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Lutfiyya Dean (center), head of the South African delegation at Youth 20, stands with representatives from South Africa and the African Union at the Youth 20 Summit, where they discussed a transformative agenda for the G20 under South Africa's presidency.

By Mkhululi Chimoio
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 3 2024 (IPS)

In 2025, South Africa will assume the presidency of the G20, a pivotal moment in the African country’s international diplomatic efforts.

The Group of Twenty (G20), is an intergovernmental economic forum comprising 19 countries and two regional unions – the European Union (EU), and recently the African Union (AU). It represents 85 per cent of the global economy, 75 per cent of world trade and 67 per cent of the global population.

South Africa’s leadership of this group therefore presents a unique opportunity to shape global policies and advocate for Africa’s interests on the world stage. The G20 countries include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, UK and US, as well as the EU and AU.

Chrispin Phiri, the spokesperson for the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, says the theme for South Africa’s presidency will be “Fostering Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainable Development.” It seeks to address critical global challenges, with a strong focus on Africa’s development.

Among the key areas the presidency will focus on include addressing the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment, and inequality; as well as Africa’s development which entails placing Africa’s development at the forefront in alignment with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, ‘The Africa We Want’.

Also expected to form part of the South African priorities is tackling poly-crises such as climate change, energy, food security, and debt that disproportionately affects Africa and other developing nations. Issues of infrastructure development and global governance reform initiated by previous G20 presidencies.

Phiri says South Africa’s foreign policy is deeply intertwined with its domestic priorities, and aims to foster a better, stable, and prosperous South Africa, Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, and Africa.

“South Africa’s presidency is poised to have significant implications for the broader African region, particularly within the SADC. The nation’s strategic position within the G20 will enable it to lobby for policy gains that benefit South Africa, the SADC, and the entire continent, in which key areas of focus include promoting policies that ensure economic benefits for all South Africans, particularly the economically marginalized, for economic benefits,” said Phiri.

Phiri highlighted the importance of South Africa’s coordination with the African Union (AU), particularly in leveraging the G20 presidency to advance regional integration and cooperation.

As G20 president, South Africa will also focus on addressing global economic challenges and promoting sustainable development. The nation’s policy agenda will be informed by its National Development Plan, Agenda 2063, and long-standing issues within the G20 framework.

Phiri said South Africa will advocate for reforming the global debt architecture to prevent debt crises from undermining the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); and also mobilise financing to address the substantial development financing gap, which has increased post-COVID-19; as well as address the issue of (Illegal Financial Flows) IFFs, which drain approximately $88.6 billion annually from the continent, impeding progress toward Agenda 2063 and SDG targets will be key.

Professor Danny Bradlow, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, says South Africa’s priorities should include addressing debt and development financing, particularly for Africa.

Prof Bradlow wants South Africa to co-chair the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable alongside the IMF and the World Bank. The forum offers an opportunity to push for a more creative approach to managing debt, linking it to broader discussions on development and climate finance.

“This presidency provides an opportunity to address some longstanding bottlenecks facing regional integration in Africa. For instance, one of the key challenges faced by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are bilateral trade agreements that undermine Africa’s regional integration efforts,” says Prof. Bradlow.

He urged South Africa to use the momentum of the AU admission and its G20 presidency to highlight these and push for commitments that support regional integration, in close coordination with the relevant AU organs and knowledge partners.

Prof. Bradlow notes the need for South Africa to inherit and advance initiatives from Brazil’s G20 presidency, such as the Hunger and Poverty Alliance and discussions on global taxation, particularly the contentious issue of a wealth tax on billionaires. He acknowledges that, while these are complex issues involving questions of sovereignty, they are crucial for generating resources for development finance.

On her part, the CEO of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, stressed the importance of enhancing regional cooperation and integration.

“From a policy vantage point, South Africa’s G20 Presidency seeks to respond to global economic and environmental challenges and sustainable peace, bearing in mind efforts to achieve the SDGs, the AU’s Agenda 2063, as well as reforming institutions of global economic governance,” said Sidiropoulos.

She pointed out that with the AU now being a member of the G20, there is a greater opportunity to amplify African priorities, and suggested that South Africa should focus on deepening the continent’s advocacy within the G20, selecting key issues where it can make a significant impact.

She recommended that South Africa use its presidency to address longstanding bottlenecks facing regional integration in Africa

South Africa’s presidency of the G20 in 2025 is a pivotal moment for the nation and the continent. With the AU’s recent inclusion in the G20, there is a historic opportunity to reshape global governance in a way that reflects the aspirations and challenges of the Global South.

Prof. Bradlow says South Africa’s success will depend on its ability to balance immediate priorities with long-term global goals and ensuring that the G20 remains a platform for inclusive and equitable growth.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations.

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Cynthia Houniuhi, the head of the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Credit: IPS

By Cecilia Russell
THE HAGUE & JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

A few UN member states responsible for the majority of emissions have breached international law, Ralph Regenvanu, a special climate envoy from Vanuatu, told the International Court of Justice in the Hague in his opening address.

He was the first person to address the court action started by the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) and supported by the government of Vanautu. In 2023, the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.” The opinion requested is wide-ranging, going beyond the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris Agreements.

Setting the scene for the 10-day hearings, Regenvanu said his nation of islands and people had built vibrant cultures over millennia “that are intimately intertwined with our ancestral lands and seas. Yet today, we find ourselves on the front lines of a crisis we did not create.”

Arnold Kiel Loughman, Attorney General of Vanuatu, said it was for the ICJ to uphold international law and hold states accountable for their actions.

“How can the conduct that has taken humanity to the brink of catastrophe, threatening the survival of entire peoples, be lawful and without consequences?” Loughman asked. “We urge the Court to affirm in the clearest terms that this contact is in preach of the obligations of states and international law, and that such preach carries little consequences.”

Cynthia Houniuhi, the head of the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, which had initiated the action, said climate change was undermining “the sacred contract” between generations.

“Without our land, our bodies and memories are severed from the fundamental relationships that define who we are. Those who stand to lose are the future generations. Their future is uncertain, reliant upon the decision-making of a handful of large emitting states.”

Throughout the day, countries impacted by climate change told the ICJ that climate change agreements did not preclude other aspects of international law. During it’s first day of hearings, the court heard from Vanuatu and Melanesian Spearhead Group, South Africa, Albania, Germany, Antigua and Barbuda, Saudi Arabia, Australia, the Bahamas, Bangladesh and Barbados.

At the end of the day, Barbados gave graphic examples of how climate change affects the country and asked the court to consider robust obligations on states to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions.

“Climate change is not some unstoppable force that individual states have no control over. We must cut through the noise and accept that those whose activities have led to the current state of global affairs must offer a response that is commensurate with the destruction that has been caused. There is no parity, there is no fairness, there is no equity,” Bahamas attorney general Ryan Pinder told the court.

Showing a photograph of piles of what looked like refuse, Pinder recalled the impact of Hurricane Dorian.

“You can easily mistake this photograph for a pile of rubbish. However, what you are looking at are lost homes and lost livelihoods. A 20-foot storm surge rushed through the streets of these islands, contributing to approximately 3 billion US dollars in economic damage. That’s about 25 percent of our annual GDP in just two days. The results of such a storm are real. They include displaced people, learning loss, livelihoods, and lost and missing loved ones, all because some countries have ignored the warning signs of the climate crisis.”

The Bahamas’ demands were clear and irrevocable.

“It is time for these polluters to pay. The IPCC has been telling us for years that the only way to stop a warming planet is to make deep, rapid and sustained cuts in the global greenhouse gas emissions. The world needs to reach net zero emissions by 2050, which requires a cut in the GHG emissions by at least 43 percent in the next five years. Industrial states need to take urgent action now and provide reparations for their decades of neglect.”

Saudi Arabia had earlier in the proceedings argued that the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris Agreement set state obligations to protect the climate system from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. They argued that giving future generations legal status was dangerous and that obligations that were inconsistent with or exceeded those agreed in the specialized climate-related treaty regime would undermine the ongoing and future progress in international efforts to protect the climate system.

However, Pinder told the court that climate agreements do not exist in isolation.

“The climate treaties refer to both human rights and the prevention obligation. They did not erase existing public international law, and those who claim otherwise provide no credible support for their proposition. The court should resist such harmful attempts to dilute and distort international law.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Countries facing existential crises due to climate change have asked the International Court of Justice in the Hague to look beyond climate treaties, like the Paris Agreement, when it considers its opinion on the obligations of high-emitting UN member states.

Credit: Murad Sezer/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

COP29, the latest annual climate summit, had one job: to strike a deal to provide the money needed to respond to climate change. It failed.

This was the first climate summit dedicated to finance. Global south countries estimate they need a combined US$1.3 trillion a year to transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to the impacts of climate change. But the last-minute offer made by global north states was for only US$300 billion a year.

The agreement leaves vague how much of the promised target, to be met by 2035, will be in the form of direct grants, as opposed to other means such as loans, and how much will come directly from states. As for the US$1 trillion annual funding gap, covering it remains an aspiration, with all potential sources encouraged to step up their efforts. The hope seems to be that the private sector will invest where it hasn’t already, and that innovations such as new levies and taxes will be explored, which many powerful states and industry lobbyists are sure to resist.

Some global north states are talking up the deal, pointing out that it triples the previous target of US$100 billion a year, promised at COP15 in 2009 and officially reached in 2022, although how much was provided in reality remains a matter of debate. Some say this deal is all they can afford, given economic and political constraints.

But global north states hardly engaged constructively. They delayed making an offer for so long that the day before talks were due to end, the draft text of the agreement contained no numbers. Then they made a lowball offer of US$250 billion a year.

Many representatives from global south states took this as an insult. Talks threatened to collapse without an agreement. Amid scenes of chaos and confusion, the summit’s president, Mukhtar Babayev of Azerbaijan, was accused of weakness and lack of leadership. By the time global north states offered US$300 billion, negotiations had gone past the deadline, and many saw this as a take-it-or-leave it offer.

The negotiating style of global north states spoke of a fundamental inequality in climate change. Global north countries have historically contributed the bulk of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions due to their industrialisation. But it’s global south countries that are most affected by climate change impacts such as extreme weather and rising sea levels. What’s more, they’re being asked to take a different development path to fossil fuel-powered industrialisation – but without adequate financial support to do so.

These evident injustices led some states, angered by Babayev bringing talks to an abrupt end, to believe that no deal would have been better than what was agreed. For others, waiting another year for COP30 would have been a luxury they couldn’t afford, given the ever-increasing impacts of climate change.

Financing on the agenda

Far from being settled, the conversation around climate financing should be regarded as only just having begun. The figures involved – whether it’s US$300 billion or US$1.3 trillion a year – seem huge, but in global terms they’re tiny. The US$1.3 trillion needed is less than one per cent of global GDP, which stands at around US$110 trillion. It’s a little more than the amount invested in fossil fuels this year, and far less than annual global military spending, which has risen for nine years running and now stands at around US$2.3 trillion a year.

If the money isn’t forthcoming, the sums needed will be eclipsed by the costs of cleaning up the disasters caused by climate change, and dealing with rising insecurity, conflict and economic disruption. For example, devastating floods in Valencia, Spain, in October caused at least 217 deaths and economic losses of around US$10.6 billion. Research suggests that each degree of warming would slash the world’s GDP by 12 per cent. Investing in a transition that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and enables communities to adapt isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s also the economically prudent option.

The same problems arose at another recent summit on a related issue – COP16 of the Biodiversity Convention, hosted by Colombia in October. This broke up with no agreement on how to meet the funding commitments agreed at its previous meeting. The international community, having forged agreements to address climate change and protect the environment, is stuck when it comes to finding the funding to realise them.

What’s largely missing is discussion of how wealth might be better shared for the benefit of humanity. Over the past decade, as the world has grown hotter, inequality has soared, with the world’s richest one per cent adding a further US$42 trillion to their fortunes – less than needed to adequately respond to climate change. The G20’s recent meeting said little on climate change, but leaders at least agreed that ultra-wealthy people should be properly taxed. The battle should now be on to ensure this happens – and that revenues are used to tackle climate change.

When it comes to corporations, few are richer than the fossil fuel industry. But the ‘polluter pays’ principle – that those who cause environmental damage pay to clean it up – seems missing from climate negotiations. The fossil fuel industry is the single biggest contributor to climate change, responsible for over 75 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s grown incredibly rich thanks to its destructive trade.

Over the past five decades, the oil and gas sector has made profits averaging US$2.8 billion a day. Only a small fraction of those revenues have been invested in alternatives, and oil and gas companies plan to extract more: since COP28, around US$250 billion has been committed to developing new oil and gas fields. The industry’s wealth should make it a natural target for paying to fix the mess it’s made. A proposed levy on extractions could raise US$900 billion by 2030.

