by Alex Evans | Jan 25, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development
One I missed from December last year:
A struggle by nations to secure sources of clean water will be “potent fuel” for war, the first Asia-Pacific Water Summit heard yesterday. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, told delegates from across the region that the planet faced a water crisis that was especially troubling for Asia. High population growth, rising consumption, pollution and poor water management posed significant threats, he said, adding that climate change was also making “a bad situation worse”.
Mr Ban went on to condemn the lack of heed paid by governments to these warning signs: “Throughout the world, water resources continue to be spoiled, wasted and degraded. The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.”
Say what you like about Ban, he’s running with resource scarcity and climate change in a way that Kofi Annan never did…
by Alex Evans | Jan 24, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
The BBC’s Tim Weber is in Davos, listening to Al Gore and Bono search together for the Holy Grail – a policy framework that can integrate development and climate objectives. Now read on…
Mr Gore and Bono have been discussing these issues since last October, bringing together aid experts and climate scientists in a series of 8 sessions and workshops. [But] while they have identified the issue, and sort of have identified an answer, they are still short of a solution.
Al Gore once again called for a revenue neutral way of putting a price on the cost of carbon, where the negative impact of carbon is added to its price, and the tax revenue is used to release money elsewhere. Bono, for his part, demanded an “adaptation fund”, programmes that would provide “social protection for farmers and prepares them for floods”. Education was the second tool, he said, because “providing people with a chance” was the best albeit “counter-intuitive way of controlling the growth of population”.
But was that the promised “unified earth theory”?
Somebody shoot me, please. I mean, Al, Bono, thanks for ringing the alarm bell and everything, but please, if the pair of you still don’t have a development-climate synthesis that extends beyond vague murmurings about carbon tax and aid volume, couldn’t you just, like, take a bow? I mean, if climate safety demands a safe global emissions budget, but developing countries want equity and the right to develop their economies, and need finance for development too, don’t you think you could make that little jump to… Well, you’re bright guys; go figure it out. It’s not rocket science.
by Alex Evans | Jan 24, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
A propos of Charlie’s post about Oxford Analytica’s spanking new Global Stress Points Matrix, reassuring to see that they rank “increasing climate regulation” as the 13th biggest risk in the world – ahead of civil war in Lebanon, war with North Korea or indeed any of the impacts of climate change…
by Alex Evans | Jan 23, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia, Influence and networks, South Asia, UK
Interesting to see this little nugget included in the UK / Indian communique resulting from Gordon Brown’s talks with Manmohan Singh:
Long-term convergence of per capita emission rates is an important and equitable principle that should be seriously considered in the context of international climate change negotiations.
Manmohan Singh’s getting pretty good at this – as readers will recall, he had a similar conversation with Angela Merkel after the Heiligendamm G8, which resulted in her pushing per capita convergence steadily through the second half of last year (as for instance in her speech at the UN High Level Event on climate at the end of September last year).
I’ve been arguing since then that European leaders need to get behind Merkel’s position – because espousing convergence as the means of sharing out a safe global emissions budget is Europe’s best shot at securing developing country buy-in to a globally agreed ceiling on greenhouse gas levels in the air, an absolute prerequisite for limiting warming to two degrees C (as Europe says it wants to).
India is the obvious partner in this enterprise. Its per capita emissions (a little over a tonne of CO2 per person) are way below the global average of 4.18 t/CO2 – so any system based on convergence will be plenty profitable for India. (I set out a fuller analysis of this argument in the speech I did for the Institute of Environmental Security after Bali.)
What’s ironic in all of this is that India was widely criticised for being ‘awkward’ at Bali – whilst China was lauded for being willing to talk about ‘commitments’ (even if not binding targets). Manmohan Singh looks, in other words, to be pushing a much more progressive position than his own negotiators. Maybe this is a subtle two track negotiating strategy, maybe it’s just incoherence in the Indian government – the balance of opinion in the climate debate would probably say the latter, but who knows.
Either way, Europe and India have a real chance here to grab the political momentum in climate talks between now and the G8 in Japan, if they can pull together a robust joint strategy.
by Alex Evans | Jan 22, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia
Roger Harrabin has the story over at BBC News:
The president of the European Commmission has threatened to impose carbon tariffs on imports unless the US agrees to a global climate change deal … He said foreign firms should be forced to purchase the same EU carbon allowances European firms would have to buy, thereby levelling the industrial playing field.
The threat of trade measures is the nuclear bomb of climate negotiations – and the commission president said he very much hoped it would not be used. He said his preferred option was for a comprehensive global treaty on emissions. His fall-back was a global sectoral agreement imposing uniform standards on energy-intensive export industries.
If these failed, he would either protect Europe’s industries by giving them all their carbon allowances in the European Trading System (ETS) free of charge, or charge importers at the same rate for the allowances: “I think we should be ready to continue to give the energy-intensive industries their ETS allowances free of charge – or to require importers to obtain allowances alongside European competitors, as long as this system is compatible with WTO requirements.”
Update: the Press Association is running that the UK government has already come out against Barroso’s call. Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks has said “We are against any measures which might look like trade barriers. There is always the danger that the protectionists in Europe – and they do exist – could use this as a kind of secret weapon to bring about protectionism.”
