Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit. PHOTO: LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS

By Habibullah N Karim
Oct 1 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its latest warning saying that the world’s oceans are rising twice as fast as they did in the last century due to fast-disappearing ice-sheets in the Antarctic and Greenland. The IPCC predicts that as much as two-thirds of the permafrost could be gone before the end of the current century, further exacerbating carbon dioxide emissions as humongous amounts of CO2 trapped in the permafrost would be released in the process. In other words, all the apprehensions about climate change are much more menacing than anticipated earlier, making for huge shifts in climate patterns that will wreak havoc on the coastal cities and habitations around the world. On the one hand, rising sea levels will inundate low-lying coastal areas and, on the other hand, all the entrapped heat in the oceans will give rise to far more destructive cyclones more frequently. The world as we knew it in the pre-industrial era is gone for ever.

The level of change in the climate that humans have already caused can no longer be labelled an innocuous “climate change” but rather a pernicious “climate crisis”. This new reckoning is bound to cause major setbacks in countries like ours and should surely cause major headaches to socio-economic planners.

Bangladesh sits at the head of the funnel that directs all the atmospheric turbulence above the Indian Ocean to the narrow mouth of the Bay of Bengal, putting us at the receiving end of this huge climate crisis. But do we see anyone blowing the whistles on this one? The government seems complacent with the high growth rates the nation has achieved in recent years but all such growth prospects will be in serious jeopardy if we fail to address the climate crisis on a war footing.

15-year old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg stunned the world leaders last week at the UN General Assembly with her in-your-face proclamations on how climate change, nay, climate crisis, has robbed our children of their right to a prosperous future in a world sinking in its oceans and churning in its storms. That the world must rise in a body to counter the effects of anthropogenic global warming and arrest the rising global temperatures and devote resources to “carbon sequestering” is causing world leaders to cringe in their seats. Many world leaders are taking bold steps and major economic measures to counter climate change and many more are rising to the challenge being prodded by a fearless teenager from Sweden who dared to cross the Atlantic in a solar powered boat instead of taking a carbon-gushing plane ride to attend the UNGA meeting in New York. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)—the global compact of climate Tsars—has been working on creating awareness and pushing for remedial actions on climate change for nearly three decades now but the world needed the prodding of a sharp-tongued and fiercely committed Greta Thunberg to jolt world leaders into fervent action on the impending climate crisis.

Bangladesh is a poster-child for climate change that brings to fore all the disastrously harmful effects of global warming; in all climate conferences Bangladesh is at the dead centre of discussions on how to mitigate the effects of and adapt to climate change but not much planning and activity is visible yet on the home front. Rather we had been in the news for all the wrong reasons, when Green Climate Fund resources were plundered by a government-sanctioned private bank that almost went belly up last year.

Sweden is a country with a large coastline where the effects of global warming is causing rapidly changing shorelines as the sea creeps inward relentlessly. Of course, Sweden has reasons to be highly concerned but it is a thinly-populated country with a high per capita income. It has the wherewithal and landmass to put up with climate change. That this nation of only 10 million has produced a Greta Thunberg to ring the carillon bell on climate change makes our lack of action in this area all the more poignant.

Bangladesh may not have as large a coastline as Sweden but our fragile coastline hosting the largest mangrove forest of the world and a population 17 times larger than Sweden’s at the mercy of the elements make it imperative that someone as fearless and as passionate as Greta comes forward to bell the cat on climate crisis before we become climate fodder. There is certainly no dearth of derring-do teenagers here as evidenced by the traffic revolt of the teens earlier this year. The clock is ticking for a climate uprising. Is anyone listening?

Habibullah N Karim is an author, policy activist, investor and serial entrepreneur. He is a founder and former president of BASIS and founder-CEO of Technohaven Company Ltd. Email: hnkarim@gmail.com

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post The looming climate crisis: Where is our Greta Thunberg? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Srinivas Tata, is Director, Social Development Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
 
Eduardo Klien, is Regional Director, Asia, HelpAge International

By Srinivas Tata and Eduardo Klien
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 1 2019 (IPS)

As we are celebrating the International Day of Older Persons today, we recognize that population ageing is a human success story, a story of longer and often healthier lives of the world’s people. The many faces of older persons that we see in Asia and in the Pacific, and, indeed, all over the world, attest to this fact. Still, however, ageing is considered a threat. There is talk about the “burden of ageing”, exploding healthcare costs, and concerns about plummeting economic growth due to the shrinking labour force. In many cities of Asia-Pacific, we see advertisement for “anti-ageing cosmetics” and surgeries. The current ideal is that we must be young, dynamic and without wrinkles or grey hair, especially older women.

Srinivas Tata

Population ageing is a human success story and an inevitable outcome of the demographic transition. In Asia-Pacific, the pace of change is unprecedented, with fertility rates falling rapidly across the entire region and life expectancy rising, resulting in a rapid increase in the proportion of older persons. In 2000, those aged 65 or older made up 6.1 per cent of the population; in 2019 it was 8.7 per cent and in 2050 it is projected to be 18.4 per cent. In many European countries, it took almost a century to increase the share of the older population from 7 to 14 per cent. In Asia-Pacific, this is happening in as little as 18 to 20 years, such as in Sri Lanka and Viet Nam. This means that countries, and in particular policymakers need to act fast.

The region continues to be the prime driver of global economic growth, yet a significant proportion of the working age population is not covered by pensions. In several countries of the region, especially ones in South-East Asia and South and South-West Asia, coverage is well below 20 per cent. Similar challenges exist in terms of providing accessible and affordable health care, particularly for those left furthest behind. Robust social protection systems must be developed to address population ageing in a comprehensive manner. Because the majority of older persons are women, their needs must be specifically addressed.

Older persons make vital contributions to society; their role should not only be acknowledged, it should be made easier, including through improving their knowledge and skills through lifelong learning, promoting flexible working arrangements, and allowing them to have easy access to everyday conveniences, like public transportation. A study on the time use of men and women shows that overall, older persons provide more care than they receive. They provide care to grandchildren and other older persons who need care, with many intergenerational benefits, including indirect contributions to family income by making younger women freer to participate in the paid labour force. Ageing surveys have also found that the health of older persons tends to be better if they are socially connected, volunteer and contribute to society.

Eduardo Klien

Through older persons associations, older persons generate income, build up social support structures and provide access to credit, allowing them to stay more active and healthier. Mindsets need to change; we can worry less about shrinking working-age populations when we consider that people live longer and healthier. Pensions systems should be adapted to cover those in the informal sector and retirement ages adjusted to provide the choice to older persons to work up to a later age. We must alter our perception of ageing as a burden. Rather, policies and plans should see ageing as opportunity, with benefits to be harnessed.

Population ageing provides attractive business prospects, often identified as the “Silver Economy”. More products should be tailored to the needs of the growing older population, while universally designed products and the care economy can grow exponentially. Financial products and instruments, like reverse mortgages, can be designed to adapt to needs of older persons, including to use their immovable assets to fund financial requirements.

The young people of today are the older persons of tomorrow. Population ageing can only be addressed systematically if an intergenerational approach based on equity and seeing youth and ageing are part of a single continuum is adopted. Let us celebrate population ageing and embrace it. A fair society for older persons is a just and prosperous society for all ages.

ESCAP and HelpAge have recently joined forces to address population ageing more comprehensively through the organization of advocacy events and the collaboration on research on older persons. We stand ready to support countries in the region in designing and developing policies and programmes to ensure that older persons are not left behind.

The post No to Ageism, Yes to Intergenerational Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Srinivas Tata, is Director, Social Development Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

 

Eduardo Klien, is Regional Director, Asia, HelpAge International

The post No to Ageism, Yes to Intergenerational Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley warned of a backlash of mass migration to the world’s richest and biggest polluters, saying an influx of climate refugees can be expected in coming years as a consequence of failing to take action to stop climate change. Courtesy: Desmond Brown

By Desmond Brown
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2019 (IPS)

The Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley tells IPS her patience is running thin, as she challenges the world to tackle the climate crisis.

She warned of a backlash of mass migration to the world’s richest and biggest polluters, saying an influx of climate refugees can be expected in coming years as a consequence of failing to take action to stop climate change.

“The bottom line is that we are not here by accident. There is no traditional norm on the part of the world where I come from,” Mottley tells IPS.

In September 2014, Small Island Developing States met in Apia, Samoa for the Third International Conference on SIDS and adopted the Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities of Action, also known as the SAMOA Pathway. It is a 10-year plan to address challenges faced by small islands.

During last week’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the world body convened a one-day, high-level review of progress made in addressing SIDS’ priorities in the first five years since implementation.

According to the world leaders, progress toward sustainable development in SIDS will require a major increase in investment.

Foreign Affairs Minister of Belize Wilfred Elrington says the mid-term review represents more than a simple reflection.

“It is a critical political moment, given the overwhelming challenges that threaten our sustainable development,” Elrington tells IPS.

“Our people receive daily reminders of the ticking clock for our survival. Last year we had a special report from the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] that predicted utter devastation for our countries if we missed the 1.5° C target.”

Elrington says the latest special report on the ocean and cryosphere from the IPCC projecting that 65 million people who inhabit islands and low-lying states are at risk of total inundation, only reinforced what is already happening.

“Our beaches are disappearing, our drinking water is being salinated, our oceans and seas are warming, acidifying and deoxygenating threatening our reefs and our fisheries. And if we are not experiencing more frequent flooding events, we are experiencing extreme drought events,” Elrington adds.

“Anyone of us could be the next to face a Category 5 hurricane or cyclone. We are the ground zero of a global climate and biodiversity crisis.”

Some of the specific development issues SIDS are faced with include their remoteness, transport connectivity, the small scale of their economies, the high cost of importing, the high cost of infrastructural development, vulnerability and climate vulnerability.

Already on the frontlines of climate change, sustainable development in many SIDS is threatened by difficulties in achieving sustained high levels of economic growth, owing in part to their vulnerabilities to the ongoing negative impacts of environmental challenges and external economic and financial shocks.

“It is diabolical and it is unbelievable. I refer to the plight of Barbuda whose cost of recovery was 10 times that which was pledged, and who still have not collected even that which was pledged,” Mottley says.

“I refer to Dominica, whose public service is minuscule to most countries but who are required to jump through the same hoops to unlock 300 million dollars in public funds while the people of Dominica, who were affected like the people of Abaco and Grand Bahama [in the Bahamas], don’t know where they’re going to earn money this week,” Mottley adds.

