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India’s population will likely overtake China’s population by 2023. Picture: Mumbai, India. Credit: Sthitaprajna Jena (CC BY-SA 2.0).

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Nov 8 2022 (IPS)

Contrary to the often-cited hype and nonsense of some celebrities reported in the news media, the world’s population of 8,000,000,000 human beings is not going to collapse any time soon.

Moreover, that fancied collapse of world population is neither the biggest problem facing the world nor is that false notion a much bigger risk to civilization than climate change, which is certainly humanity’s greatest challenge.

According to recent projections, the world’s population is expected to continue increasing over the coming decades. Hundreds of millions of more people are projected to be added to the planet, but at a slower pace than during the recent past.

The expected slowdown in the growth of world population does not constitute a problem. The global demographic slowdown clearly signals social, economic, environmental and climatic successes and benefits for human life on planet Earth.

Many of those calling for increased rates of population growth through higher birth rates and more immigration are simply promoting Ponzi demography. The underlying strategy of Ponzi demography is to privatize the profits and socialize the costs incurred from increased population growth.

World population reached the 1 billion milestone in 1804. World population doubled to 2 billion in 1927, doubled again to 4 billion in 1974, and then doubled a third time to 8 billion in 2022 (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Throughout the many centuries of human history, the 20th century was an exceptional record-breaking period demographically.

World population nearly quadrupled from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.1 billion by the close of the century. In addition, the world’s population annual growth rate peaked at 2.3 percent in 1963 and the annual increase reached a record high of 93 million in 1990.

Since the start of the 21st century, the world’s population has increased by nearly 2 billion people, from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 8 billion in 2022. Over that time period, the world’s annual rate of population growth declined from 1.3 percent to 0.8 percent, with the world’s annual demographic increase going from 82 million to 67 million today.

While mortality continues to play an important role in the growth of the world’s population, as witnessed recently with the COVID-19 pandemic, fertility is expected to be the major determinant of the future size of world population.

The world’s average fertility rate of approximately 2.3 births per woman in 2020 is less than half the average fertility rates during the 1950s and 1960s.

The United Nations medium variant population projection assumes fertility rates will continue to decline. By the century’s close the total fertility rate is expected to decline to a global average of 1.8 births per woman, which is one-third the rate of the early 1960s and well below the fertility replacement level.

The medium variant projection results in an increasing world population that reaches 9 billion by 2037, 10 billion by 2058 and 10.3 billion by 2100.

Alternative population projections include the high and low variants, which assume approximately a half child above and below the medium variant, respectively. Accordingly, world population by 2100 ends up being substantially larger in the high variant at 14.8 billion and substantially smaller in the low variant at 7.0 billion (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Another alternative population projection, which is unlikely but instructive, is the constant variant. That projection variant assumes the current fertility rates of countries remain unchanged or constant at their current levels throughout the remainder of the 21st century. The constant variant results in a projected world population at the close of the century that is more than double its current size, 19.2 versus 8.0 billion.

Although world population is projected to continue increasing over the coming decades, considerable diversity exists in the future population growth of countries.

The populations of some 50 countries, including China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Spain, are expected to decline in size by midcentury due to low fertility rates. At the same time, the populations of about two dozen other countries, including Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Niger, Somalia and Sudan, are expected to increase substantially due to their comparatively high fertility rates.

A comparison of the growth of the populations according to the medium variant for the four projected largest countries by midcentury, i.e., China, India, Nigeria, and the United States, highlights the diversity of population growth expected during the 21st century.

China’s current population size is estimated to be near its peak at approximately 1.4 billion. Due to its fertility rate of 1.16 births per woman, which is close to half the replacement level and is assumed to remain relatively low over the coming decades, the Chinese population is expected to decline to 1.3 billion by 2050 and decline further to 0.8 billion by 2100.

In contrast, India’s population, which has an estimated fertility rate of 2.0 births per woman that is expected to decline further, is continuing to increase in size. As a result of that demographic growth, India’s population will likely overtake China’s population by 2023. By 2060 India’s population is projected to peak at 1.7 billion and decline to 1.5 billion by 2100 (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

The population of the United States, currently the third world’s largest population after China and India, is expected to continue increasing in size largely due to immigration. By 2050 the U.S. population is projected to reach 375 million and be close to 400 million by the century’s close.

Nigeria’s rapidly growing population, which more than doubled over the past 30 years from 100 million in 1992 to 219 million in 2022, is expected to continue its rapid demographic growth for the remainder of the century. The population of Nigeria is expected to be larger than the U.S. population by 2050, when it reaches 377 million, and then increase to 500 mil1ion in 2077 and 546 million by the century’s close.

Admittedly, the future size of the world’s population remains uncertain. Demographic conditions, especially mortality levels as recently witnessed with the COVID-19 pandemic, could change markedly and future fertility rates may also follow different patterns from those being assumed in the most recent population projections.

Nevertheless, it appears that the world’s current population of 8 billion will continue increasing over the coming decades, likely gaining an additional 2 billion people by around midcentury.

The expected demographic growth of the world’s population of 8 billion during the 21st century poses daunting challenges. Prominent among those challenges are dire concerns about food, water and energy supplies, natural resources, biodiversity, pollution, the environment, and of course climate change, considered by most, including the world’s scientists, to be humanity’s greatest challenge.

Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

 

Miss World Brazil Letícia Frota and Pragnya Ayyagari, Miss Supranational India agreed that zero leprosy and campaigns to destigmatize the disease should not be sidelined because of COVID-19. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Nov 8 2022 (IPS)

Deep-rooted discrimination against persons affected by leprosy or Hansen’s disease has marginalized individuals and communities. As social pariahs, opportunities to pursue their dreams are limited because, at best, they live at the periphery of society and, more often than not, are ostracized.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, said that because of discrimination and shame, “We had a long period when all people affected by leprosy had to live silently. Today, we have the Don’t Forget Leprosy Campaign, and we all have a role to play in this endeavor.”

 

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says everybody has a role to play in destigmatizing leprosy. Credit: Sasakawa Foundation

He was speaking during the third and final day of the 2nd Global Forum of People’s Organizations on Hansen’s Disease held by the Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative in Hyderabad, India, from November 6 to 8, 2022, where participation was both in person and virtual.

During the Forum, discussions centered on the challenges persons affected by leprosy face and the vision of the future they wish to create moving into the post-COVID era. The primary objective was to strengthen and maximize the roles and capacities of people’s organizations to promote the dignity of persons affected by Hansen’s Disease.

Speakers and participants at the 2nd Forum highlighted how persons affected by leprosy are increasingly speaking out and seeking participation in implementing leprosy programs and formulating related policies. There are at least 41 People’s Organizations on Hansen’s disease in 25 countries across the globe.

Good practices of how people’s organizations are building capacities and expanding roles to enhance the dignity of those affected by the ancient disease from countries such as Ethiopia, India, Nepal, and Indonesia were extensively shared on days one and two of the Global Forum.

This gave way to the third and final day for speakers and attending participants to host side events on a theme of their choice in line with the Forum’s overall objective.

Miss World Brazil Letícia Frota and Pragnya Ayyagari, Miss Supranational India held a special session to raise visibility about persons affected by leprosy within the context of the Don’t Forget Leprosy Campaign. They reminded the world that leprosy should not be sidelined amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The beauty queens spoke passionately about the need for a united vision toward a future without leprosy. They participated in a panel discussion that included Sasakawa and representatives of the Movement of Reintegration of Persons Afflicted by Hansen’s Disease (MORHAN) in Brazil and the Association of People Affected by Leprosy-India (APAL).

Discussions were firmly centered on the need to raise awareness and increase visibility around Hansen’s disease and the people affected, to work towards their inclusion and integration, and to particularly reach out to the younger generation as their role is critical towards zero leprosy.

“I am very empathetically connected to this cause, and I will use my influence to connect with young people in raising awareness about Hansen’s disease. I am very encouraged about ongoing efforts by MORHAN to educate school-going children about Hansen’s disease,” Ayyagari explained.

Frota stressed the need to spread awareness, especially to the younger generation who remain in the dark regarding leprosy. To change the future, she said, “We need to change the landscape of the disease by actively engaging young people. I will continue to engage and raise funds towards a future without leprosy.”

Miss World Brazil further spoke about the rights of people affected by leprosy to live and enjoy opportunities without discrimination. She highlighted the need for early detection and treatment of leprosy as critical to reaching zero leprosy.

Participants were pleased with the involvement of the beauty queens because, as celebrities, they can use their massive following to draw attention to the disease.

Representatives of MORHAN and APAL said that as people affected by leprosy, there is an urgent need to take the message to the world that leprosy is curable and that the community must not be forgotten even as COVID-19 continues to take center stage.

They all lauded ongoing efforts to bring the global community together to bring attention to the ancient disease and to forge a way forward toward its elimination.

Sasakawa encouraged those at the forefront of fighting stigma and discrimination against leprosy and those taking active steps towards its elimination always to remember that they are not alone.

“So many like-minded people support you and are comrades in this fight. You might face certain challenges going forward but remember that so many people are backing you,” he said.

During the panel discussion, persons affected by leprosy from different countries had an opportunity to speak about how they are still grappling with the pain of stigma and discrimination even after being healed from leprosy.

They stressed that even though they cannot transmit leprosy to others, they are still treated with fear, and many are silenced by the stigma, unable to live life to their full potential. They vowed to use this pain to fuel and boost the Don’t Forget Leprosy campaign towards a future free from all forms of discrimination against those affected by the ancient disease.

In all, representatives of persons affected by leprosy urged participants to use the little they have to do whatever they can. By and by, they said, the global campaign to eliminate leprosy will grow wings to fly to every corner of the world, to reach people with the message that leprosy is curable, and to give hope to every person affected by leprosy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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An art exhibition in Juba, supported by the UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), seeks to educate people about gender and sexual based violence. Credit: UNMISS/Nektarios Markogiannis

By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Nov 8 2022 (IPS)

Calling it “so disappointing and disheartening” in social media on 17 October, Dr. Rosie James, a British medical expert, announced that “I was sexually assaulted by a World Health Organization (WHO) staff tonight at the World Health Summit.”

WHO, as we all know, is a part of the UN system of entities. She went to emphasize that “This was not the first time in the global health sphere that this has occurred (for MANY of us).”

Dr. James further elaborated to our disdainful shame that “I want to make something clear. This is not just a WHO or UN issue. I and many others have experienced sexual abuse in medicine and field NGOs, for example. Workplaces need to be safe and supportive environments for all. And it will take each one of us to make that a reality.”

It is an embarrassment to the international community that she warned that “We must do better #Zero Tolerance; # MeToo; #Gender Equality.”

In 2021, an independent commission reported on cases concerning WHO personnel responding to the tenth Ebola virus epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That was not enough of a warning bell for the WHO staff and its leadership. Now this.

To make the matter worse, CNN reported another shocking news about a UN employee getting a 15-year prison sentence by a US court for multiple sexual assaults, perpetrating “monstrous acts against multiple women over nearly two decades.”

During some years of that period. the staff worked for UNICEF, known for its longstanding, unblemished record of care and dedication for the world’s children.

These and many other such cases, particularly UN peacekeepers and other staff of UN peace operations encouraged the US government to announce on 26 October that it has established its engagement principles for use by all federal agencies engaging with the United Nations and other International Organizations on the prevention and response to incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.

These principles reflect the US government’s “commitment to increase U.S. engagement in a clear and consistent manner” and to “promote accountability and transparency “in response to such issues.

This is the first time a Member State has publicly declared a set of “engagement principles” to work with the UN in an area of utmost importance which puts the UN’s credibility at stake.

More so, as it is announced by the largest contributor to the UN budget and a veto-wielding Member of the UN.

Substantively, there are many positive aspects of these principles in putting the UN on guard. But at the same time, if various Member States start announcing such “engagement principles” in various areas and issues and insist on pursuing those in the context of UN’s work, a chaotic situation is bound to emerge.

The UN has yet to make its position known on the US announcement which in effect is an expression of the latter’s frustration about the way the UN has been handling the sexual exploitation abuse cases in a rather lackadaisical manner over the years.

Its much-touted zero-tolerance and no-impunity policies have not improved the situation to the satisfaction of many well-wishers of the UN.

Zero-tolerance policy is applied by the UN system entities as if they are using a zebra-crossing on a street which does not have any traffic lights.

The non-governmental entity the Code Blue Campaign is the most articulate and persistent actor with regard to the sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) issues and incidents in the UN system as a whole.

The Campaign, steered by Stephen Lewis and Paula Donovan as the co-founders, surely deserves the global community’s whole-hearted appreciation and highest commendation for its laudable work.

It has correctly emphasized that “… unjust UN policies and practices have, over decades, resulted in a culture of impunity for sexual “misconduct” ranging from breaches of UN rules to grave crimes. This represents a contravention of the UN Charter.”

The labyrinthine rules, regulations, procedures, channels of communication of the UN make the mockery of the due-process and timely justice. These have been taken advantage of by the perpetrators time and again.

As most of the SEA incidents happen at the field levels, nationalities and personal equations play a big role in delaying or denying justice.

The victim-centred approach of the UN in handling SEA cases has been manipulated by the perpetrators and their organizational colleagues to detract attention from their seriousness.

Not only the victims should get the utmost attention, so should be the abusers because upholding of the justice is also UN’s responsibility.

Also, UN watchers become curious whenever media publish such SEA related reports, the UN authorities invariably mentions the concerned staff is on leave or administrative leave. When these cases are in the public domain, the abusers are merrily enjoying the leave with full pay.

