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Tag: Global

  • Crimes Against Children

    Crimes Against Children

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    Children from marginalised ethnic, language and religious groups, from 22 low and middle-income countries which were analysed, lag far behind their peers in reading skills. Credit: Brian Moonga/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Nov 21 (IPS) – An indisputable truth is that no child has ever chosen where to be born, which colour of skin to have, which ethnic community to belong to, what religion to practice and language to speak, or how safe or dangerous the context to grow up in. A child is the most innocent and defenceless human being.

    Nevertheless, children fall easy prey to all kinds of brutalities, everywhere and every single day. See how.

    Racism and discrimination against children based on their ethnicity, language and religion, are rife in countries across the world, stated the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ahead of this year’s World Children’s Day on 20 November.

    In its report: Rights denied: The impact of discrimination on children, the world’s largest body defending the rights of children, reveals the staggering impact of discrimination on children and the extent to which racism and discrimination affect their education, health, access to a registered birth, and to a fair and equal justice system.

    It also highlights widespread disparities among minority and ethnic groups.

    A lifetime of pain: “Systemic racism and discrimination put children at risk of deprivation and exclusion that can last a lifetime,” said UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell. “This hurts us all.”

    Ethnicity, language, religion: The report shows that children from marginalised ethnic, language and religious groups, from 22 low and middle-income countries which were analysed, lag far behind their peers in reading skills.

    Lagging behind: On average, students aged seven to 14 from the most advantaged group are more than twice as likely to have foundational reading skills than those from the least advantaged group.

    A UNICEF analysis of data on the level of children registered at birth – a prerequisite for access to basic rights – found significant disparities among children of different religious and ethnic groups.

    Black children are not children: In their reporting to the UN General Assembly, UN Human Rights experts on 8 November 2022 explained how children of African descent ‘not considered children at all, even in the eyes of the law.’

    “The unresolved legacies of trade and trafficking in enslaved Africans, as well as colonialism, post-colonial apartheid and segregation, continue to harm these children today.”

    Deprivation: Discrimination and exclusion deepen inter-generational deprivation and poverty, and result in poorer health, nutrition and learning outcomes for children, a higher likelihood of incarceration, higher rates of pregnancy among adolescent girls, and lower employment rates and earnings in adulthood.

    ‘Povertyism,’ humiliation, stigmatisation: Like racism and sexism, ‘povertyism’ should be illegal, said in his recent report to the world body, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier de Schutter.

    “People are stereotyped and discriminated against purely because they are poor. This is frankly sickening and a stain on our society.”

    No Need to add that children are among the most hurt by impoverishment, humiliation and stigmatisation.

    No immunisation: While COVID-19 exposed deep injustices and discrimination across the world, and the impacts of climate change and conflict continue to reveal inequities in many countries, UNICEF highlights how discrimination and exclusion have long persisted for millions of children from ethnic and minority groups, including access to immunisation, water and sanitation services,

    Sentenced to the darkness of ignorance: More than two-thirds of 10-year-olds are unable to read and understand a simple text. And there are 244 million children still out of school, while educational centres are victims of armed attacks.

    More horrifying findings

    In addition to all the already reported brutalities committed against the most innocent and defenceless humans–the children, many more crimes continue to be perpetrated amidst worldwide impunity.

    The following are just some tragic examples.

    One billion children experience some form of emotional, physical or sexual violence every single year.

    One child dies from violence… every seven minutes.

    Millions of children are displaced by armed conflict. These children are at a high risk of grave violations in and around camps, and other areas of refuge.

    Drowned, abandoned, stranded: Children are often forced to migrate with their parents to flee armed conflicts, severe droughts, floods and landslides they have not caused. In their voyage to hell, children are drowned, and those who survive are often separated from their families and abandoned at borders.

    Violence without frontiers: violence against children knows no boundaries of culture, class or education. It takes place against children in institutions, in schools, and at home. Peer violence is also a concern, as is the growth in cyberbullying.

    Isolation, loneliness, fear: Children exposed to violence live in isolation, loneliness and fear, not knowing where to turn for help, especially when the perpetrator is someone close.

    Hunted in refugee camps: Criminal groups trading with the lives of the weakest humans go to refugee camps to hunt defenceless children and youth for trafficking, smuggling, enslavement, and making money from selling their organs.

    Slavery: Millions of children are pushed into forced labour, carrying out extremely hazardous work. And 70% of boys and girls living in rural areas are workers.

    Impunity

    All these crimes against innocent children are being committed. And go unpunished.

    No wonder, the world is so busy talking about weapons, wars, oil, gas, carbon, the concentration of food markets, more technology, and how to further expand the digitalisation of all aspects of life.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Loss and Damage Fund Saves COP27 from the Abyss

    Loss and Damage Fund Saves COP27 from the Abyss

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    Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, chair of COP27, reads the nine-page Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan, the document that concluded the climate summit on Sunday Nov. 20, to an exhausted audience after tough and lengthy negotiations that finally reached an agreement to create a fund for loss and damage, a demand of the global South. CREDIT: Kiara Worth/UN
    • by Daniel Gutman (sharm el sheikh)
    • Inter Press Service

    SHARM EL SHEIKh, Nov 20 (IPS) – They were on the brink of shipwreck and did not leave happy, but did feel satisfied that they got the best they could. The countries of the global South achieved something decisive at COP27: the creation of a special fund to address the damage and loss caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

    The fund, according to the Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan, the official document approved at dawn on Sunday Nov. 20 in this Egyptian city, should enable “rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction” following extreme weather events in these vulnerable countries.

    Decisions on who will provide the money, which countries will benefit and how it will be disbursed were left pending for a special committee to define. But the fund was approved despite the fact that the issue was not even on the official agenda of the summit negotiations, although it was at the center of the public debate before the conference itself.

    “We are satisfied that the developed countries have accepted the need to create the Fund. Of course, there is much to discuss for implementation, but it was difficult to ask for more at this COP,” Ulises Lovera, Paraguay’s climate change director, told IPS, weary from a longer-than-expected negotiation, early Sunday morning at the Sharm El Sheikh airport.

    “This COP has taken an important step towards justice. I welcome the decision to establish a loss and damage fund and to operationalize it in the coming period,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. He also described as an achievement that a “red line” was not crossed, that would take the rise in global temperature above the 1.5-degree limit.

    More than 35,000 people from nearly 200 countries participated in the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) on Climate Change in Sharm El Sheikh, an Egyptian seaside resort on the Red Sea, where the critical dimension of global warming in the different regions of the world was on display, sometimes dramatically.

    Practically everything that has to do with the future of the modes of production and life of humanity – starting with energy and food – was discussed at a mega-event that far exceeded the official delegations of the countries and the great leaders present, such as U.S. President Joe Biden and the Brazilian president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

    Hundreds of social organizations, international agencies and private sector stakeholders came here to showcase their work, seek funding, forge alliances, try to influence negotiations, defend their interests or simply be on a stage that seemed to provide a space for all kinds of initiatives and businesses.

    At the gigantic Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center there was also a global fair with non-stop activities from morning to night in the various pavilions, in stands with auditoriums of between 20 and 200 seats, where there was a flurried program of presentations, lectures and debates, not to mention the more or less crowded demonstrations of activists outside the venue.

    In addition, government delegates negotiated on the crux of the summit: how to move forward with the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which at COP21 in 2015 set global climate change mitigation and adaptation targets.

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres walks hurriedly through the Sharm El Sheikh Convention Center during the last intense hours of the COP27 negotiations, when there were moments when it seemed that there would be no agreement and the climate summit would end in failure. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres (3rd-R) walks hurriedly through the Sharm El Sheikh Convention Center during the last intense hours of the COP27 negotiations, when there were moments when it seemed that there would be no agreement and the climate summit would end in failure. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

    On the brink of failure

    Once again, the nine-page Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan did not include in any of its pages a reference to the need to abandon fossil fuels, but only coal.

    The document was the result of a negotiation that should have ended on Friday Nov. 18, but dragged on till Sunday, as usually happens at COPs. What was different on this occasion was a very tough discussion and threats of a walkout by some negotiators, including those of the European Union.

    But in the end, the goal of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, established in the Paris Agreement, was maintained, although several countries tried to make it more flexible up to 2.0 degrees, which would have been a setback with dramatic effects for the planet and humanity, according to experts and climate activists.

    “Rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions (are) required – lowering global net greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2030 relative to the 2019 level – to limit global warming to 1.5°C target,” reads the text, although no mention is made of oil and gas, the fossil fuels most responsible for those emissions, in one of the usual COP compromises, since agreements are reached by consensus.

    The Bolivian delegation in Sharm El Sheikh, which included officials as well as leaders of indigenous communities from the South American country, take part in a meeting with journalists at COP27 to demand more ambitious action. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    The Bolivian delegation in Sharm El Sheikh, which included officials as well as leaders of indigenous communities from the South American country, take part in a meeting with journalists at COP27 to demand more ambitious action. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

    The priorities of the South

    Developing countries, however, focused throughout the COP on the Loss and Damage Fund and other financing mechanisms to address the impacts of rising temperatures and mitigation actions.

    “We need financing because we cannot deal with the environmental crisis alone. That is why we are asking that, in order to solve the problem they have caused, the rich nations take responsibility,” Diego Pacheco, head of the Bolivian delegation to Sharm El Sheikh, told IPS.

    Environmental organizations, which showed their power in Egypt with the presence of thousands of activists, also lobbied throughout COP27 for greater commitments, including mitigation actions.

    “This conference cannot be considered an implementation conference because there is no implementation without phasing out all fossil fuels,” the main cause of the climate crisis, said Zeina Khalil Hajj of the international environmental organization 350.org.

    “Together for implementation” was precisely the slogan of COP27, calling for a shift from commitments to action.

    “A text that does not stop fossil fuel expansion, that does not provide progress from the already weak Glasgow Pact (from COP26) makes a mockery of the millions of people living with the impacts of climate change,” said Khalil Hajj, head of global campaigning at 350.org.

    One of the demonstrations by climate activists at COP27 held in Egypt Nov. 6-20, demanding more ambitious climate action by governments, as well as greater justice and equity in tackling the climate crisis. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS
    One of the demonstrations by climate activists at COP27 held in Egypt Nov. 6-20, demanding more ambitious climate action by governments, as well as greater justice and equity in tackling the climate crisis. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS

    The crises that came together

    Humanity – as recognized by the States Parties in the final document – is living through a dramatic time.

    It faces a number of overlapping crises: food, energy, geopolitical, financial and economic, combined with more frequent natural disasters due to climate change. And developing nations are hit especially hard.

    The demand for financing voiced by countries of the global South thus takes on greater relevance.

    Cecilia Nicolini, Argentina’s climate change secretary, told IPS that it is the industrialized countries, because of their greater responsibility for climate change, that should finance developing countries, and lamented that “the problem is that the rules are made by the powerful.”

    However, 80 percent of the money now being spent worldwide on climate change action is invested in the developed world, according to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world’s largest funder of climate action, which has contributed 121 billion dollars to 163 countries over the past 30 years, according to its own figures.

    In this context, the issue of Loss and Damage goes one step further than adaptation to climate change, because it involves reparations for the specific impacts of climate change that have already occurred, such as destruction caused by droughts, floods or forest fires.

    “Those who are bearing the burden of climate change are the most vulnerable households and communities. That is why the Loss and Damage Fund must be established without delay, with new funds coming from developed countries,” said Javier Canal Albán, Colombia’s vice minister of environmental land planning.

    “It is a moral and climate justice imperative,” added Canal Albán, who spoke at a press conference on behalf of AILAC, a negotiating bloc that brings together several Latin American and Caribbean countries.

    But the text of the outcome document itself acknowledges that there is a widening gap between what developing countries need and what they actually receive.

    The financing needs of these countries for climate action until 2030 were estimated at 5.6 trillion dollars, but developed countries – as the document recognized – have not even fulfilled their commitment to provide 100 billion dollars per year, committed since 2009, at COP15 in Copenhagen, and ratified in 2015, at COP21 which adopted the Paris Agreement.

    It was the absence of any reference to the need to accelerate the move away from oil and natural gas that frustrated several of the leaders at the COP. “We believe that if we don’t phase out fossil fuels there will be no Fund that can pay for the loss and damage caused by climate change,” Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, who was at the two-week conference in Sharm El Sheikh held Nov. 6-20, told IPS.

    “We have to put the victims first in order to make an orderly and just transition,” she said, expressing the sentiments of the governments and societies of the South at COP27.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • COP27 wins and losses: U.S. on the hook to pay for its pollution; natural gas gets nod as transition fuel

    COP27 wins and losses: U.S. on the hook to pay for its pollution; natural gas gets nod as transition fuel

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    For the first time ever, rich nations, including a top-polluting U.S., will pay for the climate-change damage inflicted upon poorer nations.

    These smaller economies are often the source of the fossil fuels
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    and other raw materials behind the developed world’s modern conveniences and technologicial advancement, including many practices responsible for the Earth-warming emisisons. And yet the developing world shoulders the worst of the droughts, deadly heat, ruined crops and eroding coastlines that take lives and eat into economic growth.

    The deal, called “loss and damage” in summit shorthand, was struck as the U.N.’s Conference of Parties, or COP27, gaveled to a close near dawn Sunday in Egypt. Official talks ended Friday, but negotiations extended into the weekend.