The prime minister says: “Twenty five years ago we met in Barbados and settle the Barbados Programme of Action, and on that occasion, we recognised that the wellbeing and welfare of Small Islands Developing States required special recognition and was a special case for our environment and our development.”

Meanwhile, Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Karen Cummings says even with their limited resources, SIDS have been doing their part, adding that her country has taken an “aggressive” approach towards climate change and has been “ambitious” in its nationally determined contribution commitments.

Leaders called on the international community to mobilise additional development finance from all sources and at all levels to support SIDS and welcomed the ownership, leadership and efforts demonstrated by these states in advancing the Implementation of the SAMOA Pathway.

They expressed their concern about the devastating impacts of climate change, the increasing frequency, scale and intensity of disasters and called for urgent and ambitious global action in line with the Paris Agreement to address these threats and their impacts.

The High-level Review of the SAMOA Pathway comes one month after Hurricane Dorian devastated parts of the Bahamas, causing significant loss of life and property damage.  Countries noted that the increasing frequency, scale and intensity of natural disasters will continue to claim lives, decimate infrastructure and remain a threat to food security.

While some progress has been made in addressing social inclusion, poverty, and unemployment, inequality continues to disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, including women and girls, persons with disabilities, children and youth. More support is needed to strengthen public health systems in SIDS and especially reduce the risk factors for non-communicable diseases, and healthcare after disasters.

Other areas identified as needing more effort include demographic data collection, trade opportunities, and economic growth and diversification.

Michael Tierney, Deputy Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations and co-facilitator for the Political Declaration of the SAMOA Pathway midterm review, says SIDS have done excellent work in setting up a partnership framework at the United Nations, whereby the partnerships they are working on are monitored and registered and there is an analysis done of their effectiveness.

“It’s actually a model of other parts of the world to look at. It can be improved and it can be strengthened but there is a very detailed process here at the U.N. whereby we try to encourage new development partnerships for the islands, but also, we try to monitor and analyse what we’re doing and if we’re doing it well,” Tierney tells IPS.

“One of the things, quite frankly, that we need to do better is get more private sector interest in projects. That’s a problem across the board in the developing world but it’s something that is specifically a difficulty in the Small Island Developing States.”

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Children run away from a forest fire in a village in Palembang, South Sumatra, on Sept. 18. Credit: Antara Photo/Mushaful Imam

By Kaveh Zahedi
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 1 2019 (IPS)

Last week, world leaders gathered at the United Nations in New York for the Climate Action Summit. Their goal was simple: to increase ambition and accelerate action in the face of a mounting climate emergency.

For many, this means ambition and action that enable countries to decarbonize their economies by the middle of the century. But that is only half the equation.

Equally ambitious plans are also needed to build the resilience of vulnerable sectors and communities being battered by climate-related disasters of increasing frequency, intensity and unpredictability.

Nowhere is this reality starker than in the Asia-Pacific region, which has suffered another punishing year of devastation due to extreme events linked to climate change.

Last year, Kerala state in India had its worst floods in a century. The floods in Iran in April this year were unprecedented. Floods and heatwaves in quick succession in Japan caused widespread destruction and loss of life.

In several South Asian countries, immediately following a period of drought, weeks of heavy monsoon rains this month unleashed floods and landslides. Across North East and South Asia, record high temperatures have been set.

The latest research from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) has shown that intense heatwaves and drought are becoming more frequent.

Unusual tropical cyclones originate from beyond the traditional risk zones and follow tracks that have not been seen before, causing unprecedented floods throughout the region.

Science tells us the impacts are only going to increase in severity and frequency as the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere continues to rise.

The poor and vulnerable are taking the biggest hit. Disasters cost lives and damage livelihood and assets. Disaster exposure has increased child malnutrition and mortality rates and forced poor families to take children out of school – entrenching inter-generational poverty.

It also perpetuates inequalities within and between countries. A person in small-island developing states in the Pacific is three to five times more at risk of disasters than a person elsewhere in our disaster-prone region. Vanuatu has faced annual losses of over 20 percent of its gross domestic product.

In Southeast Asia, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam have all faced losses of more than five percent of their GDP. In short, disasters are slowing down and often reversing poverty reduction and widening inequality.

But amid this cycle of disaster and vulnerability lies a golden opportunity for careful and forward-looking investment. The Global Commission on Adaptation recently found that there would be over $7 trillion in total net benefits between now and 2030 from investing in early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, improved dryland agriculture, mangrove protection and in making water resources more resilient.

So where could countries in the Asia-Pacific region make a start? First, by providing people with the means to overcome shocks. Increasing social protection is a good start.

Currently, developing countries in Asia and the Pacific only spend about 3.7 percent of their GDP on social protection, compared to the world average of 11.2 percent, leaving people vulnerable in case they get sick, lose their jobs, become old or are hit by a disaster.

In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, we saw the effectiveness of social protection, especially cash transfers, but these were only made possible because the government was able to use a conditional cash transfer system and mechanism already in place for poor and vulnerable people.

Second, by lifting the financial burden of the poor. Disaster risk finance and insurance can cover poor and vulnerable people from climate shocks and help them recover from disasters.

A good example is Mongolia’s index-based insurance scheme which their government has been using to deal with the increased frequency of “dzuds,” where a combination of droughts and shortage of pasture lead to massive livestock deaths.

Disaster risk finance can also help countries pool the risks as is happening through the emerging Asean Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance program.

Third, by increasing investment in new technologies and big data. Artificial Intelligence-driven risk analytics, as well as the fast combination of sensor and geospatial data, can strengthen early warning systems.

Big data, including from mobile phones, can help identify and locate vulnerable populations in risk hotspots who have been the hardest to reach so far, ensuring faster, more targeted help after disasters.

Experience around the region has already shown the potential of using tech and big data to alleviate disaster risks. In India, a combination of automated risk analytics, geospatial data and a digital identity system – the so-called AADHARR system – have helped to identify and deliver assistance to millions of drought-affected subsistence farmers.

But much more investment is needed to make technology an integral part of disaster risk response and resilience building.

Climate-related disasters are likely to increase in the Asia-Pacific. This is our new climate reality. The Climate Action Summit provides the perfect platform to make the commitments needed for helping communities and people to adapt to this reality before decades of hard-won development gains are washed away.

The post Confronting New Climate Reality in Asia & the Pacific appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kaveh Zahedi is the deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

The post Confronting New Climate Reality in Asia & the Pacific appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 1 2019 (IPS)

A conjuncture of developments, short- and medium-term, have conspired to further slow the world economy. In recent months, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), among others, has acknowledged that global economic prospects are worsening, forcing it to make not one, but at least five consecutive growth forecast revisions, all downward.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Prevention better than cure
With most developing economies more open and unequal than ever before, due to past government policies supporting a decade of economic liberalization, globalization and strengthened property rights, near term economic prospects are bleaker than ever.

In such circumstances, it would be prudent, even necessary, and certainly not profligate, to turn to counter-cyclical, expansionary fiscal policy. To do otherwise would be like rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic as it was about to crash into the iceberg.

Conservative or ‘neoliberal’ lobbyists, including those who have ‘infiltrated’ most government administrations, and their favourite ‘consultants’ are still chanting old mantras while their own gurus, e.g., in the Economist and Wall Street Journal, have become more pragmatic by necessity.

While some gurus have revised their old dogmas to accommodate reactionary ethno-populist challenges, their typically blindly loyal followers in emerging market economies continue to insist on tired, if not thoroughly discredited old slogans, such as the analytically bogus ‘fiscal consolidation’, in the face of the looming slowdown.

Sensible spending
All over the world, more realistic and pragmatic economists, forced to deal with real world problems, now publicly recognize that fiscal positions can be improved in the medium-term with appropriate short-term deficit spending.

Such fiscal spending should not only seek to buffer the economic downturn in the short-term, but also lay the foundations for medium-term economic development, which most developing countries have desperately needed, especially since the 2008-2009 Great Recession.

Instead of simply creating yet more public sector jobs, or building infrastructure ‘white elephants’ which would burden future generations for a long time to come, developing country governments should make fiscal commitments to improve human resources and yield sustainable development dividends in the medium and long-term.

Redistribution for development
Progressive income redistribution is more likely to raise aggregate demand through increased spending, while regressive transfers will achieve the converse. Social protection should be consolidated and disbursed more effectively, efficiently and equitably, thus strengthening aggregate demand while improving human welfare.

Appropriate investments to improve health, nutrition, education, training and needed infrastructure will pay significant development dividends in the medium and long-term. Meanwhile, universal health care should be financed by tax and other revenue as insurance options are more costly and encourage ‘perverse’ behaviours.

Of course, what governments can do is constrained by fiscal circumstances, but these should not be exaggerated or seen as immutable. All governments face choices in terms of what they choose to spend on, and most parameters can be changed over the medium-term, if not immediately.

Means constrain ends
A relatively upper middle-income country should boldly consider previously unthinkable options, some of which may still be beyond the means of other developing countries. In this connection, well-coordinated ‘all of government’ efforts can yield huge dividends.

For example, transformative, Japanese-style universal school lunch programs were first introduced early in the last century when the island nation still had little in terms of foreign exchange earnings. The program has successfully enhanced nutrition and health, but also the appreciation for science and civilization of all engaged. School food procurement has also been used to promote safer and healthier food production.

Similarly, the development of generic medicines, especially for neglected tropical diseases, will be important for many, if not most developing countries, while biofortified healthy food has tremendous potential for overcoming hunger, micronutrient deficiencies and diet-related non-communicable diseases.

Finally, selective investment and technology promotion is desperately needed after years of chimera-chasing and ersatz techno-sloganeering. As the world struggles to mitigate global warming, developing countries deserve considerable financial and technical support to modernize their economies with renewable energy, bypassing fossil fuel options.

Prevent abuse from the outset
The urgently needed turn to counter-cyclical public spending must be mindful of the waste and abuse of the past hiding behind noble-sounding rhetoric. Abuse of or even poorly conceived government spending will not only discredit public policies generally, but also set back these economies, their prospects and people further back.

Simply buying over existing privately held assets will not enhance economic capacities, capabilities and output. Similarly, pouring good money after bad money, including the corrupt or fraudulent investments of previous governments will not improve them.

As multilateral institutions and arrangements are increasingly being deliberately undermined, developing country governments have little choice but to fend for themselves and their people, while avoiding the temptations of jingoist nationalism, especially ‘beggar thy neighbour’ and selfish ecologically destructive policies.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

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The post Caribbean Adopts Remote Sensing to Prepare for Hurricanes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

In this Voices from the Global South podcast, Caribbean correspondent Jewel Fraser learns how remote sensing technology can help the region better prepare for natural disasters.

