OP-ED: Change in Cuba Comes in Stops and Starts

March 28, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Cuba-column

Leonardo Padura. Credit: Courtesy of the author

Leonardo Padura

HAVANA, Mar 28 (IPS) – The reform process launched in Cuba by the government of President Raúl Castro has made several changes to the country’s rigid social and economic structure, with the ultimate aim of bringing this island nation out of its economic lethargy and making production, which is sinking under the weight of restrictions, controls and contradictions, more efficient.After the announcement of the government’s intention to introduce "structural and conceptual changes" to "update" the model, the 2011 Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba – the sole legal party, which governs the country – approved the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy which set forth the transformations to be carried out.

The programme laid out in the document, which is precise on some issues but vaguer on others, sets out guidelines and commitments for the proposed changes, small and large.

In response to demands or criticism that the pace of change is too slow for a country plagued with social and economic problems that range from the highest structural and macroeconomic level to the complicated daily life of the average citizen, Raúl Castro has stated on several occasions that the transformations will keep pace with well-thought out plans, in order to avoid new errors. He calls this tempo “slow but sure.”

Recently the vice president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, Miguel Díaz-Canel, confirmed to the press announcements already made by the president.

While economic and social changes have so far brought about slight (or not so slight) shifts in the relations of production, property and citizen rights, such as the revitalisation of private enterprise, creation of agricultural and worker cooperatives, distribution of land for farming, or the important migration reform that allows a majority of the population to travel, changes in the years to come will have a more radical effect on the basic structures of the system.

As Díaz-Canel said: "We have made progress on what was easiest, in the solutions that required less depth of decision and less work to implement, and now we are left with the more important aspects, which will be more decisive in the future development of the country, as well as more complex."

What is intriguing is that neither leader has specified what the changes will consist of, or what their sphere or scope will be. They merely respond that everything is laid out in the Guidelines.

But an event of international importance has made a big difference to the balance of decision-making in Cuba.

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Cuba’s main political supporter and trading partner through bilateral and regional agreements, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), is definitely a factor that Havana cannot take lightly.

If, as analysts expect, Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s political heir, wins the presidency in the upcoming elections in Venezuela, Cuba will be able to breathe more easily, given Maduro’s promises with respect to the island and the loyalty he has pledged to Chávez’s thought and commitments.

But what no one doubts is that, with the passing of Chávez, the internal situation in Venezuela could become complicated in many ways, and its close relations with this Caribbean island nation, at least in economic terms, could change because of those unpredictable complications in Venezuela’s domestic reality.

This new turn of events will doubtless have been studied by the Cuban government, independently of political declarations or even silence. And the development will probably have an effect on the pace of internal change.

The fragile state of this country’s economy calls for efficiency, investment (including, of course, foreign capital), the redefinition of production relations, and the updating of state and private sector use of new technologies.

Meanwhile, the complex social fabric, that is so different today than in the early 1990s (when a severe crisis was triggered by the break-up of Cuba’s main political and trading partner, the Soviet Union) requires more realism and dynamism in the process of change, given that a large percentage of the Cuban population is made up of young people with different ideas and points of view, and also that many people have spent more than 20 years struggling to survive on low wages and facing concrete problems of all kinds.

Has the time come to cut short the pauses and accelerate the pace? And is it time for citizens to begin to learn what future is in store for them with those deeper and more complex transformations, that could define the destiny of the country and, certainly, of their own lives? In all likelihood, yes.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Americas, Opinion, Politics Tagged With: ,

Sanctions Do Not Lead To Nuke Abolition in Asia

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

SINGAPORE (IDN) – North Korea’s response to the United Nations Security Council’s expanded sanctions on January 22 by threatening to resume nuclear tests and failure last November of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to persuade the five recalcitrant nuclear powers to sign the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ) have focused attention on the atomic threat facing the Asian region that is fast emerging as the centre of the global economy.

Posited very much in the midst of these developments is the Obama Administration’s so-called US “pivot” or “rebalance” policy towards Asia, which is increasingly seen in the region as a security issue rather than an economic or political re-engagement.

Since this policy announcement two years ago there has been increased tension in the region with regard to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea that has prompted some analysts in Asia to question whether the US is trying to provoke Asian countries like Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam into confrontation with China.

With North Korea’s recent posturing, the threat of a nuclear confrontation – though remote – is rather worrisome to Asia that is emerging from centuries of economic subjugation by the West.

A looming confrontation with China in Asia may be one of the major reasons why the three nuclear powered states Russia, France and Britain could not agree to sign the SEANWFZ as planned at the 21st ASEAN Summit in Cambodia in November 2012. France voiced its reservations on the right of self-defence, United Kingdom on “new threat and development”, and Russia on the right of foreign ships and aircraft to pass into the nuclear free zone, a concern similar to that of the US.

The notion of a SEANWFZ dates back to November 27, 1971, when the original five members of ASEAN signed a Declaration on a (ASEAN) Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in Kuala Lumpur. The first major component of the ZOPFAN pursued by ASEAN was the establishment of a SEANWFZ.

However, due to the unfavourable political environment in the region, the formal proposal for the establishment of such a zone was tabled only in the mid-1980s. After a decade of negotiating and drafting efforts by the ASEAN Working Group on a ZOPFAN, the SEANWFZ Treaty was signed by the heads of states of all 10 ASEAN member countries in Bangkok on December 15, 1995 and it took effect two years later. The negotiations between ASEAN and the five nuclear powers on the protocol have been under way since May 2001 with no progress achieved.

Among a number of rules and conditions laid out by the treaty, the main components are that signatory States are obliged not to develop, manufacture or otherwise acquire, possess or have control over nuclear weapons; station nuclear weapons; or test or use nuclear weapons anywhere inside or outside the treaty zone.

The protocol also stipulates that Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) must abide by articles of the Treaty and not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against States parties. China has previously expressed its willingness to ratify the protocol, but the other four NWS cite the geographical scope of the Treaty as an obstacle. The treaty zone covers the territories, continental shelves, and exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of the States Parties within the zone.

Malaysian political scientist, Dr Chandra Muzzafar, Executive Director of the International Movement for a Just World says that while ASEAN states must be commended for drafting and signing the SEANWFZ, at the same time “all the five nuclear weapons states are determined to ensure that their nuclear advantage is preserved at all costs, ‘self-defence’ is just a camouflage”.

“Britain and France are US allies and the US through various military and diplomatic moves is reinforcing its agenda of containing China. So it should not surprise anyone if its two European allies are seeking to bolster the US position in the region,” he said in an interview with IDN-InDepthNews.