    Read: Historic compensation fund approved at U.N. climate talks

    It was a big win for poorer nations which have long sought money — sometimes viewed as reparations — because they are often the victims of climate-worsened floods, famines and storms despite contributing little directly to the pollution that heats up the globe. It took last-minute, pre-summit negotiations to even get the topic on the official agenda.

    “Three long decades and we have finally delivered climate justice,” said Seve Paeniu, the finance minister of island nation Tuvalu, according to the Associated Press. “We have finally responded to the call of hundreds of millions of people across the world to help them address loss and damage.”

    “ ‘Three long decades and we have finally delivered climate justice.’ ”


    — Seve Paeniu, finance minister for Tuvalu

    Pakistan’s environment minister, Sherry Rehman, said the establishment of the fund “is not about dispensing charity.” Pakistan, hit by devastating drought and more, dominated climate-change headlines this year.

    “It is clearly a down payment on the longer investment in our joint futures,” she said, speaking for a coalition of the world’s poorest nations.

    According to many conference participants, the U.S. was a late-stage roadblock to establishing this official payout language, though it signed off in the end. U.S. participation was also impacted once chief climate negotiator John Kerry tested positive for COVID-19, although he continued to work from his hotel.

    How does COP27 ‘loss and damage’ work? And where’s China?

    According to the agreement, the fund would initially draw on contributions from developed countries and other private and public sources such as international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

    While major emerging economies such as China wouldn’t automatically have to contribute, that option remains on the table. This is a key demand by the European Union and the U.S., who argue that China and other large polluters currently classified as “developing” countries have the financial clout and responsibility to pay their way.

    The fund would be largely aimed at the most vulnerable nations, though there would be room for middle-income countries that are severely battered by climate disasters to get aid.

    Getting serious about methane

    Attention on methane, a more-potent but shorter-lasting greenhouse gas than carbon, was considered a major win at the summit. Some 150 countries have now signed on to the voluntary Global Methane Pledge, an official effort to cap the release of the GHG whose reduction presents perhaps the easiest way to reduce the global warming.

    Read more: Natural gas-focused methane pact expands at climate summit, minus China

    With the pledge, countries representing 45% of global methane emissions have vowed to reduce their emissions by 30% by 2030. If methane-reduction pledges are met, the result would be equivalent to eliminating the GHG emissions from all of the world’s cars, trucks, buses and all two- and three-wheeled vehicles, according to the International Energy Agency.

    China, the world’s largest polluter by some measures, has not signed the deadline-based pledge, but has agreed to reduce methane emissions.

    Still largely voluntary

    COP27 talks wrapped without concrete progress on the contentious issue of shifting an overall 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature limit from a voluntary marker to an established requirement of nations. Most voluntary pacts among nations and private entities, including a vow by Amazon.com
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    and others signing on to a “First Movers” pledge, loosly use the 1.5-degree limit set in 2015 when talks took place in Paris.

    Private banks, insurers and institutional investors representing $130 trillion said they would align their investments with the goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, toward a pledge to net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050. Advocacy groups cheer the pledge and its expanding roster but are also keeping up pressure on the signatories to speed up progress toward this goal and to stop undermining the pledge with fossil-fuel investment.

    Read: Here’s where the big U.S. banks stand up and fall down on climate change

    The Egypt pact was also void of firmer language on emissions cutting and the desire by some officials to target all fossil fuels
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    for a phase-down.

    Natural gas, which is relatively cheaper to produce than other fossil fuels, has been the major alternative to more-polluting coal in electricity generation. Still, it has its own emissions risk.

    In the U.S., for example, electricity is the most common energy source used for cooking — electricity often powered by gas. Still, about 38% of U.S. households use natural gas directly for cooking, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    Natural gas providers also own an established pipeline infrastructure that may serve alternative energy, and is pushed by the industry as a viable alternative alongside solar, wind
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      and other means. The industry also promotes its efforts to cap methane leaks.

    Related: World’s richest nations stick to 1.5-degree climate pledge despite energy crunch

    “ ‘It is more than frustrating to see overdue steps on mitigation and the phase-out of fossil energies being stonewalled by a number of large emitters and oil producers.’”


    — Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock

    With fossil fuels in their sight, the European Union and other nations fought back at what they considered backsliding in the Egyptian presidency’s overarching cover agreement and threatened to scuttle the rest of the process, while advancing their own draft. The package was revised again, removing most of the elements Europeans had objected to but adding none of the heightened ambition they were hoping for, the AP said.

    Egypt has played a unique role as host, representative of Africa, which sits at the front lines of those hurt by climate change and yet, remaining loyal to its own fossil-fuel ambitions and those of OPEC nations.

    Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock voiced frustration.

    “It is more than frustrating to see overdue steps on mitigation and the phase-out of fossil energies being stonewalled by a number of large emitters and oil producers
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    ” she said.

    The agreement includes a veiled reference to the benefits of natural gas as low- emission energy, despite many nations calling for a phase down of natural gas, which does contribute to climate change.

    Fossil-fuel industry’s presence

    At least 636 representatives of the fossil fuel industry registered to attend the summit, a 25% increase over the industry’s presence last year, according to an analysis released by three advocacy groups.

    More fossil fuel lobbyists are on the roster than any single national delegation, besides the UAE who has registered 1,070 delegates compared to 176 last year, according to a report from Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and Global Witness (GW).

     Frances Colón, senior director for International Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress, found plenty of fault with this round of talks.

    “The final text reflects the outsized and corrupting presence of fossil fuel and big agricultural lobbyists at COP27, compounded by a lack of ambition from key, high-emitting countries,” she said, in a statement. “The agreement makes only a passing reference to the 1.5-degree Celsius warming goal and does not include any new language on phasing down or phasing out all fossil fuels
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    — the only way to reach emissions reduction goals and secure a livable future.”

    Colón also worried that the official statement did not adequately advance efforts. World leaders failed to reference the twin, interlocking crises of nature loss and climate change, and declined to link COP27 to next month’s U.N. biodiversity summit in Montreal.

    “ ‘The agreement makes only a passing reference to the 1.5-degree Celsius warming goal and does not include any new language on phasing down or phasing out all fossil fuels — the only way to reach emissions reduction goals and secure a livable future.’”


    — Frances Colón of the Center for American Progress

    While the new agreement doesn’t ratchet up calls for reducing emissions, it does retain language to keep alive the voluntary global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The Egyptian presidency kept offering proposals that harkened back to 2015 Paris language which also mentioned a looser goal of 2 degrees.

    This year’s pact also neglected to toughen the main sticking point from the previous COP, in Glasgow last year. At that time, China and India united to dig in unless coal language was softened. Nations this year did not expand on last year’s call to phase down global use of “unabated coal” even though India and other countries pushed to include oil and natural gas in language from Glasgow.

    “We joined with many parties to propose a number of measures that would have contributed to this emissions peaking before 2025, as the science tells us is necessary. Not in this text,” the United Kingdom’s Alok Sharma said.

    Climate campaigners are concerned that pushing for strong action to end fossil fuel use will be even harder at next year’s meeting, which will be hosted in Dubai, located in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

    The Associated Press contributed.

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  • G20 Summit, a Missed Opportunity to Tackle Global Cost of Living Crisis

    G20 Summit, a Missed Opportunity to Tackle Global Cost of Living Crisis

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    • Opinion by Matti Kohonen (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    The G20 summit motto was “Recovering Together, Recovering Stronger” yet the Joint Declaration failed to deliver any alternatives to the wave of austerity engulfing the world. It ignored the option of raising enough tax revenues from large corporations, taxing the wealthy and tacking illicit financial flows and tax abuses which alone accounts for over US$200 billion of tax revenue lost per year due to profit shifting in the global South.

    For one, the summit blocked any progress towards the negotiations of a UN Tax Convention that would address the issues of corporate tax abuses and illicit financial flows, as denounced in an open letter from the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD).

    In an open letter denouncing this inaction to tackle corporate tax abuses and IFFs, delivered to embassies of Indonesia, India and Brazil, Lidy Nacpil from the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) said that the summit blocked “any progress towards the negotiations of a UN Tax Convention that would address the issues of corporate tax abuses and illicit financial flows,” but there was no reaction.

    Making matters worse, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) failed to deliver on mandates to publish country-by-country reporting before the summit. This would have allowed to monitor the performance of mechanisms to prevent for example multinational companies shifting profits to tax havens and avoid paying taxes.

    The data was only published on 17 November, a day after the summit, which was too late to hold the G20 leaders accountable. According to Alex Cobham, Director at the Tax Justice Network, “without the transparency data, neither the Tax Justice Network nor any other independent research can evaluate how much each government is losing to multinationals’ corporate tax abuse, or any progress made to curb tax losses in recent years.”

    But that is not everything since the summit did not confront the hidden offshore wealth and kleptocracy problem. Maira Martini from Transparency International said that the G20 members “in recent years have dragged their feet, unable to agree on key measures and failing to implement even those to which they had already committed. In the meantime, the corrupt have consolidated wealth and power, allowing them to attack everything from sustainable development to global security to democracy.”

    In an open letter released ahead of the Bali summit, Transparency International representatives from across G20 countries called on their governments to take immediate action against cross-border corruption. The Joint Declaration stated its support towards implementing Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations for improved financial transparency, but does not say that beneficial ownership registries should be public, a critical element to enable stakeholders and the authorities to uncover hidden assets.

    Also the declaration included regional efforts related to signing of the Asia Initiative Declaration in July 2022 on tax and financial transparency in Asia. However, it did not specify whether this initiative would create a stronger standard than the current OECD transparency standard, or simply implement an OECD standard in the Asian regional context.

    Positively, the Bali Joint Declaration made a link between increased beneficial ownership information and tackling natural resource crimes, but offered no specific proposals to address this issue. Indonesia loses an estimated US$4 billion in Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) each year due to illegal, unregulated and underreported (IUU) fishing alone, while Africa loses an estimated US$11.5 billion to this illicit activity. It would be vital that beneficial ownership information on all vessels and fishing companies is collected on a public registry, to hold those responsible for illicit fishing activities accountable.

    Between 75 and 95 million people are expected to be thrown into extreme poverty this year as a result of the pandemic and the effects of rising inflation and the war in Ukraine, according to the UN. Many other are struggling to make a living and feed themselves as governments around the world are resorting to painful austerity measures.

    The G20 had an opportunity to offer solutions to these crises and a lifeline to struggling nations. Unfortunately for all of us, they have failed.

    Matti Kohonen is executive director, Financial Transparency Coalition.

    IPS UN Bureau


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Will the Global Energy Crisis Accelerate the Energy Transition? The Big Question at COP27

    Will the Global Energy Crisis Accelerate the Energy Transition? The Big Question at COP27

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    One of the many activities held on Energy Day (Nov. 15) at COP27, where discussions are taking place for two weeks on how to make further progress on global climate action. The consensus among observers is that the energy transition away from fossil fuels will accelerate in the wake of the war in Ukraine and its impact on oil and gas supply and prices. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    • by Daniel Gutman (sharm el sheikh, egypt)
    • Inter Press Service

    SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 16 (IPS) – COP27 is unlikely to produce new commitments to reduce emissions of climate-changing gases, but the global energy crisis will eventually prompt more action by countries to move away from fossil fuels. That is the positive feeling that many observers are taking away from the annual climate summit being held in Egypt.

    “The rise in energy prices due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set back many countries in the transition to renewable energies in 2022,” Manuel Pulgar Vidal, global leader of Climate & Energy at WWF, told IPS. “But this is not going to last, because developed nations have proven that the best path to energy security is to accelerate the abandonment of fossil fuels.”

    The issue is seen from the same point of view in some countries of the developing South.

    Costa Rica’s Minister of Environment and Energy Franz Tattenbach Capra was emphatic in an interview with IPS: “Countries like ours, which don’t have oil or gas, are appalled by the price increases. This will lead us to try to become less dependent on imports.”

    The close relationship that has been established between climate action and economic development is easy to see at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has drawn more than 33,000 people to this seaside resort town on the Sinai Peninsula.

    This link goes far beyond the negotiations between the 193 States Parties on climate change mitigation and adaptation, which this year focuses on climate action, as highlighted by the summit’s slogan: “Together for Implementation”.

    A demonstration is held at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center at COP27 to remind the world of the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals aimed at boosting global peace and prosperity, fighting climate change and making the transition to clean energy by 2030. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    A demonstration is held at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center at COP27 to remind the world of the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals aimed at boosting global peace and prosperity, fighting climate change and making the transition to clean energy by 2030. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

    Global fair

    COP27 is very much like a trade fair and a multitudinous meeting place, with an overwhelming number of talks, activities and document sharing, where the task of choosing where to be is very difficult and everyone constantly feels they are missing out on something more interesting happening at the same time.

    While world leaders give speeches and technical officials discuss the next steps for climate action, countries, organizations and companies seek and offer financing, in public and private meetings, for all kinds of projects, ranging from energy, agriculture and infrastructure to the empowerment of indigenous communities.

    “This process has been very skillful in connecting climate change and economics. We all know that countries that do not act responsibly with regard to the climate are going to slide backwards in the coming years,” said Pulgar Vidal, who co-organized and chaired COP20, held in Lima in 2014, when he was Peru’s environment minister.

    The energy sector is definitely the master key to finding solutions to climate change, as it is responsible for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions and is still primarily fossil-fuel based.

    According to a report presented here by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), only 29 percent of generation comes from alternative sources and carbon emissions continue to rise.

    And the past year “frankly, has been a year of climate procrastination,” said United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) executive director Inger Andersen on Nov. 15, the day dedicated to energy in the never-ending agenda of side events taking place at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Center.