Progress is needed, and fast. COP30 now has the huge task of compensating for the failings of COP29. Pressure must be kept up for adequate financing combined with concerted action to cut emissions. Next year, states are due to present their updated plans to cut emissions and adapt to climate change. Civil society will push for these to show the ambition needed – and for money to be mobilised at the scale required.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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A group of displaced children in a shelter in northern Gaza. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

On November 27, a ceasefire agreement was agreed upon by officials for Israel, Lebanon, and a host of other mediating parties, including the United States. Yet even with this step towards peace, conflict and suffering continue in Gaza, raising questions of when – or how – a similar outcome can be achieved.

Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is required to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah call off their forces from north of the Litani River. In the following days, relatively few violations were reported from both sides.

This ceasefire has generated considerable discourse from Palestinians and humanitarian officials on if a similar agreement can be reached between Israel and Palestine. Mohammed Nasser, a public relations worker and displaced citizen residing in Khan Younis, informed reporters of his anxiety surrounding Gaza’s future. “We had hoped that this agreement would be comprehensive and include the Gaza Strip, or at least a deal would be reached on a ceasefire and end the ongoing suffering here. There are great concerns here in the Gaza Strip that the ceasefire in Lebanon will become a reason for expanding military operations here in the Gaza Strip,” said Nasser.

On November 28, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told reporters that a ceasefire would only be negotiated once all hostages were returned and Hamas operations were eradicated in Gaza. Sa’ar opined that “right now, it is very hard” to imagine a ceasefire agreement that both parties can agree to, but that he believes that “eventually peace is inevitable”.

Israel’s Minister for Food Security Avi Dichter told reporters that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will likely occupy Gaza for “many years”, while also managing the distribution of humanitarian aid in the enclave for the foreseeable future. “I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor],” Dichter said.

Shortly after news of a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon broke, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a statement in which they opined that this yields a “glimmer of hope” for Palestine. However, it is also acknowledged that conditions remain dire in Gaza.

As the winter season approaches, humanitarian organizations grow more concerned about the deterioration of living conditions in Gazan displacement shelters. Repeated bombardments and evacuation orders in the past week have resulted in numerous civilian casualties and exacerbated rates of displacement. Additionally, humanitarian aid continues to be obstructed by increasingly restrictive mandates in northern Gaza.

Although fighting has started to slow down in Lebanon following the ceasefire, bombardments only persist in the Gaza Strip. On November 29, Palestinian medical sources informed reporters that at least 40 civilians were killed in an overnight attack, many of whom were residing in the Nuseirat displacement shelter, located near the central regions of the enclave. A few hours later, another airstrike was reported by medics in Beit Lahiya, located in northern Gaza, which killed at least 19 civilians.

On November 28 Israeli tanks entered northern and western regions of Nuseirat, only to back down the next day. This resulted in further casualties along the northern and southern regions of the enclave. A spokesperson for the IDF told reporters that this was done to “strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip”. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported on November 28 that the continued hostilities over the past few days have brought the total death toll in Gaza to 44,363 civilians over the past 13 months.

In an earlier incident on November 24, the IDF issued an evacuation order for a residential area in the Shejaiya suburbs, forcing thousands of civilians to flee on donkey carts and rickshaws, with some carrying their children in backpacks as they ran from their homes. According to a statement from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), there have been approximately 1.9 million internal displacements from recent evacuation orders.

According to an UNRWA social media post shared to X (formerly known as Twitter), out of 91 attempts to deliver life-saving humanitarian aid to northern Gaza between October 6 and November 29, 82 have been denied and 9 have been impeded. Current conditions have been described as “beyond miserable”, as heavy rains and lowered temperatures ravage displacement camps. Thousands are currently residing in overcrowded and unsanitary camps while being exposed to cold rains, without access to blankets, mattresses, and waterproof shelters.

Shortly after his visit to Gaza, Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, briefed reporters on the deteriorating conditions in the shelters. He states that living conditions are “inhumane”, with significant food shortages and sanitary complications. Many are residing in partially destroyed buildings and have contracted diseases. Additionally, social order has begun to disassemble due to a fierce daily struggle to survive for thousands of civilians.

“The breakdown of public order and safety is exacerbating the situation with rampant looting and fighting over scarce resources. As prices of the meagre commodities that are available have skyrocketed, people have been shot and killed by unknown armed men while trying to buy simple sustenance such as bread. These are not isolated incidents. The anarchy in Gaza we warned about months ago is here,” says Sunghay.

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Credit: Great Blue Wall

By James A Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

The Ocean is our life source, but for decades it has been repeatedly marred by humankind. With the disposal of pollutants into the Ocean, overexploitation of Ocean resources and the human-driven increase of global temperatures, the Ocean is changing and not for the better. Our Oceans are warming, corals are dying, fish stocks are declining, toxic chemicals are being released into the Ocean – these eAects are clearly visible today, but there is hope. There are organisations from all around the world that are fighting to save our Ocean.

James A Michel

Backed by coastal communities, governments, the private sector, NGOs and donors, is a growing global multi-stakeholder partnership led and driven by the global south. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Great Blue Wall Initiative stands out as a first-of-its-kind eAort to create a connected network of protected marine areas to combat climate change and global warming in the Western Indian Ocean. It is a roadmap which spearheads the establishment of a connected network of regenerative seascapes. This network will be connected by a living blue wall that will act as a regional ecological corridor formed by conserved and restored critical blue ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrasses, corals and coastal forests.

Whilst the Great Blue Wall will act as a wall against climate change impacts and biodiversity loss, it will also protect coastal communities, their culture and livelihoods, and create the enabling conditions and necessary mechanisms to accelerate the development of a regenerative blue economy. By 2023, the Great Blue Wall will equitably and eAectively protect, conserve and manage at least two million km square of the Ocean; it will support the achivement of a net-gain of biodiveristy by conserving and restoring at least two million hectares of critical ecosystems and sequester more than one hundred million tons of carbon; and it will unlock regenerative livelihood opportunities and create at least two million blue jobs, whilst advocating and providing support to countries in the global south.

At the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took place in Glasgow in 2021, I delivered the opening speech at the Launch of the Great Blue Wall Initiative. There, I urged all countries to continue presenting a strong common front and work together turning ambitions into concrete actions to unleash the potentials of the Blue Economy, and called on countries and organisations with resources to partner with us on this journey to promote and develop an inclusive nature-people blue economy architecture based on the Great Blue Wall, unlocking the full potential of the development of the blue economy driven by conservation and regeneration.

Since its launch, the Great Blue Wall has achieved many milestones:

Credit: Great Blue Wall

Through these milestones, the Great Blue Wall promises to deliver. It promises to accelerate and upscale ocean conservation actions while enhancing socio-ecological resilience and the development of a regenerative blue economy by catalysing political leadership and financial support.

When I was first presented with this initiative, I was immediately convinced of its uniqueness, its purpose, the outcomes it aims to achieve and the nature-people relationship it is seeking to re-establish and strengthen. So, I pledged my full support to the Great Blue Wall and have promoted it ever since. In November 2024, I was appointed as a High-Level Champion of the Great Blue Wall at the 29th meeting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. And during this conference, it was also announced that the Great Blue Wall will be partnering with the ODISEA expedition on an expedition to explore and protect biodiversity in the Western Indian Ocean. In this press conference I was moved by the words of Thomas Sberna, IUCN Regional Head Coastal and Ocean Resilience of Eastern and Southern Africa:

“[This expendition] is about giving a voice to the unheard and bringing a light to the unseen. It’s about telling their stories. It’s about enabling them to produce the science that will inform their decisions and unveiling the local knowledge that will guide their actions. This expedition will bear witness and be an actor in what will be remembered as the Rise of our Blue Guardians.”

Today, many people are taking ownership of their responisibilty of the future of the Ocean behalf of present and future generations. Today, the Blue Economy is seen as a driver of conservation and development and we are unlocking its full potential. It can be sustainable. It can be regenerative. It can be people-centred.

To guide its development and implementation, and to achieve its goals, the Great Blue Wall is based on a premise of three key pillars – regenerative seascapes, climate change and a regenerative blue economy – to create resilient systems built upon strengthening connectivity and diversity at all levels and of all nature.

Credit: Great Blue Wall

Fourteen years ago, I saw the architecture of the blue economy concept as the savior of our planet. Today, this reality is being talked about in all countries around the world. There is an ecological imbalance in the Ocean and its eAects are reaching us. It is important for all of us to remember that our relationship with the Ocean is one of reciprocity. Whilst we are dependent on it for our survival, it depends on us to ensure it is able to continue to provide for us.

James Alix Michel, former President of Seychelles.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The 16th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 16) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2 to 13 Dec. 2024

By UN Department of Global Communications
RIYADH Saudi Arabia, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

A major new scientific report was launched December 1, a day ahead of the opening of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP16).

The report charts an urgent course correction for how the world grows food and uses land in order to avoid irretrievably compromising Earth’s capacity to support human and environmental wellbeing.

Produced under the leadership of Professor Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in collaboration UNCCD, the report, titled Stepping back from the precipice: Transforming land management to stay within planetary boundaries, was launched as nearly 200 countries convene for COP16 starting on Monday, 2 December in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The report draws on roughly 350 information sources to examine land degradation and opportunities to act from a planetary boundaries’ perspective. It underlines that land is the foundation of Earth’s stability and regulates climate, preserves biodiversity, maintains freshwater systems and provides life-giving resources including food, water and raw materials.

It outlines how deforestation, urbanization and unsustainable farming are causing global land degradation at an unprecedented scale, threatening not only different Earth system components but human survival itself.

The deterioration of forests and soils further undermines Earth’s capacity to cope with the climate and biodiversity crises, which in turn accelerate land degradation in a vicious, downward cycle of impacts.

“If we fail to acknowledge the pivotal role of land and take appropriate action, the consequences will ripple through every aspect of life and extend well into the future, intensifying difficulties for future generations,” said UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw.

According to the UNCCD, the global area impacted by land degradation – approx. 15 million km², more than the entire continent of Antarctica or nearly the size of Russia – is expanding each year by about a million square km.

Planetary boundaries
The report situates both problems and potential solutions related to land use within the scientific framework of the planetary boundaries, which has rapidly gained policy relevance since its unveiling 15 years ago.

“The aim of the planetary boundaries framework is to provide a measure for achieving human wellbeing within Earth’s ecological limits,” said Johan Rockström, lead author of the seminal study introducing the concept in 2009. “We stand at a precipice and must decide whether to step back and take transformative action, or continue on a path of irreversible environmental change,” he adds.

The planetary boundaries define nine critical thresholds essential for maintaining Earth’s stability. The report talks about how humanity uses or abuses land directly impacts seven of these, including climate change, species loss and ecosystem viability, freshwater systems and the circulation of naturally occurring elements nitrogen and phosphorus. Change in land use is also a planetary boundary.

Six boundaries have already been breached to date, and two more are close to their thresholds: ocean acidification and the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere. Only stratospheric ozone – the object of a 1989 treaty to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals – is firmly within its “safe operating space”.

Unsustainable agricultural practices
Conventional agriculture is the leading culprit of land degradation according to the report, contributing to deforestation, soil erosion and pollution. Unsustainable irrigation practices deplete freshwater resources, while excessive use of nitrogen- and phosphorus-based fertilizers destabilize ecosystems.

Degraded soils lower crop yields and nutritional quality, directly impacting the livelihoods of vulnerable populations. Secondary effects include greater dependency on chemical inputs and increased land conversion for farming.

Climate change
Meanwhile, climate change – which has long since breached its own planetary boundary – accelerates land degradation through extreme weather events, prolonged droughts, and intensified floods. Melting mountain glaciers and altered water cycles heighten vulnerabilities, especially in arid regions. Rapid urbanization intensifies these challenges, contributing to habitat destruction, pollution, and biodiversity loss.

The report also states that land ecosystems absorbed nearly one third of human-caused CO₂ pollution, even as those emissions increased by half. Over the last decade, however, deforestation and climate change have reduced by 20% the capacity of trees and soil to absorb excess CO₂.

Transformative action
According to the report, transformative action to combat land degradation is needed to ensure a return to the safe operating space for the land-based planetary boundaries. Just as the planetary boundaries are interconnected, so must be the actions to prevent or slow their transgression.

Principles of fairness and justice are key when designing and implementing transformative actions to stop land degradation, ensuring that benefits and burdens are equitably distributed.

Agriculture reform, soil protection, water resource management, digital solutions, sustainable or “green” supply chains, equitable land governance along with the protection and restoration of forests, grasslands, savannas and peatlands are crucial for halting and reversing land and soil degradation.

