Tag Archives: climate change

Latest Developments, August 25

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In today’s latest news and analysis…

Amnesty International says Libya’s Transitional National Council, which has now been recognized by the Arab League and is relocating to the capital Tripoli, is legally obligated to hand Moammar Gadhafi over to the International Criminal Court if and when he is captured. But Stewart Patrick of the Council on Foreign Relations says the principle of “complementarity” means the ICC “can claim jurisdiction on one of only two conditions: when the country lacks a functioning judicial system, or when state authorities have manifestly failed to carry out a credible investigation into alleged atrocity crimes.” He argues, however, “if there were ever a strong case for ICC jurisdiction, it is Libya–a country with no functioning judicial system after four decades of arbitrary, dictatorial rule.” But as ICC lawyers wrapped up their first ever war crimes trial, the Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Baldauf asks if the fledgling Court is capable of trying Gadhafi, given its short but shaky history. And South Africa’s deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, wants the ICC to investigate possible human rights violations by NATO. He also said the military alliance’s disregard for UN Security Council resolutions was having a ripple effect in the region: “Because of this situation created in Libya, the Security Council has not been able to agree on how to intervene in Syria.”

While not going as far in its criticism of NATO, a Globe and Mail editorial argues the “improvised air” of Operation Unified Protector “is not a good precedent for future applications of the United Nations’ responsibility-to-protect doctrine – which they interpreted very broadly.” But author David Rieff thinks what you see is what you get: “R2P may not have been designed as the latest version of humanitarian intervention, but with the Libyan action, that is what it has become.” In fact, as with the “humanitarian intervention” in Somalia during the 1990s, he believes the mission creep in Libya was entirely predictable: “This militarization may not be what [Gareth] Evans and the other architects of R2P intended. But then it is rare that a doctrine with the power to command people’s hearts and minds ever survives in the pure form those who first promulgated it imagined.”

The African Union no doubt felt the absence of its largest financial backer, Moammar Gadhafi, – though he was in good company as only four heads of state showed up – at a special summit to raise emergency relief funds for the Horn of Africa’s food crisis. Although pledges reached $351 million, the African Development Bank’s medium-term loans and grants represented the lion’s share of that amount. The actual cash total for immediate assistance appears to be $46 million. As a result, there was no shortage of criticism, especially for continental giants Nigeria and South Africa whose governments promised a combined $3.3 million in new money. “If we truly believe in ‘African solutions for African problems‘, we need to demonstrate this very clearly, not just in words but in actions,” according to Africans Act 4 Africa. On the other hand, EU humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva offered a more positive spin: “This is the first such summit held by a young organization with little humanitarian experience and a small but dedicated team. It will improve in the future.”

The wider community is not doing much better, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. So far governments have provided or promised only about a third of the $161 million it needs for its plan “to restore livelihoods and build the resilience of populations in the face of climate and other shocks” in East Africa.

A new study suggests a link between climate and violence, as the 93 tropical countries examined were twice as likely to experience internal conflict in El Niño years as they were in La Niña years. Lead researcher Solomon Hsiang of Columbia University “thinks the Niño analysis shows an example of a clear link between climate and conflict, and that this puts a new onus of proof on anyone saying that no such link will be at work as the climate changes in the future, even if it does not show what that future link might be,” according to the Economist.

Alena Buyx of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics lays out five principles for ethical biofuels, according to which their production must not violate people’s “essential rights” relating to food, water, health, etc.; they must be environmentally sustainable; they must reduce greenhouse gas emissions; their exchange must accord with fair trade practices; their costs and benefits must be shared equitably. To which she adds a sixth principle: “If the first five principles are respected and if biofuels can play a crucial role in mitigating dangerous climate change then, depending on certain key considerations, there is a duty to develop such biofuels.”