    In the official negotiations, however, the energy discussion appears to be in the background, behind the debate on the creation of a fund to compensate for loss and damage in the countries of the South that have suffered the most from droughts, floods, hurricanes, forest fires and other phenomena that have accelerated in recent years.

    COP26, held a year ago in Glasgow, Scotland, ended with a bitter taste with respect to energy when, following an intervention by India, a commitment was made to reduce, rather than eliminate, the use of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel.

    For now, there is no indication that this summit will end with a better agreement in this area.

    Manuel Pulgar Vidal, a former Peruvian environment minister and the chair of COP20 on climate change, held in Lima in 2014, poses for photos in one of the corridors of COP27 at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center in Egypt, where he is participating as global leader of Climate & Energy at WWF. CREDIT: WWF
    Manuel Pulgar Vidal, a former Peruvian environment minister and the chair of COP20 on climate change, held in Lima in 2014, poses for photos in one of the corridors of COP27 at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center in Egypt, where he is participating as global leader of Climate & Energy at WWF. CREDIT: WWF

    Effects of the war

    Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, chair of the largest multilateral fund for financing climate action in developing countries, is also convinced that the energy crisis generated by the war in Ukraine will, in the medium and long term, trigger a faster transition.

    “The conflict made many people understand how vulnerable the global energy system is and how harmful dependence on fossil fuels is,” the CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) told IPS in one of the wide corridors of the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center, where the heavy traffic of people does not stop between 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM.

    Rodríguez, the former Costa Rican environment minister, said that “With an energy mix based more on renewable sources, there would have been more resilience to the impact of the events in Ukraine. European countries have already understood this and I am confident that they are understanding it in other regions.”

    Reports circulating in Sharm El Sheikh support the theory that the impact of the crisis could be beneficial for the energy transition in the long run.

    In the four largest emitters – China, the United States, the European Union and India – public and private investment in transport electrification and renewable energy is growing due to market mechanisms and concerns about energy security, says a paper presented by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), an independent advisory organization based in the United Kingdom.

    “The pace at which the green transition is speeding up…is remarkable….no-one who genuinely understands the interconnected crises facing the world believes that more oil and gas represent anything more than a very short-term solution,” Gareth Redmond-King, international lead at the ECIU, said at the climate summit.

    Harjeet Singh, of the Climate Action Network International, which brings together more than 1,800 environmental organizations, takes part in a demonstration at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center. The demand is to ensure that the necessary efforts are made so that global temperature does not increase beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    Harjeet Singh, of the Climate Action Network International, which brings together more than 1,800 environmental organizations, takes part in a demonstration at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center. The demand is to ensure that the necessary efforts are made so that global temperature does not increase beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

    Pressure from civil society

    A broad spectrum of organizations are taking part in COP27, aiming to influence the negotiation process and seek funding.

    Harjeet Singh of the Climate Action Network International (CAN-I), an umbrella group of more than 1,800 organizations in 130 countries, told IPS that “the war in Ukraine shifted the focus of many developed countries from climate action to energy security.”

    Singh has called for a commitment to halt the expansion of fossil fuels to be included in the outcome document of COP27, which is due to end on Nov. 18 if it is not extended by one day as is customary at these summits.

    At the same time, he lamented that, because of the impact of the war, “we see the fossil fuel industry taking advantage of this space to sell itself as sustainable, which is unacceptable.”

    Evidence of the need to appear as part of the oil sector’s climate action is everywhere in this gigantic Convention Center, where the organization Global Witness denounced that 636 lobbyists for oil interests and companies are registered as participants.

    One of the hundreds of organizations with booths at Sharm El Sheikh is the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) Fund for International Development.

    “We came here to make ourselves visible, as we want to contribute to making the energy transition in all countries inclusive,” Nadia Benamara, Head of Outreach & Multimedia for the Vienna-based Fund, told IPS.

    Benamara said the Fund pledged 24 billion dollars up to 2030 to finance climate action because “oil producing and exporting countries are also victims of climate change and want to contribute to the solution.”

    IPS produced this article with support from Climate Change Media Partnership 2022, the Earth Journalism Network, Internews, and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.

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  • The United Kingdoms, USAs and Russias Great Game: A History Lesson about War and Greed

    The United Kingdoms, USAs and Russias Great Game: A History Lesson about War and Greed

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    • Opinion by Jan Lundius (stockholm)
    • Inter Press Service

    STOCKHOLM, Nov 16 (IPS) – The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
                                             William FaulknerLike most armed conflicts the Ukrainian war intends to establish hegemony over a certain area, in rivalry with other usurpers. Russian propaganda pinpoints the US and EU as Russia’s main adversaries, while Ukraine is portrayed as a pawn in these nations’ international yearnings. Such a scenario is not new.

    The Great Game was a political and diplomatic confrontation between British – and Russian Empires, which continued for most of the 19th and parts of the 20th centuries. Britain’s role was eventually taken over by the US. The Great Game mainly affected Mesopotamia (Iraq), Persia (Iran), and Afghanistan, though it had, and still has, repercussions on a wide range of neighboring territories.

    Britain originally feared that the Russian Empire’s ultimate goal was to dominate Central Asia and reach the Indian Ocean through Persia, thus threatening Britain’s Asian trade links and its domination of India.

    Britain posed as the World’s first free society, declaring its adherence to Christian values, respect for private property, and democratic institutions. Claims bolstered by an advanced industry, fueled by steam power and iron, as well as an ever increasing use of oil. English leaders assumed their nation had a God-given task to spread “civilization” and that such a worthy cause permitted them to exploit the earth’s natural resources, as well as the world’s labor force. Similarly to the Brits, the Russians, the Yankees, and the French considered themselves to be “civilizing forces”.

    The quest for dominion was carried out in a traditional manner – pitching internal fractions against each other and let them do most of the fighting. Nevertheless, this strategy eventually led to direct clashes between “world powers”. Britain strived to convince the Russian army that it did not have a chance against the British war machine. The UK, France and Italy felt threatened by a growing influence of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. Accordingly, these nations supported an increasingly weakened Ottoman Empire, intending it to remain a buffer zone blocking Russia’s expanding war fleet from the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

    As part of this policy, Britain and France provided arms and money to anti-Russian insurgents in Chechnya, thus contributing to an enduring tradition of Chechen terrorism against Russia. After a minor scuffle between the Russian – and Ottoman Empires, Russia occupied the Principate of Wallachia (Romania), prompting France and Great Britain to attack Crimea with a huge military force.

    The Crimean War (1853-56) proved that the Tsar’s army was no match for the allied forces. Russia was humiliated and its expansion towards the European mainland and meddling in Persia and Afghanistan were halted. Instead people living on the steppes of Central Asia and Siberia continued to be subdued and forced to join the Russian Tsardom.

      The Crimean disaster had exposed the shortcomings of every institution in Russia – not just the corruption and incompetence of the military command, the technological backwardness of the army and navy, or the inadequate roads and lack of railways that accounted for the chronic problems of supply, but the poor condition and illiteracy of the serfs who made up the armed forces, the inability of the serf economy to sustain a state of war against industrial powers, and the failures of autocracy itself.

    The meddling of imperialists in other nations’ affairs was gradually worsened by efforts to secure fossil fuels for their own benefit. Refined petrol was originally used to fuel kerosene lamps and became increasingly important when street lighting was introduced. After 1857, oil wells drilled in Wallachia became very profitable, inspiring a search for new oilfields in the east. In 1873, the Swede Robert Nobel established an oil refinery in Azerbaijan, adding Russia’s first pipeline system, pumping stations, storage depots, and railway tank cars. At the same time, Calouste Gulbenkian assisted the Ottoman government to establish the oil industry in Mesopotamia. Gulbenkian eventually became the world’s wealthiest man.

    Profit from these endeavors increased through assembly-line mass production of motor vehicles, introduced by Henry Ford in 1914. However, the main reason for gaining control of oil was belligerent. The English First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, realized that if the British navy was fuelled by oil, instead of coal, it would be irresistible: “We must become the owners or at any rate the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the supply of natural oil which we require.” In 1914, Churchill feared that this could be too late – the Germans were already on their way to conquer the Middle Eastern oil fields. Together with the Ottomans they were finishing the Berlin-Baghdad railway line, which would it make possible for the German army to transport troops to the Persian Gulf and onwards to Persian oilfields.

    Germany and its allied Ottoman Empire lost World War I and the Berlin-Baghdad railway never reached the Persian Gulf. In accordance with the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire were divided into French and British “spheres of influence”. In 1929, the newly formed Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a joint endeavor of British, French and American oil interests, brokered by Gulbenkian, received a 75-year concession to exploit crude oil reserves in Iraq and Persia, and eventually in what would become the United Emirates.

    Access to oil continued to be a major factor in World War II. The German invasion of USSR included the goal to capture the Baku oilfields, which had been nationalized during the Bolshevik Revolution. However, the German Army was defeated before it reached the oil fields.

    The Germans had pursued a relatively benign policy towards the USSR’s Muslim population of Caucasus and neighboring areas. This was after the war taken as an excuse for Stalin’s treatment of “treacherous ethnic elements”. Forced internal migration had begun already before the war and eventually affected at least 6 million people. Among them 1.8 million kulaks, mainly from Ukraine, who were deported from 1930 to 1931, one million peasants and ethnic minorities were driven from Caucasus between 1932 to 1939, and from 1940 to 1952, a further 3.5 million ethnic minorities were resettled.

    Nearly 8,000 Crimean Tatars died during these deportations, while tens of thousands perished subsequently due to the harsh exile conditions. The Crimean Tatar deportations resulted in the abandonment of 80,000 households and 360,000 acres of land. From 1967 to 1978, some 15,000 Tatars succeeded in returning legally to Crimea, less than 2 percent of the pre-war Tatar population. This remission was followed by a ban on further Tatar settlements.

    In 1944, almost all Chechens were deported to the Kazakh and Kirgiz Soviet republics. Accordingly, the Russian presence in Caucasus and Ukraine increased and so was Russian control of these areas’ natural resources, including wheat, coal, oil and gas.

    After World War I, Britain had first tried to halt the Bolshevik penetration of Iran and did in 1921 support a coup d’état placing the UK-friendly general Reza Shah as leader of the nation. When Britain and USSR eventually became allies against Nazi Germany they did together attack Iran and replaced Reza Shah with his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Reza Shah had become “far too Nazi-friendly.”

    Following a 1950 election, Mohammad Mosaddegh became president of Iran. He was committed to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, AIOC (successor of the IPC mentioned above). In a joint effort the Secret Intelligence Services of the UK and the US, MI6 and CIA, organized and paid for a “popular” uprising against Mosaddegh, though it backfired and their co-conspirator, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled the country. However, he did after a brief exile return and this time a coup d’état was successful. The deposed Mosaddegh was arrested and condemned to life in internal exile.

    Mosaddegh’s internally popular effort to remove oil revenues from foreign claws inspired other Middle East leaders to oppose Britain and France. In 1956, the Egyptian president Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, primarily owned by British and French shareholders. An ensuing invasion by Israel, followed by UK and France, aimed at regaining control of the Canal, ended in a humiliating withdrawal by the three invaders, signifying the end of UK’s role as one of the world’s major powers. The same year, USSR was emboldened to invade Hungary, quenching a popular uprising.

    In 1960, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in Baghdad. This was a turning point toward national sovereignty over natural resources. The US Iranian protégé, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, eventually came to play a leading role in OPEC where he promoted increased prices, proclaiming that the West’s “wealth based on cheap oil is finished.” The US was losing its ability to influence Iranian foreign and economic policy and discretely began to support the religous extremist Khomeini, who initially claimed that American presence was necessary as a counterbalance to Soviet influence. However, after coming to power in 1979 Khomeini revealed himself as a fierce opponent to the US. The US and some European governments thus ended up supporting the brutal Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran. The Iraqui leader, heavily financed by Arab Gulf states, suddenly became a ”defender of the Arab world against a revolutionary Iran.” The war ended in a stalemate,with approximately 500,000 killed.

    Ukraine is one last example of how a country has ended up in a siutaion where a superpower use its military force to impose its will upon it, while implying that other nations have similar intentions. Times are constantly changing and hopefully Russia will realise, like the UK once did, that it cannot maintain its might and strength through armed invasions, but instead have to rely on diplomacy and peaceful negotiations.

    Russia seems to be stuck in a time capsule where foreign greed and meddling in other nations’ internal affairs resulted in ruthless wars and immense human suffering. As the German philosopher Hegel stated in 1832:

      What experience and history teach is this — that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

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  • Launch of EBRD Climate Adaptation Action Plan at COP27

    Launch of EBRD Climate Adaptation Action Plan at COP27

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    Credit: EBRD
    • Opinion by Vanora Bennett (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    Climate adaptation – adapting to already existing climate change and anticipating future changes in long-term planning – has been an increasing focus of attention in recent years as the current level of global warming is already causing extreme weather events to multiply and intensify. It is one of the core themes of COP27.

    The EBRD is a leader on climate finance but its business model, with a focus on the private sector, means that it has done more mitigation than adaptation, which is often publicly financed.

    The EBRD Climate Adaptation Action Plan brings together a number of elements to strengthen the Bank’s adaptation work: integrating adaptation into project and policy design, building partnerships, developing business and mobilising private finance.

    “We don’t have one single answer on adaptation; our response is a combination of a number of different tools and approaches,” said Harry Boyd-Carpenter, EBRD Managing Director, Climate Strategy and Delivery. “We increasingly see adaptation not as a cost but rather as an investment that protect economic development and preserve the competitiveness of our clients.”