From 2013 to 2018, more than half-a-trillion dollars were spent on agricultural subsidies across 88 countries, a report by FAO, UNDP and UNEP found in 2021. Nearly 90% went to inefficient, unfair practices that harmed the environment, according to that report.

New technologies
The report also recognizes that new technologies coupled with big data and artificial intelligence have made possible innovations such as precision farming, remote sensing and drones that detect and combat land degradation in real time. Benefits likewise accrue from the precise application of water, nutrients and pesticides, along with early pest and disease detection.

It mentions the free app Plantix, available in 18 languages, that can detect nearly 700 pests and diseases on more than 80 different crops. Improved solar cookstoves can provide households with additional income sources and improve livelihoods, while reducing reliance on forest resources.

Numerous multilateral agreements on land-system change exist but have largely failed to deliver. The Glasgow Declaration to halt deforestation and land degradation by 2030 was signed by 145 countries at the Glasgow climate summit in 2021, but deforestation has increased since then.

Some key findings include:
Land degradation is undermining Earth’s capacity to sustain humanity;
Failure to reverse it will pose challenges for generations;
Seven of nine planetary boundaries are negatively impacted by unsustainable land use, highlighting land’s central role in Earth systems;
Agriculture accounts for 23% of greenhouse gas emissions, 80% of deforestation, 70% of freshwater use;
Forest loss and impoverished soils drive hunger, migration and conflicts;
Transformation of land use critical for humanity to thrive within environmental limits
Read the full press release with more facts and figures in all official languages, as well as with daily media updates: https://www.unccd.int/news-stories/press-releases

The COP is the main decision-making body of UNCCD’s 197 Parties – 196 countries and the European Union. UNCCD, the global voice for land, is one of three major UN treaties known as the Rio Conventions, alongside climate and biodiversity, which recently concluded their COP meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan and Cali, Colombia respectively.

Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of UNCCD, COP 16 will be the largest UN land conference to date, and the first UNCCD COP held in the Middle East and North Africa region, which knows first-hand the impacts of desertification, land degradation and drought. COP 16 marks a renewed global commitment to accelerate investment and action to restore land and boost drought resilience for the benefit of people and planet.

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Credit: US National Archives

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

If and when the devastating military conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza come to an end, the ultimate winners will not be the Russians, the Americans or the Israelis but the world’s arms manufacturers—contemptuously described as “merchants of death”.

And so will be the winners in a rash of conflicts and civil wars in Syria, Myanmar, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan and Afghanistan.

The latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) points out revenues from sales of arms and military services by the 100 largest companies in the industry reached $632 billion in 2023, a real-terms increase of 4.2 per cent compared with 2022.

The new data, released December 2, says arms revenue increases were seen in all regions, with particularly sharp rises among companies based in Russia and the Middle East.

Overall, smaller producers were more efficient at responding to new demand linked to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, growing tensions in East Asia and rearmament programmes elsewhere.

In 2023, according to SIPRI, many arms producers ramped up their production in response to surging demand. The total arms revenues of the Top 100 bounced back after a dip in 2022.

Almost three quarters of companies increased their arms revenues year-on-year. Notably, most of the companies that increased their revenues were in the lower half of the Top 100.

“There was a marked rise in arms revenues in 2023, and this is likely to continue in 2024,” predicted Lorenzo Scarazzato, a Researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

“The arms revenues of the Top 100 arms producers still did not fully reflect the scale of demand, and many companies have launched recruitment drives, suggesting they are optimistic about future sales,” he said.

Dr. Simon Adams, President and CEO, the Center for Victims of Torture, told IPS the number of people in the world displaced by persecution, conflict and atrocities has more than tripled in the past decade to over 120 million.

The people who have gained the most from this expansion in human misery, he said, are the war criminals, torturers and human rights violators of the world.

“But they can’t survive without the weapons manufacturers who arm and enable them. And it is the arms manufacturers who have directly profited the most”.

“Wherever we see civilian suffering, bombed buildings, death and destruction in the world, there is some arms trader who sees a fresh business opportunity and increased profit margins.”

This is an industry whose economic livelihood is bloodshed,” declared Dr Adams.

In an article titled “War Profiteering” in the July issue of The Nation, David Vine and Theresa Arriola single out the five biggest US companies thriving off the war industry: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing and General Dynamics.

And it was US President Dwight Eisenhower, who in 1961, warned Americans about the might of the “military industrial complex” (MIC) in the US.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, cited in the article, “the MIC has sowed incomprehensible destruction globally, keeping the United States locked in endless wars that, since 2001, have killed an estimated 4.5 million people, injured many millions more, and displaced at least 38 million.”

Dr M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and Graduate Program Director, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told IPS the latest statistics published by SIPRI shows how military industries and investors in these producers of the means of killing and maiming people are thriving economically even as their role in perpetuating slaughter of civilian populations and the violation of the human rights among peoples in multiple countries becomes clearer by the day.

“Leading this ignominious list is the United States, which sells roughly half of all the weapons sold; the top five arms merchants are U.S. companies, which together account for around a third of all sales.”

This state of affairs, he argued, is tragic, not only because of the human toll extracted by these weapons in places around the world, ranging from Gaza and Lebanon to Ukraine, but also because this money could be used to meet pressing human needs around the world.

To offer but one example, the United Nations World Food Program, he said, estimates that it would cost $40 billion every year “to feed all of the world’s hungry people and end global hunger by 2030”.

That’s less than 40 percent of the revenues of the top two corporations involved in the arms business. In all, the data meticulously produced year after year by SIPRI is a really sad commentary on the priorities of governments and powerful institutions that control decisions on spending, Dr Ramana declared.

According to SIPRI, the 41 companies in the Top 100 based in the United States recorded arms revenues of $317 billion, half the total arms revenues of the Top 100 and 2.5 per cent more than in 2022. Since 2018, the top five companies in the Top 100 have all been based in the USA.

Of the 41 US companies, 30 increased their arms revenues in 2023. However, Lockheed Martin and RTX, the world’s two largest arms producers, were among those registering a drop.

‘Larger companies like Lockheed Martin and RTX, manufacturing a wide range of arms products, often depend on complex, multi-tiered supply chains, which made them vulnerable to lingering supply chain challenges in 2023,’ said Dr Nan Tian, Director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘This was particularly the case in the aeronautics and missile sectors.’

Meanwhile, the combined arms revenues of the 27 Top 100 companies based in Europe (excluding Russia) totalled $133 billion in 2023. This was only 0.2 per cent more than in 2022, the smallest increase in any world region.

However, behind the low growth figure the picture is more nuanced. European arms companies producing complex weapon systems were mostly working on older contracts during 2023 and their revenues for the year consequently do not reflect the influx of orders.

‘Complex weapon systems have longer lead times,’ said Scarazzato. ‘Companies that produce them are thus inherently slower in reacting to changes in demand. That explains why their arms revenues were relatively low in 2023, despite a surge in new orders.’

At the same time, a number of other European producers saw their arms revenues grow substantially, driven by demand linked to the war in Ukraine, particularly for ammunition, artillery and air defence and land systems.

Notably, companies in Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, Poland, Norway and Czechia were able to tap into this demand. For instance, Germany’s Rheinmetall increased production capacity of 155-mm ammunition and its revenues were boosted by deliveries of its Leopard tanks and new orders, including through war-related ‘ring-exchange’ programmes (under which countries supply military goods to Ukraine and receive replacements from allies).

The SIPRI Arms Industry Database, which presents a more detailed data set for the years 2002–23, is available on SIPRI’s website at <https://www.sipri.org/databases/armsindustry>.

Thalif Deen is a former Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services; Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International; and military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group. He is author of the 2021 book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote me on That” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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The Peace Palace housing the International Court of Justice. The court today will begin hearings into the responsibilities of UN member states with regard to climate change. Credit: ICJ

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

The intersection of law, diplomacy, and science will come under the spotlight at the International Court of Justice hearings starting today (Monday, December 2, 2024) in The Hague as the court starts its deliberations into the obligations under international law of UN member states to protect people and ecosystems from climate change.

The case was started by the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) with the support of Ishmael Kalsakau, the then prime minister of the Pacific island of Vanuatu. Now Vanautu will be the first of 98 countries that will make presentations during the fortnight of hearings, after which the court will give an advisory opinion.

Grace Malie, Tuvalu youth and climate activist speaking at COP29 in Baku, says the advisory opinion will set a “baseline that cannot be ignored,” especially for the youth in climate change-affected countries.

Tuvalu, a small low-lying atoll nation, faces an uncertain future due to sea level rise and it is estimated that by 2050 half the land area of the capital will be flooded by tidal waters. While it has ambitious adaptation plans, it also has developed a Te Ataeao Nei project (Future Now) that outlines how it will manage statehood should it face the worst-case scenario and sink due to rising sea levels.

“What this means for Pacific youth is that climate talks can no longer dismiss our existential concerns as negotiable.” It will foster an environment that secures the islands as “thriving” and “resilient,” rather than as “distant” memories.

The ruling, she believes, will secure the Pacific’s youths’ rights, including to remain rooted in culture, land, and heritage as protected by international law.

The ICJ’s hearings and advisory opinion are unique in that they do not focus solely on a single aspect of international law. Instead, they include the UN Charter, the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the duty of due diligence, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principle of prevention of significant harm to the environment, and the duty to protect and preserve marine environments.

The court will give its opinion on the obligations of states under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system for present and future generations.

It will also consider the legal consequences of causing significant harm to the climate system and the environment and its impact on other states, including “small island developing states (SIDS), which are affected by climate change, and peoples and individuals, both present and future generations, affected by the adverse effects of climate change.”

Attorney General Graham Leung of Fiji says the court isn’t a substitute for negotiations, which are complex and painstakingly slow.

“The ICJ opinion will be precedent-setting. That is to say it will cover and discuss and analyze the legal issues and the scientific issues, and it will come to a very, very important or authoritative decision that will carry great moral weight.

While the court doesn’t have enforcement rights and while it won’t be legally binding, it will work through moral persuasion.

“It’s going to be a very brave country that will stand up against an advisory opinion on the International Court of Justice, because if you are in that minority that violates the opinion of the court, you can be regarded as a pariah or as an outlaw in the international community.”

The hearings come as the outcome of the COP29 negotiations was met with criticism, especially with regard to the financing of the impacts of climate change.

Ahead of the hearings, WWF Global Climate and Energy Lead and COP20 President Manuel Pulgar-Vidal said, “With most countries falling far short of their obligations to reduce emissions and protect and restore nature, this advisory opinion has the potential to send a powerful legal signal that states cannot ignore their legal duties to act.”

Other criticisms of the present status quo include a belief that the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are inadequate, and climate finance, intended as a polluter pays mechanism, has failed to reach those most affected, with, for example, the Pacific countries only receiving 0.2 percent of the USD 100 billion a year climate finance pledge.

Cristelle Pratt, Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS), , agrees that the court’s decision will make it easier to negotiate on climate finance and loss and damage provisions by making that clearer.

It’s expected the ICJ to publish its final advisory opinion in 2025.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Youth and climate activists believe that the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion will send a powerful legal signal that UN member states cannot ignore their legal duties to act and protect the environment against climate change.

An aerial view of children and their families standing near temporary shelters at the Khamsa Dagiga site for displaced people in Zelingei Town, Central Darfur,and Sudan. Credit: UNICEF/Antony Spalton

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan continues to deepen as a result of the ongoing Sudanese Civil War. Intensified conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to widespread food insecurity, with many humanitarian organizations expressing concern that starvation is being used as a method of warfare. Additionally, heightened violence has caused considerable civilian casualties.

According to a statement by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the civil war has displaced over 11 million people, becoming one of the world’s biggest displacement crises. Reports of widespread violations of international humanitarian law have impeded relief efforts greatly, worsening the pre-existing hunger crisis.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has declared Sudan to be in an emergency state of disaster due to famine. A total of 25.6 million people are facing acute hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Starvation is most concentrated in the Zamzam refugee camp, currently one of the largest and most populated displacement shelters in Sudan. “Families at Zamzam have been resorting to extreme measures to survive because food is so scarce. They are eating crushed peanut shells that are typically used to feed animals — and across the camp, parents are mourning the deaths of malnourished children,” said Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General.

Additionally, soup kitchens across Sudan have seen mass closures due to severe underfunding and a lack of humanitarian assistance. Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) spoke to reporters of the scale of suffering in Sudan due to famine, opining that starvation is used as a method of warfare by the warring parties. “It’s an underfunded operation, even though it’s the world’s biggest emergency. The war will stop when these warlords feel they have more to lose by continuing fighting, than by doing the sensible thing,” he said.

