Africa - 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. 

• Burning Forests for Rain, and Other Climate Catastrophes
• “Our Choices Matter More Than Ever Before” To Limit Climate Change

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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.

The post We Have Swung into the Dark Ages, Says Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams appeared first on Inter Press Service.

From farm to fork, the global food industry needs to start aligning their operations with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. Pictured here, a farmer tends to vegetables in a greenhouse in Antigua, where a climate-smart agricultural initiative seeks to improve farm productivity. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2019 (IPS)

With up to one billion undernourished people around the world, and agriculture and land use systems increasingly vulnerable to climate change and land degradation, more companies within the global food industry need to start aligning their operations with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs.

As climate action remained a heightened focus at this year’s U.N. General Assembly, the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition held an event in New York where different parties came together to discuss how to fix food security and get different stakeholders from governments to private sector to come together to make an impact.

Guido Barilla, President of the Barilla Foundation, announced the launch of the report “Fixing the Business of Food, the Food Industry and the SDG challenges” at the event held on Tuesday, Sept. 24.

The report noted that the food industry is a key sector in achieving sustainable food, land, water, and oceans. But current agriculture and food systems “lead to widespread hunger, malnutrition, and obesity”, accounting for almost a “quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, over 90 percent of scarcity-weighted water use, most losses of biodiversity, overexploitation of fisheries, eutrophication through nutrient overload, and considerable pollution of water and air, for example through the burning of crop residues”.

The report found that while food industry leaders have already taken steps towards aligning with the SDGs, “more work is needed in terms of business action towards sustainable development, as well as to make sustainability reporting more systematic, detailed, and useful for all parties”.

“Our planet is crying out for us to make these changes,” said Barilla during his remarks. “Together with our partners we set ourselves the challenge of assessing the food industry progress…in aligning the sustainable development goals.”

Columbia University professor and Sustainable Development Solutions Network Director, Jeffrey Sachs, and Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu, shared their thoughts among others at the event.

Qu called on the food industry to do more to support healthy foods and reduce food loss and waste.

“Nutrition is just the approach, not the end goal. The goal is a happy and healthy life.” Director-General @FAODG of @FAO discusses why fixing the business of food is a priority. #foodsustainability #fixingfood

— BCFN Foundation (@BarillaCFN) September 24, 2019

“We know that agriculture is pushing against ecosystems all over the world to an absolutely shocking extent,” Sachs said at the workshop. “We’re losing the ecosystem…of course it’s complex, it requires good science to understand what are the drivers but agriculture is certainly the lead driver.”

Scarlett Benson, Associate at SYSTEMIQ Ltd, presented the report “Growing Better: Ten Critical Transitions to Transform Food and Land Use”.

“If we continue as we’re going, we’re going to deforest 400 million more hectares of natural ecosystem for agricultural land,” Benson said. “But if we can implement this reform agenda, we’ll actually save 1.2 billion hectares of land that is currently used for agriculture and that land will be available for return to nature so that will allow us to…achieve all biodiversity agenda.”

She mentioned the part of the research that often garners a lot of attention is about freeing up land.

“Because freeing up land, by changing our diets, by reducing food loss and weight and including agriculture productivity through better use of technology, actually enables us to use land more efficiently,” Benson said.

“Land has an opportunity cost and it is an asset for us,” she said. 

When asked how many companies are actually adapting sustainable development practices with high priority, Charlotte Ersboll, U.N. Global Compact Senior Advisor, said “too few,” citing a recent study by the organisation.

“It’s very clear that despite all the excitement around SDGs it’s really very superficial what companies are doing,” she said.

During the event she said that only 27 percent of companies where carrying sustainability through their supply chain.

Charlotte Ersboll @C_Ersboll of @globalcompact says only 27% of companies are carrying sustainability through their supply chain. “We want to see sustainability achored with every member of [an organization’s] senior management team.” #foodsustainability #fixingfood

— BCFN Foundation (@BarillaCFN) September 24, 2019

“We can see that companies are certainly trying to embed sustainability in their strategy, they’re embedding policies,” she added, “but when we look at what kind of impact they are having on the ground, it’s far from what we need to see.”

“We found that companies look at health as mainly a responsibility for their workplace health departments but they don’t think about the potential negative impacts they can have in the production, supply, market chain and so we really want to see is they view health as a leading indicator for their activities.”

Accountability a key

A key highlight of the workshop was the lack of accountability and the need for each sector to hold other sectors accountable.

Sachs shed light on the importance of the different sectors coming together.

“We will not get sustainability on the planet, unless there’s co-responsibility,” he said. “We’re going to lose the resilience of the food sector itself if climate change, loss of biodiversity, destruction of land, scarcity of water continues the direction we’re going.”

In terms of achieving the SDGs, while there’s an obvious role for governments to play, Gerbrand Haverkamp, executive director of World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), says they stay focused on the private sector.

“That means we want to make sure that business is conducted – so the way that coffee is sourced, the way that we grow bananas…that is done in a way that it doesn’t undermine progress and also starts to contribute towards progress on the SDG,” Haverkamp told IPS in an exclusive interview.

“But to make sure companies do that, we need to make sure that we are able to articulate what that means [so] that we can measure how good they are doing, and then we make those results publicly available,” he said, adding that this allows both the consumers and investors a way to tell the company how they’re performing and what risks their under-performance can pose. 

Haverkamp added that while companies tend to be generally interested to engage in these practices, a bigger challenge remains the data collection.

“Companies do not adequately collect a lot of data or they fail to disclose it, so that’s a technical issue,” he added. “And to be able to hold someone accountable, you need to understand the issue.”

Others who spoke at the workshop include Emanuela Claudia Del Re, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Representative of the European Commission; Angelo Riccaboni, Full Professor Of Business Administration, University of Siena as well as Chair of the Prima Foundation; and Diane Holdorf, Managing Director of Food and Nature at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), based in Geneva, Switzerland.

• Egypt’s Food Challenge: a Good Effort but Not Enough
• U.S. Needs to Shift to More Sustainable Agriculture—As Do All Countries

The post How to ‘Fix the Business of Food’ and Save the Planet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Esther Ngumbi
ILLINOIS, United States, Sep 25 2019 (IPS)

Around the world, citizens took to the streets to demand their governments address climate change. In the U.S., this widespread activism illustrates the findings of a newly released report by the Chicago Council on Global affairs which found for the first time that the majority of Americans consider climate change a threat and the most critical foreign policy issue facing the country.

It is crucial to address climate change. Around the world, it is causing repetitive droughts, flooding events, deadly storms, sweltering temperatures, and crop failures. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, climate change and climate-related events are driving mass migration around the globe.

Furthermore, climate-related events can spur crises, and amplify conflict or accelerate terrorism in countries or regions already dealing with fragility and instability.

Affected too by climate change are our ecosystems and the organisms who are depended on these ecosystems, including birds, wildlife, insects, and soils dwelling organisms.  A recent study published in Science reported that the number of birds in North America has declined since 1970. Earlier this year, another study suggested that 40 percent of insect species are in decline.

What can we do? One way to tackle climate change is to start at the soil level. This is why.

First, globally, soils already hold three times as much carbon as exists in the atmosphere, and there is room for much more. According to a study in Nature, enhanced carbon storage in the world’s soils could reduce greenhouse gas concentrations by  50 and 80 percent.

Second, soil as an ecosystem is the home to billions of several microorganisms that are essential for fighting climate change and achieving an environmentally sustainable future. Unseen to the naked eye, these microorganisms that include bacteria, fungi are hard at work,  playing many critical roles in carbon and nutrient cycling and agriculture.

Thirdly, these microorganisms aid in keeping soil healthy. Healthy soils are essential in agriculture.  Globally, one-third of our soils are degraded and unhealthy.

