes oxymoronic phrase "sustainable development."

One of the scenarios published by Landcare, and much of the SANZ report, depict a New Zealand that is less integrated into the global economy, more able to stand on its own. The authors are aware of the economic theory of "comparative advantage," which holds that overall prosperity is increased when each place produces what it does best and trades freely. However, they are struck by the possibility that trade may become increasingly costly and what had been leading trade partners may experience declining ability to pay.

If this scenario happens, what is now the dominant way of life will falter, and new challenges emerge. Machines dependent on oil will become more costly. A different infrastructure will be required. Skills will shift in value. For an introduction to that new world, which is not a prediction but only a possibility, check out the gifts of foresight from New Zealand.

Scenario planning has a long history. For example, the end of the Cold War was imagined by the sociologist David Riesman, who, in his fake history, The Nylon War, reported on an operation that began with the U.S. "bombing" its adversary with consumer goods, on the assumption that "if allowed to sample the riches of America, the Russian people would not long tolerate masters who gave them tanks and spies instead of vacuum cleaners and beauty parlors."

Royal Dutch Shell uses scenario planning to amplify its corporate thinking about the future. Science fiction offers a version, as in Arthur C. Clarke's vision of a geosynchronous communications satellite. Aldous Huxley imagined a utopia in his last novel, Island. Ernest Callenbach wrote Ecotopia, about a fictional world visited by an increasingly less skeptical journalist. A book published by the Ark Foundation spoke of "jumping ahead and looking back at the future." In 2007, Harvey Wasserman published Solartopia, an airplane jaunt over a world no longer dependent on carbon-based energy. Transition Towns recommends "energy descent plans,"* and the town of Totnes in southern England has produced one.

When I spent a year after college registered at the London School of Economics, and read the current debate about what the United Kingdom could become after the loss of its empire, it never occurred to me that one day my country might be facing a not dissimilar question. In New Zealand terms, a related sadness and dejection appears in the classic movie, Whale Rider, when a Maori character speaks of looking for "somebody who's gonna lead our people out of the darkness, and who will make everything all right again."

Just as Maori traditions have been rendered less relevant by modern society, so much of consumer society could be threatened by the transition to a sustainable world. Calculations that make sense now would refer to practices that no longer exist. We'd all be feeling grief as the familiar was no longer supportable, and the sadness of which the anthropologist Levi-Straus spoke would then apply to the most economically advanced people.

Scenario planning if course is only one element of what we need to make the transition to sustainability: not sufficient, but definitely useful. In the words of Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Along with its other exports, New Zealand has given us a template, if necessary, for success.

Making the Forest Sector Transparent

2012-02-11T08:36:00.000+07:00

Since October 2008, Global Witness has been working on a project called “Making the Forest Sector Transparent“. The project has recently released its 2011 Annual Transparency Report, looking at the transparency record in seven countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, and the Democratic Republic of Congo

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 10th February 2012

In each of the countries, Global Witness has formed a partnership with a local NGO and each of these partners in turn supports smaller civil society organisations working at grassroots community level. Each year, the project produces a Report Card for each country. In 2011, the Report Card looks at “20 key indicators on important provisions of the legal and regulatory framework that applies to the forest sector governance”.

The report cards for each country are available by clicking on the countries from the map on the website home page. There are some improvements on paper, such as freedom of information laws enacted by Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru and Liberia. But a press release about the launch of the report notes that none of the forest authorities are meeting their obligations. “These additional commitments currently amount to no more than statements of intent,” says David Young, forest campaigner at Global Witness.

Corruption is one of the biggest risks that REDD faces and increasing transparency is one of the best ways of addressing corruption. So why are these governments moving so slowly towards transparency in the forest sector?

Here is the press release about the 2011 Annual Transparency Report:

Commitments to improved transparency in the forest sector must be acted on

Forest dependent communities are still in the dark about how their forests are being managed, despite additional commitments from governments to publish information about their policies and practice, says a report published by Global Witness today.

Marking the end of the Year of the Forest, the Annual Transparency Report published by a coalition of NGOs working across Europe, Africa and Latin America assesses the amount of information available to citizens in seven forest-rich tropical countries (Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, Liberia and Peru). The report includes measures of how governments deal with threats from mining and agricultural plantations, the way in which deals are done and whether forest-dependent communities have enough say over how their forests are being managed. It finds that governmental commitments to improve transparency in the forest sector are not being acted on.

“The rights of people living in the forest can only be effectively protected if laws, policies and other basic information such as logging contracts and concession maps are widely available to them,” said Joseph Bobia, of Réseau Ressources Naturelles, a forest campaign group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Governments need to provide this information in a timely and transparent way. Only this way will civil society be able to hold them to account.”

Governments have announced a range of commitments to improve transparency over forest sector management. These include: better and earlier public consultation, public disclosure of key documents, and support to small landowners to protect their forests. In addition, four of the seven forest-rich countries covered in the report now have Freedom of Information laws that include commitments to providing information on forest sector management. Worryingly however, very few of these commitments are being acted on and in the case of the freedom of information laws, not one forest authority is meeting its obligations.

“These additional commitments currently amount to no more than statements of intent,” said David Young, forest campaigner at Global Witness. “More and better information must be published immediately. Until this happens, forest-dependent communities cannot know whether their forests are being managed in their interests, or those of a select few.”

The report also raises concerns that commercial interests for land, mining, oil and agricultural plantations are still taking precedent over the need to protect forests and the communities that depend on them. All too often government bodies compete to strike a deal with a favoured investor, rather than working together in the interests of preserving forests.

“With only 20 percent intact natural forest remaining globally, it is vital that governments manage forests in the public interest,” continued Young. “Local civil society are fighting hard to extract better commitments from their governments, and have shown determination and imagination in doing so. But while there have been some improvements, not one forest authority has made a wholehearted change towards more openness. What do they have to hide?”

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

UK: David Young, Global Witness: dyoung@globalwitness.org

Cameroon: Samuel Nguiffo, Centre pour l’Environment et le Developpement (CED); snguiffo@yahoo.fr, snguiffo@cedcameroun.org

DRC: Joseph Bobia, Réseau Ressources Naturelles (RRN);josephbobia@rrnrdc.org

Ecuador: Sigrid Vásconez, Grupo Fundación para el Avance de las Reformas y Oportunidades (Grupo FARO); svasconez@grupofaro.org

Ghana: Willie Laate, Center for Indigenous Knowledge & Organisational Development (CIKOD); wilraby@yahoo.com

Guatemala: Victor Lopez, Asociación de forestería comunitaria de Guatemala Ut’z Che’ (Ut’z Che’); vitillescas@gmail.com

Liberia: Jonathan Yiah, Sustainable Development Institute (SDI);jyiah@sdiliberia.org

Peru: Hugo Che Piu Deza, Derecho Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR); hchepiu@dar.org.pe

Notes to editors:

[1] The Annual Forest Sector Transparency Report card is published as an interactive database at www.foresttransparency.info. Global Witness has been working on forest transparency and illegal logging for over 15 years. Read more about our work on forests at www.globalwitness.org/forests

[2] The United Nations Year of the Forest 2011 closing ceremony takes place on 9 February 2012. See http://www.un.org/en/events/iyof2011/

[3] There were some improvements in six countries:

In Peru, a new Forest and Wildlife Law establishes a decentralised and integrated system of forest resource use, included issues of governance, transparency and access to information; and a new Law of Right to Prior Consultation reinforces legal commitments and international conventions regarding the rights of indigenous peoples.

In Liberia a National Benefit Sharing Trust Board was formally constituted with multi-stakeholder representation, including communities and civil society organisations. The Board will play a crucial role in ensuring equitable and effective use of forest revenue distributed to affected communities.

In Cameroon, the Government committed in August 2011 to regular public disclosure of over fifty key documents in a bilateral Voluntary Partnership Agreement ratified with the European Union to improve forest law enforcement governance and trade.

In Ghana, a draft new Forest Policy was released for comment in October. It includes the commitment to “Institute transparency, equity and legalize public participation in sustainable forest and wildlife resources management”.

In Ecuador, the Ministry of Environment published a model of forest governance that recognises the importance of transparency and monitoring.

In Guatemala a new forest law passed by congress, and which was promoted by civil society, will increase support to small landholders, including those with less secure tenure, to conserve and manage their forests and to promote agroforestry practices.

[4] The report card is part of Global Witness’ Making the Forest Sector Transparent project, funded by the UK Department for International Development Governance and Transparency Fund.

Full Disclosure: REDD-Monitor has in the past received funding from Global Witness. Click here for all of REDD-Monitor’s funding sources.

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WWF scandal (part 2): Corporate capture, commodities and carbon trading

2012-02-11T08:28:00.001+07:00

A recent article asks whether corporations have captured big conservation? The subheading could have read, “Do bears shit in the woods?”

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 9th February 2012

In the article, “Way Beyond Greenwashing: Have Corporations Captured Big Conservation?“, Jonathan Latham, takes on big conservation’s role in setting up certification schemes for commodities, including the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS), the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels and the Better Sugar Cane Initiative (Bonsucro). He points out the low and ambiguous standards, such as the request for companies to “volunteer to obey the law”, under the RTRS.

Latham argues that WWF and other big conservation organisations have become too close to corporations, including having corporate representatives on their boards. The “market transformation” that WWF is persuing through its commodity roundtables is extremely industry friendly. “The key question then becomes: did these boards in fact instigate market transformation? Did it come from the very top?”

Latham’s article is excellent and well worth reading if you haven’t done so already.

In the article, Latham refers to a presentation by Jason Clay, Vice President for Market Transformation at WWF US, given in March 2011. Clay’s presentation outlines WWF’s strategy on REDD: bundling commodities and carbon trading.

In 2010, WWF received a total of €56 million (about US$68 million) from corporations. That’s about 11% of WWF’s total income. It’s peanuts, of course, as Clay points out in his presentation. In its 50 years of existence, WWF has raised and spent more than US$10 billion, which is “less than most major companies spend on messaging within one year”, Clay says.

“Who’s gonna win that battle? It’s not gonna be the NGOs, that put all their money into a single advertisement that shows once against the onslaught of others. So we’ve gotta work out how to work with others.”

WWF has produced a map of the world showing 35 priority regions “from a biodiversity and ecosystem services point of view”. WWF then analysed the threats in terms of 15 commodities produced from these regions, including palm oil, pulp and paper, sawn wood, soy, beef and so on. (Strangely absent are oil, gas, coal or any other mined commodities.) WWF then looked at how to influence the environmental impact of these products. There are about 7 billion people on the planet (Clay calls them “consumers”), speaking 7,000 languages. There are 1.4 billion producers of the 15 commodities. But only 300-500 companies control 70-80% of the trade in each of the 15 commodities. “Working with 300-500 companies could be a lot easier than working with 7 billion consumers or 1.4 billion producers,” Clay says.

WWF spent four years researching these commodity traders and found that the 100 largest companies are involved in 25% of the trade in all 15 commodities. And that 25% of demand leverages 40-50% of production, “because producers will change to sell into those markets”, Clay says.

But contacting companies individually takes too long. So WWF decided instead to “work with groups”. Hence the “Commodity Roundtables” that WWF has been setting up, to create what Clay describes as “credible standards that companies can buy products against”.

“We developed the FSC, we developed the MSC, the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council. We’ve since done it for almost all those other commodities.”

WWF’s goal is to have 25% of global production of these commodities to be certified by 2020. Clay’s slide makes it look simple:

But as a look at some of the problems with FSC shows, there are serious problems with the certification approach. And FSC is probably the best of these certification systems. That’s not an endorsement of FSC, by the way, just a recognition that the others are even worse.

Clay and WWF are proposing making a bad situation very much worse. In his 2011 talk, Clay mentions environmental externalities. “One of the problems is that we don’t pay the price of anything we buy, because we don’t pay for environmental externalities. So how can we bring externalities back into pricing?” Clay asks. His answer is to bring carbon into the supply chains.

“Why don’t they buy carbon and commodities at the same time? Why don’t they reward farmers for actually sequestering carbon, or avoiding carbon, or changing the trajectory of carbon intensity of the products they make?”

The argument is that because the commodity roundtables include language about reducing deforestation, there exists the possibility of selling the carbon not emitted bundled into the price of the commodity.

In September 2011, a three-day workshop took place in the University of San Diego, California, USA: “The Role of Commodity Roundtables & Avoided Forest Conversion in Subnational REDD+”. It was organised by the National Wildlife Federation, the Governors Climate and Forests Task Force, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, the Agriculture Synergies Project, the Tropical Forest Group and Amigos da Terra (which has nothing to do with Friends of the Earth). Several WWF representatives spoke at the workshop.

Obviously, there are problems with the suggestion of bundling carbon and commodities, not least of which is working out how much carbon is associated with each commodity and determining what the difference might have been if the commodity had been produced outside the vague rules of the commodity roundtable. Then there’s the fact that the rules are not policed particularly closely. And the fact that trading in something that cannot be measured accurately is an extremely high risk investment. Nevertheless, WWF is ploughing on. In his presentation, Clay explained that,

“We’ve just now got some money from the Dutch government, to do assessments of these crops to see how much carbon different farmers in different parts of the world producing these would have to sell with their commodity. Is it one tonne of carbon with every tonne of sugar cane? Is it half a tonne? Is it three tonnes? We need to have an idea of what those numbers are and then we need to draft and peer review a kind of financial approach to how you would do this.”

Clay argues that we can start with carbon, because there already is a carbon market. He appears blissfully unaware of the on-going meltdown in carbon markets. Once the carbon is traded with these commodities, Clay suggests moving on to water, pollinators and biodiversity. “We can widdle away at it, and we can add more things to the price,” he says.

At the end of his presentation Clay asks “Who will manage the planet?” While Clay answers that we all have to, it is obvious from his presentation that Clay and WWF are proposing that corporations, commodity traders and carbon traders should manage the planet. Anyone else think that this is a recipe for disaster?

IDB Funds Biomass Project for Low Income Families in Brazil

2012-02-11T08:20:00.001+07:00

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a US$2 million project to help low-income families in Brazil to supply fruit kernels to biomass plants

Climate Change Policy & Practice | 8 February 2012

As a result of the project, kernels from the fruit of açai, used for the production of health supplements and beverages, will be used for biofuel production instead of being dumped in the city’s streets, sewers and nearby rivers. The project will provide technical assistance and training to waste collection cooperatives, as well as design a logistics plan that includes establishing waste collection stations and organizing transportation of the material to VBA-Açai. The project aims to organize açai pulp producers and pickers into a network to collect kernels and establish a commercially viable, sustainable and inclusive biomass production business in Pará.

It also expects to register emissions reductions under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or other alternative carbon certification programmes, as it will reduce the generation of methane from the fruit waste, in order to create additional income streams for pulp processors and waste pickers through the sale of carbon credits.

[IDB Press Release]

All content copyright © 1990 - 2012 - IISD

The new geography of trade

2012-02-10T22:24:00.000+07:00

Globalisation's decline may stimulate local recoveries

Fred Curtis and David Ehrenfeld | Al Jazeera | 09 Feb 2012

Relocalisation and Transition Towns movements are springing up in developed countries in response to higher oil prices and transport costs - and many 'eco-towns' have been built in Europe [GALLO/GETTY]

It is an article of faith that global trade will be an ever-growing presence in the world. Yet this belief rests on shaky foundations. Global trade depends on cheap, long-distance freight transportation. Freight costs will rise with climate change, the end of cheap oil and policies to mitigate these two challenges.

At first, the increase in freight costs will be bad news for developed and developing nations alike but, as adjustments in the patterns of trade occur, the result is likely to be decreased outsourcing with more manufacturing and food production jobs in North America and the European Union. The pattern of trade will change as increasing transportation costs outweigh traditional sources of comparative advantage, such as lower wages.

The new geography of trade will not result from policy or treaties but from the impact of changing environmental conditions due to the growth of the human economy. Global trade can be disrupted by many kinds of natural disaster: the tsunami and nuclear emergency in Japan slowed auto production in the United States, and Australian floods lowered coal exports to China. The supply chains of global production and distribution are more vulnerable than we would like to admit. Up to now, we have adapted to disruptions and global trade has continued to expand. But greater challenges to global trade lie ahead. Continual growth, or even maintenance, of the current physical volume of trade is unsustainable.

Many goods will be manufactured closer to where they are consumed, as supply chains become more regional and local. Petroleum- and transport-intensive products, such as imported food, clothing, appliances and building supplies will become more expensive; lifestyles and consumer purchasing in developed nations will shift to reflect these changes. Export-oriented nations relying on a limited number of exports to pay for imported necessities will need to become more self-reliant in meeting basic needs.

Oil supply and cheap fuel

The price of crude oil rose from US $28 per barrel in 2003 to over $147 in the summer of 2008. In 2008, 20 airlines (mostly regional freight carriers) went bankrupt. Fuel costs rose from 15 to 35 per cent of airline (freight and passenger) operating expenses. In the first two months of 2011, air carriers increased fares four times to adjust for rising oil prices.

In 2007-2008, the cost of trans-Pacific shipping of a standard container by sea went from $3,000 to $8,000. In 2010, with oil at half its 2008 price, the Danish shipping company Maersk cut its top cruising speeds in half to reduce fuel costs. According to economists Jeff Rubin and Benjamin Tal, every $1 per barrel increase in crude oil prices results in a 1 per cent increase in freight transportation costs.

As economic growth resumes, the demand for oil will increase. The International Energy Agency predicted a 2.5 million barrel per day increase for 2011, the biggest one-year increase in 30 years. Chinese oil demand is expected to grow over 10 per cent due to economic growth and coal shortages. Furthermore, recent decisions in Japan and Germany to decommission nuclear power plants may increase the demand for diesel fuel to run electric generators.

A number of factors limit oil supply's ability to both keep up with demand and limit oil price instability. Deepwater drilling is likely to be more expensive in the Gulf of Mexico due to new regulations and higher insurance costs following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Deepwater oil will provide at least 25 per cent of world supply by 2020. The failure to invest in sufficient upstream production facilities has also made an oil-supply crunch likely.

Political unrest in the oil-rich Middle East creates uncertainty about oil prices due to fears of supply disruptions.