A November study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group indicates that the overall death toll has increased significantly following the wake of armed conflict in Sudan. The report estimates that between April 2023 and June 2024, over 61,000 people died in the Khartoum state, marking a 50 percent increase from the pre-war death rate.

It is also estimated that 26,000 deaths were a direct result of violence, with starvation and disease becoming increasingly common causes of death in Khartoum. According to the report, the total death toll may far surpass these figures as approximately 90 percent of all deaths in Sudan go unreported.

In addition to damage caused by the two warring parties, smaller armed groups have participated in looting and attacks. “The parties are tearing down their own houses, they are massacring their own people,” Egeland said.

Humanitarian organizations have expressed concern over the escalation of violence observed over the past several months. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, predicts that Sudan could experience a “Rwanda-like genocide” based on the current circumstances. Nderitu also added that there have been reports of ethnic cleansing in El Fasher.

On November 26, the WFP announced that they would scale up aid responses in the most famine-stricken areas of Sudan following the Sudanese government issuing clearance to use the Adre border crossing.

“In total, the trucks will carry about 17,500 tons of food assistance, enough to feed 1.5 million people for one monthIn total, the trucks will carry about 17,500 tons of food assistance, enough to feed 1.5 million people for one month,” said WFP Sudan spokesperson Leni Kinzli.

However, due to pervasive violence and the overall urgent scale of needs, additional funding is in dire need to mitigate the deepening humanitarian crisis. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), approximately 25 million people require humanitarian assistance, which equates to nearly half of the entire population. The UN’s 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan seeks 2.7 billion dollars to provide life-saving assistance to over 14 million affected people. The UN urges continued donor support as only 56 percent of the required funds have been raised.

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The Maya Train’s Merida-Teya station, in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan. Stations fill up when the train arrives, but remain empty most of the time. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
VALLADOLID, Mexico, Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

Indigenous craftsperson Alicia Pech doesn’t know about the Maya Train (TM), the Mexican government’s most emblematic megaproject that runs through five states in the country’s south and southeast

“We don’t travel. We lack the resources to travel on the train here. Who wouldn’t like to get on and ride somewhere? Right now… there are no visitors, no people coming. We think that by December there will be a bit more,” the 44-year-old Mayan woman told IPS."The Maya do not manage it or operate it... the government is trying to keep the project from being derailed. People feel it is alien to them; it is the culmination of a process of dispossession": Miguel Anguas.

She was born and lives in Dzitnup, from where she travels every day by bus to Valladolid, a city in the southeastern state of Yucatán, 30 minutes away, to work in the clothing shop she owns with 11 other Mayan women. They weave and embroider blouses, dresses and other textiles, a couple of blocks from the city’s downtown.

The weaver, a married mother of three, complains about low sales. “We can’t afford to pay for the shop, there are no people right now,” she said.

Valladolid, which has a population of about 85,500, is one of 26 stations already in operation on the railway, whose construction began in 2020 and five of the seven planned routes have been operating since December 2023.

The TM was initially in charge of the governmental National Fund for Tourism Development (Fonatur) and since 2023 of the Ministry of National Defence (Sedena). It runs for some 1,500 kilometres through 78 municipalities in the three states of the Yucatán peninsula – Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán – and two other neighbouring states – Chiapas and Tabasco.

Sedena is building the two pending routes, with seven stations, between Quintana Roo and Campeche.

The line has sparked polarised controversy between its supporters and critics over deforestation in Latin America’s second largest jungle massif after the Amazon, in an issue that has become a source of weariness for the region’s communities.

A Maya Train unit waits at Chichén Itzá station, home to the archaeological site of the same name in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Pech shares the situation of thousands of people in the Yucatán peninsula, the inaccessibility of the railway and the generation of benefits, despite official promises, as IPS found during a tour of  section 3, from Calkiní (Campeche) to Izamal (Yucatán) and from there to Cancún (Quintana Roo), on  route 4.

This is in addition to the delay of the project and its cost overrun, which exceeds US$15 billion, 70% more than the initial estimate.

The train, intended for tourists, curious users and causing little enthusiasm among the local population, is empty in the larger stations, Mérida or Cancún, and passengers are scarce in the smaller ones, and does not include cargo, for now.

Between December 2023 and August, the TM carried 340,622 passengers, at a rate of 1,425 per day, according to official figures, on the 10 trains that currently run the routes, according to official data.

The tourist sites of Cancun, Merida (the Yucatan capital), Playa del Carmen, Valladolid and Palenque, which has an archaeological site, account for 80% of the passengers on the TM, which has suffered more than 20 accidents since it opened.

Although more international tourists have arrived at Merida airports or tourist destinations such as Cozumel between January and September this year, compared to the same period in 2023, it is difficult to link this to the effect of the new railway. Meanwhile, arrivals in Cancun fell by 1.5%.

Fares range from around three dollars for a one-station ride to a maximum of 156 dollars for a domestic visitor and 208 dollars for a foreign visitor, revenue that goes into the military coffers.

The Yucatán peninsula is home to the majority of the Maya population, one of Mexico’s 71 indigenous groups and one of the most culturally and historically representative in the country.

Mérida-Teya station in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. Stops are located outside towns and cities, which makes mobility difficult due to a lack of alternatives and increases travel costs. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Someday…

In the municipality of Maxcanú – “place of the four monkeys” or “beard of Canul”, an indigenous chieftain, in the Mayan language – and some 65 kilometres from Mérida, Madelin Ortiz, a clothing shop owner, believes the train is beneficial, although she doesn’t use it and her business has not prospered yet.

“The prices are affordable, there are more visitors. There is a lack of trains, because there are few departures. There is not as much fluidity in the timetables. I’ve wanted to go to Cancún, but I haven’t been able to,” the 78-year-old shopkeeper, a married mother of four, told IPS.

But the town is not overflowing with visitors, although there are many locals celebrating the Jicama (Pachyrhizus erosus) Fair, a tuber known as the Mexican turnip.

As in other stations, Maxcanú has eight empty premises with signs such as “Food”, “Community Tourism” and “Handicrafts” waiting for shops. The same happens in Valladolid, and at the Mérida-Teya station on the outskirts of the capital, only two food shops operate, one offering TM souvenirs, another advertising a future bakery, and a car rental place.

A worker cleans the glass doors of community tourism and handicraft sales premises, which remain empty at the station in the municipality of Maxcanú, in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. Stops have few shops, despite government offers to operate these spaces. Credit:Emilio Godoy / IPS

There are more idle times than busy ones with passengers at the station in Maxcanú, with just over 24,000 people. Four National Guard soldiers pass the time, along with three stray dogs, seeking the coolness of the station, fugitives from the sun, while five workers clean the place.

To avoid protests and urban disruption, Fonatur and Sedena built the stations on the outskirts of cities and towns, which makes it difficult to access them, due to their disconnection, and increases costs and journey times.

When he promoted the project, then president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who ruled between 2018 and last October, said the TM would support community tourism and that there would be spaces for craftspeople. But people like Alicia Pech are still waiting.

The government claims the train will bring thousands of tourists, create jobs, boost tourism beyond traditional visitor centres, and develop the regional economy, but there is no proof of this, especially since it does not carry cargo.

Permanent

There are wounds that never heal. The TM route has left cuts that mark the Mayan jungle, where there used to be trees, animals and plants. The project has faced accusations of deforestation, pollution, environmental damage and human rights violations.

Aerial view of the planned section 6, which runs from Tulum airport to Chetumal, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo. Credit: Google Earth

Miguel Anguas, co-founder of the non-governmental organisation Kanan Derechos Humanos, says the TM creates a new territorial order causing harmful impacts, in some cases irreversible.

“The balance is clear.  The Maya do not manage it, nor do they operate it. From what we can see, the government is trying to keep the project from being derailed. People feel it is alien to them; it is the culmination of a process of dispossession,” he told IPS.

The construction cut down at least 11,485 hectares of jungle and emitted 470,750 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, according to research by the government’s Yucatan Scientific Research Centre, made public in September.

In fact, the government paid itself to compensate for the logging.

The government’s National Forestry Commission paid 4.11 million dollars to 11 private landowners and 18 ejidos (public land assigned for collective use) for the destruction of 2,867 hectares in 2023, and 4.38 million to 40 private individuals and 15 ejidos for 2,827 hectares this year.

Compensation is a legal mechanism that allows for the restoration of one area for damage done to another.

To increase revenues and minimise losses, President Claudia Sheinbaum, in office since 1 October, plans to extend the route to Puerto Progreso, on the Yucatan coast north of Mérida, to move freight.

But the TM will continue to use resources, as the 2025 budget plans an allocation of US$ 2,173 million, both for the two lines under construction and to maintain those already in operation.

The Mexican government knew since 2022 that the mega-project would increase the initial budget.

The updated cost-benefit analysis, prepared that year by the private Mexican consulting firm Transconsult and obtained by IPS through an access to information request, concluded that the cost would be from two to four times more than the initial estimate.

“The stations were defined in terms of serving the greatest number of locations, thus covering the greatest amount of demand in the area,” the document states.

This implies losses for the TM, which would make a profit in the medium term.

While the TM struggles to advance, Pech and Ortiz fantasize that one day they will wait on the platform, see it arrive and board one of its cars.

Despite contributing just 0.02% of total greenhouse gas emissions, Pacific Island states are drowning in the consequences of others’ actions. Credit: UNICEF/Sokhin

By Ralph Regenvanu
PORT VILA, Vanuatu, Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

The climate crisis has become devastating across the world over the past few months: super typhoons sweeping through the Western Pacific, unprecedented superstorms in the Gulf of Mexico, raging wildfires across the Amazon rainforest, severe flooding in Central and Eastern Europe, just to mention a few. Rising seas and intensifying storms threaten to devastate communities and erase entire countries from the map.

For countries on the front line, like Vanuatu, urgent action to halt warming is essential. In the first part of 2023, we were struck by two category 4 cyclones within days of each other. In October of the same year, another category 4 storm struck our islands.

In the face of such slow progress, Vanuatu has led an initiative to speed up climate action. We took the climate crisis to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court

This current year has been easier but the sea levels are still rising all the same and Vanuatu is projected to lose 25% of its gross domestic product (GDP) every year due to climate disasters. All the while, those responsible for the crisis continue to delay and resist the solutions that we already have at hand.

In 2015 the Paris Agreement set the course for governments to protect people and the planet and hold global warming to 1.5⁰C. The deal has led to some actions but, so far, no country is on track to meet this goal and only 10 countries are projected to come close.

The needs of countries that benefited the least from the past few centuries of uncurbed emissions have been sidelined as wealthier countries have not prioritised the emissions reductions needed.

Despite contributing just 0.02% of total greenhouse gas emissions, Pacific Island states are drowning in the consequences of others’ actions. A decade after Paris, governments like mine are still trying to prevent further harm while repairing the loss and damage that has already occurred.

In the face of such slow progress, Vanuatu has led an initiative to speed up climate action. We took the climate crisis to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court.

Hon. Ralph Regenvanu

For the first time, the Court will confront the climate crisis, and is now tasked with preparing a new set of guidelines – a compass – to establish the obligations of countries to take action on climate change based on existing international laws. Its advisory opinion could overcome the political inertia that has delayed the lifesaving action we need.

This is the moment for the international justice system to require countries to recognise and correct the injustices of the climate crisis; acknowledging how carbon emissions are driving deadly weather events, and how polluting countries have failed to prevent the disasters that now plague us.

After the most recent round of U.N. climate change talks, a gap of USD 1 trillion gap needs to be closed between what poorer countries need and what wealthy countries are currently contributing to climate funding, to cover the costs of damages and the costs of preparation for the future impacts of the climate crisis.

The International Court of Justice gives us a platform where we, small island states, could finally overcome the power of wealthy countries, with the authority of international law to finally drive just climate action.

People around the world back this shift: 80% of citizens worldwide want more ambitious climate action to repair and revive our world. This is our chance to work together for a safe and healthy planet.

We do not yet know how the Court will decide. Some of the richest and most polluting countries would prefer not to be held accountable for deadly inaction.

For the Court to form a lifesaving opinion, countries must deliver powerful statements; their participation will be an important step in advocating for the ICJ’s guiding opinion. By collectively laying down the facts, we will be able to bridge the gap between countries’ current commitments and what is needed to restore and protect our homes.

For those of us overwhelmed by the impacts of the climate crisis, a strong ruling from the ICJ would offer hope. This opinion has the potential to become the most comprehensive tool to hold those responsible for the climate crisis accountable and help us restore what has already been lost.

Countries must own up to their responsibility. That means phasing out fossil fuel use, speeding up emissions cuts and paying for the damages that have already occurred due to their heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

I am confident that the ICJ’s opinion will become the guiding star to achieve this. The world needs governments, corporations and all major emitters to rise to the challenge of halting the climate crisis.

