by Alex Evans | Jul 29, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY__KBYJjMM]
Freed from the nice-guy constraints of being Josh on the West Wing, Bradley Whitford was clearly having a grand old time as a Machieavellian oil industry lobbyist in Burn Up on BBC2 last week; Neve Campbell and Rupert Penry-Jones (from Spooks) completed the ensemble cast for a production that cost the BBC $15 million to make. Watch it if you haven’t already – if you live in the UK, you’ve got until 10.29pm on Wednesday 30th July to stream or download both episodes via the BBC’s Iplayer (if you download, you then have 30 days to watch them).
It was a riot – above all because, notwithstanding that this was a political thriller, the scriptwriter (Simon Beaufoy of The Full Monty fame) had really done his homework on climate change and energy policy (a task in which he was helped by Joe Smith from Open University, who co-edited Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? with Andrew Simms).
So we were treated to climate summits with delegates negotiating square bracketed text through the night as the US and OPEC countries raise flags to object to use of the word ‘mandatory’; China playing it both ways, cutting a deal with the EU for carbon sequestration before dropping them like a stone when the US offers free nuclear power instead (agonised British head of delegation: “the Chinese have stitched us up!”); and even – ta da! – the sight of climate negotiators agreeing a climate framework based on per capita convergence, with proper terminology and everything.
However (spoiler alert: stop reading now if you plan to watch it), all of this then falls apart when ‘moderates’ in the US delegation (“Withdraw that proposal, Tuvalu, or kiss your AIDS funding goodbye”) are replaced by even nastier military-industrial-spook types, who – it later transpires – have a Secret Plan, the gist of which is that the US is deliberately allowing climate change to happen on the basis that if it will damage the US, it will really screw China.
As prospects for a global deal recede, oil company CEO Rupert Penry-Jones (who has had a Damascene conversion to the path of climate righteousness after watching an Eskimo set herself on fire in protest at global warming, and then seeing methane hydrate plumes catching fire in holes in the Arctic pack ice as positive feedbacks start to kick in) decides to start playing real hardball: so he leaks secret geological data from Saudi Arabia to environmentalists (and thence the media), which shows that – ta da ! – Peak Oil is upon us. The film closes with snippets of media reporting of the massive economic crash that follows, and the prospect of something called the ‘third energy age’.
Only thing is, it’s not entirely clear why Penry-Jones has abandoned his earlier view that to tell the world that the oil peak is already passed would be a Very Bad Idea on the basis that it would (a) cause economic Armageddon, (b) kill thousands if not millions and (c) cause World War Three. I was sort of with Bradley Whitford’s evil lobbyist when he suggested that allowing the news to leak out ve-e-ery gradually might be a better approach. Leaking the news of Peak Oil being already behind us also looks to me like as much of a recipe for tar sands, liquids from coal and all US corn going to biofuels as it does a recipe for solar, wind and the ‘third energy age’.
But hey. Top marks to the Beeb for definitely the edgiest (and most politically accurate) climate drama we’ve seen so far. Eat your heart out, The Day After Tomorrow.
by Alex Evans | Jul 28, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Global system
A key fact here from BP, via the New York Times:
From Mexico to India to China, governments fearful of inflation and street protests are heavily subsidizing energy prices, particularly for diesel fuel. But the subsidies — estimated at $40 billion this year in China alone — are also removing much of the incentive to conserve fuel.
The oil company BP, known for thorough statistical analysis of energy markets, estimates that countries with subsidies accounted for 96 percent of the world’s increase in oil use last year — growth that has helped drive prices to record levels.
In most countries that do not subsidize fuel, high prices have caused oil demand to stagnate or fall, as economic theory says they should. But in countries with subsidies, demand is still rising steeply, threatening to outstrip the growth in global supplies.
The article goes on to report that while Malaysia caused no end of annoyance to its citizens when it hiked petrol prices by 40 per cent at the start of June, it was before this spending 7.5 per cent of economic output on fuel subsidies – more than anywhere else on earth. (Indonesia is next, at 4 per cent.)
by Daniel Korski | Jul 27, 2008 | East Asia and Pacific, North America, South Asia
Bill Emmott, the former editor of The Economist, has a great – if glibly-titled – piece in The Times today, articulating what I have thought for a while (OK – what I should have thought): that while Fareed Zakaria talks about a post-American order where U.S influence is giving way to the power of the “Rest” (China, India etc.) both Barack Obama and John McCain seem to live in a decidedly Euro-centric world.
Look at Senator Obama’s stops on his recent trip – Europe, the Middle East and, of course, Afghanistan. The itinerary is hardly any different from what Bill Clinton’s would have done in 1992 – that is, go to Europe, the Middle East and to where U.S forces are deployed. But, as Emmot says, the future of the U.S may be determined in Asia, not Europe or even the Middle East:
Three issues in Asia will be, or should be, high on the new president’s briefings when he enters office in January. In order of immediacy they are inflation, climate change and the balance-of-power politics.
So what do Obama and McCain say about a rising China, a resurgent Russia, rivalry between India and Pakistan Asian countries? Very little. Or, at least very little compared to what they say about other issues.