Non-governmental actors

Asked if the Asian countries should make US access to their markets conditional on the nuclear powers signing the treaty, Dr Muzzafar said: “ASEAN and other countries in Asia should first demonstrate a strong collective commitment towards the control and abolition of nuclear weapons before they make demands upon outside powers. Such a commitment does not exist at the moment. This is why I do not see them asking these powers to sign the Bangkok Treaty as a condition for access to the expanding markets in Asia.”

Dr Muzzafar is of the view that governments in the region will not be able to persuade the nuclear powers to sign the treaty and it will have to be non-governmental actors that need to mount a concerted campaign for it to happen. “In the ultimate analysis, it is only a powerful citizens’ movement that can rid the continent of present and future nuclear weapons”, he argues.

In a speech at the University of Iceland in October 2012, Dr Gareth Evans, the former Australian Foreign Minister and the Convener of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN), regretted that the spirit of optimism some three years ago that nuclear disarmament could be achieved in the Asia-Pacific region has evaporated.

“If the existing nuclear-armed states are serious about non-proliferation, as they all claim to be, and sincerely want to prevent others from joining their club, they cannot keep justifying the possession of nuclear weapons as a means of protection for themselves or their allies against other weapons of mass destruction, especially biological weapons, or conventional weapons,” he argued. "All the world hates a hypocrite, and in arms control as in life generally, demanding that others do as I say is not nearly as compelling as asking them to do as I do."

Dr Evans also pointed out that nuclear weapons would not deter terrorists, as many nuclear weapons states tend to argue. "Terrorists don’t usually have territory, industry, a population or a regular army which could be targeted with nuclear weapons," he said.

On September 13, 2012, APLN expressed deep disappointment at the evaporation of political will evident in global and regional efforts toward nuclear disarmament over the previous year. The statement was signed by 25 political, diplomatic, military and scientific leaders from 14 Asia Pacific countries.

Professor Ramesh Thakur, Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the Australian National University, writing in Japan Times noted that plans for upgrades, modernization or increased numbers and destructive power of nuclear arsenals by all the nuclear-armed states indicate that none is serious about nuclear disarmament.

“All countries that have and seek nuclear weapons, or are increasing the size and modernizing the quality of their arsenals, should be subjected to international opprobrium,” he wrote.

Tactical Nukes

Rather than subjecting nukes to international scorn, several commentators in regional publications in recent months have argued that the US may need to be persuaded to re-deploy tactical weapons in the Korean peninsula, which the Bush administration withdrew in 1991 – in order to respond to the North Korean threat.

“Tactical nukes on South Korean soil would enhance the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella against North Korea and also reassure the South Korean public of the US security commitment” argues Seongwhun Cheon, a Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in a commentary published by GlobalAsia.

“As North Korea continues to develop long-range missiles, alliance dynamics in Northeast Asia will come to resemble that of Europe in the late 1950s.” he says. “When the Soviet Union first fired its Sputnik missile and opened the intercontinental missile age, Western European allies began to worry that America might decouple its own security from alliance security in fear of a Soviet attack on the US mainland. Similar concerns on decoupling will become widespread in South Korea, and cause ripple effects in Japan. To allay looming concerns about such a possible decoupling, redeploying tactical nukes in South Korea is essential,” writes Cheon.

Yet, China may play a crucial role in decreasing tension in the region. Ties are expected to become warmer between China and South Korea under the new leaderships. The newly elected South Korean President Park Geun-Hye has already sent a special envoy to Beijing and China’s new Communist party chief Xi Jinping has called for a resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea.

While Park has indicated that she would take a more conciliatory stance towards North Korea compared to her hawkish predecessor, China’s Jinping was reported by the Korean Times as saying that he opposes the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea.

Professor Shen Dingli, Director of the Centre for American Studies at the Fudan University in Shanghai says that if the US wants stability and peace in the Asia-Pacific region it should work with China to achieve.

“Rebalancing by ganging up on China will undermine stability in East Asia, and may ultimately backfire and cause damage to the US’ own interests,” he argues in a commentary published by China Daily. “So far the US has insisted on ignoring the facts, confusing right and wrong and taking sides in disputes that don’t directly concern it," Dingli writes.

He urges the new Obama administration to recognize that “the power shift in the Asia-Pacific region is unstoppable, and the US can only go with the flow, respect the legitimate and reasonable demands of the emerging powers, and help seek a fair and proper settlement of major disputes in the region”. [IDN-InDepthNews – January 29, 2013]

2013 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Asia, Nuclear Weapons, Opinion Tagged With: ,

Mohamed Morsi’s Big Goal is New Egypt

November 26, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Eric Walberg* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak and now against the MB. They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should remember, was in the service of the imperial world order.

TORONTO (IDN) – At last Egyptian politics is moving. President Mohamed Morsi is slowly building on his summer ‘coup’, when he stared down Egypt’s generals and put his men in the top army and defence positions, following terrorist attacks in Sinai which the army, so old and bumbling, so involved in Egyptian internal politics, failed to prevent.

Now, he has stared down Israel’s generals, and dealt as an equal with President Barack Obama to bring U.S. pressure on Israel to back down in its planned invasion of Gaza. Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil was sent to Gaza on November 16 at the height of Israel’s current Operation Pillar of Cloud, forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call a unilateral truce to avoid killing the Egyptian leader.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rushed to Cairo to show Washington’s support for Morsi, making it clear that Obama was starting a new leaf, finally understanding who his real ally is in the Middle East, and putting Netanyahu in his place. There will be no repeat of Israel’s humiliation of Obama with the 2008 Operation Cast Lead.

Then, just hours after Morsi, the world’s wise peacemaker, waved good-bye to Hillary, but with his old-guard judiciary poised to dissolve the Constitutional Committee and destroy all hope for carrying the revolution forward, the unassuming president stared them down too, issuing a decree putting his decrees above judicial review.

And for the second time, he dismissed the procurator general, Abdel Meguid Mahmud, who has presided over the legal stonewalling of prosecutions of counterrevolutionaries – this time not backing down. The time for dawdling and letting criminals off the hook is over. The new prosecutor general, reformer Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah, has ordered a new trial of Mubarak and police and thugs let off scot-free by the old judiciary.

