PRC Rare Earth Metal Hoarding: Fake Trade Issue?

Given several new developments, today's a mighty fine time to update our coverage [1, 2] of worldwide rare earth metal availability provided its importance to modern industrial production. Beginning a year and a half ago, the US, EU and Mexico filed related WTO cases [DS 394, 395 and 398 respectively] challenging the PRC's use of quotas, export duties and licence requirements to limit exports of rare earth metals required in many high-technology products. With 95-97% of these metals emanating from the PRC at the present time, it is not a trivial problem for various manufacturing concerns abroad that rely on their supply. Although the PRC has claimed that environmental protection and conservation were the grounds for limiting exports, such claims have been undermined by largely unfettered access by local firms to these rare earth metals. The NY Times cheat sheet above graphically illustrates China's dominant position in sourcing these valuable materials.

To make a long story short, China has just been found in violation of trade rules via a ruling from the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism. Bloomberg offers a summary. The naturally pleased US Trade Representative claims victory while offering this version of what has just transpired:

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced today that a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel has agreed with the United States, finding that export restraints imposed by China on several important industrial raw materials are inconsistent with China’s WTO obligations. China’s actions were not justified as conservation measures, environmental protection measures, or short supply measures. The raw materials at issue include various forms of bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorus, and zinc, and are used in a multitude of downstream applications in the steel, aluminum and chemicals industries...

The export restraints challenged in this dispute include export quotas and export duties, as well as related minimum export price, export licensing, and export quota administration requirements. These types of export restraints can skew the playing field against the United States and other countries in the production and export of numerous processed steel, aluminum and chemical products and a wide range of further processed products. The export restraints can artificially increase world prices for these raw material inputs while artificially lowering prices for Chinese producers. This enables China’s domestic downstream producers to produce lower-priced products from the raw materials and thereby creates significant advantages for China’s producers when competing against U.S. and other producers both in China’s market and other countries’ markets. The export restraints can also create substantial pressure on foreign downstream producers to move their operations and, as a result, their technologies to China.

The USTR's claims on "market distortion" grounds are straightforward: the Chinese are responsible for rare earth metal shortages worldwide that disadvantage foreign firms by limiting their availability while raising their prices. However, local producers do not face similar limitations. What's more, perhaps consistent with China's wish to be on the technological leading edge via knowledge transfer, such limitations encourage foreign manufacturers to bypass such restrictions by locating in the Middle Kingdom.

But is that all there is to this story? While the US, EU and Mexico chose the route of litigation to free up more supplies from China, Japan appears to have found a (potentially) superior solution: get these materials from non-PRC sources. And so we have another tale hot off the presses touting Japan's newfound sources that both cut out China and make these metals appear less rare than at first glance. Instead of being in Inner Mongolia, these finds are under the sea:

Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday. "The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption," said Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo.

The discovery was made by a team led by Kato and including researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. They found the minerals in sea mud extracted from depths of 3,500 to 6,000 meters (11,500-20,000 ft) below the ocean surface at 78 locations. One-third of the sites yielded rich contents of rare earths and the metal yttrium, Kato said in a telephone interview.

The deposits are in international waters in an area stretching east and west of Hawaii, as well as east of Tahiti in French Polynesia, he said. [Kato] estimated rare earths contained in the deposits amounted to 80 to 100 billion tonnes, compared to global reserves currently confirmed by the U.S. Geological Survey of just 110 million tonnes that have been found mainly in China, Russia and other former Soviet countries, and the United States.

We then return to the geopolitics of it all:

A chronic shortage of rare earths, vital for making a range of high-technology electronics, magnets and batteries, has encouraged mining projects for them in recent years. China, which accounts for 97 percent of global rare earth supplies, has been tightening trade in the strategic metals, sparking an explosion in prices. Japan, which accounts for a third of global demand, has been stung badly, and has been looking to diversify its supply sources, particularly of heavy rare earths such as dysprosium used in magnets.

Kato said the sea mud was especially rich in heavier rare earths such as gadolinium, lutetium, terbium and dysprosium. "These are used to manufacture flat-screen TVs, LED (light-emitting diode) valves, and hybrid cars," he said.

As you would expect, there are qualifiers. First, Japan is not free and clear to mine them unlike if they were in its exclusive economic zone, i.e. its territorial waters. If it wishes to abide by international law which I presume it does, then it will have to consult with UNCLOS authorities--and likely with other countries which have manufacturing interests such as the litigants mentioned above. The Economist offers this take on potential complications:

Seafloor mining beyond countries’ territorial waters is regulated by the International Seabed Authority, set up under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. So far it has issued only eight licences, all for exploration, not production, all for nodules, not massive-sulphide deposits, and all to governmental or quasi-governmental agencies (of China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and an east European consortium). No wonder. Commercial miners want both a clear title to their holding and exclusive rights to exploit it. They also have to answer to shareholders.

Second, there are likely more technical obstacles to deep sea mining and, third, its environmental sustainability than the Japanese let on. From Nature News:

Current on-land mines, and sites picked out for future mines, have rare-earth concentrations of about 3–10%, he points out [whereas those found by the Japan researchers are in the 0.1-0.2% range]. The much lower concentrations at the Chinese clay mine mentioned by Kato and his colleagues are only economically viable because the material is much easier to access than it would be in hard rock. That's not true for mud located below 4 or 5 kilometres of water, which would require expensive ship time and equipment to pull up. "There are better options," he says.

Craig Smith, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, notes that companies are exploring the idea of mining manganese nodules from the sea floor to exploit their commercially-valuable contents, including copper and nickel as well as rare earths. Commercial mining of nodules is "probably a decade away", says Smith. Ocean mud could prove another possible source of the increasingly valuable elements.

Smith and others have raised concerns about the environmental consequences of deep-sea mining, particularly around hydrothermal vents, which host unique worms, clams and other life. Kato points out that gathering the metals from mud won't involve disturbing the vents; he found the highest concentrations of rare-earth elements thousands of kilometres away from vents. Closer than that, the rare earths were diluted by other deposits. But Smith notes that sea-floor life away from vents could also be fragile. Ecosystems on the cold ocean floor regenerate very slowly, he says, so any damage done by mining could take decades or centuries to heal.

Qualifiers and all, it's a potentially significant discovery. Whether Japan itself stands to benefit from this find is a matter of interpretation concerning the law of the sea and the state of deep sea mining technology. (If you're further interested, io9 has a map depicting where these deposits lie as per the Nature Geoscience article.)

Returning to the main story, China also has the opportunity to appeal the WTO ruling, though I firmly believe that the PRC's claims are covers for protectionism plain and simple. Perhaps other countries ramping up the capacity to mine rare earth metals on land will be more viable than either the route of litigation or deep sea mining. That said, China being alone in continuing large-scale mining of such resources remains a testament to its foresight and long-term planning. In a way, it's being punished for being resourceful, dubious PRC claims at the WTO notwithstanding.