    At last year’s climate summit, COP26, the Glasgow Climate Pact included a commitment from developed countries to at least double – from the 2019 levels of US$ 20 billion – the collective adaptation finance to developing countries by 2025. Increased adaptation finance is particularly important to address the climate vulnerability of EBRD regions

    Several EBRD countries – especially those in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) and Central Asia – are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Between 2008 and 2018, insured losses to extreme weather events in EBRD economies totalled US$ 25 billion.

    Chronic water stress has already changed the landscape, and warming in the region is expected to exceed the global average. In the face of these risks, the EBRD is building new partnerships to identify and support opportunities for investing in greater resilience.

    During COP27, the EBRD signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to expand its partnership with the Global Centre on Adaptation. In line with the Bank’s conviction that Africa has strong potential as a global leader in climate adaptation, it also endorsed the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme (AAAP), which aims to mobilise US$ 25 billion over five years to scale climate adaptation action.

    President Odile Renaud-Basso spoke at multiple events on the need for more adaptation finance, including the COP27 World Leaders event, Accelerating Adaptation in Africa, and discussed adaptation with the African Development Bank’s President Akinwumi Adesina.

    Over the past decade, the EBRD has financed over 350 climate resilience investments with a business volume of more than €10 billion and adaptation finance exceeding €2.8 billion.

    Since issuing the world’s first dedicated climate resilience bond in 2019, the EBRD has also prepared the Guide for Issuers on Green Bonds for Climate Resilience, together with the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), to provide practical guidance to sovereigns, sub-sovereigns, financial institutions and corporates on raising capital in the green bond market to invest in climate adaptation and resilience.

    At the forefront of climate finance, the EBRD has committed to make more than half of its investment green by 2025 and to align all its operations with the goals of the Paris Agreement by 1 January 2023. In preparation, the Bank now screens every project for its climate resilience and systematically identify adaptation opportunities.

    Footnote: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was established to help build a new, post-Cold War era in Central and Eastern Europe. It has since played a historic role and gained unique expertise in fostering change in the region – and beyond – investing €170 billion in more than 6,400 projects.

    At COP27, the EBRD launched its Climate Adaptation Action Plan to boost adaptation finance. The plan involves integrating climate resilience into project design, building new and enhanced partnerships, and mobilising private finance. Adaptation finance is deemed crucial to address climate vulnerability of EBRD regions.

    Vanora Bennett is EBRD green spokeswoman / Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Georgia and Armenia

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  • As the Worlds Population Hits 8 Billion People, UN Calls for Solidarity in Advancing Sustainable Development for All

    As the Worlds Population Hits 8 Billion People, UN Calls for Solidarity in Advancing Sustainable Development for All

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    • Opinion  united nations
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 (IPS) – The global population is projected to reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022, signalling major improvements in public health that have lowered the risk of dying and increased life expectancy. But the moment is also a clarion call for humanity to look beyond the numbers and meet its shared responsibility to protect people and the planet, starting with the most vulnerable.

    “Unless we bridge the yawning chasm between the global haves and have-nots, we are setting ourselves up for an 8-billion-strong world filled with tensions and mistrust, crisis and conflict,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

    A more demographically diverse world than ever before

    While the world’s population will continue to grow to around 10.4 billion in the 2080s, the overall rate of growth is slowing down. The world is more demographically diverse than ever before, with countries facing starkly different population trends ranging from growth to decline.

    Today, two-thirds of the global population lives in a low fertility context, where the lifetime fertility is below 2.1 births per woman. At the same time, population growth has become increasingly concentrated among the world’s poorest countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Against this backdrop, the global community must ensure that all countries, regardless of whether their populations are growing or shrinking, are equipped to provide a good quality of life for their populations and can lift up and empower their most marginalised people.

    “A world of 8 billion is a milestone for humanity – the result of longer lifespans, reductions in poverty, and declining maternal and childhood mortality. Yet, focusing on numbers alone distracts us from the real challenge we face: securing a world in which progress can be enjoyed equally and sustainably,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem. “We cannot rely on one-size-fits-all solutions in a world in which the median age is 41 in Europe compared to 17 in sub-Saharan Africa. To succeed, all population policies must have reproductive rights at their core, invest in people and planet, and be based on solid data.”

    Complex linkages between population, sustainable development and climate change

    While the Day of 8 Billion represents a success story for humanity, it also raises concerns about links between population growth, poverty, climate change and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The relationship between population growth and sustainable development is complex.

    Rapid population growth makes eradicating poverty, combatting hunger and malnutrition, and increasing the coverage of health and education systems more difficult. Conversely, achieving the SDGs, especially those related to health, education and gender equality, will contribute to slowing global population growth.

    Relatedly, although slower population growth–if maintained over several decades–could help to mitigate environmental degradation, conflating population growth with a rise in greenhouse gas emissions ignores that countries with the highest consumption and emissions rates are those where population growth is already slow or even negative.

    Meanwhile, the majority of the world’s population growth is concentrated among the poorest countries, which have significantly lower emissions rates but are likely to suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change.

    “We must accelerate our efforts to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement as well as achieve the SDGs,” said Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. “We need a rapid decoupling of economic activity from the current over-reliance on fossil-fuel energy, as well as greater efficiency in the use of those resources, and we need to make this a just and inclusive transition that supports those left furthest behind.”

    The need for a sustainable future built on rights and choices

    In order to usher in a world in which all 8 billion people can thrive, we must look to proven and effective solutions to mitigate our world’s challenges and achieve the SDGs, while prioritising human rights. In order to pursue these solutions, increased investment from member states and donor governments is needed in policies and programmes that work to make the world safer, more sustainable and more inclusive.

    Key facts and figures at a glance

    ? It took about 12 years for the world population to grow from 7 to 8 billion, but the next billion is expected to take approx 14.5 years (2037), reflecting the slowdown in global growth. World population is projected to reach a peak of around 10.4 billion people during the 2080s and to remain at that level until 2100.
    ? For the increase from 7 to 8 billion, around 70 per cent of the added population was in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. For the increase from 8 to 9 billion, these two groups of countries are expected to account for more than 90 per cent of global growth.
    ? Between now and 2050, the global increase in the population under age 65 will occur entirely in low income and lower-middle-income countries, since population growth in high-income and upper-middle income countries will occur only among those aged 65 years or over.

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  • Three Truths to Address Sexual Exploitation, Abuse & Harassment in the UN

    Three Truths to Address Sexual Exploitation, Abuse & Harassment in the UN

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    The UN Secretariat building in New York City. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
    • Opinion by Peter A Gallo (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Nov 15 (IPS) – The U.S. Government has recently published ‘Engagement Principles’ on Protection from Sexual Exploitation Abuse & Sexual Harassment within International Organizations’, and while any involvement from Member States is to be encouraged, these principles do not address the fundamental need for either deterrence or for accountability.

    The concept of a “survivor-centred approach” – sadly – is an irrelevant sound bite to appease a political lobby. Post-incident care and support for the victim is not only admirable but very necessary but serves no deterrent purpose, and any bearing it might have on the prosecution of an offender will be indirect at best.

    Nothing done for victims after an incident will prevent future victims being similarly assaulted.
    One of the accepted tenets of criminology is that criminal activity is not discouraged by procedures, committees, working groups or focal points, nor is there any deterrent effect in increasing the penalty for anyone convicted of the offence; criminal activity is minimised by maximising the likelihood of the perpetrator being held accountable for their actions. The UN choses to ignore that, and will not acknowledge three basic truths the Member States must recognise:

    FIRST: that any sexual assault is a serious criminal offence that should be prosecuted as such.

    In the real world, where both a criminal case and a civil one arise from the same event; the civil case will be sisted to give priority to the more important criminal prosecution. The UN, however, does the opposite and insists that their administrative investigation take priority over the criminal investigation of the same incident.

    As a result, even where a rape is reported in the UN, the chances of the perpetrator being successfully prosecuted in a criminal court is minimised to the point where the risk is insignificant.

    SECOND: that while UN personnel require and deserve the protection of the 1946 Convention on Privileges & Immunities, that Convention does not grant immunity for sexual offences.

    Abuse of the concept of immunity has greatly influenced the evolution of the UN culture into one of narcissistic entitlement, where sexual predators believe they can act with impunity.

    Functional Immunity was afforded to UN staff members under the Convention which states, very clearly, in Section 18:

    Officials of the United Nations shall : (a) be immune from legal process in respect of words spoken or written and all acts performed by them in their official capacity; (Emphasis added.)

    Given that any sexual activity – whether consensual, contractual, or coerced – is not part of the “official duties” of any UN staff member; it is self-evident that no immunity can apply in the case of any sexual offence. If such an offence appears to have been committed; the host nation must therefore have jurisdiction over the matter.

    The Convention was adopted to protect UN staff against harassment by a hostile government, and in those conditions, there will always be a risk that criminal charges might be fabricated. There is no doubt, therefore that the UN must take an interest in any accusations against staff members, but as soon as their preliminary enquiries establish reasonable grounds to believe that a sexual offence has been committed; the matter should be handed over to local law enforcement immediately – for them to proceed with a criminal investigation.

    The Convention was never intended to protect offenders from the consequences of their own criminality. That is made clear in Section 20 which reads:

    Privileges and immunities are granted to officials in the interests of the United Nations and not for the personal benefit of the individuals themselves. The Secretary-General shall have the right and the duty to waive the immunity of any official in any case where, in his opinion, the immunity would impede the course of justice and can be waived without prejudice to the interests of the United Nations.

    If the Secretary-General can give an example of how the prosecution of a sexual predator could possibly “prejudice to the interests of the UN” – the world deserves an explanation.

    The UN interprets the Convention to protect UN staff members from sexual offences even when no staff member is accused of any such thing, as was demonstrated in 2015 by the Organization’s response when French authorities sought to investigate allegations against French peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.

    The Convention states in Section 21:

    The United Nations shall cooperate at all times with the appropriate authorities of Members to facilitate the proper administration of justice, secure the observance of police regulations and prevent the occurrence of any abuse in connection with the privileges, immunities and facilities mentioned in this article.

    That is a provision the Secretariat appears to ignore, because “immunity” was cited as the reason why UN staff members could not assist French investigators by introducing them to victims. The UN has never explained how that could be justified.

    Immunity was created for the best of reasons, it has now become part of the problem.

    THIRD: that ‘self-regulation’ by the UN has clearly been a failure; the Organization cannot properly investigate itself.

    What most people fail to appreciate about the corruption in the UN is that it is almost always “procedurally correct” – which may mean the resulting administrative decision cannot be challenged before the UN Dispute Tribunal, it does not make the decision ethical or legitimate – but OIOS investigations will not pursue any such line of enquiry for fear of what it might reveal.

    Complaints about malpractices, misconduct, bias or abuses of authority by investigators are common, but are routinely ignored – because there is no independent oversight of OIOS (Office of Internal Oversight Services) and the management of the office is tied up in the same network of mutually supportive patronage that is ingrained in the UN culture.

    The OIOS “leadership” is widely believed to do the bidding of the USG/DMSPC in particular, legitimising the most patent retaliation – because the USG/DMSPC protects them from any accountability for their own shortcomings. The former Director of Investigations admitting that their primary objective was simply “to get the Americans off our backs” – for which, naturally, he was promoted.

    As for sexual misconduct investigations; the term “survivor-centered approach” makes little sense. It is described as an innovative approach but in any sexual assault, the victim has always been the most important witness – so how exactly were these cases actually investigated in the past?

    Post-incident care for the victim has no bearing on the burden of proof. Cases must be proved by established facts, and that requires diligent and competent investigators – not “investigators” promoted for their personal loyalty, or whose misconduct has routinely been overlooked for the same reason.

    Gross incompetence by managers, rampant misconduct and corruption anywhere in the UN must be considered serious in its own right, but incompetence, misconduct and corruption in the investigative function is more serious because that facilitates the corruption everywhere else.

    Einstein is said to have defined insanity as doing same thing over and over, and expecting a different result, but that has been the UN’s approach to investigating sexual misconduct for the last 20 years.

    The solution clearly lies with someone capable of thinking differently – but within the UN culture; anyone who dares to think differently is a dangerous heretic who cannot be promoted.

    Peter Gallo is a lawyer and former OIOS investigator, whose disagreements with the Organization began when OIOS sought to demand that as an investigator, he must “never ask questions just to satisfy his curiosity” – a bizarre instruction that the UN did not consider even unusual, despite the fact that no one was ever able to point out a single example of his ever having done so….He has written extensively on the UN’s failure to properly investigate misconduct, been quoted in the media, featured on television documentaries and twice testified before congressional committees on the subject.

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  • In Praise of Toilets

    In Praise of Toilets

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    A Dalit woman stands outside a dry toilet located in an upper caste villager’s home in Mainpuri, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Shai Venkatraman/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Nov 14 (IPS) – For those who have it, a toilet is that ‘thing’ in the bathroom, next to the bidet, the hand-washing sink with hot and cold water faucets, and the bathtub.

    Given their ‘unprestigious’ function, some billionaires, in particular in the Gulf oil-producer kingdoms, fancy to pose their buttocks on a solid-gold toilet. Once they are there, why not also solid-gold faucets?

    Many others prefer a more comfortable use of their toilets, thus endowing them with both automatic heating and flushing. And anyway, being given-for-granted, nobody would give a thought to the high importance of all these ‘things’.