Whether we fail or succeed in navigating the oceans of global warming will determine the future of Vanuatu and all of us suffering from this crisis, those of us alive today and those yet to be born. Our children and grandchildren deserve to inherit a world where their rights and livelihoods are protected, not eroded by the reckless actions of previous generations. Now is the time for action.

Excerpt:

Ralph Regenvanu, Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment of the Republic of Vanuatu

A mother carries her baby in Port Sudan, on the Sudanese coast. Escalating violence and new atrocities in Sudan have pushed the humanitarian crisis to unprecedented levels, with displacement now exceeding 11 million people amid reports of mass killings and systematic-sexual violence across multiple regions, UN officials said October 2024. Credit: WFP/Abubakar Garelnabei

By Madiha Abdalla
KHARTOUM, Sudan , Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

On 15 April 2023, the outbreak of war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) drastically altered the face of Sudanese society. The fighting left thousands of dead, wounded, displaced people and refugees.

People went hungry, civil rights were violated in the most horrible ways, and discrimination was practiced on the basis of gender, race and tribe. Across the country, infrastructure was destroyed in cities and villages – not even hospitals and schools were spared – and the capital Khartoum became a shattered city unfit for life.

According to UN estimates, some 10.9 million people are now internally displaced within Sudan. Another 2.2 million people have fled to other countries since the conflict began. Food insecurity is rife, and the warring parties regularly attack and kill civilians.

Despite this horrific panorama, international attention to the conflict has waned and humanitarian support has been stymied – earlier this month, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire and crucial humanitarian aid.

Few have suffered more during this war than women human rights defenders (WHRDs).

Madiha Abdalla

As a longstanding WHRD and journalist, since the outbreak of the war, I was exposed to the risks of losing the right to life, as bullets and shells continued to fall on my residential area in a suburb of Khartoum, located near a military area that witnessed violent confrontations between the parties to the war since its beginning.

Initially, my family and I were displaced to a relatively safe area in central Sudan and along with fellow human rights defenders, I worked as a volunteer in shelter centres, contributing to providing services to the displaced and raising awareness of civil rights.

After the RSF invaded the area, we were displaced again, and I traveled to Uganda after the security risks increased when the war expanded. Since February 2024, I continue my journalistic and civilian work with human rights groups and journalists to stop the war and protect civilians.

WHRDs in Sudan face numerous risks as a result of this ongoing and expanded conflict. They are targeted with armed threats, liquidation, and arrest; security agencies threaten to prosecute WHRDs who work in emergency rooms that provide services and support to the displaced. These threats sometimes extend to family members, too.

Security agencies stalk and pursue WHRDs, personally targeting them and their kin. This is especially true for those who work in the legal field and monitor violations; they are regularly forced to flee and seek refuge in other regions and countries, resulting in the closure of legal offices and the loss of the right to work.

Sudanese WHRDs risk being accused of spying for one side of the war against the other, leading to armed men confiscating their phones as well as increased insecurity in using social media and exposure to the risk of being hacked.

Many WHRDs are forced to leave their homes with sick family members in harsh conditions without money or means of protection, and even though they hate to leave their homeland, they are forced to seek refuge in other countries.

Many of those forced to flee their homes due to the fighting do so on foot, with no belongings; they become displaced to other areas or live with relatives, always running the risk of violence and looting by armed men on their displacement routes.

Their freedom of movement is restricted, with threats of death and rape by armed men and the looting of phones, forcing them to remain silent and not reveal their violations out of fear. As a result, they often lose contact with relatives and other groups of WHRDs for long periods of time.

The ever-widening circle of fighting has led to many WHRDs being subjected to repeated displacement experiences, which leads to the evacuation of huge displacement complexes that include thousands of people, including these women defenders and their families.

On their way there, they are exposed to the dangers of bullets and shells and the injury of children and patients, bringing with it a constant feeling of terror, often sparked by hearing ordinary sounds.

In addition to the risk of being looted and attacked, by being repeatedly forced to leave their homes and shelters behind, women human rights defenders ran the risk of being separated from their families and losing job opportunities.

These harsh conditions have negatively affected women human rights defenders economically, socially and psychologically, and have affected human rights work in monitoring violations and defending and protecting human rights in the midst of a deadly war.

The international community should show solidarity with the people of Sudan – in particular our women human rights defenders – and support our efforts to stop the war and build peace in Sudan.

Madiha Abdalla is a Sudanese woman human rights defender and journalist. She recently visited Ireland to speak about her experiences as part of Front Line Defenders’ Dublin Platform, aimed at giving a voice to human rights defenders at risk from around the world.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: UN Foundation

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

John Bolton a former US ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006) once infamously declared that if the 39-storeyed UN Secretariat building in New York “lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

That statement triggered a sarcastic response from a New York Times columnist who said Bolton would have done better as an urban planner than a US diplomat –while another newspaper described him as “a human wrecking ball”

Similarly, one of his successors Niki Haley told a Republican National Convention that the “UN was a place where dictators, murderers and thieves denounce America, and demand that we pay their bills.”

And now comes President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee — House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York—who has condemned the United Nations as “corrupt and antisemitic” — to be his next ambassador to the world body.

She has threatened to cut funding for the UN, including a UN agency providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and denounced the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.

So, what else is new?

According to a November 11 report in Politico, a Washington-based digital newspaper, Trump is elevating a fierce critic of the U.N. as his emissary to the world body — the latest sign that he plans to make good on pledges to strongly support Israel on the world stage and play hardball with international organizations and alliances.

In a 25 September article in the Washington Examiner titled “If the United Nations continues its antisemitism, the US must withdraw support”, Stefanik said the U.N. “has proven again and again that it is a cesspool of antisemitism that has completely turned against Israel in its darkest hour.”

But her hard-hitting comments have triggered equally strong condemnations.

Kul Gautam, a former UN assistant Secretary-General, told IPS Trump’s proposed new appointment is “a frightening prospect for the UN”.

“Stefanik seems to represent the antithesis of the UN ideals, multilateralism, and respect for international laws — all in the interest of blanket US support for Israel,” he said.

Indeed, all of Trump’s national security nominees seem to fit what Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council characterizes as: Israel-First, America-Second, Humanity-Last ethos, said Gautam, a former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF.

According to the US Congressional Research Service (CRS), the approved regular budget for U.N. is $3.6 billion for FY 2024. The General Assembly determines a regular budget scale of assessments every three years based on a country’s capacity to pay. The Assembly will likely adopt new assessment rates for the 2025-2027 period in December 2024.

The United States is currently assessed 22%, the highest of any U.N. member, followed by China (15.25%) and Japan (8.03%).

But this may change under the Trump administration.

As Stefanik warned: “We must strive for a U.N. in which no one nation is expected to foot the bill but receive no accountability or transparency in return, in which no despot or dictator can sit in judgment of others while deflecting attention away from their own human rights abuses, and in which no organization corrupted by the likes of the Chinese Communist Party can dictate sweeping conventions and international standards across its membership”.

Ian Williams, President of the New York-based Foreign Press Association told IPS the vultures are fluttering home to roost.

“When Elise Stefanik launches off at the UN, interpreters should program their ChatGB with the translation “yada yada yada” for her message.”

Delegates and media should deride, rebut or mock her. There is no upside to pandering to her nor even to trying to reason with here, said Williams.

During the Balkan Wars, he pointed out, many young State Department professionals struck the board and cried “no more!” at the shameless double standards. The current generation appears either to be opportunistically complaisant in the face of Netanyahu’s genocide, or worse, true believers.

“Observers often wonder whether the UN could survive without the United States. Time to reverse the query- how can the UN survive in any meaningful way with the US as a malignant metastasizing tumor at its core” said Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

In his last days, Obama let through a conscience-easing resolution against Israel resolution: there is little or no chance of a significant gesture from the Biden administration in its dying days.

In contrast, Biden and Harris forfeited their chances of power with their shameless abasement to indicted war criminal Netanyahu- who had spent his term as Israeli PM campaigning against their re-election.

“We have been here before. John Bolton’s initiative to punish member states that failed to explicitly pre-amnesty American troops brought the US into more disrepute than the UN and not just its “moral” standing. It was simply shrugged off and forgotten by most members. This time, the organization’s members would get their retaliation in first. It is pointless to try creative engagement with bigots”, declared Williams.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction.org, told IPS for many decades, the U.S. government has viewed the United Nations as either a legitimizing rubber stamp or a recalcitrant dissenter to be ignored and belittled.

During the leadup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, for instance, the George W. Bush administration sought UN approval and never got it. But when the Security Council approved aggressive military actions led by the United States, as with the 1991 Gulf War, officials in Washington were glad to trumpet the UN’s importance, he pointed out.

“Stefanik is a jingoistic politician who gladly asserts the U.S. prerogative to run as much of the world as possible. To the extent that the Trump administration sees the United Nations as useful in that pursuit, her stint at the UN will go smoothly.”

And to the extent that many of the countries, with the other 95 percent of the planet’s population seem to be getting in the way, “we can expect chauvinistic bombast from Stefanik, and Trump, reviling such countries and the UN as retrograde impediments to the glorious supreme virtues and power of the United States of America”, said Solomon.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Interim Co-Secretary General, CIVICUS, told IPS the United States played a key role in the establishment of the UN in 1945.

“By choosing someone who clearly despises the UN and what it stands for as a candidate for Ambassador, Donald Trump and his advisors are repudiating the legacy of Late President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who put in significant efforts to help set up the UN as a world body committed to international law and determined to save future generations from the scourge of war,” he said.

Disdain for human rights and the rules based international order brought untold suffering to humanity in the 20th century through two world wars. It would be extremely unwise for the incoming presidential administration in the United States to ignore these lessons from history,” declared Tiwana.

Solomon argued what was sometimes a more subtle attitude of a leader, such as president Joe Biden, providing king-of-the-world messages tinged with condescension and noblesse oblige, will be transformed into a harsher and more vicious approach beginning next year.

Stefanik as a personality will be largely beside the point. The underlying imperial approach to the world will be a no-holds-barred assault in rhetorical, economic and – when seen as needed – military terms, he said

“For domestic consumption, the message from the Trump presidency will be the equivalent of no-more-mister-nice-guy, asserting that it’s time to insist on fairness to Uncle Sam at last.”

Posturing as the victim will, perhaps more than ever, be the effect of the U.S. government in foreign policy, at once claiming to be a victim while the United States renews efforts to dominate as much of the world as possible, said Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”

Meanwhile, Stefanik was also critical of “the absurdly misnamed “Human Rights Council,” composed of some of the world’s worst human rights abusers, which has a standing antisemitic agenda item related to Israel and adopted a resolution stating that Israel should be held responsible for war crimes, all while failing to condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas”.

“The world is looking to the U.S. for moral leadership. As Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran and its terrorist proxies such as Hamas create a dangerous axis of evil that threatens the shared global commitment to peace, prosperity, and freedom, the U.S. must boldly defend our principles at every opportunity”, she declared.

As the largest financial contributor to the U.N., the U.S. must present the U.N. with a choice: reform this broken system and return it to the beacon of peace and freedom the world needs it to be, or continue down this antisemitic path without the support of American taxpayers, she noted.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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To effectively eliminate rabies in the continent, there is need for the right information on its prevalence, transmission patterns, vaccination rates and treatment efficacy. Credit: Shutterstock

By Isatou Touray
Nov 28 2024 (IPS)

Rabies, despite being a major public health concern in Africa, is still not fully understood, due to the limited data available on it. This has slowed down efforts to eliminate it, yet the continent bears a significant burden of the disease and accounts for most of the deaths it causes globally.

With the exception of only a handful of countries, the continent generally has poor and incomplete data on this disease that results from bites or scratches by an infected dog. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the disease is responsible for an estimated 59,000 deaths in the world every year, out of which 95 per cent are in Africa and Asia.

All this arsenal against the disease has largely been rendered ineffective by the absence of complete, reliable, high-quality data that could inform effective decision making and proper management. Without the full picture that only data can paint, decision makers cannot see the true scale and impact of the disease is unclear

Even in cases that are not fatal, rabies, like other Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) – a group of 20 diseases that debilitate, disfigure and can kill – robs individuals of good health, dignity and livelihood.

Rabies, in particular, causes progressive and potentially fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord that make up the central nervous system. It often leads to death once the virus infects the central nervous system and the symptoms appear, underlining the urgent need for prompt treatment.

The good news is that the knowledge and tools for tackling rabies, which is one of the oldest human diseases, are well known, proven and available. Vaccines and antibodies that can save lives in case of infection exist, as well as dog vaccines to keep the virus at bay.