Will Airbus Lose PRC Orders on Emissions Regs?

Environmentalists usually applaud countries or regions where regulations are most stringent for obvious reasons. Aside from encouraging better fuel economy or lower emissions, there can be substantial knock-on effects. Consider America. The United States remains the world's second largest car market after China. With the state of California leading the nation in regulatory standards for automobile emissions--some vehicles sold in the 49 other states don't meet California regulations--auto manufacturers often just adopt the standard mandated by California. End result? Even if other states' lawmakers are not as concerned with the environment, standards are ratcheted upwards by a major market mandating standards exceeding those of others. And it certainly is welcome: those of you who've experienced LA smog at its worst know what I'm talking about.

Now we come to a grander analogy of the California-USA emissions dynamic. The European Union will in 2012 include in its carbon emissions scheme all airlines that fly in and out of the EU--including non-European ones. Certainly this sort of Cali-esque ratcheting up is welcome from my point of view given how recalcitrant the world's two largest carbon emitters--China and the US in that order--have been at venues alike the Copenhagen summit.

That said, the EU may have shot itself in the foot as far is its commercial fortunes go. You see, aside from being the region which will soon lead the world in attempts to curb aerospace emissions, it too is home to the world's bestselling passenger aircraft manufacturer in Airbus. It's a problem familiar to millions when environmental and economic interests seem to collide. The basic contours of the current impasse go thusly: PRC leadership is making its displeasure over EU aerospace sovereignty-at-bay known by jeopardizing previous orders for Airbus jets. Privately owned airlines based in Hong Kong are reportedly not immune since the PRC leadership is busy trying to scuttle previous multibillion dollar deals.

In other words, the PRC seeks to water down carbon trading schemes being applied to its airlines serving EU-27 nations by putting Airbus' order book under pressure. From the WSJ:

China's anger with the European Union's emissions-trading scheme for airlines has delayed the revealing of a major Airbus deal and could undermine upcoming deals, according to people familiar with the situation. Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., had expected to announce at the Paris Air Show this week that Hong Kong Airlines Ltd. ordered 10 of its A380 superjumbo jetliners, with a catalog value of almost $4 billion. The deal's unveiling was put on ice by officials in Beijing, who must give final approval, these people said.

The Chinese government held off because it disapproves of the EU's intention to regulate greenhouse emissions of foreign airlines operating to and from the 27-country bloc, according to the people close to the talks.

An Airbus spokesman said the company wanted to name the A380 buyer, "but the political environment would not allow us to do that." A Hong Kong Airlines spokeswoman earlier this month said the carrier planned to announce an A380 order at the trade event outside Paris. The A380 deal was completed before Beijing interceded and appears not to be in jeopardy, said one person close to the situation. But other planned orders for big Airbus planes have been frozen, this person said.

"The Chinese have told us directly that their airlines are not allowed to get into deals with Europe," said a person close to the European side of the discussions. A spokesman for the Chinese mission to the EU recently said that the country is "opposed to the EU's inclusion of [Chinese] airlines" in its emissions-trading plan. The spokesman didn't immediately respond to questions about the situation with Airbus.

For now, China's anger is unlikely to hurt the European plane maker, which has an order book of more than 3,500 planes for customers globally. But China is the biggest growth market world-wide for aviation. Airbus in 2009 opened an assembly plant in Tianjin, China, to tap the local market and curry favor with the government.

To no one's particular surprise, the commercial (Airbus) and political interests in the EU are at loggerheads. There is also arm-twisting in the opposite direction as the PRC looks set to put a squeeze on permissions for European carriers wishing to fly to increasingly lucrative Chinese destinations. That is, Europeans may make some of the best commercial passenger aircraft, but the locations to which they will increasingly fly to are in the Asia-Pacific. In other words, this political-economic quarrel is possibly quite evenly matched:

The EU's pollution-control plan, which is set to include aviation starting in January, forces any carrier departing or arriving at an EU airport to buy credits for greenhouse-gas emissions above specified levels, with large fines for noncompliance. China's move appears to be the first retaliation against the EU program. China, the U.S., Russia and other countries have strongly objected to the plan. They see it as unilateral and potentially illegal because it may assert extraterritorial jurisdiction on carriers from other countries.

"A global issue needs a global solution," said the Airbus spokesman, who called the plan "a bureaucratic tiger." Airbus and the Association of European Airlines last month wrote to top EU officials to warn about potential retaliation from China. EU officials have repeatedly said they won't retreat on their program.

Some European airlines have recently held back on asking for permission to increase capacity on Chinese routes because they expected applications to be rejected, said one person with knowledge of the situation.

Aside from Boeing possibly taking away Airbus orders over emissions, those other whiny superpolluters, the Americans, are already complaining at the ECJ:

The U.S. government on Tuesday formally presented its opposition to the EU plan for the first time at a meeting with EU officials in Oslo. A group of U.S. airlines has separately filed suit against the EU plan. The first hearing on that case before the European Court of Justice is due on July 5.

So it seems the world's superpolluters--China and the US which are #1 and #2 respectively in carbon emissions--are keen on punishing those trying to do Mother Earth some favours. Still, I have to applaud the EU stance on this matter. Whether it can hold out on principle long enough to see similarly stringent regulation adopted worldwide--the ultimate goal--will be fascinating to watch. Airbus won't be crying uncle anytime soon, so what the heck...

Of Arctic Oil Grabs and Greenland's Independence

Some rich men came and raped the land; nobody caught 'em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes and Jesus people bought 'em
And they called it paradise--the place to be
They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea

[NOTE: I almost missed this one, but it's better late than never. Might as well cue up "The Last Resort" by The Eagles while you're at it.] There's something profoundly distasteful about the whole process of warming over Mother Earth to exploit her oil and gas resources in the Arctic. Which, when used, will further worsen global warming. As most of you know, melting of ice up North has prompted all sorts of manoeuvring to secure future exploration rights among the Nordic countries, Canada, the United States, and Russia. Recently, the major nations in the impending Arctic oil grab got together and signed the Nuuk Declaration. The World Policy Institute provides a brief description:

On May 12, the 7th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting convened in Nuuk, Greenland. The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum created to promote cooperation among the Arctic states. Its members are Canada, Denmark (via Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States. Permanent participants include indigenous organizations such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) and the Saami Council. Unlike member states, permanent participants do not have voting rights.