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Children rest beneath a tree in a makeshift camp in Aqrabat village, near the Turkish border, after fleeing hostilities in Idlib. (June 2019). Credit: © UNICEF/Aaref Watad.

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2019 (IPS)

There is a “sign of hope for the long-suffering Syrian people” as a Syrian-led, Syrian-owned, credible and inclusive Constitutional Committee is set to start deliberations next month, the United Nations Special Envoy for the country told the Security Council on Monday.

As the “first concrete political agreement” between the Government and opposition groups, it “implies a clear acceptance of the other as an interlocutor”, said Geir O. Pedersen. “It commits their nominees to sit together in face-to-face dialogue and negotiation, while at the same time opening the space for civil society at the table”.

After years of intense negotiation, Secretary-General António Guterres announced last Monday that the Syrian Government and the Syrian Negotiations Commission had agreed to form “a credible, balanced and inclusive Constitutional Committee that will be facilitated by the UN in Geneva”.

“Step by step we need to build the kind of safe, calm and neutral environment that could make Syrians feel that the political process can restore their country and respond to their aspirations”
Geir O. Pedersen, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria


It offers “a new social contract to help repair a broken country”, he flagged, saying it “can be a door opener to a wider political process” and, if accompanied by other steps to build trust and confidence among Syrians and the international community, “a step along the difficult path out of this conflict”.

 

Nuts and bolts

The agreement’s core terms of reference are framed by the key principles of respect for the UN Charter, Security Council resolutions, Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

The UN envoy spelled out that the constitutional reforms adopted by the Committee “must be popularly approved and transposed into the national legal order by a means that will need to be agreed”.

He outlined the Committee’s structure, which will consist of “equal co-chairs” one from the Government, the other from the opposition; a 45-person body consisting of 15 Government, 15 opposition and 15 civil society members to prepare and draft proposals; and a 150-person body from the same sectors, each with 50 members, to discuss and adopt proposals – with a 75 per cent decision-making threshold.

Noting that the UN will release the names of the 150 members after they have been confirmed, he pointed out that the 50 civil society actors hail from different religious, ethnic and geographical backgrounds; some live inside Syria while others are based outside; and nearly half are women.

“Both parties have told me that they have confidence in the United Nations and want to work with us in a sustained and constructive manner”, said Mr. Pedersen, adding: “We will do everything we can to meet their expectations”.

“Ensuring sufficient credibility, balance and inclusivity…has been a key priority”, the UN envoy said, admitting that “the result is a negotiated compromise, and like all compromises, no one is completely satisfied”.

Lauding the “outstanding work” of “Syrian experts and activists, men and women, on all sides” that have helped create this new public space for democratic and civic debates, he acknowledged that not all of them could be on the Committee, but expressed confidence that “they will continue to make their voices heard”.

“The future constitution of Syria belongs to the Syrian people and them alone”, he stressed.

“Syrians, not outsiders, will draft the constitution, and the Syrian people must popularly approve it”, maintained Mr. Pedersen.

Pointing to the continuing humanitarian crisis in Idlib; ongoing terrorism concerns; violence – and the plight of displaced, abducted and missing civilians – the Special Envoy recognized that many challenges persist, and appealed to all parties to “seize upon the momentum that the Committee offers and take concrete actions, to build trust and confidence”.

“Step by step”, Mr. Pederson told Council members, “we need to build the kind of safe, calm and neutral environment that could make Syrians feel that the political process can restore their country and respond to their aspirations”.

This story was originally published by UN News

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The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) seeks disclosure of files under the U.S. intelligence community’s “duty to warn” obligations, which demand officials alert folks in imminent danger. The CPJ wants to know if they knew about an assassination plot against Jamal Khashoggi. Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2019 (IPS)

A media watchdog has asked United States intelligence agencies to reveal whether they knew about an assassination plot against Jamal Khashoggi and failed to warn the Saudi journalist he was in mortal danger.

A legal brief, filed in a Washington DC district court by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), comes almost exactly one year after a Saudi hit squad butchered the renegade writer inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

CPJ’s advocacy manager Michael DeDora told IPS that his lawsuit against the U.S. government “asks a simple question: did the intelligence community know of yet fail to warn Jamal Khashoggi of threats to his life?”

Khashoggi, a U.S.-based Washington Post columnist, who was once a royal Saudi insider and had grown critical of the regime, was reportedly lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in an elaborate and brutal plot to silence him.

Khashoggi was allegedly killed, dismembered and removed from the building; his remains were never found. The CIA reportedly assessed that crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, known as MBS, had ordered the operation.

The CPJ seeks disclosure of files under the U.S. intelligence community’s “duty to warn” obligations, which demand officials alert folks in imminent danger. The brief, filed Thursday, follows the Trump administration’s rejection of a previous CPJ disclosure request.

“Nearly one year after Khashoggi’s murder, disclosure of these documents would provide transparency and help efforts to secure accountability,” DeDora told IPS in an email.

“But this lawsuit has broader implications: journalists around the world should have the security of knowing that the U.S. will not ignore threats to their lives.” 

Khashoggi’s assassination sparked global outrage, blighted MBS’ global standing and undercut his ambitions to improve the kingdom’s poor human rights record and diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons. 

Saudi officials, who initially said Khashoggi had left the consulate unharmed, now say he was killed in a rogue operation that did not involve the prince. A domestic Saudi trial of 11 suspects is widely viewed as a sham.

Speaking with IPS among a small group of journalists in New York this month, Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s former fiancée, explained how she was saddened by the lack of global pressure on Riyadh to come clean about the affair.

MBS has not visited Europe or the U.S. since the murder. While the prince was briefly shunned by foreign leaders, Riyadh’s long-standing diplomatic support from the U.S., Britain and others has largely resumed.

“This silence and inertia created huge disappointment on my side,” said Cengiz. 

“Countries could have demonstrated a more honourable attitude instead of remaining silent, particularly the United Nations, the European Union and the five members of the U.N. Security Council.”

Cengiz was joined at an event on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly by Agnes Callamard, the U.N. rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions who investigated the killing and concluded it was a “deliberate, premeditated execution,” and called for MBS and other officials to be probed.

Callamard, a French academic, said she knew that achieving justice for Khashoggi’s murder would be an uphill struggle, given Riyadh’s deep pockets, clout in the world energy markets and powerful friends in Washington, London and elsewhere.

“This single year [since Khashoggi’s death] is just the first phase in our journey for accountability and justice. And that means that it will demand and deserve patience, resilience, and time,” said Callamard.

“Early on, I could see that justice for Jamal Khashoggi would have to be found beyond the usual path and beyond our usual understanding of accountability.”

Callamard urged the CIA to publish its files, while also calling for an FBI investigation and a public inquest in Turkey. Meanwhile, a draft U.S. law on human rights and accountability, if enacted, would unmask and sanction the culprits and send “ripple effects” towards accountability around the world.

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The post Watchdog Pushes U.S. to Publish ‘Duty to Warn’ Khashoggi Files appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Crystal Orderson
LHASA, Sep 30 2019 (IPS)

Tibetan medicine is one of the world’s oldest known traditional medicines, originally developed during the pre-Buddhist era in the kingdom known as Shang Shung. IPS correspondent Crystal Oderson visited one of the major Tibetan health facilities in Lhasa…. and got a glimpse of the age old tradition.

The post Medical Centres Cover Every Village in Tibet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A new simulation depicts the consequences of a U.S.-Russian nuclear exchange. Credit: Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University

By Daryl G. Kimball
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 30 2019 (IPS)

Over the long course of the nuclear age, millions of people around the world, often led by a young generation of clear-eyed activists, have stood up to demand meaningful, immediate international action to halt, reduce, and end the threat posed by nuclear weapons to humankind and the planet.

Today, a new generation is mobilizing to demand dramatic action to address another existential threat: the human-induced climate emergency. The scientific consensus is that climate change causes and impacts are increasing, and little more than a decade is left to take the bold steps necessary to cut global carbon emissions in half and reverse the slide toward catastrophe.

The disarmament movement has achieved success in reducing nuclear dangers before, but there is no room for complacency. The nuclear threat has not gone away. Nuclear competition is growing. The risk of nuclear war is increasing.

Just as dramatic action is needed to avoid climate change catastrophe, immediate and decisive action is required to counter the growing threat of nuclear war before it is too late.

A qualitative global nuclear arms race is now underway. The world’s nine nuclear-armed actors are collectively squandering hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain and improve their arsenals. Tensions between nuclear-armed states are on the rise. Key treaties are under threat.

With the loss of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in August, the only remaining treaty verifiably limiting the world’s two largest arsenals is the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which is due to expire in less than 17 months.

Washington and Moscow are pursuing the development of destabilizing types of weapons, including new lower-yield, “more usable” nuclear weapons. Each side still clings to Cold War-era nuclear launch-under-attack postures that increase the risk of miscalculation.

The use of nuclear weapons—even on a so-called “limited” scale—creates the potential for global catastrophe. A new simulation developed by scientists at Princeton University estimates that if, in a U.S.-Russian confrontation in the Baltics, one side resorts to the “tactical” use of nuclear weapons and the other responds, their current war plans could lead to an escalatory exchange involving 1,700 nuclear detonations against military and civilian targets.

Within five hours, nearly 100 million people would be killed or injured.

Many more people would suffer and die in the weeks and months afterward. A new study of the longer-term climatic effects of a large-scale U.S.-Russian nuclear exchange estimates that the resulting fallout and fires would inject 150 million metric tons of soot and smoke into the earth’s upper atmosphere within two weeks, resulting in a drop in global temperatures of 9 degrees Celsius and a 30 percent drop in precipitation within 12 months.

The resulting nuclear winter would wreak havoc on food production and lead to global famine.

Effective policies to address the nuclear threat must begin with the understanding that the only way to eliminate the threat of nuclear war is to eliminate nuclear weapons. The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a crucial step in this direction, but it is not an all-in-one solution to reduce today’s nuclear dangers.
Leading nuclear and non-nuclear states need to take overdue, common-sense steps necessary to halt and reverse the arms race, reduce the salience of nuclear weapons, eliminate the most destabilizing types of weapons, and create the conditions for nuclear disarmament.

To start, all nuclear-armed states should reaffirm the 1985 pledge made by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

The Kremlin has recently proposed that U.S. and Russian leaders reissue a joint statement along these lines, but Washington has demurred.