According to research, soil-dwelling microorganisms can help restore degraded soils, increase agricultural productivity, and help revolutionize agriculture.

Revolutionizing agriculture and restoring the health of the soils is also crucial, especially in many developing countries, including African countries that are dependent on agriculture as a source of livelihood.

Increased agricultural productivity and income would power a virtuous cycle, enabling poor farmers to invest even more in the sustainability and productivity of their farms. These would also cut down on the number of migrants, since; many people migrate because the land in which they live can no longer support agriculture.

What is more, is that the use of soil microbes to improve soil health and mitigate climate change would be invaluable in parts of the developing world hardest hit by drought and rising temperatures.

Of course, taking it to the soil will not address all the climate change issues.

Accompanying efforts that focus on soils would be individual actions by everyday Americans. The truth is any action matters. If every person takes individual action, we can collectively make a difference. We all must take action. BIG or SMALL.

These actions must be aligned with the contributors to climate change. According to research, there are several key drivers to climate change, including fossil fuel combustion, industrial processes, land-use changes, agriculture, deforestation, and food waste.

Equally important is continuous activism to ensure that everyone has a chance to know the current realities of climate change. Climate Strikes last week is an excellent form of activism.

Climate activists must continuously seek creative ways to disseminate recent news about climate change, including sharing innovative approaches that stand to make a difference in the fight against climate change.

Fighting climate change is the most urgent and critical issue of our time. We must take every possible action. Lives and our ecosystems are at stake.

Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor, Entomology Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Illinois,  Aspen Institute New Voices Senior Food Security Fellow, Clinton Global University Initiative Agriculture Commitments Mentor and Ambassador

The post Fighting Climate Change: We Must Not Forget the Soils appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Climate Action Summit 2019. Credit: AfDB Group.

By African Development Bank
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2019 (IPS-Partners)

African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina on Tuesday unveiled ambitious plans to scrap coal power stations across the continent and switch to renewable energy at United Nations climate talks on Monday.

Addressing a gathering of leaders and officials from almost 200 countries in New York, Adesina outlined efforts to shutter coal-fired power plants and build the “largest solar zone in the world” in the arid Sahel belt.

“Coal is the past, and renewable energy is the future. For us at the African Development Bank, we’re getting out of coal,” Adesina told delegates to the Climate Action Summit in Manhattan this week.

The Bank’s $500 million green baseload scheme will be rolled out in 2020 and is set to yield $5 billion of investment that will help African countries transition from coal and fossil fuel to renewable energy, said Adesina.

Adesina also talked about plans for $20 billion of investments in solar and clean energy that would provide the region’s 250 million people with 10,000 MW of electricity.

“There’s a reason God gave Africa sunlight,” said Adesina.

Presidents, princes and government ministers from around the world attended the UN’s climate summit, as they faced mounting pressure to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions and slow the global rise in temperatures.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres also took a swipe at the “dying fossil fuel industry” and said it was still not too late to keep the global rise in temperatures below the benchmark figure of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“But it will require fundamental transformations in all aspects of society — how we grow food, use land, fuel our transport and power our economies,” said Guterres.

“We need to link climate change to a new model of development — fair globalisation — with less suffering, more justice, and harmony between people and the planet.”

The UN says mankind must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to about 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures to stave off the worst-case predictions of scientists.

The meeting was part of the run-up to the international climate talks in 2020, which is the next deadline for countries to make significant emissions reduction pledges under the 2015 global warming deal.

Contact: Alkassoum AOUDI DIALLO – Media Relations – Communication & External Relations,  a.a.diallo@afdb.org  –  +225 20263721

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US President Donald Trump addressing the General Assembly 24 September 2019. Courtesy: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations is an institution which promotes multilateralism and preaches some of the basic tenets of multiparty democracy and liberalism, including the rule of law, universal human rights, free speech, civil liberties, the rights of refugees and freedom of the press.

But, paradoxically, the first four speakers during the opening day, September 24, of the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly—Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, U.S. president Donald Trump, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan —represented the very anti-thesis of what the world body stands for.

They have been best described either as rightwing nationalists, populist strongmen or authoritarian leaders—who, like Al-Sisi, presides over a repressive regime.

Martin S. Edwards, Associate Professor and Chair, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, told IPS, “I watched these speeches with students from several of these countries.  To be sure, the rhetoric can scare you.”

But these students were not scared, because of two things, he pointed out.

First, they know history. Just as President Trump spoke of national renewal, there is also a reformist tradition in the US as in other countries that practices a politics based on inclusion and not fear. These traditions haven’t gone away, and they will return, he said.

Second, they know facts.

“The U.N. is tremendously popular across the globe, and they know that we can no more deny the necessity for international cooperation than we can deny the existence of gravity,” said Edwards, who is also director of the Center for U.N. and Global Governance Studies.

So, many called today—the opening day of the General Assembly sessions–“the day of populist strong men”. But their time won’t last, he predicted.

And it’s interesting to juxtapose their speeches with student activist Greta Thurnberg’s on the climate change crisis on Monday.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is banking on the optimists, and the rest of the week will be about their loud reply to today’s early speeches, Edwards said.

State Luncheon for world leaders hosted by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Courtesy: Kim Haughton/United Nations

Abby Maxman, President of Oxfam America, was quick to point out that President Trump, once again, led with a tired, nationalistic foreign policy of fear and blame, “seeking to discredit and undermine the multilateral institutions and the international cooperation that is so critical to promoting our shared prosperity and security”.

She said that Trump restated his foreign policy’s central false premise: that necessary efforts to build a better, safer world are somehow a threat to Americans.

He pointed fingers at others for some of the biggest challenges, like the crises in Yemen and Syria, but took no responsibility for his administration’s role in fuelling them, and failed to commit to do his part to stop the violence and save lives.

“The challenges we are all facing – growing inequality, influx of forced migration, the climate crisis — are the same for families and countries around the world. At a time when all of us are worried about the future, we must work together to build and renew international cooperation – not tear it down.

“But as usual, President Trump’s rhetoric falsely pits Americans’ love of country and passion for our planet and all its people against our interests. It’s not a choice we have to make. We can, and must, choose both.”

Amnesty International came down heavily both on Bolsonaro and Al-Sisi, singling out Bolsonaro’s dangerous rhetoric at the General Assembly as a “blow to human rights”.

Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil, expressed concern over Bolsonaro’s statement about confronting the media and the work of the national and international press.

She said these are fundamental to the right to freedom of expression, due to their role in denouncing human rights violations and addressing other political, environmental, social and economic problems.

“Without freedom of expression, the promotion and protection of human rights would be in grave danger. The government must also respect the right of civil society to monitor, demand accountability and take action to promote and protect the rights of all people,” Werneck added.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International also called on world leaders to confront Egypt’s Al- Sisi and “utterly condemn the crackdown he has waged to counter the outbreak of protests in recent days”.

Amnesty said it has documented how the Egyptian security forces have carried out sweeping arrests of protesters, rounded up journalists, human rights lawyers, activists, protesters and political figures in a bid to silence critics and deter further protests from taking place.

The government has also added the BBC and Alhurra news to the list of 513 other websites already blocked in Egypt and disrupted online messaging applications to thwart further protests.

“The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is clearly shaken to its core by the outbreak of protests and has launched a full-throttle clampdown to crush demonstrations and intimidate activists, journalists and others into silence,” said Najia Bounaim, North Africa Campaigns Director at Amnesty International.

“The world must not stand silently by as President al-Sisi tramples all over Egyptians’ rights to peaceful protest and freedom of expression. Instead of escalating this repressive backlash, the Egyptian authorities must immediately release all those detained for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly and allow further protests on Friday to go ahead.”

Amnesty International said it has documented the arrests of at least 59 people from five cities across Egypt during protests that took place on the nights of Sept. 20 and 21.