The bad news, however, is that all this arsenal against the disease has largely been rendered ineffective by the absence of complete, reliable, high-quality data that could inform effective decision making and proper management. Without the full picture that only data can paint, decision makers cannot see the true scale and impact of the disease is unclear.

To effectively eliminate rabies in the continent, there is need for the right information on its prevalence, transmission patterns, vaccination rates and treatment efficacy. Armed with this, it becomes easier to identify infection hotspots, monitor and evaluate interventions and deploy equitable responses.

Better appreciation of the disease will help trigger action by governments, funders and other actors in securing resources and mobilising action to relieve needless suffering and decrease health-related drivers of poverty.

Ultimately, this will help the continent inch towards attaining Sustainable Development Goal 3.3 that targets a 90 per cent reduction in the number of people who need NTD intervention.

Over the last decade progress has been made against NTDs, leading to 600 million fewer people requiring NTD intervention between 2010 and 2020, which has been attributed to strengthening domestic and international commitment.

There is a greater opportunity to accelerate this progress further by focusing the fight against rabies. Without this crucial data, efforts against the disease will remain piecemeal, reactive, unfocused and inefficient.

This will leave individuals suffering and could sometimes lead to preventable deaths. The WHO estimates the global cost of rabies to be about US$8.6 billion annually, arising from lost lives and livelihoods, medical care and associated costs, as well as uncalculated psychological trauma.

Absence of proper data also makes it more difficult to mobilise national and international resources for control, elimination and eradication of the disease.

Significant and sustainable resources are required to avail vaccines to at high-risk individuals and emergency treatment to communities that cannot afford them. Also critical in the fight is mass vaccination of dogs that has been found to be effective in controlling rabies, as well as public awareness and education campaigns on preventing bites and what to do when bitten or scratched.

All this begins with quality data and robust data systems. This is the compass in the fight against rabies and other NTDs in Africa. It is also a guide for elimination of the disease by identifying where to deploy vaccines, provide treatment and rollout requisite infrastructure.

It is worth highlighting that Kikundi, a community of practice for NTD Program Managers in Africa, is well positioned to strengthen the efforts to enhance data quality and build robust systems, ultimately supporting countries in their fight against rabies.

As highlighted in the theme of this year’s World Rabies Day – ‘Breaking rabies boundaries’, it is time to disrupt the status quo by improving our understanding of this disease. No one in Africa should continue suffering and dying from preventable and treatable diseases like rabies.

 

Dr Isatou Touray, a former Vice-President of the Republic of the Gambia, is the interim Executive Director of Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Salvadoran farmer Damian Cordoba looks at the trunk of what was once a fire tree, one of many that have been felled to make way for solar panels to be installed on a farm in western El Salvador by Volcano Energy to provide cheap energy for bitcoin mining. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
IZALCO, El Salvador, Nov 28 2024 (IPS)

With machete in hand, Salvadoran farmer Damián Córdoba weeds the undergrowth covering the trunk of what was once a leafy tree to show the deforestation taking place on the Santa Adelaida farm, where a company seeks to install a solar park in western El Salvador.

“The people hired by the company... said they were going to cut down some trees to plant coffee and fruit trees, but that was a lie, because later they revealed they were for solar panels”: Damián Córdoba.
The 115-hectare farm intersects with the territories of several hamlets, whose approximately 10,000 families will be affected by the deforestation required to install the photovoltaic power station, which is being built by Volcano Energy, a private initiative whose trading company is named Hashpower Energy Solutions.

The recently formed Volcano Energy wants to generate cheap electricity that will be used to mine bitcoins, taking advantage of the enthusiasm the government of El Salvador continues to show for this cryptocurrency, legal tender in this Central American nation since September 2021.

“The people hired by the company to cut down the trees said they were going to cut down some to plant coffee and fruit trees, but that was a lie, because later they revealed they were for solar panels,” Córdoba told IPS, as he continued to cut down the undergrowth covering the trunk of what was once a fire tree (Delonix regia), more than a metre in diameter.

Córdoba is a native of the Chorro Arriba canton, one of the three peasant communities that will be most affected by the photovoltaic project, along with Cuntán and Cuyagualo, all three of which belong to the Izalco district.

Arístides Ramón Munto and his mother Macaria Rufina Munto oppose the installation of a photovoltaic plant in their area, near Izalco, El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Forced displacement

Most of these families live on plots of land they own, bordering the Santa Adelaida estate, but their ancestors settled there as labourers or settlers decades ago, with the permission of the landowners, in exchange for work on agricultural tasks for a meagre wage.

Over time, the descendants managed to buy the plots and thus have their own place to live.

However, there are 13 families still living on the Santa Adelaida farm as settlers who are about to be evicted from the property, villagers said. IPS saw how the cottage of one of these workers had already been demolished.

“This logging carried out by Volcano Energy is the final blow, the death blow to the farm,” said Córdoba, referring to prolonged process of indiscriminate logging the estate has been subject to since it was bought some 25 years ago by a member of the Saca family, one of the most prominent in the country.

This family includes former Salvadoran president Elías Antonio Saca (2004-2009), who since 2018 has been serving a 10-year prison sentence for corruption.

The Santa Adelaida farm in western El Salvador has suffered from indiscriminate logging for more than two decades. This will continue so that a solar farm can be installed on the property to supply energy to a bitcoin farm. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

The farm was reportedly sold months ago to Volcano Energy, although details of the transaction are unknown, said residents of the hamlets.

This new wave of deforestation, to set up the solar park, began in January, said Córdoba, as he continues to walk through the undergrowth of the cleared land, except for a dozen timber trees, still standing but marked with light blue dots, confirming that they will be felled.

Some of the 115 hectares of the estate has already been felled, at the hands of the former owner, the Saca family. But the solar project has begun to clear what is still standing, and is looking to acquire more property, say villagers, who estimate 350 hectares could be affected in all.

In June, the solar project was announced by company representatives at a general meeting with residents, said Córdoba, 40.

He added that at the meeting Volcano Energy officials did not confirm the project would be for mining bitcoins, but rather “for data processing”, although in reality mining bitcoins is just that: the execution of highly complex mathematical operations that must be solved by powerful computers to “find” or validate a bitcoin in this ecosystem.

On its website, Volcano Energy presents itself as “a renewable energy and bitcoin mining company propelling El Salvador toward energy independence and financial sovereignty”, whose mission is “to lead the sustainable bitcoin revolution in El Salvador”.

In many parts of the Santa Adelaida estate, trees are marked with light blue paint, a clear sign that they will soon be felled. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Social and environmental impact

Farming families in the area told IPS they will be affected by the environmental impact of cutting down the few remaining areas of trees on the property, especially because of the potential water shortages it will cause.

“We all know that the fewer trees we have, the less water there will be,” farmer Arístides Ramón Munto, 70, told IPS, sitting inside his house, shirtless, to get a breath of fresh air.

Then the farmer put on a shirt to pose for an IPS photograph with his mother, Macaria Rufina Munto, 85, who was preparing the wood-burning cooker to “throw” corn tortillas (flat, round breads) on a circular clay griddle, called comal in Central America.

“We don’t want them to throw away the sticks (trees), because where will the wild animals live?” the mother wondered, waiting for the comal to heat up to make the tortillas.

The arrival of Vocano Energy on the Santa Adelaida farm has led to the forced displacement of some peasant families who lived there as tenants or permanent workers and whose houses have been demolished. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

On 22 August, a group of villagers wrote a letter to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Fernando López, warning they were “full of concern about the environmental problems that are looming in our community” due to the imminent arrival of the solar project.

The project “will hinder the connectivity of the ecosystem, especially for species of wild mammals in a delicate state of conservation, such as agouti, lowland paca, panther and margay”, among others.

The inhabitants also reminded the minister the area is a harvesting and exploitation zone for water for human use, and it feeds the Cuntán river, which at one point has a small dam that supplies water to the port city of Acajutla, to the south.

The signatories of the letter reminded the minister that the area is part of the Apaneca Ilamatepec mountain range, an extension of 59,000 hectares of forest and coffee plantations, certified as a biosphere reserve by Unesco in 2007, and as such, business initiatives should not be allowed there, especially if they involve cutting down trees.

On 24 October, those affected sent a formal complaint to the General Board of Forestry, Watershed and Irrigation Management of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. In accordance with article 152 of the Law of Administrative Procedures, they requested that precautionary measures be taken, i.e., that the project be suspended while an environmental court resolves the case.

The Salvadoran government is betting on electricity generation from clean sources, such as solar, to inject cheap energy into a bitcoin mining farm in which it is participating under a public-private partnership model. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Cheap electricity for bitcoiners

The socio-environmental conflict at the Santa Adelaida farm has emerged within the context of the Salvadoran government’s serious commitment to clean energy, not only because of its interest in lowering electricity costs.

Clean energy is also being encouraged by what seems to be an obsession with bitcoins by the Salvadoran president, the neo-populist and right-wing Nayib Bukele, in power since 2019 and who, since 2021, has been promoting one of his most unusual projects: the first farm to mine this crypto-asset in the country.

It is known that the mining process uses a huge amount of electricity to operate the computer network, and the cheaper it is, the lower the operating costs of the farms. Hence the interest in finding energy at low-cost.

In May, Diario El Salvador daily, funded by the Salvadoran government, reported that Bukele’s effort had paid off, as some 473 bitcoins had been mined from the farm installed at the Berlin geothermal power plant, a state-owned plant located in the eastern department of Usulután.

These crypto assets represent some US$44 million, at bitcoin’s current price of US$93,236 per unit.

This initial effort has apparently led to Volcano Energy, founded by Max Keiser, President Bukele’s advisor on bitcoin, and US-based Luxor Technologies, which are said to have formed Hashpower Energy Solutions, although everything is shrouded in government secrecy.

Some 10,000 people living in three rural communities in western El Salvador will probably be affected by environmental damage caused by deforestation from the imminent installation of a solar park. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

The Berlin plant is supposed to have 300 computer systems already in place to solve the intricate mathematical operations involved in finding bitcoins, but the independent press has not had access to the facility to verify this.

Although it is not clear how, due to official secrecy, the Salvadoran government is also linked to Volcano Energy, offering it all the conditions to set up and operate its solar project in the country, using the clean and cheap energy that the company intends to obtain from various sources, including the solar power station it wants to set up on the Santa Adelaida estate.

In return, in this sort of public-private partnership, the Salvadoran government will receive 23% of the total income of Volcano Energy, which plans to start operations in 2025, said Josué López, the company’s general manager, to Diario El Salvador in April.

Lopez said that, at first, the farm will run on solar and wind power, generating around 130 megawatts in all, but that in the medium term they will build their own geothermal station. Although he did not say it, it is understood they will use the state-owned infrastructure of the geothermal plant in Berlin.

Meanwhile, on 15 October, the foreign investment office for El Salvador announced that the Salvadoran government has approved 21 new photovoltaic projects.

These new initiatives join the more than 250 solar projects already operating in the country, according to Oscar Funes, vice-president of the Salvadoran Association of Renewable Energies, formed by companies working in the sector.

Funes told IPS that Volcano Energy does not belong to the association and that, although he has been working in the energy sector for three decades, he only found out about Hashpower Energy Solutions, the company understood to be behind it, when the media reported on the conflict at the Santa Adelaida farm.

When Córdoba, the farmer who walks the cleared plots, machete in hand, read the news on the internet about the 21 new solar projects approved, he said: “That’s probably why they are interested in grabbing more property here, close to our communities”.

A displaced family flees Solino, a neighborhood in the heart of Haiti’s capital, following increased insecurity due to gang violence. Credit: UNICEF/Ralph Tedy Erol

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 28 2024 (IPS)

As gangs continuously seize more territory in the Haitian capital, Port-Au-Prince, the humanitarian crisis deepens. Gang violence in Haiti has considerably escalated following the deployment of the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and the appointment of the new Prime Minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. Attacks on civilians continue to increase in brutality as the severely underfunded MSS mission and lackluster police efforts do little to combat gang activity. Girls and women have been disproportionately affected by rampant gender-based violence.

Over the past several days, violent clashes between armed gangs, civilians, and police in Port-Au-Prince have intensified greatly. On November 25, the United Nations (UN) ordered its staff to evacuate following increased security concerns.

“We are temporarily reducing our footprint in the capital. The critical humanitarian programmes in Port-au-Prince as well as support for the Haitian people and authorities continue,” said Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, in a press release. This comes a few days after the medical humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders, announced that they would suspend operations in Haiti following continued threats of rape and violence from the local police.

Due to suspended relief efforts from humanitarian aid organizations and the relative ineffectiveness of the MSS mission, many Haitians have expressed concern over the dwindling of protections.