    The other side of the coin shows an entirely different picture. A shocking one by the way.

    Billions of humans without one

    And it is a fact that close to 4 billion people –or about half of the world’s total population of 8 billion– still live without access to a safe toilet and other sanitation facilities.

    Nearly a full decade ago, the international community, represented in the United Nations General Assembly, decided to declare 19 November every single year, as a world day to address such a staggering problem.

    And year after year, the UN continues to behave ‘politically correct’ by saying that progress and achievements were anyway made, however much would still be to do.

    Despite such ‘correctness,’ the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, stated on the Day that the world is “seriously off track to keep our promise of safe toilets for all by 2030 – a crucial indicator in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Investment in sanitation systems is too low and progress remains too slow.”

    Close to 4 billion people –or about half of the world’s total population of 8 billion– still live without access to a safe toilet and other sanitation facilities - 2022 World Toilet Day focuses on another invisible fact: the grave impacts of such a sanitation crisis on groundwater, which is the source of up to 99% of the world’s fresh water
    Photo courtesy: Shelter Associates

    The facts

    Well, this year’s World Toilet Day (19 November) provides some shocking facts:

    Death of the children: Every day, over 800 children under age five years old die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene.

    Poor sanitation is linked to the transmission of diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera and dysentery, as well as typhoid, intestinal worm infections and polio. It exacerbates stunting and contributes to the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

    Globally, 1 in 3 schools do not have adequate toilets, and 23% of schools have no toilets at all. Schools without toilets can cause girls to miss out on their education. Without proper sanitation facilities, many are forced to miss school when they are on their period.

    Open defecation: about 900 million people worldwide practice open defecation, meaning they go outside – on the side of the road, in bushes or rubbish heaps. It’s often a matter of where they live: 90% of people who practice open defecation live in rural areas.

    Of these, 494 million still defecate in the open, for example in street gutters, behind bushes or into open bodies of water.

    Moreover, the lack of sanitation services, just in the year 2020, stood behind the fact that 45% of the household wastewater generated globally was discharged without safe treatment.

    Consequently, at least 10% of the world’s population is thought to consume food irrigated by wastewater.

    2022 World Toilet Day focuses on another invisible fact: the grave impacts of such a sanitation crisis on groundwater, which is the source of up to 99% of the world’s fresh water
    Safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

    The impact on underground water

    Should all this not be enough, the 2022 World Toilet Day focuses on another invisible fact: the grave impacts of such a sanitation crisis on groundwater, which is the source of up to 99% of the world’s fresh water.

    The 2022 campaign ‘Making the invisible visible’ explores how inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, polluting underground water resources.

    However, this problem seems to be invisible. Invisible because it happens underground. Invisible because it happens in the poorest and most marginalised communities.

    Groundwater is the world’s most abundant source of freshwater. It supports drinking water supplies, sanitation systems, farming, industry and ecosystems. As climate change worsens and populations grow, groundwater is vital for human survival.

    The invisible dangers

    The central message of World Toilet Day 2022 is that safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution.

    See why:

    Safe sanitation protects groundwater. Toilets that are properly located and connected to safely managed sanitation systems, collect, treat and dispose of human waste, and help prevent human waste from spreading into groundwater.

    Sanitation must withstand climate change. Toilets and sanitation systems must be built or adapted to cope with extreme weather events, so that services always function and groundwater is protected.

    The above shows how those ‘things’ in the bathroom can be life-saving.

    Moreover, for those who are obsessed with measuring human suffering in purely money-making terms, it should be enough to know that providing adequate sanitation is a good business: each 1 US dollar invested in it means 5 US dollars saved in health services.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Why COP27 Matters to Sierra Leone

    Why COP27 Matters to Sierra Leone

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    UN Resident Coordinator on his SDGs outreach discussing Goal 13 with boat owners in Tombo, a coastal fishing community not far from Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Credit: RCO Sierra Leone
    • Opinion by Babatunde A. Ahonsi (freetown, sierra leone)
    • Inter Press Service

    FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, Nov 14 (IPS) – Sierra Leone is among the 10 percent of countries in the world that are most vulnerable to the adverse consequences of climate change, and presently one of the least able to cope with the effects.

    Unpredictable weather patterns, severe flooding, mudslides, and associated crop failures are becoming more frequent even as the country is witnessing trees being cut down at a faster rate than being planted.

    And climate scientists tell us that if the world does not achieve a sharp drop in global warming in the next eight years, the natural calamities that we have seen in recent times around the world will be child’s play compared to what is to come.

    COP27, the 27th Conference of State Parties, taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt is the annual gathering by the United Nations of governments, scientists, and other key stakeholders from all countries of the world to review progress in efforts to avert environmental catastrophe, against commitments contained in global climate action agreements.

    Africa, the global region which has contributed the least to the ongoing climate crisis, has experienced some of the worst losses and damages attributable to human-induced climate change.

    So, as the continent hosts this year’s COP, the key preoccupation will be generating a roadmap for the implementation of unfulfilled promises from previous COPs. This is especially in relation to the pending financial pledges made by rich countries to support developing countries like Sierra Leone to lessen the impact of and adapt to climate change.

    A bird’s eye view of Lumley beach, Aberdeen community in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Credit: RCO Sierra Leone

    The point must be made that the issue of fulfilling climate finance obligations of high-income countries to developing countries is far less a matter of aid dependency than of climate justice.

    There will justifiably be a significant push for increased funding for adaptation and resilience projects in low- and lower-middle-income countries to generate positive impacts towards economic growth, social progress, and enhanced resilience to climate change.

    A specific demand will be for wealthier countries to make good on their $100 billion annual climate finance commitment and on the doubling of adaptation support to $40 billion by 2025 agreed to in Glasgow last year during COP26.

    Among the other concrete proposals to be strongly canvassed at COP27 is the establishment and activation within the next five years of an early warning system for climate emergencies that would cover the whole world.

    Another is a pipeline of bankable climate-smart projects (around 400) in areas such as agriculture, energy, transportation, digital technologies and platforms, and organic products. There will also be much attention to decisions and actions, especially financing, to address ‘loss and damage’ that are beyond countries’ abilities to cope with.

    Sierra Leone, like many developing countries, is today beset by a multi-faceted crisis of food insecurity, near-debt distress, galloping cost of living, and energy deficit which may be limiting attention to the clear and present danger posed by the climate crisis to humanity.

    But, given that the prevailing challenges cannot be addressed with presently available development finance and usual ways of doing things, now is the time for the country to maximally exploit opportunities to benefit from innovative climate finance and sustainability solutions.

    There must be a shift in policy mindset towards integrated approaches that simultaneously address two or more issues related to livelihoods, employment generation, human capital development, public health, environmental protection, gender equality, food security, and energy access.

    One simple example is solar energy interventions that directly link with improved agro-processing operations, potable water sources, health care delivery, and Internet connectivity for secondary schools in targeted districts.

    Even more innovative and ambitious nature-positive examples of integrated sustainable development solutions will be highlighted, discussed, and promoted at COP27.

    As the top UN leader in Sierra Leone, a key part of my role has been to bring together a diverse set of stakeholders including the national authorities, international organizations and partners from across civil society to advance dialogue on climate action and map out the country’s shared goals ahead COP27.

    Earlier last month, I convened a Climate Action Dialogue together with the Government of Sierra Leone, the UK High Commission and the European Union to strengthen the participation and enhance the coordination of Sierra Leone’s high-level delegation to COP27.

    This Dialogue was born out of discussions I had with the British Government – who held the Presidency of the previous UN Climate Conference- COP26 in Glasgow last year.

    Building on the momentum from Glasgow, I carried on these discussions with the British Government and European Union this year to develop a diverse program of speakers for the Climate Action Dialogue, which highlighted key priorities and potential actions for the private sector, NGOs, development partners, and government.

    By convening these top authorities in Sierra Leone together, this Dialogue helped focus efforts on the concrete ways Sierra Leone could leverage its impressive natural assets (including forests, agricultural assets, water resources, biodiversity, and solar endowment) to generate access to climate finance and advance nature-based solutions for driving its economic recovery and long-term development plan.

    The Dialogue also provided an important platform for stakeholders to discuss how Sierra Leone could benefit more from global climate funds. Ahead of this engagement, my team at the Resident Coordinator’s Office prepared a Climate Action Partnerships Brief that was provided to all attendees.

    It was clear from these open discussions and constructive exchanges that Sierra Leone’s rich natural resources could be better used to leverage the finance and technologies the country needs for inclusive, green, and sustainable economic growth, rather than exporting key resources cheaply as primary products.

    Discussions are now underway between the three hosting development partners- the UN, UK, and EU- to plan follow-up events which delve deeper into specific areas of Sierra Leone’s climate commitments.

    It is our hope that Sierra Leone’s participation in COP27 (which concludes November 18) will help to fast-track implementation of the crucial next steps agreed at the Dialogue related to climate finance models, and prompt the rapid scaling up of ongoing climate-smart projects around the country.

    This includes forest conservation, solar and hydro energy generation and distribution, fisheries and coastal management, and agriculture and agro-processing. It should also strengthen commitment to deliver on the promise the country has made to end deforestation by 2030.

    As with the rest of the world, climate change is affecting every aspect of the Sierra Leonean economy and society. COP27 will therefore also serve to underline for everyone the fact that urgent climate action is not the responsibility of government alone.

    So, we encourage delegates to the Conference, not only from government, but also from civil society organizations, the private sector, mass media, international development agencies, and higher educational institutions, to return to the country with renewed commitment and ambition to join hands to pursue urgent climate actions and engage fully on climate finance.

    Only in this way, can the country truly address the climate crisis in a manner that safeguards national environmental resources, builds resilience to climate-related shocks, and advances sustainable development that leaves no one behind.

    Babatunde A. Ahonsi is UN Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone.
    Source: UN Sustainable Development Group

    IPS UN Bureau


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    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Indigenous Peoples Have Their Own Agenda at COP27, Demanding Direct Financing

    Indigenous Peoples Have Their Own Agenda at COP27, Demanding Direct Financing

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    Representatives of native women from Latin America and other continents pose for pictures at COP27, taking place in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Some 250 indigenous people from around the world are attending the 27th climate conference. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    • by Daniel Gutman (sharm el-sheikh)
    • Inter Press Service

    SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Nov 12 (IPS) – Indigenous peoples are no longer content just to attend as observers and to be seen as victims of the impacts of the current development model, at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) on Climate Change. That is why they came to the summit in Egypt with an agenda of their own, including the demand that their communities directly receive funding for climate action.

    Billions of dollars in aid funds are provided each year by governments, private funds and foundations for climate adaptation and mitigation. Donors often seek out indigenous peoples, who are now considered the best guardians of climate-healthy ecosystems. However, only crumbs end up actually reaching native territories.

    “We are tired of funding going to indigenous foundations without indigenous people,” Yanel Venado Giménez told IPS, at the indigenous peoples’ stand at this gigantic world conference, which has 33,000 accredited participants. “All the money goes to pay consultants and the costs of air-conditioned offices.”

    “International donors are present at the COP27. That is why we came to tell them that direct funding is the only way to ensure that climate projects take into account indigenous cultural practices. We have our own agronomists, engineers, lawyers and many trained people. In addition, we know how to work as a team,” she added.

    Giménez, a member of the Ngabe-Buglé people, represents the National Coordinating Body of Indigenous Peoples in Panama (CONAPIP) and is herself a lawyer.

    That indigenous peoples, because they often live in many of the world’s best-conserved territories, are on the front line of the battle against the global environmental crisis is beyond dispute.

    For this reason, a year ago, at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, the governments of the United Kingdom, Norway, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and 17 private donors pledged up to 1.7 billion dollars for mitigation and adaptation actions by indigenous communities.

    However, although there is no precise data on how much of that total has actually been forthcoming, the communities say they have received practically nothing.

    “At each of these conferences we hear big announcements of funding, but then we return to our territories and that agenda is never talked about again,” Julio César López Jamioy, a member of the Inga people who live in Putumayo, in Colombia’s Amazon rainforest, told IPS.

    “In 2021 we were told that it was necessary for us to build mechanisms to access and to be able to execute those resources, which are generally channeled through governments. That is why we are working with allies on that task,” he added.

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro poses for pictures with a group of Latin American indigenous people at the end of a meeting they held in Sharm el-Sheikh during COP27. CREDIT: Courtesy of Jesús Amadeo Martínez
    Colombian President Gustavo Petro (grey suit) poses for pictures with a group of Latin American indigenous people at the end of a meeting they held in Sharm el-Sheikh during COP27. CREDIT: Courtesy of Jesús Amadeo Martínez

    López Jamioy, who is coordinator of the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), believes it is time to thank many of the non-governmental organizations for the services they have provided.

    “Up to a certain point we needed them to work with us, but now it is time to act through our own organizational structures,” he said.

    Latin American presence

    There is no record of how many indigenous Latin Americans are in Sharm el-Sheikh, a seaside resort in the Sinai Peninsula in southern Egypt, thanks to different sources of funding, but it is estimated to be between 60 and 80.

    Approximately 250 members of indigenous peoples from all over the world are participating in COP27, in the part of the Sharm el-Sheikh Convention Center that hosts social organizations and institutions.

    From there, they are raising their voices and their proposals to the halls and stands that host the delegates and official negotiators of the 196 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the organizer of these annual summits.