The meeting, attended primarily by foreign ministers, produced the first legally binding agreement arrived at by the Arctic states since the formation of the Council in 1996. This agreement requires states to cooperate on search-and-rescue operations, including giving permission for all states to traverse foreign waters when necessary. The eight Arctic states also formally agreed to jointly develop measures for oil pollution preparedness. Finally, the Nuuk Declaration also noted that the Arctic sea ice is melting at a faster rate than previously predicted, accelerating access to oil and gas reserves and opening up new sea routes for commerce and tourism.

However, the more interesting behind-the-scenes story involves diplomatic manoeuvring by the main players. While the Nuuk Declaration was being negotiated, WikiLeaks published a series of cables online pertaining to US policies concerning the Arctic. We might as well use some "Internet Freedom" right here, ey? (This story involves our Canadian friends so the lingo should be accurate ;-) As it turns out, the haughty Americans who usually avoid intrusions on national sovereignty at the UN are now considering signing on to UN Convention on the Law of the Sea according to leaked cables. This to be better placed to economolest Mother Earth when the time comes. From the first cable:

4. (C) D said the Administration continued to urge the Senate to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and had not given up all hope of achieving this during the Bush Administration. Ratification was clearly in the U.S. interest. [Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig] Moeller agreed, joking that "if you stay out, then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic."

Then there are predictions verging on the edge of conspiracy theory that future energy revenues will allow Greenland to become independent of Denmark. Naturally, major American energy firms are keen on approaching the players there for...future collaborations. These from Cable 129049 from the Copenhagen embassy in 2007:

2. (SBU) Summary: Greenland is on a clear track toward independence, which could come more quickly than most outside the Kingdom of Denmark realize.

3. (SBU) With Greenlandic independence glinting on the horizon, the U.S. has a unique opportunity to shape the circumstances in which an independent nation may emerge. We have real security and growing economic interests in Greenland, for which existing Joint and Permanent Committee mechanisms (described reftel A) may no longer be sufficient. American commercial investments, our continuing strategic military presence, and new high-level scientific and political interest in Greenland argue for establishing a small and seasonal American Presence Post in Greenland's capital as soon as practicable. End Summary.

14. (SBU) One senior Greenlandic official commented recently that his country (Greenlanders and many Danes alike routinely refer to Greenland as a ""country"") is "just one big oil strike away" from economic and political independence.

Chevron and ExxonMobil are part of an international consortium exploring off Greenland's western coast, and the U.S. Geological Survey is completing an assessment of Greenland's potential oil and gas reserves. Its initial findings suggest Greenland might have reserves to rival Alaska's North Slope. To help the Greenlanders secure the investments needed for such exploitation, I recently introduced Home Rule Premier Enoksen and Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs Aleqa Hammond to some of our top U.S. financial institutions in New York.

Hence the US engaging in all sorts of public relations efforts in Greenland. This being the 21st century, there's even paranoia about the Chinese wanting in on the action and thus the need to ward them off:

Our international visitor invitations, English teaching programs and joint scientific/environmental projects have reinforced Greenlandic desires for a closer relationship with the United States, just as Greenland assumes ever-greater charge of its international relations and edges closer to full independence. Our intensified outreach to the Greenlanders will encourage them to resist any false choice between the United States and Europe. It will also strengthen our relationship with Greenland vis-a-vis the Chinese, who have shown increasing interest in Greenland's natural resources… While Greenland has long been believed to possess significant hydrocarbon and mineral stocks, only in the last three to four years -- with the rise in world oil prices -- have international investors have begun to seriously explore Greenland's potential. An American Presence Post in Greenland would provide us with the needed diplomatic platform to seek out new opportunities and advance growing USG interests in Greenland.

Just when I was going to reach for my hankie over how all these nations were concerned about "the conservation, sustainable use and protection of Arctic flora and fauna for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations, including local populations and indigenous peoples" as per the Nuuk Declaration, I was plunged back to naked reality. It's an Arctic land grab, plain and simple. Will Greenland really be the 194th country after South Sudan? A question worth pondering, perhaps.

Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here

We satisfy our endless needs and justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny and the name of God

Fukushima Fallout: German Hypocrisy on Nukes?

As someone with an interest in both the introduction of innovations and sources of energy, I have closely followed developments in the public acceptance of nuclear power. To be sure, this acceptance varies country by country. What's more, harrowing incidences alike those of the Fukushima power plant tend to elicit different responses.

A few weeks ago, I probed why the French have not really questioned their reliance on nuclear power despite Fukushima reminding us all of its obvious hazards. On a crudely instrumental level, the French would be shooting themselves in the foot if they themselves expressed reservations about nuclear power since they are the world's biggest users and exporters of the technology. How would it look like to prospective customers if France itself began doubting the safety of its atomic products and services? Given French pride in their engineering achievements, there's also an element of distancing--"our" nuclear plants are safer and are not in an earthquake zone besides.

An interesting contrast is Germany. To be sure, there have been many u-turns here. Chancellor Merkel's socialist predecessors decided to phase out this technology before the CDU decided to extend its operational life. However, the recent Japanese calamity has resulted in another reassessment that (they say) will result in the irrevocable closure of these plants. And on and on it goes:

Germany's coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country's nuclear power plants phased out by 2022. The decision makes Germany the biggest industrial power to announce plans to give up nuclear energy. Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen made the announcement following late-night talks.

Chancellor Angela Merkel set up a panel to review nuclear power following the crisis at Fukushima in Japan. There have been mass anti-nuclear protests across Germany in the wake of March's Fukushima crisis, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.

Mr Rottgen said the seven oldest reactors - which were taken offline for a safety review immediately after the Japanese crisis - would never be used again. An eighth plant - the Kruemmel facility in northern Germany, which was already offline and has been plagued by technical problems, would also be shut down for good. Six others would go offline by 2021 at the latest and the three newest by 2022, he said. Mr Rottgen said: "It's definite. The latest end for the last three nuclear power plants is 2022. There will be no clause for revision.

Yes, whatever. While German deep greens may rejoice, there's the important matter of how Germany will replace the nearly 25% of its electricity needs accounted for by atom splicing. Yes, there will be the standard paeans to energy saving and renewable sources in this politically correct age. As I blogged earlier, though, it appears (non-CCS) King Coal is making a comeback to help fill the void. More questionable yet if eliminating nuclear power is really your goal is that the Germans appear to be buying more power from...the French. So, having let up on nuclear power, it looks like it's becoming more reliant on, er, others' nuclear power:

France became a net exporter of electricity to Germany last month after the Japanese atomic disaster and subsequent shutdown of German reactors reversed an electricity trading trend between Europe’s biggest markets. In April, France was a net exporter of power to Germany for the first time since the summer months of June, July and August last year, according to data published on the website of Reseau de Transport d’Electricite, the grid operator owned by Electricite de France SA, Europe’s biggest power generator.

Overall, French power imports from Germany outstripped exports last year. Power trading between the countries may change following German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in March to shut the country’s seven oldest reactors and today’s announcement of an exit from the power source by 2022.