And finally, there is peak oil, when production flow rates hit a maximum and decline thereafter. This has already occurred for the majority of oil producing nations and will soon happen for global oil production. Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Canada and Venezuela are approaching national oil peaks at the same time that their domestic demand for oil is expected to rise significantly. These exporters will either reduce exports or, like Indonesia and the United Kingdom, become oil importers. World Energy Outlook 2010 stated that global conventional oil production peaked in 2006 and is expected to decline from 70 million barrels per day to less than 16 million in 2035.

We use oil faster than we discover new resources. Global oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s. The American Joint Forces Command predicts that "By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear." According to the United Kingdom Energy Research Centre, "more than two-thirds of current crude oil production capacity may need to be replaced by 2030... equivalent to a new Saudi Arabia coming on stream every three years." The near- and long-term results will be rising transportation fuel costs, oil-price volatility and a declining quantity of conventional oil fuels.

Impact of electric power shortages

Electric power shortages and rising prices will also change the pattern of global trade and supply chains. Low-wage exporting economies are generally much less energy efficient than high-income industrial economies. As electricity rates rise with higher fuel costs for coal and oil, production costs will increase faster in low-wage countries than in developed industrial economies. According to energy analyst Thomas Christiansen, "China's use of energy per unit of gross domestic product is three times that of the United States, five times Japan's, and eight times Britain's." Rising coal, oil and electricity prices erode the comparative advantage of low-wage exporters.

Moreover, climate-related drought and lowered river flow have reduced hydroelectric power production in some export-oriented nations. In China, reduced rainfall in agricultural areas has prompted plans to divert water from the Three Gorges Dam away from hydroelectric production to irrigation. Reduced hydroelectric power has interrupted textile production in Pakistan, oil refining in Venezuela and appliance production in China. As reported by RTE News in May 2011, "Businesses in coastal areas and some inland provinces have grappled with power cuts and full blackouts since March due to surging demand and a drop in hydroelectric output." Climate change is linked to the massive floods in Australia that cut coal exports to China and put upward pressure on Chinese coal prices.

Finally, when there are hydroelectric power shortages, individuals and manufacturers rely on gasoline or diesel generators, if they can afford the fuel. According to TheWorldnet.info, "In most countries, electricity shortages quickly translate into increased demand for gasoline and diesel as organisations strive to keep computers, elevators, hospitals, refrigeration and even factory production functioning with back-up generators. Pakistan probably is suffering the worst from electricity shortages, the country simply does not have enough foreign exchange to import large quantities of expensive fuels."

Climate change and transportation infrastructure
Climate change undermines global trade directly by its effects on transportation infrastructure and indirectly by its impact on energy infrastructure and prices. A 2010 Lloyd's report stated, "Environmental change (extreme weather events... changing sea levels and melting glaciers) will generate great threats to critical infrastructure and to transport routes."

Though reduced during the recession, CO2 emissions rose dramatically in 2010 to the highest recorded level. One manifestation of climate change is increased intensity and frequency of major storms. Hurricanes and typhoons damage low-lying coastal rail lines, airports, oil and gas pipelines, highways used to connect ports and distribution networks and port facilities - all essential parts of global supply chains. They seriously affect ships and planes in transit. Heavy rainfall events are increasing in many parts of the world. Insurance claims for flood damage are rising faster than those for other natural disasters. Rising sea levels will submerge coastal highways and port facilities.

The damage to roads threatens global trade: roughly 40 per cent of the US-China supply chain consists of roads from factories to ports and from ports to distribution networks. If freight transport is significantly interrupted, rerouted or slowed, costs will rise for both manufacturers and retailers using distribution systems that require goods to arrive as they are needed in production or on retail store shelves. The heat effects of climate change also reduce engine efficiency, increase cargo refrigeration needs and therefore raise fuel costs for trucks, trains, ships and planes. Climate change is thus expected to interrupt and slow freight transportation and make it more expensive.

Oil substitutes and climate mitigation

There are substitutes for conventional oil: coal-to-liquid conversion, gas-to-liquid conversion, corn ethanol and other biofuels, hydrogen, tar sands and shale oil. Many are technically feasible but all suffer from one or more major problems. They often need large-scale investment and long lead-in periods. Some require subsidies or higher production prices per barrel than conventional oil. Many cause serious environmental damage and high greenhouse gas emissions. Several place great demands on scarce freshwater supplies or require high energy inputs for production.

Energy expert Robert Hirsch and his colleagues estimate that a crash oil mitigation program that begins when oil peaks will have a three-year lag before it adds noticeably to fuel supply. Such a crash program would restore liquid fuel supply close to peak levels within 20 years under the best assumptions. Given current supply constraints leading to the loss of cheap oil and lack of serious policy discussion, investment in alternative sources will not be sufficient to significantly replace diminishing oil supplies in the decades immediately ahead. Thus, even feasible technologies will not avoid higher fuel costs and limited fuel supplies for global freight transport.

The principal way to mitigate climate change is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible. Meaningful climate policies (such as carbon taxes or cap and trade) would raise fossil fuel prices to cut consumption and emissions.

Freight transport may be hard hit by such policies because both air freight and maritime shipping have heavy carbon footprints. In transporting freight by air, each ton of jet fuel burned produces 3.2 tons of CO2. As for maritime shipping, container and other transport ships burn bunker fuel, a sludgy, highly polluting petroleum product.

It will be difficult to cut the greenhouse gas emissions from long-distance freight transportation while maintaining the same ton-miles of freight transported per year. There are no commercial low-carbon fuels with the performance characteristics, affordability and quantitative availability to replace bunker fuel for ships or jet fuel for air freight.

The basic policy for creating incentives for better efficiency and for using low-carbon fuels is a meaningful (and increasing) price on carbon generally. If such policies were implemented, burning bunker oil and jet fuel would become much more expensive, thus increasing the costs and reducing the competitive advantage of global production and trade. This carbon pricing would occur in addition to supply-based increases in oil prices.

Prospects: Bad news and good

If large-scale mitigation of peak oil and climate change is not feasible soon, what will happen? Given current investments in the existing pattern of trade and the high costs of reorienting it, change will be resisted, with resulting widespread economic disruption. But change will occur. Clearly, increased fuel costs and higher transport risks will cause supply chains to shorten and long-distance trade to decline. Initially, there will be shifts in transport modes - truck to rail, air to water and rail - designed to preserve trade routes. But more fundamental adaptations are already starting to take place to reduce or replace long-distance trade.

Beginning with the oil price and transport cost increases in 2007-2008, some companies began rethinking their global supply chains, and a few shifted to local suppliers. Some manufacturers have opened new furniture, steel and auto plants in the United States or Mexico to feed the US market. In May 2011, Volkswagen inaugurated its huge Passat assembly plant in Tennessee, "as part of our effort to manufacture more products locally." The plant is expected to generate, directly and indirectly, 12,000 jobs. These changes in supply chains are motivated by considerations of corporate profits.
Manufacturers may relocate production closer to either suppliers of key raw materials or major markets to minimise transportation miles and costs. In 2008 some steel mills in the United States increased domestic production by directly importing iron ore from Brazil. This system bypassed the expensive trans-Pacific shipment of iron ore from Brazil to China and then of steel from China to the United States.

The resurgence of domestic manufacturing in developed nations could provide employment growth, especially for blue-collar workers. However, employment may decline in current low-wage manufacturing exporters as rising transportation costs make them less competitive.

Nations may respond with protectionist policies to changes in trade patterns. In 2008, as food prices rose (due in part to extreme weather, corn ethanol production and rising oil prices), several grain-exporting nations banned exports of cereal crops. In June 2011 China banned the export of diesel fuel in order to have enough on hand to power electric generators in the face of expected brownouts. With rising transport costs, nations are likely to subsidise energy or manufacturing to preserve exports and jobs. Such export bans and subsidies contravene provisions of the World Trade Organization and many trade treaties such as NAFTA.

While corporations have responded to rising oil prices with some changes in supply chains, national governments have not responded in kind. Current climate-policy negotiations are ineffective despite rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions. Only the United Kingdom and Sweden have identified oil depletion as a key economic issue and begun to discuss responses. Trade policies such as the Korea and Colombia Free Trade Agreements with the United States are predicated on the assumption of cheap fuel, low transportation costs and transportation-compatible weather patterns - in other words, business as usual. Thus, there are at present few national and no international policy responses to the imminent threats to global trade.

There is, however, a second, more local, noncorporate response. This response is found in the Relocalisation and Transition Towns movements now springing up in many developed countries. It is a bottom-up response that includes individuals and municipalities planning for a post-peak-oil future and altering their way of life, buying locally made products as much as possible, reducing consumption and acquisition and increasing self-sufficiency within communities that produce many of the goods and services they consume. The resurgence in the numbers of young people going into farming in the United States is an example.

Relocalisation strategies include local currencies, community land trusts, decentralised alternative energy development, water conservation and reuse, local food production and new, locally oriented business networks.

Patterns of adaptation will differ from place to place. Initially, there will be heavy and unpredictable impacts on many developing nations that currently depend on foreign cash earned for commodity exports, or that import much of their food. Yet every country is different.

Even large urban complexes can provide a surprising quantity of their own food. In China, concerns over rising food prices (and food safety) have caused a boom in online sales of vegetable seeds. Shanghai now produces much of its own vegetables within its urban limits, as do cities in sub-Saharan Africa.

If a developing country imports many goods and services, it has to pay for them, probably in part with money earned from commodity exports. When those exports are reduced by high shipping costs, some countries will have the capacity to rapidly increase local production of essentials for local consumption. Others, less fortunate, will take longer.

It is now critical for economic planners, laypersons and governments to recognise that long-term energy and climate realities will impose limits on the global movement of goods. Trade pacts, like the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement, and business models, like Walmart with its transoceanic supply chains, will make less sense as the foundations of global trade are undermined. This is not the result of either ideology or policy. Only when we accept these realities can we design and rebuild less vulnerable patterns of production and trade throughout the world. Nearly every country has existing examples of sound, regional development that can be used as models.

Global trade will not disappear, but as it wanes and as supply chains shorten, the importance of regional and local economies will increase. Manufacturing and food production for domestic consumption in the United States and other developed nations (and regions within nations) will regain an importance not seen since the first half of the 20th century. Security strategies will be adjusted to reflect the increased role of domestic production in national affairs. We should plan now for these inevitable changes. Crises bring more than trouble - they bring opportunities.

Fred Curtis is Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Drew University. His work focuses on the economics of climate change and peak oil - and their combined impact on the global economy. He also studies the various economic responses to peak oil, particularly relocalitisation.

David Ehrenfeld is Professor of Biology at Rutgers where he teaches conservation and field ecology. He has written seven books, most recently Becoming good ancestors: How we balance nature, community and technology (2009). He is founding editor of the international scientific journal Conservation Biology, and remains a consulting editor.

A version of this article was first published on Solutions: for a sustainable and desirable future.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Without women there is no food sovereignty

2012-02-09T08:01:00.001+07:00

Systems of food production and consumption have always been socially organized, but their organization has varied historically. In the last few decades, under the impact of neoliberal politics, the logic of capitalism has been imposed upon the ways in which food is produced and consumed (Bello, 2009)

by Esther Vivas | Feb 8 2012 by International Viewpoint in Energy Bulletin | Feb 8 2012

This article analyzes the impact of agro-industrial policies on women and the key role that peasant women in the Global North and South play in the production and distribution of food. It analyzes how the dominant agricultural model can incorporate a feminist perspective and how the social movements that work towards food sovereignty can incorporate a feminist perspective.

Campesinas and invisible women

In the countries of the Global South, women are the primary producers of food, the ones in charge of working the earth, maintaining seed stores, harvesting fruit, obtaining water and safeguarding the harvest. Between 60 to 80% of food production in the Global South is done by women (50% worldwide) (FAO, 1996). Women are the primary producers of basic grains such as rice, wheat, and corn which feed the most impoverished populations in the South. Despite their key role in agriculture and food however, women; together with their children; are the ones most affected by hunger.

For centuries, peasant women have been responsible for domestic chores, the care and feeding of their families, the cultivation, exchange and commercialization of household gardens; charged with reproduction, production and community—all the while occupying an often invisible domestic and social sphere. The main economic transactions in agriculture have traditionally been undertaken by men in markets, with the purchase and sale of animals, and the commercialization of large quantities of grains in the private and public sphere.

This division of roles, assigning women as the caretakers of the house as well as the health and education of their families, and granting men the “technical” management of land and machinery, maintains the assigned gender roles that have persisted in our societies through the centuries and into the present (Oceransky Losana, 2006).

The figures speak for themselves. According to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 1996), in many African countries women represent 70% of the field labor; are responsible for supplying 90% of the domestic water supply and are responsible for between 60 and 80% of the production of food consumed and sold by the family. They account for 100% of the processing of foods, 80% of the activities of food storage and transportation, and 90% of the labor involved in preparing the earth before planting. These numbers demonstrate the crucial role that African women have in the production of small scale agriculture and the maintenance of their families’ subsistence.

In many regions of the Global South however—in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia—there is a notable “feminization” of salaried agricultural work, especially in non-traditional export-oriented sectors (Fraser, 2009). Between 1994 and 2000, according to White and Leavy (2003), women made up 83% of new employees in the non-traditional agro-export sector. In this way, for the first time, many women have paid jobs with economic gains that give them more power in decision making and the possibility of participating in organizations outside of the family (Fraser, 2009). However, this dynamic shift has been accompanied by a marked gender division in job roles;: on plantations, women perform the unskilled work such as gathering and boxing while men bring in the harvest and plant.

The incorporation of women into salaried labor means a double burden of work for women who continue to care for their families while at the same time working to obtain income—principally in precarious jobs. Poorer labor conditions than those of their male counterparts, along with inferior pay for the same jobs, forces women to work more hours in order to receive the same income. In India, for example, the average salary for day labor in the agricultural sector is 30% less for women than men (World Bank, 2007). In Spain, women make 30% less, and this difference can be as high as 40% (Oceransky Losana, 2006).

Impact of neoliberal policies

The application of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in the 80s and 90s in the Global South on the part of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, further aggravated already difficult conditions for much of the population in those countries and hit women especially hard.

The shock measures imposed by the SAPs consisted of forcing Southern governments to withdraw all subsidies for staples like bread, rice, milk and sugar. Drastic reductions in public education, health, housing and infrastructure spending were imposed. The forced devaluation of national currency (to cheapen exports) diminished the purchasing capacity of local populations. Increased interest rates to attract foreign capital generated a speculative spiral. These SAPs added to the extreme poverty of many in the Global South (Vivas, 2008).

Structural Adjustment Policies and privatization had major repercussions for women in particular. As Juana Ferrer of the International Gender Commission of Via Campesina illustrates:

In the processes of privatization of public services, the most affected people have been women. Women have been affected above all in the fields of health and education where they have historically carried [the most] responsibility for their families. ... In the measure [to which] we do not have access to resources and public services it becomes more difficult to lead a worthwhile life for women (La Via Campesina, 2006: 30).

The collapse of the countryside in the Global South and the intensification of migration to cities has led to a process of “de-peasantization” (Bello, 2009). In many countries this process has not taken the form of a classic rural to urban movement, in which ex-peasants go to the cities to work in factories as part of the industrialization process. Rather, migration has been characterized by a process of “urbanization disconnected from industrialization” in which ex-peasants, pushed into the cities, are then fed back to the periphery (favelas, slums), many living off the informal economy and comprising the “informal proletariat” (Davis, 2006).

Women are an essential component in these national and international migratory flows. Migration leads to the dismantling and abandonment of families, land, and processes of production, while increasing the burdens of family and community on the women who stay behind. In Europe, the United States and Canada women who do migrate take work that European and North American women have not performed for years, thus reproducing an invisible spiral of oppression, as the Global North externalizes its care, social and economic costs to communities of migrant women origin.

The inability to resolve the current health care crisis in Western countries has resulted in the incorporation of large numbers of women into the labor market. Additionally, the aging population of Western countries and the non-responsiveness of the state to their needs has served as an alibi for the importation of millions of “caretakers” from the Global South. As is noted by Ezquerra (2010) “[This] diaspora fills the function of making the incompatibility between the rise of the capitalist system and the maintenance of life in the Centre invisible, and deepens the crisis of care and other crises in the South. ... The ‘international chain of care’ becomes a dramatic vicious cycle that ensures survival of the patriarchal capitalist system” (Ezquerra, 2010:39).

Access to land

Access to land is not a guaranteed right for many women. In numerous Southern countries laws forbid this right, and in those countries where legal access exists there are often traditions and practices that prevent women from property ownership. As Fraser (2009) explains, “In Cambodia, for example, although it is not illegal for women to own land, the cultural norm dictates that they do not possess land; although they are responsible for farm production and agriculture, women have no control over the sale of land or how it is transmitted to children” (Fraser, 2009:34).

In India, Chukki Nanjundaswamy of the peasant organization Karnataka State Farmers Association [2] notes that the situation of women with regards to land and health care access is very difficult: “Socially Indian peasant women have almost no rights and are considered an ‘addition’ to males. Rural women are the most untouchable of the untouchables within the social caste system” (La Via Campesina, 2006: 16).

Access to land for women in Africa today is even more precarious due to increased deaths from AIDS. On the one hand, women are more likely to be infected, but when one of their male relatives who holds title to the land dies, women have great difficulty accessing control. In many communities, women have no right to inherit, and therefore lose their land and other assets when they are widowed (Jayne et al, 2006).

Land is a very important asset—it allows for the production of food, serves as an investment for the future; and as collateral it implies access to credit, etc. The difficulties women have securing access to land is one more example of how the capitalist and patriarchal agricultural system hits them especially hard. Furthermore, when women do hold title to land, it is mostly lower value land or extension properties.

Women also face more difficulty in obtaining loans, services, and supplies. Globally, it is estimated that women receive only 1% of total agricultural loans, and even so, it is not clear who in the family exercises control over those loans (Fraser, 2009).
These practices do not only exist in the Global South. In Europe, for example, many women farmers work under complete legal uncertainty. Most of them work on family farms where administrative rights are the exclusive property of the owner of the farm—and women are not entitled to aid, planting, lactic share, etc.