    The space shared by the indigenous people is a large stand with a couple of offices and an auditorium with about 40 chairs. Here, during the two weeks of COP27, from Nov. 6 to 18, there is an intense program of activities involving the agenda that the indigenous people have brought to the climate summit, which has drawn the world’s attention.

    Panamanian indigenous activist Yanel Venado Giménez poses for a photo at the stand that indigenous peoples from around the world share at COP27, at the Sharm el-Sheikh Convention Center in Egypt. She leads a fund to help indigenous women, one of the few that receive direct financing for Latin American indigenous peoples. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    Panamanian indigenous activist Yanel Venado Giménez poses for a photo at the stand that indigenous peoples from around the world share at COP27, at the Sharm el-Sheikh Convention Center in Egypt. She leads a fund to help indigenous women, one of the few that receive direct financing for Latin American indigenous peoples. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

    At the start of the Conference, a group of Latin American indigenous people were received by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. They obtained his support for their struggle against extractive industries operating in native territories and asked him to liaise with other governments.

    “Generally, governments make commitments to us and then don’t follow through. But today we have more allies that allow us to have an impact and put forward our agenda,” Jesús Amadeo Martínez, of the Lenca people of El Salvador, told IPS.

    The indigenous representatives came to this Conference with credentials as observers – another crucial issue, since they are demanding to be considered part of the negotiations as of next year, at COP28, to be held in Dubai.

    The proposal was led by Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, a representative of the Kurripaco people in Peru’s Coordinating Body for the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), who told a group of journalists that “We existed before the nation-states did; we have the right to be part of the debate, because we are not an environmental NGO.”

    Eric Terena of the indigenous people of the same name, who live in southern Brazil, stands in the corridors of the 27th Climate Change Conference in Egypt. He is hopeful about President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s return to power, but argues that indigenous peoples must have direct access to environmental and climate funds. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS
    Eric Terena of the indigenous people of the same name, who live in southern Brazil, stands in the corridors of the 27th Climate Change Conference in Egypt. He is hopeful about President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s return to power, but argues that indigenous peoples must have direct access to environmental and climate funds. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

    From beneficiaries to partners?

    Native communities have always been seen as beneficiaries of climate action projects in their territories, channeled through large NGOs that receive and distribute the funds.

    But back in 2019, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) issued a Policy for Promoting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (PRO-IP), which explores the possibility of funding reaching native communities more effectively.

    Among the hurdles are that project approval times are sometimes too fast for the indigenous communities’ consultative decision-making methods, and that many communities are not legally registered, so they need an institutional umbrella.

    Experiments in direct financing are still in their infancy. Sara Omi, of the Emberá people of Panama, told IPS that they were able to receive direct financing for Mexican and Central American communities from the Mesoamerican Fund for capacity building of indigenous women.

    “We focus on sustainable agricultural production and in two years of work we have supported 22 projects in areas such as the recovery of traditional seeds. But we do not have large amounts of funds. The sum total of all of our initiatives was less than 120,000 dollars,” she explained.

    Omi, a lawyer who graduated from the private Catholic University of Santa María La Antigua in Panama and was able to study thanks to a scholarship, said indigenous peoples have demonstrated that they are ready to administer aid funds.

    “Of course there must be accountability requirements for donors, but they must be compatible with our realities. Only crumbs are reaching native territories today,” she complained.

    Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will participate in the second week of COP27, and this is cause for hope for the peoples of the Amazon jungle, who in the last four years have suffered from the aggressive policies and disregard of outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro regarding environmental and indigenous issues.

    “In the Bolsonaro administration, funds that provided financing were closed,” Eric Terena, an indigenous man who lives in southern Brazil, near the border with Bolivia and Paraguay, told IPS. “Now they will be revived, but we don’t want them to be accessed only by the government, but also by us. The systems today have too much bureaucracy; we need them to be more accessible because we are a fundamental part of the fight against climate change.

    “We see that this COP is more inclusive than any of the previous ones with regard to indigenous peoples, but governments must understand that it is time for us to receive funding,” said Terena, one of the leaders of the Terena people.

    IPS produced this article with the support of Climate Change Media Partnership 2022, the Earth Journalism Network, Internews, and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Market Lords, Much More than a War, Behind World’s Food Crisis

    Market Lords, Much More than a War, Behind World’s Food Crisis

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    In each of the three global food crises studied, financial speculation has caused steep increases in prices, making food inaccessible to hundreds of millions of people. Credit: Bigstock
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Nov 11 (IPS) – While grain exports continue to regularly flow to world’s markets since the July 2022 Turkey-brokered agreement between Russia and Ukraine to resume cereals and fertilisers shipments from both countries, food prices are still skyrocketing everywhere. How come?

    The handiest answer by establishment politicians and media is that it’s all about the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February.

    Another argument they use is that it is Russia who interrupted its gas and oil exports, omitting the fact that it is West US-led sanctions that have drastically cut this flow to mostly European markets, causing a steady rise in energy costs, food transportation, etcetera.

    Nonetheless, such answers clearly ignore other structural causes: the dominant markets’ shocking speculations.

    “It is true that the Russian invasion against Ukraine disrupted global markets, and that prices are skyrocketing. But that also tells us that markets are part of the problem,” last April warned Michael Fakhri, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, 2022.

    Political failure

    In his report to the United Nations Security Council, the Special Rapporteur stated that hunger and famine, like conflicts, are always the result of “political failures.”

    Specifically, explains Michael Fakhri, “Markets are amplifying shocks and not absorbing them… food prices are soaring not because of a problem with supply and demand as such; it is because of price speculation in commodity futures markets.”

    Blocking the solutions

    The current food crisis is caused by “international failures,” he said, while providing two points in conclusion:

    – For over two years, people and civil society organisations around the world have been raising the alarm about the food crisis. For over two years, they have been calling for an international coordinated response to the food crisis.

    – And yet Member States have refused to mobilise the Rome-based agencies and other UN organisations to respond to the food crisis in a coordinated way.

    According to Michael Fakhri, some Member States and civil society organisations tried to get the CFS to pass a resolution last October in order for it to be the place to enable global policy coordination around the food crisis.

    “And yet some powerful countries – some members of the P5 – actively blocked that initiative. This undermined the world’s ability to respond to the food crisis.”

    Food “nationalism”

    Meanwhile, in a 7 November 2022 dossier by Focus on the Global South, Shalmali Guttal warned that a perfect storm is brewing in the global food system, pushing food prices to record high levels, and expanding hunger.

    “As international institutions struggle to respond, some governments have resorted to knee-jerk ‘food nationalism’ by placing export bans to preserve their own food supplies and stabilise prices….”

    In its dossier, researchers from Focus on the Global South write about various aspects of the current crisis, its causes, and how it is impacting countries in Asia.

    Corporations fuelling the crisis

    These include regional analysis, case studies from Sri Lanka, Philippines and India, “the role of corporations in fuelling the crisis and the flawed responses of international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Bretton Woods Institutions and United Nations agencies.”

    The recently released State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World 2022 (SOFI 2022) report presents a sobering picture of the failure of global efforts to end hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. According to SOFI 21, “even before the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, world hunger levels were abysmally high.”

    Markets concentration and speculation

    In their recent analysis: A food crisis not of their making, CP Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, said:

    Governments, and multilateral and international agencies are by and large apportioning the lion’s share of the blame for the current world food crisis to global supply shortages arising from the war on Ukraine, ignoring the persisting impacts in low- and middle-income countries of “the market forces of concentration and speculation, of globally determined macroeconomic processes, and the collapse of livelihood opportunities affecting these countries in the post-Covid world.”

    World food system dominated by markets

    Central to recurring food price volatility, food crises and the entrenchment of hunger and food insecurity are “market structures, regulations, and trade and finance arrangements that bolster a global corporate-dominated industrial food system, and enable market concentration and financial speculation in commodity markets.”

    Excessive speculation

    Furthermore, an analysis by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) indicates that the kind of “excessive speculation” seen in 2007-2008 that triggered food price spikes may be back.

    “Multilevel market concentration and financial speculation on commodity markets have played pivotal roles in past and the present food crises and present grave threats to the realisation of the Right to Food.”

    In addition, a historical examination of food crises over the past 50 years by professor Jennifer Clapp shows that the global industrial food system has been rendered more prone to price volatility and more susceptible to crises because of three interrelated manifestations of corporate concentration:

    – First, the global industrial food system relies on a small number of staple grains produced using highly industrialised farming methods, making the system susceptible to events that affect just a handful of crops and to rising costs of industrial farm inputs.

    – Second, a small number of countries specialise in the production of staple grains for export, on which many other countries depend, including many of the poorest and most food-insecure countries.

    – And third, the global grain trade is dominated by a small number of firms in highly financialized commodity markets that are prone to volatility (IPES-Food 2022; FAO 2022; OECD and FAO 2020).”

    Mega corporations

    On this, Jennifer Clapp, professor and Canada Research Chair, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, explains that “a small number of corporations exercise a high degree of influence over the global industrial food system, powered by mergers and acquisitions of one another to form giant mega-corporations, which enable further concentration horizontally and vertically, as well as influence over policy-making and governance nationally and globally.”

    According to Clapp, “four grain trading corporations– Archer-Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus, called the ‘ABCD’– control 70-90 % of the grain trade.”

    As “cross-sectoral value chain managers” these grain trading giants are able to compile large amounts of market data, but are under no obligation to disclose this information and can hold stocks until prices have peaked, explains the expert.

    “And in each of the three global food crises studied, financial speculation has caused steep increases in prices, making food inaccessible to hundreds of millions of people.”

    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • A World of 8 Billion: Population Growth Will Continue But its Slowing Down

    A World of 8 Billion: Population Growth Will Continue But its Slowing Down

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    Kathleen Mogelgaard
    • Opinion by Kathleen Mogelgaard (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Nov 11 (IPS) – Global population is about to reach 8 billion, a mere 11 years after it reached 7 billion. The official Day of 8 Billion is observed by the UN November 15, though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when we pass the actual milestone.

    With hashtags like #8billionstrong, the discourse around adding another billion people to the world’s population since 2011 seems heavy on positive spin. Some economists and pundits argue population growth (or “superabundance” as one new book frames it) is a good thing for the economy and innovation.

    UN Secretary General António Guterres called it “an occasion to celebrate diversity and advancement.” UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem said, “People are the solution, not the problem….A resilient world of 8 billion…offers infinite possibilities.”

    But it’s more complicated than that.

    While reaching 8 billion doesn’t mean we are fated to keep adding a billion people to the population every decade — UN projections indicate population growth will level off later in this century – continued population growth is not without its challenges.

    Optimistic media takes on the 8 billion milestone tend to gloss over how continued growth could adversely affect people and the planet, including the climate and environment, food security, water, health, civil conflict, refugees, displacement, and widening global inequity.

    Kathleen MogelgaardFor a more complete picture of how this might play out, it’s important keep six fundamental points in mind:

    1. Global population growth will continue but it’s slowing down

    We’re currently adding about 70 million people to the population annually (about 0.9 percent). According to its medium growth scenario, the UN projects we’ll reach 9.7 billion by 2050. By that time annual growth is expected to have slowed to around 40 million per year (less than 0.5 percent). By the 2080s it’s expected to level off, with the population reaching 10.4 billion, then staying stable through 2100.

    2. No, covid is not a big factor

    According to the UN projections, it doesn’t appear likely that the covid-19 pandemic will have much impact on global population trends this century. While many people died from covid earlier than they would have otherwise, that effect is a blip on the screen – it won’t significantly change long-term global mortality and life expectancy. And despite talk of a covid baby boom last year, UN demographers found this year that covid’s impact on longer term fertility rates (the number of births per women of reproductive age) are mixed and highly uncertain.

    3. Growth won’t be uniform; some places will experience much more than others

    Demographically speaking, the world is becoming increasingly polarized. In some countries, especially wealthier ones, population growth rates are already low and will fall fast. For example, according to UN projections, over 30 countries in Europe and parts of Asia will reach a median age of 46 or older by 2040. That would lead to further declines in birth rates.

    Future population growth will be more and more concentrated in other countries with higher fertility rates and more youthful age structures. The UN projects sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia will retain their young demographics in 2040, with more than half of their populations under the age of 25.

    That will drive higher population growth in certain areas, for example in the Sahel region of Africa, the Philippines, and among marginalized communities across the globe.

    This is a deep equity issue. Younger age structures, higher fertility rates, and more population growth profoundly impact societies, economies, and governments, and limits their capacity to meet people’s needs.

    4. Early child-bearing raises fertility rates

    Average family size is shrinking globally, but in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and southern Asia, lifetime fertility rates have stalled or are declining very slowly, portending larger families. In many places, this is a function of early child-bearing. For example, in Niger where the average lifetime fertility rate is about seven births per woman, more than three quarters of girls are married before age 18. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, each year more than 10% of adolescent females bear a child.

    5. Youthful age structures will drive growth in the first half of this century

    A “youth bulge” or large proportion of young people in a national population today creates momentum which all but guarantees the number people of reproductive age will grow through 2050. UN demographers project that this will drive about two-thirds of global population growth over the next two decades.

    6. Projections are not predictions

    None of this is set in stone. UN projections do not account for many variables that could affect the population growth curve, from wealth to warfare. What governments and the international donor community choose to invest in may change variables that could profoundly influence outcomes.

    Suppose they focus on countries and regions with high population growth, and invest in programs which help girls stay in school, ensure greater access to family planning services, and help women exercise their rights and reproductive autonomy.

    Not only are these important objectives in their own right, we also know from experience they encourage delayed childbirth, smaller families, and lower fertility rates, which would drive population growth down.