EDF operates France’s 58 nuclear reactors which allow the country to be an net power exporter to European neighbors and provide relatively cheap electricity to customers at home. The state-controlled utility is developing a new atomic plant at Flamanville in Normandy and has plans for another in northern France at Penly. Since the Fukushima disaster in March, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is facing an election next year, has vowed to continue to invest in the atomic industry.

France, which relies on nuclear plants for about three- quarters of its power needs, exported a net 509 gigawatt hours to Germany last month compared with net imports of 618 gigawatts during the same month last year, RTE said. In the most recent month, Germany joined Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. in relying on France for more power imports than exports, the data indicates.

So, not only does Germany lose more energy independence via this move, but it too is buying nuclear power from its neighbour at a presumably higher cost. And of course, it's a ridiculous application of NIMBY--Not In My Back Yard. Not only are the Germans incentivizing the French to ramp up nuclear power production, but there is no wholesale safety improvement in moving nuclear power production to your next-door neighbour. You may not see the plants in your immediate surroundings, but it would be ludicrous to think fallout from a major accident in France would somehow skip Deutschland. And how exactly does increasing coal usage figure into a green economy?

The BBC also has an interesting piece on the politics of nuclear power in the Fatherland. As I said, Germany's policy makes little sense from an economic or environmental sense. Even if you're an environmentalist opposed to nuclear power, you'd probably agree.

UPDATE: Estimates place German phase-out of nuclear power as adding 20 to 40 million tons of carbon dioxide annually as it returns to fossil fuels. Talk about dubious reasoning.

Screw Copenhagen; The Way Forward on Climate

Let's face hard reality here: as the ill-fated Copenhagen 2009 climate summit indicated, we are even father away from a binding, multilateral climate deal as we are from completing the WTO Doha Development Round. Too many diverging interests, too few common interests, and climate change deniers everywhere was never going to be a recipe for a deal.

Just this Wednesday, I had the pleasure of listening to a talk by Global Governance 2020--a group of international researchers who are trying to figure out where we go from the Copenhagen debacle. Their brief, to-the-point report is available online from their website. Alike the earlier article by Robert Falkner et al. that I featured on this blog sometime ago, they too are pessimistic about a comprehensive agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, it may be more feasible to come up with a range of smaller agreements that particular parties are interested in. For this approach, it is hoped that a series of more manageable, more readily negotiable deals will add up to more than a grand deal shot through with weasel words, opt-outs and escape clauses.

Global Governance 2020 sees virtue in bottom-up action as it envisions a number of scenarios. In the unlikely event of a successor to Koyoto coming to fruition in the immediate future, we may be better off placing our bets on a "coalition of the ambitious" driving the agenda forward. The entire report is available online for your consideration. What follows are the most likely scenarios from the executive summary:

A global agreement on binding emissions reductions is unlikely, but progress against climate change can still be made through a patchwork of initiatives and commitments by forward-thinking countries, sub national governments, international organizations businesses, and civil society. That is the conclusion of a working group of experts from China, Germany and the United States. As part of the Global Governance 2020 program, the group has been convened in the aftermath of the Copenhagen conference in late 2009 by the Global Public Policy Institute and its partners, the Hertie School of Governance, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Fudan University, the Brookings Institution, and Princeton University.

The Working Group represented a diverse, carefully selected collection of individuals who work on climate change in academic, industrial, and governmental capacities. Over the course of a year, the Working Group applied scenario planning methodology to envision different ways the world might approach the challenge of climate change over the next decade. This Executive Summary outlines the three scenarios envisioned by the Working Group, as well as the insights and policy recommendations that derive from them.

Three Possible Directions for Climate Governance

Our scenario analysis produced three possible outcomes for climate governance in 2020. Scenario 1, “Kyoto 2.0,” results from a growing international consensus on the necessity of deep emission cuts based on a series of global treaties. The result is a comprehensive, UN-led solution to climate change and the subsequent establishment of low-carbon economies around the world. Given the latest developments in Copenhagen and the results of Cancún, this scenario is highly unlikely to become reality.

Scenario 2, “Stalemate,” presents climate governance in ruins. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process unravels with short-term thinking trumping long-term policy making. Neither the United States, China, Europe, nor developing countries see themselves in a position to take the lead in combating climate change.

Scenario 3, “Patchwork governance,” witnesses a stalled UNFCCC process but also the initiation of a UN-plus process. A broad coalition of ambitious and pragmatic countries, regions, cities, companies, media, non-governmental organizations, and thought leaders contributes to the emergence of a complex, multilayered governance landscape. If scenario 1 cannot be achieved, this is the second best option.

We identify two windows of opportunity in which the decisions of key actors can shift climate governance from one scenario to another. In the next two years, the most important factor is the behavior of the world’s two largest emitters, China and the United States. Aggressive climate policies in either or both countries would serve as a catalyst for global action, sending a strong signal to industry and driving forward the multilateral process. Conversely, the failure of either nation to take aggressive steps to reduce emissions over the next few years will make it impossible to develop an effective global treaty to limit emissions before 2020.

In the latter case, which we consider most likely, our analysis highlights a second window of opportunity, closing around 2013/14, during which a multilayered governance network beyond the UN could emerge with sufficient support from ambitious governments, sub-national actors, industry groups, and civil society. We imagine that this patchwork scenario could create the conditions for an eventual rebirth of the global treaty process, but consider this unlikely before 2020. This figure displays the possible scenarios and decision points.

Like them, I foresee a world of scenario 3. This may not be an entirely negative thing given the current state of affairs in the arena of international negotiations.

Maybe Costly Fuel Will Doom Low Cost Airlines

Let me confess by that I live with the very embodiment of environmental evil. My flatmate is one of those Europeans who have taken advantage of the advent of low-cost carriers to travel around the continent affordably to see more of what it has to offer. This week Bratislava, the next Riga, maybe Prague in two weeks' time. This is so because certain environmentalists view short-hop flights as a unique form of devilry. When bus and train networks will take you pretty much anywhere you want to go, they argue, why fly Ryanair or EasyJet? Short-haul flights of the sort weekend vacationers like my flatmate take are said to be far worse in climate change terms than terrestrial transportation. Too, airports and the constant buzz of airplanes supposedly add to the noise pollution of already aurally challenging urban life. Living under a flight path, I certainly appreciate Icelandic volcanoes late in the evening!

So you have movements alike Plane Stupid here in the UK who spend their time fighting the expansion of major London airports alike Heathrow and Stansted. Recall the "Battle of Heathrow" a few years back. Certainly the potty-mouthed Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary regularly tossing f-bombs in the direction of the green crowd does nothing to endear himself to them.