And watch out, Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court, don’t you even think about disbanding the Constitutional Committee that is so painstakingly putting together a constitution. (Liberals and Christian secularists resigned from the committee, doing their best to sabotage it, revealing where their sympathies lie.) Or about disbanding the Shura Council on some technicality, as you did the lower house in May, in a conspiracy with the generals to sabotage the revolution.

The secularists should look at the writing on the wall. Egypt is a devout Muslim country, where Christians are protected by Islam and cultural liberals are tolerated. These Western-inspired forces will never prevail, so they should work with Islamists, not against them, if they want to maximize social harmony and their own rights.

Sadly, the opposition is increasingly siding with the Mubarak crowd. "President Morsi said we must go out of the bottleneck without breaking the bottle," presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said. The opposition would rather see the bottle break that get Egypt’s life blood flowing again.

Secularist onslaught

Islamic civilization has been endangered for centuries now, battered and undermined by the Western secularist onslaught. Finally, Muslims are doing something about it. Now the Egyptian revolution of 2011 – which is Islamic, as elections since then prove beyond a doubt – is in danger, and the Muslim Brotherhood is showing it has spine and smarts. In both assertions of presidential power since then – in August and November 2012 – Morsi used a brief window of opportunity to maximum effect. His decisive steps caught observers by surprise, but surprise is the essence of revolution. Waffling and compromise lead to paralysis.

Anyone who wants to be part of a new Egypt, to shake off the imperial yoke looking for inspiration in Islam, should be delighted and inspired. Instead, MB offices in Port Said and Ismailia and Suez were fire-bombed, and liberals and judges, reinforced by the Mubarak crowd – now more and more assertive – are demonstrating angrily at the high court in Cairo and the judges’ union has called a strike.

Some talk of impeaching the president as a traitor. The counterrevolutionaries are continuing to expose themselves. "The decisions I took are aimed at achieving political and social stability," Morsi explained, vowing to firmly enforce the law against hooligans hired by loyalists of the former regime to attack security forces, state and party institutions.

Under prosecutor Meguid, it was beginning to look like no one would be held to account for the tens of thousands who were tortured and killed during Mubarak’s reign, for the billions that were stolen, and the flagrant rigging of elections. The rich, corrupt old guard continue to pay thugs and unemployed to disrupt civic life, to bring discredit to the revolution. They have been doing this from day one and there is no reason to believe they have stopped.

No tea parties

Revolutions are never tea parties. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have a clear vision and, along with the Salafis, represent the overwhelming majority of Egyptians. The fractious secular liberals and socialists plus the Christians represent only a quarter of Egyptians, and are united only against Mubarak and now against the MB.

They include Mohamed ElBaradei, whose long international career, we should remember, was in the service of the imperial world order. He is a nice Arab, a laid-back, secular Muslim, no threat. How else could he have been appointed IAEA chief and crowned Nobel Peace Prize winner? Morsi has “usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh," ElBaradei pontificated.

Other dissidents include the also-rans in the June presidential elections. Morsi’s main rival, Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, fled Egypt in disgrace after the election, facing arrest on corruption charges, leaving behind Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, ex-MBer Aboul Fotouh, and former Mubarak foreign minister Amr Moussa, who have teamed up to form the self-proclaimed “National Salvation Front” to oppose the presidential decree.

ElBaradei should be reminded there were great pharaohs, not just bad ones. Yes, "Morsi is a ‘temporary’ dictator", screams the headline in al-Masry al-Youm. There are times, especially during a revolution, when it is necessary to act decisively to save the revolution. The kind of paralyzed ‘democracy’ that the U.S. and the old guard in Egypt want would choke and stall the gains until cynicism reigns and the starving masses cry out for the old order.

What is key, is that the firm hand is an honest one, devoted to the people. Morsi’s kind are Egypt’s only hope now – selfless and God-fearing, not acting for personal gain or empire, but for the good of the people. He pledged to relinquish his new powers when the constitution is ratified four months from now, and there is no reason to doubt his word.

ElBaradei – Then and Now

Prior to the revolution in January 2012, ElBaradei too was a hero, a brave figure, able to shield himself from Mubarak’s secret police with his international prestige, the man who openly rallied Egyptians against tyranny. In the lead-up to the revolution, he acted in alliance with the MB, as later did Sabahi in the lead-up to the first post-revolution elections. They both underrated the real MB support and determination – and their own lack of standing with Egyptians – thinking that secularists would prevail in open elections, that they could make the MB abandon their program.

After the MB and Salafis chalked up 75% of the vote, the secularists suddenly found it impossible to accept their junior role in Egyptian politics. Rather than recognizing their own lack of credibility, and accepting the broad MB program while trying to salvage something from the secularist project, they have now drifted into alliance with the old guard and by implication their imperial allies abroad.

This is exactly what happened during the Russian revolution of 1917, where the political playing field shifted quickly, leaving key actors flummoxed. Alexander Kerensky too was a liberal ‘revolutionary’, until he fled to Paris, exposed as a reactionary anxious to appease the British and French and keep Russia in the criminal war which had inspired the revolution.

Speaking at a Cairo mosque, Morsi told worshippers Egypt was moving forward. "I fulfil my duties to please God and the nation. God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship. I don’t seek to grab legislative power.” It is ridiculous to accuse the mild-mannered Morsi of creating a dictatorial cult around himself. He is a man with a mission, but one which should gladden the hearts of all Egyptians: “We’re moving on a clear path, we are walking in a clear direction. And we have a big, clear goal: the new Egypt.”

The transition to the new Egypt will not be easy. The striking judges and brazen secularists, who flourished in the Mubarak era, will have to learn some self-restraint or go. Traditionally, revolutions lead to a house-cleaning through retirement, emigration, or in the worst case, through violence. When old elites team up with old and new mafias, they play with fire.

The Egyptian generals bowed out when their bluff was called. The prosecutor general and those eager to scuttle the real democratic process and the birth of the new constitution, with holier-than-thou words about the ‘independent’ judiciary, should do the same now and let the popularly-elected leader get on with the hard work of making sure the revolution is not strangled in the cradle.