Nuclear-armed states should agree to adopt policies that reduce nuclear risks, such as no first use of nuclear weapons. Given the risks of escalation, there is no plausible circumstance that could justify legally, morally, or militarily the use of nuclear weapons to deal with a non-nuclear threat.

Washington and Moscow also should extend New START by five years as allowed by the treaty and immediately begin talks on a follow-on deal to set lower limits on all types of nuclear weaponry, including nonstrategic nuclear weapons; a new agreement dealing with ground-launched, intermediate-range systems; and new restrictions on destabilizing missile defense deployments and long-range hypersonic weapons.

Further U.S.-Russian progress on disarmament would pressure the other nuclear actors, including China, to agree to freeze the overall size of their smaller but still deadly nuclear arsenals and agree to joint nuclear risk-reduction measures, such as ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and join talks on nuclear disarmament.

The catastrophic consequences of failure on climate change and nuclear weapons are well documented, the steps necessary to mitigate the risks are well known, and the public demand for action is powerful. But the political will to take action is weak.

To give future generations the chance to eliminate the nuclear danger, our generation must act decisively to reduce the threat of nuclear war and put us back on the path to global zero.

The post The Risk of Nuclear War is Increasing appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director, Arms Control Association

The post The Risk of Nuclear War is Increasing appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNOHCR)

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations commemorated its annual World Day of Migrants and Refugees (WDMR) on September 29 —- this time amidst rising anti-immigrant rhetoric and widespread xenophobia.

The right-wing populist attacks have come mostly from politicians and political leaders primarily in Europe, the United States and Australia.

“Those who do not put clear limits on migration will soon start to feel like strangers in their own land,” Austria’s former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, was quoted as saying.

Hungary’s hard-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has proclaimed his intention to protect Europe from “a Muslim invasion” says “in the world today, there are basically two types of leaders: globalists and patriots” –- a sentiment strongly asserted by US President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly September 24.

And as a follow-up, the Trump administration announced September 26 that the US will accept only about 18,000 refugees, out of an anticipated 368,000 claims, in 2020: down from the current limit of 30,000 and a fraction of the 110,000 the Obama administration allowed in 2016.

“At the core of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is a commitment to make decisions made on reality, not wishes, and to drive optional outcomes based on concrete facts”, the US State Department said in its official announcement last week.

In France, and in several other European countries, there are fears of a “grand replacement” of the country’s original “white population” with newer arrivals, mostly from conflict ridden nations in Africa and the Middle East.

These fears have been vociferously reinforced by hard right politicians not only in the US, Hungary and Austria but also in Italy, UK, Poland, France, Sweden and Australia.

Germany was the only country in Europe to admit about one million refugees by the end of 2018, a decision that had heavy political costs for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In a report released September 19, the United Nations said the number of international migrants globally reached an estimated 272 million in 2019, an increase of 51 million since 2010.

Currently, international migrants comprise 3.5 per cent of the global population, compared to 2.8 per cent in the year 2000.

According to the report, titled International Migrant Stock 2019, a dataset released by the Population Division of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), in 2019, regionally, Europe hosts the largest number of international migrants (82 million), followed by Northern America (59 million) and Northern Africa and Western Asia (49 million).

At the country level, about half of all international migrants reside in just 10 countries, with the United States of America hosting the largest number of international migrants (51 million), equal to about 19 per cent of the world’s total.

Germany and Saudi Arabia host the second and third largest numbers of migrants (13 million each), followed by the Russian Federation (12 million), the United Kingdom (10 million), the United Arab Emirates (9 million), France, Canada and Australia (around 8 million each) and Italy (6 million).

Meanwhile the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) says so far this year, over 63,000 migrants and refugees have entered Europe by sea–almost 30,000, or almost half of the yearly total number of people have arrived in the past nine weeks.

About four out of five migrants or refugees enter Europe through Greece or Spain, with others arriving mostly in Italy, Malta or Cyprus.

The IOM has also launched five campaigns to prevent the risks of irregular migration and to encourage informed decision-making among young Central American migrants.

The campaigns are taking place in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Brandon Wu, Director of Policy and Campaigns at ActionAid USA, told IPS: “Certainly, we expect migration trends to continue increasing.”

Instead of addressing the root causes of migration, he pointed out, governments are largely ignoring them.

“We are not investing in solutions to the climate crisis, either in terms of reducing emissions or supporting communities to adapt to climate impacts. We are not investing in food security or to support rural livelihoods”, he noted.

Wu said governments like the U.S. are not changing harmful foreign policies that are driving conflict and persecution.

“A deterrent strategy of persecuting migrants after they have already left their homes can only go so far – to reverse the trend of increasing migration, we have to address the reasons that people move, and no governments are truly tackling these issues at the right scale,” he declared.

He said the strategy used by Europe and U.S. to expand its borders outwards for the purposes of keeping migrants at arms’ length is fundamentally flawed.

“It’s a temporary solution at best, especially in the case of the U.S. which is now relying on terribly politically unstable countries like Honduras or El Salvador to absorb asylum seekers.”

The policy solutions that would actually best serve to protect the rights of migrants would be a combination of welcoming them into recipient countries and providing them the same social services afforded to citizens, and shifting policies (including foreign policy, foreign assistance, climate policy and more) to address the reasons why people are migrating in the first place, declared Wu.

Credit United Nations

Singling out the vulnerabilities of women in the refugee crisis, Jacqui Hunt, Director of Equality Now’s Europe and Eurasia Office, told IPS pre-existing sex inequalities mean that women and girls already face multifaceted disadvantages and this is compounded by other factors such as poverty, ethnic or cultural background, disability, and age.

Women generally have fewer assets to rely upon, lower levels of education, and are often absent from decision-making.

Also compounding their vulnerability are legal inequalities such as sex discriminatory citizenship rights, said Hunt, who has spearheaded several of Equality Now’s successful campaigns, including for the creation of a UN Working Group to focus on ending discrimination against women in law and in practice..

When people flee from conflict or natural disasters, they lose their home, livelihood and social network. Families that previously might have been able to afford to feed and educate several children may resort to marrying off their daughters in exchange for a dowry or simply because it means there is one less person to provide for, she pointed out.

Hunt said refugees and asylum seekers are often forced to live in impoverished and desperate conditions with limited choices, placing women and girls at greater risk of sexual assault, exploitation and trafficking.

“The international community needs to address the underlying sex discrimination faced by women and girls and how this also has a disproportionate impact on women and girls’ migration. It should position this dimension at the centre of policy discussions and implementation.”

This, she said, requires a gender responsive approach that involves women in all levels of decision making. Governments must strengthen their commitments to take action and be held accountable for their commitments and legal protections.

The Sustainable Development Goals and other international standards and objectives can help guide the way, she declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Global Green Growth Institute’s Director General Frank Rijsberman pictured here at COP24. Credit: Sohara Mehroze Shachi/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 27 2019 (IPS)

A week ago, downtown New York witnessed one of the most historic moments in the climate action moment — hundreds of thousands of people attended the Climate Strike, where teen activists delivered powerful speeches and blows to world leaders for not taking climate change seriously.

Dr. Frank Rijsberman Director-General of the treaty-based Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), attended the strike — but for him, it wasn’t just about that one moment. As someone who’s worked in sustainable development for more than three decades, this was a long time coming. And upon his return to Seoul, South Korea, where GGGI is headquartered, his 10-year-old son will skip school on Friday to attend the Climate Strike there.

During an intense week in New York as the United Nations General Assembly convenes, where climate action is at the centre of the debate this year, Rijsberman sat down with IPS for a brief chat on what the next decade will bring in the climate action momentum, and what role GGGI will play. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Given the current climate at this year’s UNGA, there’s a lot more momentum on climate action, so where does GGGI’s work stand?

Dr. Frank Rijsberman (FR): I read quite a few negative stories about the summit yesterday [Monday] but I don’t quite see it that way, particularly now I think we have some 70 countries committed to Net Zero by 2050 up from like 20 last year. I think more and more countries signing on to that.

Some journalists are taking on the fact that the leaders who are signing on to those targets don’t know exactly how to achieve those but, I was in a few meetings with the Danish Prime Minister who made the Net Zero commitment and a 70 percent reduction by 2030 commitment, which is one of the strongest targets. And she admitted, that we don’t know how to get there. She actually turned around and said, “If we knew exactly how to get there then our target wouldn’t be ambitious enough because we ought to develop new technology.”

You create the target and then you go to work on how to achieve it. I think that’s the positive side of that story and then we see a lot of initiatives that are all pointed on that from clean energy investment accelerators, initiatives around accelerating energy efficiency up to 3 percent per year, doubling the current rates so there are a lot of initiatives that are contributing and all of it are leaning to supporting and enabling countries to come up with more ambitious targets by the COP next year in Glasgow.

It would’ve been nice if there were a lot of binding commitments shared yesterday in the climate summit but I would see this more as a stepping stone to urge countries to be ready with those commitments next year and frankly the speed with which countries sign up to the Net Zero target is pretty impressive.

IPS: Do you think there’s as better response from countries this year than previous years?

FR: Last year was 20, now it’s 70 countries that have committed to Net Zero.

There are more countries now that are recognising there’s a climate crisis – they no longer [talk about] climate change, this neutral language. They’re talking about the climate crisis and emergency and responding to it like that with the laws, climate laws, and then we’re going to have to go figure out how to do that which is not so easy but not so impossible either.

IPS: These are developed countries, so where do developing countries fit in?

FR: Our members are all the way from Denmark to Qatar and [the United Arab Emeritus] UAE down to countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. So, leaders are on one hand clearly the Denmarks and the UKs of the world and on the other hand we worked with Fiji to come up with their lower development strategy 2050.

In between, there are countries like Indonesia and Vietnam who are really struggling because they are the ones that have a lot of coal and have developed their industry very successfully based on coal and fossil fuel. They’re the ones that are going to have to make the most difficult choices. They don’t have a lot of money, they feel they can’t afford it but yes they’re confronted with air pollution.

I think the best, most helpful example was China. In China, people were fed up with never seeing blue skies and having to wear air pollution masks. Air pollution and health concerns of the citizen are driving a lot of the investments in clean energy in Asia. And of course what you do for blue skies and for air pollution, you also do for the climate.

In a country like Vietnam, for instance, last year our story was that Vietnam was the country with the largest number of new coal fire power plants. They were going to build 25 new coal fire plants. And then the government came out with a new policy – [companies] get offered a [tariff] for large-scale solar.