As Elizabeth Vilalba Seivane, secretary of Labrego Galego in Galicia explains, the problems of women in the field—in the South and the North—have much in common despite some obvious differences, “European women are more focused on fighting for our administrative rights on the farm, while elsewhere profound changes are demanded that have to do with land reform or access to land and other basic resources” (La Via Campesina, 2006: 26).
In the US, Debra Eschmeyer of the National Family Farm Coalition explains practices that show this inequality: “For example, when a women farmer goes alone to seek a loan from a bank it is far more complicated [than] if a male farmer seeks a loan” (La Via Campesina, 2006: 14).

Agribusiness vs. food sovereignty

Today, the current agro-industrial model has proven unable to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, in addition to being destructive to the environment. We are facing a food and agricultural system with a high concentration of companies along the entire chain. It is monopolized by a handful of multinational agribusinesses and backed by governments and international institutions that have become accomplices, if not co-beneficiaries, in an unsustainable food production system. This model is an imperialist tool aimed at political, economic and social control over the Global South by the North’s major economic powers like the United States and the European Union (Toussaint, 2008; Vivas, 2009).

As Desmarais (2007) notes, the food system can be understood as a broad horizontal chain that has been taking more and more away from production and consumption in favor of the appropriation of various stages of production by agribusiness, leading to the loss of peasant autonomy.

The food crisis that erupted during 2007 and 2008, caused a strong increase in the price of staple foods, [3] highlighting the high volatility of agriculture and the food system. It also introduced the figure of over one billion hungry people in the world—one person in six, according to data from the FAO (2009).

The problem is a not a lack of food, but rather the inability to access it. In fact, grain production worldwide has tripled since the 60’s, while the global population has only doubled (GRAIN, 2008). We can see that there is enough food to feed the entire global population. However, for the millions of people in developing countries who spend between 50% and 60% of their income on food (up to 80% in the poorest countries), rising prices make it impossible to access.

There are fundamental reasons that explain the deep food crisis. Neoliberal policies applied indiscriminately over the past thirty years on a global scale forced vulnerable markets to open up to the global economy. Payments of debt by the South led to the privatization of formerly public goods and services (water, agricultural protections). Add to this a model of agriculture and food production in the service of capitalist logic, and you have the main contributing factors to the situation that has dismantled a once-successful model of peasant agriculture that had guaranteed people’s food security for decades (Holt-Giménez and Patel, 2010). This has had a very negative impact on people, particularly women, and the environment.

Food Sovereignty is a powerful alternative to this destructive agricultural model. This paradigm promotes “the right of peoples to define their own agricultural policies and ... to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and the domestic market” (VVAA, 2003: 1). Food sovereignty seeks to regain the right to decide what, how and where to produce what we eat. It promotes the idea that the land, water, and seeds are in peasants’ hands, and that we deserve to control our food systems.

There is an inherent feminist perspective incorporated in food sovereignty. As pointed out by Yoon Guem Soon, a Korean peasant woman and representative of Via Campesina in Asia: “Feminism is a process for getting a decent place for women in society, to combat violence against women and to claim and reclaim our land and save it from the hands of multinationals and large companies. Feminism is the way for rural women to take an active and worthy role within society” (La Via Campesina, 2006:12).

La Via Campesina

Via Campesina is the world’s foremost international movement of small farmers. It promotes the right of all peoples to food sovereignty. Via Campesina was established in 1993 at the dawn of the anti-globalization movement, and gradually became one of the major organizations in the critique of neoliberal globalization. Its ascent is an expression of peasant resistance to the collapse of the rural world caused by neoliberal policies, and the intensification of those policies as embodied in the World Trade Organization (Antentas and Vivas, 2009a).Since its founding, Via Campesina has promoted a “female peasant” identity that is politicized, linked to land, food production and the defense of food sovereignty—built in opposition to the current agribusiness model (Desmarais, 2007). Via Campesina embodies a new kind of “peasant internationalism” (Bello, 2009), that can be viewed as a “peasant component” of the new international resistance presented by the anti-globalization movement (Antentas and Vivas, 2009).

In 1996, coinciding with the World Food Summit at the FAO in Rome, Via Campesina highlighted food sovereignty as a political alternative to a profoundly unfair and predatory food system. This does not imply a romantic return to the past, but rather recovers knowledge and traditional practices and combines them with new technologies and new knowledge (Desmarais, 2007). As noted by McMichael (2006), there is a “mystification of the small” in a way that rethinks the global food system to encourage democratic forms of food production and distribution.

A feminist perspective

Over time, Via Campesina has incorporated a feminist perspective, working to achieve gender equality within their organizations, and building alliances with feminist groups, including the international World March of Women, among others.

At the heart of La Via Campesina, the struggle of women is situated at two levels: defending their rights as women within organizations and society in general, and the struggle as peasant women together with their colleagues against the neoliberal model of agriculture (EHNE and La Via Campesina 2009).

Feminist work in Via Campesina has taken important steps forward since its inception. In the First International Conference in Mons (Belgium) in 1993, all the elected coordinators were men. In the final declaration the situation of rural women hardly received any mention. Although it identified the need to integrate women’s needs in the work of Via Campesina, the conference failed to establish mechanisms to ensure participation of women in successive meetings. Thus, at the 2nd International Conference in Tlaxcala (Mexico) in 1996, the percentage of women attending was 20% of the total: the same as at the 1st International Conference. To address this issue, a special women’s committee was created (later known as the Women’s Committee of La Via Campesina) and methods that permitted better representation and participation were enacted.

This move facilitated the incorporation of feminist analysis in Via Campesina. Thus, when Via Campesina publicly presented the concept of food sovereignty at the World Food Summit of FAO in Rome in 1996, women contributed their own demands. These included the need to produce food locally, and they added the dimension of “human health” to “sustainable agricultural practices,” demanding a drastic reduction in harmful chemical inputs and advocating the active promotion of organic agriculture. Women also insisted that food sovereignty could not be accomplished without greater female participation in the definition of rural policies (Desmarais, 2007).

For Francisca Rodriguez of the peasant association ANAMURI in Chile: “Acknowledging the reality and demands of rural women has been a challenge in all peasant movements. ... The history of this acknowledgement has gone through various stages of struggle for recognition from within, to break with the chauvinist organizations ... over the past twenty years, rural women’s organizations have gained [an] identity ... we have reconstructed as women in a half-labored rural locale,” (Mugarik Gabe, 2006:254).

The work of the Women’s Commission helped promote exchanges between women from different countries, including women-specific meetings to coincide with international summits. Between 1996 and 2000, the Commission’s work focused mainly on Latin America—through training, exchange and discussion—and rural women increased their participation in all levels and activities of La Via Campesina.

As Annette Desmarais noted, “In most countries, agricultural and rural organizations are dominated by men. The women of La Via Campesina refuse to accept these subordinate positions. While acknowledging the long and difficult road ahead, women accept the challenge with enthusiasm, and vow to carry out a major role in shaping the Via Campesina as a movement committed to gender equality” (Desmarais, 2007:265).

In October 2000, just before the 3rd International Conference of La Via Campesina in Bangalore (India), the 1st International Assembly of Women Farmers was organized. This allowed for greater participation of women in the organization. The Assembly adopted three major goals: 1) to ensure the participation of 50% of women at all levels of decisions and activities of La Via Campesina, 2) to maintain and strengthen the Women’s Commission, and 3) to ensure that documents, training events and speeches of Via Campesina did not have sexist content or sexist language (Desmarais, 2007).

Members at the conference agreed to change the institutional structure to ensure gender equity. As Paul Nicholson of La Via Campesina notes: “[In Bangalore] it was determined that equality of man and woman in spaces and positions of representation in our organization opened a whole internal process of reflection on the role of women in the struggle for women peasants’ rights. ... The gender perspective is being addressed now in a serious way, not only in the context of parity in responsibilities, but also a profound debate about the roots and tentacles of patriarchy and violence against women in the rural world.” (Food Sovereignty, Biodiversity and Cultures 2010: 8).

This strategy forced the member organizations of Via Campesina at national and regional levels to rethink their work in a gender perspective and to incorporate new measures to strengthen the role of women (Desmarais, 2007). Josie Riffaud of the Confédération Paysanne in France, states that: “the decision was critical of [lack of gender] parity in the Via Campesina, as allowed in my organization, the Confédération Paysanne. We also apply this measure.” (La Via Campesina, 2006: 15).

As part of the 4th International Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in June 2004; the 2nd International Assembly of Women Farmers brought together more than a hundred women from 47 countries on all continents. The main lines of action that emerged from the meeting were to take action against physical and sexual violence against women; both domestically and internationally; demand equal rights and invest in education. As its final statement states: “We demand our right to a dignified life, respect for our sexual and reproductive rights; and the immediate implementation of measures to eradicate all forms of physical, sexual, verbal and psychological violence. ... We urge states to implement measures to ensure our economic autonomy, access to land, health, education and equal social status.” (2nd International Assembly of Women Farmers, 2004).

In October 2006, the World Congress of Women of La Via Campesina was highlighted in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Participants included women from agricultural organizations in Asia, North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America; with the objective of analyzing and discussing the meaning of equality in the field from a feminist perspective, and a plan of action to achieve it. As one of the presentations—Sergia Galván’s Women’s Health Collective of the Dominican Republic—pointed out, the women of La Via Campesina had three challenges ahead: 1) to advance the theoretical discussion to incorporate the feminist peasant perspective in mainstream feminist analysis, 2) continue work on autonomy as a vital reference for the consolidation of the movement of rural women, and 3) to overcome the feeling of guilt in the struggle for higher positions of power over men (La Via Campesina, 2006).

The World Congress of Women of La Via Campesina emphasized the need to further strengthen the articulation of women of La Via Campesina, and created mechanisms for a greater exchange of information and specific plans for struggle. Among the concrete proposals were the articulation of a global campaign to combat violence perpetrated against women, to extend the discussion to all organizations that are part of Via Campesina, and to work to recognize the rights of rural women in demanding equality inaccess to land, credit, markets and administrative rights (La Via Campesina, 2006).
At the 5th International Conference in Maputo, Mozambique, in October 2008, La Via Campesina hosted the 3rd International Assembly of Women. The assembly approved the launch of a campaign targeting all forms of violence faced by women in society (physical, economic, social, sexist, cultural, and access to power) which are also present in rural communities and their organizations.

Work that aims at achieving greater gender equality is not easy. Despite the formal equality, women face obstacles when traveling or attending meetings and gatherings. As Annette Desmarais (2007:282) noted, “There are many reasons why women do not participate at this level. Perhaps the most important is the persistence of ideologies and cultural practices that perpetuate unequal gender relations and unfairness. For example, the division of labor by gender means that rural women have less access to the most precious resource, time, to participate as leaders in agricultural organizations. Being involved in reproductive, productive and community work makes it much less likely [for women] to have time for training sessions and learning as leaders.”
It is a struggle against the tide, and despite some concrete victories, we face a long fight in our organizations; and, more generally, socially.

Weaving Alliances

La Via Campesina has established alliances with various organizations and social movements at the international, regional, and national levels. One of the most significant alliances has been with the World March of Women, a leading feminist global network that has called for joint actions and meetings, and has collaborated in activities: the International Forum for Food Sovereignty held in Mali in 2007, among others.
The original meeting between the two networks was under the anti-globalization movement, and its purpose was to agree on counter-summits and activities within the World Social Forum. The incorporation of a feminist perspective within Via Campesina generated more solidarity, and this has built over time. At the Forum for Food Sovereignty in 2007 in Sélingué, Mali a meeting was convened by leading international social movements such as Via Campesina, the World March of Women, the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, and others to advance strategies within a wide range of social movements (farmers, fishers, consumers) to promote food sovereignty.

Women were a major catalyst in this meeting, as organizers and participants. The Nyéléni Forum in Sélingué was named in honor of the legend of a Malian peasant woman who struggled to assert herself as a woman in a hostile environment. Delegates from Africa, America, Europe, Asia and Oceania attended the meeting and identified the capitalist and patriarchal system as primarily responsible for the violations of women’s rights, while reaffirming their commitment to transform it.

The World March of Women has taken up food sovereignty as an inalienable human right, especially for women. Miriam Nobre, coordinator of the international secretary of the World March of Women, participated in October 2006 at the World Congress of Women of La Via Campesina in the global feminist movement. The 7th International Meeting of the World March of Women in Vigo, Spain in October 2008, held a forum and exhibition for food sovereignty, showing the links between the feminist struggle and those of peasant women.

The success of this collaboration is embodied in the dual membership of women who are active members in the World March of Women, and La Via Campesina. These experiences encourage closer ties and collaboration between both networks, and strengthens the feminist struggle of rural women that is part of the broader struggle against capitalism and patriarchy.

Conclusion

The current global food system has failed to ensure the food security of communities. Currently more than a billion people worldwide suffer from hunger. The global food system has had a profoundly negative environmental impact; promoting an intensive agro-industrial model that has contributed to climate change and collapsing agro-biodiversity. This system has been particularly detrimental to women.
Developing alternatives to this agricultural model requires incorporating a gender perspective. The food sovereignty alternative to the dominant agro-industrial model has to have a feminist position to break with patriarchal and capitalist logic.
La Via Campesina, the largest international movement for food sovereignty, is moving in this direction: creating alliances with other social movements—especially feminist organizations and networks such as the World March of Women—to promote networking and solidarity among women in North and South, urban and rural areas, and between them and their companions. As Via Campesina says: “Globalize the struggle. Globalize hope.”

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Bello, W. (2009). The Food Wars. London. Verso.

Davis, M. (2006) Planet of slums. London. Verso

Desmarais, Annette A. (2007) La Via Campesina. Globalization and the power of the peasantry. Madrid. Editorial Popular.

La Vía Campesina EHNE and (2009) La Vía Campesina. The struggles of the peasantry and worldhttp://viacampesina.net/downloads/PDF/viacas.pdf

Ezquerra, S. (2010) “The care crisis: origins, possible false solutions and opportunities” in Viento Sur, No. 108, pp. 37-43.

FAO (1996) Towards Sustainable Food and Sustainable Food security security.Women in:http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/...

FAO (2009) 1020 million people are hungry: http://www.fao.org/news/story/es/it...

Fraser, A. (2009) Agriculture for Development. London. Oxfam International.

GRAIN (2008), Making a killing from hunger: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=40

Holt-Giménez, E. and Patel, R., and Annie Shattuck (2010) Food Rebellions:Crisis and the

Hunger for Justice. Barcelona. El Viejo Topo.

Jayne et al. (2006) “HIV / AIDS and the Agricultural Sector in Eastern and Southern Africa: Anticipating the consequences” in Gillespie, S. (ed.), AIDS, Poverty, and Hunger. IFPRI.

La Via Campesina (2006) World Congress of Women of La Via Campesina:http://epueblos.pangea.org/saliment...

McMichael, P. (2000) “Global food politics” In Magdoff, F. et al. Hungry for profit. New York. Monthly Review Press, pp. 125-143.

McMichael, P. (2006) “Feeding the world: agriculture, development and ecology” en

Panitch, L. y Leys, C. Socialist Register 2007. London. Merlin Press, pp. 170-194.

Mugarik Gabe (2006) “Gender Strategies for Food Sovereignty” en Fernández Such (coord.) Soberanía alimentaria. Barcelona. Icaria editorial, pp. 253-319.

Oceransky Losana, S. (2006) “The relations between women and men in rural areas: their inheritance in our projects” en VVAA Los pies en la tierra, Barcelona, Virus editorial.
Food Sovereignty, Biodiversity and Cultures (2010) “Tour of the Peasant Struggles” in Soberanía alimentaria, biodiversidad y culturas, nº1, pp. 3-10.

Toussaint, É. (2008) Let us talk about the causes of food crisis in: http://www.cadtm.org/Volvamos-a-hab...

Vivas, E. (2008) Standing against the foreign debt. Barcelona. El Viejo Topo.

Vivas, E. (2009) “The subtleties of global food” en Montagut, X. y Vivas, E. Del campo al plato. Barcelona. Icaria editorial, pp. 9-40.

VVAA (2003) Our world is not for sale. First there is the peoples’ food sovereignty WTO out of agriculture and food! in: http://www.viacampesina.org/main_sp...

White H. y Leavy S. (2003) Labour markets in Africa: What do models need to explain? Brighton. Institute for Development Studies y University of Sussex.

Esther Vivas is a member of the Centre for Studies on Social Movements (CEMS) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She is author of the book “En pie contra la deuda externa” (Stand Up against external debt), El Viejo Topo, 2008, and co-coordinator of the books also in Spanish “Supermarkets, No Thanks” and “Where is Fair Trade headed?” among other publications, and a contributor to the CIP Americas Programwww.cipamericas.org. She is also a member of the editorial board of Viento Sur.

NOTES

[1] For a more detailed analysis of the historical evolution of the global food system see McMichael (2000).

[2] All women farmers mentioned in this article are part of member organizations of La Via Campesina

[3] According to the index of food prices by FAO, recorded between 2005 and 2006, an increase of 12% the following year, in 2007, an increase of 24% be¬tween January and July 2008, a rise about 50%. Cereals and other staple foods were those that suffered the largest increases (Vivas, 2009)

WWF report links Sumatra deforestation to toilet paper

2012-02-09T07:39:00.001+07:00

We know how difficult it is to link products to dangerous practices. Eco-friendly companies and individuals are going to be shocked once more at the habitat destruction wreaked on rainforests by their toilet paper, paper towels and tissue

By Paul Robinson | Earth Times | 08 Feb 2012

Don't Flush Tiger Forests; Credit: © World Wildlife Fund

The huge island of Sumatra has just about the greatest loss of forest of any area in the world. Everybody wants a piece of it, including elephants, orang-utans, rhino and the approximate 280 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. It has now been disclosed in aWWF report that APP's fiber, used by 8 large retailers (BI-LO, Brookshire Grocery Company, Delhaize Group (owner of Food Lion chain), Harris Teeter, Kmart, Kroger, SUPERVALU, and Weis Markets) is to be discontinued because of this link. (APP is Asia Pulp and Paper, subsidiary to the giant Chinese Sinar Mas Group.)

WWF (World Wildlife Fund) is the first to praise this move by these eco-conscious companies. "We applaud the decision by these companies to remove these products from their stores," said Jan Vertefeuille, head of WWF's Tiger Campaign.