Swedish clothing company H&M says it is investigating after nearly 300 people collapsed at a supplier’s factory in Cambodia over a period of three days. According to a Reuters report, “deputy provincial police chief Ly Virak blamed the mass faintings on the “weak” health of workers and said the factory suspended operations until next week to allow its 4,000 workers to rest.” About 300 workers also fell ill last month at another H&M-affiliated factory in the capital Phnom Penh. The garment industry is Cambodia’s biggest source of foreign currency but has experienced sometimes violent strikes in recent years as workers demand better pay and working conditions. The latest “faintings” began on the same day as Greenpeace released a new report entitled “Dirty Laundry II: Hung Out to Dry” in which  the NGO says it found “hormone-disrupting chemicals” in the clothing of 14 global brands, including H&M. Helena Helmersson, the company’s head of corporate social responsibility, countered that the amounts found were well below EU restricted levels and that, in any case, the chemicals in question are not dangerous for humans. The first “Dirty Laundry” report came out last month and linked H&M, among others, “to suppliers in China who were found to be releasing a cocktail of chemicals into the Pearl and Yangtze River deltas.”

Oxfam’s Duncan Green looks at a report on the impact of cash transfers which, he says, are “all the rage, especially those handed over directly to women, who are widely thought to use the money more responsibly (spending it on food, rather than booze and fags etc).” While the Oxfam/Concern study identified a number of positives resulting from cash transfers, it also raised some serious concerns. Some of these related to poor project planning and execution, but others appear to run deeper: “Where cash was given in response to a food crisis, it is clear that while food aid was shared, cash was not. This was a major concern among recipients. Community sharing is critically important to women who tend to have a range of lending and borrowing strategies, with neighbours, family, shops and so forth, that enable them to cope when things get tough. Harming these coping strategies is potentially counter-productive for women who may find themselves increasingly vulnerable and less resilient to food insecurity in the long term.”

Latest Developments, July 19

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In the latest news and analysis…

With the food crisis in the Horn of Africa intensifying and the United Nations expected to declare the food shortage in southern Somalia a famine as early as tomorrow, Kenya has agreed to accept imports of genetically modified maize. The decision, which came in the face of anti-GMO protests, was a first for the country. The government insists the maize will be turned into flour at the point of importation so as to prevent the seeds from getting into the market, but it is unclear at this point what additional measures, if any, it will take to ensure containment.

The Center for Global Development’s David Wheeler examines investment in renewable energy sources by 174 countries over the last two decades. His findings “contradict the conventional view of North-South conflict that has dominated global climate negotiations, because they show that developing countries, whether by intention or not, have been critical participants in reducing the carbon load all along.  Furthermore, they indicate that poor countries have borne their fair portion of global carbon alleviation expenditures, measured as shares of income per capita.”

Wheeler’s colleague Charles Kenny defends his own suggestion that $100 billion in annual cash transfers would suffice to bring about “a world free of poverty,” by which he means that amount could raise everyone living in a poor country to the World Bank’s $1.25 a day poverty line, which the institution admits is a “frugal” figure.

Nick Dearden, director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign argues Western-style free trade – currently being pushed as the key to African prosperity by British prime minister David Cameron and the business delegation accompanying him on his trip to Africa – is the last thing the continent needs. Instead, he argues, African governments should look to “protecting industries, developing alternative and complementary means of trading, control of food production and banking, progressive tax structures, controlled use of savings, and strong regulation to ensure trade and investment really benefits people.”

While speaking in Nigeria, Cameron also called for the EU to adopt “legally binding measures to require oil, gas and mining companies to publish key financial information for each country and project they work on.” He explained: “We want to disclose the payments our companies make to your governments so you can hold your governments to account for the money they receive.” According to estimates by Global Financial Integrity, Nigeria lost $130 billion dollars between 2000 and 2008 due to illicit outbound financial flows, much of it in the energy sector. And real growth of such flows during that nine-year period was 21.9 percent in Africa. Christian Aid welcomed the prime minister’s words, pointing out that poor countries lose 50 percent more to transnational corporate tax avoidance each year than rich countries provide through aid. “But EU legislation needs to go further,” the group said. “In order to ensure companies are paying the right amount of tax, we need more information on how the taxes they do pay relate to the profits they make.” Christian Aid also wants to see a political push for greater transparency in all industries, not just the extractive ones.