But wait. Despite the endless enviro-pessimism of this crowd, they should find comfort in costly aviation fuel--not diminished European appetite to rediscover scenic towns across the continent via air travel--dooming Ryanair and Easyjet expansion. Earlier on, the news was that Easyjet was now losing money, and that it did not plan to increase capacity for the first time ever:

Rising oil prices and aviation taxes have nearly doubled easyJet losses as the budget airline announced a freeze in fleet growth over the next two winters.

EasyJet admitted that consumers will not swallow the higher fares needed to offset higher costs, so aeroplanes will be parked in slower months to stem losses. The Luton-based carrier revealed the capacity squeeze as first-half pre-tax losses, racked up during the traditionally quiet six months to 31 March, rose from £79m to £153m.

EasyJet highlighted the struggle for airlines to pass on soaring costs as revenue per seat slipped by 2.1%, which it attributed to a £1 increase in air passenger duty last autumn to £12 per flight. The near-doubling of losses was driven by a £43m impact from fuel, which now accounts for more than a quarter of the cost base, and a £21m hit from APD. EasyJet said it would hold its fleet size for its 2011 and 2012 winter programmes at 204 planes, while warning that it could change plans to grow its total fleet from 199 jets to 220 over the next two years.

Things are no better for Ryanair. Aside from not making much money, it now plans to reduce flight capacity for the first time in its history. It is also thinking of a move upmarket as low-cost fares look to have run their course for now:

Ryanair Holdings Plc (RYA) will cut capacity for the first time in its history next winter as fuel costs threaten to render dozens of routes unprofitable, ending decades of growth that made it Europe’s No. 1 discount airline.

Ryanair fell the most in 20 months in Dublin trading after Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said he’d ground 80 of 300 jets and lay people off for the low season starting in October. Even with a 12 percent fare increase he forecasts net income no higher than last year’s 401 million euros ($563 million) -- or 18 percent less than estimated by analysts.

“It’s the first time ever that we’ll go negative on traffic,” O’Leary said in an interview. “We take delivery of 50 aircraft this winter so instead of running around trying to open up new bases and routes in November and December we’ll sit them on the ground. With higher oil prices it makes no sense.”

Ryanair has transformed the European airline industry since O’Leary took over in 1990 after studying the growth of Southwest Airlines Co. in the U.S., offering flights between cities never previously served by air and luring passengers from established carriers with bargain-basement fares and a no-frills service. More recently, the CEO signaled plans to attract higher-paying flyers after exhausting opportunities to lift sales by charging for everything from checked bags to credit-card bookings.

So there you go: costly fuel may do in the expansion of short-haul flights so reviled by the environmental crowd in a manner that all sorts of protests have failed to achieve all these years. At least the charity calendar survives, eh?

Vaclav Klaus: Climate Concern = Communism

Something makes me rather certain that Czech President Vaclav Klaus would have made it big in America. Given that one of its major political parties doesn't even believe climate change exists, there is a lack of an American consensus that there is a problem at all. How can you then have global consensus when the world's second largest carbon emitter doesn't even recognize the existence of these life-threatening hazards? While similarly palaeolithic reasoning is familiar from deficit deniers--these pathologies tend to go together--climate change denial is IMHO more deleterious given its globe-spanning and life-endangering implications.

Today, it is my great displeasure to bring you further ramblings from Vaclav Klaus, Czech primitivist par excellence. Aside from providing a treasure trove of references from obscure climate change deniers, he now makes a stunning claim: Alike central planners of the Communist era that he so abhors, he believes that those advocating for controls on emissions are, you guessed it, today's totalitarians. He made this speech at Cambridge University, no less:

As someone who personally experienced central planning and attempts to organize the whole society from above, I feel obliged to warn against the arguments and ambitions which are very similar to those we had to live with decades ago. The arrogance with which the GWD [global warming debate] alarmists and their fellow-travelers in politics and media want to suppress the market, control the society, dictate the prices (directly or indirectly by means of various interventions, including taxes) is something I know well from the past. All the old, already almost forgotten economic arguments against communism should be repeated now. It is our duty to do so.

To conclude, I agree with many serious climatologists who say that the warming we experience or is on the horizon will be very small. Convincing argumentation can be found in Ian Plimer’s recent book. I agree with Bob Carter and others that it is difficult “to prove that the human effect on the climate can be measured” because “this effect is lost in the variability of natural climate changes”. From the economic point of view, in case there will be no irrational interventions against it, the economic losses connected with such a modest warming will be very small. A loss generated as a result of a completely useless fight against global warming would be far greater.

There's no convincing some folks. Maybe he'll name his grandchildren after Ayn Rand or something. In the meantime, comrade, don't drive an SUV lest I send you off to the gulag ;-)

What If Greenpeace Ran China?

Though I am very often at loggerheads with positions that Greenpeace takes, a significant part of the following makes sense to me at least. As we all know, China's rise to becoming the world's second largest economy has been accompanied by becoming the world's most polluting economy in terms of carbon emissions and likely much else. My general belief is that while the PRC leadership expresses concern over these facts, it is reluctant to offend export lobbies in resource-intensive manufacturing industries. Moreover, it is not so easy of breaking away decisively with what, for the most part, can now be considered a "tried and true" growth strategy.

As a remnant of Soviet-style central planning, the Politburo still prepares five-year plans, basically blueprints for running the country. While the likes of William Easterly and those of a libertarian bent pooh-pooh these plans, it is remarkable how the major emerging economies China and India still engage in them. Though environmental overtures were already evident in the 11th and indeed the 10th five year plan, Greenpeace suggests the difference with the forthcoming document may be that it will have more teeth. So it can wish; let's see. In the meantime, if Greenpeace ran China, it would probably implement its following suggestions:

“In the last 30 years, China’s rapid economic development has astounded the world, but it has also exacted a heavy price on the environment and natural resources. Severe industrial and agricultural pollution is already taking a toll on public welfare and economic development. Meanwhile, climate change not only exposes China to increasing international pressure, but also has dire threats to the country’s water resources and food security,” says Greenpeace Campaign Director Sze Pang Cheung. “China urgently needs to transform its development model, which currently prioritizes economic growth, and instead embark on a healthy, sustainable path of green development.”

Thus, building on its over ten years of experience in China, Greenpeace has prepared some comments and suggestions on the forthcoming 12th Five-Year Plan:

1. We suggest that the government improves its energy efficiency target and ensure that they are met. Regarding the highly possible 16% target reduction in energy intensity (energy used to produce each unit of GDP), Greenpeace believes that this is not ambitious enough and will not sufficiently pressure local governments to put forth the fullest effort to meet the increasingly difficult challenges of improving energy efficiency. Learning from its past experiences, the Chinese government should establish higher energy savings targets, and implement more ambitious action plans and supporting polices to ensure their fulfillment.