APP is among several affiliates who are alleged to have destroyed 5 million acres of rainforest in Sumatra since 1984, distributing and expanding its paper products through many US paper companies. One major example is the non-home products, Paseo (the fastest growing toilet-paper sale in the US and especially in California) and Livi, which you find in hotels, restaurants, schools and offices. Many companies have not responded to appeals and are listed on the WWF site. You can look at "Who sells these Products?" or elsewhere in the informative article.

Deforestation on Sumatra and tiger habitat loss for paper production; Credit: © World Wildlife Fund

Certainly, more than 50% of American consumers applaud sustainability, while the rest of the world are more eco-friendly, or less, depending largely of development. This is a chance to kick back at organisations who really don't listen to the simple lessons taught our children and our ancestors. "Save the Planet, because it has certainly saved us."

WWF quote the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry which estimates the total carbon emissions from deforestation and associated peat decomposition and burning to be 1.2 gigatons per year. These massive emissions from deforestation make Indonesia the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter. Around 60 percent of this carbon emission is estimated to occur in Riau Province, the epicenter of APP's pulp mill and deforestation operations.

Species saved from this immense forest loss and carbon emission are few. Sustainable tourism helps to preserve a tiny enclave here and there, but governments and multinationals are the only true saviours of our last wild places. Individuals must act in order to ensure that this happens. It's up to every person who might just be using a product they never even give a second thought to.

Copyright © 2012 The Earth Times

European death toll surpasses 300

2012-02-09T04:52:00.001+07:00

An onslaught of extreme cold and heavy snow in Europe has killed more than 300 people, impeded travel and left about 50,000 without power, officials say

Disaster News Network | February 6, 2012

Ukraine's Ministry of Emergencies reported the most deaths in the Siberian arctic snap that has lasted more than a week, with at least 131 dead as of late Sunday, after temperatures plunged below minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit.

Nearly 2,000 people were hospitalized for hypothermia and frostbite, the ministry said.

Russian gas-export monopoly OAO Gazprom, the world's largest natural-gas extractor, said it was unable to satisfy gas shortages in at least eight European countries, but said it was "doing its best" to meet soaring demand.

Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Italy were hit by supply reductions, a European Commission spokeswoman said.

Temperatures dropped as low as 58 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in Kazakhstan.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk asked local authorities to waive a ban on admitting inebriated people to homeless shelters after eight more homeless people were found dead, bringing the death toll from the storm to 53, the independent Polish press agency PAP reported.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, under a state of emergency, rescued dozens of people trapped in cars after avalanches and strong winds in the east cut off hundreds of villages. More than 40 inches of snow fell in the capital, Sarajevo.

Thousands were trapped by snow in Serbia, while more than a dozen people were found frozen to death during the weekend in Hungary and Lithuania, authorities said.

In Italy, Rome had its heaviest snowfall since 1985, causing traffic chaos and forcing authorities to close several tourist sites, including the Coliseum and the Roman Forum.

Government offices were to be shut Monday. People skied down main thoroughfares in Rome Sunday, the Financial Times reported.

Some regions of Italy -- including about 30,000 customers in the Rome area -- were still without power Monday, even after the storm passed.

At least 11 people died in Italy, and five in France.

Pope Benedict XVI appeared at his window in the Vatican wearing a white overcoat for his weekly address to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square Sunday.

"The snow is beautiful, but let's hope that spring comes soon," he said.

Britain's Meteorological Office forecast severe cold would continue in parts of England through Thursday, as snow ranged from about 7 inches in London to more than 2 feet, with 3-foot drifts, in other parts of the country.

London Underground passengers had to walk along the tracks after a Central Line train broke down, the Daily Mirror reported.

More than half the lines were delayed or suspended, Transport for London reported.

Airport passengers faced continued delays Monday after half of London Heathrow Airport's 1,300 scheduled flights were canceled Sunday following a cancellation of 30 percent Saturday, airport operator BAA Ltd. reported.

Gatwick Airport -- citing a $12.6 million investment in plows, snow blowers, de-icing agents and other equipment after December 2010, when a few inches of snow brought 4,000 flights to a halt and snarled global air traffic -- reported only a few cancellations.

More snow fell in eastern and southeastern England early Monday.

© 2012 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Copyright © Village Life Company . All Rights Reserved

Will REDD benefit Papua’s Indigenous Peoples?

2012-02-09T04:49:00.001+07:00

In 2007, Barnabas Suebu, the Governor of Papua, was named as one ofTime magazine’s Heroes of the Environment. “We have to save the forests before it is too late. If we do that, we can help save the planet and alleviate poverty at the same time,” Suebu said

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 8th February 2012

The mechanism for saving Papua’s forests was carbon trading. Suebu toldTime that Papua can generate far more revenue by trading credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange than it currently gets from logging. “Why would we cut down trees if people are going to pay us to protect them? “We can prevent deforestation and also use the money to reforest the areas in critical condition,” he said.

The Chicago Climate Exchange was closed at the end of 2010 after nine months of zero trading. There are still no forest carbon trading projects running in Papua. Meanwhile the logging continues and vast areas of forest are being replaced by agricultural concessions, including oil palm, sugar and rice.

The title of this post comes from an article by Down To Earth compiled from a series of articles written by Pietsau Amafnini, Coordinator of the Manokwari-based organisation, JASOIL Tanah Papua. The article is posted below.

While there is a question about whether REDD will benefit Papua’s Indigenous Peoples, it is certain that clearing the forests for monoculture agricultural plantations will not. This short video, by Engage Media, examines the impact of the Merauke Intergrated Food and Energy Estate in Papua.

[video]

But REDD will do nothing to prevent the abuses that are taking place in the MIFEE project and similar projects. REDD is operating in parallel to developments such as oil palm plantations, mining, logging and oil exploration, rather than as an alternative. A 2009 report produced by GRM International for USAID makes this clear with its suggestion that the Government of Indonesia could use payments for REDD to facilitate the expansion of the timber, pulp and paper and palm oil industries in the country:

In the Indonesian context REDD payments for verified reductions in past rates of deforestation could facilitate GOI proposals for a doubling in size of the pulp and paper industry from 6 million to 12 million tonnes; to more than double exports of palm oil from the current $3.75 billion to something in the order of $7 billion a year; and to sustain an expanded timber industry which currently generates about $4 billion a year.

In 2010, Governor Suebu gave a fascinating interview to World Business. After explaining that Papua’s economic growth is more than the national average, he talks about Papua’s raw materials. He talks about oil and gas. There are also large coal reserves, but, “We don’t want to use coal for our economy,” Suebu says.

“We are now, wanting a so-called low carbon economy. And that’s why CDM scheme, clean development mechanism has to be promoted in Papua. We are seeking new models . . . of development which is very friendly to the environment, related to the climate change problems.”

In the interview as posted on YouTube, Suebu doesn’t mention Freeport’s Grasberg mine, the largest gold mine and third largest copper mine in the world. In 2010, Freeport made US$4.1 billion profit from the mine. He doesn’t mention the protests against the mine or the environmental and social impacts of the mine. He plays down the separatist struggle in the province, describing it as being “in the past”, although as the Economist magazine reportedearlier in 2010 the struggle is intensifying. He also doesn’t mention the MIFEE project and he doesn’t mention REDD.

Several REDD-type projects have been attempted in the provinces of Papua and West Papua – some are still ongoing. (This list is probably not exhaustive. REDD-Monitor welcomes information on other REDD projects in these two provinces.)

In 2008, New Forests (Australia) and PT Emerald Planet signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Governor of Papua for a REDD project covering 265,000 hectares in Mamberamo and Mimika. The project developers were unable to get all the necessary permits to develop the projects.
Carbon Strategic Pty Ltd (Australia) had a service agreement with the Governor of West Papua, but this is now idle.
Another Australian company, Asia Pacific Carbon Ltd. is now carrying out assessment and surveys, aiming to trade the carbon stored in West Papua’s forests.
The West Papua Forest Carbon Program is a public private partnership between the provincial government of West Papua and a consortia of Australian service and investment companies. The project aims to establish a payment for ecosystem services REDD-type project. A government-owned and operated company called PADOMA is coordinating the project.
IUCN has a pro-poor REDD+ project in Papua and West Papua. The project is coordinated by Pete Wood of the Samdhana Institute. The focus is currently on pilot projects in the Baliem Valley in the central highlands of Papua and the Bomberai Peninsula in the lowlands of West Papua.
Conservation International has been working for several years in the Mamberamo Basin. In 2009, CI commissioned Forest Carbon to produce an estimate of the biomass in part of a 670,000 hectare logging concession operated by PT Mamberamo Alas Mandiri. CI was at the time looking into the possibility of establishing a REDD-type project with PT MAM based on reduced impact logging.
In 2011, the Governor of Papua established a Forest Carbon (REDD) Papua Task Force.

Will REDD benefit Papua’s Indigenous Peoples?
By Pietsau Amafnini, published in Down to Earth, 89-90, November 2011

Papua’s tropical forests are very strategic in terms of the global climate as well as providing timber and other forest products, which need to be managed sustainably. To implement REDD in Papua, the forestry sector has the duty to rehabilitate degraded forests and lands and to manage forests well. If we manage conservation and protected areas, and production forests properly, and stop converting forests to other uses, we can reduce CO2 emissions and help balance the global climate. However, the reality is, the Indonesian government is not concerned about the state of the climate.

REDD in Papua

In Papua province, there are pilot projects planned in Jayapura district, including in the Cycloop Nature Reserve, the Mosoali Forest Area and the Unurum Guay forest area. In West Papua province, they are planned in Kaimana district, covering Arguni Bay, Triton Bay and Yamor Lake. However the region’s different land use areas – under its spatial plan – have not been clearly established, and indigenous peoples themselves know nothing about government plans to determine their customary areas in line with what’s needed for REDD.

One carbon trading pilot project was initiated in 2008 by the provincial government of West Papua and Carbon Strategic International (CSI, Australia). It is located in forest areas in eight districts, with a total area of 8 million ha. The government’s share is 80% and CSI’s is 20%, with half of this for the company and half to pay experts. The division of the government’s share between central government, region and community still has to be decided. It is thought that carbon absorption is 300-350 tonnes per hectare and each tonne will generate 10-16 USD. The price and income will be calculated annually based on financial developments and inflation.

There is now a new agreement between the West Papua provincial government and Asia Pacific Carbon (of Australia).

REDD locations in West Papua are in protected forests. These were selected because of the high level of threat they face due to urban expansion, plus mining such as coal, copper and gold, and other interests.

The conversion of forests in West Papua for economic growth is increasing: there are plans to develop oil palm plantations, sago, mining, transmigration and so on. This is evident from the increase in the number of companies wanting to carry out environmental impacts assessments for such projects.

BPKH (the Forest Area Mapping Agency of the Forestry Service) is currently making a map of forest management units (KPH) in West Papua and Manokwari district. It is hoped that this map will be a tool for the carbon trade, to find potential locations and will support the calculation of carbon produced.

Policy in Papua

REDD in Indonesia has been described as a national approach to be implemented at sub-national level. This means the overarching policy and incentive framework comes from the central government and the details for implementation rest with the provinces and/or regional government and related stakeholders.

Papuan regional legislation, which provides the legal framework for implementing REDD in Papua, recognises rights and customary forests and emphasises community-based forest management. Using provincial regulations and guidance from the decisions made by the forestry ministry on REDD, the Papuan government – supported by civil society, universities, indigenous communities and other key actors – planned to establish a Forest Carbon (REDD) Papua Task Force. This Task Force was appointed by governor’s decree at the beginning of 2011. The group’s aim is to assist the Papuan government to translate, develop and coordinate policy approaches and positive incentives coming from the national and international levels, for the provincial level and main districts involved. In practice, local community involvement is limited and the project is not in line with community interests.

There is still very little knowledge and technical capacity among local government officers and related government agencies, CSOs – let alone communities living in West Papua province – about climate change and the carbon trade. There is little knowledge about national policies, international commitments on climate change, best practice for forest management, carbon trade mechanisms, the logging moratorium, schemes to reduce forest destruction and reduce emissions, and their benefits and impacts.

There have been several meetings to discuss the carbon trade, but no follow-up, and no sign of policies or programmes by the provincial and district governments to implement it. These meetings are still very limited in that they do not involve civil society, local peoples organisations such as DAP [Dewan Adat Papua – Papuan Customary Council], LMA [Lembaga Masyarakat Adat – Indigenous Peoples’ Council] or the MRP [Majelis Rakyat Papua – Papuan Peoples Assembly], NGOs or community representatives in West Papua. This lack of involvement, it is feared, will give rise to negative impacts in planning and implementing programmes.

The TGHK [Tata Guna Hutan Sepekatan – agreed forest use] map and delineation of forest boundaries still does not exist and there is no clear discussion about it, due to the tussle between interests and concepts of state land and customary land. The draft spatial plan for West Papua province and for Manokwari district does not exist and hasn’t been discussed.

The main people who hold rights over the target of REDD+ (land, forest and peat) do not understand and are not adequately involved in reaching a consensus at national and local level, to determine the preparations for implementing REDD+. This is what happened with the carbon trading project initiated by the West Papua provincial government and CSI.

What’s needed for REDD?

Max. J. Tokede from UNIPA Manokwari explained what needs to be done to prepare for REDD as follows: first, increase monitoring capacity to detect changes in carbon storage in Papua and West Papua provinces. This consists of: remote sensing (satellite imaging); monitoring from the air; community-based monitoring on the ground; support for activities to monitor forests and timber trade by the Forestry Service and communities. Second, pilot activities for fair incentives to protect the forest, including spatial planning and changes in forest function, mapping indigenous communities’ forests in pilot locations; building village institutions to manage incentive payments to prevent deforestation and create alternatives for income generation; building capacity for certified sustainable community logging, and developing participatory monitoring and protection systems.

Meanwhile, the REDD funding mechanism in Papua needs, among other things, to cover funding support for community development by opening village accounts; funding support for groups or individuals for community-based forest patrols and protection with group/individual accounts; and a savings and loan fund to develop small and medium businesses in villages. There also needs to be capacity at regional government level to facilitate funding for project management, funding for carbon monitoring and law enforcement, and funding for general community development (education/health/economic development). There also needs to be Technical Assistance to enable REDD to run smoothly.

Indigenous Rights

The real question is, will any benefits reach Indigenous Peoples who hold full rights over their forests? Will the Indonesian government say indigenous peoples who are set up as a legal entity will still be able to access natural resources in forests, as long as they don’t cut trees, and will be able to profit from REDD? There are clearly still questions to be answered about setting up as a legal entity for indigenous communities: what about those who don’t have this legal status? If indigenous peoples can acquire this status, how do they go about it? It will be no easy process, no matter how straightforward it might appear. In this context, the state must first of all recognise the existence of indigenous peoples. Industrialised countries like the EU nations, Japan, USA and Norway are ready to fund REDD projects. Some of the schemes will pay USD10 per tonne of carbon. However, will the indigenous peoples of Papua benefit from these grants? It is not yet certain.

Protecting forests for the future, or managing them sustainably has been something generations of indigenous peoples have known about. There are sacred forests or taboo places within forests which are still integral to indigenous people’s lives. Now the modern world knows these sacred forests as conservation forests. The way forests are used by indigenous peoples guarantees conservation and sustainability. They use simple technology and take only what they need for daily needs.

Director of the NGO PERDU Manokwari, Mujianto, explains that based on a study by PERDU in Kaimana district – an area which has been scoped and nominated by the West Papua provincial government as a REDD and carbon trade project area – government permits are still mostly given to entrepreneurs and companies. Post OHL II [OHL II is the second police operation against illegal logging], there are practically no licences for local communities, Kopermas [the state-sanctioned community cooperatives] aren’t functioning, although local people do use cut timber in very limited volumes to take advantage of local markets available. The likelihood of the natural forests disappearing will increase as capital flows into this area for investment in various natural resources sectors (plantations, mining etc).

“Meanwhile, if we look back into the past… for generations local people’s livelihoods have depended on natural resources, including forest resources; forest management and use was done using simple methods based on local knowledge; fresh water needs, animal protein and ingredients for food and medicines, building materials were taken from their forest areas. Forest exploitation is still limited to supplying household needs and does not need destructive technology. In this case, forest-dwelling indigenous peoples are far more expert in safeguarding the forests for REDD projects. But if forests are turned into oxygen or carbon trading business, then local people have to be directly and fully involved, including in getting cash compensation”, according to Muji.

JASOIL’s role

REDD projects and other initiatives keep being rolled out but there is no sign that inadequate policies will be amended or the low level of political commitment shown by decision-makers and project initiators will be improved to project community rights. This is leading to fears that there will be distortions and conflicts of interests, that social conflict will spread, and that, in turn, the environment will not be protected, and GHG emissions will continue to rise, while communities become increasingly impoverished.

What ideas and actions do we need in this situation? Grassroots actions at community level are required, especially for those who will be affected directly by REDD+ projects. JASOIL Tanah Papua believes that two things can be done:

step up the readiness, unity and strengthening of community rights so that their bargaining position is improved and there is more community cohesion for influencing and determining all development projects and policies which take place on their land and will affect their lives;

increase community capacity for involvement in monitoring all stages of provincial REDD+ pilot projects and other REDD+ projects at district level and for involvement in corrective actions.

REDD-Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Can REDD save the forests of Sarawak?

2012-02-08T22:10:00.001+07:00

One year ago, Wetlands International released a report that revealed that the rate of deforestation in Malaysia’s province of Sarawak is about 2% a year. Most is being converted to oil palm plantations. “Total deforestation in Sarawak is 3.5 times as much as that for entire Asia, while deforestation of peat swamp forest is 11.7 times as much,” the report states

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 7th February 2012

To make matters worse, the rate of destruction is accelerating. Between 2005 and 2007, 1.89% of Sarawak’s forest was cleared. By 2009-2010, this figure had increased to 2.14%. The area of forest on peatland has decreased from over one million hectares in 2005 to around 700,000 by 2010.

The drivers of deforestation include conversion to massive oil palm plantations and hydropower dams. In June 2011, Survival International put out an alert about 1,000 Indigenous Penan who were to be evicted from their forest to make way for the Murum dam. The government had sold the land where they where supposed to move to Shin Yang, a Malaysian oil palm company.

For 31 years, Sarawak has been ruled by one man: Abdul Taib Mahmud. Since 1981, Taib has been chief minister, finance minister and minister of planning and resource management. But while Taib has become incredibly rich, the impact on the Penan and their forests has been devastating.