JKL Energy, a Ghanaian company has announced it plans to start work on a $300 million oil and gas project. The venture, which has support from investors in Malaysia and Dubai, will contribute to “ensuring that indigenous companies actively participate in the development of Ghana’s oil and gas industry, seen by many as a major driver of the economy over the next 30 years,” according to a press release.

And Liberia could be the next African country to deal with the double-edged sword of oil production as Chevron is set to start offshore exploration later this year. The US expects a quarter of its oil imports to come from West Africa by 2015 and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has said she hopes her country can avoid the “oil curse.”

A day after a call for a new Marshall Plan in South Sudan, a week after an argument for a Greek Marshall Plan and 18 months after a plea for a Haitian Marshall Plan, a Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network blog post asks if it is time for a “21st Century Marshall Plan” in the Arab world.

Al Jazeera’s Sebastian Walker investigates the debates and motives behind American military involvement in Libya, which he describes as “a victory for the so-called humanitarian interventionists,” such as secretary of state Hillary Clinton, ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and National Security Council advisor Samantha Power.

An online fundraising plan is set to kick off this week to cover the costs of enacting Arizona state legislation calling for prisoners to build 130 km of fence along the US-Mexico border to keep out would-be illegal migrants. The MSNBC article portrays opposition to the planned construction as being largely practical and logistical – one county sheriff considers it “well intentioned” though ultimately futile – but it also mentions one group taking a moral stand. While Defenders of Wildlife “are in support of effective border security,” they believe in freedom of cross-border movement for imperilled species, such as the Chiricahua leopard frog and the Sonoran pronghorn.

Latest Developments, June 29

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In today’s news…

Two World Bank economists argue the best way to reduce corruption and ensure Africa benefits from the current commodity boom is for governments to transfer portions of the resulting revenues directly to their citizens. Of course, government corruption is not the only obstacle to translating mineral wealth into societal benefits. After a three-year dispute, Canada’s First Quantum Minerals has just agreed to pay $224 million in tax arrears to Zambia. The Reuters piece says: “According to the World Bank, copper is responsible for 70 to 75 percent of export earnings but the mining industry as a whole only contributes about 10 percent of Zambia’s tax revenue.”

In the wake of last week’s guilty plea by  another Canadian company, Niko Resources, for bribing a Bangladeshi official, Transparency International finds itself in the unusual position of praising Canada…sort of. In the same breath, the organization points out that Canadian law defines prosecutable foreign bribery cases excessively narrowly and calls for the revival of proposed improvements that died in 2009 when the minority government ended the parliamentary session prematurely.

As the US and Switzerland struggle to come to an agreement on dealing with tax avoidance, the Tax Justice Network suggests some Swiss media and banks are too cozy to allow a meaningful public discussion on the impacts of tax evasion. Perhaps a quick trip to Vienna is in order.

As things stand, US sanctions on Sudanese oil exports will not apply to South Sudan when it officially declares independence on July 9. Unless South Sudanese oil exports, which account for 98 percent of the government’s budget, pass north through Sudan. Which is the only way the pipelines run.

Le Monde Diplomatique’s Serge Halimi argues the current debt crisis represents a threat to democracy as much as the economy and asks (in French) if there is an alternative to “shock therapy.” Another article in the same publication provides the example of Ecuador’s 2008 constitution which stipulates public debt must not impact national sovereignty, human rights or environmental protection; public debt can only be incurred to improve infrastructure or to invest in projects that will pay for themselves; public debt refinancing is only an option if the new terms are advantageous to Ecuador; and the nationalization of private debt is prohibited.

The World Bank tweets: “The time to act is now. The world’s poor will suffer first and most from #climatechange. http://t.co/hPuEYUF,” while the UK House of Commons environmental audit committee slams the global lending institution’s energy policies, which may actually be making climate change worse.

Andrea Wechsler argues in Global Policy that “global governance arrangements must reach beyond the limited concept of intellectual property to knowledge as such and, thus, address global knowledge governance.” But a number of civil society organizations worry a new set of principles on Internet policymaking raises “cybersecurity and intellectual property rights to a level of importance that is comparable with internationally recognized individual human rights such as freedom of expression.”