At the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Obama said:
In Asia, the emergence of an economically vibrant, more politically active China offers new opportunities for prosperity and cooperation, but also poses new challenges.
To deal with these, Obama will “forge a more effective regional framework in Asia that will promote stability, prosperity and help us confront common transnational threats such as tracking down terrorists and responding to global health problems like avian flu.”
Nothing wrong with this, but a profound policy statement it is not. Nor does it deal with many of the gremlins in the U.S-China relationship like the trade balance.
McCain has been more forward on how he would deal with China and Russia. He has meet with the Dalai Lama and urged China to address human rights concerns and free Tibetan prisoners.
His tough-guy stance is even tougher on Russia. The U.S, says McCain, should respond harshly to Russia’s anti-democratic actions, and warns of the “dangers posed by a revanchist Russia”. On the campaign trail, McCain jokes that when he looks in Vladimir Putin’s eyes, he sees three letters: KGB.
But while the Arizona senator’s stance is tough and clear, he can hardly have thought through the implications of such a stance against Moscow, given the price of oil, the views of America’s allies etc.
Bottom-line is that while both candidate have talked about U.S relations with the “Rest”, both lag behind today’s leading foreign policy intellectuals in developing a serious set of U.S. policies towards the new powers and seem more comfortable in a Euro-centric mindset. That may be good for Europe in the short-term, but bad in the long-term. For the way in which the U.S and Europe relate to these new powers will determine how the world looks in the next 10 years.
by Alex Evans | Jul 26, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, East Asia and Pacific, Economics and development, Global system
Herewith an attempt to marshal my thoughts about what’s happening on the oil price (which has fallen sharply over the last few weeks), what’s likely to happen next, and what policymakers need to do to move forward. Brief summary as follows:
– The oil price has fallen sharply over the last couple of weeks, from a peak of $147 to a 7 week low of $123 at close yesterday. So is this the start of a long decline, or just a brief pause to draw breath before a resumption of the relentless upward march of recent years?
– In a nutshell, probably more like the latter – but with the potential for a big drop in the near term for as long as the credit crunch lasts, as emerging economies slow down sharply in line with falling US demand for their exports.
– However, once we’re through the crunch, we may be back to a game of cat and mouse between oil supply and economic growth. Demand falls, oil price falls; demand picks up, oil price goes back up too – but never for long enough to give investors a clear signal to pump cash into new oil supply infrastructure.
– What we need is a game changing intervention that breaks us out of this stop-start cycle. Massive investment in new oil supply would provide it, but can’t be squared with what needs to happen on emissions reductions.
– It looks like the only way through is for policymakers to agree a global climate policy framework that’s both global in scope and sufficiently long term to provide investors with an unequivocal signal of where to put their cash: this is the only way of squaring energy security with climate change.
Full version after the jump.
(more…)
by Richard Gowan | Jul 24, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks
So, it’s not only me and my fellow-wonks who are worried about the state of peacekeeping. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, outgoing head of peace ops at the UN, pops up in today’s FT to ram it home. Here are the edited highlights:
The head of United Nations peacekeeping has urged the Security Council to satisfy itself there is a peace to keep before sending troops on further large-scale missions such as the one in Darfur.
“I would say very bluntly that there are good reasons to be hesitant,” said Jean-Marie Guéhenno, who leaves his post this month after eight years. “The danger is that you do something and then, if you go into a failure, you compromise an instrument that could make a real difference in other places. And so you haven’t helped really those you meant to help but you have done a disservice to all those where peacekeeping could make a real difference.”
Referring to Darfur, where the Security Council a year ago ordered the biggest deployment in UN peacekeeping history, he said: “I’ve always been worried about it. We’re reaching the outer limit of peacekeeping. But I do see the enormous plight of the people in Darfur.”
“The fundamental error is to think of UN forces as if they were the world police. I think very often now there’s an overemphasis on what force can achieve. The more troops I have had under my responsibility, the more convinced I’ve become that – on the one hand – they are very important in places where trust has been destroyed, but at the same time they are a means to an end, an instrument in a tool kit to build a political process and support that political process.”
Mr Guéhenno said the Security Council had to weigh the risks carefully before deciding on new deployments, noting armed force was not a universal medication that could be used in all circumstances. “One failure can damage the whole of UN peacekeeping … The Security Council faces tough decisions and it is not easy to say ‘no’. But it should never say ‘yes’ for the wrong reasons.”
He said he was concerned by growing division within the Security Council that has pitched Russia and China against its western members on a number of peacekeeping issues. “One big worry that I have today is the risk of a more divided Security Council. We can fudge a resolution, we can fudge a statement, we can’t fudge a strategy.”
But could we – to return to the point with which I conclude my most recent survey of the state of peacekeeping – start to think of how to develop minimalist but achievable strategies that even a divided Council might be able to live with?
I share JMG’s belief in the need for strategy, but there is sometimes a “strategic = bigger” mentality in the UN (as in all organizations). That results in the “Christmas Tree” approach to peace operations, which involves overloading a mission with unmeetable responsibilities. Better to do less, but do it credibly. That is, of course, what JMG is saying about Darfur here… I have a feeling that once he returns to civilian life, he is going to sweep the floor with insta-pundits like me.