Sarawak Report and the Bruno Manser Foundation have been documenting the destruction and uncovering the corruption behind the deforestation and land grabbing in Sarawak.

In 2006, the US embassy’s Political Section Chief, Mark D.Clark wrote a cable to Washington (that was subsequently leaked by wikileaks: 06KUALALUMPUR1935) in which he reported on meetings with with political opposition leaders, human rights advocates and police in Sarawak. “[T]he Sarawak state government remains highly corrupt and firmly in the hands of its chief minister,” Clark wrote. One example of Taib’s corruption was the awarding of a contract for the US$82 million state assembly building, which was under construction at the time. Taib made sure that the construction contract went to Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), his own family firm. The state assembly only meets for 16 days a year. The 27-storey building will stand empty for the remaining 349 days.

The 2006 cable states that,

“Chief Minister Taib Mahmud remains unchallenged after 27 years in office, his government doles out timber-cutting permits while patrolling the under-developed state using 14 helicopters, and his family’s companies control much of the economy.”

A section of Sarawak Report’s website is dedicated to “Mapping Taib’s Land Grabs“. A vast area of land has been handed over largely for oil palm plantations and hydropower dams.

Two recent stories from Sarawak Report, help illustrate both the scale of the problem and the support that forest destroyers in Sarawak are getting in Europe. The first story illustrates how weak certification by the Forest Stewardship Council can be and the second how untrustworthy British politicians can be. The stories also raise the question, “Can REDD save the forests of Sarawak?”:

Sarawak Timber Scandal Hits UK – Expose!, 31 January 2012

B&Q and Wickes, two DIY stores in Britain, have been selling timber from Sarawak falsely labelled as certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. (“Wickes and B&Q ‘selling wood felled illegally from rainforest’” read theheadline in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper. The Daily Mail provides no evidence for the timber being illegally logged apart from explaining that the wood is “feared to have been illegally harvested from endangered rainforests”.)

The company behind the scandal is Asia Plywood Company, the largest exporter of Meranti wood and plywood in Malaysia. The company managed to get FSC certification by promising to import 70% of the timber that goes into its plywood from FSC-certified plantations in New Zealand. Sarawak Report points out that in fact the plywood from the Asia Plywood Company on sale in B&Q and Wickes was almost entirely made from tropical timber.

Asia Plywood Company’s website used to have the following statement (available via google-cache on 18 January 2012):

Asia Plywood Company also imports FSC certified timber species from the forests of New Zealand or MTCC certified woods that are locally sourced.

The words “FSC certified” have now been removed. Asia Plywood Company did have an FSC chain of custody certification, from 21 February 2006 to 20 February 2011, as this screenshot from SCS’s Certified Client List dated April 2010 shows (click on the image for a larger version):

(Incidentally, a company called Caledonian Plywood is still advertising “FSC hardwood plywood” with the Asia Plywood chain of custody number: SCS-COC-00805.)

B&Q was told about the false labelling on 7 December 2011, but continued to sell the plywood with the FSC label until 27 January 2012 when all Asia Plywood products were removed from B&Q’s shelves. Wickes just carried out selling the plywood. A Wickes representative told the trade journal DIYWeek, “[We] have not purchased any product from Asia Plywood since we were made aware of the withdrawal of its FSC certification on December 15 2011, at which time we re-sourced to an alternative supplier.”

UK Conservative Spokesman Made Video Promos for Sime Darby!, 29 January 2012

Bill Wiggin, the UK Conservative Party’s ex-Environment Spokesman, was flown to Sarawak as part of a PR drive for palm oil company Sime Darby. He starred in a ten-minute long PR video in which he praised Sime Darby for its sustainable operations. In the video, he explains that,

“The purpose of my coming here was to learn about the process, which I’ve enjoyed doing, but I kind of knew what was going on. It was really to support a company that was going hell for leather to hit that sustainability target, to encourage the people who are doing the right thing, to emphasise that we in the UK want to buy their product when they have gone to the trouble of making it genuinely sustainable.”

As Sarawak Report points out,

In fact, Sime Darby is the world’s largest palm oil producer and it owns vast plantations across Borneo in areas that used to be pristine jungle. Few of its plantations had been certified as being sustainable.

The company has also recently caused outrage and been forced to pay fines in Africa, where it is currently attempting to expand its operations, again at the expense of native people.

Wiggin declined to reply to Sarawak Report’s questions about his role in promoting Sime Darby. Sarawak Report notes that the company that arranged for Wiggin’s trip to Sarawak,FBC Media, was paid US$5 million by Taib to conduct “an illegal global media campaign against Sarawak Report”.

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Why the energy industry is so invested in climate change denial

2012-02-08T22:02:00.001+07:00

The world most's profitable companies are valued by their carbon reserves – never mind the resulting ruin to the planet

Bill McKibben | guardian.co.uk | 7 February 2012

The Americas, seen from space on 4 January 2012. Photograph: Nasa Goddard Photo

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet – as we shall see – it's unfortunately largely invisible to us.

In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology. Last month, for instance, Nasa updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization's gallery: "Blue Marble", originally taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. The spectacular new high-def image shows a picture of the Americas on 4 January, a good day for snapping photos because there weren't many clouds.

It was also a good day because of the striking way it could demonstrate to us just how much the planet has changed in 40 years. As Jeff Masters, the web's most widely read meteorologist, explains:

"The US and Canada are virtually snow-free and cloud-free, which is extremely rare for a January day. The lack of snow in the mountains of the western US is particularly unusual. I doubt one could find a January day this cloud-free with so little snow on the ground throughout the entire satellite record, going back to the early 1960s."

In fact, it's likely that the week that photo was taken will prove "the driest first week in recorded US history". Indeed, it followed on 2011, which showed the greatest weather extremes in our history – 56% of the country was either in drought or flood, which was no surprise since "climate change science predicts wet areas will tend to get wetter and dry areas will tend to get drier." Indeed, the nation suffered 14 weather disasters, each causing $1bn or more in damage last year. (The old record was nine.) Masters again: "Watching the weather over the past two years has been like watching a famous baseball hitter on steroids."

In the face of such data – statistics that you can duplicate for almost every region of the planet – you'd think we'd already be in an all-out effort to do something about climate change. Instead, we're witnessing an all-out effort to … deny there's a problem.

Our GOP presidential candidates are working hard to make sure no one thinks they'd appease chemistry and physics. At the last Republican debate in Florida, Rick Santorum insisted that he should be the nominee because he'd caught on earlier than Newt or Mitt to the global warming "hoax".

Most of the media pays remarkably little attention to what's happening. Coverage of global warming has dipped 40% over the last two years. When, say, there's a rare outbreak of January tornadoes, TV anchors politely discuss "extreme weather," but climate change is the disaster that dare not speak its name.

And when they do break their silence, some of our elite organs are happy to indulge in outright denial. Last month, for instance, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by "16 scientists and engineers" headlined "No Need to Panic About Global Warming". The article was easily debunked. It was nothing but a mash-up of long-since-disproved arguments by people who turned out mostly not to be climate scientists at all, quoting other scientists who immediately said their actual work showed just the opposite.

It's no secret where this denialism comes from: the fossil fuel industry pays for it. (Of the 16 authors of the Journal article, for instance, five had had ties to Exxon.) Writers from Ross Gelbspan to Naomi Oreskes have made this case with such overwhelming power that no one even really tries denying it any more. The open question is why the industry persists in denial in the face of an endless body of fact showing climate change is the greatest danger we've ever faced.

Why doesn't it fold, the way the tobacco industry eventually did? Why doesn't it invest its riches in things like solar panels and so profit handsomely from the next generation of energy?

The answer is more interesting than you might think.

Part of it's simple enough: the giant energy companies are making so much money right now that they can't stop gorging themselves. ExxonMobil, year after year, pulls in more money than any company in history. Chevron's not far behind. Everyone in the business is swimming in money.

Still, they could theoretically invest all that cash in new clean technology or research and development for the same. As it happens, though, they've got a deeper problem, one that's become clear only in the last few years. Put briefly: their value is largely based on fossil-fuel reserves that won't be burned if we ever take global warming seriously.

When I talked about a carbon bubble at the beginning of this essay, this is what I meant. Here are some of the relevant numbers, courtesy of the Capital Institute: we're already seeing widespread climate disruption, but if we want to avoid utter, civilization-shaking disaster, many scientists have pointed to a two-degree rise in global temperatures as the most we could possibly deal with.

If we spew 565 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere, we'll quite possibly go right past that reddest of red lines. But the oil companies, private and state-owned, have current reserves on the books equivalent to 2,795 gigatons – five times more than we can ever safely burn. It has to stay in the ground.

Put another way, in ecological terms, it would be extremely prudent towrite off $20tn-worth of those reserves. In economic terms, of course, it would be a disaster, first and foremost for shareholders and executives of companies like ExxonMobil (and people in places like Venezuela).

If you run an oil company, this sort of write-off is the disastrous future staring you in the face as soon as climate change is taken as seriously as it should be, and that's far scarier than drought and flood. It's why you'll do anything – including fund an endless campaigns of lies – to avoid coming to terms with its reality. So, instead, we simply charge ahead. To take just one example, last month, the boss of the US Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue, called for burning all the country's newly discovered coal, gas, and oil – believed to be 1,800 gigatons-worth of carbon from our nation alone.

What he and the rest of the energy-industrial elite are denying, in other words, is that the business models at the center of our economy are in the deepest possible conflict with physics and chemistry. The carbon bubble that looms over our world needs to be deflated soon. As with our fiscal crisis, failure to do so will cause enormous pain – pain, in fact, almost beyond imagining. After all, if you think banks are too big to fail, consider the climate as a whole and imagine the nature of the bailout that would face us when that bubble finally bursts.

Unfortunately, it won't burst by itself – not in time, anyway. The fossil-fuel companies, with their heavily-funded denialism and their record campaign contributions, have been able to keep at bay even the tamest efforts at reining in carbon emissions. With each passing day, they're leveraging us deeper into an unpayable carbon debt – and with each passing day, they're raking in unimaginable returns. ExxonMobil last week reported its 2011 profits at $41bn, the second highest of all time. Do you wonder who owns the record? That would be ExxonMobil, in 2008, at $45bn.

Telling the truth about climate change would require pulling away the biggest punchbowl in history, right when the party is in full swing. That's why the fight is so pitched. That's why those of us battling for the future need to raise our game.

And it's why that view from the satellites, however beautiful from a distance, is likely to become ever harder to recognize as our home planet.

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved

CIFOR, UNODC Examine Measures to Control Illegal Logging in Indonesia

2012-02-08T21:52:00.001+07:00

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have released a working paper titled "Lessons for REDD+ from Measures to Control Illegal Logging in Indonesia," which examines the illegal logging context, including drivers, government regulations and moratoria, plantation development, certification options, and forest law enforcement and governance in Indonesia

Climate Change Policy & Practice | January 2012

On the context for REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries), the paper examines measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) options and systems, multi-stakeholder processes, and challenges in tackling governance issues.

The paper recommends: adopting an approach that harmonizes REDD+ and timber legality MRV requirements, while acknowledging the different MRV needs; developing mechanisms for exchange of data and transparency; developing the role of civil society monitors and public oversight mechanisms; and clarifying the roles and mandates of local and central governments. The paper also calls for particular attention to law enforcement aspects including: defining clearer roles for enforcement agencies and relationships with the Ministry of Forests; broadening the understanding of illegal logging to examine violations related to corruption and negative impacts of legal concessions; and expanding law enforcement's use of laws related to anti-corruption and anti-money laundering.

CIFOR is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

[Publication: Lessons for REDD+ from Measures to Control Illegal Logging in Indonesia]

All content copyright © 1990 - 2012 - IISD

CIFOR Assesses Indonesian Moratorium on Forest Concessions

2012-02-08T21:49:00.001+07:00

Following the Indonesian Government's declaration in May 2011 of a two-year moratorium on new forest concession licences, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has released a working paper examining the significance of this moratorium on forest governance

Climate Change Policy & Practice | January 2012

The assessment, titled "Indonesia's Forest Moratorium: A Stepping Stone to Better Forest Governance," examines the definitions and terms used by the Indonesian Government to highlight the complexity of the issue; scrutinizes the moratorium map; and focuses on challenges related to management of peatlands in the context of reducing emissions that contribute to climate change.

It raises some unresolved concerns around the area and status of land covered by the moratorium, noting that the new area under protection amounts to, at most, 22.5 million hectares. The working paper laments that the failure to include secondary forests and previously logged forests represents a lost opportunity. It also underscores that peatland governance remains a challenge, and loopholes for food and energy security could undermine the integrity of the moratorium. The assessment calls for attention to be placed on updating the Indicative Moratorium Map and an examination of existing licences compliance with laws and regulations.

CIFOR is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

[Publication: Indonesia's Forest Moratorium: A Stepping Stone to Better Forest Governance]

All content copyright © 1990 - 2012 - IISD

Making climate change appealing

2012-02-08T21:26:00.000+07:00

The famous “Keeling Curve” graph, which shows the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere from 1958 to 2006, had set off alarm bells in the scientific community that continues to ring loudly even today. Yet somehow, this same graph does not communicate the immediacy of the climate change problem to lay audiences

By Varun Dutt | Financial Chronicle | Feb 05 2012

Instead, it may actually convey the message that the buildup of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has been taking place over a long period, thereby, erroneously implying that climate change is not an urgent issue. Similarly, many people have difficulty grasping the importance of projections of higher carbon dioxide concentrations and surface temperatures several decades from now. Part of the problem may be the tendency to discount future events. But another part of the problem may be that a global average surface temperature increase of a few degrees does not seem like much to the general public, given the variability in temperature that most people experience on a regular basis.

But a few degrees do matter. As the 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report found, numerous effects of climate change are already observable throughout the earth’s system, and these impacts are likely to grow over the coming years. Yet, polls taken during the past several years continue to show Americans ranking climate change near the bottom of their list of concerns or policy priorities. Clearly attempts to convey the immediacy of the climate challenge have fallen short of translating climate change into a near-term (as well as a long-term) danger on par with other imminent societal and personal threats.

Even when people understand the Keeling Curve, it does not always motivate them to take action. The reason for this disconnect may lie in how the brain works, which climate change communicators need to understand to create truly powerful messages that will inspire action. The human mind is not designed to immediately react to threats that seem to manifest themselves in the distant future, such as climate change. Distant risks do not set off the same alarms that immediate risks do. Human brains struggle to balance long-range worries with the demands of more immediate concerns. More specifically, the human brain has two different processing systems: The experiential processing system, which controls survival behaviour and is the source of emotions and instincts (such as feeding, fighting and fleeing); and the analytical processing system, which controls analysis of scientific information (such as logical, deliberative and analytic).

Despite evidence from the social sciences that the experiential processing system is the stronger motivator for action, most climate change communication (including the Keeling Curve) remains geared toward the analytical processing system. Personal or anecdotal accounts of negative climate change experiences, which could easily outweigh statistical evidence, are rarely put into play, despite evidence that even a stranger’s past experiences can evoke strong feelings in people, making such communications memorable and, therefore, dominant in processing. Yet not all communication about climate change should be emotional because there are downsides to bypassing analytical reasoning to make an appeal only to the experiential system. The most effective communication targets both processing systems of the human brain.

Communicators could make use a number of experiential tools in addition to the more common analytical ones when creating presentations on climate change. For example, vivid imagery, in the form of film footage, metaphors, personal accounts, real-world analogies, and concrete comparisons might help. Also, messages that are designed to create, recall, and highlight relevant personal experiences and elicit emotional responses are likely to help.

Analytic products (such as trend analyses, forecast probabilities and ranges of uncertainty) help people absorb facts and can be valuable tools when people need to make big decisions, but they alone will not compel people to take effective steps to address the climate change challenge. Information that is balanced with both analytic and experiential materials may be more likely to have an effect on attitudes and behaviour, creating a desire in people to act on their new knowledge.

For example, in 2008, the city of New York and partners launched an advertising campaign to promote recycling awareness in the city. The campaign used metaphors, analogies, vivid imagery and comparison to communicate facts such as: “New York city residents discard 800 million pounds of recyclable paper annually.” The ads powerfully illuminated how the huge amount of recyclable paper thrown away in New York city annually is enough to fill the entire Empire State Building by creating a picture of the iconic skyscraper composed entirely of discarded magazines and catalogs.

However, another possible reason for the public’s lack of responsiveness to climate change messages may be caused by low comprehension of or interest in communications laden with scientific language. When talking to the general public, research shows that communicators should, whenever possible, avoid using jargon, complicated scientific terms and acronyms. Instead, words that will make sense to the audience must be used.

(The writer is on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, US, and knowledge editor of Financial Chronicle)

© 2011 Financial Chronicle, All rights reserved

Coal mines shut as Australia evacuates flooded towns

2012-02-06T15:49:00.001+07:00

Heavy rains shut four coal mines in eastern Australia on Friday as military helicopters evacuated stranded residents from inundated towns, and authorities warned of further flash flooding

Reuters | Feb 3, 2012

More than 11,000 people in Queensland state have been isolated by the flooding and thousands had been evacuated, emergency services authorities said.

The town of Moree, the centre of the region's cotton growing, has been cut in half by record floodwaters, while authorities are using helicopters to relocate 300 people already at an evacuation centre in the outback town of Roma to another centre on higher ground.

Whitehaven Coal said it had shut four mines due to heavy rainfall, but the mines were not flooded and no equipment had been damaged. Other miners and liquefied natural gas producers reported their operations had so far not been affected.

Flash floods across Australia's Queensland and New South Wales states in early 2011 killed around 35 people, swamped 30,000 houses, and wiped out roads, bridges and rail lines.

The 2011 floods also damaged crops and inundated coal mines, pushing up prices for coal. Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and accounts for roughly two-thirds of global trade of coking coal, used for steel production.

Peter Birch, who runs a cotton farm outside Moree, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that floodwater had trapped him on the second storey of his home.

"We woke up this morning with wallabies, kangaroos, an echidna and a koala sitting in the trees, so I think everything is headed to any little bit of high ground they can," he said.