It is also known that during the leave the abusers have tried to settle the matter with the victims or their families with lucrative temptations. The leave has also been used to wipe off the evidence of the crime. These have happened in several cases with the full knowledge of the supervisors.

What a travesty of the victim-centred approach!

The head of the UN peace operations where the SEA cases take place should be asked by the Secretary-General to explain the occurrence as a part of his or her direct responsibility. Unless such drastic measures are taken the SEA would continue in the UN system.

Another unexpectable dimension of the victim-centred approach is that the abuser-peacekeepers are sent back home for dispensation of justice as per the agreement between the troops contributing countries (TCC) and the UN. Sending them home is one of the biggest reasons for the continuation of SEA in the peace operations.

The victim is not present in that kind varied national military justice situation and no evidence are available except UN-cleared reports to show or suppress the extent of abuse.

Again, a travesty of justice supported by the upholder of the global rule of law!

The UN Secretary-General would be well-advised to propose to the Security Council a change in the clause of the agreement that UN signs with the TCCs which incorporates for repatriation of abuser-peacekeepers to their home countries. If a TCC refuse to do so, the agreement would not be signed. Period.

A functional, quick-justice global tribunal should be set up with the mandate to try the peacekeepers as decided by the UN. If the International Criminal Court (ICC) can try heads state or government for crimes against humanity, why the UN peacekeepers cannot be tried for SEA?

That would be a true victim-centred approach!

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is a former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations; former Ambassador of Bangladesh to the UN and President of the Security Council

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Young climate activists take part in demonstrations at the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland last year. Credit: UN News/Laura Quiñones
 
In a statement released last month a group of UN independent human rights experts said authorities in Egypt must ensure civil society can safely and fully participate in the COP27 UN climate change conference, expressing alarm over restrictions ahead of the summit.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 8 2022 (IPS)

The COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh has triggered a negative fallout for Egypt’s authoritarian regime which stands accused of human rights abuses — and has been widely condemned for its longstanding repressive campaign against dissidents and civil society organizations (CSOs).

Writing in the current issue of Time magazine, Sahar Aziz, a professor at Rutgers University in the US, says “the Egyptian government has given summit access only to local governmental NGOs that support the regime”.

The Egyptian regime, he points out, has treated civil society as “enemies of the state”.

COP27 should be an opportunity for Egypt to lead by example. Instead, hosting the event seems like a political cover for its self-defeating repression of civil society, writes Aziz, author of ‘The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom’.

In a hard-hitting statement released last week, Amnesty International (AI) said the arrest of hundreds of people in the past two weeks alone, in connection to calls for protests during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), is a reminder of the grim reality of Egypt’s policy of mass arbitrary detention to crush dissent.

At least 151 detainees are currently being investigated by the Supreme State Security Prosecution, while hundreds more have faced shorter arrests and questioning.

“The arrest of hundreds of people merely because they were suspected of supporting the call for peaceful protests raises serious concerns over how the authorities will respond to people wishing to protest during COP27 – an essential feature of any UN climate conference”.

“The Egyptian authorities must allow peaceful demonstrators to gather freely and refrain from using unlawful force or arbitrary arrests to deter protests,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director.

“World leaders arriving in Sharm El-Sheikh for COP27 must not be fooled by Egypt’s public relations (PR) campaign. Away from the dazzling resort hotels, thousands of individuals including human rights defenders, journalists, peaceful protesters and members of the political opposition continue to be detained unjustly,”

“They must urge President Abdelfattah al-Sisi to release all those arbitrarily held for exercising their human rights. As a matter of urgency, this should include imprisoned activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who today escalated his hunger strike to stop drinking water.”

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, told IPS that hosting a global conference such as COP 27 places a special obligation on Egypt’s government to respect and enable the exercise of fundamental freedoms as per international law.

“The right to protest peacefully and the right against arbitrary detention are essential elements of international law. In the present instance, Egypt’s government can easily order the release of arbitrarily imprisoned prisoners of conscience and allow protests to take place without impediments as a sign of good faith,” he declared.

In a joint op-ed piece last week, Gadir Lavadenz, Global Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice and Lidy Nacpil, Executive Director, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, write: climate conferences are increasingly becoming spaces for greenwashing of not just the big polluters’ crimes, but also of the regimes and presidencies hosting COP.

“COP27 is taking place in the Southern Sinai city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and as all eyes turn to Egypt, the campaigns to Free Alaa and other political prisoners, as well as for civic space to open up in Egypt, is gaining momentum”.

At a UN press briefing November 7, several questions were raised about reports that the official COP app apparently requires access to the user’s location, their email, and their photos.

“This is in Egypt, but it’s a UN run conference. What is the UN’s view on the fact that this seems to be trolling for sensitive data and could be tracking people?”

And secondly, the wi fi at COP, which is a UN conference, is apparently restricting access to human rights organizations and some news organizations. What’s your reaction to those?”

In her response, Stéphanie Tremblay, Associate Spokesperson, said: “We have seen these reports. Let me start with the app. First of all, this app does not belong to the UN, so I will not have more comments on that.”

“But one thing that is important to note is that the UN itself through the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] has an app, and everyone at the UN has been encouraging everyone to download and use this app”.

And then, as a general rule, “we advocate freedom of information, freedom of the press. That applies to everywhere around the world. For us, access is important, and we want to make sure that everyone that has to work is able to do the work they are there to do to the best”, said Tremblay.

Meanwhile, in its World Report 2022, Human Rights Watch said Egyptian authorities escalated the use of abusive Emergency State Security Courts to prosecute peaceful activists and critics who joined thousands of dissidents already in the country’s congested prisons.

And Courts issued death sentences in mass trials, adding to the sharply escalating number of executions.

“The government in January issued implementing regulations for the 2019 NGO law that codified draconian restrictions on independent organizations. The authorities failed to appropriately investigate a high-profile gang-rape, and key witnesses remain under extrajudicial travel bans after being jailed for months in apparent retaliation for coming forward.”

HRW also said the army continues to impose severe restrictions on movement and demolished hundreds of buildings in north Sinai in the name of fighting Wilayat Sinai, a local affiliate of the Islamic State (ISIS).

“These demolitions likely amount to war crimes,” HRW said.

In the run up to the climate summit (6 November-18 November), Egyptian authorities released 766 prisoners following a decision by President al-Sisi to reactivate a Presidential Pardons Committee (PPC) in April, said Amnesty International.

Yet over the same period, Amnesty International has documented the arrest of double that number; 1,540 people who were questioned over the exercising of free speech and association.

In the past six months, Amnesty International has gathered data from dozens of lawyers who regularly attend interrogations and detention renewal hearings, reviewed court decisions and other official documents, and interviewed former prisoners as well as relatives of detainees.

In recent weeks, security forces have arrested and detained hundreds of people in downtown Cairo and town squares across Egyptian cities over content on their phones — a tactic often employed by police ahead of expected protests.

While most were released within hours or days, some were taken to prosecutors, while others remain subject to enforced disappearance according to 11 lawyers in Cairo, Alexandria, Sharqiya and Dakahliya.

In September, Abdelsalam Abdelghani, 55, was arrested at his home on the outskirts of Cairo. Prosecutors questioned him about a Facebook group called “Our right”, including posts calling for protests on 11 November.

The prosecutor questioned him on accusations of spreading “false news” and being “a member of a terrorist group” before ordering his detention pending an investigation, according to Amnesty International.

According to the website of the Egyptian presidency for COP27, anyone wishing to organize protests in Sharm El-Sheikh must inform the authorities 36 hours in advance and show the organizers a COP27 badge.

Protests will only be allowed between 10:00-17:00 in an area far from the conference and monitored by cameras. The authorities have also limited the content of protests to climate related issues.

Amnesty International finds these measures to be unnecessary and disproportionate, aimed at restricting the ability of individuals to protest safely in a way that allows them to be seen and heard.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Hezri A Adnan and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov 8 2022 (IPS)

Ahead of the first United Nations environmental summit in Stockholm in 1972, a group of scientists prepared The Limits to Growth report for the Club of Rome. It showed planet Earth’s finite natural resources cannot support ever-growing human consumption.

Limits used integrated computer modelling to investigate twelve planetary scenarios of economic growth and their long-term consequences for the environment and natural resources.

Hezri A Adnan

Emphasizing material limits to growth, it triggered a major debate. Authored by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, Limits is arguably even more influential today.

Within limits
Limits considered population, food production, industrialization, pollution and non-renewable resource use trends from 1900 to 2100.

It conceded, “Any human activity that does not require a large flow of irreplaceable resources or produce severe environmental degradation might continue to grow indefinitely”.

Most projected scenarios saw growth ending this century. Ominously, Limits warned of likely ecological and societal collapses if anthropocene challenges are not adequately addressed soon enough.

Failure would mean less food and energy supplies, more pollution, and lower living standards, even triggering population collapses.

But Limits was never meant to be a definitive forecast, and should not be judged as such. Instead, it sought to highlight major resource threats due to growing human consumption.

Off-limits?
Gaya Herrington showed three of Limits’ four major scenarios anticipated subsequent trends. Two lead to major collapses by mid-century. She concluded, “humanity is on a path to having limits to growth imposed on itself rather than consciously choosing its own.”

Limits stressed the urgent need for radical transformation to achieve ‘sustainable development’. The ‘international community’ embraced this, in principle, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, two decades after Stockholm.

With accelerating resource depletion – as current demographic, industrial, pollution and food trends continue – the planet’s growth limits will be reached within the next half-century. The Earth’s ‘carrying capacity’ is unavoidably shrinking.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

For Limits, only a “transition from growth to…a desirable, sustainable state of global equilibrium” can save the environment and humanity.

The report maintained it was still possible to create conditions for a much more sustainable future while meeting everyone’s basic material needs. As Gandhi said, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”

No other environmental work then, or since, has so directly challenged mainstream growth beliefs. Unsurprisingly, it attracted strong opposition.

The 1972 study was long dismissed by many as neo-Malthusian prophecy of doom, underestimating the potential for human adaptation through technological progress.

Many other criticisms have been made. Limits was faulted for focusing too much on resource limits, but not enough on environmental damage. Economists have criticized it for not explicitly incorporating either prices or socioeconomic dynamics.

Beyond limits
In Beyond the Limits (1993), the two Meadows and Randers argued that resource use had exceeded the world environment’s carrying capacity.

Using climate change data, they highlighted the likelihood of collapse, going well beyond the earlier focus on the rapid carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere.

In another sequel, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (2004), they elaborated their original argument with new data, calling for stronger actions to avoid unsustainable excess.

Dennis Meadows stresses other studies confirm and elaborate Limits’ concerns. Various growth trends peak around 2020, suggesting likely slowdowns thereafter, culminating in environmental and economic collapse by mid-century.

Limits’ early 1970s’ computer modelling has been overtaken by enhanced simulation capabilities. Many earlier recommendations need revision, but the main fears have been reaffirmed.

Limitless?
Two key Limits’ arguments deserve reiteration. First, its critique of technological hubris, which has deterred more serious concern about the threats, thus undermining environmental, economic and other mitigation efforts.

As Limits argued, environmental crisis and collapse are due to socioeconomic, technological and environmental transformations for wealth accumulation, now threatening Earth’s resources and ecology.

Conventional profit-prioritizing systems and technologies have changed, e.g., with resource efficiency innovation. Such efforts help postpone the inevitable, but cannot extend the planet’s natural limits.

Of course, innovative new technologies are needed to address old and new problems. But these have to be deployed to enhance sustainability, rather than profit.

The Limits’ critique is ultimately of ‘growth’ in contemporary society. It goes much further than recent debates over measuring growth, recognizing greater output typically involves more resource use.

While not necessarily increasing exponentially, growth cannot be unlimited, due to its inherent resource and ecological requirements, even with materials-saving innovations.

This Earth for all
Thankfully, Limits’ fourth scenario – involving significant, but realistic transformations – allows widespread increases in human wellbeing within the planet’s resource boundaries.

This scenario has inspired Earth for All – the Club of Rome’s Transformational Economics Commission’s 2022 report – which more than updates Limits after half a century. Its subtitle – A Survival Guide for Humanity – emphasizes the threat’s urgency, scale and scope.

It argues that ensuring the wellbeing of all is still possible, but requires urgent fundamental changes. Major efforts are needed to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality, empower women, and transform food and energy systems.

The comprehensive report proposes specific strategies. All five need significant investments, including much public spending. This requires more progressive taxation, especially of wealth. Curbing wasteful consumption is also necessary.

More liquidity – e.g., via ‘monetary financing’ and International Monetary Fund issue of more special drawing rights – and addressing government debt burdens can ensure more policy and fiscal space for developing country governments.

Many food systems are broken. They currently involve unhealthy and unsustainable production and consumption, generating much waste. All this must be reformed accordingly.

Market regulation for the public good is crucial. Better regulation – of markets for goods (especially food) and services, even technology, finance, labour and land – is necessary to better conserve the environment.

Limited choice
The report includes a modeling exercise for two scenarios. ‘Too Little Too Late’ is the current trajectory, offering too few needed changes.

With growing inequalities, social trust erodes, as people and countries compete more intensely for resources. Without sufficient ‘collective action’, planetary boundaries will be crossed. For the most vulnerable, prospects are grim.

In the second ‘Giant Leap’ scenario, the five needed shifts are achieved, improving wellbeing all around. Everybody can live with dignity, health and security. Ecological deterioration is sufficiently reversed, as institutions serve the common good and ensure justice for all.