    By itself, population growth won’t determine whether we can achieve a sustainable future. But it will be a significant factor, and it’s one we can influence positively. In that sense, the population passing 8 billion is an opportunity.

    It’s a chance to finish the work of upholding rights and reproductive autonomy for women and girls, and reduce the stresses higher growth would place on our climate, environment, health, food, water, and security.

    It illustrates the need to shift disproportionate impacts of high growth on poor countries toward greater equity, helping stabilize some of the world’s most precarious places, which in turn strengthens global stability.

    If we determine to do these things now, then the Day of 8 Billion could be cause for celebration.

    Kathleen Mogelgaard is the president and CEO of the Population Institute. On November 15 she will participate in “Toward Peak Population” a free online dialog on population growth with experts and officials from around the world, hosted by Foreign Policy Magazine.

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  • Making the UN Charter a Reality: Towards a New Approach to Development Cooperation?

    Making the UN Charter a Reality: Towards a New Approach to Development Cooperation?

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    Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard
    • Opinion by A.H. Monjurul Kabir (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Nov 10 (IPS) – We are living in a world where both our bilateral and multilateral achievements, consensuses on human rights and social justice, and our resolve to public good are being tested like never before.

    Now, more than ever, we need to bring to life the values and principles of the UN Charter in every corner of the world. Due to the powers vested in its Charter and its unique international character, the UN can act on the issues confronting humanity, including:

    • Maintain international peace and security
    • Protect human rights
    • Deliver humanitarian aid
    • Promote sustainable development
    • Uphold international law

    Given my own personal trajectory in human rights advocacy and development cooperation, let me focus on aspects of sustainable development and consider whether we need to change and adopt any new approach to it to end extreme poverty, reduce inequalities, and rescue the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from exclusionary practices.

    Development or Sustainable Development must be inclusive: In fact, inclusion at the heart of Development Cooperation. Inclusive development is the concept that every person, regardless of their identity, is instrumental in transforming their societies.

    Development processes that are inclusive yield better outcomes for the communities that embark upon them. The UN was created to promote the rights and inclusion of marginalized and underrepresented populations in the development process and leads the UN’s response to addressing the needs and demands of those in in adversity and youth.

    Therefore, the UN implements activities that combat stigma and discrimination, promote empowerment and inclusion of marginalized or underrepresented groups, and improve the lives of populations in high-risk situations.

    It is important that we also adopt this in institutional and management settings: For example, UN Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) recently conducted its first survey on Racism and Racial Discrimination in five languages.

    The survey was intended to capture data reflecting the Asian perspective in the UN system. It is planning to issue a report on the survey’s findings to support and address many critical issues of racism and racial discrimination. There are other networks who are addressing different elements of intersectionality including but not limited to, gender, disability, ethnicity, identity etc.

    So, the world and its challenges have become much more intersectional, which calls for a robust and intersectional approach to development cooperation.

    Intersectional Approach: An intersectionality lens allows us to see how social policy may affect people differently, depending on their specific set of ‘locations,’ and what unintended consequences particular policies may have on their individual lives.

    By listening to the most marginalized and/or disadvantaged groups of a community, development organizations can help combat oppression at all levels of society and rebuild communities from the ground up.

    Take the example of Persons with Disabilities. They are not a homogenous group, and this should be reflected in our policy advocacy and communications by considering intersectionality—the intersection of disability together with other factors, such as gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, refugee, migrant or asylum seeker status.

    For example, a person with disability also has a gender identity, may come from an Indigenous group and be young, old, a migrant or live in poverty.

    At the UN System, it is time to adopt an intersectional approach in our development cooperation, policy advocacy, programming, operational support, planning and budgeting. An intersectional approach considers the historical, social, and political context and recognizes the unique experience of the individual based on the intersection of all relevant grounds.

    This approach allows the experience of discrimination, based on the confluence of grounds involved, to be acknowledged and remedied. Using an intersectionality lens to approach our development practice means moving beyond the use of singular categories to understand people and groups and embracing the notion of inseparable and interconnected sets of social ‘locations’ that change through time, vary across places, and act together to shape an individual’s life experience and actions.

    This would go a long way to contribute to the SDGs’ Leave No One Behind principle (LNOB). The new approach calls for invigorating existing practices, making them more innovative, effective, and efficient.

    Innovation: We need to think of innovative approaches and instruments to attract and channel new resources to finance our developmental aspirations, as outlined in the 2030 SDGs now more than ever.

    Reliable and well-administered development financial institutions with a well-defined mandate and sound governance framework will continue to be an important vehicle to accelerate inclusive economic and social development.

    They can create new channels to crowd-in the private sector. Moreover, they can play a catalytical role by generating new knowledge, convening stakeholders, and providing technical assistance to build capacity in the private and public sectors. Mutual collaboration between and across public and private sector is critical to harness the full potential of innovation and innovative approaches.

    Let us not forget new media’s growing impact on both inclusive participation leveraging innovative practices.

    New Media: New media, including mobile and social media, could help demystify international institutions and encourage participation. The new media is also critical to widen the breadth of accessibility for persons with disabilities or those who live in rural and/or remote, hard to reach areas.

    Alongside this, there could be more regular interactions by the leadership of intergovernmental organisations with multi-stakeholders including civil society, organisations of persons with disabilities, and the media, and the creation of accessible databases of statistical and other information and knowledge on their work.

    Notwithstanding the Ukraine war, work at the UN continues. The world body can and should continue to play a constructive role in both development cooperation, crisis management, peace building, and post-conflict stabilization. It should continue to focus on crises from Afghanistan to Mali and Ukraine itself.

    However, it must explore new and innovative and intersectional ways to support inclusive development, climate justice and resilience, peacekeeping, and other global and regional key priorities.

    Otherwise, the SDGs will not be even near to their desired destination in 2030 or beyond.

    Dr. A.H. Monjurul Kabir, currently Global Policy and UN System Coordination Adviser and Team Leader for Gender Equality, Disability Inclusion, and Intersectionality at UN Women HQ in New York, is a political scientist and senior policy and legal analyst on global issues and Asia-Pacific trends.

    For policy and academic purposes, he can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on twitter at mkabir2011

    This article is from a blog based on a speech delivered by the author, in his personal capacity, at an event commemorating the UN’s 77th anniversary organized by UN-ANDI– a New York-based global network of like-minded Asian staff members of the UN system who strive to promote a more diverse and inclusive culture and mindset within the UN.

    IPS UN Bureau


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  • Climate Finance for Locally-Led Climate Solutions Needs a New Focus

    Climate Finance for Locally-Led Climate Solutions Needs a New Focus

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    Decision-making power is still held at the national and international level, often failing to (financially) enable local actors to lead climate action. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • Opinion by Anne Jellema (capetown, south africa)
    • Inter Press Service

    CAPETOWN, South Africa, Nov 09 (IPS) – Anne Jellema is CEO of HivosImagine a world where the people hit hardest by climate crisis have a say in how to stop it. Imagine that youth, Indigenous Peoples, women, and others most affected by global warming have the resources to implement their own climate solutions. Solutions that are highly effective because they meet local needs, suit the local context, and create sustainable economic opportunities for local people. This world would be one where people have a much better chance of surviving, and even thriving, despite the massive upheavals of the climate crisis.

    Climate finance remains a pipe dream at local level

    At the global level, to achieve the key commitments made in Paris, climate investment should count in trillions rather than billions. The 100 billion per year climate financing target from 2020 onwards has already been missed. Industrialized countries have overwhelmingly failed to provide anything close to the scale of climate financing needed – let alone the specific demand for a loss and damage financing facility.

    And at the local level, although ever more governments and stakeholders understand the importance of shifting resources, leadership and agency to the local level, the world pictured above is still far from reach

    To illustrate this, in 2017–18 only 20.5 percent of bilateral climate finance went to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and 3 percent to Small Island States (SIDS). It was often in the form of loans and other non-grant instruments, which risks plunging these already vulnerable countries further into debt. Even in the current meagre climate finance, according to some estimates, less than 10 percent actually flows to the local level.

    Why?

    There are many reasons why climate finance doesn’t end up at the local level.

    Some are related to complex rules and requirements in accessing international funding, which local actors often lack the knowledge, network, skills and/or scale to comply with.

    Moreover, most climate finance typically flows through international, rather than national or regional, intermediaries. Although international agencies currently have the most experience in navigating complex climate finance bureaucracies, they are also the furthest removed from local realities.

    Decision-making power is still held at the national and international level, often failing to (financially) enable local actors to lead climate action. Even at national level, those most affected by climate change often have the least say in setting priorities for climate policy and funding.

    What needs to happen

    Recently, Hivos – as part of the Voices for Just Climate Action alliance – studied a handful of promising alternative finance delivery mechanisms. While some have performed better than others, they share the potential for downward accountability and effective participation of different voices as an integral part of the funding mechanism. Based on the study, we put forth the following recommendations which governments, international intermediaries, and global banks and funds should give serious consideration to at the upcoming COP27.

    Firstly, create mechanisms for participatory funding and oversight structures to ensure that local actors drive decision making. This includes addressing structural inequalities faced by women, youth, children, Indigenous people, and other marginalized groups, and fully integrating these groups in the design and implementation of adaptation and mitigation actions.

    Secondly, routinely set concrete targets for funds that need to reach climate solutions driven by local actors. Provide grants instead of loans, and use long-term, patient and flexible programmatic funding instead of short-term, ad hoc project funding. At COP27 the rich countries must deliver robust action to scale up grant-based climate finance to the developing world.

    Thirdly, ensure easy access for local actors by simplifying fund application processes.

    Lastly, decisive steps must be taken to use national, not international financing mechanisms and structures for channeling finance. The International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED) designed a climate finance delivery mechanism that bypasses international intermediaries. Here, money flows directly to local civil society, national and local governments, and/or the private sector.

    Hivos joins hands with its partners and climate movements in demanding that concrete, gender-responsive targets are set to get climate funding into the hands of local actors, and new funding mechanisms are developed by and with climate-affected communities to make climate finance work for them.

    To conclude…commitments are vital, but focus must shift

    The COP Presidency, this year in the hands of Egypt, has called for significant progress on commitments and pledges, especially on the delivery of the annual USD 100 billion from developed countries to developing countries. Failure to keep to this commitment has often been a breaking point in climate negotiations and has damaged trust between countries.

    Equally important, however, is shifting our focus from the volume of climate finance to its effectiveness. Only then will a world governed by climate justice be within reach.

    This opinion piece was originally published by Hivos

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  • The Paradox of Invisibility: Submarine Cables and the Geopolitics of Deep Seas

    The Paradox of Invisibility: Submarine Cables and the Geopolitics of Deep Seas

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    Map of the 1858 trans-Atlantic cable route. Credit: Wikipedia.
    • Opinion by Manuel Manonelles (barcelona)
    • Inter Press Service

    BARCELONA, Nov 09 (IPS) – The recent incidents of sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the depths of the Baltic Sea, the authorship of which still raises doubts today, have reminded us that some of the key infrastructures that condition geopolitics, and our daily lives, are largely located deep under the sea.

    One of these strategic infrastructures, the importance of which is inversely proportional to their public awareness, also lies in the underwater environment. It is about submarine cables, generally of fiber optic, through which more than 95% of internet traffic circulates. A thick and growing network of undersea cables that connect the world and through which the lifeblood of the new economy, data, circulates.

    The history of submarine cables is not new. The first submarine cables were installed around 1850 and the first intercontinental cable, 4,000 kilometers long, was put into operation in 1858, connecting Ireland and Newfoundland (Canada).

    It was at that time a telegraph cable, and while the first telegram—sent by Queen Victoria to then US President James Buchanan—took seventeen hours to get from one point to the next, it was considered a technological feat. From here, the network grew unstoppably and communications in the world changed.

    Telephone cables followed, and in 1956 the first intercontinental telephone cable was put into operation, again connecting Europe and America with thirty-six telephone lines that would soon be insufficient. Thirty years later, the first fiber optic cable —replacing copper— was activated in 1988 and in recent decades the submarine cable network has dramatically increased, driven by the exponential growth in demand generated by the new digital economy and society.

    It is surprising, then, that an infrastructure as critical and relevant as this goes so unnoticed, considering that it is the backbone of a society increasingly dependent on its digital dimension. This is what experts call the “paradox of invisibility”.

    Because, again, more than 95% of what we see daily on our mobiles, computers, tablets and social networks, of what we upload or download from our clouds or watch through platforms —and thus millions of people, institutions and companies of all over the world— go through this submarine cable system.

    The financial transactions transmitted by this network are approximately of 10 trillion dollars a day; and the global market for fiber optic submarine cables was around 13.3 billion dollars per year in 2020, expected to reach 30.8 billion in 2026, with an annual growth of 14%.

    A system, however, that suffers from a significant governance deficit and, at the same time, is subject to substantial changes in its configuration and, above all, in the nature of its operators and owners. Moreover, traditionally the main operators of these networks were the telecom companies or, above all, consortiums of several companies in this sector.

    Many of these companies were owned or had a close relationship with the governments of their country of origin —and, therefore, were linked in one way or another to some sort of national or regional legislation— and they generated a model focused on the interests and the interconnectivity of its clients.

    In recent years, however, the growing need for hyper-connectivity of the large digital conglomerates (Google, Meta/Facebook, Microsoft, etc.) and their cloud computing provider data centers has resulted in that these have gone from being simple consumers of submarine cabling to becoming the main users (currently using 66% of the capacity of the entire current network). Even more, from users they have become the new dominant promoters of this type of infrastructure, which results in the reinforcement of their almost omnipotent power, and not only in the digital environment.