Vietnam had a target to reach 4.5GW of solar then by 2025. This is a lot if you have nothing.

The target was to be reached by 2025, and to everybody’s surprise they reached that on the 1st of July this year.

From nothing to 4.5GW — and not plans, not ideas but projects that are already built and connected to the grid.

So, what happened to India in 2017, that the country was going to build all those coal fire power plants, and then they did these major renewable energy auctions, and they found the price of solar is lower than building coal fire power plants. In 2017, India scrapped the idea of building new coal fire power plants.

Of course they still have a lot of coal fire power plants and they haven’t closed them. And that was the disappointment that Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi didn’t say anything about how he’s going to close them but they’re no longer going to build new ones because solar is cheaper.

So that has happened this year in Vietnam and that should happen next year (but hasn’t happened yet) in Indonesia.

IPS: Price of solar — there’s a myth that adopting these practices cost more but clearly they’re being demystified now. Is there a better awareness among countries now?

FR: Well, gradually. Vietnam believes it, but Indonesia not yet. When we go to Indonesia, we’re still working hard on awareness. Vietnam doesn’t really have as much awareness in pollution. In Seoul, people wear masks when the air is bad. You go to Vietnam, people aren’t wearing masks so you think the air must be better here. But no, the air is just as bad — people just don’t know about it yet.

So I think raising awareness of both the negative impacts of air pollution, climate change and that there are solutions that are commercially attractive is still a big part of the job. 

That’s why there’s still work for organisations like ours, spreading these stories, showing the examples, helping the government develop the right policy framework and bringing in investors as well.

IPS: Are investors on board?

FR: Yes, so I was in a number of events here. We’ve been saying the billions of dollars can come from development aid, the trillions of dollars have to come from pension funds and private sector.

If you’re paying into your pension fund you want your savings to be invested in a solid place, so your retirement is still there. So they’re the lowest risk investors.

But in Denmark, the pension fund has invested something like 15 billion dollars in their offshore wind industry and they’re not confident that in the next 10 years, they can invest 50 billion dollars in renewable energy. Just small Denmark, their pension fund, that’s where the trillions of dollars sit.

We may raise 10 billion dollars for the Green Climate Fund. Pension Denmark by itself will invest 50 billion dollars so the numbers indeed in the private sector are in trillions and they’re beginning to be mobilised.

So our work is showing that in the emerging markets that are also good investment opportunities for pension funds like Pension Denmark, and the role of the Danish government is to help Pension Denmark feel good enough about their investments in say, Africa, that they’ll risk their money so that the credit guarantee can come from Danish government as part of development aid and the money can come from the pension funds. That’s where the big money is.

So our job is to use the billions of development aid to mobilise the trillions from the private sector and institutional investors. And one of the most hopeful signs is that we can see that that is now starting to happen.

IPS: We’re now entering a new decade. What is GGGI’s plans for what’s ahead?

FR: We’re making our strategy 2030 and of course our goal is to support our member countries to be leaders in this green transition. Some of our members like Denmark really are and they are really interested in helping our other members like Ethiopia and Indonesia to implement the green transition as well.

So our mission remains to use the experience and the money of some our contributing members to help accelerate the green transition in the other countries. We are pretty optimistic, pretty positive that there is great potential for that.

In the last two years we have mobilised about a billion dollars in green and climate finance for our members and now we have a target for 2030….to mobilise 16 billion dollars in climate finance and if we do that, then through our action that would save a gigaton in emissions, that would create two million new green jobs, that would provide sustainable services for 300 million people in green cities. So we have ambitious plans in line with the Paris agreement and SDGs to support our members to achieve those goals and targets.    

IPS: What would you say are your challenges in negotiating with member countries?

FR: Among our high-income countries we have the real leaders like Denmark and Australia, then we have some African countries that are totally ready but they say we need financial help and then we all have Asian countries as we discussed who are all those Asian tigers, develop their economies based on not green but brown technologies.

So they are the ones that are the biggest challenge. But they do also have more money to invest like Vietnam, if they want to. So the challenges are a bit different in these different groups of our countries but bringing them together, and in a way organising a consensus, among our members that green transition is necessary and also feasible. That’s our job.

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The post Q&A: How Vietnam went from Zero to Hero in Developing Solar Projects and What Other Countries Can Do for Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Slovak daily Dennik N marks the United Nations climate change summit in New York this week with a special 'green' edition and front page title "How To Cool the World”. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
Sep 27 2019 (IPS)

In 2014, worried about editorial independence after local businessmen bought a substantial stake in the major Slovak daily newspaper they worked at, a small group of journalists left in protest and set up their own paper run solely by the journalists themselves to ensure impartiality.

Written off by many media analysts at the time who said starting a completely new independent newspaper would be an impossible task, Dennik N – Dennik is the Slovak word for daily newspaper and the N stands for Nezavislost, which means independence – is today one of Slovakia’s most popular news outlets with both print and web versions.

Determined to maintain its editorial independence, from the start the paper has used a subscription model to generate the majority of its funding.

A group of six people from the Slovak global IT security company ESET invested in the paper in its first year of operations, taking a 51 percent share in the company which publishes the newspaper. They still hold that share today with the remaining 49 percent owned by the paper’s journalists. Specific agreements with the six businessmen forbid them from having any editorial involvement in the newspaper.

They went on to develop the Readers’ Engagement and Monetisation Platform (REMP), an open source software and subscription platform that allows them to engage directly with subscribers so they can tell publishers what they want to read—effectively proving that Slovak readers want quality, independent journalism and are prepared to pay for it.

Lukas Fila, one of the original founders of Dennik N and now chief executive of the company which publishes the paper, speaks to IPS about the advantages of the paper’s subscription model, how growing numbers of readers consider it completely normal to pay for quality journalism content, threats to press freedom in Slovakia and helping media elsewhere copy their success.

Inter Press Service (IPS): Your newspaper was founded by journalists, including yourself, who left another Slovak daily because of fears over editorial independence after a major local business group took a large stake in the paper. Your newspaper decided to use subscription as its main funding source to try and ensure you could maintain editorial independence. Is it not possible for newspapers – in Slovakia or elsewhere – to be editorially independent without relying on subscriptions for the majority of their financing?

Lukas Fila (LF): Of course it is possible. Firstly, many would argue that editorial independence is not strictly related to economic independence. In other words – that you can do good journalism regardless of whether you’re earning enough to sustain your operation in the long run on a commercial basis. And you could probably find examples of this, although it is not a view we share. 

Secondly, there are also other business models that allow media organisations to earn enough money, especially through advertising revenue or specialised products, such as organising conferences, selling books, or providing specialised analyses. 

However, digital subscription has several advantages – the number of people who are starting to realise that it’s normal to pay for online content is growing. Moreover, it is most closely associated with the essence of journalism – providing quality content to your audience. It forces you to constantly think about ways of providing content that people feel is worth paying for.  

IPS: Simply being majority funded by subscriptions would not alone guarantee editorial independence. How do you ensure you remain editorially independent, especially given that a group of very rich local businessmen, have a majority stake in your newspaper?

LF: The six co-owners of ESET have a 51 percent stake in the company. The shareholders’ agreement has various provisions guaranteeing editorial independence, for example a clause which makes it impossible for them to fire the editor in chief. However, what is most important is that our owners have no dealings with the state or other commercial conflicts of interests, they currently have no role in the management of the company, and at no point have they in any way tried to influence the content of the paper. This is despite the fact that they have come under heavy attack from politicians who feel threatened by our reporting. Editorial independence is not really an issue at Dennik N, we have the greatest independence imaginable. 

IPS: Have any other major Slovak news outlets followed your subscription-based model and if so, have they done it to maintain editorial independence?

LF: Subscription-based models were being tried in Slovakia even prior to our launch. One of my colleagues, Tomas Bella, was the founder of Piano, which is currently a global leader in providing pay wall systems to publishers. There are several Slovak publications that are successful at running subscription schemes, their motivation is both editorial and commercial. 

 IPS: At a time when many news media all over the world are facing problems to remain financially sustainable, do you think the model you have adopted is sustainable in the long-term?

LF: Our model is probably most immune to changes on the market. While advertising revenue can change dramatically, having a loyal subscription base is something you can rely on in the long run. 

IPS: Your newspaper was originally largely a political and investigative news publication. Did you decide to take that specific relatively narrow focus because you believed there was a gap in the market for that and/or Slovak readers wanted a newspaper like that?

LF: The focus is no longer as narrow. We currently provide diverse content – we do sports, lifestyle, culture, science, we do podcasts, books, educational projects, and we just launched a business publication called Dennik E. 

In a good month our traffic exceeds 1 million unique visitors in a country of 5 million people. You can’t really achieve those numbers with a very narrow focus. The initial format was the result of several factors – the type of journalists that decided to start Dennik N, our idea about what type of content would best attract the first group of subscribers, an effort to keep costs down at what was already a costly and risky enterprise. We started with under 50 people and 6,000 people that supported us in our crowdfunding stage. We currently have more than 70 people working here and 42,000 subscribers. And we hope to expand further.  

IPS: Could REMP help other newspapers which want to move more towards reader-based funding to maintain their editorial independence?

LF: Yes. The system is being used by several Czech and Slovak publishers and is being tried out by several large publishers outside the [Central European] region. The advantage of REMP is that our whole survival was dependent on it. We really had no other major focus than the quality of our journalism and the ability to monetise it. That is a big advantage over those that develop similar products only as a product to be used by others.  

IPS: Slovakia has fallen down the international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’s press freedom index in recent years with the group, as well as the European Commission, raising concerns over editorial independence in local media as oligarchs have bought up media houses and politicians have repeatedly attacked journalists. Do you feel press freedom in Slovakia is under serious threat?

LF: We’ve had this feeling since we started Dennik N. That was the primary motivation [for starting the newspaper]. One could argue that our success helped the situation at least to a small degree – it is now obvious that the entire market cannot be controlled by oligarchs, plus it probably gave journalists in other editorial rooms more courage to speak up. But the ownership changes are still not over, and sadly, they are usually for the worse. If you add in uncertainty about the results of next year’s parliamentary elections [in Slovakia], the situation could deteriorate quickly. 

IPS: When local journalist Jan Kuciak, and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova, were killed last year because of what police said was his journalism work, many journalists said at the time that politicians’ attitudes to journalists had helped breed an atmosphere of hate towards journalists in which the murder could happen. Would you agree with that and do you think politicians have changed their attitudes to journalists since then?