* Eric Walberg is is author of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/ A version of this appeared at http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/25/274493/morsi-strengthens-grip-on-egypt-affairs/ IDN Viewpoints reflect opinions of respective writers, which are not necessarily shared by the IDN-InDepthNews editorial board. [IDN-InDepthNews – November 26, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Middle East, Opinion, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Thinking Out Loud About the Financial Crisis and Austerity

November 19, 2012 by

By Alan Fogelquist

The reason societies like those of Eurozone the United States don’t move effectively to address the real causes of economic crisis and the unnecessarily high levels of unemployment is that members of the comfortable middle class with stable positions don’t yet feel the pain felt by the victims of bad economic policy and long standing institutionalized inequality. These problems are off the radar screen of many with upper incomes and secure positions even when a much larger share of  income is flowing to a tiny minority of individuals higher up the ladder associated with financial institutions that have the power to create money in the form of debt. The crisis is rooted in debt financed speculation, but the people paying the cost of the collapse in the value of assets and financial panic are not those with high paid positions in the large speculative financial institutions that have been rescued with public money, but common citizens whose businesses or jobs are lost in the recession or whose,  jobs, wages and salaries are cut through austerity measures.
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The Eurocratic elites are doing one thing and one thing only. They are trying to force working people in Spain, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and elsewhere to pay off odious debt with interest and penalties to banks that were allowed to gamble in derivatives and create money in the form of debt. It’s time to cancel the debt and to introduce a new leadership in Europe or for the peoples of countries most victimized to force out governments subservient to the Eurocrat oligarchy and withdraw from the Eurozone. Until one of these things happens the people have no choice but protest.
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“But that’s not my issue’, some may say. But everything is becoming everyone’s issue in the world of 21st century conflict, financial crisis and victimization of millions. It’s a global problem both ethical and real and the issues are interrelated. That’s the reason the planet urgently requires effective multidimensional efforts to resolve pressing human and environmental problems before it becomes too late.
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Yes, this  may seem like preaching from the top a soap box, but what do you think Fox News does? What counts is what is said from the top of the soap box. Millions of soap boxes are necessary to counter false ideology spread in the mass media. We need a mass media that reflects the real interests of the majority of the people,  people who carry out real productive and useful work and receive modest wages and salaries. These are the people whose interests need to be defended. We need rational economic systems that make maximum use of the world’s productive capacity, technology, and brain power to serve human needs.

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The real issues in the world financial crisis and depression are institutional and moral, not technocratic. If the technocrats were to work diligently to solve the real issues facing humanity instead of inventing technical arguments to avoid them there would be much less suffering and much less unemployment.

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© Copyright 2012 Alan F. Fogelquist, Ph.D. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: Economic Crisis, Economic Policy, Economy, Europe, Finance, Inequality, Media, Opinion, Politics, Poverty, Social Justice Tagged With: , ,

OP-ED: Hurricane Sandy Says, "Welcome to the New Normal"

November 9, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 08 (IPS) – I am aware that my arrival last week helped re-elect U.S. President Barack Obama. Superstorms like me don’t play politics, but it should be clear by now that your refusal to tackle global warming has serious consequences. Higher sea levels and amped-up hurricanes like me are just two of them.There is an awful price to pay for burning coal, oil, and natural gas, I’m sorry to say.

Putting hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere is trapping more of the sun’s heat energy. CO2 is the planet’s natural heating blanket but those extra hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 have made that blanket thicker. And it is getting thicker every year.

Nearly 200 people were killed in the 10 days I travelled from Jamaica to Canada. Most of the deaths were in the United States. The U.S. remains by far the largest emitter of CO2. With a fraction of the world’s population, the U.S. is responsible for nearly 30 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions from 1860 to 2009. On a person by person basis, U.S. citizens have one of the biggest CO2 "footprints".

Some of you have known for a long time how dangerous CO2 is. The first international conference to address the climate-disrupting impacts of burning coal, oil, and natural gas was held 24 years ago. At "The Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security", your politicians and scientists concluded:

"Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war".

They accurately warned of a dangerous temperature increase without action to reduce emissions. (Conference summary statement)

Knowing all this, your oil, coal and gas corporations were allowed to grow to become the world’s most powerful and profitable industry. You gave, and continue to give, those corporations who are making the planet less habitable billions of tax dollars in subsidies.

Now there is so much CO2 in the atmosphere the entire planet is .8 degrees C (one degree F) hotter and that temperature will at least triple. This additional heat energy being trapped by the extra CO2 amounts to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year. This has spawned more and more destructive extreme weather events. This "new normal" will only worsen as more CO2 is released.

The refusal to tackle global warming has led to nearly 400,000 deaths and more than 1.2 trillion dollars is being lost every year mainly due to damage to food production and from extreme weather linked to climate change. Air pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels is also separately contributing to the deaths of at least 4.5 million people a year. These deaths and costs will only worsen with every additional tonne of CO2.

In human terms CO2 is forever. Your countries’ emissions today will disrupt the climate of your children, grand children and great grandchildren. To minimize the severity and intensity of flooding, droughts, destructive storms and crop failures your CO2 footprint needs to grow smaller and virtually disappear over the next few decades.

The US CO2 footprint has been getting smaller in recent years. The recession, closures of old coal plants and more natural gas has resulted in fewer emissions. Others are doing their part. The British are 18 percent below their emission levels in 1990 and aim to get down to 34 percent by 2020. The US is still well above its 1990s levels. This ongoing failure to act has cost the US its global leadership position.

Studies show the U.S. could become an advanced, 21st century low-carbon society thriving on 100-percent renewable energy sources by 2030. The entire planet could run on 100-percent renewable sources by 2050.

This does not appear to be your future. The fossil fuel industry is too powerful and has instilled a fear of change amongst many of you. What you should be truly fearful of is the worsening of powerful storms that kill, the floods that destroy and droughts that will cause hunger for your children and your children’s children.

As you sow, so shall you reap.

Hurricane Sandy Speaks is written by lead international science and environment correspondent at IPS Stephen Leahy.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Environment, Opinion, United States Tagged With: ,

OP-ED: Unfinished Business Awaits Obama’s Second Term

November 9, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Emile Nakhleh

WASHINGTON, Nov 08 (IPS) – Several critical issues of unfinished business in the Middle East face President Barack Obama as he begins his second term. Washington must become more engaged come January because these issues will directly impact regional stability and security and U.S. interests and personnel in the region. The issues include the Syrian uprising and increasing atrocities by extremist elements within the uprising, the Arab Spring and the future of democratic transitions, the growing influence of radical Salafi “jihadism” across the Arab world, Bahrain, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Pakistan, and Guantanamo and global terrorism.

The Obama administration’s engagement in these issues in the past year has been marginal and uneven, influenced largely by domestic politics and to some degree the ghost of Libya. Washington’s public support for democracy following the start of the Arab Spring was welcomed in the region, especially as dictators in Tunisia and Egypt fell precipitously.