    This can induce movements – albeit barely perceptible but equally relevant – in the complex balance of global power, by concentrating one of the strategic components of the global critical infrastructure into the hands of the technological giants.

    All this with the absence of a global governance mechanism addressing this question, since the International Convention for the Protection of Submarine Cables of 1884 is more than outdated. As it is the case for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) –in which the abovementioned convention is currently framed- whose challenges are more than evident, with the obvious conclusion about the urgent need for the international community to provide an answer to this pressing question.

    A response that not only has to be at a global level, but also at a regional one, for example at the level of the European Union, especially if digital sovereignty is to be ensured, a vital element in the current present and even more in the future.

    Proof of this is that in the last weeks there have been several incidents in relation to submarine cables both on the British, French and Spanish coasts that several analysts have linked to the Ukraine war.

    In the case of the United Kingdom, there were cuts in the cables that connect Great Britain with the Shetland and Faroe Islands, while in France two of the main cables that land through the submarine cable hub that is Marseille were also cut. Even if some of these cases have been proven the result of fortuitous accidents, in others there is still doubt about what really happened.

    Some experts have pointed to Russia, recalling the naval maneuvers that this country carried out just before the invasion of Ukraine in front of the territorial waters of Ireland, precisely in one of the areas with the highest concentration of intercontinental cables in the world.

    In this context, perhaps it is not surprising that the Spanish Navy has recently reported that it monitors the activity of Russian ships near the main cables that lie in sovereign Spanish waters, indicating that in recent months more than three possible prospecting actions carried by vessels flying the Russian flag had been detected and deterred. One more proof of the growing value of these infrastructures that, despite being almost invisible, are strategic.

    Manuel Manonelles is Associate Professor of International Relations, Blanquerna/University Ramon Llull, Barcelona

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  • COP27: Religious Multilateralism: An Endangered Species in the Age of Triple Planetary Crises

    COP27: Religious Multilateralism: An Endangered Species in the Age of Triple Planetary Crises

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    The 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
    • Opinion by Azza Karam (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Nov 09 (IPS) – In this year’s COP 27 two-weeklong summit in Egypt, which concludes November 18, a rough count indicates there will be 40 different sessions organised by, for, and about, religious engagements in/on climate change and related issues. This is likely the highest number of events by and around religious actors, organised at a COP event.

    The reason? Religions, religious engagement, interfaith, etc., are the flavour of our geopolitical times. For better or worse.

    His Holiness Pope Francis and His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar were just addressing a major conference in Bahrain on East-West relations, with the King of Bahrain. After also putting in a similar appearance and speaking together with the President of Kazakhstan, in September. Both countries were hosting major international meetings of religious leaders, in the fanciest of hotels, convened from many corners of the world, replete with lavish food banquets and generous hospitality and care for their every need.

    I should know, as I am a most grateful recipient, albeit not a religious leader, but an aspiring servant to religious multilateralism. But I run ahead of myself here.

    In convening, countries appear to be competing with Saudi Arabia, which hosted such a seminal gathering (in May 2022, bringing together Buddhist and Hindu faith leaders, for the first time, as equals with their Muslim, Christian and Jewish brethren), as well as with the UAE, Qatar, and Oman, who are also hosting international gatherings of religious leaders this very month.

    This year alone, there have been over 50 meetings of religious actors, that is more than 2 per month, and this is not a comprehensive tally.

    Each of these major and rather expensive conferences, provides a platform not unlike the UN General Assembly, where each leader gets his (for invariably they are mostly men) time to speak, often eloquently, about their own faith tradition.

    Each of these speeches regales with how diligent the efforts of faith/community/organisations are, to secure peace and human dignity for all people. As they remind of the spiritual wisdom each faith upholds, they also speak of past and upcoming initiatives, meant to safeguard dignity for all. Sometimes they also remember to speak about the planet and our responsibility to save it.

    As someone who spent decades serving at the United Nations and in diverse international academic and development organisations, and now listening to the religious actors speaking, I find myself asking the same question: if each of these governments, and now these religious bodies, are working so hard and serving so amazingly, why is our world the way it is?

    Why are so many governments and peoples and communities at war with one another inside and outside nation-state boundaries? Why are we listening to hate speech from every type of mouth and all types of platforms given ample media attention? Why are arms and drugs the biggest industries?

    Why are the rich getting richer and the poor poorer while our planet becomes more bare and parched in one part, and flooded to death, in another? Why is violence of all kinds, inside families and within all communities, a pandemic? Why are medicines, and now even values, a commodity to trade power and privilege with?

    Why is nuclear war back on the agenda of consciousness and politics? In short, why do we hate/fear one another one another so much, and so deeply?

    Because what ails our multilateral system, in spite of the speeches (and efforts) of political leaders (in and out of electoral times for those fortunate enough to have genuine elections of their national leaders), and now also in spite of the speeches and works of religious actors, is fundamentally the same: each to his own. Multilateral – as an adjective defined by the Oxford Dictionary, where “three or more groups, nations, etc. take part”, is an endangered species.

    The United Nations, the premier multilateral entity of 193 governments, is struggling to strengthen multilateralism, yet not necessarily by looking internally at its own behemoth infrastructures, or culture. Ever seen an organogramme of the United Nations system? One should. It is a universe of wonder where every human and non-human thought and action appears to have a dedicated office or structure of some sort.

    But before we point fingers at the political multilaterals (who are remarkably good at either ignoring faith communities, or using them to the hilt, or both), we need to ask ourselves, how often do we see or hear of “three or more” religious institutions (not of the same faith) working together to actually deliver needs to diverse peoples around the world?

    The answer is, that beyond the speeches, the lavish meetings and innumerable projects, multilateral religious collaboration (where money and efforts from many and diverse are pooled to serve, together, the needs of all, regardless of gender, national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation) remains rare.

    Please do not misunderstand: religious institutions are working to serve hundreds of millions of people on every area of need, humanitarian and development – and now also political. Just as Indigenous Peoples are the original carers of all nature, religious leaders and institutions are the original carers for myriad human needs.

    There is plenty of evidence about this. HIV and AIDS, Ebola and the Covid pandemic highlighted how critical religiously managed health infrastructure is to communities – rich and poor. A glance at the education sectors, psycho-social care, migrants and displaced peoples, and other humanitarian areas of need, will show clearly that religious institutions still serve many, widely, and in the remotest areas.

    So, it is not a dearth of service to humanity that diverse faith actors need to come to terms with. It is the famine of multireligious collaborative services – as in giving and doing together. At Religions for Peace, for over half a century of supporting interreligious platforms serve the common good in over 95 countries, we live the challenges of multi religious collaboration, on peace mediation, food and human security, migration and displacement, education, gender and women’s empowerment, and trying to save together, the world’s remaining rainforests, through, among other efforts, the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative.

    We know that even within the realms of religion, the manner of dealing with these challenges tends to mirror prevailing colonial mindsets, with tendencies to give prominence to one religion, insistence on singular branding, and jockeying for more political influence and financial resourcing.

    More and more faith leaders – young and older – are (rightfully) expecting financial remuneration for their time and energies spent in international work, thus slowly but surely reversing a trend of volunteerism that used to uniquely characterise religious service and giving.

    Just as governments are failing to systematically work together as inhabitants and leaders of one planet, and just as too many civil society groups and corporations compete for branding and ‘market share’, so too, do religious organisations.

    Some religious entities are replicating a secular catastrophic practice of seeking to build other/new/different/more ‘specialised’ entities and initiatives, rather than shoulder the heavy cross of seeking to work together in spite of the damning challenges (both puns intended). In so doing, many of these religious actors are effectively dispersing efforts.

    One of the many lessons of failed multilateralism is that more, or different, or new and/or specialised, may well be the well-intentioned road to hell.

    When it comes to actually investing in one another’s work so that they are speaking as one and serving together, many religious leaders and leaders of religious organisations will smile, say some nice words, and move on to the next sermon/meeting/international conference, or nevertheless doggedly pursue their own special/unique initiative(s).

    Such that we have now so many religious initiatives, dominated by one or a bilateral religious partnership, or two and a half (relatively tokenistic representation of another faith), working on the same challenges, facing all of humanity.

    What ails multilateralism is not the absence of resources, tools, values, the clarity of the crisis, or even the will and creativity to serve. Multilateralism fails when some want only their values, truths, communities, nations, cultures, security needs, and/or specific institutions, to prevail.

    And with the failure of multilateralism is a failure of common humanity, and planetary survival.

    Prof. Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace

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  • Younger Generation Needed in Efforts to Change the Leprosy Perceptions, Says Miss World Brazil

    Younger Generation Needed in Efforts to Change the Leprosy Perceptions, Says Miss World Brazil

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    Miss World Brazil Letícia Frota and Pragnya Ayyagari, Miss Supranational India agreed that zero leprosy and campaigns to destigmatize the disease should not be sidelined because of COVID-19. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    Nairobi, Nov 08 (IPS) – Deep-rooted discrimination against persons affected by leprosy or Hansen’s disease has marginalized individuals and communities. As social pariahs, opportunities to pursue their dreams are limited because, at best, they live at the periphery of society and, more often than not, are ostracized.

    Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, said that because of discrimination and shame, “We had a long period when all people affected by leprosy had to live silently. Today, we have the Don’t Forget Leprosy Campaign, and we all have a role to play in this endeavor.”

    Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says everybody has a role to play in destigmatizing leprosy. Credit: Sasakawa Foundation
    Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says everybody has a role to play in destigmatizing leprosy. Credit: Sasakawa Foundation

    He was speaking during the third and final day of the 2nd Global Forum of People’s Organizations on Hansen’s Disease held by the Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative in Hyderabad, India, from November 6 to 8, 2022, where participation was both in person and virtual.

    During the Forum, discussions centered on the challenges persons affected by leprosy face and the vision of the future they wish to create moving into the post-COVID era. The primary objective was to strengthen and maximize the roles and capacities of people’s organizations to promote the dignity of persons affected by Hansen’s Disease.

    Speakers and participants at the 2nd Forum highlighted how persons affected by leprosy are increasingly speaking out and seeking participation in implementing leprosy programs and formulating related policies. There are at least 41 People’s Organizations on Hansen’s disease in 25 countries across the globe.

    Good practices of how people’s organizations are building capacities and expanding roles to enhance the dignity of those affected by the ancient disease from countries such as Ethiopia, India, Nepal, and Indonesia were extensively shared on days one and two of the Global Forum.

    This gave way to the third and final day for speakers and attending participants to host side events on a theme of their choice in line with the Forum’s overall objective.

    Miss World Brazil Letícia Frota and Pragnya Ayyagari, Miss Supranational India held a special session to raise visibility about persons affected by leprosy within the context of the Don’t Forget Leprosy Campaign. They reminded the world that leprosy should not be sidelined amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The beauty queens spoke passionately about the need for a united vision toward a future without leprosy. They participated in a panel discussion that included Sasakawa and representatives of the Movement of Reintegration of Persons Afflicted by Hansen’s Disease (MORHAN) in Brazil and the Association of People Affected by Leprosy-India (APAL).

    Discussions were firmly centered on the need to raise awareness and increase visibility around Hansen’s disease and the people affected, to work towards their inclusion and integration, and to particularly reach out to the younger generation as their role is critical towards zero leprosy.

    “I am very empathetically connected to this cause, and I will use my influence to connect with young people in raising awareness about Hansen’s disease. I am very encouraged about ongoing efforts by MORHAN to educate school-going children about Hansen’s disease,” Ayyagari explained.

    Frota stressed the need to spread awareness, especially to the younger generation who remain in the dark regarding leprosy. To change the future, she said, “We need to change the landscape of the disease by actively engaging young people. I will continue to engage and raise funds towards a future without leprosy.”

    Miss World Brazil further spoke about the rights of people affected by leprosy to live and enjoy opportunities without discrimination. She highlighted the need for early detection and treatment of leprosy as critical to reaching zero leprosy.

    Participants were pleased with the involvement of the beauty queens because, as celebrities, they can use their massive following to draw attention to the disease.

    Representatives of MORHAN and APAL said that as people affected by leprosy, there is an urgent need to take the message to the world that leprosy is curable and that the community must not be forgotten even as COVID-19 continues to take center stage.

    They all lauded ongoing efforts to bring the global community together to bring attention to the ancient disease and to forge a way forward toward its elimination.

    Sasakawa encouraged those at the forefront of fighting stigma and discrimination against leprosy and those taking active steps towards its elimination always to remember that they are not alone.

    “So many like-minded people support you and are comrades in this fight. You might face certain challenges going forward but remember that so many people are backing you,” he said.

    During the panel discussion, persons affected by leprosy from different countries had an opportunity to speak about how they are still grappling with the pain of stigma and discrimination even after being healed from leprosy.

    They stressed that even though they cannot transmit leprosy to others, they are still treated with fear, and many are silenced by the stigma, unable to live life to their full potential. They vowed to use this pain to fuel and boost the Don’t Forget Leprosy campaign towards a future free from all forms of discrimination against those affected by the ancient disease.

    In all, representatives of persons affected by leprosy urged participants to use the little they have to do whatever they can. By and by, they said, the global campaign to eliminate leprosy will grow wings to fly to every corner of the world, to reach people with the message that leprosy is curable, and to give hope to every person affected by leprosy.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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