LF: It is becoming more and more obvious that the primary responsibility of politicians [in the killings of Kuciak and Kusnirova] is in the fact that there existed a system in which oligarchs and mafiosi could control law enforcement agencies and the courts. That gave them a sense of being untouchable, which eventually led to the tragic events. That is a much more serious thing than just attitudes to journalists.  

But their attitudes are also important, and no, with the brief exception of a few weeks after the killings, they have not changed, and if so, perhaps for the worse. Among some leading politicians, there exists a mix of authentic paranoia and cynical delegitimisation through explicit attacks on journalists, which we now see even in parts of the West. 

IPS: Legislation passed this month in Slovakia will give politicians the chance to demand a ‘right to reply’ from newspapers which publish stories politicians say are untrue or misleading. Do you think this is an attempt to interfere in editorial independence in Slovak media?

LF: This was tried before [with the same legislation] and didn’t lead to any dramatic consequences. There are dangerous trends in Slovakia, but I would not see this piece of legislation as something we need to worry about too much.  

IPS: When President Zuzana Caputova took office earlier this year, did Slovakia’s journalism community think that press freedom in Slovakia might improve in any way, and if so, how and why?

LF: The role of president in Slovakia is largely symbolic. That is not to say that symbols are not important. I think President Caputova has brought good energy and represents the right values. And if democracy is ever threatened, she can play a vital role. But in terms of media legislation, the way in which politicians communicate with the press, or actual threats to journalists, her powers are limited. It is good to know that attacks against the free press will not go unnoticed, but the legislature and executive have a greater impact on the everyday functioning of the media. 

IPS: Slovakia is just one of a number of countries around the world where press freedom appears to be coming under increasing threat and concerns are being raised about media independence. How do you think media outlets around the world can maintain their independence?    

LF: We are trying our best to help others, at least in the region – last year we launched Dennik N in the Czech Republic, in cooperation with local investors and journalists. After less than a year, they have over 11,000 subscribers and we hope they can copy our success. Similarly, we are looking at other markets. This is the most we can do. But I have no universal answers, different markets have different problems. 

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The post Q&A: A New Model for Independent Journalism in Slovakia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

International media watchdogs, such as Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute, as well as major institutions such as the European Commission, have raised concerns about press freedom in Slovakia as big businesses buy up local media houses and politicians attack journalists.

The post Q&A: A New Model for Independent Journalism in Slovakia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has been investing in projects to assist African countries adapt to climate change. Seven out of the 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change are located on the continent even though Africa contributes less than 4 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). However, Africa needs between 7-15 billion dollars every year to adapt to the impacts of climate change, according to the AfDB. Pictured here is a wind energy generation plant located in Loiyangalani in northwestern Kenya. The plant is set to be the biggest in Africa, generating 300 MW. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 27 2019 (IPS)

African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina unveiled millions of dollars of new pledges at the United Nations this week amid growing fears of climate change ravaging the continent and derailing anti-poverty targets.

At a gathering of world leaders in New York, Adesina disclosed commitments on tackling global warming, a massive solar energy project in the Sahel, and an insurance scheme that poor countries can access when the next cyclone strikes. 

“Africa has been shortchanged by climate change, but it should not be shortchanged by climate finance,” Adesina told reporters at a press conference at the start of the U.N. General Assembly. 

The AfDB would double its climate financing to emerging economies to 25 billion dollars from 2020-2025, half of which would help governments adapt to droughts, rising tides and other impacts of climate change, said Adesina.

The bank would also help raise 250 million dollars to fund co-payments for insurance premiums so that disaster-prone countries get cashback when extreme weather events wreak chaos on their economies, said Adesina.

“Poor countries didn’t cause climate change, they shouldn’t be holding the short end of the stick,” said Adesina.

Another 20 million dollars would fund the Sahel’s new ‘Desert to Power’ solar scheme, for generating 10,000 MW of clean electricity for some 250 million people, including 90 million rural folks who live far from a power grid, said Adesina.

“This will make the Sahel the Baobab of energy,” said Adesina, referencing the hardy African tree. 

Such funding is welcome, but may not be enough. Africa needs between 7-15 billion dollars every year to adapt to the impacts of climate change, said Adesina. 

More broadly, the continent needs between 130–170 billion dollars of investment in power plants, internet cables and other infrastructure each year, leaving a funding gap of some 68-108 billion dollars, according to AfDB data.

Benedict Okey Oramah, President of Afreximbank, a trade finance body, said African economies had to work harder to train workers and expand their markets to lure investors to the continent.

“Countries which are fragmented are small markets, they cannot be of interest to people who want to put money to grow in a massive way,” Oramah told a meeting of African leaders at the U.N. on Wednesday. 

“We have to build again the technical schools that we used to have, we have to build universities of science and technology so that we can have the right skills to take up the kinds of jobs that are beginning to emerge.”

Talks came amid concerns from teen Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres and many others that the world was not on track for slashing emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Guterres, secretary-general of the world body, warned that while countries were making progress towards the U.N.’s so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), more efforts were needed.

“Let us be clear — we are far from where we need to be. We are off track,” said Guterres. “Deadly conflicts, the climate crisis, gender-based violence, and persistent inequalities are undermining efforts to achieve the goals.”

The 17 SDGs were agreed by the U.N.’s 193 member states in 2015 in an effort to curb war, climate change, famine, land degradation, gender-based inequality, and other global ills by 2030.

Progress is being made in access to energy, to decent work, and in battling poverty and child mortality, but youth unemployment has plateaued and global hunger and gender inequality continue to rise, the U.N. says.

In an impassioned address to a U.N. climate summit on Monday, youth activist Thunberg raged at world leaders in a crowd that briefly included United States President Donald Trump and his entourage.

“You have stolen my dreams, my childhood, with your empty words,” said Thunberg, 16. “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about are your fairy tales of money and eternal economic growth.”

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A wind park in Oaxaca, Mexico. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 27 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can only be achieved by 2030 with the political will to change international economic rules and mobilize resources needed for a massive public sector-led investment push to reinvigorate world economic progress sustainably, says UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2019 (TDR 2019).

 

Global Green New Deal 

Existing international economic rules enhance market forces, corporate power and national policies which sustain, if not increase economic disparities and environmental destruction. TDR 2019 calls for a Global Green New Deal (GGND) which would at least reverse the austerity, stagnation and vulnerability since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

This new multilateral contract proposes reforms to ensure that banks, capital and debt help finance investments for more sustainable development with less economic inequality and environmental degradation. TDR 2019 argues for new trade and investment agreements as well as reforms to intellectual property and licensing regulations to support the GGND and the SDGs.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Global warming is already causing severe, albeit uneven damage all over the world and threatens much worse. Mitigating climate change will require large public-led investments, especially in renewable energy, sustainable food systems and clean transport, to complement effective industrial policies, with selective subsidies, tax incentives, loans and guarantees.

As one size does not fit all, developing countries will need appropriate investment and technology policy measures to bypass traditional carbon-intensive energy trajectories. The best policy package varies with context, but all will need fiscal stimulus, public infrastructure investment, renewable energy and better working conditions.

TDR 2019 offers a GGND proposal with developed economies’ growth rates 1~1.5% above those currently envisaged. The envisaged benefits for developing economies are greater, with growth rates around 1.5~2% more, although China will benefit less.

 

Win-win solution?

Are such win-win solutions still feasible in a world facing severe constraints and pressures? TDR 2019 doubts other proposals, e.g., the World Bank initiative to raise private finance using shadow banking and public finance to guarantee high private returns to investments. Thus far, such incentives have largely failed to boost productive investments.

Increasing total green investments by 2% of global income annually – around US$1.7 trillion, or a third of what governments currently spend on fossil fuel subsidies – could create over 170 million jobs, ensure cleaner industrialization in the South, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Instead, TDR 2019 proposes measures and reforms for the public sector to lead financing the GGND. Fiscal policy and strategic public investments can not only stimulate private investments, but also draw them in, rather than ‘crowd them out’.

Increasing total green investments by 2% of global income annually – around US$1.7 trillion, or a third of what governments currently spend on fossil fuel subsidies – could create over 170 million jobs, ensure cleaner industrialization in the South, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Investing much more to achieve the nutrition, health, education and poverty SDGs will require extensive international trade, finance and monetary reforms. But policy responses to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis have failed to enable more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable recovery, let alone longer-term development.

Fiscal expansion, to be financed with progressive tax increases and credit creation, needs to be consistently counter-cyclical, better coordinated, and capable of paying for itself. With many economies currently facing insufficient demand, TDR 2019 argues fiscal stimulus is necessary to boost private investment and productivity.

 

Innovative development finance

Rebuilding multilateralism and international cooperation around the GGND requires meeting Agenda 2030’s financing requirements. TDR 2019 proposes various reforms to ensure capital, banks and debt contribute to accelerating development, including:

• providing better multilateral oversight, coordination and support of capital account management.
• expanding special drawing rights as a flexible financing mechanism, without strict policy conditionalities or onerous eligibility criteria, beyond providing reliable liquidity for global environmental protection and emergency funding.
• greater regional monetary cooperation to promote intraregional trade and value chains, moving beyond regional reserve swaps and pooling liquidity, while developing regional payments systems and clearing unions.
• a rules-based facility, governed by agreed principles and international law, for orderly and equitable restructuring of sovereign debt that can no longer be serviced as per the original contract.
• a global SDG-oriented concessional lending facility for low and lower middle-income developing countries, with a refinancing facility for borrowing on concessional terms, and an additional lending facility for the external share of public sector financing needs.
• a global sustainable development fund, capitalized and replenished by donor countries paying their previously unfulfilled commitments to the official development assistance target of 0.7% of national income, thus compensating for past shortfalls, estimated at over US$3.5 trillion since 1990.
• unitary taxation of transnational corporations’ (TNCs) profits with a global minimum effective corporate tax rate on all TNC profits set at 20~25%, i.e., the international average of current nominal rates, to check tax-evading illicit financial flows.
• additional climate financing using unconventional monetary tools.
• increasing finance for development, including strengthening South-South financing, e.g., by mobilising sovereign wealth funds, with assets of almost US$8 trillion, to finance development.

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Secretary-General António Guterres (centre) and Greta Thunberg (second from right), Youth Climate Activist, at the opening of the UN Youth Climate Summit. Courtesy: UN Photo/Kim Haughton

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 27 2019 (IPS)

When the Youth Climate Summit concluded last week, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres predicted that if governments still lack the political will to make peace with nature, “there is huge hope in what the youth is doing all over the world”.