Birch said the floods are set to wipe out A$500,000 to A$750,000 ($537,000-$805,000) worth of cotton crops from each 500-hectare farm in the area.

The Queensland Resources Council said many of the state's mines were still carrying water from last year's wet season and it was monitoring mining areas.

"Sites are reportedly dealing well with what are traditional wet season issues such as site access and water accumulation," said Queensland Resources Council Chief Executive Michael Roche.

NOT AGAIN

A spokeswoman for Xstrata, the world's largest thermal coal exporter, which has mines in both New South Wales and Queensland, said it was not aware of any impact due to the wet weather.

In the northwestern district of Queensland, Xstrata said it had resumed operations at its Ernest Henry copper mine following a short suspension last week to ensure the safety of staff.

"Most of our operations are now back online and we are currently assessing recovery times and the potential production impacts from this event," Xstrata said in an e-mail to Reuters.

Another coal major, Rio Tinto, said it would not comment on production.

About $45 billion worth of liquefied natural gas export projects are also under construction in southern Queensland.

Santos said it had suspended some of its operations at its $16 billion Gladstone LNG development.

"However the impact on operations has been minimal. None of our equipment or facilities is at risk," Santos spokeswoman Samantha Santy said in an email.

Origin said its Australia Pacific LNG project was unaffected, while BP Group said their operations were outside of the flooding area.

The Bureau of Meteorology said heavy rains were likely to add to already overflowing rivers and warned of localized flash flooding. It cancelled a severe weather warning for parts of New South Wales.

The flooding over the past week could also affect crops, the government's commodities forecaster ABARES warned, adding that the rain has reportedly affected sugarcane, soybeans and corn.

Storm damage was estimated to have cut Australia's commodity-weighted economy's gross domestic product growth by A$20 billion, or 1.5 percent, in the 2010-2011 financial year. ($1 = 0.9317 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Maggie Lu-YueYang and James Regan; additional reporting by Rebekah Kebede in Perth; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Richard Pullin)

Who are the Davos class?

2012-02-04T10:52:00.001+07:00

Just who makes up the global elite that has been gathering at Davos?

Red Pepper | 27 January 2012

Who are the global 1 per cent? What companies do they run? How do they escape accountability? Check out the Transnational Institute's powerful exposure of the social and environmental costs of global corporate power.

The economic, social and ecological crises humanity face are no accident, but a result of policies pursued by a small corporate elite that has systematically hijacked political and economic policy throughout the world.

This global elite - best known as the Davos class - meets annually in the Swiss skiing resort in the last week of January to reaffirm their faith in the orthodoxy of pro-corporate economic policies. They continue to do so, even as the costs become ever more clear in debt crises that are never resolved, rising unemployment and inequality, and an ever-pressing ecological crisis.

TNI, as part of its new Corporate Power project, is producing a series of infographics over 2012 that expose the reality of corporate power, and our need to fundamentally change direction. Please download and share these infographics, and watch out for new ones over the coming months.

5 shot in conflict over oil palm plantation in Sumatra

2012-02-04T09:59:00.001+07:00

Five villagers were shot in Indonesia's Riau Province on the island of Sumatra during a clash in a land dispute over an oil palm plantation, reports The Jakarta Post and Republika

mongabay.com | February 03, 2012

The violence occurred when heavy machinery owned by PT Mazuma Agro Indonesia (MAI), a palm oil developer, moved into an area of land local residents claims as their own. As many as 200 villagers attempted to block MAI workers, who were accompanied by private security personnel and the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob), a special operations unit run by the Indonesian police.

The victims were taken to a local hospital. Several villagers were also arrested.

According to the Riau Palm Oil Farmers Union, the dispute dates to 1998. The community of Batang Kumuh, which residents claim lies in Riau Province, says the 5,800-hectare site belongs to them, but MAI was issued a permit to develop the land by the government of North Sumatra Province. A court ruled in favor of Batang Kumuh last year, but MAI has since appealed the case to the Supreme Court and continues to work on the land.

The clash came just a day after the Ministry of Forestry said it will start to require applicants for forest concessions prove there aren't overlapping claims on the lands they seek to develop.

Land conflict is common in Indonesia. Only 12 percent of the country's forest area has been legally delineated leading local communities to sometimes take matters into their own hands when confronted by loggers and plantation developers. Worsening the situation, some companies rely on private security forces and police to forcibly evict customary forest users from their lands.

Africa land grabs 'could cause conflicts'

2012-02-04T09:56:00.001+07:00

The stampede by wealthy states for arable land across Africa and other developing regions could trigger a series of conflicts if governments fail to protect the rights of their people, two recent studies on land grabs warn

United Press International | Feb. 3, 2012

"Controversial land acquisitions were key a factor triggering the civil wars in Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone and there is every reason to be concerned that conditions are ripe for new conflicts to occur in many other places," cautioned Jeffrey Hatcher, director of global programs with Rights and Resources Initiative.

The non-government organization, founded in 2005 with headquarters in Washington, seeks to promote land and policy reforms in 20 African countries.

In a report published Wednesday, RRI estimates that a 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa depend on 3.46 billion acres of communally held farmland that has been a primary target of foreign governments and investors seeking to produce food specifically for non-African populations.

In a December report, the International Land Coalition, a global network of civil society and farmers' organizations, estimated the global rush for land claimed 494 million acres in sub-Saharan Africa in 2000-10.

ILC zeroed in on West Africa, where it said land acquisitions by foreign entities were causing major environmental and agricultural damage along the River Niger, at 2,265 miles the third longest river in Africa after the Nile and the Congo.

"The siphoning of water for huge areas of farmland will worsen the already low water levels of the Niger," it said. The result was a "50 percent diminution of the delta flood plain's land area."

It concluded, "Given that social conflict over resources between farmers and pastoralists has always been a feature of the Niger Basin, the Coalition suggests that large-scale irrigation could heighten tension between local and downstream water users."

On Jan. 20, two Liberian land campaigners wrote in The New York Times that the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, was likely "sowing the seeds of future conflict by handing over huge tracts of land to foreign investors and dispossessing rural Liberians."

They alleged that in 2006-11, Sirleaf "granted more than a third of Liberia's land to private investors to use for logging, mining and agro-industrial enterprises.

"Today, more than 7 million acres have become forestry and agricultural concessions," they said.

Some 1.6 million acres went to the Sime Darby Corp. of Malaysia and Golden Veroleum, a subsidiary of the New York's Verdant Fund L.P.

Local communities in the region, where 150,000 of the 1 million people will be disposed without being consulted or compensated by their government, have temporarily blocked the Malaysian company's plans to plant oil palms on 523,800 acres of land leased from the Freetown government.

The company has reportedly frozen its operations following an appeal to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an international certification body.

These land grabs were triggered by the 2007-08 world food price crisis, with countries like oil-rich Saudi Arabia and South Korea buying or leasing vast tracts of land in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

They planned to grow food there that would be exclusively exported to their own populations, with none of it going to the people of famine-plagued Africa.

Many of the land agreements in African states involve under-the-table deals with high-ranking officials who enrich themselves at the expense of peasants and villagers who have farmed these lands for generations.

The lack of secure land tenure has facilitated "an astonishing buying spree across Africa," Hatcher observed.

In a comprehensive review of land rights and reforms in 35 African states, his group reported that only nine included protections for those using the land without formal legal title.

David Deng of the Law Society of South Sudan said that infant state -- it only became independent in July after decades of civil war -- was already being hit by foreign land grabs, with the government unable to monitor all the transactions.

"I think it's fairly clear to us that poorly planned investments can contribute to conflict, particularly in fragile, post-conflict states," he said.

"But conflict can also attract investment, as opportunistic companies come to take advantage of power vacuums, and in the case of South Sudan, of a massive transfer of wealth to a bureaucratically weak government."

Indonesia to create the world's largest palm oil and rubber company

2012-02-04T09:52:00.001+07:00

The Indonesian government plans to create a massive plantation firm next month when it will combine the assets of state-owned rubber and palm oil companies, reports Reuters

mongabay.com | February 04, 2012

The new corporation, which will be consolidated under the parent company PT Perkebunan Nusantara III, will have assets worth $5.6 billion, according to State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan. It will own about million hectares of oil palm and rubber plantations, rivaling Malaysia’s Sime Darby and Singapore’s Wilmar among the world's largest planters.

The revenue of the firms that will soon make up Perkebunan Nusantara III was $4.5 billion last year.

Iskan said the plantation giant may eventually be listed and spun off from the government.

"We’re open for other units to list on the stock exchange but eventually we will list the parent company and I don’t think we should retain a majority stake once it is listed,” Iskan told Reuters during an inteview.

Malaysia's Sime Darby with 525,795 hectares of oil palm currently has the largest land bank of any publicly-listed plantation company in Southeast Asia. Listed in Singapore, its market cap is $18.2 billion.

Republicans step up attacks on Obama's green agenda

2012-02-04T09:46:00.000+07:00

Karl Rove's political action committee releases advert attacking administration for funding collapsed solar panel company

By Suzanne Goldenberg | The Guardian in BusinessGren | 03 Feb 2012

US Republicans are deploying a $100m election spending machine to savage Barack Obama's green agenda, with Karl Rove's political action committee releasing a new advert attacking the administration for funding a collapsed solar panel company.

The latest ad buy this week raises Republican spending on adverts attacking Obama's support for Solyndra to more than $9m (£5.7m), with the election still nine months away.

Republicans hope to frame the election in November as a choice between the environment and jobs. Obama, for his part, has offered a mixed response to the attacks, highlighting his energy strategy and taking out his own ads on Solyndra.

Last week Obama made a pitch for clean energy investment during his state of the union address, and on Wednesday the interior secretary, Ken Salazar, announced the development of four new areas for offshore windfarms along the mid-Atlantic coast.

Salazar said the initiative would clear the way for developing offshore windfarms in Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Delaware. "The federal government is now fast-tracking forward," said Maryland's Democrat governor, Martin O'Malley.

To date the main exhibits for the Republicans' new election strategy are ad buys from Rove's Crossroads GPS political action committee, including $500,000 this week, and a bigger barrage from Americans for Prosperity, which is tied to the billionaire Koch brothers. Between them, the two groups raised $100m last year.

Since late last year, Americans for Prosperity has spent $8.4m on television ads in battleground states such as Michigan and Ohio, attacking the collapse of Solyndra into bankruptcy as "Obama's green giveaway".

Republican presidential candidates have also criticised Obama for rejecting the Keystone tar sands pipeline, with the frontrunner, Mitt Romney, accusing the president of "crony capitalism".

In this week's 35-second ad from Rove's Pac, Obama is accused of using government funds to reward campaign donors. "He gave his political backers billions, a big government fiasco infused with politics at every level," a female narrator says. "Laid-off worker: forgotten. Typical Washington. Tell President Obama we need jobs not more inside deals."

Republicans in the House of Representatives have spent months investigating loan guarantees given to Solyndra, subpoenaing the White House to turn over tens of thousands of pages of documents.

They have uncovered no evidence of corruption to date. However, Obama has been hurt by the release of emails from officials expressing doubts about Solyndra's financial health before the loan.

Crossroads hopes to pick up on that unease in its ad campaign, according to a strategy memo from the Pac's president, Steven Law. "Advocates on the centre-right need to engage that debate in both moral and economic terms, showing that Obama's Washington is an unfair place, and less of Obama's invasive, free-spending and chronically politicised government is the solution," Law said in the memo.

There are signs that the Obama camp is concerned. His re-election campaign put out its first television ad last week, responding to the attacks on Solyndra.

This article first appeared at the Guardian

BusinessGreen is part of the Guardian Environment Network

Indonesia to require loggers prove their concessions free of overlapping claims

2012-02-04T00:29:00.001+07:00

Applicants for forest concessions in Indonesia will soon be required to prove there aren't overlapping claims on their holdings, reports The Jakarta Globe

mongabay.com | February 02, 2012

The move, which offers the potential to reduce land disputes between forest developers and local communities, could complicate investments in the forestry sector in Indonesia.

The Ministry of Forestry announced the new decree Tuesday. The process will be handled by the Agency for Forestry Area Consolidation (BPKH), a unit of the Forestry Ministry.

"The Forestry Ministry is determined to assist in accelerating the process of comprehensively determining the boundaries of forests by appointing the BPKH as technical assistant," Hadi Daryanto, the secretary general of the Forestry Ministry, was quoted as saying by The Jakarta Globe.

Any area found to have overlapping claims "may be taken out of the concession to be awarded, designated as an enclave, recognized as a customary forest or designated as a forest with special purposes," according to the report. Local communities may be allowed to jointly manage contested areas with the concession-seeker.

The decree could have far-reaching implications in Indonesia, where disputes over forest land are common and sometimes turn violent.
Logging concessions and large-scale plantation development -- including oil palm and wood-pulp plantations -- have often displaced traditional forest users. The Ministry of Forestry, which controls roughly 70 percent of Indonesia's forest estate, generally doesn't recognize traditional land claims, despite laws requiring it to do so. Instead, the ministry grants these community lands to developers, who pay for the privilege of converting the forest. When conflicts arise, developers may rely on state security forces to intimidate or even forcibly displace villagers.

Last year, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of the Indonesian President’s REDD+ Task Force, said the government would immediately work to implement a decade-old law that requires recognition of adat or customary rights. The effort will include developing a land tenure map so government agencies can better understand how communities are using land and delineating the legal status of the Indonesia's forest area. Only 12 percent of the Indonesia's forest area has been legally delineated, according to Kuntoro.

Less bank-bashing, more action: time to Move Your Money!

2012-02-04T00:23:00.001+07:00

A call is going out to every British citizen who wants the financial sector to clean up their act. Move your money from the big banks to local, ethical or mutual alternatives and send them a message in a language they'll understand

by Louis Brooke | Feb 2 2012 by OpenDemocracy in Energy Bulletin | Feb 2 2012

Move Your Money UK campaign video

But should we be? Should the public submit themselves to the benevolence of individual bankers in the hope that, as bonus season continues, there are more Phillip Hammonds than there are Fred Goodwin’s in the City?

It was always going to be politically unacceptable for Hester to accept his bonus. A public sector worker can't walk away with a £1million bonus and a ‘long-term incentivisation plan’ worth up to four times that whilst the public face austerity cuts, a squeeze on real incomes and growing unemployment.

But politicians won’t be able lean on Barclay’s Chief Executive, Bob Diamond, when his bonus is announced. Barclays never received direct support from the state; neither did Santander or HSBC for that matter...

The outpouring of public anger over Hester’s bonus went beyond the fact that the state has an 82% stake in RBS. People are genuinely shocked that the bonus culture in the City still hasn’t changed.

If we want to see real change in the culture of British banks, not just a media frenzy and political scrum about one man at RBS, it’s up to us, as citizens, consumers and investors, to take action.

The banking system plays a systemically central role in our economy and society - it provides essential services for households, business and governments. And just like with the utilities, the public have a clear interest in ensuring it functions properly. The continued practice of awarding big bonuses on the basis of relatively short-term performance hardly inspires confidence.

Clearly regulatory and structural reform is needed. The implementation of the Vickers report may shield the taxpayer from the worst effects of future financial crises, and the overhaul of the FSA and Bank of England are likely to improve oversight and consumer protection.

But if there is one thing that the financial crisis should have taught us, it is not to underestimate our own myopia. When the sums involved are large enough, there is always a risk that self-interest will win out over stability and fairness.

The only way of securing a fair and sustainable financial system in the long term is through a paradigm shift in cultural attitudes both inside and outside of the sector.

We need to create a dialogue between the public and the financial system that helps ensure it responds better to the needs of wider society. That’s why Move Your Money, a new grassroots campaign encouraging people to move their money from the big banks to ethical, local and mutual alternatives, launched yesterday.

The campaign is not about bringing down the big banks. The UK has one of the most consolidated banking sectors in the developed world; there is no danger of sparking the collapse of the likes of RBS, Barclays and Lloyds.

But Moving Your Money to an ethical, local or mutual alternative will send a clear message to the big banks that their behavior must change.

We hope that the big banks will see the campaign as an opportunity to engage with the pubic on constructive terms. By being transparent, developing ethically responsible lending policies and adopting business models and governance structures that internalize the needs of customers and wider society – they can regain credibility and trust.

To find out more or get involved visit www.moveyourmoney.org.uk. The next action is A Better Bail-Out: Break Up with Barclays. February 10th will see Barclay's bonus announcements so at 8.30am we will be lining up outside the Barclays branch, 56 Southampton Road, London, WC1B 4NB to close accounts, sign letters of complaint, speak to the manager and discuss the issues with other Barclays customers. If you can’t make it to London why not organise your own Better Bail-out from Big Bad Barclays outside your local branch?

Euro Parliament backs low-carbon road map

2012-02-04T00:13:00.001+07:00

A European Parliament committee this week approved an EU "road map" to a low-carbon economy that seeks to go beyond current greenhouse gas reduction targets

United Press International | Feb. 3, 2012

The European Parliament's Committee on the Environment Tuesday passed a report written by British MEP Chris Davies that backs the European Commission's "Road map for Moving to a Competitive Low Carbon Economy in 2050," giving it a key legislative victory.

The plan seeks to boost renewable energy sources from providing 20 percent of Europe's electricity called for in current targets for 2020 to between 55-75 percent by 2050, thus cutting greenhouse gas emissions up to 95 percent less than 1990 levels.

It sets carbon dioxide reduction "milestones" of at least 40 percent by 2030 and at least 80 percent by 2050 -- minimum scientists say is necessary to avoid global warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius.

"Europe needs a huge increase in investment to boost the economy and create jobs, but investors must have long-term policy direction to shape their decisions," Davies, of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, said in a statement.

The committee vote was close, with 32 votes in favor, 24 against and five abstentions. A plenary vote on the measure is set for the Parliament's March 12-15 session.

Its passage endorses the idea the "European Union should be prepared to provide leadership on the issue of global warming," Davies wrote on his blog. "It will mean that, even in the absence of a binding international treaty of the kind that we seek, Parliament accepts that the EU should accept the role of first mover, and must take the steps necessary to build a low carbon economy by 2050."

The vote came as the Danish EU presidency is preparing to ask the bloc's 27 environmental ministers to endorse the long-term CO2 reduction goals of the 2050 roadmap, the Brussels weekly EurActiv reported.