Broad-based sustainable gains in wellbeing need pro-active governance reshaping societies and markets. This needs sufficient political will and popular pressure for needed reforms.

But as the world moves ever closer to many limits, the scenario looming is terrifying: ecosystem destruction, gross inequalities and vulnerabilities, social and political tensions.

While regimes tend to bend to public pressure, if only to survive, existing discourses and mobilization are not conducive to generating the popular political demands needed for the changes.

Adnan A Hezri is an environmental policy analyst and Fellow of the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia. He is author of The Sustainability Shift: Reshaping Malaysia’s Future.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A farmer in Nkayi, Zimbabwe, looks at an empty granary following a poor rainy season. Africa is experiencing massive impacts due to climate change. Credit Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Nov 7 2022 (IPS)

Africa is counting on COP27 to deliver it from climate change. But will it?

Global leaders from more than 125 countries gather in the resort city of Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), from November 6-18, 2022. The UNFCCC is a global treaty mandating signatories to prevent “dangerous human-induced interference with the climate system by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations”.

The Convention puts the responsibility of cutting dangerous carbon emissions on the shoulders of developed countries. The major carbon emission emitters are China, the European Union, the United States, Australia, Japan, India, and Russia.

Africa contributes 3.8 percent of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuels and industry. However, it is experiencing significant impacts from climate change.

From Angola to Zimbabwe, cyclones, floods, high temperatures, and droughts are killing and displacing millions of Africa as climate change upends a continent unable to cope with its devastating impacts.

Dubbed the ‘African COP’, COP27 convenes in a changed world experiencing a combination of economic and political crises, including food and fuel crises. There are mixed expectations on how to save the world from a fiery Armageddon as climate change rises. For Africa, more is expected from COP27 than at any other time.

The money and adaptation COP

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN) says Africa is expecting to see the implementation of commitments made at COP26 for advancing the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and addressing the adverse climate change.

“African countries have committed the most ambitious NDCs under the Paris Agreement now the priority should be how to implement these targets. And for these, developed countries should deliver on their climate finance pledges,” Selam Kidane Abebe, Legal Advisor to the AGN, explained.

Abebe contended that the special needs and special circumstances of Africa are a priority for the AGN, as the recognition was reflected under the UNFCCC decisions. Such recognition is also important as Africa contributes less of the total historical and current emissions, and climate change is impacting Africa’s development trajectory, so even if African countries have strong development plans, their trajectory is going to be impacted by the adverse impacts of climate change,” she said, noting that African countries were investing up to 9% of the GDP on adaptation, money that should be invested in development sectors.

In 2009, developed countries committed to giving $100 billion annually until 2020 to help developing countries reduce emissions and cope with climate change. The money never came, and this target has been moved to 2023. Will it ever arrive?

“We hope so because it is the responsibility of developed countries to come forward with it,” Ambassador Wael Aboulmagd, Special Advisor to the COP27 President, told a media briefing in the buildup to COP27 last week.

“In all reality $100 billion is not going to solve the problem; it is not even close to addressing a fraction of the climate needs… the numbers are in trillions. The overall financial landscape needs to be revisited,” Aboulmagd noted, convinced that developed countries must be nudged to find a workable solution in climate finance.

Loss and damage

Finance is at the heart of the COP27 negotiations. Africa is anxious for a solution to the issue of loss and damage and is pushing for finance to address loss and damage as a result of global warming.

At COP27, the argument is that developed countries largely responsible for climate change should pay for the loss of life and damage to property and infrastructure, not to mention economic and cultural losses endured by developing countries that do not have the means to deal with the impacts of climate change.

An argument has been toyed with is that why not allow African countries to raise their emissions levels and develop their economies as developed countries did in industrializing? In Egypt, Africa is hoping to get commitments towards a specific loss and damage facility. Developed countries are reluctant to pick up the tab.

While countries have strengthened their commitments to tackle the climate crisis, climate change is not letting up. Floods in Nigeria,  Pakistan, and South Africa, droughts in Kenya and Somalia, and food crises in the Horn of Africa have led to massive deaths and huge damage to homes and infrastructure that cannot be recovered. Who will pay for the climate damage?

“COP27 must provide a clear and time-bound roadmap on closing the finance gap for addressing loss and damage, ” UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said last week at the launch of the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report. He argued that: “This will be a central litmus test for success at COP27”.

Climate change is hitting Africa hard, and extreme weather could cost the continent $50 billion annually by 2050, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Human activities, largely the burning of fossil fuels like coal, gas, and oil, have released emissions that are causing global warming.

According to scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), life would be threatened should global temperatures rise beyond 1.8C. The Paris Agreement pledges have meant to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C.

The COP Presidency is convinced a balanced approach that meets various interests is needed. Questions abound on what should be the arrangement for loss and damage,  what kind of funding entity will be there, and who shoulders liability and compensation.

“As the COP27 Presidency, we are impartial and want all parties to be on the same page to agree and address all these issues. I  think we have a good chance of doing that at this COP,” he said, expressing optimism that loss and damage will be on the agenda.

Hot energy finance

Despite some countries developing new and revising their NDCs, to raise their emission reduction targets in line with the Paris Agreement, switching to clean energy and phasing out coal has been slow. Rising fuel prices as a result of the Ukraine war have flipped the script. Some developed countries are increasing subsidies for fossil fuels, while others have fired up coal plants and natural gas lines to fill the energy gap. Even China has recently approved new coal mines.

But should Africa – yearning to boost industrialization – abandon fossil fuel dependence and join the race for renewables?

“The speed of this energy transition should not be the same for every country around the world, many African countries are languishing in extreme poverty, and they make the case that if we are being told to keep that resource underground for the global good then the international community has to come up with a package to allow us otherwise to eliminate poverty and pursue our sustainable development goals,” opined Aboulmagd.

He said while there is a global case for emissions reduction targets and transition to renewables, developing countries cannot just be told to quit fossil fuels without financial support to go green. A tailored approach for every country, depending on its circumstances, is called for.

“It is essentially telling people to stop having energy; by the way, Sub-Saharan Africa has less than 20 percent access to energy in their entire population. We need to make sure that when we make a demand of a country it is a reasonable one that they can reasonably be expected to do without almost devastating their development objectives and poverty reduction elimination objective,” he urged.

Time for talking is over; action now

A UN report released last week found that the world is off track in meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperatures below 1.5°C by the end of the century.  The Emissions Gap Report 2022 warns that the window is closing and that the world must cut carbon emissions by 45 percent to avoid global catastrophe because governments have failed to effect adequate cuts as pledged since COP26 in Glasgow.

The report finds that, despite a decision by all countries at the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow, UK (COP26) to strengthen Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), action has been poor and ambition low that the world could be facing a temperature rise of above the Paris Agreement goal of well below 2°C. The report shows that current policies alone will lead to a 2.8°C temperature rise highlighting the gap between actions and promises.

“Climate adaptation may not seem like a priority right now,” says Inger Andersen, United Nations Environment Programme, Executive Director, opined. “Even if all commitments are implemented immediately, the reality is that climate change is going to be with us decades into the future. And the poorest keep paying the price for our inaction. It is, therefore, imperative that we put time, effort, resources, and planning into adaptation action.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Colosseum at the Prayer with the Pope and the representatives of the workd’s religions. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Nov 7 2022 (IPS)

Arms are raised, stretched out towards the sky, holding white cards with the word “peace” written in different languages. A girl, a refugee from Syria, reads the Rome’s “Appeal for peace”: “With firm conviction, we say: no more war! Let’s stop all conflicts […] Let dialogue be resumed to nullify the threat of nuclear weapons.” Pope Francis singed it in front of the people gathered at the Colosseum, holding the word “peace” in their hands, as representatives of the world’s religions did as well. Shortly before, members of those different religions gathered for prayer to invoke peace in their different traditions—a prayer that is “a cry” inside the ancient amphitheater.

“This year our prayer has become a heartfelt plea, because today peace has been gravely violated, assaulted and trampled upon, and this in Europe, on the very continent that in the last century endured the horrors of the two world wars – and we are experiencing a third. Sadly, since then, wars have continued to cause bloodshed and to impoverish the earth. Yet the situation that we are presently experiencing is particularly dramatic…”, the Pontiff warned. “We are not neutral, but allied for peace, and for that reason we invoke the ius pacis as the right of all to settle conflicts without violence,” he added.

The same “raised hands” marched for peace on Saturday in Rome when around 100.000 people from different organizations called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and in all the other armed conflicts.

The prayer with the Pope was the last act of a three-day interreligious dialogue, held at the end of October in the Italian capital and introduced by the presidents of the French and Italian republics, Emmanuel Macron and Sergio Mattarella. The first convocation was in Assisi, in 1986, willed by John Paul II. Since then, it has been promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Christian community whose fundamentals are prayer, serving the poor and marginalized, and peace. For the role it has played in mediating conflicts, it has been named the “UN of Trastevere” after the city center neighborhood where it is headquartered and where the peace agreement in Mozambique was signed thirty years ago.

Flags at the rally for peace in Rome on Saturday. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Leaders and believers of various religions and secular humanists have woven relationships, prayed, and confronted each other. They hand over a map drawn by many voices, too many to account for in the space of an article. “The cry for peace” meeting is also an invitation to “do”. It offers a map of concrete steps, things done and to do, best practices, imagination, with a key word: dialogue. “And dialogue does not make all reasons equal at all, it does not avoid the question of responsibility and never mistakes the aggressor with the attacked. Indeed, precisely because it knows them well, it can look for ways to stop the geometric and implacable logic of war, which is [escalation] if other solution are not found”, explained Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference.

World scenarios are made even more worrying by the risk of nuclear escalation in the Ukrainian war—a war on the doorstep of that part of Europe that has cultivated peace inside, but that has let armed conflict flourish elsewhere. “The lack of this commitment [outside Europe] let the war reach its borders, indeed—in some ways—penetrate within it, even in its deepest fibers,” said Agostino Giovagnoli, historian of the Community of Sant’Egidio. “Today war threatens Europe also because it threatens the alternative imagination which is at the basis of the European architecture. War, in fact, is banal: it does not consist only of a fight on the ground but it is also a form of ‘single thought,’” he added.

This “single thought” has changed the European attitude, according to Nico Piro, special correspondent and war journalist of the RAI, the Italian national public broadcasting company. “After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Europe as in Italy, a political monobloc in favor of [fighting] has emerged from right to left. It is standing out what I named ‘PUB’ [Pensiero Unico Bellicista], a Bellicist-Single-Thought … [It] projects a stigma on anyone who asks for peace, on anyone who has a doubt or raises a criticism of the idea that fueling the war serves to end it […],” he said. “What has peace become then? No longer a tool to stop and prevent armed conflicts but a by-product of war.”

Yet, among the many voices that met in Rome, one word resounds, whispered and then said: kairos. The “critical moment” is now. The war in Ukraine is the “wake-up call” that must be grasped, that cannot be missed, widening our view from Europe to those never-ending conflicts all over the world. Among the many lessons from Sant’Egidio’s dialogue, two should be learned to grasp that kairos: working together daily to build peace in every single life and returning to working together as a community of states, relaunching the multilateral message.

Sant’Egidio’s interreligious dialogue “The cry for peace”. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

“Whoever saves a single life saves the whole world,” the Talmud says. Or “an entire world” as Riccardo di Segni, chief rabbi of Rome, suggested, since every human being has the potential to create “a new, unique world.” Thus, peace means recognizing the value of each single life, in sharp contrast to the logic of war, in which “the life of the enemy is no longer life. It’s not the same. [That’s] war, [which] dehumanizes everyone a priori in the name of life,” according to Mario Marazziti, member of the Sant’Egidio community. This also happens here, in Europe, where those fleeing wars, hunger, and persecution are allowed to die at sea, “dehumanized,” reduced to numbers.

Unique are the lives to be saved, but also unique are the lives of those who save and of those who build peace by “taking care.”

Gégoire Ahongbonon has a chain in his hand. He puts it around his neck and shows the heavy metal rings to the audience. There was a man chained with that same metal, naked, tied to a tree, like many others. His only fault was a psychiatric disorder. Ahongbonon saved over 70,000 people, “sentenced to death” because they were ill. He is the founder of the Association Saint Camille de Lellis that works in five countries of sub-Saharan Africa. He asked a tough question: “Are we different from them? Are we different from this person, we? […] What did they do wrong? They were born like all of us.”

Saving those lives is already making peace, eradicating the roots of violence and discrimination and planting those of peace, as Mjid Noorjehan Adbul is doing in Mozambique. She is the clinical head of the network of centers for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, opened by Sant’Egidio’s DREAM program, a program of excellence operating in 10 countries. She, a Muslim, is surprised when people ask her why she works with Catholics: “We all have the same goal,” she replies. For twenty years, she has been working to ensure health care for those who cannot afford it. In fact, she was the first one to use antiretroviral therapy in her country. “There is no peace without care,” she said, quoting Pope Francis – “care” for eradicating “the culture of waste, of indifference, of confrontation.” Ex-patients, like those “women who have experienced the stigma firsthand and put themselves at the service of other ill people,” are now helping to build a new health culture – she explained.

Saving lives, restoring hope, choosing the paths of dialogue, and designing an architecture of peaceful coexistence should also be the aim of politics. The multilateral message, legacy of the twentieth century’s “unitary tensions,” however, needs new impetus.