The U.S. image became more tarnished, however, as repression escalated in Bahrain against the Shia majority and as Assad’s killing machine became more vicious, and Syria descended into a civil war.

Washington’s benign response to repression and torture in Bahrain, according to advocates of this policy, is justified by the presence of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the special relationship with Saudi Arabia. Yet, the U.S. and its Western allies have not used their significant leverage in either country to advance democracy. Nor has the Fleet deterred the Al Khalifa regime from repressing the pro-democracy movement.

The ghost of Libya and the U.S. presidential election also drove Obama’s hesitancy to act against the Syrian dictator. During the foreign policy presidential debate before the U.S. elections, President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney argued lamely that Syria was different from Libya, and therefore the U.S. military even under the NATO umbrella should not be used against Assad.

The fate of emerging Arab democracies and the legitimate aspirations of millions of Arab youth, which the U.S. and many countries worldwide have endorsed, should not be held hostage to political expediency or become a casualty of electoral politics.

U.S. prestige and Obama’s credibility at home and abroad will be tested by whether Washington stands with the peoples of the region against their entrenched dictators, regardless of the so-called Libyan model. Calls for justice and dignity in the Arab uprisings signaled a historic moment that resonated across the globe. The U.S. should embrace this moment and place itself on the right side of history.

President Obama was hailed across the Arab Muslim world in June 2009 when he called for engaging credible indigenous communities on the basis of common interests and mutual respect. A retreat from those ideals would be disastrous for the U.S. and its allies, especially as regime remnants and radical Salafis endeavour to derail the democratic process.

An autocratic tribal ruler in Manama, who has just revoked the citizenship of 31 Bahraini nationals, or a brutal dictator in Damascus should not turn the clock back on the moral inroads that Washington made in the region in the post-Bush era.

The unfolding of events at a dizzying speed and increasing threats to U.S. interests and personnel demand serious attempts to address theses critical issues. In his second-term, President Obama cannot remain oblivious to rising sectarianism, growing Salafi extremism, continued repression, and suppression of minorities and women.

On day one after taking office, the president must turn his full attention to Syria.

Assad must be forced out, and soon. Over 25,000 Syrians have been killed since the uprising began in early 2011, and equal numbers have been “disappeared” by the regime. Hundreds of thousands have become refugees. Atrocities committed by the regime and by some of the rebels are inflicting untold suffering on innocent civilians in Syria.

The Syrian uprising, like those in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, started peacefully. Regime intransigence and repression, however, forced the uprising to become violent. Lawlessness and the porous borders have opened Syria to radical “jihadists” from neighbouring Arab countries.

Whereas, the uprising was initially non-ideological and non-religious, the incoming “jihadists” are Sunni Salafis bent on fighting a religious war against an “infidel” dictator. These “jihadists” have exploited the factionalism of the opposition for their intolerant religious extremism.

They also gained acceptance by the poorly armed rebels because they brought in weapons and money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and elsewhere. The rise of violent “jihadism” in Syria had been a direct consequence of continued regime intransigence.

A prolonged proxy war between Iran, which supports Assad, and Saudi Arabia, which supports the uprising, over Syria and a resurgent radical Salafi “jihad” within the insurgency cannot be good for regional stability and for the international community.

How to speed up Assad’s exit? Short of putting boots on the ground, Washington and its NATO allies, especially the UK, France, and Turkey, should declare a no-fly zone and provide the Free Syrian Army with adequate anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to fight the regime’s military machine. NATO should seek the consent of Arab and Asian countries for the Syria initiative, including patrolling the no-fly zone.

Media reports reveal that Turkey, with U.S. approval, has deployed Patriot missiles close to the Syrian border. This action seems to signal Turkey’s intention to create and possibly defend a no-fly zone. President Obama and other NATO leaders should vigorously push this action forward.

Syrian refugees cannot spend another winter in tents and under intolerable conditions.

NATO partners also should help streamline the opposition groups and recognise whatever group emerges as a legitimate political representative of Syria. Admittedly, factionalism among the rebel groups on the ground and within the Syrian National Council outside the country is a major impediment to diplomatic recognition and international action.

Once a unified leadership emerges, NATO should provide it with logistics, intelligence, and command and control training. Furthermore, Washington and London should put the Assad regime on notice that attacking Syria’s neighbours or using chemical and biological weapons in any form against any target will result in a massive military response.

Lakhdar Brahimi’s U.N.-Arab mission to Syria has failed to persuade Assad to stop the killing, and any talk of a temporary ceasefire is no more than wishful thinking. Russian and Chinese obduracy in the U.N. Security Council on Syria justifies an immediate and more robust NATO action against the regime. The Syrian dictator has already rejected British Prime Minister David Cameron’s offer for a safe passage out of Syria.

It’s morally reprehensible for the international community to remain insensitive to the continued atrocities against the Syrian people, whether by the regime or the opposition. Moral platitudes no longer cut it.

Once the regime is toppled, the international community should help the post-Assad government with economic recovery and empower the Syrian business community and entrepreneurial civil society to start creating jobs. When that happens, the “Arab Spring” would rightfully claim its fifth trophy.

*Emile Nakhleh is former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at CIA and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim world.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Foreign Affairs, Middle East, Opinion, Peace, Politics Tagged With: ,

2012 Election Fable

November 6, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

Ian Fletcher

Once upon a time there was a republic.

Like many republics before and since, it was immensely proud that it was not ruled by a king. Long ago, in fact, the citizens of the republic had overthrown a king and sent him packing.

The republic, like many other republics before and since, was ruled instead by oligarchs. They had all the money. They controlled the important institutions. All the paths of success ran through the cultivation of their favor.

But the people were unhappy with this arrangement. For they suspected that, though the republic was governed in a manner that was perhaps minimally acceptable by the standards of history and other nations, it was still not governed as well as it should be.

So the people, over time, grew unhappy with the oligarchs. Like the masses everywhere, they were accustomed to their lot, patient, and stoical. But year by year, their frustrations accumulated. Eventually, they became genuinely angry with their rulers.

Why? Because everything wrong with their society could be laid at their door. They were the ones in charge, after all.

The people demanded reform.

But the oligarchs had a brilliant idea. They gave the people a choice. They started holding elections, in which the people were allowed to choose between rival factions of servants of the oligarchs.

Each faction advertised different principles . So the people were allowed to choose between Freedom and Equality, between Stability and Progress, between God and Reason, between Tradition and Fairness, between Solidarity and Individualism, between Diversity and Unity, between Gasoline and Diesel, and even between Alternating and Direct Current.