Local human rights organisations have reported hundreds of arrests all over Egypt. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights reported that 964 individuals have been arrested in relation to the protests between September 19 and 24.

In New York, President Al-Sisi responded to questions from the media claiming that the protests were instigated by “political Islam.” 

However, Amnesty International said it found that, in fact, the protesters came from an extremely diverse range of age, socioeconomic, gender and religious backgrounds, including non-political backgrounds. All those detained faced the same “terrorism”- related charges.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post At the U.N., it Was the Day of Populist Strongmen appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By African Development Bank
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 2019 (IPS-Partners)

With an estimated 390 million people living in extreme poverty, hunger and food insecurity, Africa is in a race against time to deliver on its regional and global development goals. On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Sunday, African heads of states and governments met to emphasize urgent collective action and the need for greater collaboration between the United Nations and the African Development Bank to fast-track Africa’s development.

The meeting, convened by the African Development and the United Nations, is “the first of its kind” between the two institutions taking place at the UN Headquarters, UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed said.

Underscoring the strong convergence between the continent’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and the African Development Bank’s High 5s, Mohammed said it was time to join forces to deliver.

“We are entering into the decade of action to deliver the SDG’s…The investment requirements are vast,” Mohammed said. “The role of the African Development  Bank is crucial…to help de-risk investments and attract investment flows……..Africa’s premier institution needs much more support” she added.

The leaders called for additional resources to drive the urgent task of Africa’s development.

Speaking at the meeting, the President of the African Development Bank said, “The clock is ticking, the seconds are passing very fast, yet we still have time left on the clock. We can still close the gap. I am fully convinced that with a change of pace, driven by a greater sense of urgency, and global collective responsibility, Africa can still achieve the SDGs”.

The two-hour meeting, moderated by the African Development Bank, was attended by seven African presidents – from Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Ethiopia and Lesotho, in addition to  representatives of some 30 governments.

The leaders spoke of what had worked in their countries – including mainstreaming development goals into national plans, scaling up initiatives, and the implications of harmonizing policies and strategic entry points for the implementation of development goals at national, regional and global levels.

Ambitious development initiatives undertaken by the Bank with regional collaboration are already showing success, such as Desert to Power, which aims to provide access to electricity for 250 million people across the 11 countries of the Sahel, 90 million of them through off-grid systems.

Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa called the SDGs Africa’s “highest challenge.”

Stemming the tide of illicit financial flows, public debt and tax evasion would be urgent measures to be taken by leaders if they meant to stay on track, she said.

Areas for potential collaboration include climate change in Africa, gender mainstreaming, promoting private sector investment, measures to utilize risk insurance to mitigate impact of natural disasters in Africa and appropriate security arrangements to support the Bank’s operations in fragile states in on the continent.

The African Continental Free Trade Area, which came into force this year and creates the world’s largest free trade zone, will be another major area for collaboration under the partnership.

An assessment by the United Nations Development Program has clearly shown that achieving the Bank’s High 5s will allow Africa to achieve about 90% of the SDGs.  “So, the faster we deliver on the High 5s, the faster we will reach our goal and desired destination,” Adesina said.

Contact: Amba Mpoke-Bigg, Communication and External Relations Department, African Development Bank, email: a.mpoke-bigg@afdb.org

The post UN, African Development Bank High-Level Meeting Calls for Speed and Action on SDGs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Sarah Wolverton
WALLINGFORD, CT, US, Sep 24 2019 (IPS)

Last year, the United States introduced a new asbestos rule that was received both positively and negatively and Canada banned the mineral altogether. Countries like the U.K. and Australia continue to struggle with the health implications of historic asbestos use, despite both having bans for several years. In contrast, nations like Russia and Vietnam continue to manufacture and use the mineral frequently. 

Asbestos is a substance that was used throughout history as an additive in many products to provide heat and fire resistance. It fell out of favor around the world starting in the 1970s when US court documents showed that companies knew asbestos could lead to disease and cancer and still willingly exposed their employees to the mineral.

North American Updates

In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the United States proposed a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) on several chemicals and minerals, including asbestos. This rule means that the EPA has found historic uses of asbestos to no longer be ongoing, and allows the proposal of new uses on a case-by-case review basis.

Critics of the rule worry that this will result in more exposure to the deadly fiber, which causes mesothelioma cancer in the lungs, heart, or abdomen. Even small levels of exposure to asbestos can be deadly, so worries of contact with it extend to those that manufacture the products, install them, and are around them daily.

While the United States waffles around with asbestos regulations, Canada enacted a ban that went into effect on January 1, 2019. The law, called the Prohibition of Asbestos and Products Containing Asbestos Regulation, prevents and acknowledges the dangers of asbestos to human health.

While the United States waffles around with asbestos regulations, Canada enacted a ban that went into effect on January 1, 2019. The law, called the Prohibition of Asbestos and Products Containing Asbestos Regulation, prevents and acknowledges the dangers of asbestos to human health

It does, however, have certain exceptions that are covered in an extended timeline of the regulation’s requirements. Asbestos usage to service nuclear or military equipment is allowed until December 31, 2022, after which it will require a special permit. By the end of 2029, the use of asbestos will be outlawed in all facilities, even those dealing in chlor-alkali processes.

Where Asbestos is Legal

Some countries still allow asbestos manufacturing and use of all kinds, sans regulation. Russia’s Ural Mountains are full of the natural mineral, and a mining company called Uralasbest continues to produce and export it to this day. A New York Times article on asbestos mining in Russia reported an uptick of 11% in Uralasbest’s production last year, with expectations for more in 2019.

The fact of the matter is, asbestos is cheap, strong, and great for resistance to fire and electrical damage. Uralasbests’ biggest customers are located in Asia and Africa, where it’s still used mostly in construction. These regions are seeing quick growth in infrastructure and have less history when it comes to the health effects of asbestos.

A 2013 study found that the top consumers of asbestos that year worldwide were Russia, China, Brazil and Kazakhstan. These countries have large natural asbestos deposits and each of their production volumes over the past 20 years has been either steady or increasing. The report remarked that similar trends occurred in other countries that historically used the mineral.

However, in these cases, a steady decline followed peak production, perhaps due to the beginnings of mesothelioma and asbestosis diagnoses. If the rest of the world is any indication, hopefully, the current top producers will follow the same trend.

A Dangerous Legacy

Even with bans in place, many countries still have problems with asbestos exposure. In Canada, the asbestos prohibition does not extend to any of the mineral present in infrastructure before January 1, 2019. It also does not cover health costs for exposed citizens or require remediation of the mineral from standing structures.

Exposure to existing asbestos is of the most worry today since over 60 countries have some form of regulation surrounding the use of the material. A country like Australia, which has had a complete ban for 16 years, is susceptible to this kind of second-hand exposure.

The unfortunate reality of asbestos is that even once banned, it affects human health for years to come for two main reasons. First, second-hand exposure to asbestos in older products is difficult and costly to mitigate. Second, it’s hard to gauge exactly how widespread exposure and resulting disease are because symptoms, particularly of mesothelioma cancer, can take anywhere from 10 to 50 years to appear.

In the case of Australia, the current ban will ensure that a drop off in diagnoses come around 2050, about 40 years from now. But even then cases will pop up in the years after. This is the sad legacy of asbestos – even the best efforts to address the issue don’t solve it completely.

How to Combat These Issues

Perhaps countries could follow in the footsteps of South Korea. There, all types of asbestos have been banned for 10 years and in 2011 the Asbestos Injury Relief Act was put into place. This act offers medical relief and compensation for victims of asbestos-containing materials. By having a government-funded route to aid for these people, asbestos relief is possible and accessible for all communities.