“Those who work for peace are realistic, not naive!” Cardinal Zuppi said. Realistic as it was Pope Bendetto XV that called for an end to the “useless slaughter” that was the First World War. He had a very clear vision of the need for a multilateral architecture, a league among nations that could guarantee lasting peace. A realistic way to design the future still seems to be the one built on a permanent, global agorà that creates space for dialogue. “No multilateralism, no survival,” argued Jeffery Sachs, a speaker at one of the fourteen forums that shaped the meeting agenda. However, the United Nations – the organization founded on the ruins of the Second World War to make the “no more war” reality – risks to be “delegitimized”. That’s something to be avoided, according to Zuppi. “… We are aware that the United Nations is a community of nations. Its every failure represents a weakening of international determination and makes us all losers,” warned Shayk Muhammad bin Abdul Karim al Issa, general secretary of the Muslim World League.

Today, however, multilateralism needs to adapt: “We need a multilateralism that is just and inclusive, with equitable representation and voice for developing countries”, said Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, Undersecretary for Africa in the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affaris and Peace operations. “At heart of [UN’s effort to adapt] is the need to engage earlier and proactively, and not to wait react to a crisis after it has escalated”, she added. A multilateralism that does not act only after a conflict breaks out, but that is able to prevent it and to build peace also by supporting “the resilience of local communities”.

The Kairos, the right moment, is now even if there is war in Ukraine and elsewhere because peace must be built even when war is raging. “How to live now?” wonder those who have seen the destruction and the ferocity of an armed conflict, like Olga Makar, who took care of Sant’Egidio school of peace in Ukraine. “This is the question every Ukrainian asks him or herself. In those first days of war, when I felt my life was broken, I found an answer: our houses are destroyed, our cities are in ruins, but our love, our solidarity, our ability to help others, our dreams cannot be destroyed”.

Words that echo in those of Pope Francis: “Let us not be infected by the perverse rationale of war; let us not fall into the trap of hatred for the enemy. Let us once more put peace at the heart of our vision for the future, as the primary goal of our personal, social and political activity at every level. Let us defuse conflicts by the weapon of dialogue”.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A Clean Energy Ministerial coalition designed to stimulate global demand for low carbon industrial materials. Credit: UNIDO

By Rana Ghoneim
VIENNA, Nov 7 2022 (IPS)

Ahead of this year’s COP27 in Egypt, industry and government representatives from 15 developing countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa met in a series of consultations about the challenges and opportunities they face in decarbonizing some of their most energy intensive industries like steel, cement and concrete.

A report from these consultations – which were organized by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), where I work – will be released during COP27’s Decarbonisation Day (Friday 11 November) and should be widely-read by decision-makers across energy, environment and industrial sectors.

During these meetings, it was evident that the pace of progress so far is too slow and that puts us at real risk of not meeting global climate commitments. It simply won’t be sufficient for industrialized countries to lower emissions within their boundaries and enforce restrictions for products entering their markets. This must happen everywhere.

Global action and new forms of inter-sectoral cooperation are urgently needed to address critical questions including: what are the opportunities for emissions reductions, and what is needed to deliver these reductions in the fastest and most economical way?

How do we speed up the development and implementation of new carbon-cutting technologies – and ensure that they are widely accessible and affordable, including to small and medium sized enterprises?

Currently, many developing country governments do not have reliable and up-to-date data on the emissions of their different industries and how they compare internationally. Relatively little has been established so far in the way of infrastructure to facilitate the widespread introduction of new and emerging technologies for industrial decarbonization.

Access to and know-how about low-carbon technologies is largely concentrated within industrialized countries and large multinational companies.

This must change. For industrial decarbonization efforts to succeed, we need to see significantly increased investments in research and development into new technologies – but we also need to scale up the deployment of technologies that exist but are not yet widely available, including those for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).

We also need to much more widely implement strategies and technologies that are already available and affordable – including on energy efficiency, which lowers the demand for energy including from renewable sources.

This likely requires new funding for technical assistance to help make markets in developing countries ready and able to implement low-carbon technologies. It’s not just about funding individual projects, but about really coming up with more meaningful ways to partner around spreading technology our planet urgently needs. Industrialized countries cannot leave developing ones to ‘do this on their own’.

Some of the steel and cement (which is also used to make concrete) businesses working in developing countries are multinational companies which are bringing decarbonizing technologies into their operations from abroad. This is a good thing.

But there are also local companies – including within the supply chains of these multinationals – which need to be involved in order to make decarbonization succeed.

In India, for example, more than half of the steel manufacturing industry is small and medium sized enterprises without the same access to these technologies. Does this local market currently have the technical capacity to adopt and service new hydrogen fuel installations, for example?

Unfortunately, the answer is: Not really.

In many cases, these local companies will likely be unaware of the need to actually change their practices to move towards something that’s low-carbon – let alone how to do this and what technology options exist to help them. The speed of change needed means that the world cannot wait for them to do this alone.

Governments everywhere have a role to play here, in ensuring that their policy frameworks drive decarbonization, promote the right technologies and prevent the proliferation of production processes that aren’t low-carbon.

Imagine: If construction products are in demand in a developing country and they’re not already or sufficiently available on the market, a company or investor may see an opportunity to set up a new business – and if stringent regulations aren’t in place, they might do this using outdated technology with higher emissions.

Decarbonization is not the mandate of small steel and cement manufacturers, as participants noted in the pre-COP27 Asia consultation, or their area of expertise.

It is an area that requires collaboration across different sectors – including to get better and more detailed data, and measurement, reporting and verification frameworks on emissions that can help guide government, and industry, decision-making.

Steel and cement companies might often be seen by some of the public as ‘bad guys’. Globally, these sectors do currently contribute about 50% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

But they produce essential materials to build our houses, schools and cities and are needed for our growing communities. The demand should not be to stop production today, but to make it low-carbon today.

Without more meaningful global partnerships on industrial decarbonization, there’s a big risk that we won’t be able to deliver on our climate commitments. We cannot afford this.

Countries and industries globally need to move all together towards the same climate goals at the same time. Cooperation – including on policy, infrastructure development, and technology – will be key to doing this.

Rana Ghoneim is the Chief of the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Division, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna.

Country consultations mentioned in this op-ed, which will be released during COP27’s Decarbonization Day (Friday 11 November), will be available on the website of UNIDO’s Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Aerial view of the dwindling ice on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
 
Some of the world’s most iconic glaciers are set to disappear by 2050, according to a new study by UNESCO, which highlights the accelerated melting of glaciers in World Heritage sites. November 2022

By Gadir Lavadenz and Lidy Nacpil
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 7 2022 (IPS)

The 27th Conference Of Parties (COP27) on Climate Change comes at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges due to the magnitude and the interconnected nature of our multiple structural crises. The world’s average temperature is now at 1,1℃.

For many years now, we have been experiencing irreversible damage to the planet, and the loss of homelands, cultures, ecosystems, on a daily basis. Record-breaking heat has hit North America, Europe, China, Australia, India and Pakistan, sparking wildfires in many places. More than a third of heat-related deaths in summer from 1991 to 2018 occurred as a result of human-caused global warming.

European and Latin American cities are among the worst affected by summer heat deaths due to the climate crisis. Terrible floods have swept Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, and South Africa. Super typhoons have brought untold damage to people and communities in the Philippines, the Caribbean, the Pacific and the gulf and southern areas of the United States.

But does COP really hold any value anymore?

We have been seeing consistent efforts to dilute the outcomes of previous climate change conferences, often driven by the world’s fossil fuel addiction and intensive lobbying of big polluters prioritizing their agenda of greed and profit over the lives of billions of frontline communities suffering the devastating impact of climate crisis daily.

At COP 26, the Glasgow Outcomes were presented as if they were more relevant than the Paris Agreement (which is legally binding). The UK presidency had enough time to build up a narrative around false solutions, including the charade of net zero targets for all by 2050 (undermining again the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) through carbon offsets and nature-based solutions that further continue with the agenda of commodification of nature for the profit of the same usual polluters.

World governments, especially rich countries have consistently failed to deliver on their climate finance commitments of $100 billion per year. This annual goal urgently needed by grassroots communities to mitigate and adapt to climate change has not been met even once by the governments.

There has been constant pushback for a loss and damage finance facility and mechanism that can support vulnerable countries and peoples on the ground recover from climate change induced disasters. Loss and damage were only introduced in the COP27 agenda after consistent push by civil society groups globally.

The climate conferences are increasingly becoming spaces for greenwashing of not just the big polluters’ crimes, but also of the regimes and presidencies hosting COP. COP27 is taking place in the Southern Sinai city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and as all eyes turn to Egypt, the campaigns to Free Alaa and other political prisoners, as well as for civic space to open up in Egypt, is gaining momentum.

As the world leaders and negotiators gather for the summit, it is not only communities in Sinai that continue to suffer from the increasing violence of climate impacts but peoples everywhere, with the most marginalized – peoples of color, Indigenous Peoples, communities in the Global South, frontline communities, women and children – hit first and hardest.

It is imperative that we stand in solidarity with impacted and frontline communities everywhere and reiterate our demands for urgent and drastic action to justly address the climate crisis.

At COP27, DCJ will continue with its struggles and demands for profound social transformation and the achievement of immediate concrete results in terms of drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and enabling peoples to deal with the impacts of the climate crisis.
Like other global crises, climate change arises principally from historically unequal economic and social structures, from practices and policies promoted by rich, industrialized countries, and from systems of production and consumption that sacrifice the needs of the many to the interests of a few.

And it is the communities around the world that have contributed the very least to climate change that are paying the highest price–their lives and livelihoods.

We demand from all governments that if international negotiations are to mean anything, they must deliver outcomes that will prevent catastrophic climate change and ensure just and fair sharing of drastic emission reductions in keeping with the goal of limiting the rise of global average temperature to below 1.5º C.

We demand an end to pursuit and implementation of false solutions disguised in the form of nature-based solutions. We demand that rich countries deliver fully on their obligations to provide adequate and appropriate climate finance on the basis of countries’ responsibility for climate debt and as part of reparations to all affected peoples.

We demand mechanisms that ensure climate finances are rewound to the empowerment and benefit of peoples and communities most impacted by the climate crisis. We demand that developed countries support appropriate technology transfers without intellectual property rights barriers.

Will COP27 be another COP where rich countries and big polluters gather to impede the calls of communities fighting for their lives and livelihood every day? No, we cannot stand back and let that happen. COP27 must deliver a strong message to the world that the multilateral system can still play a role in fighting the climate crisis.

It cannot be remembered as just another meeting, but as a moment to show major progress through real solutions. It must generate outcomes towards an urgent reset of the system. A moment to abandon the old, profiteering, polluting world order, and a time to reimagine and rapidly implement global collaboration that centers equity, science, humanity.

We don’t have to tell you what another failed COP will mean for people and the planet.

Gadir Lavadenz is Global Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice;
Lidy Nacpil is Executive Director, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Corals and coral reefs are found around the islands and atolls of the Pacific. In Vanuatu, the government, with the support of SPC, implemented a coral reef climate change adaptation project based on coral gardening. Photo credit: SPC

By Catherine Wilson
Sydney, Nov 5 2022 (IPS)

Today, the window of opportunity for scaled-up global climate action to prevent disastrous global warming and build resilience in the most vulnerable nations is closing fast. And a major impediment to reducing emissions and accelerating climate adaptation is both lack of financial investment and major bureaucratic hurdles to accessing those funds that are available.

For Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), the failure of the international community to provide US$100 billion per year to address climate change impacts in the developing world, a pledge made thirteen years ago, has grave consequences. And it will be a major issue for Pacific leaders at the COP27 United Nations Climate Change Conference due to start in Egypt on Sunday.

On Kadavu and Ra Islands in Fiji, SPC supported the implementation of an Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) and climate change resilience project. Photo credit: SPC

“The Pacific is at the frontline of the impacts of climate change. Climate finance is critical to allow mitigation and adaptation actions, yet the region is suffering from a lack of access to the climate finance already committed to global mechanisms like the Green Climate Fund. Due to global priority setting or global priorities, it is not flowing to where it is needed most,” Dr Stuart Minchin, Director-General of the regional development organization, Pacific Community, in Noumea, New Caledonia, told IPS. “It seems the polluters are setting the rules, and consequently, the flow of climate finance is more like a drip feed than the torrent that is required to meet the challenges of the region.”

Island nations scattered across the Pacific Ocean are among the world’s most exposed to climate extremes, such as rising air temperatures, ocean acidification, more damaging cyclones, heatwaves and the critical loss of biodiversity, water and food security, the IPCC reported this year. The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat estimates that the region needs US$1 billion per year to implement its climate adaptation goals and US$5.2 billion annually by 2030.

“Without global funding, Pacific Island countries and territories will not be able to identify and implement climate solutions,” Anne-Claire Goarant, Programme Manager for the Pacific Community’s Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Programme in Noumea told IPS, adding that the costs will be high. “Already climate-induced disasters are causing economic costs of 0.5 percent to 6.6 percent of annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Pacific Island countries. This trend will continue in the future in the absence of urgent climate action. Without adaptation measures, a high island, such as Viti Levu in Fiji, could experience damages of US$23-52 million per year by 2050.”

The unique characteristics of islands, such as small land areas, the very close proximity of many communities, infrastructure and economic activities to coastlines and precarious economies, means that severe weather events can have disastrous impacts. Fifty-five percent of the Pacific Islanders live less than 1 kilometre from the sea, and every year more villages face relocation as their existence is endangered by flooding and sea erosion.  Excessive heat, drought and rainfall are predicted to threaten crop and food production, and by the end of the century, important revenues from Pacific tourism could plummet by 27-34 percent.