Much hinged upon these choices. Members of the public defined their attitude towards the world and their personal moral code by which faction they voted for.

For a while, the masses were happy. They called it Democracy.

But eventually, the masses become unhappy again. Things were not working out. The country was still not well governed.

But this time, when they complained, the oligarchs had a ready reply:

“You elected the government, not us. If you don’t like it, vote to change it.”

And the people didn’t know what to say to this, because it was true.

So they did vote to change their government.

But they still weren’t happy.

So they voted to change it again.

And again.

But no matter how many times they voted, they were still not satisfied, and their frustration accumulated.

The people became convinced that if only they could elect just the right faction, under just the right charismatic leader, then everything would be fine.

They became convinced that all the country’s problems were due to the wrong faction getting elected.

They bitterly catalogued the flaws of whatever faction they did not vote for. Sometimes, they even catalogued the failure of their own faction to stick to its principles.

If only the Red Flag Faction could truly rule, and have all the government at its command, including the courts! Then everything would be well.

No! If only the Blue Flag Faction…

The people exhausted themselves comparing and trying out the different factions. They grew divided amongst themselves, bitter toward their fellow citizens, and thus unable to unite against the oligarchs.

High above, in their counting houses and their mansions, the oligarchs looked down with bemused detachment. Occasionally, when they grew bored with the ownership of professional sporting franchises, they would toy with one faction or another. But for the most part, they just let matters play out, confident in outcomes acceptable to their interests.

The factions were, after all, composed of their own servants, trained in institutions they controlled, and vetted by a long and arduous process.

Nobody bothered the oligarchs, because nothing was ever their fault. Everything bad that happened, after all, was due to the wrong faction getting elected.

Or, some men thought wise sometimes said, the failure of both factions to work together for the good of the country.

So the people mostly left the oligarchs alone. Occasionally, one faction or another made noises about them, but little came of it. The factions mostly fought each other, and in this way the republic’s finite political energies were consumed. The people and their spokesmen exhausted themselves, and political stability was achieved.

I trust I don’t have to continue with this story. My point is that democracy, for all its virtues, is a spectacularly efficient machine for the diffusion of responsibility into thin air. Unlike in more authoritarian political systems, nobody is truly accountable. Everything is always the other side’s fault. The one issue that’s never on the ballot is whether the unified governing establishment that underlies both parties should continue to govern.

My point here is not the cliché—which is false anyway—that there’s no difference between the two parties. There isn’t a lot, but there’s enough. But partisan differences themselves are a trap, because they serve largely to factionalize society so that it’s hopelessly divided and unable to resist a unified establishment whose interests are at variance with those of the public.

Most of what’s wrong with this country, starting with my own issue, free trade, is the product of a consensus that both parties share. Or, worse, they choose to abdicate responsibility on these issues entirely, leaving them to be settled by an oligarchy that is increasingly insulated from democratic accountability and free to play by its own rules.

Fixing these problems, in the long run, will mean a lot more than whether Obama or Romney wins this election. I’m not endorsing anybody this time around.

© Copyright 2012 Ian Fletcher. All rights reserved.

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.

Ian Fletcher is Senior Economist of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a nationwide grass-roots organization dedicated to fixing America’s trade policies and comprising representatives from business, agriculture, and labor. He was previously Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank, and before that, an economist in private practice serving mainly hedge funds and private equity firms. Educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, he lives in San Francisco. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why.


Filed Under: Elections, Opinion, United States Tagged With: , , , ,

Warhead Elimination: A Roadmap

June 11, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Frederick N. Mattis*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

ANNAPOLIS, USA (IDN) – A nuclear ban (abolition) treaty, often called a Nuclear Weapons Convention, will need to include a timetable for phased reductions of warheads until a final day when states simultaneously reach zero. The following is a plan for warhead elimination, with the aim of acceptability to today’s nuclear weapon states – and framed on the reality that the USA and Russia have far more nuclear warheads than the other possessors (Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea).

Duration of the nuclear ban warhead elimination period is proposed to be either three or four years, depending on the higher number of either Russian or U.S. nuclear warheads remaining when the worldwide, unanimously joined nuclear ban treaty enters into force. If that quantity is less than 5,000, the elimination period would be 3 years, and 4 years if over 5,000. (The USA, reportedly, is approximately at 5,000 already.)

"Warheads" in this discussion includes strategic and sub-strategic or "tactical," deployed and those in reserve, and those already slated for dismantling. Assuming for illustration that Russia has 4,500 total warheads and the USA 4,000 when a nuclear ban enters into force, meaning a three-year elimination period (because neither has more than 5,000), Russia would have to decrease to the USA level of 4,000 before the USA begins reducing – or vice versa if quantities were reversed.

From the date Russia (in this example) has decreased to the USA level and the USA then joins with Russia in parallel further reductions, the other nuclear weapon states commence a 90-day period of dismantling 25 percent of their warheads; but thereafter the latter states can "wait" until Russia and the USA, reducing in tandem and following the elimination timetable, reduce to the other states’ varying [25 percent-reduced] levels, at which successive points those states join the USA and Russia in the final phases, on a month-by-month and then week-by-week basis, of the progress to zero.

It may be noted – and objected – that in anticipation of the 25 percent required decrease, pertinent states could counteract this by increasing their arsenals, i.e., before (impending) nuclear ban entry into force. However, even if some states did so, which would be liable to world criticism with a nuclear ban on the immediate horizon, under the enacted ban such a state must promptly and transparently eliminate 25 percent of its arsenal – which in any case would be much smaller than those of Russia and the USA. It would not be fair, though, to the USA and Russia to instead exempt, until U.S./Russian warhead levels are all the way down to those of the other nuclear weapon states, the latter states from the transparency, cooperation, and good-faith demonstrations attendant upon prompt (90-day) and internationally-monitored dismantling of a significant percentage (such as 25) of a state’s nuclear arsenal.

Russia and the USA, for their part, would be dismantling from their starting points many more warheads than the other nuclear weapon states; but due to arsenal size the USA and Russia would still, as today, be possessors of a large (though diminishing) majority of the world’s nuclear weapons through most of the weapons elimination period. Nearing the end, however, such as final six or nine months, the USA and Russia together would reach the varying levels of the other nuclear weapons states, and as noted be (re)joined by them in further reductions as the elimination timetable fixes ever-lower permissible ceilings on warhead possession.