“Every Haitian thinks that we are being abandoned by the whole world. If I was in a foreign country and I believed at any moment my life could be at risk, I would leave too,” says Dr. Wesner Junior Jacotin, a physician in Haiti.

American missionary David Lloyd, who lost his children due to an attack by Haitian gangs earlier this year, expressed uncertainty for the future of Haiti to reporters. “Seems like everyone that can is relocating to somewhere outside of Port-au-Prince. My question is, after Port-au-Prince is burned, where is next? Will the gangs go to Cap Haitien then? Someone needs to make a stand and say enough is enough,” said Lloyd.

The UN estimates that the death toll from gang violence in Haiti has surpassed 4,500 civilians. On November 20, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Volker Türk warned that the growing insecurity in the capital is a “harbinger of worse to come,” stressing that if proper action is not taken, conditions will further deteriorate. The UN confirmed in a press release that at least 150 people have been killed, 92 injured, and 20,000 displaced over the past week. Additionally, it is predicted that Port-Au-Prince’s population of 4 million people are being held hostage by gangs as all of the main pathways to the capital have been besieged.

The UN has warned that there have been increasing reported cases of gender-based violence in Haiti. According to figures from the Human Rights Watch (HRW), there have been over 54,000 cases of gender-based violence from January to October of this year. The true number of cases is unknown but is believed to be much higher.

“The rule of law in Haiti is so broken that members of criminal groups rape girls or women without fearing any consequences. The international community should urgently increase funding for comprehensive programs to support survivors of sexual violence,” said Nathalye Cotrino, a crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch.

According to HRW, there has been a 1000 percent increase in cases of sexual violence involving children in the past year. Many of the survivors are left with complications, including injuries, mental trauma, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. Yet, due to an overall lack of medical and psychosocial support for victims alongside a pervasive stigma and fear of retaliation, many victims do not come forward.

Haiti’s ban on abortions has only exacerbated this issue. “Haitian women and girls facing poverty resort to unsafe abortions, risking their lives. Unsafe abortions are the third leading cause of maternal mortality,” said Pascale Solages, director of the women’s organization Nègès Mawon.

On November 24, the MSS mission announced via a statement posted to X (formerly known as Twitter) that they are cooperating with the Haitian National Police (HNP) to target gang operations in Delmas. “These operations are specifically targeting gang leaders responsible for terrorizing innocent civilians. MSS is resolute in its mission and will not relent until these perpetrators are apprehended and brought to justice. Our commitment to dismantling gang networks and dislodging them from their strongholds remains firm,” the statement reads.

The Haitian government has called for a full-scale peacekeeping operation to be sent to Haiti, adding that the MSS mission lacks the necessary personnel and equipment to respond effectively to the gangs.

Miroslav Jenca, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, urged the Security Council to discuss peacekeeping options in Haiti on November 20. “Amid the severe and multifaceted crisis in Haiti, robust international security support is required now. This is not just another wave of insecurity; it is a dramatic escalation that shows no signs of abating,” Jenca said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit Sebastian Voortman

By Mathieu Belbéoch and Emma Heslop
GENEVA / PARIS, Nov 28 2024 (IPS)

At their recent Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the G20 committed to support developing countries in responding to global crises and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To meet that pledge, the world’s leading economies need to enhance global collaboration and investment in ocean prediction systems and technology.

As we highlight in the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (UNESCO-IOC) 2024 State of the Ocean Report, this is key to both addressing climate change and closing the gaps currently hindering progress towards multiple SDGs.

Strengthening the capacity of under-resourced countries to improve ocean observing and forecasting is imperative to protect people from the impacts of a changing ocean.

Sea level is rising and will accelerate in the future, driven by unprecedented ocean warming and melting glaciers, including the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets. Not only do we need climate action, but—with the ocean containing 40 times as much carbon as the atmosphere—we need to increase our understanding of how proposed climate solutions will interact with the ocean’s carbon cycle and ecosystems, and the resulting risks and benefits.

In fact, observations and forecasts of the ocean’s physical, chemical and biological changes should be at the root of all sustainable development decision-making. Fortunately, new technologies and networks mean our capacity for monitoring and prediction is growing, but not fast enough and not in all parts of the ocean.

After four decades of investment, ocean prediction systems have matured and can now provide accurate forecasts. However, persistent gaps remain, both spatially—particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, polar regions, and island nations—and thematically in critical application areas where more ocean data is needed to advance our prediction of extreme weather, coastal hazards, marine biodiversity, and ocean health.

There is an increasingly urgent need to fill in these missing links to allow us to adapt to changes, predict and manage risk, develop accurate future climate scenarios, and accelerate sustainable blue economic growth—including clean ocean energy technologies.

To date, the Global Ocean Observing System comprises more than 8,000 observing platforms, operated by 84 countries through16 global networks and many biological and ecological observing programmes, and delivering more than 120,000 observations into operational systems daily.

However, to address global challenges and inequalities, spatial and temporal ocean observation gaps must be addressed, particularly those related to the inter-connected triple planetary crises of climate, biodiversity and pollution. That will require recognition of the Global Ocean Observing System as a critical infrastructure and greater cooperation to align data reporting and access.

Free and open data access must be assured as a prerequisite for equitable global sharing of data and information. Supporting this will help G20 States to reduce asymmetries in science, technology, and innovation; one of the inequalities the Leaders’ Summit declared to be at the root of all global challenges.

To improve data access and interoperability, worldwide efforts coordinated by the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) have established a network of 101 data centres in 68 countries. Further expansion of this integrated IOC Data Architecture, including the development of UNESCO-IOC’s Ocean InfoHub Project and new Ocean Data and Information System (ODIS), will create a more unified data delivery infrastructure and continue to support information accessibility as part of action under SDG14.

It is extremely concerning that, despite technological advances, a combination of inflation and flat national funding means that there has been no significant growth in ocean observations in the last five years. One area that demands urgent attention is the enhancement of global, regional and coastal observing and forecasting capabilities for biogeochemistry.

Although there has been investment in biogeochemical sensors, they still represent a small fraction of the observing system; for example, only 7.5% of the current system measures dissolved oxygen and this figure drops even further for other biogeochemical variables.

To provide the baseline information needed to track ocean carbon and oxygen levels, we need a significant increase in both biological and biogeochemical observations.

Another missing piece of the puzzle is the 75% of the ocean floor that remains unmapped. New technologies and partnerships are mobilizing and 5.4 million km2 of new data have been obtained since 2022, but there is still a long way to go. Greater global efforts to expand our knowledge of the seafloor are essential and must be spread across both hemispheres.

A primary driver of the North-South disparity in ocean prediction is the need for extensive supercomputing infrastructure. New forecasting systems using AI models promise to reduce this imbalance. With these data-driven systems, a ten-day forecast can be computed in less than a minute, and there is potential for AI-based forecasts to enlarge the limits of predictability up to 60 days. This would help safeguard coastal cities and build climate resilience.

The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 is a chance to mobilize transformative changes in ocean forecasting by developing a new framework for ocean prediction and capitalizing on key opportunities, including leveraging the advent of AI. This work has already begun, but too many communities are still not benefiting from sophisticated coastal forecasting.

We call on G20 leaders to prioritize ocean observation, data management and prediction as they take action to meet their commitment to the SDGs and global challenges. Global cooperation and investment in prediction technology and equitable access to ocean data will bring multiple, long-term benefits to millions of people across the world. It’s time to bridge the North-South divide and advance equitable ocean prediction for a safer, more sustainable future.

Mathieu Belbéoch, World Meteorological Organization, OceanOPS; Emma Heslop, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Farmer Hasan Khan took photos of his farm in Kasur during the smog. Credit: Hasan Khan

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Nov 28 2024 (IPS)

Atif Manzoor, 45, the owner of the renowned blue pottery business in Multan, had every reason to feel cheerful last week when the sun finally came out. For a good three weeks, the city of Sufi shrines had been shrouded in an envelope of thick smog.

For over three weeks, he said, business had been terrible, with “several orders canceled” and advance payments refunded. He also had to bear the transport costs he had already paid after the government imposed restrictions on heavy traffic and closed the motorways due to poor visibility.

Thick smog had blanketed cities across Punjab province, home to 127 million people, since the last week of October. Multan, with a population of 2.2 million, recorded an air quality index (AQI) above 2,000, surpassing Lahore, the provincial capital, where the AQI exceeded 1,000.

While Lahore’s AQI has improved, it still fluctuates between 250 (very unhealthy) and 350 (hazardous) on the Swiss company’s scale, keeping it among the top cities in the world with the poorest air quality. As this article went into publication, it was 477, or “very unhealthy.”

Terming the AQI levels in Punjab, in particular Lahore and Multan, “unprecedented, Punjab’s Environment Secretary, Raja Jahangir Anwar, blamed the “lax construction regulations, poor fuel quality, and allowing old smoke-emitting vehicles plying on the roads, residue burning of rice crops to prepare the fields for wheat sowing” as some of the factors contributing to the smog in winter when the air near the ground becomes colder and drier.

Manzoor was not alone in his predicament. Smog had disrupted everyone’s life in the province, including students, office workers, and those who owned or worked in or owned smoke-emitting businesses like kilns, restaurants, construction, factories, or transport, after authorities put restrictions on them.

Even farmers in rural settings were not spared. Hasan Khan, 60, a farmer from Kasur, said that the lack of sunlight, poor air quality, transport delays preventing laborers from reaching farms, and low visibility were all hindering farm work and stunting crop growth.

“The smog hampered plant growth by blocking sunlight and slowing photosynthesis, and since we do flood irrigation, the fields stay drenched longer, causing crop stress, and the trees began shedding their leaves due to poor air quality,” he said.

A screenshot of the IQAir airquality index for Thursday, November 28, 2024, showing the top 10 most polluted cities. Credit: IQAir

Divine Intervention or Blueskying

After weeks of relentless smog, residents of Punjab had been calling for artificial rain, similar to what was done last year. This process involves releasing chemicals like silver iodide from airplanes to induce rainfall. However, Anwar explained that artificial rain requires specific weather conditions, including the right humidity levels, cloud formations, and wind patterns. “We only carry out cloud seeding when there is at least a 50 percent chance of precipitation,” he said.

On November 15, favorable weather conditions allowed for cloud seeding over several cities and towns in Punjab’s Potohar Plateau, leading to natural rainfall in Islamabad and surrounding areas. The forecast also predicted that this would trigger rain in Lahore.

On November 23, Lahore received its first winter rain, which helped clear the thick, toxic smog that had been causing eye irritation and throat discomfort, revealing the sun and a clear blue sky. However, some believe the downpour was the result of the collective rain prayer, Namaz-e-Istisqa, held at mosques across the province, seeking divine intervention.

But cloud seeding has its critics. Dr. Ghulam Rasul, advisor at the China-Pakistan Joint Research Centre and former head of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, cautioned that cloud seeding might reduce smog temporarily, but it was not a sustainable solution. Instead, it could create dry conditions that worsen fog and smog. He also warned that an overdose could trigger hailstorms or heavy rainfall.

Once the smog thinned and the air quality improved, the government eased its restrictions, allowing shops and restaurants (with barbecues if smoke is controlled) to remain open till 8 pm and 10 pm, respectively; schools and colleges have also opened, and the ban placed on construction work, brick kiln operations, and heavy transport vehicles (carrying passengers, fuels, medicines, and foods), including ambulances, rescue, fire brigades, prison, and police vehicles, has also been lifted. In addition, the government has installed 30 air quality monitors around Lahore and other cities of the province.

While the air may have cleared, health issues left in its wake are expected to persist, according to medical practitioners. Over the past 30 days, the official score of people seeking medical treatment for respiratory problems in the smog-affected districts of the province reached over 1.8 million people. In Lahore, the state-owned news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan, reported 5,000 cases of asthma.

“Frankly, this figure seems rather underreported,” said Dr. Ashraf Nizami, president of the Pakistan Medical Association’s Lahore chapter.

“This is just the beginning,” warned Dr. Salman Kazmi, an internist in Lahore. “Expect more cases of respiratory infections and heart diseases ahead,” he said.

UNICEF had also warned that 1.1 million children under five in the province were at risk due to air pollution. “Young children are more vulnerable because of smaller lungs, weaker immunity, and faster breathing,” the agency stated.

While the government has put several measures in place, a long-term, measurable plan is needed, say experts. Credit: Hasan Khan

Ineffective Band-Aid Solutions

Although the government took several measures to manage the smog, few were impressed. Climate governance expert Imran Khalid, blaming the “environmental misgovernance for degradation of an already poor air quality across Pakistan,” found the anti-smog plan a “hodgepodge of general policy measures” with no long-term measurable plan.

He argued that the plan only targets seasonal smog instead of taking a year-round “regional, collective approach” to fighting air pollution across the entire Indus-Gangetic plains, not just in Lahore or Multan.