The costs of climate adaptation could reach more than 25 percent of GDP in Kiribati, 15 percent of GDP in Tuvalu and more than 10 percent of GDP in Vanuatu. Yet Pacific Island nations are ‘among the least equipped to adapt, putting their economic development and macroeconomic stability at risk,’ reports the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

One of the two largest global sources of climate finance is the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which has the mandate to focus on the needs of developing countries, and another, the Adaptation Fund, supports tangible adaptation projects. However, most of the global funding tracked by Oxfam in 2017-2018 did not reach the most fragile nations. Only 20.5 percent of reported finance was allocated to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and 3 percent to Small Island Developing States.

“On financing adaptation in developing countries, what’s happened thus far is not good enough. We need to scale up quite dramatically the ambition within the multilateral development banks and bilateral donors. And we need to work on blended finance, where some public finance leverages private finance, and there is a proper sharing of risks between the private and public sectors,” Mark Carney, the United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Finance, has stated.

The Pacific Community is working closely with nations across the region to develop and submit climate funding proposals and support them in implementing projects once finance is approved. In Fiji, Nauru, Tonga and the Solomon Islands, for example, it is supporting projects on the ground to build climate resilience expertise and capacity among smallholder farmers with a Euro 4.6 million grant from the multi-donor Kiwa Initiative.

But many countries in the region are experiencing limited success with funding applications. In the Federated States of Micronesia, financial support is needed for increasing resilience in health, protecting coastal areas, lifeline access roads, and critical infrastructure from climate destruction and improving water security, Belinda Hadley, Team Leader in FSM’s National Designated Authority for the Green Climate Fund explained. But funding remains elusive as the island states struggle with overly difficult and resource-intensive application processes.

“The processes to apply for multilateral climate finance are heavy and complex. This makes accessing climate finance a slow and onerous process. In-country capacities within governments and other institutions are insufficient in the face of such complex processes. Many countries don’t have enough sufficient personnel to meet the burdensome requirements set by the donors,” Dirk Snyman, Co-ordinator of the Pacific Community’s Climate Finance Unit told IPS. “Even after project approval, disbursement of funds can still take one to two years. This does not allow countries to implement their adaptation and mitigation actions within the timeframes required.”

Funders need “to facilitate faster and easier access to climate finance in such a manner that the climate change priorities of Pacific communities, rather than the priorities and policies of the donors, are driving the regional portfolio of climate change projects,” Maëva Tesan, Communications and Knowledge Management Officer for the Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Programme emphasized.

Snyman said that the situation could be improved if multilateral finance providers made application procedures more streamlined and flexible, changed the current compliance-based approach to a focus on positive project impacts and a dedicated climate fund was established for losses and damages in the region.

These views are echoed by the IMF, which recommends that climate finance providers should recognize ‘the shrinking window of opportunity to address the climate crisis’ and ‘consider further efforts to rebalance the risks to shareholders with the urgency of climate adaptation needs of small and fragile countries.’

The COP27 United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on 6-18 November.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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It usually takes hours of driving in a 4X4 before heading out on foot through a dense forest. There, protected under a sea of beech trees from the view of the drones, it is the guerrillas of the PJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) who find us. We are somewhere in the mountains […]

“To force poor countries to repay a loan to cope with a climate crisis they hardly caused is profoundly unfair. Instead of supporting countries that are facing worsening droughts, cyclones and flooding, rich countries are crippling their ability to cope with the next shock and deepening their poverty.” Credit: Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 4 2022 (IPS)

Just a few days ahead of the UN Climate Conference (COP27) in Egypt (6-18 November), new revelations show how far rich, industrialised countries –those who contribute most to the growing catastrophes- have been lying over their real contributions to climate finance.

The True Value of Climate Finance Is a Third of What Developed Countries Report unveils that many rich countries are using “dishonest and misleading” accounting “to inflate” their climate finance contributions to developing countries – in 2020 by as much as 225%, according to investigations by Oxfam International.

 

Inflating the figures

The report estimates between just 21-24.5 billion US dollars as the “true value” of climate finance provided in 2020, against a reported figure of 68.3 billion US dollars in public finance that rich countries said was provided (alongside mobilised private finance bringing the total to 83.3 billion US dollars).

Rich countries' contributions not only continue to fall miserably below their promised goal but are also very misleading in often counting the wrong things in the wrong way. They're overstating their own generosity by painting a rosy picture that obscures how much is really going to poor countries

Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam International Climate Policy Lead

The global climate finance target is supposed to be 100 billion US dollars a year, an amount which is slightly more than the 83 billion US dollars the world’s biggest nuclear powers spent in one single year– 2021, on such weapons of mass destruction.

Furthermore, “the combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year are close to 100 billion US dollars,” said already last august the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, adding that it was “immoral” that major oil and gas companies are reporting “record profits”, while prices soar.

 

“Very misleading”

Moreover, “rich countries’ contributions not only continue to fall miserably below their promised goal but are also very misleading in often counting the wrong things in the wrong way. They’re overstating their own generosity by painting a rosy picture that obscures how much is really going to poor countries,” said Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam International Climate Policy Lead.

 

Mostly loans

“Our global climate finance is a broken train: drastically flawed and putting us at risk of reaching a catastrophic destination. There are too many loans indebting poor countries that are already struggling to cope with climatic shocks.”

There is too much “dishonest” and “shady” reporting. The result is the most vulnerable countries remain ill-prepared to face the wrath of the climate crisis, warned Dabi.

 

Rich countries’ “manipulation”

Oxfam research found that instruments such as loans are being reported at face value, ignoring repayments and other factors. Too often funded projects have less climate focus than reported, making the net value of support specifically aiming at climate action significantly lower than actual reported climate finance figures.

Currently, loans are dominating over 70% provision (48.6 billion US dollars) of public climate finance, adding to the debt crisis across developing countries.

“To force poor countries to repay a loan to cope with a climate crisis they hardly caused is profoundly unfair. Instead of supporting countries that are facing worsening droughts, cyclones and flooding, rich countries are crippling their ability to cope with the next shock and deepening their poverty.”

Least Developed Countries’ external debt repayments reached 31 billion US dollars in 2020.

 

Such ‘funding’ is primarily based on loans

“A climate finance system that is primarily based on loans is only worsening the problem. Rich nations, especially the heaviest-polluting ones,” said Dabi.

A key way to prevent a full-scale climate catastrophe is for developed nations to fulfil their 100 billion US dollars commitments and genuinely address the current climate financing accounting holes. “Manipulating the system will only mean poor nations, least responsible for the climate crisis, footing the climate bill,” said Dabi.

 

Stalling all efforts

Other findings by this global confederation which includes 21 member organisations and affiliates reveal that an average of 189 million people per year have been affected by extreme weather-related events in developing countries since 1991 – the year that a mechanism was first proposed to address the costs of climate impacts on low-income countries.

The report, The Cost of Delay, by the Loss and Damage Collaboration – a group of more than 100 researchers, activists, and policymakers from around the globe – highlights how rich countries have repeatedly stalled efforts to provide dedicated finance to developing countries bearing the costs of a climate crisis they did little to cause.

 

Six fossil fuel companies

“Analysis shows that in the first half of 2022 six fossil fuel companies combined made enough money to cover the cost of major extreme weather and climate-related events in developing countries and still have nearly $70 billion profit remaining.”

The report reveals that 55 of the most climate-vulnerable countries have suffered climate-induced economic losses totalling over half a trillion dollars during the first two decades of this century as fossil fuel profits rocket, leaving people in some of the poorest places on earth to foot the bill.

 

Super profits. And massive deaths

It also reveals that the fossil fuel industry made enough super-profit between 2000 and 2019 to cover the costs of climate-induced economic losses in 55 of the most climate-vulnerable countries, almost sixty times over.

The report estimates that since 1991, developing countries have experienced 79% of recorded deaths and 97% of the total recorded number of people affected by the impacts of weather extremes.

The analysis also shows that the number of extreme weather and climate-related events that developing countries experience has more than doubled over that period with over 676,000 people killed.

The entire continent of Africa produces less than 4% of global emissions and the African Development Bank reported recently the continent was losing between five and 15% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita growth because of climate change.

 

Enormous gains

Lyndsay Walsh, Oxfam’s Climate policy adviser and co-author of the report said: “It is an injustice that polluters who are disproportionately responsible for the escalating greenhouse gas emissions continue to reap these enormous profits while climate-vulnerable countries are left to foot the bill for the climate impacts destroying people’s lives, homes and jobs.”

Meanwhile, in addition to manipulating the figures and further indebting the poor, business continues as usual. The largest polluters–the fossil fuels private companies make more and more profits, and rich countries’ politicians are set to increase their subsidies to these fuels to nearly seven trillion by 2025.

 

By Elizabeth Mrema
MONTREAL, Canada, Nov 4 2022 (IPS)

It is no secret that humankind’s past actions have accelerated the deterioration of ecosystems, negatively impacting our economies, societies, health, and cultures. It is estimated that humans have altered over 97% of ecosystems worldwide, to date. One million species are currently threatened with extinction (IPBES). The writing on the wall is clear. Our planet is in crisis. The sobering reality is that if we continue on our current trajectory, biodiversity and the services it provides will continue to decline, jeopardizing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and our lives as we know them. The decline in biodiversity is expected to further accelerate unless effective action is taken to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss. These causes are often justified by societal values, norms and behaviors. Some examples include unsustainable production and consumption patterns, human population dynamics and trends, and technological innovation patterns.

Elizabeth Mrema

With biodiversity declining faster than any other time in human history, our quality of life, our well-being, and our economies are under threat. Over 44 trillion US dollars of assets globally, or over half of the world’s GDP, is at risk from biodiversity loss (WEF). Our economies are embedded in natural systems and depend considerably on the flow of ecosystem goods and services, such as food, other raw materials, pollination, water filtration, and climate regulation. But we still have a chance. We still have a narrow window in which to transform our relationship with biodiversity and create a healthy, profitable, sustainable future. We can still bend the curve of biodiversity loss and leave future generations with prosperity and hope. We can still move to support ecosystem resilience, human well-being, and global prosperity.

This has deemed this the decisive decade. This is because after this decade, once we move past 2030, the damage done to our planet will be beyond repair. That doesn’t give us much time but it does still give us a chance. This December in Montreal, Canada we will get that chance. It is likely our only chance. I can’t emphasize that enough. This December, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will bring world leaders together to address the biodiversity crisis at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15). Truth be told, the outcome of COP 15 will determine the trajectory of humankind on planet Earth.

The ultimate goal of COP 15 is to emerge with a plan, a roadmap to a sustainable future. We call it the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF). The framework is currently being negotiated by Parties under the Convention on Biological Diversity and represents a historic opportunity to accelerate action on biodiversity at all levels. It aims to build on the outcomes of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets and achieve the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature. The draft framework, if adopted and implemented, will put biodiversity on a path to recovery before the end of this decade.

Why is it critical that the GBF is adopted and implemented? Because 90% of seabirds have plastic in their stomachs (WWF UK). Because we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute (WWF LPR). Because an estimated 4 billion people rely primarily on natural medicines for their health care and some 70 per cent of drugs used for cancer are natural or are synthetic products inspired by nature (IPBES). Because Ecosystem-based approaches (biodiversity) can provide up to 30% of the climate mitigation needed by 2030. Because monitored wildlife populations, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish, have seen a devastating 69% drop on average since 1970 (WWF LPR). I could go on and on.

Some key targets within the draft framework include:

o Ensuring that at least 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas are protected.
o Preventing or reducing the rate of introduction and establishment of invasive alien species by 50%.
o Reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, pesticides by at least two thirds, and eliminate discharge of plastic waste.
o Using ecosystem-based approaches to contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change and ensuring that all climate efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity.
o Redirecting, repurposing, reforming or eliminating incentives harmful for biodiversity in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least $500 billion per year.
o Increasing financial resources from all sources to at least US$ 200 billion per year, including new, additional and effective financial resources, increasing by at least US$ 10 billion per year international financial flows to developing countries.

The post-2020 global biodiversity framework is not just important, it is critical. It will take a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach and it will take hard work and commitment; but we can do it. We need to act now to bend the curve to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. COP 15 will be a the most crucial and decisive step towards a better and more sustainable future for generations to come. This is our chance. It’s time to decide on a future.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a national of the United Republic of Tanzania, is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Noeleen Heyzer, UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar, talks with Rohingya refugees in a camp in Bangladesh. October 2022. Credit: Office of the Special Envoy on Myanmar

By Jan Servaes
BRUSSELS, Nov 4 2022 (IPS)

For 10 days in November, the world’s diplomatic attention will largely be focused on three major diplomatic meetings in Southeast Asia.

These include the Group of 20 (G-20) Summit on November 15-16 in Bali, Indonesia, and the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, which will be held November 18-19 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Both follow the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and related meetings, which will take place November 8-13 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and include the East Asia Summit.

The meeting in Cambodia will be the first ASEAN meeting that US President Biden will attend in person as last year’s meetings were held remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He will also become only the second sitting U.S. president to visit the country, after President Barack Obama (also for an ASEAN meeting) in 2012.

While in Cambodia, Biden will, according to a White House statement, “explain the importance of advocating cooperation between the US and ASEAN in ensuring security and prosperity in the region, and the well-being of our combined one billion people”.

This is likely to include much reference to ASEAN’s important position in Washington’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy, and its emphasis on its prized position of ‘centrality’ in Asian diplomacy.