To summarize: proposed duration of the weapons elimination period is 3 or 4 years, depending on whether the USA or Russia has over 5,000 total warheads (including inactive and those already slated for dismantling). Of the two countries, the greater-possessor undertakes reductions in accordance with the 3-4 year nuclear ban timetable, and is joined by the other when initial reductions by the former bring the two countries even. From that day also, the other nuclear weapon states must within 90 days eliminate 25 percent of their warheads. Thereafter, though, those states are not required to reduce further until Russia and the USA, following the treaty’s timetable, reduce to the other states’ varying but much lower levels, whereupon the latter states join the final phases of warhead elimination – on month-by-month and then week-by-week basis – leading to day of total elimination.

The above schema would please the USA and Russia, on the one hand, because of the 25 percent, transparent warhead reduction over just 90 days by the other nuclear weapon states (whose arsenals in any case are much smaller than U.S.-Russian). On the other hand, it would please the other (currently seven) nuclear weapon states because ultimately, over the final and thus most-important six or nine months of weapons elimination, the USA and Russia would reduce to the other states’ varying lower levels before the latter states must rejoin the warhead elimination process in final reductions to zero.

"Mass-De-Alerted" Warheads During Elimination Period?

On a critical issue of warhead elimination, it is here recommended that today’s nuclear weapon states not be prohibited by the treaty from maintaining their remaining, diminishing warheads as "active" during the elimination period – with the alternative being to require their overall, mass inactivation or extreme de-alerting at some early or middle phase of the elimination period (here posited as 3-4 years). The reason is because today’s nuclear weapon states probably would prefer, and may insist upon, having a "ready arsenal" (although shrinking) as a hedge against a conceived nuclear ban "break-out" – until all weapons are eliminated and the nuclear weapons-free world is a reality, underlain by the unprecedented geopolitical and other force of a unanimously joined treaty that regards states equally and relieves all of today’s nuclear threats. (With that said, countries such as the USA and Russia or others could certainly choose to negotiate and establish de-alerting measures beyond present ones – but outside of nuclear ban auspices.)

Report on Warhead Movement?

After nuclear ban baseline accountancy and recordation of nuclear warheads, conducted by the nuclear ban Technical Secretariat (inspectorate), states also – on the viewpoint here – would not be required to maintain remaining [diminishing] warheads in the "same place(s)," nor to report movement of warheads – until each state’s necessary consolidation of its final several or so warheads in the final few days or day of weapons elimination. Why? Because a state with a relatively small nuclear arsenal, if instead required by treaty to keep its weapons in a "declared" location or locations during the period of warhead elimination, could be afraid of being an easy target for liquidation of its (small) nuclear arsenal by another state’s military resources.

Of course, all dismantling of warheads under the nuclear ban timetable would be conducted under full monitoring of the nuclear ban regime, resulting in ongoing and public accountancy of exact quantities and respective owners of the world’s shrinking number of nuclear warheads. To emphasize, though: as incentive for today’s nuclear weapon states to actually join the nuclear ban, it is here recommended as not having a requirement for states to reveal location(s) of still-extant warheads during the progress to zero of the warhead elimination period.

Deterrents to Treaty Violation

What, then, would prevent a state from attempting to hide some warheads and not initially declare and then eliminate them as required by treaty elimination timetable – or, for that matter, to attempt secret development of nuclear weapons after their worldwide elimination under a fully enacted nuclear ban treaty?

Response: the unprecedented geopolitical, legal, psychological, and moral force of unanimous accession by states to the treaty (Nuclear Weapons Convention) before it takes effect; the absence of assured or easy success in cheating due to the worldwide verification regime, plus presumable workings of "societal verification" with a worldwide treaty; the treaty’s equal applicability and thus fairness to states (removing any putative, psychological "justification" for treaty violation); the treaty’s main benefit to states (removal of current nuclear weapons-related threats, including possible terrorist acquisition from a state’s arsenal); and the certitude of worldwide opposition to a pernicious violator of the worldwide treaty.

*Frederick N. Mattis is author of “Banning Weapons of Mass Destruction,” pub. ABC-CLIO/Praeger Security International [ISBN: 978-0-313-36538-6].

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Diplomacy, Geopolitics, Nuclear Weapons, Opinion, United States Tagged With:

Australia Going Solar – Gonna Cost Ya, Mate

December 6, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

By. John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com

Green activists, take note – for Australia fully to embrace solar power, Canberra would have to spend $100 billion, with photovoltaic cells to generate the electricity covering an area twice the size of Sydney in order to replace Australia’s indigenous inexpensive coal-fired power plants with renewable energy sources.

This is not an insignificant figure, as Australian coal currently generates 80 percent of Australia’s electrical energy output.

The grim statistic was contained in the recent report, “Keeping the Home Fires Burning,” issued by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

So, who is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute? Tree-hugging, wallaby and kangaroo friendly ecological leftists or energy company flacks?

Uh, no.

According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute website, “ASPI is an independent, non-partisan policy institute. It has been set up by the government to provide fresh ideas on Australia’s defense and strategic policy choices… It aims to help Australians understand the critical strategic choices which our country will face over the coming years, and will help government make better-informed decisions.”

Accordingly ASPI’s conclusions cannot be seen as either energy industry shills nor environmental advocates, which makes them accordingly worth careful consideration.

The report starts ominously, “Australia, like all modern economies, needs an assured supply of energy to function effectively. As a net exporter of energy, Australia is well placed in most respects. But we are still reliant on external sources of oil.”

Authors Andrew Davies and Edward Mortimer pull no punches, first noting that Australia’s massive indigenous energy reserves of coal and natural gas would shield it from political disruptions in the Middle East before adding, “The energy security policy challenges of the next 20 years are likely to pale into insignificance compared to those that will arise when the availability of fossil fuels declines significantly. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like renewable sources of energy will be able to provide adequate substitutes, at least based on current technology. Developing countries are even less likely to be able to adopt alternative energy sources on a large scale. As a result, any large reduction in fossil fuel usage will most likely be due to scarcity and price rather than choice. The timescale is decades rather than years, and the decline of existing fuel stocks will be gradual rather than precipitous, so there’s scope for technological advances to come to the rescue – but there are no obvious solutions at the moment.”

So, solar power to the rescue? According to the authors, “The requirement (to generate solar power per capita) can also be expressed as 200 square meters of panel per person, or about four times the average amount of roof area per person in Australia today.” As for the country weaning itself off fossil fuel power and diverting to solar power generation, the authors conclude, “As a rough estimate, if the cost per panel could be halved (due to economies of scale), the total cost would be around $100 billion.”