The publication said a leaked draft of Denmark's environmental agenda calls for implementation of a 40 percent CO2 emissions reduction by 2030, which will presented to ministers at a March 9 meeting.

The Danish EU presidency will urge the European Commission "to present timely options for delivering the reductions" of the road map for the period to 2030, the document indicates.

The adoption of such long-term targets could help to boost the languishing price of carbon under the EU's emissions trading system, Marcel Van Dun, a spokesman for the Dutch power company Eneco, told EurActiv.

"It would put Europe back in the driving seat in the worldwide transition to a future-proof, independent energy supply for our companies and citizens," he said.

The MEPs sought to address the low carbon price and the need to secure investment in green technologies in the bill by calling for a "significant" number of ETS allowances "to be set aside and changes to be made to the annual rate at which they are taken out of trading."

100 die in European deep freeze

2012-02-03T23:56:00.000+07:00

Europe's Siberian freeze spread to France and Italy, with snow covering Corsica, Bologna and Milan, while the European death toll topped 100, officials said

UPI in Disaster News Network | February 2, 2012

An estimated 30 people in eastern and central Europe froze to death Wednesday in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine, officials said.

Ukraine's death toll Wednesday was 13 -- and topped 40 since the arctic cold started Friday, the Euronews channel reported.

Temperatures were so low in parts of Romania that parts of the Black Sea near the shoreline froze, the BBC reported.

Istanbul, Turkey, which rarely gets snow, got 20 inches and double-digit sub-zero temperatures Wednesday. The national flag carrier Turkish Airlines canceled at least 183 flights in and out of Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport, the official state Anadolu news agency reported.

Temperatures in Istanbul broke freezing Thursday and were expected to reach into the 40s F Friday.

Temperatures in northern Greece hovered above freezing.

Europe had enjoyed a relatively mild winter until Friday, when a Siberian cold front came in from the northeast, plunging temperatures to minus-25 degrees Fahrenheit and colder in some places.

Eastern and central Europe were hardest hit, but the chill spread south and west Wednesday.

Widespread snow in northern and central Italy disrupted travel. Trucks were banned from roads in several regions, including Tuscany. Dozens of airline flights, and even some soccer matches, were canceled, Euronews said.

Mountain roads on the French island of Corsica were shut by heavy snow and 50,000 customers lost power.

Water leak shuts CA nuclear plant

2012-02-03T23:53:00.001+07:00

A water leak led to the shutdown a California nuclear power plant, and officials said an "extremely small" amount of radiation may have been released

UPI in Disaster News Network | February 2, 2012

A sensor detected a steam generator tube leak Tuesday in one of the two units of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Plant in San Diego County Tuesday, prompting the shutdown of the nuclear reactor, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Because the building containing the tube is not airtight, it is possible radioactivity escaped into the environment, KNBC-TV, Los Angeles, reported.

"It would have been very, very small, low level, which would not pose a danger to anyone," Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Victor Dricks said.

An evacuation was not required, and none of the radiation detectors located throughout the facility reported any measurable amount of radioactivity, Southern California Edison spokesman Gil Alexander said.

Southern California Edison operates the facility, which is in the northwestern corner of San Diego County, near San Clemente.

After the problem is resolved, it will take several days to restart the reactor, KNBC-TV reported.

Turning Point: What future for forest peoples and resources in the emerging world order?

2012-02-03T23:27:00.000+07:00

Reports about REDD tend to focus on the forests. It’s unusual for a report about REDD to start with an analysis of the economic crisis in Europe and the way in which the world is changing. Yesterday, the Rights and Resources Initiative released a new report that does precisely that

By Chris Lang | REDD-Monitor | 2nd February 2012

The report is titled, “Turning Point: What future for forest peoples and resources in the emerging world order?” Written by author and journalist Fred Pearce, the report is a fascinating overview of where REDD currently stands in the context of the economic crisis, collapsing carbon markets, climate change, population and consumption growth, inequality, land-grabbing, infrastructure, development and protests.

Pearce writes that “Nothing demonstrated the historic shift in economic power in 2011 more than the European Union going to China, hat in hand, asking for a bailout.” The report points out that investment in infrastructure and mining is booming in Asia and Latin America. The investment is spreading to Africa, “potentially locking in unsustainable development for decades”. In many poorer countries, development aid is being largely replaced by new players, such as the sovereign wealth funds of the Persian Gulf, China’s Ex-Im Bank, and Brazil’s National Bank of Economic and Social Development.

In November 2011, Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, told theGuardian, that, “The door is closing. I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.” But the signs are that we are continuing in the wrong direction. In 2006, 25% of the world’s primary energy came from coal, in 2011, the figure was expected to reach 30%.

The UN climate meeting in Durban committed the world to a “lost decade”, with little chance of preventing global warming of at least 2°C. In this context, “REDD is unlikely to play a substantial role before 2020 without a major injection of funds, the prospects of which seem dim.”

Without secure promises of funds, developing countries were reluctant in Durban to cede oversight of their REDD activities. As a result, talks on creating international safeguards to protect the interests of forest communities made little progress. Governments that might host REDD projects agreed to provide summary information on safeguards but refused to accept rules on the collection of data or other specifics that would allow them to be held to account. “Without such rules”, said Louis Verchot, CIFOR’s principal scientist at the talks, “we cannot talk about sustainability of REDD”.

The report refers to research demonstrating that “community control is the best long-term insurance for forests.” But adds that asserting community control could prove difficult, “under an international REDD regime designed to ensure carbon integrity”.

Indonesia is reported as an example of one government that has shown, “increased determination to help communities benefit from REDD”. This is based in part on a speech by Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of the President’s Special Delivery Unit, given at a Rights and Resources Initiative conference in July 2011. In the speech, Kuntoro referred to The People’s Consultative Assembly Decree (Tap MPR) No. 9/2001 on Land Reform and Natural Resources Management, which mandated the review and revision of all land tenure regulations:

“The People’s Consultative Assembly Decree also instructs to conduct land reform with considerations on conflict resolutions and resolve land inequality for land-less peasants; to develop inventory and registry of land tenure comprehensively and systematically; to resolve and anticipate land tenure and natural resources management conflicts; and all should be implemented based on the principle to recognize, to respect, and to protect adat customary rights.”

As RRI points out, this statement is “the highest-level government pledge to recognize indigenous land claims made in Indonesia’s history”. Of course, Kuntoro’s statement should be welcomed, as should President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s statements on protecting Indonesia’s forests. But many problems remain regarding the recognition of the rights of forest communities and reducing deforestation in Indonesia. Logging, mining, oil palm and pulpwood plantations have not gone away, despite the two-year moratorium on new forest concessions.

The report highlights the impact of infrastructure development on forests, with descriptions of road-building projects in Pakistan, Bolivia and the Mekong Region. Land-grabbing is also an important driver of deforestation. In the last decade, according to both Oxfam and the International Land Coalition, about 200 million hectares has been bought or leased by agribusiness. In Liberia, most of the country’s land is under some form of concession. Six million hectares of land in Mozambique has been declared open to foreign investors. And South Sudan “was handing out land even before it raised its national flag for the first time”. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 33.5 million hectares of forest are under timber, diamond or mining concessions. In Gabon and the Central African Republic the figures are 5.4 million hectares and 18.9 million hectares, respectively.

The report also looks at population growth. The world’s population reached 7 billion in 2011. But consumption is the crucial problem. “The global consumption bomb is ready to go off,” Pearce writes. “Consumption drives resource demand and use, and the number of people living consumerist lifestyles in the world’s burgeoning urban areas is rising fast.”

The report considers the importance of protests against the destruction caused by land-grabs, plantations and hydropower dams. Protests in Liberia, Indonesia, Sudan, Brazil and China are highlighted:

Something is afoot. Frustrated by global financial forces and the abuse of their local rights and resources, the most unlikely people are rising up against authorities once seen to be too powerful to challenge.

The report refers to a speech by Arundhati Roy in New York in November 2011, in which she points out that the Occupy Movement, allied to movements in the South, can challenge conventional models of development. “The Occupy movement has joined thousands of other resistance movements all over the world,” she says, “in which the poorest of people are standing up and stopping the richest corporations in their tracks.”

The report ends with a series of questions:

Will 2012 see the end of effective global action on climate change?
Will REDD be reformed or overtaken?
Where will Indonesia’s tenure reform road take them?
Will Rio get real?
Will respect for local rights be the hallmark of 2012?

For the answers to these questions, read RRI’s report. It’s well worth it.

REDD-Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Once, men abused slaves. Now we abuse fossil fuels

2012-02-03T23:18:00.000+07:00

Pointing out the similarities (and differences) between slavery and the use of fossil fuels can help us engage with climate change in a new way

Jean-François Mouhot | guardian.co.uk | 3 February 2012

'That US Congressmen tend to rationalise fossil fuel use despite climate risks to future generations just as southern congressmen rationalised slavery despite ideals of equality is perhaps unsurprising'. Photograph: Joseph Sohm/Corbis

In 2005, while teaching history at a French university, I was struck by the general disbelief among students that rational and sensitive human beings could ever hold others in bondage. Slavery was so obviously evil that slave-holders could only have been barbarians. My students could not entertain the idea that some slave-owners could have been genuinely blind to the harm they were doing.

At the same time, I was reading a book on climate change which noted how today's machinery – almost exclusively powered by fossil fuels like coal and oil – does the same work that used to be done by slaves and servants. "Energy slaves" now do our laundry, cook our food, transport us, entertain us, and do most of the hard work needed for our survival.

Intriguing similarities between slavery and our current dependence on fossil-fuel-powered machines struck me: both perform roughly the same functions in society (doing the hard and dirty work that no one wants to do), both were considered for a long time to be acceptable by the majority and both came to be increasingly challenged as the harm they caused became more visible.

The history of slavery and its abolition shows how blurred the frontier between what is considered good and evil can be, and how quickly it can shift. We have a mental image of slave-owners as cruel, sadistic, inhuman brutes, and forget too easily the ordinariness of slave ownership throughout the world. To many, slavery seemed normal and indispensable. In the US, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Lifestyles and healthy incomes were predicated upon it, just as we today depend on oil. Similarly, many slave-owners lived with the impression that they were decent people.

Obviously, there are differences between the use of slaves and of fossil fuels. Fundamentally, slavery is a crime against humanity. Fossil fuel use is not a moral evil, but burning coal or oil contributes to global warming, already causing widespread harm: it now directly or indirectly kills 150,000 people per year according to a 2004 World Health Organisation study. States and energy companies' lust for oil also leads to wars and the toppling of democratically elected governments. Our addiction to fossil fuel is increasingly destructive.

Unlike the harm caused by slavery, the harm in the use of fossil fuels is of course indirect, long range, even unintended. It seems at first glance to be a fundamentally different kind of harm, and the unintended consequences of ongoing use of fossil fuels have only recently become understood. Initially, their use was seen as positive and progressive. But now that we know the consequences, and continue, globally, to increase emission levels, how can we still consider these consequences "unintended"?

Consumers of goods made by slaves or absentee plantation owners who lived in Britain in the 18th century also benefited from the slave system without maintaining direct connections to it. Those beneficiaries can certainly be said to have committed a morally comparable sort of human transgression to that of people who benefit from fossil fuels today.

Why is all of this relevant for climate change policy? Our contemporary economies have become extremely dependent on fossil fuels, just as slave societies were dependent on their slaves – indeed far more than the latter ever were. As one scholar remarked: "That US Congressmen tend to rationalise fossil fuel use despite climate risks to future generations just as southern congressmen rationalised slavery despite ideals of equality is perhaps unsurprising."

It should thus come as no surprise that there is so much resistance to climate science. Our societies, like slave-owning societies, have a vested interest in ignoring the scientific consensus. Pointing out the similarities between slavery and the use of fossil fuels can help us engage with the issue in a new way, and convince us to act, as no one envisages comfortably being compared with a slave-owner.

Furthermore, because of the striking similarities between the use of slaves and of fossil fuels, policymakers can find inspiration from the campaigns to abolish slavery and use them to tackle global warming. For example, the history of the abolition of slavery, in the UK at least, suggests that an incremental approach and the development of compromises worked better at moving the cause forward than hardline stances.

The evidence also implies that slavery came to be challenged and finally abolished when people became aware of an alternative. This alternative – steam power – was of course a great moral improvement until we came to know the consequences of fossil fuel consumption. This, in turn, suggests that we will restrain our use of fossil fuels if we can favour a new energy transition and find clean sources of energy – and that we should concentrate our efforts on developing "green" technologies at the same time as reducing our consumption of fossil fuels.

If we do not change, the human family will pay heavily for the consequences of our reckless activity. Moreover, future generations will look back at us and wonder how our civilisation could have been so backward and have lived in such appalling moral blindness. Will the next generation have any awareness that industrialised societies had mitigating circumstances? Probably not. They are more likely to curse us for the irreparable damage we have done to the planet. Surely, they will say, we were a barbarian people.

• Jean-François Mouhot is a visiting researcher at Georgetown University. He is the author of Past Connections and Present Similarities in Slave Ownership and Fossil Fuel Usage, published in the journal Climatic Change, and the book Des Esclaves Energétiques: Réflexions sur le Changement Climatique.

CIFOR Newsletter Deconstructs COP 17 for Forests

2012-02-03T21:41:00.001+07:00

The latest newsletter of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) provides an assessment of the outcomes of the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), concluding that it delivered mixed results for forests

Climate Change Policy & Practice | 31 January 2012

The January 2012 issue of the CIFOR newsletter cites progress on carbon accounting for REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries), but highlights a weak decision on social and environmental safeguards at COP 17.

The CIFOR blog posting underlines that REDD+ negotiations centered around finance, safeguards, reference levels and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV). CIFOR scientists note that, while the decision on finance leaves the door open for markets, funds or a combination of both, the rules are not certain enough to generate market confidence. In contrast, CIFOR underscores that the meeting provided a decision on robust reference levels. The newsletter also provides an overview of Forest Day 5 and calls on readers to fill out a survey on priorities for Forest Day 6 at COP 18.

In addition, the publication features an article on a CIFOR workshop on conservation of great apes, with a call for ape conservation to be integral to REDD+. CIFOR is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

[Publication: CIFOR Newsletter January 2012]

BUY OR SELL-Is there still a market for U.N. carbon permits?

2012-02-03T21:33:00.001+07:00

U.N.-backed carbon permits were among the worst performing commodities in 2011 and trading volume fell more than 35 percent in January this year from December as the benchmark contract became very illiquid, renewing concerns about lack of demand

By Nina Chestney | Reuters Africa | Feb 2, 2012

Prices for United Nations carbon credits, called certified emissions reductions (CERs), have sunk by more than 60 percent since January last year.

In a poll by Reuters last month, carbon analysts cut price estimates for benchmark CERs in the first half of 2012 by over a quarter.

Under the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism, countries and companies buy CERs to meet emissions caps agreed under the Kyoto Protocol, paying for cuts in developing country projects instead.

A certain number of CERs can be used to comply with carbon caps under the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

CER buyers are seeking ways to renegotiate purchase agreements or annul them after market prices crashed far below their wholesale credit costs, traders told Point Carbon.

Current levels are now more than 10 euros a tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) below the purchase prices agreed in some contracts.

SELL

Front-year CERs hit a record low of 3.28 euros on Jan. 16 as prices of the EU Allowances (EUAs) used in the EU scheme fell and the U.N. continued to issue massive amounts of credits.

The consistently high level of supply has muted prices, and another 12 million tonnes were issued last week.

Traded volume has also dropped. A total 107.5 million CERs and Emissions Reduction Units (ERUs) - credits issued under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation schemes - were exchanged last month, down 36 percent from December.

This compares to a rise in the volume of EUAs of 11 percent month-on-month to 509.1 million permits.

"Compared to EUAs, the CER market is harder to trade. It has a wider bid-offer spread, which makes profit taking more difficult," said brokers at Jefferies Bache.

"With quality and quantity restrictions (...) and post-2012 uncertainty, the CER market needs buy-side to survive."

From May 1, 2013, the EU plans to ban CERs from industrial gas projects for use in its emissions trading scheme, which has affected the CER forward curve. The closer to May 1, 2013 the contract maturity is, the less attractive the contract is for CER buyers.

On Thursday the Dec-12 contract was around 4.30 euros, 0.80 euros lower than the Dec-13 contract and 1.10 euros lower than the Dec-14 CER contract.

New market entrants like airlines are more interested in purchasing "green" CERs, or those that will be eligible in the ETS in the third trading phase (2013-2020), rather than "grey" CERs which will not, traders said.

"Green CERs have been gaining some ground lately, and that definitely reflects the risk associated with 'old' CERs. The green premium is likely to rise in the coming weeks, but the fact that green CERs' liquidity is close to zero is not a good sign," said Matteo Mazzoni, analyst at Nomisma Energia.

Speculators in the carbon market have declined overall but those who remain prefer the EU market, which is less risky.

Most industrial firms have already cashed in a large part of their surplus permits and they are waiting to see what the third phase will look like before they think of selling or swapping carbon permits, said Mazzoni.

"Too much uncertainty, too many credits and too many in the hands of operators with no compliance obligations. If utilities don't step up soon I believe this is going to get worse and worse," he added.

BUY

Even though the price of green and grey CERs is expected to diverge further, some traders are more optimistic about CER recovery.

"I don't see the CER market dying as fast as some other players see it," said one emissions trader.

Others expect the market for green CERs to recover even though supply is expected to increase this year which could widen the EUA-CER spread further.

"As soon as EUAs rise above 10 euros the spread will narrow again and CERs will be a valuable option for compliance," one carbon analyst said.

If an EU Parliament industry committee votes in favour of withdrawing a proportion of carbon permits from the market on Feb. 28, in a bid to prop up low prices, it could help boost prices.

"This is impacting the market even now, lifting prices a little. If the vote is positive it will be bullish for EUAs meaning it is better not to sell now," another trader said.