The crisis in Myanmar will also be central to all these meetings. In preparation, in June 2022, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) launched an International Parliamentary Inquiry (IPI) into the global response to the crisis in Myanmar with the aim of providing strategic, principled, achievable and time-bound policy recommendations to international actors, so that they can better work towards an end to violence and a return to democracy in the country.

Their report, titled “Time is not on our side – The failed international response to the Myanmar coup,” was presented at a press conference in Bangkok on Nov. 2.

The IPI is formed by a committee of MPs from seven different countries in Africa, America, Asia and Europe, consisting of IPI President Heidi Hautala (Vice President of the European Parliament), Mercy Chriesty Barends (Member of the House of Representatives in Indonesia and Board Member of APHR), Taufik Basari (Member of the House of Representatives in Indonesia), Amadou Camara (Member of the Gambia National Assembly, and Steering Committee Member of the African Parliamentary Association on Human Rights), Nqabayomzi Kwankwa (Member of the National Assembly Assembly of South Africa, and Chairman of the AfriPAHR), Ilhan Omar (US Congress member), Nitipon Piwmow (MP in Thailand) and Charles Santiago (MP in Malaysia and President of APHR).

The report: “Time is not on our side”

Since the military of Myanmar staged a coup d’état on February 1, 2021, the situation in the country has steadily deteriorated. The military junta, led by Major General Min Aung Hlaing, has waged a brutal war of attrition against its own people, perpetrating countless atrocities and destroying the country’s economy.

Armed forces have killed at least 2,371 people and displaced hundreds of thousands, bringing the total number of displaced persons in the country to more than 1.3 million. The junta has also imprisoned more than 15,000 political prisoners and routinely used torture against those arrested. At the same time, they cracked down on freedom of expression and association, including intense repression against independent media and civil society.

Yet the Burmese resisted en masse. The initial peaceful demonstrations in the immediate aftermath of the coup, as well as the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in which hundreds of thousands joined a general strike, demonstrated the population’s overwhelming rejection of a return to military rule. The coup has also led to an unprecedented level of unity among those who oppose the military across ethnic borders.

Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) was formed in April 2021 bringing together parliamentarians ousted in the coup, representatives of ethnic minorities and civil society actors. The NUG rightly claims a mandate as a legitimate representative of the Myanmar people. It enjoys widespread legitimacy and support, especially in the interior of the country, and represents the most inclusive government in Myanmar’s history.

The NUG is committed to the establishment of a new constitution and genuine federal democracy in Myanmar, which would be an important step towards fulfilling the ambitions for autonomy of the country’s ethnic minorities.

The junta’s attempts to quell the resistance with extreme violence failed dramatically, serving only to exacerbate existing tensions and incite some anti-junta activists to turn to armed struggle to defend themselves. Anti-military militias known as People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) – some commanded by the NUG – have been formed across the country, including in previously relatively peaceful areas.

The coup has also sparked a new wave of violence between the military and the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), which have struggled for decades for autonomy in the country’s border regions.

Some of these EAOs, such as the armed wings of the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), have joined the NUG. However, not all EAOs have formally joined the anti-military struggle as Myanmar’s political landscape remains highly complex and fractured.

The escalating violence has accelerated the near collapse of the economy and an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Myanmar’s GDP has fallen by 13 percent since 2019 and 40 percent of the country’s population now lives below the national poverty line. Despite the increased needs, humanitarian actors have struggled to reach vulnerable and remote populations as the military has severely restricted access for humanitarian aid.

Poor response by international community

The international community has been largely unable to respond effectively to the crisis. The junta’s international allies—notably Russia and China—prove steadfast and uncritical supporters, providing both weapons and legitimacy to an otherwise isolated regime.

However, foreign governments that support democracy have not supported their rhetoric with the same force. While a number of countries have imposed sanctions on junta leaders and their personal assets, these efforts remain uncoordinated and have failed to crack down on key revenue-generating entities such as the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).

The United Nations, in particular, is hampered by internal divisions and appears unable to exert any influence. The NUG has attracted supporters worldwide and continues to occupy Myanmar’s seat at the UN, but most governments are hesitant to formally recognize them, despite calls from parliaments and advocates to do so.

ASEAN unable to respond effectively

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, is also plagued by internal divisions and has been unable to respond effectively. The bloc’s five-point consensus, signed in April 2021 and aimed at tackling the crisis, has failed completely, hampered by a lack of will on the part of all ASEAN member states to enforce it, and a military leadership in Myanmar that has shown no intent to implement it.

While some member states, such as Malaysia, have called for new approaches, including direct involvement with the NUG and other pro-democracy forces, others, including Thailand or Cambodia, remain “junta enablers.”

As Myanmar slides into civil war, the possibility for a negotiated solution to the conflict is almost completely closed. The dialogue prescribed in ASEAN’s five-point consensus is impossible under the current circumstances.

The responsibility lies with the junta, which has shown no willingness to engage with those who oppose it and has instead relied solely on brute force in its effort to wipe out any opposition.

The July 2022 execution of four political prisoners, the country’s first judicial execution since 1988, highlighted both the brutality of the military and its complete disinterest in negotiations. The coup unceremoniously brought an end to the previous power-sharing arrangement with the civilian leadership. Now the vast majority of Myanmar’s population has expressed a clear desire not to return to the status quo of the past.

The military junta has failed to consolidate its power

Nineteen months after the coup, the military junta has failed to consolidate its power. This is also apparent from a recent report by Noeleen Heyzer, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar. Large parts of Myanmar’s territory are disputed between the military and forces affiliated with the NUG or EAOs, and it can be argued that the coup has failed.

In areas along the Thai border, EAOs are working together, providing basic services to the population. That way one is showing what a future Myanmar, in which different groups will work together instead of fighting each other, looks like.

In sum

With Myanmar’s future at stake, external pressure on the military and support for the resistance could be the deciding factor in the course of the conflict. The international community can and must do more to help the Myanmar people establish a federal democracy.

It should begin significantly increasing efforts to address the worsening humanitarian crisis, increasing pressure on the illegal junta through coordinated sanctions and arms embargoes, and recognizing the NUG as the legitimate authority in Myanmar.

The NUG, as well as the aligned EAOs, should be provided with funding and capacity building programs in governance and federalism. But urgent action is needed because, as Khin Ohmar, Myanmar activist and chairwoman of the Progressive Voice, said at one of the IPI hearings: “Time is not on our side”.

The countries and international institutions that claim to support democracy in Myanmar must act urgently. If they are serious about helping the Myanmar people in their hour of greatest need, they must adopt creative and effective policies to provide support and pave the way for a better future for the country.

Min Aung Hlaing’s junta has failed to take control of the country, but pro-democracy forces cannot drive the military out of Myanmar’s political life on their own. The forces fighting for federal democracy need all the help they can get from allies in the global community.

Recommendations

The International Parliamentary Inquiry (IPI) makes a number of recommendations that focus on the urgent need to increase humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, to urge neighboring countries (notably Thailand, India and Bangladesh) to provide more cross-border humanitarian aid and to work as much as possible directly with local, community-based aid groups, and not with the junta.

Pressure on the junta must also be increased, through coordinated and genuinely impactful sanctions. For instance, by calling on governments that have not yet sanctioned the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), especially the United States, to do so as soon as possible.

At the same time, Myanmar’s pro-democracy forces – including the NUG and ethnic organizations– should be recognized and given the political and financial support they need. The NUG and EAOs should start negotiating a future settlement for a federal democracy in Myanmar.

The NUG should also be encouraged to unconditionally restore Rohingya citizenship and accept the return of those who have sought refuge in Bangladesh over the years.

One should acknowledge that the five-point consensus has failed and that Min Aung Hlaing’s junta is not a reliable partner. ASEAN must abandon the five-point consensus in its current form and negotiate a new agreement on the crisis in Myanmar with the NUG, local civil society organizations (CSOs) and representatives of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs).

Jan Servaes was UNESCO-Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He taught ‘international communication’ in Australia, Belgium, China, Hong Kong, the US, Netherlands and Thailand, in addition to short-term projects at about 120 universities in 55 countries. He is editor of the 2020 Handbook on Communication for Development and Social Change.
https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 4 2022 (IPS)

The COP 27 climate summit is taking place amid a rash of political, economic and environmental upheavals, including missed funding and emission targets, increased pollution and climate devastation, rising global inflation, cuts in Western development assistance and the negative after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The summit—the 27th Conference of State Parties (COP27), scheduled for November 6 through 18– is billed as one of the largest annual gatherings on climate action, this time in the Egyptian coastal town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Brussels-based Centre for UN Constitutional Research (CUNCR) predicts COP27 “will likely face the same empty promises and no actions by most big countries responsible for climate change.”

In a message during the launch of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Adaptation Gap report released on the eve of COP27, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warns “the world is failing to protect people from the here-and-now impacts of the climate crisis”.

“Those on the front lines of the climate crisis are at the back of the line for support. The world is falling far short, both in stopping the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and starting desperately needed efforts, to plan, finance and implement adaptation in light of growing risks”.

He also pointed out that adaptation needs in the developing world are set to skyrocket to as much as $340 billion a year by 2030.

“Yet adaptation support today stands at less than one-tenth of that amount. The most vulnerable people and communities are paying the price. This is unacceptable,” Guterres said.

Gadir Lavadenz, Global Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ), told IPS COP 27 cannot be another example of how power is usurped.

“It is outrageous to still see big corporations manipulating and dominating this process. Big polluters have a role to play, stop polluting and not use the climate COPs to greenwash their actions. COP 27 must deliver a strong message to the world that the multilateral system can still play a role in the climate crisis”.

Lavadenz also pointed out that the annual $100 billion target was not only evaded systematically by developed nations, but it has demonstrated to be insufficient to deal with the magnitude of our climate crisis and there is growing evidence of this.

“COP 27, unlike its predecessor, should move away from false solutions like geo-engineering, carbon offsets, nature-based solutions and others and instead focus on the matters that have the potential to impact the most vulnerable countries and groups”.

Finance is not about cold numbers, but about the lives at risk in this very moment and that have no means to deal with a problem caused by the consumerist culture of a small privileged portion of this world.

“COP 27 cannot be remembered as just another meeting, but as a moment to show progress and hope through real solutions”, declared Lavadenz, who is the Coordinator of a global network of over 200 grassroot, regional, and global networks and organizations advocating climate justice.

Flagging a new report from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters October 26 that countries are bending the curve of global greenhouse gas emissions downward, but the report underscores that these efforts remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The report shows that current commitments will increase emissions by 10.6 per cent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels.

This is considered an improvement over last year’s assessment, which found that countries were on a path to increase emissions by 13.7 per cent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels, “but it is still not good news”.

Just 26 of 193 countries that agreed last year to intensify their climate actions have followed through, pointing Earth toward a future marked by climate catastrophes, according to the U.N. report

Meena Raman, a Senior Researcher at the Third World Network, a member organization of Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ), told IPS the $100 billion target is supposed to be $100 billion per year.

“This target is not expected to be realised and is complicated by how climate finance is counted.”

She pointed out that the definition of what climate finance is in itself an issue being addressed at the COP.

“Given that many developing countries are in debt distress, the provision of more loans which need to be paid back presents a very major problem for those countries who need the finance”.

What is needed, she argued, is more grants for especially tackling adaptation needs and funds to address loss and damage.

Meeting the climate finance needs of developing countries through non-debt creating instruments is critical, including through the reform and re-channeling of Special Drawing Rights as outright grants for climate finance.

COP 27 must not be a lost cause. It is the time for implementing in real terms the commitments made by developed countries, Raman declared.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters last week: “When we were together at COP26, (in Scotland in October-November 2021), we brought forward a declaration, a statement, for the elimination or the reduction of methane gas by 30 percent by 2030.”

“We are now looking at most countries committing to this. If everyone did this, this would be the equivalent of removing all vehicles and all the ships and all the planes that are currently out in the world in terms of emissions. So, we can have a real impact. We can do what is needed to maintain the 1.5 degree Celsius rise of temperature”, he declared.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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With time running out, the meeting in Egypt will mark the moment when we start to see if the pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow, are being met. Credit: Shutterstock

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
NEW YORK, Nov 3 2022 (IPS)

So, Greta Thunberg won’t be coming to COP27. She’s condemned it as “greenwashing” and cast doubts on the host’s human rights record and lack of access for activists.

To be clear, we have nothing but admiration for what Greta Thunberg has accomplished as far as increasing the pressure on our political leaders to do more. We agree with her completely that a lot more is needed, and fast.

But when it comes to COP27, we hope she’ll change her mind. We have three reasons for this: the impact of diplomacy, the urgency of the situation, and COP27’s role convening people with power and influence.

 

Diplomacy works

One reason she has given for not attending is her concern that civil society representation may be less this time around, and she doesn’t want to take someone else’s place. This is thoughtful. However, Greta Thunberg has access to leaders’ others may not. Her presence could have a significant impact.
While Greta Thunberg is right that many international events are mostly “blah, blah, blah,” the United Nations negotiations on climate change have achieved a lot more than many people realize. Prior to the Paris Climate agreement in 2015, for instance, we were on a trajectory of 4-6 degrees Celsius rise in temperature by the end of the century. Now, estimates suggest we’re on track for somewhere around 2.4-2.8 C, if current pledges are met. While this would be a terrible scenario to have to face, it would be less apocalyptic than those higher numbers.