“And the youth is clearly telling my generation that we need to change course and that we need to do it now. And it is saying it in a very strong way,” declared Guterres, even as he warned of impending droughts, floods, hurricanes, and heatwaves triggered by climate change which has already displaced millions and killed thousands worldwide.

The rise of a new generation determined to lead the fight against climate emergency has led to a major youth movement worldwide, resulting in protest marches, with thousands of young people demonstrating in the streets of New York and in several world capitals.

And Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg’s pointed question at world leaders– “How dare you?” — was the rallying cry at the UN’s climate action summit on September 23.

Greta Thunberg addressing the UN Youth Climate Summit September 21.

Addressing delegates, she said: “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth,” said Thunberg. “How dare you!” 

James Paul, a former executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum, told IPS the young Swedish activist has been a major inspiration, with an ability to think clearly, speak directly and engage in powerful truth-telling

There have been spirited marches and rallies, as well as strikes, disruptions and other actions in cities around the globe. Nothing quite like it has ever been seen before, he said. 

In just over a year after she began a lonely vigil outside the Swedish parliament, Thunberg has drawn millions of students into this movement by her spirit and determination.

As Greta herself has often pointed out, the climate crisis is particularly an issue for youth, who are increasingly aware of the dangerous future world they may have to live and die in, he said. 

Disenchanted by the grown-up world and its lack to action, they are choosing to rise up, said Paul, author of the recently-released book titled “Of foxes and Chickens: Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council.”.

Paul said the younger generation is connected together worldwide by social media and the internet.  They are exposed to climate information and news as never before. 

“And they see the dying planet in front of their eyes.  The relatively sudden youth mobilisation has been very impressive, but where do we go from here?” he asked.

Ranton Anjain, 17, from the Marshall Islands, speaks at a press conference announcing a collective action being taken on behalf of young people facing the impacts of the climate crisis. UNICEF/Radhika Chalasani

Joseph Gerson, President, Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, told IPS that Greta Thunberg spoke of political leaders’ “betrayal” for doing little or “nothing: in the face of the climate threat to human survival.

“Much the same can be said about the nuclear weapons and umbrella states resistance to fulfilling their NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) and ICJ (International Court of Justice) obligations for nuclear disarmament,” he said.

“A youth strike would certainly be a very important contribution”, said Gerson, who is also Disarmament Coordinator American Friends Service Committee and Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau.

“That said, we have a long way to go in helping people who came of age after the Cold War and certainly in this century to understand the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons.”

He said they can see the impacts of the climate crisis from day to day and understand its threat to their futures, while the nuclear danger feels more abstract. (unless their families are down winders, atomic vets, etc.).

“Hopefully, with intersectional education and organising, linking the two existential threats we can regenerate a powerful force for both climate sustainability and disarmament,” declared Gerson.

“That’s one of the goals of our World Conference and mobilisation next April in New York on the eve of the NPT Review Conference,” he predicted.

Harjeet Singh, global lead on climate change at ActionAid, said young people have exposed the shameless lack of leadership from heads of state who have looked the other way for decades, as the climate crisis has escalated and the planet burned.

“At this late stage, when the window of opportunity is shrinking, we need leaders to show courage, not cowardice.”

Paul said the youth movement has taken hold in nearly every country and produced local leaders of impressive capability. 

The United Nations and other institutions have rushed to grab hold of this movement and bring the newly-produced leaders into the fold.  This is not entirely a bad thing.

“But we can also see that the process of co-optation has begun,” he noted. 

“Can the youth movement retain its militancy and its connection to a base if it sits down for “dialogues” with governments and business leaders?  Perhaps Greta will stick to her principles.” 

But what of the “youth leaders” who have themselves been selected by governments or UN officials?  Even Exxon will be looking for a “youth wash,” so to speak, warned Paul.

Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said the young climate leaders have made it clear that they will not stop until they see action, and Oxfam continues to stand in solidarity, calling on politicians, business leaders and private citizens to join the life or death fight to save our planet for future generations.

Paul said: We would be well-advised to consider comparisons to the other global movements that reached maximum visibility in recent decades: the anti-war movement, the women’s movement, and the NGO movement, for example. 

“Will this newcomer build more strength and show more staying power then they managed to achieve?  Will it break out into a new level of global political energy?  We must hope so, without forgetting the enormous strength of the powers-that-be.”

To look on the bright side, he pointed out, the youth in the movement are offering important ingredients for a liveable future – ideas about international cooperation, solidarity and respect for nature. 

They are rightly skeptical about the political institutions that they are inheriting and about global consumer capitalism with its worship of growth and its culture of possessive individualism, he added. 

They also offer a welcome mix of fearless understanding and readiness for taking action – while most adults duck the truth and prefer to retreat into comfortable inaction, argued Paul.  

“Of course, the youth movement is diverse and contains many political currents, but above all it is an expression of positive action, hope for the future, and readiness for far-reaching change.”

As they say: “Another world is possible.”

The planet is probably not going to be rescued by youthful enthusiasm and determination alone, Paul said.

“But it just might be possible, though, in our eleventh hour, that the global youth movement would trigger a multi-generational, unstoppable process, that would transform our lives and our future. Youth of all ages had better sign up!  It’s now or never!” said Paul.

Meanwhile, as the movement spreads, climate leaders, including youth climate strike organisers, young entrepreneurs and activists will take centre stage at the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen, October 9-12..

Young people, from 30 countries will join 70+ mayors from around the world to develop concrete plans for greater global climate ambition.

Building on the momentum of the Global Climate Strikes, the C40 World Mayors Summit will include an important platform for youth voices driving urgent climate action. C40 mayors have welcomed the #FridaysForFuture movement, and in Copenhagen, mayors will invite young activists to join an open dialogue about how today’s leaders can create the future they deserve. 

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Modern Day Slavery. Credit: UN images

By External Source
GENEVA, Sep 27 2019 (IPS)

“Six years after initiating my term as Special Rapporteur, it is sobering to say that the way to freedom from slavery remains long in spite of the legal abolition of slavery worldwide,” said UN expert on contemporary forms of slavery, Urmila Bhoola.

“Clearly, preventing and addressing slavery is not as simple as declaring it to be illegal but much more can and must be done to end slavery by 2030.”

According to the International Labour Organization, over 40 million are enslaved around the world. While presenting her latest report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Bhoola pointed out that servitude will likely increase as the world faces rapid changes in the workplace, environmental degradation, migration and demographic shifts.

"Slavery is economically clearly unprofitable; it leads to broader public health costs, productivity losses, negative environmental externalities and lost income,"
Urmila Bhoola, UN expert on contemporary forms of slavery

She further indicated that over 64 percent of those enslaved work in the private sector, a quarter of global servitude is of children, and a chocking 98 percent of enslaved women and girls have endured sexual violence.

People in the informal sector, which represents 90 percent of the workforce in developing countries, are at higher risk of being exploited or enslaved, Bhoola added.

“By 2030, some 85 percent of the more than 25 million young people entering the labour force globally will be in developing and emerging countries. Their perspectives to access jobs offering decent work will determine their level of vulnerability to exploitation, including slavery,” Bhoola said.

The figures she presented were a “wake-up call” for countries to prepare themselves to tackle slavery more effectively as “10,000 would need to be freed each day if we are to eradicate contemporary forms of slavery by 2030,” she added quoting recent figures from the NGO Walk Free.

Bhoola said that some States had already elected to exclude from public contracts suppliers whose supply chain presented risks of slavery. Other Governments were using anti-money laundering systems to encourage companies to prevent proceeds of slavery from entering the financial system.

The expert regretted, however, that efforts to end slavery had been insufficient. She pointed out that convictions against perpetrators and their risk to face justice remain minimal.

“Slavery is economically clearly unprofitable; it leads to broader public health costs, productivity losses, negative environmental externalities and lost income,” Bhoola stressed, proposing a new approach against slavery that is “systematic, scientific, strategic, sustainable, survivor-informed and smart.”

Bhoola urged States to commit more resources to end slavery, and adopt and implement public policies that effectively address that scourge.

This story was originally published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

 

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Coastal communities across the globe are increasingly at risk to being “exposed to multiple climate-related hazards, including tropical cyclones, extreme sea levels and flooding, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss, and permafrost thaw”. Pictured here in this picture dated 2012 fishermen work in teams and use only basic wooden canoes to set nets off the coast of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Sep 26 2019 (IPS)

Warnings of strong winds, high waves and reduced visibility along the East African coastline are increasingly common.

But local fisher folk like Ali Sombo from Kwale County, situated along Kenya’s Indian Ocean Coastline, don’t always heed the warnings by the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) to stay clear of the open sea during rough waters.

“We believe that when the waters are rough and waves roaring, the belly of the ocean is hunting for a specific soul. Even if you stay away from the ocean, it will find you so there is no need to be afraid,” Sombo told IPS. “Our only problem is that most of our boats are not strong enough for the strong waves so they capsize and sometimes fishermen die,” he added.

In July, KMD warned, through local radio, of five days of unprecedented rough waters characterised by strong winds of 25 miles per hour and high waves of more than three metres. But Sombo and his group of fishermen said that it was still business as usual for them.

But coastal communities here in Africa and across the globe are increasingly at risk to being “exposed to multiple climate-related hazards, including tropical cyclones, extreme sea levels and flooding, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss, and permafrost thaw”.

These are some of the findings in the newly released Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Sept. 25, in Monaco.

The oceans are being rapidly transformed by climate change. Millions, and by 2050 over a billion people, living along the coast are most at risk, with additional “negative consequences for health and well-being” for all populations and “for Indigenous peoples and local communities dependent on fisheries”.

In Africa some 25 percent of the population lives within 100km of the coast — with the figure as high as 66 percent in Senegal, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

And according to the report:

• Around 4 million people live in the Arctic region, of whom 10 percent are Indigenous.
• The low-lying coastal zone is currently home to around 680 million people (nearly 10 percent of the 2010 global population), projected to reach more than one billion by 2050.
• Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are home to 65 million people.

For this report, more than 100 authors from 36 countries assessed the most recent scientific literature related to the oceans and cryosphere (frozen parts of the planet such as the ice caps, glaciers and snow) in a changing climate. Oceans are critical to “regulating the planet’s climate and weather patterns through the cycling of critical greenhouse gases such as CO₂”.

The oceans and cryosphere are interconnected, with evaporation from the oceans resulting in snow that “builds and sustains the ice sheets and glaciers that store large amounts of frozen water on land”, the report explains.