Comprehensive bans are not in the works for many of the countries that still lack them, so awareness and education are essential pillars of the movement. In the United States, September 26th is Mesothelioma Awareness Day, which is dedicated to advocacy and spreading information about the disease and asbestos.

Pushing the needle on the issue of asbestos usage and health issues will only occur if more attention is called to the problem.

The post How Slow Moving Asbestos Regulations Compromise Health appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Paul Nevin.

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 2019 (IPS)

Describing it as an “important landmark” on our “journey to health for all”, Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday welcomed the UN Political Declaration on universal health coverage, or UHC, which commits countries to advance towards full coverage for their citizens in four major areas around primary care.

During a meeting of heads of State, ministers, health leaders, policy-makers, and universal health coverage champions, the UN chief called UHC “the most comprehensive agreement ever reached on global health – a vision for Universal Health Coverage by 2030”.

World leaders made the public commitment during the meeting at the beginning of the high level week of the UN General Assembly, themed “Universal Health Coverage: Moving Together to Build a Healthier World”.

He maintained that this “significant achievement” will drive progress over the next decade on tackling communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, while addressing non-communicable disease and the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance through robust and resilient primary healthcare systems.

“The Political Declaration also states the need to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services and reproductive rights”, he continued. “It is essential to protect the wellbeing and dignity of women and girls”.

The UN chief pushed for an urgent “change the financing paradigm” to “step up the pace of investment” towards UHC.

Stressing the importance of “bold national leadership”, the Secretary-General underscored: “Let us all be champions of health for all”.

Universal right, not a privilege

General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande opened the meeting by underscoring that access to critical health services “must be a universal right and not a privilege”.

“We must ensure that nations around the world can benefit from each other in medical training, provision of medical infrastructure, among others, if we are to achieve our agreed  SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)”, he stated.

Mr. Muhammad-Bande said the objective of UHC is to “strengthen our health systems” to guarantee a “healthier life for everyone” by ensuring that people have access to “affordable, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health services”.

According to the General Assembly President, to obtain quality health services, Member States must support each other, including with “integrated, efficient, safe and people-centred care” and continue to invest in research “to better equip us in preventing diseases, among other benefits”.

In conclusion, he pointed to the “profound” challenges we face, saying: “I am confident that if we continue and strengthen international co-operation and seize the opportunities already available, while creating even more opportunities, we can overcome them – together”.

‘A political choice’

Universal health coverage means all people regardless of their ability to pay, having access to the health care they need, when and where they need it, without facing financial hardship.

Congratulating world leaders, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General at the World Health Organization (WHO) told the historic meeting that UHC was “a political choice: today world leaders have signaled their readiness to make that choice.”

The declaration comes the day after WHO and partners flagged the need to double health coverage between now and 2030, or leave up to five billion people unable to access sufficient services.

In adopting the declaration, Member States have committed to investing in policies which would prevent financial hardship from out-of-pocket healthcare payments. It also aims to implement high-impact health interventions to combat diseases and protect women’s and children’s health.

General Assembly Seventy-fourth session High-level meeting on universal health coverage. Credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton

Human development outcome

At the same time, David R. Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, informed the meeting that “with the changing nature of work”, the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) are “supporting the roll-out of mobile health insurance platforms” to extend finance protection to tens of millions of people across 22 countries.

“To improve health outcomes, we must go beyond health”, he flagged. “That means supporting communities by improving education, broadening social services and creating jobs”.

According to Mr. Malpass, investments in health facilities, vaccines and health technology “will be wasted”, if issues like “childhood stunting, girls education and weak social safety nets that leave families vulnerable” are not addressed.

For her part, Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation asserted that it was now time “to get down to the hard work” of turning “commitments into results”.

“We all have a role to play”, she said. “Donors and country Governments need to move beyond business as usual to bolster the primary health care systems that address the vast majority of people’s needs over their lifetimes”.

This story was originally published by UN News

The post UN Welcomes ‘Most Comprehensive Agreement Ever’ on Global Health appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By GGGI
SEOUL, Republic of Korea, Sep 24 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The Coalition for Urban Transitions recently released a report titled Climate Emergency, Urban Opportunity: How national governments can secure economic prosperity and avert climate catastrophe by transforming cities. The report indicates the numerous benefits of prioritizing zero-carbon cities and provides national governments with six key priorities for actions to take to achieve a successful urban transition.

The key findings by the report indicated that zero carbon cities can bring significant economic advantages, indicating that “investments in low-carbon measures in cities would provide a return of at least US$23.9 trillion by 2050”.

Climate Emergency, Urban Opportunity quantifies the social, environmental, and economic benefits that are available to national governments who invest in zero-carbon cities. Under the overarching message that “National governments that prioritize zero-carbon cities today will secure economic prosperity and better living standards tomorrow,” the report provides original data analysis and case studies of successful national and local collaborations to improve the quality of urban life and features how a rapid urban transition is possible with engagement from national governments.

The report suggests six key priorities on which national governments should act:

• Develop an overarching strategy to deliver shared prosperity while reaching net-zero emissions – and place cities at its heart.

• Align national policies behind compact, connected, clean cities.

• Fund and finance sustainable urban infrastructure.

• Coordinate and support local climate action in cities.

• Build a multilateral system that fosters inclusive, zero-carbon cities.

• Proactively plan for a just urban transition.

Beyond its messages to national governments of the benefits the transition brings, the report also depicts the price of inaction; as the global temperature increases, so does the threat it poses to both countries and cities. A key message of the report states that “the battle for our future will be won or lost in cities. Cities are home to more than half the world’s population and are responsible for 80% of global GDP – and three quarters of energy-related carbon emissions”.

Today, only a handful of countries have a national strategy for cities. Therefore, the report seeks to elicit action from national governments to change this, for countries to create resilient, prosperous cities, further economic development, and effectively respond to the climate emergency.

GGGI’s Head of Green Cities, Donovan Storey, and Green Cities Officer, Aarsi Sagar, contributed to the newly released Climate Emergency, Urban Opportunity report by the Coalition for Urban Transitions, which is the leading global initiative dedicated to supporting national governments unlock the economic power of inclusive, zero-carbon cities. GGGI was one of 50 leading international organizations that collaborated on the report ahead of the Climate Action Summit and Sustainable Development Goals Summit in New York.

To read the entire report, key messages, priorities for national governments, and more information, visit here: https://urbantransitions.global/en/publication/climate-emergency-urban-opportunity/

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By Ralph Chami, Sena Oztosun, Thomas Cosimano, and Connel Fullenkamp
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 24 2019 (IPS)

When it comes to saving the planet, one whale is worth thousands of trees.

Scientific research now indicates more clearly than ever that our carbon footprint—the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming through the so-called greenhouse effect—now threatens our ecosystems and our way of life.  But efforts to mitigate climate change face two significant challenges. 

The first is to find effective ways to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere or its impact on average global temperature.  The second is to raise sufficient funds to put these technologies into practice.

Many proposed solutions to global warming, such as capturing carbon directly from the air and burying it deep in the earth, are complex, untested, and expensive. What if there were a low-tech solution to this problem that not only is effective and economical, but also has a successful funding model?

An example of such an opportunity comes from a surprisingly simple and essentially “no-tech” strategy to capture more carbon from the atmosphere: increase global whale populations.

Marine biologists have recently discovered that whales—especially the great whales—play a significant role in capturing carbon from the atmosphere (Roman and others 2014).  And international organisations have implemented programs such as Reducing Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) that fund the preservation of carbon-capturing ecosystems.

Adapting these initiatives to support international efforts to restore whale populations could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against climate change.

The carbon capture potential of whales is truly startling.  Whales accumulate carbon in their bodies during their long lives. When they die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean; each great whale sequesters 33 tons of CO2 on average, taking that carbon out of the atmosphere for centuries. A tree, meanwhile, absorbs only up to 48 pounds of CO2 a year.