As we have pointed out in a previous article, international negotiations on climate change have had a profound impact already, kickstarting the shift away from two centuries of fossil fuel dependence and giving us at least a chance of achieving sustainability in the longer term. Just days ago, the International Energy Agency forecast that global emissions will peak in 2025 before beginning to fall. Furthermore, they see all types of fossil fuels “peaking or hitting a plateau” then, too.

Do we wish this had happened sooner? Absolutely. But it shows progress is being made. Besides, there is no alternative to an international process when it comes to dealing with a global problem of this magnitude. No country, company, or coalition, can solve this problem alone. We all need to work together.

 

Urgency means everyone joining the fight

We agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Thunberg’s exhortation for everyone to “mobilize” and be involved in solving this challenge. Many folks may choose to be activists or advocates for change, pressuring their home governments to be more ambitious, taking action locally, or changing their habits as consumers or investors. Thunberg is also quite right that time is running out; the science tells us the window of opportunity to restrict warming to 1.5C or less is closing rapidly.

Yet this is exactly why COP27 is so important. With time running out, the meeting in Egypt will mark the moment where we start to see if the pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow, are being met. Is the global community sticking to its promises or falling short? COP27 will give us an opportunity to review, press for greater urgency, and draw global attention to those who are keeping their promises and those who are not.

The decision at COP26 to not wait for 5 years until governments submit improved National Determined Contributions, but to ask all countries to update their NDCs by COP27, is also important.

A total of 39 Parties have communicated new or updated NDCs since COP26, including critical countries such as Australia and India. This is clearly not enough, but it is a start. The same request should be made at COP27, pressuring countries to review their NDCs in time for COP28.

 

Influencing the powerful

Finally, UN climate summits present a once-a-year opportunity to engage with powerful politicians and urge decisions on the climate threat. With time so short, no one who can influence the process should stay away.

Greta Thunberg has already had an outsized influence inspiring people to action and persuading politicians to take the issue more seriously. Her presence at COP27 would undoubtedly make a difference.

One reason she has given for not attending is her concern that civil society representation may be less this time around, and she doesn’t want to take someone else’s place. This is thoughtful. However, Greta Thunberg has access to leaders’ others may not. Her presence could have a significant impact.

For these reasons, we hope Ms. Thunberg will reconsider and use her influence to its fullest at COP27. As we write this, it appears that another powerful figure who had earlier ruled out attending may be changing their mind.

New British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had initially also said he wouldn’t attend, citing the country’s financial and energy challenges and urgent budget planning as the reason for staying home.

However, he has now had a change of heart. The public response to his initial decision, as well as concerns from industry and civil society, made the Prime Minister reconsiders his position. This is welcome news and, we believe, the right decision.

If Rishi Sunak wishes to build on the UK’s solid performance at COP26 and burnish his country’s reputation for taking climate change seriously, we hope he attends with not just positive rhetoric, but new commitments and financing. It would be a positive signal if King Charles also attended.

After all, the UK is still the President of the COP until the start of COP27. Missing the next COP would not have sent the right message to the UK’s partners and the global community in general.

With no other realistic way to solve climate change than the multilateral system, we urge Greta Thunberg to follow Rishi Sunak’s lead and join the gathering. In fact, all of those in positions of power or influence should come to Sharm ready to work for the best agreement possible. As John F. Kennedy said. “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate”.

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in UN environmental negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022), which examines the roles of individuals in inspiring environmental change.

Excerpt:

Her recent announcement that she will not attend COP27 is understandable, but we still hope she’ll reconsider. By Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence.

Aerial view of the community water system located in the canton of El Zapote, in the municipality of Suchitoto in central El Salvador. Mounted on the roof are the 96 solar panels that generate the electricity needed to power the entire electrical and hydraulic mechanism that brings water to more than 2,500 families in this rural area of the country, which in the 1980s was the scene of heavy fighting during the Salvadoran civil war. CREDIT: Alex Leiva/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador , Nov 3 2022 (IPS)

The need for potable water led several rural settlements in El Salvador, at the end of the 12-year civil war in 1992, to rebuild what was destroyed and to innovate with technologies that at the time seemed unattainable, but which now benefit hundreds of families.

Several communities located in areas that were once the scene of armed conflict are now supplied with water through community systems powered by clean energy, such as solar power."The advantage is that the systems are powered by clean, renewable energies that do not pollute the environment.” -- Karilyn Vides

“The advantage is that the systems are powered by clean, renewable energies that do not pollute the environment,” Karilyn Vides, director of operations in El Salvador for the U.S.-based organization Companion Community Development Alternatives (CoCoDA), told IPS.

Hope where there was once war

The organization, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, has supported the development of 10 community water systems in El Salvador since 1992, five of them powered by solar energy.

These initiatives have benefited some 10,000 people whose water systems were destroyed during the conflict. Local residents had to start from scratch after returning years later.

A local resident of the Sitio el Zapotal community in El Zapote canton, El Salvador, turns on the tap to fill his sink to collect the water he will need for the day. A total of 10,000 people have benefited from the five solar-powered community water projects in El Salvador since 2010. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

This small Central American country experienced a bloody civil war between 1980 and 1992, which left some 75,000 people dead and more than 8,000 missing.

“Before leaving their communities, some families had water systems, but when they returned they had been completely destroyed, and they had to be rebuilt,” Vides said, during a tour by IPS to the Junta Administradora de Agua Potable or water board in the canton of El Zapote, Suchitoto municipality, in the central Salvadoran department of Cuscatlán.

In El Salvador, the term Junta Administradora de Agua Potable refers to community associations that, on their own initiative, manage to drill a well, build a tank and the entire distribution structure to provide service where the government has not had the capacity to do so.

There are an estimated 2,500 such water boards in the country, which provide service to 25 percent of the population, or some 1.6 million people, according to local environmental organizations.

But most of the water boards operate with hydroelectric power provided by the national grid, while the villages around Suchitoto have managed, with the support of CoCoDA and local organizations, to run on solar energy.

The community water project in the Salvadoran community of Sitio El Zapotal was driven by the efforts of local residents and international donors. At the foot of the catchment tank stand Karilyn Vides of CoCoDA, consultant and former guerrilla fighter René Luarca (front) – a member of the project’s water board – and former guerrilla Luis Antonio Landaverde (left), together with two technicians. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

This area is located on the slopes of the Guazapa mountain north of San Salvador, which during the civil war was a key stronghold of the then guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), now a political party that governed the country between 2009 and 2019.

Some of the people behind the creation of the water board in the canton of El Zapote were part of the guerrilla units entrenched on Guazapa mountain.

“This area was heavily bombed and shelled, day and night,” Luis Antonio Landaverde, 56, a former guerrilla fighter who had to leave the front lines when a bomb explosion fractured his leg in July 1985, told IPS.

“A bomb dropped by an A37 plane fell nearby and broke my right leg, and I could no longer fight,” said Landaverde, who sits on the El Zapote water board.

The Junta de Agua del Cantón El Zapote, in central El Salvador, is the largest solar-powered community water project in the country, although it uses electricity from the national grid, from hydroelectric sources, as backup. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Peasant farmers in the technological vanguard

At the end of the war in 1992, communities in the foothills of Guazapa began to organize themselves to set up their community water systems, at first using the national power grid, generated by hydroelectric sources.

Then they realized that the cost of the electricity and bringing the grid to remote villages was too high, and necessity and creativity drove them to look for other options.

“I was already very involved in alternative energy, and we thought that bringing in electricity would be as expensive as installing a solar energy system,” René Luarca, one of the architects of the use of sunlight in the community systems, told IPS.

The first solar-powered water system was built in 2010 in the Zacamil II community, in the Suchitoto area, benefiting some 40 families.

And because it worked so well, four similar projects followed in 2017.

Two were carried out around that municipality, and another in the rural area of the department of Cabañas, in the north of the country.

Given the project’s success, an effort was even made to develop a similar system in the community of Zacataloza, in the municipality of Ciudad Antigua, in the department of Nueva Segovia in northwestern Nicaragua.

The total investment exceeded 200,000 dollars, financed by CoCoDA’s U.S. partner organizations.

However, these were smallscale initiatives, benefiting an average of 100 families per project.

“There were eight panels, they were tiny, like little toys,” said Luarca, 80, known in the area as “Jerry,” his pseudonym during the war when he was a guerrilla in the National Resistance, one of the five organizations that made up the FMLN.

Then came the big challenge: to set up the project in the canton of El Zapote, which would require more panels and would provide water to a much larger number of families.

“This has been the biggest challenge, because there are no longer four panels – there are 96,” said Luarca.

A valve connected to the pump of the community water system in central El Salvador measures the pressure at which the liquid is being pumped to a catchment tank, located on a hill five kilometers away. The water flows down by gravity to the beneficiary families, who pay a monthly fee of six dollars for 12 cubic meters of water. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

The water system in El Zapote is a hybrid setup. This allows it to use solar energy as the main source, but it is backed up by the national grid, fueled by hydropower, when there is no sunshine or there are other types of failures.

“Since it is a fairly large system, it is not 100 percent solar, but is hybrid, so that it has both options,” explained Eliseo Zamora, 42, who is in charge of monitoring the operation of the equipment.

Using the pump, driven by a 30-horsepower motor, water is piped from the well to a tank perched on top of a hill, about five kilometers away as the crow flies.

From there, water flows by gravity down to the villages through a 25-kilometer network of pipes that zigzag under the subsoil, until reaching the families’ taps.

The project started when the armed conflict ended, but it took several years to buy the land, with resources from the six communities involved, and to acquire the machinery for the hydraulic system. It began operating in 2004 with electricity from the national grid, before CoCoDA switched to supporting the solar infrastructure.

For the installation of the panels and the adaptation of the system, the water board contributed 14,000 dollars, part of it from the hours worked by the villagers.

The new solar power system was inaugurated in June 2022 and benefits some 10 communities in the area – more than 2,500 families.

The service fee is six dollars per month for 12 cubic meters of water. For each additional cubic meter, the users are charged 0.55 cents.

“Our water is excellent, it is good for all kinds of human consumption,” the president of the water board, Ángela Pineda, told IPS.

Related Articles

• Rural Water Boards Play Vital Role for Salvadoran Farmers

Petrol pump in Rome. Credit: Paul Virgo/IPS

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Nov 3 2022 (IPS)

When it comes to moral endorsements, having the Vatican’s backing takes some beating. So the international campaign for a legally binding Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty took a huge step forward in July when Cardinal Michael Czerny, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, gave it his total support.

“The planet already is 1.2°C hotter (with respect to pre-industrial levels), yet new fossil fuel projects every day accelerate our race towards the precipice,” the Czech-Canadian prelate said.

“Enough is enough. All new exploration and production of coal, oil, and gas must immediately end, and existing production of fossil fuels must be urgently phased out.

“This must be a just transition for impacted workers into environmentally sound alternatives. The proposed Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty holds great promise to complement and enhance the Paris Agreement”.

Fossil fuels are responsible for 86% of carbon emissions in the past decade. So despite our efforts over the last 30 years, emissions have continued to increase, and this hasn’t changed since the Paris Agreement was signed seven years ago

The name of the proposed treaty has a familiar ring as it is inspired by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) that came into force in 1970 and successfully helped reduce the threat of nuclear war.

The supporters of the proposed treaty say that, like atomic bombs, fossil fuels pose an existential threat to humankind as they are the main cause of the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis.

“Fossil fuels have been equated as weapons of mass destruction because of the way they threaten our ability to protect livelihoods, security, and the planet,” Rebecca Byrnes, the Deputy Director of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, told IPS.

“Fossil fuels are responsible for 86% of carbon emissions in the past decade. So despite our efforts over the last 30 years, emissions have continued to increase, and this hasn’t changed since the Paris Agreement was signed seven years ago”.

Under the Paris Agreement, the international community agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to a degree necessary to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, and, failing that, to keep them “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels.

But Byrnes said that, as things currently stand, governments plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels consistent with limiting global temperature rises to within a 1.5-degree trajectory by 2030, and 10% more than their own climate pledges.

So, she argued that a separate treaty specifically dealing with fossil fuels is needed to stop States from making empty pledges on climate policy.

“We need both domestic action and international cooperation to explicitly stop the expansion of fossil fuel production and therefore emissions,” she said.

“Only addressing half of the equation has allowed countries and companies to claim climate leadership while also supporting new coal, oil and gas extraction projects, directly or indirectly.

“In countries that are particularly dependent on fossil fuel profits for government revenue and economic development, fossil fuel supply is now a driver of demand.

“It will not be possible to reduce demand for, and therefore emissions from, fossil fuels without first breaking this fossil-fuel lock-in through phase-out, economic diversification measures and finding new development opportunities.

“A Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty will complement and implement the Paris Agreement by directly addressing the supply side of the equation and providing support to fossil-fuel-dependent developing countries to make this transition”.

One of the positive aspects of the treaty would be that it would help put an end to the perverse situation in which States are sometimes forced to pay compensation to polluters when they put a halt to fossil-fuel projects because of the protection that corporations enjoy under legal mechanisms such as the Energy Charter Treaty.

“A Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty will mitigate the risk of legal liability faced by country governments in both national courts and international tribunals, by providing legal justification for phase-out policies,” Byrnes said.

Critics have suggested the plan is simply too ambitious to ever come to fruition.

The treaty campaign might have the Vatican on its side, but the fossil-fuel lobby has powerful allies, lots of money and it has not been shy about using its clout to sow doubt about the climate crisis and stop or delay emissions cuts.

“Some of the criticism we get on the idea of the treaty is that it’s unfeasible and that we don’t have time to negotiate something like this,” said Byrnes.