2. We recommend that the government clearly define the strategy to adjust China’s energy mix, to halt the rapid growth of coal-fired power plants and gradually decrease the country’s over-reliance on coal. We hope that the environment tax can be implemented in the early phase of the 12th Five-Year Plan, and that it will include carbon dioxide so that the price of coal fully reflects its true environmental cost. At the same time, we recommend that government set bold targets for the development of renewable energy and actively solve bottlenecks – such as grid access – that are constraining the further expansion of renewable energy.

3. We understand that the 12th Five-Year Plan will include “invisible pollutants” such as heavy metals for the first time, as well as a comprehensive approach to pollutant management and control, including the key concept of prevention at the source. This marks historical progress in both the types of pollutants covered and the approach to pollution management. We recommend tracing back the control of heavy metals to industrial demand for these elements in their production chains. We also suggest setting limitations on the use of heavy metals in certain products and processes. At the same time, we call for greater information disclosure and public participation to make it fully possible to achieve pollutant control targets.

4. We recommend that the government establishes more detailed and more comprehensive policies and laws to regulate agricultural non-point source pollution. We call for the decreased use of pesticides and fertilizers to reduce and control agricultural pollution, an end to the commercialization process of genetically engineered crops (especially rice and corn), and the implementation of long-term plans to promote the development of ecological agriculture. Through these various policies, China will be gradually freed from its over-reliance on chemical agriculture.

Sze Pang Cheung says, “We believe that the Chinese government will continuously increase the strength, scope, and depth of its policies on energy savings and emissions reduction, environmental management, and adjustments of the economy and energy mix. At the same time, it will become the trend to implement more policies, expand environmental technologies, and support the growth of renewable energy and clean production. In such a historic transformation, we expect that local governments and industries will be farsighted enough to place energy intensity and pollution reduction targets over GDP growth. If they can seize this opportunity, then China can occupy a prime position in the race to green development.”

The full PDF is also available online. Considering that NGO activity in China is highly regulated, it is remarkable that Greenpeace is quite sanguine on the prospects for greening China. Then again, you would naturally think that it would be more sympathetic to a socialist regime than its typical bogeyman--the capitalist multinational firm.

Shipbreaking, A Dirty But Necessary Industry

A Bangladeshi colleague pointed out to me that a report he prepared for the World Bank has now come out in print form. There are probably few tasks in this world that are as "3D" (dirty, difficult, and dangerous) as shipbreaking. It involves dismantling disused vessels for scrap--usually in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. The costs are generally well-known: environmental pollution, injury or even loss of life figure large in this largely unregulated trade. In 2009, the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships was adopted that confronted a number of relevant issues. While most stakeholders thought it was a move forward, some NGOs complained that it was actually a step backward from the preexisting 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. (Which the United States hasn't ratified, unsurprisingly.) Their main beef is that responsibility is placed on the flag carrier as opposed to shipping companies, allowing the loophole of reassigning ships on their final voyages to be placed under flags of convenience that are hard to call to account.

At any rate, this World Bank-commissioned report focusses more on the environmental considerations at hand in shipbreaking. Given that shipbreakers on the Indian subcontinent are not the most stable and organized of enterprises, there are considerable difficulties to surmount in identifying potentially toxic materials and hence enhance worker safety. What follows is the executive summary which offers a taster of what's in the report--certainly a must-read for those concerned with global environmental or trade and environment issues:
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The ship breaking and recycling industry (SBRI) converts end-of-life ships into steel and other recyclable items. Ship recycling offers the most environmentally sustainable way of disposing of old vessels, with virtually every part of the hull and machine complex being reused or recycled as scrap metal. Although the industry is beneficial from a life-cycle assessment point of view, over the years it has gravitated toward countries with low labor costs, weak regulations on occupational safety, and limited environmental enforcement. The “global shift” in the industry to countries with comparatively weaker regulatory systems is of particular concern as ships contain many hazards that can have significant detrimental effects on humans and the environment if not dealt with properly.

Currently, the global center of the ship breaking and recycling industry is located in South Asia, specifically Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. These three countries account for 70–80 percent of the international market for ship breaking of ocean-going vessels, with China and Turkey accounting for most of the rest. Only about 5 percent of the global volume of such vessels is scrapped outside these five countries. This study focuses on the SBRI in Bangladesh and Pakistan to get a better understanding of the economics of the industry and the environmental impacts arising out of such activity and to explore possible ways in which such environmental effects may be mitigated.

The ship breaking and recycling industry plays a significant economic role in Bangladesh and Pakistan, supplying a substantial quantity of re-rollable scrap steel for the iron and steel industries. SBRI provides more than half of Bangladesh’s steel supply, for example, making it a strategic industry in that country. The industry also creates hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs for some of the poorest and most marginalized segments of the population in those countries. The work force in each country varies with the volume of ship breaking but may range from 8,000–22,000 workers in the ship recycling yards to 200,000 in the supply chain, shops, and re-rolling mills—with dependents in extended families estimated to reach over 500,000 in Bangladesh, although fewer in Pakistan.

The SBRI also has a major social impact in that region. Most workers in the ship breaking yards are migrant workers from poorer regions of each country. The percentage of such migrant labor is higher in Bangladesh compared to Pakistan. A major reason for employment of migrant labor is the hazardous nature of the job as well as variations in employment levels depending on the extent of ship breaking work being done.

Working conditions have historically been poor for the majority of these workers, with limited use of personal protective equipment, frequent exposure to hazardous materials, and unsafe conditions. Accidents causing fatalities and injuries are frequently reported in the local media. A wealth of reports from nongovernmental organizations, academia, and other interested entities complement the limited monitoring data from the relevant authorities. Mechanization of some of the hazardous works may minimize such accidents. Among the three countries, Pakistan uses the highest degree of mechanization in the yards.

Environmental protection is limited in most yards and the sound management of asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), ozone-depleting substances (ODS), and a range of heavy metals is virtually nonexistent. Of late, some efforts at minimizing the release of such pollutants in the environment are emerging in Bangladesh due to intervention by the courts. Similar interest in improving the industry’s performance is also developing in Pakistan.