Protecting whales could add significantly to carbon capture because the current population of the largest great whales is only a small fraction of what it once was.

Sadly, after decades of industrialised whaling, biologists estimate that overall whale populations are now to less than one fourth what they once were. Some species, like the blue whales, have been reduced to only 3 percent of their previous abundance.

Thus, the benefits from whales’ ecosystem services to us and to our survival are much less than they could be. But this is only the beginning of the story.

The whale pump

Wherever whales, the largest living things on earth, are found, so are populations of some of the smallest, phytoplankton. These microscopic creatures not only contribute at least 50 percent of all oxygen to our atmosphere, they do so by capturing about 37 billion metric tons of CO2, an estimated 40 percent of all CO2 produced.

To put things in perspective, we calculate that this is equivalent to the amount of CO2 captured by 1.70 trillion trees—four Amazon forests’ worth—or 70 times the amount absorbed by all the trees in the US Redwood National and State Parks each year. More phytoplankton means more carbon capture.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that whales have a multiplier effect of increasing phytoplankton production wherever they go. How? It turns out that whales’ waste products contain exactly the substances—notably iron and nitrogen—phytoplankton need to grow.

Whales bring minerals up to the ocean surface through their vertical movement, called the “whale pump,” and through their migration across oceans, called the “whale conveyor belt.” Preliminary modelling and estimates indicate that this fertilising activity adds significantly to phytoplankton growth in the areas whales frequent.

Despite the fact that nutrients are carried into the ocean through dust storms, river sediments, and upwelling from wind and waves, nitrogen and phosphorus remain scarce and limit the amount of phytoplankton that can bloom in warmer parts of the oceans.

In colder regions, such as in the Southern Ocean, the limiting mineral tends to be iron. If more of these missing minerals became available in parts of the ocean where they are scarce, more phytoplankton could grow, potentially absorbing much more carbon than otherwise possible.

Letting whales live

This is where the whales come in. If whales were allowed to return to their pre-whaling number of 4 to 5 million—from slightly more than 1.3 million today—it could add significantly to the amount of phytoplankton in the oceans and to the carbon they capture each year.

At a minimum, even a 1 percent increase in phytoplankton productivity thanks to whale activity would capture hundreds of millions of tons of additional CO2 a year, equivalent to the sudden appearance of 2 billion mature trees. Imagine the impact over the average lifespan of a whale, more than 60 years.

Despite the drastic reduction in commercial whaling, whales still face significant life-threatening hazards, including ship strikes, entanglement in fishing nets, waterborne plastic waste, and noise pollution. While some species of whales are recovering—slowly—many are not.

Enhancing protection of whales from human-made dangers would deliver benefits to ourselves, the planet, and of course, the whales themselves. This “earth-tech” approach to carbon sequestration also avoids the risk of unanticipated harm from suggested untested high-tech fixes.

Nature has had millions of years to perfect her whale-based carbon sink technology. All we need to do is let the whales live. 

Now we turn to the economic side of the solution. Protecting whales has a cost. Mitigating the many threats to whales involves compensating those causing the threats, a group that includes countries, businesses, and individuals. Ensuring that this approach is practical involves determining whales’ monetary value.

International public good

Whales produce climate benefits that are dispersed all over the globe. And because people’s benefits from the existence of whales do not diminish the benefits that others receive from them, they are a textbook public good.

This means that whales are affected by the classic “tragedy of the commons” that afflicts public goods: no individual who benefits from them is sufficiently motivated to pay their fair share to support them.

Just think of the importance of earth’s atmosphere to our survival. Even though all nations acknowledge that everyone has an interest in preserving this common resource for the future, global coordination remains a problem.

To solve this international public goods problem, we must first ask, What is the monetary value of a whale? Proper valuation is warranted if we are to galvanise businesses and other stakeholders to save the whales by showing that the benefits of protecting them far exceed the cost.

We estimate the value of an average great whale by determining today’s value of the carbon sequestered by a whale over its lifetime, using scientific estimates of the amount whales contribute to carbon sequestration, the market price of carbon dioxide, and the financial technique of discounting.

To this, we also add today’s value of the whale’s other economic contributions, such as fishery enhancement and ecotourism, over its lifetime.  Our conservative estimates put the value of the average great whale, based on its various activities, at more than $2 million, and easily over $1 trillion for the current stock of great whales.     

But there is still the question of how to reduce the myriad dangers to whales, such as ship strikes and other hazards. Luckily, economists know how these types of problems can be solved. In fact, a potential model for such solutions is the United Nations (UN) REDD program.

Recognising that deforestation accounts for 17 percent of carbon emissions, REDD provides incentives for countries to preserve their forests as a means of keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere.

In a similar way, we can create financial mechanisms to promote the restoration of the world’s whale populations. Incentives in the form of subsidies or other compensation could help those who incur significant costs as a result of whale protection. For example, shipping companies could be compensated for the cost of altered shipping routes to reduce the risk of collisions.

This solution, however, raises questions that are tricky to answer. To begin with, a financial facility for protecting whales and other natural assets must be set up and funded.  Exactly how much should we be willing to spend on protecting the whales?

We estimate that, if whales were allowed to return to their pre-whaling numbers—capturing 1.7 billion tons of CO2 annually—it would be worth about $13 per person a year to subsidise these whales’ CO2 sequestration efforts.

If we agree to pay this cost, how should it be allocated across countries, individuals, and businesses?  How much should each individual, company, and country that must bear some of the cost of protecting whales be compensated? And who will oversee the compensation, and monitor compliance with the new rules?

International financial institutions, in partnership with other UN and multilateral organisations, are ideally suited to advise, monitor, and coordinate the actions of countries in protecting whales.

Whales are commonly found in the waters around low-income and fragile states, countries that may be unable to deal with the needed mitigation measures. Support for these countries could come, for example, from the Global Environment Facility, which typically provides support to such countries to meet international environmental agreements.

The IMF is also well placed to help governments integrate the macroeconomic benefit that whales provide in mitigating climate change, as well as the cost of measures to protect the whales, into their macro-fiscal frameworks. 

The World Bank has the expertise to design and implement specific programs to compensate private sector actors for their efforts to protect whales.  Other UN and multilateral organisations can oversee compliance and collect data to measure the progress of these efforts.

A new mindset

Coordinating the economics of whale protection must rise to the top of the global community’s climate agenda. Since the role of whales is irreplaceable in mitigating and building resilience to climate change, their survival should be integrated into the objectives of the 190 countries that in 2015 signed the Paris Agreement for combating climate risk.

International institutions and governments, however, must also exert their influence to bring about a new mindset—an approach that recognises and implements a holistic approach toward our own survival, which involves living within the bounds of the natural world.

Whales are not a human solution—these great creatures having inherent value of their own and the right to live—but this new mindset recognises and values their integral place in a sustainable ocean and planet.

Healthy whale populations imply healthy marine life including fish, seabirds, and an overall vibrant system that recycles nutrients between oceans and land, improving life in both places.

The “earth-tech” strategy of supporting whales’ return to their previous abundance in the oceans would significantly benefit not only life in the oceans but also life on land, including our own.

With the consequences of climate change here and now, there is no time to lose in identifying and implementing new methods to prevent or reverse harm to the global ecosystem.  This is especially true when it comes to improving the protection of whales so that their populations can grow more quickly.

Unless new steps are taken, we estimate it would take over 30 years just to double the number of current whales, and several generations to return them to their pre-whaling numbers. Society and our own survival can’t afford to wait this long.

The post Nature’s Solution to Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ralph Chami is an assistant director and Sena Oztosun is a research analyst in the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development, Thomas Cosimano is professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, and Connel Fullenkamp is professor of the practice of economics and director at Duke University’s Economics Center for Teaching.