“The same was erroneously said about weapons treaties.

“But we don’t have time for more of the same. We know it’s unlikely that oil-producing countries will enthusiastically embrace a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and the fossil fuel industry has huge influence.

“But so did the tobacco industry at one point before the formation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

“Just creating the concept of a treaty is already sparking new ambition and new conversations”.

Indeed, the treaty campaign is on a roll.

It has the support of over 100 Nobel Laureates, including the Dalai Lama, and dozens of the world’s biggest cities, such as London, Barcelona, Paris, Montreal, Lima, Buenos Aires and Los Angeles.

In September the World Health Organization joined the host of international organizations backing the campaign.

“The modern addiction to fossil fuels is not just an act of environmental vandalism. From the health perspective, it is an act of self-sabotage,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Vanuatu became the first nation-state to call for a fossil fuel treaty in the speech made by President Nikenike Vurobaravu at this year’s United Nations General Assembly.

And on October 20 the European Parliament called on nation-states to “work on developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty” in a resolution outlining its demands for COP27.

“The world has seen treaties deliver when the world has needed to manage, restrict and phase out dangerous products, including weapons of mass destruction, ozone depleting substances and tobacco,” concluded Byrnes .

“Today, we see oil and gas are fuelling war in Ukraine and elsewhere, and are a paramount danger that demands of us and world governments to rally behind a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty”.

It is possible to endorse the call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty via the campaign’s website.

Furthermore, the Parents For Future Global network of climate parent groups has launched a letter that people can sign online to express their support.

Africa’s laboratories need to step up testing to aid in fighting Anti-Microbial Resistance. This photo is a 3D computer-generated image of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, the pathogen responsible for causing the disease tuberculosis (TB). Credit: CDC/Unsplash

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Nov 3 2022 (IPS)

African countries must find a way of fighting Anti-Microbial Resistance in the healthcare system to avoid unnecessary deaths.

A few months ago, the President of the Ghana Public Health Association, Amofah George, narrated how he saw a patient die after failing to respond to all the available antibiotics used for managing her septicemic condition, blood poisoning, especially caused by bacteria or their toxins. He attributed the situation to antibiotic resistance, or Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) which he said has become a growing pandemic.

The problem is simple: Africa’s healthcare system does not routinely rely on laboratories to produce tests for treatment. AMR programme manager of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), Edwin Shumba, told IPS, “Ghana, like other countries on the continent, rely on a few medical laboratories to conduct bacteriology testing as part of the routine clinical services.”

“This means that doctors are flying blind when prescribing a treatment to their patients, and public health experts do not have an insight of what is ongoing in terms of AMR, at hospital and national level,” Shumba said.

“The growing threat of AMR has implications for patient care: the antibiotics that used to work will not be able to cure the infections caused by resistant bacteria anymore. This means more that infections might take longer to cure, might be more severe (mortality, morbidity), and will cost more to the society.”

Worried by the increasing cases of AMR, the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM) has spearheaded a study, and data from 14 sub-Saharan countries show that only five out of the 15 antibiotic-resistant pathogens – a bacterium, virus, or other microorganisms that can cause disease –designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a priority are being consistently tested, and that all five demonstrated high resistance.

Across the 14 countries, clinical and treatment data are not being linked to laboratory results, making it hard to understand what’s driving AMR. Out of almost 187,000 samples tested for AMR, around 88% had no information on patients’ clinical profile, including diagnosis/origin of infection, presence of indwelling devices (such as urinary catheters, feeding tubes, and wound drains) often associated with development of healthcare-associated infection, comorbidities, or antimicrobial usage. The remaining 12% had incomplete information.

The multi-year, multi-country study was carried out by the Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial use Partnership (MAAP), a consortium spearheaded by the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), with partners including the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the One Health Trust, the West African Health Organization (WAHO), the East, Central, and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters, and IQVIA. It provides stark insights into the under-reported depth of the AMR crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to address the emergency.

MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016 to 2019 from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Eswatini, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Gabon, and Cameroon. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.

The researchers found that most African laboratories are not ready for AMR testing. Only 1.3% of the 50,000 medical laboratories forming the laboratory networks of the 14 participating countries conduct bacteriology testing. And of those, only a fraction can handle the scientific processes needed to evaluate AMR. Researchers also found that in eight of the 14 countries, more than half of the population is out of reach of any bacteriology laboratory.

The study results provide insights into the AMR burden and antimicrobial consumption in the 14 countries where most available AMR data is based only on statistical modeling. The effort by MAAP is the first of its kind to systematically collect, process, and evaluate large quantities of AMR and antimicrobial consumption (AMC) data in Africa.

The WHO has repeatedly stated that AMR is a global health priority—and is, in fact, one of the leading public health threats of the 21st century. A recent study estimated that, in 2019, nearly 1.3 million deaths globally were attributed to antimicrobial-resistant bacterial infections. Africa was found to have the highest mortality rate from AMR infections in the world, with 24 deaths per 100,000 attributable to AMR.

ASLM’s director of science and new initiatives, Pascale Ondoa, said, “Africa is struggling to fight drug-resistant pathogens, just like the rest of the world, but our struggle is compounded by the fact that we don’t have an accurate picture of how antimicrobial resistance is impacting our citizens and health systems.”

The research also found that only four drugs comprised more than two-thirds (67%) of all the antibiotics used in healthcare settings. Stronger medicines to treat more resistant infections (such as severe pneumonia, sepsis, and complicated intra-abdominal infections) were unavailable, suggesting limited access to some groups of antibiotics.

ASLM’s chief executive Nqobile Ndlovu said, “Across Africa, even where data on antimicrobial resistance is collected, it is not always accessible, often recorded by hand, and rarely consolidated or shared with policymakers; as a result, health experts are flying blind and cannot develop and deploy policies that would limit or curtail antimicrobial resistance.”

“The disconnect between patient data and antimicrobial resistance results, coupled with the extreme antimicrobial resistance burden, makes it incredibly difficult to provide accurate guidelines for patient care and wider public health policies,” said Dr Yewande Alimi, Africa CDC AMR programme coordinator. “Hence, collecting and connecting laboratory, pharmacy, and clinical data will be essential to provide a baseline and a reference for public health actions.”

“Collectively, the data highlights a dual problem of limited access to antibiotics and irrational use of those that are available,” said IQVIA’s head of Public Health (Africa and Middle East) and Real-World Evidence (Middle East), Deepak Batra.

“As a result, people don’t get the right treatment for severe infections, and irrational use of antibiotics drives antimicrobial resistance for existing available treatment options. Routine monitoring of antimicrobial consumption could help monitor the limited access and irrational use,” he added.

Based on the findings, MAAP calls for a drastic increase in the quality and quantity of AMR and AMC data being collected across the continent, along with revised AMR control strategies and research priorities.

For Shumba, Ghana, like the rest of Africa, can fight AMR by including critical interventions in revised versions of the national AMR Action plans, essential medicine Lists, laboratory strategies, and standard treatment guidelines.

“This heavy toll on the health systems poses a major threat to progress made in health and in the attainment of Universal Health Coverage, the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals,” he added.

Shumba said the AMR coordinating committee of Ghana could assist other policymakers in using the evidence gathered by the MAAP project to refine their strategies for AMR containment. In addition, they can plan to increase the number and capacity of medical laboratories to conduct bacteriology testing in the country.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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UN Security Council Meets on Maintenance of Peace and Security of Ukraine. October 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Joseph Gerson
NEW YORK, Nov 3 2022 (IPS)

On November 1, a statement of solidarity with Russians opposed to the Ukraine War was published. It was signed by more than 1,000 U.S. men and women who had opposed the U.S. invasions of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

At a time when the Ukraine War increasingly resembles the trench warfare of the First World War and the spiraling escalation of the Cuban Missile Crisis, leading U.S. peace organizations co-sponsored the statement, which also called for negotiations to end the catastrophic Ukraine War.

The announcement was first sent to a friend in St. Petersburg Russia who must remain unnamed. He is a humble and dedicated scientist who lost his job years ago after revealing independent radiation measurements that he took following the Chernobyl meltdown.

On the day following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this man had signed and was publicizing a petition signed by more in a million Russians condemning the imperial invasion of Ukraine and calling for those who had ordered it to be tried as war criminals. In public and discrete ways, he and others continue to oppose the war despite the risk of serious imprisonment.

The second person to receive our statement was a Russian psychologist who fled Russia shortly before the war. She uses social media to connect with and organize people left behind and others in the Russian diaspora. And, before the statement went to the press and out via social media, it went to Yurii Sheliazhenko, a courageous Ukrainian professor and pacifist who has been speaking inconvenient truths about the futility of war and who had earlier translated our statement into Russian and Ukrainian.

Despite the risks involved, each committed to share the statement, especially among the estimated 500,000 men who have risked fleeing Putin’s increasingly militarized Russia.

What is the value of an expression of solidarity, even one as modest as a computer click?

For many across the world, there was immediate identification with the images of the hundreds of thousands of Russian young men fleeing to impoverished and remote countries like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as to Kazakhstan and Germany to avoid the war.

They left families and careers behind, possibly never to return. They face the challenges of finding places to sleep and to finding work to feed themselves in unknown nations and cultures. And we have learned to our sorrow and outrage across the West, desperate refugees are not always welcomed or long tolerated.

Yet, as one Russian woman wrote from exile, she suffers under the weight of people thinking that all Russians support Russia’s aggression. It helps, she wrote, to know that she and other Russians are being recognized as different. That makes it easier for her to face the demands of each uncertain day. To this, I would add, it illustrates the potential for peaceful and mutually beneficial relations between our peoples.

Of course, more than solidarity is needed. Our statement also called for a ceasefire and “negotiations leading to a just peace, including respect for Ukrainian sovereignty as a neutral state”. As we did in the early years of our opposition to the nationally self-destructive invasions of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the statement was designed to add weight to growing calls for a national policy change.

The Biden and Zelensky commitments to fight this war to the last Ukrainian in order to weaken Russia (which will remain a nuclear power) and to retake all of historic Ukraine including Crimea are worse than futile. The savaging of Ukraine begins to resemble Beirut and Grozny at the end of those civil wars.

And Russian nuclear doctrine informs us that it can resort to nuclear attacks when the survival of the state – read Putin’s political career – is in jeopardy. Pressing for diplomacy to stop the killing and to prevent the war’s spiraling escalation, as well as expressing solidarity, has become imperative.

Our solidarity initiative has roots in experiences and lessons that some of us took from the Vietnam War as from Margaret Mead’s dictum that a small group of people can change the world. The initiative grew from a collaboration of veterans of the Vietnam era peace movement, Terry Provance, now of the United Church of Christ and Doug Hostetter, a Mennonite pastor and Pax Christi International’s Associate UN Representative, and me.

It was during the Vietnam War that I first experientially learned the value of solidarity. After considering a Canadian exile, I became a draft resister facing possible imprisonment and served as a leading organizer against the war in the intellectual and moral wasteland of what was then the Phoenix Valley.

Talk about isolation and alienation. I was an aspiring East Coast intellectual disoriented and making his way in Barry Goldwater’s Arizona. That was before fax machines, before the Internet, and when Phoenix was dominated by a John Birch Society extreme right-wing monopoly newspaper that limited and distorted what people could know, and which used its pages to instruct its readers where to find our small community of war opponents and how to beat us.

Back then, despite constitutional guarantees, it was possible to be arrested and to suffer what more recently has become known as the Eric Garner chokehold at the hands of the police and be sentenced to six months in jail for the “crime” of distributing anti-war flyers on the public sidewalk – an action ostensibly protected by the Constitution.

We and other war resisters experienced the salve and inspiration of solidarity in many forms, from local religious leaders who demonstrated that they cared, from activists back East who sent bail money, and from the distant moral courage of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme whose courageous denunciation of the war made its way around the world – even to the Arizona desert.

Since then, I have learned the sustaining value of even small expressions of human solidarity: from Palestinians whose homes were demolished in illegal Israeli collective punishments; from the suffering and courageous of Japanese, Marshall Islanders, and U.S. downwinder A-bomb survivors, and from Okinawans who have endured and resisted eight decades of Japanese and U.S. military colonialism. In each case, international support and solidarity have played critical roles in their continuing struggles for justice.

Is solidarity enough? Of course not! Thus, our call urges U.S. policy change. It is possible to support Ukrainians without urging and funding another war without end. In recent weeks, we have been reminded of Gandhi’s truth that “When the people lead, the leaders will follow.” The withdrawal of the letter signed by thirty members of Congress urging President Biden to make negotiations a priority will long stand as a profile in cowardice.

Except for several members of Congress including Ro Khanna and Jamaal Bowman who stood their ground, others who support Ukraine but also diplomacy, lacked confidence that they had public backing and withered in the face of threats from Speaker Pelosi.

Our solidarity statement is but one of ways that people are beginning to break the silence, opening the way for rational and humane discourse, and providing off ramps for bellicose U.S., Russian, Ukrainian and European leaders.

A Cuban Missile Crisis redux or a replay of World War I redux must be avoided. Negotiations may not bring an immediate end to the war, but we should have learned from the diplomacy that avoided nuclear annihilation over Russian missiles in Cuba fifty years ago, which brought us the armistice the ended the First World War, and that led to arms control agreements during the last Cold War that war is not the answer.

Pope Francis, U.N. Secretary General Guterres and a growing number of people have it right: human solidarity and diplomacy!

Dr. Joseph Gerson is President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security and author of With Hiroshima Eyes and Empire and the Bomb.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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