"Even if it isn't positive, CERs still have compliance value so they shouldn't fall to zero. Grey CERs haven't got much future so the price could drop to around 3 euros. But there is been a lot of interest in green CERs over-the-counter," another trader said.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein and Thomson Reuters Point Carbon; Editing by Anthony Barker)

Setting the record straight: Climate change experts respond

2012-02-03T21:24:00.000+07:00

Do you consult your dentist on your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field, and on published, peer-reviewed work

ABC.net.au | 3 February 2012

If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

On January 27, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed on climate change by the climate science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter. And computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming. Thus, climate experts also know what Kevin Trenberth actually meant by the out-of-context, misrepresented quote used in the op-ed. Trenberth was lamenting the inadequacy of observing systems to fully monitor warming trends in the deep ocean and other aspects of the short-term variations that always occur, together with the long-term human-induced warming trend.

The National Academy of Sciences of the US (set up by president Lincoln to advise on scientific issues), as well as major national academies of science around the world and every other authoritative body of scientists active in climate research have stated that the science is clear: the world is heating up and humans are primarily responsible. Impacts are already apparent and will increase. Reducing future impacts will require significant reductions in emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Research shows that more than 97 per cent of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human-caused. It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses. In addition, there is very clear evidence that investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy will not only allow the world to avoid the worst risks of climate change, but could also drive decades of economic growth. Just what the doctor ordered.

Sincerely,

Kevin Trenberth, Sc.D, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Richard Somerville, PhD, Distinguished Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

Katharine Hayhoe, PhD, Director, Climate Science Center, Texas Tech University

Rasmus Benestad, PhD, Senior Scientist, The Norwegian Meteorological Institute

Gerald Meehl, PhD, Senior Scientist, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Michael Oppenheimer, PhD, Professor of Geosciences; Director, Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, Princeton University

Peter Gleick, PhD, co-founder and president, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security

Michael C. MacCracken, PhD, Chief Scientist, Climate Institute, Washington DC

Michael Mann, PhD, Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University

Steven Running, PhD, Professor, Director, Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, University of Montana

Robert Corell, PhD, Chair, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment; Principal, Global Environment Technology Foundation

Dennis Ojima, PhD, Professor, Senior Research Scientist, and Head of the Dept. of Interior's Climate Science Center at Colorado State University

Josh Willis, PhD, Climate Scientist, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Matthew England, PhD, Professor, Joint Director of the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia

Ken Caldeira, PhD, Atmospheric Scientist, Dept. of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution

Warren Washington, PhD, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Terry L. Root, PhD, Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University

David Karoly, PhD, ARC Federation Fellow and Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia

Jeffrey Kiehl, PhD, Senior Scientist, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Donald Wuebbles, PhD, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois

Camille Parmesan, PhD, Professor of Biology, University of Texas; Professor of Global Change Biology, Marine Institute, University of Plymouth, UK

Simon Donner, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada

Barrett N. Rock, PhD, Professor, Complex Systems Research Center and Department of Natural Resources, University of New Hampshire

David Griggs, PhD, Professor and Director, Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University, Australia

Roger N. Jones, PhD, Professor, Professorial Research Fellow, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, Australia

William L. Chameides, PhD, Dean and Professor, School of the Environment, Duke University

Gary Yohe, PhD, Professor, Economics and Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University, CT

Robert Watson, PhD, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Chair of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

Steven Sherwood, PhD, Director, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Chris Rapley, PhD, Professor of Climate Science, University College London, UK

Joan Kleypas, PhD, Scientist, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research

James J. McCarthy, PhD, Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University

Stefan Rahmstorf, PhD, Professor of Physics of the Oceans, Potsdam University, Germany

Julia Cole, PhD, Professor, Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona

William H. Schlesinger, PhD, President, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona

Eric Rignot, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Professor of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine

Wolfgang Cramer, Professor of Global Ecology, Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France

This response first appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

© 2012 ABC

Emissions from palm oil biodiesel highest of major biofuels, says EU

2012-02-02T02:38:00.001+07:00

Greenhouse gas emissions from palm oil-based biodiesel are the highest among major biofuels when the effects of deforestation and peatlands degradation are considered, according to calculations by the European Commission

mongabay.com | January 30, 2012

The emissions estimates, which haven't been officially released, have important implications for the biofuels industry in Europe.
As reported by EurActiv, the data from the E.U. shows emissions from biofuels produced from palm oil (105g of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of fuel), soybeans (103g CO2e/mj), and rapeseed (canola) (95g CO2e/mj) are higher than conventional gasoline (87.5g CO2e/mj).

WHEAT: (1) process fuel not specified (2) as process fuel natural gas used in CHP (3) straw as process fuel in CHP plants.

Sunflower (86g CO2e/mj) and biodiesel produced from palm oil with methane capture (83g CO2e/mj) are only slightly better than conventional crude oil, according to the data.

Wheat (47-64g CO2e/mj), corn (maize) (43g CO2e/mj), sugar cane (36g CO2e/mj), and sugar beet (34g CO2e/mj) were substantially lower in terms of emissions. All four were bested by "second generation" biofuels.

Fuel produced from tar sands ranked the worst of all fuels at 107g CO2e/mj. The U.S. recently blocked the Keystone pipeline, which would have enabled faster exploitation of tar sands oil.

But the findings are bound to be controversial. Emissions estimates depend heavily on assumptions on how biofuels are produced. Palm oil producers who have established plantations without converting rainforest or draining carbon-rich peatlands are bound to have lower emissions than those who destroyed forest.

The palm oil industry has traditionally opposed any effort to include indirect land use change in emissions estimates, arguing that environmental concerns over palm oil production is merely thinly veiled protectionism. Environmentalists and carbon scientists however usually disagree, arguing that conversion of forests and peatlands is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Wall Street Journal under attack for climate op-ed

2012-02-02T02:34:00.001+07:00

The Wall Street Journal is under scrutiny for publishing an op-ed attacking climate science last Friday, while turning down another op-ed explaining climate change and signed by 255 researchers with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which was eventually published in the journal Science

Jeremy Hance | mongabay.com | January 31, 2012

The op-ed last Friday first garnered attention because it was signed by 16 scientists, however other journalists have shown that most of these signatories are not climatologists (the list includes an astronaut, a physician, and an airplane engineer), many are well-known deniers, and at least six have been tied to the fossil fuels industry.

The Wall Street Journal op-ed claimed that there has been a "lack of warming for more than a decade." However, such statement flies-in-the-face of temperature recordings: the last decade (2000-2009) was the warmest yet on record. While scientists don't expect every year to be warmer than the last due to climate change, they do expect to see a warming trend over decades: the past 35 years have been above average. To date global temperatures are 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.44 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the Industrial Revolution average.

The New York Times reports that the op-ed also misrepresented economic studies on climate change, claiming that there would be no economic benefit to tackling climate change and that the world should wait for 50 years before doing anything. The op-ed's authors cited research by William D. Nordhaus, economics professor at Yale, to back them up. However, Nordhaus toldthe New York Times: "The piece completely misrepresented my work. My work has long taken the view that policies to slow global warming would have net economic benefits, in the trillion of dollars of present value [...] I have advocated a carbon tax for many years as the best way to attack the issue. I can only assume they either completely ignorant of the economics on the issue or are willfully misstating my findings."

At the same time, Forbes reports that the Wall Street Journal rejected publishing another op-ed , this one signed by 225 scientists with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, that outlines the basic science behind climate change, including that the Earth is warming due to human activities which have "overwhelmed" natural climate impacts.

"The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more," the letter published in Science reads.

Resilient people, resilient planet: a future worth choosing

2012-02-02T02:26:00.000+07:00

Today our planet and our world are experiencing the best of times, and the worst of times. The world is experiencing unprecedented prosperity, while the planet is under unprecedented stress. Inequality between the world’s rich and poor is growing, and more than a billion people still live in poverty

by the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability | United Nations in Energy Bulletin | Jan 31 2012

The Report of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing, contains six sections in its entirety:

Section I - The Panel’s vision
Section II - Progress towards sustainable development
Section III - Empowering people to make sustainable choices
Section IV - Working towards a sustainable economy
Section V - Strengthening institutions
Section VI - Conclusion: A call for action.

This overview reproduces Section I from the Panel’s report. The Summary of Sections and the Call for Action are taken from the report’s Executive Summary. The Panel’s recommendations are reproduced in full.

[For the complete Overview, see here. The complete report is available online. ]

1. Today our planet and our world are experiencing the best of times, and the worst of times. The world is experiencing unprecedented prosperity, while the planet is under unprecedented stress. Inequality between the world’s rich and poor is growing, and more than a billion people still live in poverty. In many countries, there are rising waves of protest reflecting universal aspirations for a more prosperous, just and sustainable world.

2. Every day, millions of choices are made by individuals, businesses and governments. Our common future lies in all those choices. Because of the array of overlapping challenges the world faces, it is more urgent than ever that we take action to embrace the principles of the sustainable development agenda. It is time that genuine global action is taken to enable people, markets and governments to make sustainable choices.

3. The need to integrate the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development so as to achieve sustainability was clearly defined a quarter of a century ago. It is time to make it happen. The opportunities for change are vast. We are not passive, helpless victims of the impersonal, determinist forces of history. And the exciting thing is that we can choose our future.

4. The challenges we face are great, but so too are the new possibilities that appear when we look at old problems with new and fresh eyes. These possibilities include technologies capable of pulling us back from the planetary brink; new markets, new growth and new jobs emanating from game-changing products and services; and new approaches to public and private finance that can truly lift people out of the poverty trap.

5. The truth is that sustainable development is fundamentally a question of people’s opportunities to influence their future, claim their rights and voice their concerns. Democratic governance and full respect for human rights are key prerequisites for empowering people to make sustainable choices. The peoples of the world will simply not tolerate continued environmental devastation or the persistent inequality which offends deeply held universal principles of social justice. Citizens will no longer accept governments and corporations breaching their compact with them as custodians of a sustainable future for all. More generally, international, national and local governance across the world must fully embrace the requirements of a sustainable development future, as must civil society and the private sector. At the same time, local communities must be encouraged to participate actively and consistently in conceptualizing, planning and executing sustainability policies. Central to this is including young people in society, in politics and in the economy.

6. Therefore, the long-term vision of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability is to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and make growth inclusive, and production and consumption more sustainable, while combating climate change and respecting a range of other planetary boundaries. This reaffirms the landmark 1987 report by the World Commission on Environment and Development, “Our Common Future” (United Nations document A/42/427, annex), known to all as the Brundtland report.

7. But what, then, is to be done if we are to make a real difference for the world’s people and the planet? We must grasp the dimensions of the challenge. We must recognize that the drivers of that challenge include unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns and the impact of population growth. As the global population grows from 7 billion to almost 9 billion by 2040, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially. By 2030, the world will need at least 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy and 30 per cent more water — all at a time when environmental boundaries are throwing up new limits to supply. This is true not least for climate change, which affects all aspects of human and planetary health.

8. The current global development model is unsustainable. We can no longer assume that our collective actions will not trigger tipping points as environmental thresholds are breached, risking irreversible damage to both ecosystems and human communities. At the same time, such thresholds should not be used to impose arbitrary growth ceilings on developing countries seeking to lift their people out of poverty. Indeed, if we fail to resolve the sustainable development dilemma, we run the risk of condemning up to 3 billion members of our human family to a life of endemic poverty. Neither of these outcomes is acceptable, and we must find a new way forward.

9. A quarter of a century ago, the Brundtland report introduced the concept of sustainable development to the international community as a new paradigm for economic growth, social equality and environmental sustainability. The report argued that sustainable development could be achieved by an integrated policy framework embracing all three of those pillars. The Brundtland report was right then, and it remains right today. The problem is that, 25 years later, sustainable development remains a generally agreed concept, rather than a day-to-day, on-the-ground, practical reality. The Panel has asked itself why this is the case, and what can now be done to change that.

10. The Panel has concluded that there are two possible answers. They are both correct, and they are interrelated. Sustainable development has undoubtedly suffered from a failure of political will. It is difficult to argue against the principle of sustainable development, but there are few incentives to put it into practice when our policies, politics and institutions disproportionately reward the short term. In other words, the policy dividend is long-term, often intergenerational, but the political challenge is often immediate.

11. There is another answer to this question of why sustainable development has not been put into practice. It is an answer that we argue with real passion: the concept of sustainable development has not yet been incorporated into the mainstream national and international economic policy debate. Most economic decision makers still regard sustainable development as extraneous to their core responsibilities for macroeconomic management and other branches of economic policy. Yet integrating environmental and social issues into economic decisions is vital to success.

12. For too long, economists, social activists and environmental scientists have simply talked past each other — almost speaking different languages, or at least different dialects. The time has come to unify the disciplines, to develop a common language for sustainable development that transcends the warring camps; in other words, to bring the sustainable development paradigm into mainstream economics. That way, politicians and policymakers will find it much harder to ignore.

13. That is why the Panel argues that the international community needs what some have called “a new political economy” for sustainable development. This means, for example:

radically improving the interface between environmental science and policy;
recognizing that in certain environmental domains, such as climate change, there is “market failure”, which requires both regulation and what the economists would recognize as the pricing of“environmental externalities”, while making explicit the economic, social and environmental costs of action and inaction;
recognizing the importance of innovation, new technologies, international cooperation and investments responding to these problems and generating further prosperity;
recognizing that an approach should be agreed to quantify the economic cost of sustained social exclusion — for example, the cost of excluding women from the workforce;
recognizing that private markets alone may be incapable of generating at the scale necessary to bring about a proper response to the food security crisis;
and requiring international agencies, national Governments and private corporations to report on their annual sustainable development performance against agreed sustainability measures.

We must also recognize that this is a core challenge for politics itself. Unless the political process is equally capable of embracing the sustainable development paradigm, there can be no progress.

14. The scale of investment, innovation, technological development and employment creation required for sustainable development and poverty eradication is beyond the range of the public sector. The Panel therefore argues for using the power of the economy to forge inclusive and sustainable growth and create value beyond narrow concepts of wealth. Markets and entrepreneurship will be a prime driver of decision-making and economic change. And the Panel lays down a challenge for our Governments and international institutions: to work better together in solving common problems and advancing shared interests. Quantum change is possible when willing actors join hands in forward-looking coalitions and take the lead in contributing to sustainable development.

15. The Panel argues that by embracing a new approach to the political economy of sustainable development, we will bring the sustainable development paradigm from the margins to the mainstream of the global economic debate. Thus, both the cost of action and the cost of inaction will become transparent. Only then will the political process be able to summon both the arguments and the political will necessary to act for a sustainable future.

16. The Panel calls for this new approach to the political economy of sustainable development so as to address the sustainable development challenge in a fresh and operational way. That sustainable development is right is self-evident. Our challenge is to demonstrate that it is also rational — and that the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of action.

17. The Panel’s report makes a range of concrete recommendations to take forward our vision for a sustainable planet, a just society and a growing economy:

a. It is critical that we embrace a new nexus between food, water and energy rather than treating them in different “silos”. All three need to be fully integrated, not treated separately if we are to deal with the global food security crisis. It is time to embrace a second green revolution — an “ever-green revolution” — that doubles yields but builds on sustainability principles;

b. It is time for bold global efforts, including launching a major global scientific initiative, to strengthen the interface between science and policy. We must define, through science, what scientists refer to as “planetary boundaries”, “environmental thresholds” and “tipping points”. Priority should be given to challenges now facing the marine environment and the “blue economy”;

c. Most goods and services sold today fail to bear the full environmental and social cost of production and consumption. Based on the science, we need to reach consensus, over time, on methodologies to price them properly. Costing environmental externalities could open new opportunities for green growth and green jobs;

d. Addressing social exclusion and widening social inequity, too, requires measuring them, costing them and taking responsibility for them. The next step is exploring how we can deal with these critical issues to bring about better outcomes for all;

e. Equity needs to be at the forefront. Developing countries need time, as well as financial and technological support, to transition to sustainable development. We must empower all of society — especially women, young people, the unemployed and the most vulnerable and weakest sections of society. Properly reaping the demographic dividend calls on us to include young people in society, in politics, in the labour market and in business development;

f. Any serious shift towards sustainable development requires gender equality. Half of humankind’s collective intelligence and capacity is a resource we must nurture and develop, for the sake of multiple generations to come. The next increment of global growth could well come from the full economic empowerment of women;

g. Many argue that if it cannot be measured, it cannot be managed. The international community should measure development beyond gross domestic product (GDP) and develop a new sustainable development index or set of indicators;

h. Financing sustainable development requires vast new sources of capital from both private and public sources. It requires both mobilizing more public funds and using global and national capital to leverage global private capital through the development of incentives. Official development assistance will also remain critical for the sustainable development needs of low-income countries;

i. Governments at all levels must move from a silo mentality to integrated thinking and policymaking. They must bring sustainable development to the forefront of their agendas
and budgets and look at innovative models of international cooperation. Cities and local communities have a major role to play in advancing a real sustainable development agenda on the ground;

j. International institutions have a critical role. International governance for sustainable development must be strengthened by using existing institutions more dynamically and by considering the creation of a global sustainable development council and the adoption
of sustainable development goals;

k. Governments and international organizations should increase the resources allocated to adaptation and disaster risk reduction and integrate resilience planning into their development budgets and strategies;

l. Governments, markets and people need to look beyond short-term transactional agendas and short-term political cycles. Incentives that currently favour short-termism in decisionmaking should be changed. Sustainable choices often have higher up-front costs than business as usual. They need to become more easily available, affordable and attractive to both poor consumers and low-income countries.

18. This Panel believes it is within the wit and will of our common humanity to choose for the future. This Panel therefore is on the side of hope. All great achievements in human history began as a vision before becoming a reality. The vision for global sustainability, producing both a resilient people and a resilient planet, is no different.

19. In 2030, a child born in 2012 — the year our report is published — will turn 18. Will we have done enough in the intervening years to give her the sustainable, fair and resilient future that all of our children deserve? This report is an effort to give her an answer.

[For the complete Overview, see here. The complete report is available online. ]

Disclaimer: The members of the Panel endorse the report and generally agree with its findings. The members think that the message of this report is very important. The recommendations and the vision represent the consensus the Panel members reached, but not every view expressed in this report reflects the views of all individual Panel members. Panel members naturally have different perspectives on some issues. If each Panel member had individually attempted to write this report, she or he might have used different terms to express similar points. The Panel members look forward to the report stimulating wide public dialogue and strengthening the common endeavour to promote global sustainable development.

Reproduction is authorized provided the source is acknowledged.

Suggested citation:

United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability (2012). Resilient people, resilient planet: A future worth choosing, Overview. New York: United Nations.