“I will take this seriously when I see a complete action plan in one place, preceded by a diagnostic of the causes and followed by a prioritization of actions with a timeline for implementation monitored by a committee with representation of civil society,” said Dr. Anjum Altaf, an educationist specializing in several fields along with environmental sciences. “Till such time, it is just words!” he added.

Khalid said plans and policies can only succeed if they are evidence-based, inclusive, bottom-up, and “and implemented by well-trained authorities, supported by political will and resources, flexible in response to challenges, and focused on the health of the people.”

Others argue that the slow response to the decade-long smog crisis, despite a clear understanding of its causes, reflects a matter of misplaced priorities.

“It’s all about priority,” said Aarish Sardar, a design educator, curator, and writer based in Lahore. “Many years ago, when the government wanted to nip the dengue epidemic, it was able to,” he said.

“Mosquitoes were eliminated once they reached officials’ residences,” said farmer Khan, agreeing that when there is political will, remarkable changes can occur.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Kaieteur Falls in the Potaro River, Guyana. The country has a clear path forward to employ its oil and gas resources for economic and social sustainability by investing long-term in sustainability across society, environment, and economy. Credit: Shutterstock

By Rio Namegaya
SAN DIEGO, USA, Nov 27 2024 (IPS)

Long before the transformative discovery of its offshore oil in 2015, Guyana had made a strong pledge to decarbonization and climate action as set forth in its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) 2030. The development of its oil industry has led to remarkable economic growth in Guyana, including a 62.3% growth rate in 2022.

But balancing its oil-driven economic growth with its longstanding commitment to climate action and the promise of sustainability — the milestones and objectives of the LCDS policy framework — will be essential. Put simply, how can its idealistic and ambitious pathway become a reality?

The country’s offshore oil deposits have reached 11 billion barrels and production is set to top 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027, making this small Latin American country one of the fastest-growing oil producers in the world

To begin, it is essential to understand the truly transformative nature of the country’s oil and gas sector development. The country’s offshore oil deposits have reached 11 billion barrels and production is set to top 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027, making this small Latin American country one of the fastest-growing oil producers in the world.

The expected boost in production is estimated to bring in revenue of 7.5 billion USD to the Government of Guyana by 2040. This is motivation strong enough for a small developing country like Guyana to balance “the goose that lays the golden egg” with its promise of Paris Agreement targets and a global status as a leading advocate for decarbonization among developing countries that was earned before its offshore oil was found.

For Guyana, there is a clear and obvious key to achieving such a delicate balance: the nation’s forest ecosystems. Guyana is a country with the second-highest percentage of global forest cover that can annually store 19.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide (almost 40% of global emissions) and capture 154 million tons per year from the atmosphere.

This has afforded the coastal nation to stake a clear claim as one of the globe’s few carbon-negative jurisdictions. Furthermore, it has allowed the country to succeed in monetizing its conservation efforts through Architecture for REDD+ Transaction: the REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (“ART TREES”), a global climate initiative focused on forestry conservation, including managing, monitoring, and reporting carbon credits.

With the carbon credit certification from ART TREES, Guyana issued carbon credits for the first time as a country. Successive efforts allowed Guyana to secure a carbon-credit transaction in 2022 with Hess Corporation, a US gas and oil producer.

The agreement, that spans the years 2016-2030, includes payment to Guyana totaling at least 750 million USD to compensate for emissions in the oil production process.

This agreement also proves Guyana’s commitment to balancing oil production and sustainability by way of protecting its tropical forests, as the carbon credits payments are conditioned upon the requirement that 99% or more of Guyana’s forests remain intact.

Another notable sign of Guyana’s long-term readiness to strike the balance for its ambitious energy transition plan is Community-produced Village Sustainability Plans (VSPs).

As stipulated in the LCDS 2030, 15% of the revenue from the carbon market is used for Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs). It should be noted that this is an important distinction for Guyana’s efforts when compared to other countries in the region.

Moreover, the VSP’s are part of Guyana’s sense of urgency to mitigate and adapt to the risks and impacts of climate change as a Latin American country particularly vulnerable to the most pernicious impacts from climate change.

The country has repeatedly underscored how it views its role as one of the most crucial countries in biodiversity conservation while shaping policy and governance lessons as to how to invest the oil revenue in possible expansion and conservation of forests, coastal, land, and ocean biodiversity, and heightening resilience against climate change impacts.

Successful development and implementation of these plans could both save lives in the region and further advance Guyana’s economic development while affording crucial lessons learned globally.

Further, Guyana also uses revenue from the carbon market to invest in education and other public services, agriculture, manufacturing, and IT industries.

These measures are important to stave off and mitigate the impacts of the resource curse. The early results are positive as the non-oil economy grew by 12.6% in 2024, which points to an important start and reassuring evidence that Guyana is working to diversify its economy.

In other words, Guyana is already preparing an antidote to “Dutch Disease,” a phenomenon where accelerated growth in one sector harms the economy in another sector as seen in the Netherlands, where discovery of oil and gas and rapid development and income generation for the nation resulted in a decline in manufacturing industry during the 1970s.

Finally, Guyana is aware that its continued commitment to environmental sustainability improves the long-term viability of both oil production and its domestic economy.

Continued development of an efficient level of production in its burgeoning offshore oil industry combined with important carbon capture technologies is positioning the nation’s output as so-called “low-carbon” barrels.

As oil demand declines over the coming years, it also seems apparent that changes in international regulations and governance would impact high-carbon producers first.

Nothing would promise longer prospects as an oil producer for Guyana than as a sustainable low-carbon oil producer. Such attributes can ensure Guyanese oil competitive even after achieving global net-zero carbon emissions despite being a latecomer to the global oil market.

An optimist might even add that this would pressure other major existing producers to lower their carbon emissions if considering Guyana’s collaboration with Norway—another oil producer aiming to lower net carbon emissions in recent years.

Guyana has shown its strong and confident commitment to sustainability in oil production and social and economic development through a commitment to policy and legislation at the domestic level.

The nation’s ambitiousness of harnessing the economic opportunity presented from the discovery of its massive offshore oil wealth has not subsumed the longstanding and necessary commitment to biodiversity and climate action.

Indeed, the country has a clear path forward to employ its oil and gas resources for economic and social sustainability by investing long-term in sustainability across society, environment, and economy.

Rio Namegaya is a graduate student at the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS)

 

Female workers sort out plastic bottles for recycling in a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Abir Abdullah/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Masum Billah
DHAKA, Nov 27 2024 (IPS)

After Bangladesh’s interim government banned polyethene bags, a new sense of hope has emerged for the Sonali bag—a jute-based, eco-friendly alternative developed in 2017 by Bangladeshi scientist Dr. Mubarak Ahmed Khan. Sonali bag, or the golden bag, is named after the golden fiber of jute from which it is made.

Despite its promises, the project has struggled to make significant progress due to a lack of funding. However, following the announcement of the polythene bag ban, Mubarak is now facing pressure to supply his Sonali bag to a market eager for sustainable alternatives.

“Since the government banned polythene bags, we have faced immense pressure of orders that we cannot meet—people are coming in with requests at an overwhelming rate,” Mubarak Ahmed Khan told the IPS.

The latest ban, which came into effect on October 1 for superstores and traditional markets on November 1, isn’t the first time Bangladesh has imposed a ban on polythene bags.

In 2002, the country became the first in the world to outlaw them, as plastic waste was severely clogging city drainage systems and exacerbating its waterlogging crisis, with Dhaka alone consuming an estimated 410 million polybags each month. But the ban gradually lost effectiveness over the years, largely due to a lack of affordable and practical alternatives and inadequate enforcement from regulatory authorities.

Dr. Mubarak Ahmed Khan in his office holding a Sonali Bag. Credit: Masum Billah/IPS

Polyethene bags, although cheaper, are harmful to the environment as they are non-biodegradable and their decomposition takes at least 400 years. Sonali Bag as an alternative, on the other hand, is regarded as a game-changer because it is biodegradable, capable of decomposing in three months.

The ban comes as the UN Plastics Treaty Negotiations are underway in Busan, South Korea. The UN Environment Programme estimates that around the world, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute.

“In total, half of all plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes—used just once and then thrown away.”

Without an agreement, the OECD estimates that annual plastic production, use, and waste are predicted to increase by 70 percent in 2040 compared to 2020. This on a planet already choking on plastic waste.

The talks have in the past stalled over a disagreement over how to manage waste, with some countries favouring introducing a cap on plastic production and others supporting circularity with use, reuse, and recycling as the main objectives.

The plastics treaty talks will run from 25 November 2024 to 1 December 2024.

However, despite its environmental benefits and higher demands, in Bangladesh the Sonali Bag project still remains within the pilot phase.

A late start for funding crisis

After Mubarak’s invention made headlines, the country’s state-owned Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation launched a pilot project, setting up a jute-polymer unit at the Latif Bawani Jute Mill to produce Sonali Bag.

Mubarak said they have been asking for government funds, as the project has been operating under the Ministry of Textiles and Jute. However, the basic funding that kept the pilot project running expired last December, and the previous government—which was toppled in August in a mass uprising—had discontinued the project.

“There had been assurances that we might receive Tk100 crore (about USD 8 million) in funding from the government by July. But then came political unrest and a change in government,” Mubarak said.

After the new government took charge, they renewed the pledges to fund the Sonali Bag project.

“The interim government told us that we will get the money in January. If that happens, we will be able to produce five tons of bags per day,” Mubarak said. “Five tons may not be a lot, but it will give us the chance to demonstrate our work to private investors, boosting their confidence to engage with us.”

According to Mubarak, one kilogram of Sonali bags amounts to around 100 pieces of small bags. Based on this estimate, five tons could produce around 15 million bags per month.

Bangladesh’s current adviser to the Ministry of Textiles and Jute, Md. Sakhawat Hossain, told IPS that they are seriously considering funding the Sonali Bag project this January, although he acknowledged that his ministry is currently facing a funding crisis.

“The work will begin in full scale after the fund is provided,” Sakhawat Hossain said. When asked if Mubarak would receive the funds by January, he replied, “We hope so.”

A ban without adequate alternatives at hand

Mubarak Ahmed Khan regards the government’s decision to ban polythene bags as a “praiseworthy” initiative. However, he emphasized that sustainable and affordable alternatives to the polythene bags should come soon.

Mubarak is not alone in his concerns. Sharif Jamil, founder of Waterkeepers Bangladesh, an organization dedicated to protecting water bodies, shares skepticism about the effectiveness of the ban this time, citing the lack of sustainable alternatives in the market.

“The announcement of this ban is an important and timely step. However, it must also be noted that our previous ban was not enforced. Without addressing the underlying issues that led to nonenforcement of the previous ban, the new polythene ban will not resolve the existing problems. It is crucial to tackle the challenges that allowed polythene to remain in the market,” Sharif Jamil told IPS.

“If you don’t provide people with an alternative and simply remove polythene from the markets, the ban won’t be effective,” he added.

Sharif noted that the existing alternatives in the market are not affordable, with some selling alternative jute bags at Tk25 in supermarkets, while polythene bags are often offered at a price that is essentially free.

“Alternatives need to be more affordable and accessible to the public,” he said.

Mubarak stated that his Sonali bag currently costs Tk10 per piece, but he anticipates lowering the price with increased production and demand.

The pursuit of competition in sustainable alternatives

Sharif Jamil, however, wants competition in the sustainable alternatives market.

“It is not only about incentivizing Dr. Mubarak’s project,” Sharif said.

This technology has to be incentivized and recognized, but the government also has to ensure two other things, he said.

“If the government can make it accessible to people at a lower price, it will reach them. Secondly, if the alternative remains solely with Mubarak, it will create a monopoly again,” he said.

It must undergo competition, he recommended. Bangladesh has a competition commission to ensure that other existing sustainable green solutions on the market are also incentivized and recognized.

“Besides facilitating and upgrading Mubarak’s project, the government should ensure fair competition so that people can access it at a lower price,” he added.

For the sake of environment

Adviser Shakhawat Hossain said that they are optimistic about the success of Sonali Bag.

“Already the ambassadors of various countries are meeting me about this. Some buying houses too have been created for this. It seems it will be a sustainable development,” he said.

Mubarak said that if they get the funding soon, Sonali Bag will have a market not only in Bangladesh but all over the world.

He said the private investors should come forward not just because the government has banned polythene bags, but out of a moral obligation to address the negative impact these bags have on the environment.

“With this, I believe we can create a polythene-free environment,” Mubarak said, acknowledging, “It is not easy to introduce this to the market solely because it is a new product. We are up against an USD 3.5 trillion single-use plastic market.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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