Recognizing the need for coordinated action on the issue, the International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships was adopted by a diplomatic conference under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization in Hong Kong, China, in May 2009. The Hong Kong Convention (HKC) is expected to enter into force in 2015.
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Despite the generally unpleasant nature of these tasks, it is understandable that the industry will not disappear anytime soon. Indeed, given the skyrocketing prices of raw materials in this day and age, buying up disposed vessels at bargain prices for scrap looks set to thrive. Developed countries that have more knowledge about safe practices tend to avoid this trade given its irregular nature, but perhaps knowledge can still be imparted. How do you regulate a loosely regulated trade run by loosely affiliated networks? It's an interesting global governance problematique to say the least that would benefit from coordination that's presently absent to a large degree

Climate Apartheid? The India-Bangladesh Superfence

My friend came to me, with sadness in his eyes
He told me that he wanted help
Before his country dies

And so begin the lyrics to "Bangla Desh" from George Harrison's Concert for Bangla Desh held on 1 August 1971 in Madison Square Garden. Well before we had Sir Bono and Sir Bob Geldof, Live Aid and Live 8, we had the late, great Beatle setting the template for all there was to follow. This forerunner of all benefit concerts was held to support the victims of the 12 November 1970 Bhola cyclone in which an estimated 300,000 lost their lives in the region then called East Pakistan--today's Bangladesh. Just as Pakistan emerged from India, so did Bangladesh in turn emerge from Pakistan, declaring independence on 26 March 1971. It was a very difficult time for Bangladesh to say the least as it faced both the aftermath of a devastating natural calamity and the teething woes of becoming a nation--hence the lyrics above.

Now, politics on the Indian subcontinent are usually as contentious as they are interesting. Back then, Pakistan tried hard to keep Bangladesh from becoming a country, and India offered support. Among other things, India opened its border with East Pakistan to help refugees from the disaster cope. Unfortunately, environmental pressures on Bangladesh have hardly ebbed in the intervening years. Obviously, it hasn't gained any elevation while global warming has taken further effect. What more if sea levels continue to rise? With a population of over 160 million, Bangladesh is far from a tiny country population-wise.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has a new publication called Global: the international briefing that looks at global policy issues from the perspective of member states in the British Commonwealth. I highly recommend Robin Cohen's essay on why migration is a boon to globalization, though there are obviously strong interests opposed to it. In particular, the border between Bangladesh and India has become more fractious. To those following migration issues, such episodes are unsurprising given that about half of migration is, contrary to popular perception, South-South or between developing countries. I was thus struck by Cohen's description of a massive fence India is putting up:

As for South–South migration, there remain many tensions and important fault lines. The data are disputed, but there are probably about 3.5 million people born in Bangladesh living in India, with 1 million born in India and living in Bangladesh. With the Ganges Delta prone to periodic flooding, further population movements from Bangladesh to India are likely, but are inhibited by an Indian-built fence, stretching for nearly 4,100 km.

2011 is 40 years after 1971, and let's just say that the Indians are no longer as welcoming of Bangladeshis pouring over their borders. Moreover, even the effects of a major cyclone are time-bound, while permanently higher sea levels aren't. It's a security issue, they say. Aside from preventing those affected by flooding to seek refuge in neighbouring India, Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch asserts that Indian border guards have been overzealous while this massive fenestration project has become underway:

Do good fences make good neighbours? Not along the India-Bangladesh border. Here, India has almost finished building a 2,000km fence. Where once people on both sides were part of a greater Bengal, now India has put up a "keep out" sign to stop illegal immigration, smuggling and infiltration by anti-government militants.

This might seem unexceptional in a world increasingly hostile to migration. But to police the border, India's Border Security Force (BSF), has carried out a shoot-to-kill policy – even on unarmed local villagers. The toll has been huge. Over the past 10 years Indian security forces have killed almost 1,000 people, mostly Bangladeshis, turning the border area into a south Asian killing fields. No one has been prosecuted for any of these killings, in spite of evidence in many cases that makes it clear the killings were in cold blood against unarmed and defenceless local residents.

Shockingly, some Indian officials endorse shooting people who attempt to cross the border illegally, even if they are unarmed. Almost as shocking is the lack of interest in these killings by foreign governments who claim to be concerned with human rights. A single killing by US law enforcement along the Mexican border makes headlines. The killing of large numbers of villagers by Indian forces has been almost entirely ignored.

It gives one reason to pause about the consequences of global warming if the threats identified are real. Not being a climate change denier (or a deficit denier for that matter; these paleolithic tendencies tend to run together), the prospect is scary indeed. It pits higher-lying areas against adjacent lower-lying ones in a manner that seems not to build on the goodwill evident in past times, like say 1971. While the Guardian op-ed may overstate shootings on the border, the likelihood of rising sea levels and the continuing construction of this fence do not bode well for relations on the Indian subcontinent concerning borders. Also consider the economic effects of artificial separation.

Since George Harrison is no longer with us, perhaps it's up to his forebears to draw attention to a worthy cause. Is it climate apartheid, then? If migration restrictions increase further, I doubt whether this instance will be an isolated one, sadly.

Cancun Climate Conference: An Incremental Solution

[NOTE: I've been rather silent on environmental issues these past few weeks, so I hope this post and the one before it rectify this imbalance ahead of the Climate Change Conference in Cancun which starts later today.] While I remain ambivalent about the idea of civil disobedience as a spur to public acceptance of climate change as an important global policy issue, I am rather more upbeat about an article which just appeared in the LSE house journal Global Policy. Although my biases may be showing, I do believe it showcases some of the most cogent commentary on global policy issues you can find nowadays. That it's freely accessible (for now) is further icing on the cake. Here is another case in point -

Having witnessed the no-event that was last year's Copenhagen summit, I am wary that the one which begins in Cancun will have a similar result. In trying to fashion a grand deal that pleases so many parties, the UN has had a very hard time pleasing even some. Call it Doha Development Agenda disease. In general, I believe that the The end result of overambition may be a failure to agree on particular issues concerning climate change which different countries share. Accordingly, Robert Falkner, Hannes Stephan, and John Vogler offer a different approach: why not chop climate change down into manageable, bite-size pieces that more countries will find digestible? This kind of gradualism makes perfect sense to me given the complexity of this topic.

The abstract and policy implications follow, though the rest is well worth reading:
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ABSTRACT

This article reviews the options for future international climate policy after the 2009 Copenhagen conference. It argues that a major reassessment of the current approach to building a climate regime is required. This approach, which we refer to as the ‘global deal’ strategy, is predicated on the idea of negotiating a comprehensive, universal and legally binding treaty that prescribes, in a top-down fashion, generally applicable policies based on previously agreed principles. From a review of the history of the ‘global deal’ strategy from Rio (1992) to Kyoto (1997) and beyond we conclude that this approach has been producing diminishing returns for some time, and that it is time to consider an alternative path – if not goal – for climate policy. The alternative that, in our view, is most likely to move the world closer towards a working international climate regime is a ‘building blocks’ approach, which develops different elements of climate governance in an incremental fashion and embeds them in an international political framework. In fact, this alternative is already emergent in international politics. The goal of a full treaty has been abandoned for the next climate conference in Mexico, which is instead aiming at a number of partial agreements (on finance, forestry, technology transfer, adaptation) under the UNFCCC umbrella. For this to produce results, a more strategic approach is needed to ensure that – over time – such partial elements add up to an ambitious and internationally coordinated climate policy which does not drive down the level of aspiration and commitment.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

• The current approach to negotiating a comprehensive, universal and legally binding ‘global deal’ on climate change is unlikely to succeed. A strategic rethink is needed on how to advance global climate protection in the current global political and economic environment.
• An alternative approach is the ‘building blocks’ strategy, which develops different elements of climate governance in an incremental fashion and embeds them in a broader political framework. In fact, such an approach is already emergent in post-Copenhagen international climate politics.
• The building blocks approach offers the hope of breaking the current diplomatic stalemate but remains a second best scenario. It promises no swift, short-term solutions, risks strengthening the logic of free-riding and may lead to excessive regulatory fragmentation.
• A more strategic, long-term vision is required for the building blocks model to lead to the creation of an ambitious international architecture for climate protection and prevent the slide into a purely decentralised, ‘bottom-up’ approach.