What to do?

Davies and Mortimer suggest that in conjunction with neighbors New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Island countries Australia develop a strategic oil reserve to maintain transport and industry if and when Middle East disruptions imperil supplies.

For a government sponsored institute providing “fresh ideas,” ASPI seems stuck in a “business as usual” rut, looking at the immediate bottom line versus the long-term picture.

As for establishing an oil strategic reserve, the rising tensions in the Middle East over Iran’s nuclear programs could change the dynamics of Persian Gulf oil exports to East Asia long before strategic reserves could be established.

Australia does indeed have significant reserves of coal as well as access to natural gas, including the offshore Sunrise natural gas field, shared with Timor Leste and estimated to contain 5.1 trillion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas and 226 million barrels of condensate, the largest petroleum resource in the Timor Sea. Development of the field with Timor Leste has been blocked by disputes with the Timorese government for the last nine years.

Charming as the idea of boring holes in the ground and pumping Middle Eastern oil down them for a rainy day, would it not be in Australia’s interest to negotiate fairly with Timor Leste over the Sunrise field? Even if solar power gives Canberra sticker shock, it seems preferable to make local arrangements for more environmentally friendly fuels such as natural gas rather than continuing to import hydrocarbons from the Middle East or burning local coal. Best then, at the end of the day, it’s an economic issue, with quality of life considerations coming second.

But if Canberra has to give its energy import policies hostage to fortune, Timor Leste is a lot closer than the Persian Gulf.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Australia-Going-Solar-Gonna-Cost-Ya-Mate.html

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Asia, Energy, Environment, Opinion Tagged With: ,

OP-ED: The Future of Carbon Markets: Taking Politics Seriously

November 23, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Peter Newell *

BRIGHTON, United Kingdom, Nov 22, 2011 (Tierramérica) – Carbon markets are under attack on all sides, despite ongoing faith in their ability to deliver meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases (GHGs).

As the Durban climate summit approaches and as the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end in 2012, carbon markets have been adversely affected by low prices that are failing to drive necessary investment in low carbon technology and a series of scandals about their integrity.

Some are questioning whether it is right to call time on carbon markets – and not just NGOs.

Referring to the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, which is a considerable source of demand for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) credits, Henry Derwent, former head of the International Emissions Trading Association recently said "the market consists of individual participants, many of whom have other places to go if they find emissions trading has become too complicated and changeable a place to make money or secure investment income."

At the international level the centerpiece of carbon markets is the CDM, an offset mechanism created under the Kyoto Protocol which allows richer countries to pay poorer countries to reduce emissions on their behalf where, in theory at least, it is cheaper to do so.

Projects have to show that they are additional (i.e. they wouldn’t have happened anyway) and different methodologies provide ways of ascertaining this. Doubts have been raised about the additionality of many CDM projects though, with many studies suggesting that for up to 40 percent of the projects additionality is unlikely or questionable.

Recent revelations from WikiLeaks cables in which government officials claim that no CDM projects from countries such as India (the world’s second largest host of CDM projects) can be considered genuinely additional give further cause for concern.

But the deal at Kyoto was that poorer countries were entitled to receive sustainable development benefits (technology, jobs, health benefits) from hosting these projects: lower-cost emissions reductions in return for development benefits.

The evidence is overwhelming that this has not occurred on anything like the scale anticipated.

Unless projects are also accredited by private standards (such as Gold Standard which now has 20 percent of the market share), you don’t get extra money for delivering sustainable development benefits.

Benefits claimed in Project Design Documents (PDDs) are not checked at the end of a project. The responsibility for assessing whether nationally defined sustainable development criteria have been met thus lies with national authorities whose backlog of work and the lack of time to scrutinise proposed projects fully means that they are not in a position to adequately screen projects for development benefits.

Carbon market advocates point to many CDM projects that have delivered GHG reductions and sustainable development benefits in spite of these problems. They highlight wind or solar energy projects, biomass and cooking stove projects that bring multiple cost, health and environmental benefits to poorer communities.

Critics contend that such projects can and should be financed by other means, such as direct aid, and not created as an offset opportunity which means industries in the North absolve themselves of some of the pressure to reduce their own emissions.

On the whole projects that bring substantial and lasting benefits are too few, and strong incentives still remain in place to go for "low-hanging fruit" opportunities that are low cost but earn lots of carbon credits – like eliminating industrial gases such as hydrofluorocarbon from refrigeration systems.

Still, many think it is too early to throw the baby out with the bathwater. According to the World Bank, CDM finance continues to represent the largest source of mitigation finance available to developing countries which could raise 18 billion dollars in direct carbon revenues over the period 2001-2012.

Reforms of the CDM have been proposed to address some of the problems confronted so far. But they are not teething problems that can be easily weeded out with further institutional learning and innovation – scaling up projects, reducing barriers to smaller ones, improving feedback to project developers.

They touch on the deeper politics of carbon markets and the role they play in responses to climate change which have to be addressed.

The challenge ultimately is to move from a carbon economy which is one small part of a global economy, largely run on fossil fuels, to a system of "climate capitalism" where growth and development are achieved on a low carbon basis.

This means working with powerful business and financial actors that will make money in a low carbon economy, in other words coalitions of the willing and the winning.

Given the urgency of tackling climate change to avoid three to four degrees warming, an argument for offsets is that they buy time for richer countries while they transition to a low carbon economy.

The problem, of course, is that most of them are not. Those that are also find that actions they do undertake are overwhelmed by fossil fuel-based growth elsewhere in the economy.

Are offsets, therefore, meant to be a temporary measure to bring down emissions while the necessary structural reforms take place in the economies that generate most emissions, or do they form part of a permanent solution?

Structural reforms will not happen quickly or easily, but how long should reliance on offsets be allowed as an alternative to tackling the sources of GHG emissions?

Strong rewards are needed for those businesses that are willing to invest in a low carbon future where, for the time being, the CDM remains just the icing on the cake, nice to have but not significant enough to change investment strategy.

Tackling climate change also means getting tough with businesses that continue to invest their money in fossil fuels in spite of evidence of the effect this is having.

* Peter Newell is Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex and co-author of the just released paper ‘Governing Clean Development: what have we learnt?’, with Jon Phillips, from the University of East Anglia’s School of International Development. Copyright Tierramérica.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Development, Energy, Environment, Opinion Tagged With:
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