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Anti-US demonstrations in Iran

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 2019 (IPS)

Jim Mattis a former United States Defense Secretary in the Trump administration quotes a Marine Corps dictum in a recently released book titled “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead”.

“When you’re going to a gun fight” he says, “bring all your friends with guns”—a piece of advice obviously directed at the Trump administration which remains increasingly isolated in the international community.

“Having fought many times in (international) coalitions, I believe that we need every ally we can bring to the fight – from imaginative military solutions to their country’s vote in the [United Nations], the more allies the better,” says the retired U.S. Marine Corps General, who recently quit the Trump administration in not-so-happy circumstances.

But how many of the U.N.’s big powers armed with big guns—and nuclear weapons– including UK, France, Russia and China, are willing to join the U.S. as it contemplates an attack on Iran?

Or even give its blessings to a Trump administration which has treated the U.N. with contempt by abandoning multilateralism, withdrawing from international treaties and drastically reducing funds to U.N. agencies?

And now, in an irony of ironies, Trump is turning to the U.N. for help– as it plans to lobby U.N. member states whose leaders will be attending a slew of high-level summit meetings in New York through Sept. 27. The lobbying is euphemistically described as “a diplomatic outreach campaign”.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo set the stage for a confrontation when he accused Iran last week of carrying out an “act of war”—the strongest condemnation so far from any American official on Iran.

At the same time, he has sent mixed signals, like Trump, because he told reporters during a two-day trip to the Gulf: “We’re still striving to build out a coalition.”

The Iranian have denied responsibility for the recent drone and missile strikes on Saudi oil installations which have been claimed by the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javid Zarif

Asked for a response, visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Javid Zarif said in New York: “Had Iran been involved in this attack, there would have been nothing left of that refinery.”

In a front-page story Sept. 19 headlined “White House seeks allies at U.N. to press Iran on Saudi oil attack,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says the British U.N. ambassador Karen Pierce has already said responsibility hadn’t been determined as to who was behind the attacks on the Saudi oil fields while Japan and France have also signalled they aren’t convinced that Iran was behind the attacks.

The newspaper quotes Trump as telling the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in a bygone era: “the U.N. is not a friend of democracy, not a friend of freedom and not even a friend of the United States”

Meanwhile, Russia and China, two veto-wielding members of the Security Council who are close allies of Iran, are unlikely to support any UN resolution authorising an attack on Iran.

But the Trump administration is apparently trying raise a “coalition of the willing” – as did the administration of President George W. Bush when it invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Ian Williams, UN correspondent for the Tribune and Senior Analyst, Foreign Policy in Focus

Ian Williams, U.N. correspondent for the Tribune and Senior Analyst, Foreign Policy in Focus, told IPS Trump has not pulled out of the U.N. precisely in anticipation of contingencies like this where the U.S. can abuse what Annan called the unique legitimising power of the U.N.

However, the case the U.S. brings to the U.N. members is even weaker than when it had to resort to the “Coalition of the Coerced,” to back the U.S. assault on Iraq.

After decades, Williams pointed out, U.N. members reluctantly accepted Israel is a de facto exception because the U.S. veto protects it from any practical consequences for its breaches of international law and the U.N. Charter. Saudi Arabia has tried hard to use similar leverage. 

Iran is not the most popular country in the 193-member General Assembly, but the hard evidence of its involvement in the attack on the Saudi refineries is yet to pin down and the entire international community except for the U.S.-Israel- Saudi Arabian axis knows that it was the U.S. that unilaterally broke the JCPOA and is waging economic war on Iran while Israel and the Gulf monarchies have been trying to incite U.S. military strikes against Teheran.

They also know that the UAE and Saudis have been dropping American and British bombs on Yemen, including on hospitals, so the oil refinery attack is, on the face of it, a very proportionate response from the Houthis, said Williams, author of “UNtold: The Real Story of the UN in Peace and War,” released by Just World Books..

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the U.N. Security Council,  told IPS the U.S., as with the invasion of Iraq, might be able to assemble a “coalition of the willing,” this time consisting of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other right-wing allies from the region and launch an illegal war without U.N. authorisation.”

He pointed out it will be no easier for the U.S. to garner allies at the U.N. for an attack on Iran based on false claims than it was to garner allies for an attack on Iraq based on false claims.

“This is particularly true given that both the Trump administration, like the Bush administration, has repeatedly attacked the United Nations and longtime U.S. allies for not supporting their unilateralist agenda and Washington’s willingness to violate the U.N. Charter and other international legal principles,” said Zunes who also serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.

Emeritus Professor Ramesh Thakur, Crawford School of Public Policy, at the Australian National University in Canberra, told IPS: “Like many Americans, most countries and people believe the cause of the surge in tensions in the Persian Gulf is the foolish decision by the Trump administration to pull out of the multilaterally negotiated and U.N. Security Council endorsed nuclear deal with which Iran was fully compliant.”

This will make it very challenging for the US to garner much support in the UN for any anti-Iran military action, he declared.

Asked about UN support for US, Williams told IPS it seems that four out of five Security Council members are unlikely to countenance any substantial action against Iran, leading to instant humiliation for the Trump administration when it deplores its patently mediocre diplomatic team to the UN that it has, almost actively and ostentatiously neglected for Trump’s term so far.

Raising the issue could allow embarrassing questions in the Council about US and UK complicity in manifest Saudi war crimes in Yemen, he noted. 

On a larger scale, Williams argued, Iran and the Houthis have shown that they can cause quick economic harm to the Saudis and that there are few effective defenses.

Ironically, since the US won’t let the Iranians sell their oil on the world markets anyway, any counterstrike on Iranian refineries will be far less effective, declared Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the invasion as “illegal” because it did not have the blessings of the 15-member UN Security Council (UNSC), the only institution in the world body with the power to declare war and peace.

But the administration of President George W. Bush went after Annan for challenging the decision to unilaterally declare war against Iraq: an attack by one member state against another for no legally-justifiable reason.

The weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), reportedly in Iraq’s military arsenal, which was one of the primary reasons for the invasion, were never found.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Nobel Peace Laureate and Former President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, opens the summit with other Laureates onstage (David Dickstein/Prose & Comms Inc.)

By Anna Shen
MERIDA, Mexico, Sep 23 2019 (IPS)

In a world of increasing fragility and declining resources, can the world foster peace? With a looming climate crisis, is war inevitable? Will nuclear war be the final result? Are women the ultimate peace builders? How do we train and engage youth to promote peace?

These are some of the questions posed during last week’s three-day World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Merida, Mexico which brought together 1,200 youth and 30 Nobel Peace Laureates — individual and organizations — Juan Manuel Santos, Former President of Colombia; F.W. De Klerk, former President of South Africa; Lord David Trimble, Northern Ireland; and Lech Walesa, former President of Poland.

Women continue to claim a larger seat at the Nobel Peace table. In attendance were Rigoberta Menchu Tum for her work promoting the rights of indigenous peoples; Jody Williams, awarded for her work to eradicate landmines; Shirin Ebadi, for the struggle for women and children’s rights; Tawakkol Karman of Yemen; and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia.

A few key takeaways:
Former President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for work with FARC to negotiate peace and end a brutal civil war, noted positive developments at home, but said some segments are taking steps backwards.

However, he remained steadfast in his commitment to peace: “For each terrorist blinded by hate, there are millions of youth that wish to preserve it. We are not here to say everything is fine, but we are here to leave our mark for peace.”

Discussing the social and economic dimensions of peace, Nobel Laureate Jody Williams railed on the world’s grotesque amounts of income disparity, and called for a total restructuring of the world’s socioeconomic systems.