Making reference to an estimated 7,000 scientific publications, the outcome is the most detailed insight yet into how global warming will impact the future.

U.N. scientists now warn that consequences of inaction will become increasingly rapid and painful over this century and that immediate emission cuts could greatly reduce these risks.

The report reveals that to date, the oceans, which cover more than 71 percent of the earth, has taken up more than 90 percent of the excess heat in the climate system. It also notes that glaciers and ice sheets in polar and mountain regions are losing mass, contributing to an increasing rate of sea level rise.

It further predicts that by the end of this century the oceans will absorb up to two to four times more heat than between 1970 and the present if global warming is limited to 2°C, and up to five to seven times more at higher carbon emissions.

Last October the IPCC released a significant report on global warming, called Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, known as SR15, which projected that extreme weather events will only get worse if warming is not limited to below 1.5°C compared to 2°C as agreed by the international community in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The agreement is a landmark set goals for reducing carbon emissions and with countries committing to climate change adaption but the IPCC report showed that the agreed target of limiting global warming to 2°C and even the target of1.5°C was too high to avoid catastrophic weather events.

In the absence of a significant reduction in emissions, sea-levels will rise more than 10 times faster in this century than it did in the previous 20th Century.

Populations in coastal cities and SIDS will be exposed to escalating flood risks, the report shows, noting that some island nations are likely to become uninhabitable due to climate-related oceans and cryosphere change.

Against this backdrop, the report emphasises an urgent need to prioritise timely, ambitious and coordinated action to efficiently and effectively address unprecedented and lasting changes in the oceans and cryosphere.

“We will only be able to keep global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels if we effect unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society, including energy, land and ecosystems, urban and infrastructure as well as industry,” said Debra Roberts, a South African scientist and co-chair of the IPCC working group II.

U.N. scientists have further detailed the benefits of ambitious and effective mitigation efforts for current and future generations.

The report particularly finds that communities along the East African coastline will be significantly impacted if carbon emissions are not reduced drastically as marine life is already being hit by oceans warming. CO₂ absorption has led to increasing acidity of the oceans, which threatens the survival of marine life. 

In the absence of significant emission cuts, maximum catch potential of fisheries could fall up to 24 percent by the end of the century. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

“When local fisher folk complain of a continued decline in the amounts of fish caught, they are only confirming that greenhouse gas emissions are adversely affecting ecosystems and livelihoods that depend on them,” Dr Kiragu Kibe, a lecturer in natural resources at the University of Nairobi, told IPS.

While fisher folk like Sombo attribute decline in fish catch to a lack of proper fishing equipment and boats that can withstand deeper waters, Kiragu says that it is really because “oceans that are warmer and marine life shifting in search of more conducive habitats”.

Statistics by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicate that income from fishing and aquaculture dropped from 385 million dollars in 2015 to 347 million dollars in 2017. Fish production contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined from 0.7 percent in 2014 to 0.4 percent in 2017.

“This is an alarming trend because of the country’s significant maritime economy potential based on its 600 kilometres long Indian Ocean Coastline,” said Hamisa Zaja who runs Green World Foundation, a non-governmental organisation based in Kenya’s  coastal region and dedicated to environmental conservation.

U.N. scientists now say that the worst is yet to come. Changes to the oceans are set to continue throughout the century and they include an increase in ocean acidity of about 150 percent.

Up to 80 percent of the upper oceans will lose oxygen by 2050 accompanied by significant changes in nutrient supplies for marine life.

The report further reveals that without emission cuts, the total mass of animals in the world’s oceans could decrease “15 percent and the maximum catch potential of fisheries could fall up to 24 percent by the end of the century – but by much less with lower emissions”.

Tropical oceans such as the central Pacific Ocean and most of the Indian Ocean are expected to continue losing grip on their fish catch potential.

“Coastal communities are going to experience a food crisis. Now more than ever, we need to work with communities to develop local solutions to fight climate change. Our best chance lies in scientists working hand in hand with local communities,” Zaja told IPS.

Indeed the report highlights the benefits of combining scientific with local and indigenous knowledge to develop “suitable options to manage climate change risks and enhance resilience”.

“The more decisively and the earlier we act, the more able we will be to address unavoidable changes, manage risks, improve our lives and achieve sustainability for ecosystems and people around the world – today and in the future,” Roberts said.

Until that time comes, local fisher folk like Sombo will continue to grapple with challenges that are unprecedented, beyond their capacity to overcome and if status quo continues, enduring. 

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Excerpt:

Avril Benoît is the executive director of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in the United States (MSF-USA)

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Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams won the prize for her work to eradicate landmines in 1997. Courtesy: UN Geneva/Jean-Marc Ferré

By Anna Shen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2019 (IPS)

Speaking in New York during the United Nations General Assembly’s opening day, United States President Donald Trump continued to float the idea that he should be awarded a Nobel Prize, but that would never happen because the system was rigged.

Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams, who won the prize for her work to eradicate landmines in 1997, would likely agree Trump would never win – but not because the system was rigged, but because under his leadership she said: “We have swung into the dark ages.”

Speaking at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, in the heart of the Yucatan, in Merida, Mexico, she was asked which conflict she was most concerned about, and she replied, “Trump. He is a global crisis in and of himself.”

“He is pulling out of treaties on the climate, recharging the nuclear weapons that the U.S. has, and modernising the weapons arsenal. We don’t need more nuclear weapons,” she said, adding that everything he does is about ruining institutions.

Trump-like behaviour has spread everywhere, she continued. “Around the world, Trump has given voice to xenophobia, hatred, racism and emboldened several leaders like him. In Brazil and Italy, the leaders are the same,” she said.

Williams had much to speak about, including Trump, the state of world peace, why women are critical to the global peace process, and how to engage youth.

In an interview after the Summit, she stopped to give her thoughts — before continuing on to Rome for meetings at the Vatican to discuss killer robots and artificial intelligence, which she is increasingly concerned about because “nobody is talking about them.”

Excerpts from her interview:

Inter Press Service (IPS): You are chairing the Women’s Nobel Initiative (NWI). Why and how did that come about?

Jody Williams (JW): In 2004, Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and I were in Nairobi for an international landmine meeting.  She had started an NGO to protect children from landmines on the border between Iraq and Iran. A handful of Nobel women, in support of women’s rights, met with Nobel Laureate Waangari Maathai.

All six of us decided to use whatever influence we had to shine a spotlight on grassroots women’s organisations working on sustainable peace. We believe that if there is no justice there is no peace, and if there is no equality there is no peace. Women are critical to the peace process globally.

The Nobel Women’s delegation focuses on women because nobody listens to women. We have worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo with women, and at the height of Bangladesh’s Rohingya crisis. We have done a lot in Mexico, especially to protect indigenous land in Ateneco, where, in 2001, government officials wanted to take over, some would say steal, the lands of the farmers of Atenco.

This was to build a new international airport near Mexico City. Forty-seven women were raped, and the men who organised defending the land were imprisoned for four years. Others spent years in hiding. Suddenly, the women found themselves thrust into the role of leadership.

Over the next years, the Nobel Women’s Initiative became involved in supporting the efforts of the women of Atenco by lending our voices to amplify theirs.  It seemed to help. I went to Atenco to show further support on behalf of NWI and other Nobel Laureates supporting their efforts.

At one point the women protested, and with indignation they came – How dare you take our land and imprison our men? They were setting a precedent for “public protest” that this was their land and they wanted to keep it.

Finally, the cases of the 12 men came to the Supreme Court in mid-2010 and at a strategic moment, I was able to return, meet with the Justices themselves and other public officials – and then be there when the court decided to set the twelve political prisoners free. It was unreal. Amazing. Just think about the precedent set by freeing the men, something that underscored the freedom of assembly and all, but for one acquittal.

Later, I was able to go back to Atenco to see the women we’ve supported in their struggle to defend their land and their rights. Also, I got to meet the twelve men.  They are strong, dignified, and proud of their struggle to defend their land and their livelihoods. They even gave me my own machete. It is not a weapon, but more of a symbol, as it something used to slash in the fields.

IPS: Why are women essential to the peace process globally?

JW: I ask — why aren’t women needed? I followed the route of Syrian refugees up through Balkans to Germany – through Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Germany and met with Syrian women who had formed an organisation to push for peace and for reconciliation.

During a press conference, a young man stands up and asks: ‘What is the role of women in the peace process?’ I gave him a death stare. I asked him: ‘What is the role of men?’ He is dumbfounded, fascinated in positive way, as if he was hit by a bolt of lightning. He replied that he had never thought about that way.

If all sectors of society are not involved in peace negotiations, the root causes of the conflict are not addressed. In El Salvador’s peace agreement, three-quarters of it was given to separating combatants and disarming the guerillas and trying to help them with a political party.

There were only a few pages talking about the root causes of the problem. The thought was that once all of this is done, they would try to look at the root. But the problem is that we need to look at those causes now. How do you have a full-blown agreement and get buy-in during the process?

Women — who are trying to hold their families together — have a lot to say about the peace process. Our role as women is everything — community, life, keeping people together. You don’t have to love everyone, but accept they are different, as long as they are not breaking the law.

IPS: How can we solve the climate crisis?

JW: When I think about ways to address solve the climate crisis immediately, it is about redefining security. It is not about having more bombs, but making sure that we continue to exist and live on this planet, and that we stop destroying it every day.

We should be protesting the government’s budgets on the military. If we think about it, trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars are spent building weapons of war. If you are constantly planning for war, then you have to practice and invade somebody.

I am proposing that governments reduce military budgets by 25 percent and put it into a fund to save the planet. If they did reduce, we would have enough money to save the planet and fulfil every one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

We also have to put at the forefront our corporations, whose bottom line is making money and is not worrying about a better planet. We need to raise our voices in companies, tell them that if they do care about what they are doing to destroy the planet, and if they don’t change, we won’t buy their stuff. It takes a community to come together and not buy their stuff. It’s doable. All these elements can change this planet quickly.

We have to work together. No one person changes the world and I don’t care who pretends they do. It takes collaboration and communication about what we are doing to make a difference. Together we can. A small group of people working together can do a lot on this planet.

IPS: What is the role of youth, and especially of young women in creating peace?

JW: Often people will say to me that young people don’t care. But look at Greta Thunberg and the climate strikes. Not all young women, but many, know they have a place. Young people aren’t waiting, they are using their voices to hold adults who messed up everything, to account. Young people are playing a role. I’m proud of them and especially to walk with them and learn more from them.

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