While many citizens move to massive cities — megalopolises — to access employment, education and health care, they end up encountering racism. “How do we move forward on the common good?” she asked, noting that in America alone, 57 percent of the US disposable budget is spent on the military and weapons, while only 6 percent goes to health and education.

Nobel Laureate Lord David Trimble of Northern Ireland expressed concern over several regions in the world where conflicts continue, such as the Mideast, where there are proxy wars, as well as Iran’s moves to become a hegemonic state.

Photographic reproduction of the Nobel Peace Medal. Credit: UN Photo/John Isaac

There are dangers in the South China sea, and threats of a US-China trade war – all of it having a ripple effect, with a potential to greatly impact business and other activities.

Things are getting worse on the democracy front, according to Trimble. “It is not going as well as we would like,” he said, referring to the elections last week in Russia, where the state coerced and manufactured results, producing outcomes that were presented as democratic, but were far from it.

Highlighting the danger of technology controlled in the hands of a few mega corporations, Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarti called for democratization of tech, and added that, the world has globalized everything, but that it needed to “globalize the compassion that exists in all of us.”

Bernice King, CEO of the King Center, and the youngest daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, challenged all those who came to the summit. “ All of you have a passion to see positive change in our world. We all want peace but it has to be intentional on a daily basis,” she said. Her practical advice? Peace builders need to find an accountability partner to support them when frustrated or depressed.

King offered a message of hope: just like her father: “The only way our world is going to change, is that we have it in our hearts to be love, compassion, strength, nurturing and kindness,” she said, adding that Martin Luther King said that the children of darkness were much more determined than the children of light.

In a panel on nuclear disarmament, Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, and UN Representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates, posed the question: “Is it legal to annihilate the future?” Because with the power of today’s nuclear weapons, they are a quick end,” he said.

Humanity has come very close to another nuclear war but has been unbelievably lucky, according to Dr. Ira Helfand, co-chair of the Physician’s for Social Responsibility’s nuclear weapons abolition committee.

“Sooner or later our luck will run out. It is no longer a question of when there will be a nuclear war, not if there will be one,” he said, adding that youth today did not understand the enormity of the threat – greater in power and numbers. Put simply, today’s nuclear weapons can annihilate the planet in short order.

In a nod to youth’s achievements, Mohamad Al Jounde was awarded the Turner Social Change Prize, and local student Saskia Niño de Rivera was given the Leave Your Mark for Peace Award.

During closing ceremonies, delegates stated that human rights are non-negotiable. The final document, the Merida Declaration states that: “As long as basic freedoms are violated and gross corruption, violence, extreme poverty, inequality, racism, modern-day slavery and trafficking of persons, discrimination, and discrimination phobias exist, there can be no true peace. We proclaim that true peace is inseparable from the achievement of true justice.”

To learn more and watch archived panel discussions, please visit the Facebook group at World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. Also, The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Sep 23 2019 (IPS)

A month ago I visited Jersey, one of the few European territories still welcoming refugees, though in the case of Jersey they have to be wealthy and are generally fleeing not from war and misery, but from taxes. Once Jersey and the nearby island of Guernsey harbored one of Europe´s most famous political refugees – Victor Hugo (1802-1885), who after he had been too outspoken in his criticism of the autocrat Louis Napoleon found it more convenient to live on the Channel Islands than in France. In spite of being very close to France and with a population that at the time was mainly French-speaking, these islands were nevertheless British territory.

During the 18 years Hugo spent on the islands he wrote masterpieces like The Miserables, The Man Who Laughs and Toilers of the Sea, the last novel offered captivating visions of the life and landscape of Guernsey. Hugo´s novels were the main reason to why I wanted to visit the Channel Islands, another was that these islands had been part of the British territory occupied by the German army during World War II. Several islanders had been deported to concentration camps and all along the coastline are remains of bunkers and other fortifications built by slave labour, mainly brought from Eastern Europe.

What intrigued me while we drove around Jersey was a wealth of life-seize replicas of gaudily painted statues of gorillas. Why gorillas on this windswept and far from tropical island? It was not until we passed the Jersey Zoo, or as it is officially called – Durrell Wildlife Park, that a distant memory occurred to me. In 1986, Jambo, a silverbacked gorilla male, rescued a five-year-old boy who had fallen into the gorilla enclosure. To keep his conspecifics away Jambo placed himself in a protective posture in front of the boy, while he repeatedly stroked the unconscious child in an attempt to soothe him until human rescuers arrived. The act was caught on video and Jambo became a renown hero, changing a common idea about gorillas as being fierce and aggressive beasts. A bronze statue was eventually erected in Jambo´s honour and it became the prototype for the thirty gorilla effigies that now have been placed along the Jersey coast.

However, I still did not understand the meaning of the gorilla effigies, though on our way back to the french mainland I found at the ferry terminal brochures advertising “gorilla hunting”, apparently meaning that you could visit all sites where a representation of a gorilla could be found and register your visit on your mobile phone. The “hunt” was connected with fundraising to support the gorilla compound at the Jersey Zoo. The quest for gorillas included the downloading of an app and being almost illiterate about such matters that detail would have abstained me from the search. Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the fact that the Jersey Zoo had been founded by Gerald Durrell (1925-1995).

As a teenager, I had become an admirer not only of Gerald´s Durrell´s writing but also his brother Lawrence´s Alexandria Quartet. Both authors evoked exotic worlds that I in spite of their great differences found alluring. Lawrence Durrell wrote about intriguing human relations within a sophisticated sphere of a bygone, cosmopolitan metropolis by the Nile delta, while his brother was catching exotic animals in Cameroon and several other fascinating places. What triggered Durrell to trap animals was an urge to save species threatened by extinction, an idea that made him establish the Jersey Zoo.

When we came back from our trip to Normandie and the Channel Islands I reread Durrell´s charming books about Cameroon; The Overloaded Ark from 1953 and The Bafut Beagles from 1954. To my delight, they had lost nothing of their original freshness. Even if Gerald Durell often declared that his only reason for writing was to raise money for his Jersey Zoo he was neverthelss a skillful writer. With ease, an amazing capacity of observation and a cordial wit he described the lush landscape of Cameroon and its inhabitants in such a manner that they became almost tangible.

Furthermore, Durrell´s writing was free from the strains of jingoism that is common to several dated travel books. His books transmit a feel-good atmosphere while he observes both human and animal behaviour with empathetic indulgence. Durrell admits that he is a stranger in an unknown territory but he is nevertheless at perfect ease, particularly since he is protected by relative wealth and British colonial power. However, Durrell is in his writing not at all boastful, but kind, open-minded and enthusiastic.

When I now recall Jambo, the compassionate gorilla, and Durrell´s cheerful descriptions of the harmonious communities and nice people he encountered in western Cameroon it is with a shudder of horror I read about what is actually happening in the area Durell more than sixty years ago described as an earthly Paradise.

Gerald Durrell found the town of Bafut and its surroundings to be a bucolic realm under the benevolent rule of the Fon (local chief/king) Achirimbi II. In Durrell´s Bafut Beagles, Achirimbi II, who counted his lineage of powerful kings back to the beginning of the 16th century, appears as an excentric and nice, though slightly alcoholic autocrat, loved and respected by his dependents. However, we do not learn that Achirimbi´s father, Abumbi I, fought an invading German colonial army, which during the so-called Bafut Wars in 1907 burned Bafut to the ground, and that he thus considered the British Empire to be the only power strong enough to protect his son and people from local usurpers and other colonial powers. When western Cameroon in 1961 had to choose between joining the recently independent Cameroon and the likewise recently independent Nigeria, Durrell´s friend Achirimbi II declared it was a choice ”between the fire and the deep sea” and that a new era would eventually destroy his fiefdom.

When Durrell made amusing use of the expressive pidgin-English spoken by his Cameroon hosts he could not have imagined that this means of communication would become part of a colonial heritage causing havoc to an age-old culture. Since September 2017 the so-called Ambazonian War has turned the once tranquil South-Western Cameroon into a battlefield where at least 650 civilians have been killed, 30,000 have been internally displaced and 40,000 have fled into neighbouring Nigeria.

The name Ambazonia is taken from Ambas, the local name of the mouth of the Wouri River, where the English missionary Alfred Saker in 1858 established a settlement of freed slaves, making it a bridgehead for British colonization of Western Cameroon. Eventually, the Germans conquered the territory that now constitutes the Republic of Cameroon, but when they lost World War I they had to cede their colony to England and France.

In 1960, the French-administered part of Cameroon became the independent République du Cameroun and in 1961 the formerly British Cameroons (sic) federated with this newly founded republic. The majority of the population in the former British part of the nation remained English speaking and fiercely opposed to any attempt to turn them into French speakers. In 1972, the federation was abandoned and the English speaking parts of Cameroon were forced to become francophone. People protested against the appointment of francophone judges in anglophone regions and the teaching of French in schools and universities, claiming that Anglophones were marginalized and demanded a return of the former federal-state system that allowed a high degree of independence for the anglophone parts of the nation. Of course, the issue is not limitied to languages but also concerns natural resources of a fertile land, of interest not only to the central government of Cameroon, but of oil-rich Nigeria as well.

In September 2017, separatists in the anglophone territories declared their independence from the Republic of Cameroon, naming their new nation Ambazonia. In November 2017, the central Cameroonian Government violently cracked down on manifestations supporting the foundation of Ambazonia, while strikes paralyzed the southwestern areas of the country. The Liberators of the Southern Cameroon People, a previously unknown group, killed twenty-one Cameroonian soldiers and an unquenchable spiral of ever-increasing violence began, schools were shut down, villages were burned to the ground. As in most civil wars, a plethora of armed groups emerged, more or less official ”freedom fighters”, common bandits and soldiers of fortune, some of them entering from neighbouring Nigeria. The fighting has become endemic and stalemate, so far no peaceful solution is in sight. Like in all guerilla warfare civilians suffer. A Cameroonian general complained:

They know the terrain. These are youths from local villages. We try to seek them out but we can’t find them. Our men aren’t familiar with the forest. 1

Since it is hard to find an enemy hiding among villagers the Army tend to harass, empty out and destroy entire hamlets. At the same time, guerilla fighters punish negotiations between village elders and the Cameroonian Government, interpreting them as a collaboration with the enemy. Accordingly, are desperate and peace-seeking locals ending up between two fires.

My youthful belief in a utopia, an unsoiled exotic realm inhabited by trustful, nice people, has revealed itself as an enchanted fantasy. What I found in Gerald Durrell´s books does not exist anymore, or maybe it did not even exist seventy years ago. Colonialism had already then laid its serpent´s egg in Durrell´s paradise and we are now witnessing how chauvinist poison is destroying yet another nation. The trustful people who helped Durrell to build his protective zoo in Jersey are now living in fear and misery, while gorillas in small pockets of forests close to the Nigerian border are threatened by extinction. Once again the human species is proving that it is far more fierce and dangerous than gorillas and other members of the animal kingdom who have proved to be protective even of members of other species than their own.

 
1 L’ Agence France-Presse (2018) Dirty war ravages Cameroon’s anglophone region. 5 May.
https://www.france24.com/en/20180505-dirty-war-ravages-cameroons-anglophone-region

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post Jersey, a Gorilla and the Civil War in Cameroon appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A boy pedals his bike along the desolated street of old city, which has been epicentre of protests and demonstrations. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah and Umer Asif
SRINAGAR, Kashmir, Sep 23 2019 (IPS)

It is 50 days into the lockdown in Kashmir since roads were blocked off, schools shut, and internet and communication services stopped.

On Aug. 5, India’s federal government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a curfew in the Muslim-majority area after amending the law to revoke the partial autonomy and statehood of Jammu and Kashmir. Restrictions on movement were immediately placed through a curfew as internet and telecommunications were cut.

The government also decreed that people from other Indian states could buy land in the region and become permanent citizens here.

Local Muslims, who form 80 percent of Kashmir’s 8 million people, feared that through such a move, the Indian government was trying to change the demography of the region.

More than 4,000 people, including politicians of opposition groups, human rights activists and separatists have since been detained by the government.  

Though the government claimed that it is making attempts to restore normalcy and open schools, the efforts elicited no positive response from people as parents refuse to send their children to school for fear of violence. In a tweet the YFK-International Kashmir Lobby Group, a non-governmental human rights organisation, stated that the region’s economy had been devastated because of the clampdown.

Tourism in the region has been badly hit ever since the imposition of curfew by the Indian government. Hotels have zero occupancy and tourist resorts are deserted.

49 days of curfew#Jammu & #Kashmir‘s economy in tailspin pic.twitter.com/WdwogaHrRb

— Kashmir Lobby Group (@KashmirLobby) September 22, 2019

The Indian-administered part of Kashmir has experienced increased violence since 1989 when militants stepped up armed resistance here.

Rights groups estimate that 100,000 people have since been killed, but Indian official records put the number at 47,000. 

Kashmiri has seen 50 days of imposed restrictions by the Indian government since it imposed a curfew in the Muslim-majority area after amending the law to revoke the partial autonomy and statehood of Jammu and Kashmir. The area also saw an increased military presence. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

A boy pedals his bike along the desolated street of old city, which has been epicentre of protests and demonstrations. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

An Indian paramilitary officer instructs his sub-ordinates about how to implement law and order in Kashmir’s capital Srinagar, as a curfew was imposed in the region. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

As schools continue to remain shut in the region since Aug. 5, amounting to 50 days tomorrow, kids are being taught in make shift schools, established by local citizens in several areas of Kashmir. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

A fleet of school busses parked in a garage in Srinagar outskirts as parents are reluctant to send their children to school due to the wave of uncertainty in Kashmir. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

View of a desolated classroom of one of the schools in Kashmir. Schools, universities, colleges and government offices are all shut in the region. The government’s attempts to reopen schools have failed as parents are reluctant to send their children to school due to the wave of uncertainty. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

The family of Asrar Ahmad, a 16-year-old boy who was killed during protests in the Illahi Bagh area of Srinagar. Ahmad succumbed to his injuries in hospital a month after being injured during protests. According to the family, Ahmad was hit by pellet guns fired by police, a claim vehemently rejected by the government. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

A para-military trooper guarding the main door of Kashmir’s largest mosque, Jamia Masjid. No prayers have been allowed inside the mosque since Aug. 5. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

Army men patrol one of the busiest markets of Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital, known popularly as Lal Chowk. Even as the government eased restrictions, locals continue to observe the strike against scraping of Kashmir’s autonomy. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

A protester who was shot at with a pellet gun displays the X ray film showing the pellets that penetrated his body. He was protesting against the curfew the Indian government placed on Kashmir. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

In the aftermath of protests. A road in Kashmir’s Anchaar area in the capital Srinagar. It’s the scene of pitched battles youth have had with the police on Aug. 5. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

The Indian government put an end to large scale protests by revoking the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution. Thousands of troops were deployed and the valley region faced unprecedented lockdown. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

Amid the communication gag which includes an internet blockade, Kashmir’s journalistic fraternity were provided with a limited internet facility at a basement of a private hotel in Srinagar. It is from this place that IPS correspondents were able to file their reports and use the internet. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

Shikaras — special boats used to take tourists to explore Kashmir’s mesmerising lakes — parked near on the bank of the world-famous Dal Lake. Tourism in the region has been badly hit ever since the imposition of curfew by the Indian government. Hotels have zero occupancy and tourist resorts too are deserted. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

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