Al Gore, the Green Movement & Civil Disobedience

The FT's Simon Kuper is best known as a sportswriter for the Financial Times, but he often writes about much else. In a recent column, he spoke to the South African head of Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, who draws a comparison between the green and civil rights movements. Aside from the former not really having a charismatic Martin Luther King-like figure--the just-divorced Al Gore not exempted--the green Naidoo also thinks MLK's strategy of civil disobedience should be followed to direct public attention to environmental causes:

Kumi Naidoo, the South African head of Greenpeace International, interrupted Gore. That day Naidoo happened to be wearing a Martin Luther King T-shirt. He said that movements like King’s, or women’s suffrage, or anti-slavery, had succeeded only “when decent people put their lives on the line for the cause”. Naidoo confronted Gore: was he willing to be jailed or risk his life to fight climate change? “I haven’t been asked this question before,” Gore replied. “I have to reflect on it, but in principle my answer is yes. But first I’d have to talk to Tipper [then still his wife].”

Drawing on his experiences during apartheid-era South Africa, Naidoo is keen on civil disobedience as a litmus test on whether greens can gain traction in the public domain. Alas, it is typical that Americans are exceedingly insular people, not being terribly well-travelled or knowledgeable about geography and international affairs. While the rest of the world has had an unfortunately long history grappling with terrorism, most Americans were blithely unaware of it until 9/11. In other words, most of them are very Palin-esque. How do we get this unfortunate situation to change with regard to the environment (even with Palin)? Naidoo submits:

The pirate-bearded Naidoo tells the story in the cramped booth of a Parisian café over a three-hour dinner. His exchange with Gore went to the heart of the matter: how can environmentalists persuade the world to go green? Naidoo admits: “I don’t think we’ve cracked it yet.” In January, when the Pew Research Center asked Americans to rank 21 political issues, the respondents put “global warming” last. No breakthrough is expected from the coming UN environmental summit in Cancun, Mexico.

Yet Naidoo knows greens can win the argument, because as a young man in Durban he was part of another movement that won an argument. Between 1976 and 1990, anti-apartheid activists persuaded South Africans and the world that apartheid was wrong. After talking to Naidoo, I tried to distil what greens could learn from past struggles:

● Find salespeople who speak to the mainstream. King or Nelson Mandela were perfect: charismatics, martyrs and gentlemen. Greens need someone like that. Gore has potential. Naidoo says: “All the people I met in China recently – ministers, academics, businesspeople – one photograph they have in their offices is Al Gore.” Gore urges young people to fight climate change with civil disobedience. However, he would help the cause most by getting dragged away in a police van himself. He’s a pillar of the establishment. People would pay attention the way they don’t when scruffy activists get arrested.

● Keep it simple. When Naidoo dropped in on Durban after last year’s environmental summit in Copenhagen, his brother said: “Hey, when I saw you and your people talking on TV about climate change, I thought you had forgotten everything you learnt as a grassroots activist...” Most educated elites understand the green argument. Naidoo often discussed climate change with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. “These guys totally get it,” he says. “But their actions never matched their analysis.” Uninformed voters weren’t pushing them to act green.

● Talk about humans. When greens talk about “saving the planet” or “protecting our oceans”, then only people who are already committed greens listen. It reminds Naidoo of his time as an anti-apartheid activist who’d get impatient with the apolitical inhabitants of his ethnic Indian township. Gradually he learnt: “You shouldn’t project your consciousness on the people you’re trying to mobilise.” He wants greens to talk about “the future of our children and grandchildren”. Then people will think, “This is a conversation about me.”

● Embrace any ally. Mandela embraced Fidel Castro and Colonel Gaddafi. Naidoo has praised Coca-Cola for agreeing to switch to cleaner vending machines and coolers. And he can see other unlikely allies: “The CIA and Pentagon have been saying for years that climate change is the biggest threat to security in the future.”

● Wait for climate change to hit wealthy white people. Naidoo doesn’t want anyone to die. However, whereas the media mostly ignores floods in Pakistan or Bangladesh, it would notice the suffering of the rich. That suffering will come. In Durban, notes Naidoo, many chic apartment blocks by the ocean could become uninhabitable before long. [Call this the unfortunate "9/11 effect" as per my comments above.]

● Sound optimistic. “We shall overcome,” King’s followers sang. Greens must keep saying that the planet can be fixed, because otherwise nobody will bother trying. Naidoo says: “Take the kind of money that was mobilised virtually overnight to bail out the banks and the automobile industry. Globally, it was about $20 trillion [although little of it was ever used]. If you had 25 per cent of that to invest in renewable energies, you would meet your environmental concerns.”

Then again, do the likes of tree-spiking help win folks over to the Green cause? I believe MLK's non-violent approach said something that current generations ought to consider, albeit concerning a different cause with all-too-human consequences. If only rich white people could understand, indeed.

Shanghai Smog Syndrome and PRC Pollution

[NOTE: The photo is courtesy of my old classmate Richard who lives in Beijing but found himself in Shanghai during recent days.] Here's another all-too visible demonstration of the problem with Joshua Cooper Ramo's iteration of a "Beijing Consensus." According to Ramo back in 2004, environmental sustainability is one of the hallmarks of Chinese development. Aside from becoming the world's largest carbon emitter over the intervening years, China's problem with keeping its major cities liveable has taken many lumps. Beijing's famously bad air was dealt with by implementing fairly draconian measures like closing down adjacent factories and limiting automobile traffic during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Shanghai put similar measures in place during the just-concluded Shanghai Expo 2010, some clamping down on construction activity. With that event coming to an end, however, it seems Shanghai is back to its old smoggy ways--and worse. From our favourite official publication, the China Daily:

China's largest metropolis has suffered from high levels of pollution since early November, with pollution index figures far higher than those recorded during the six months of the World Expo. As of Wednesday, the city has witnessed its air pollution index passing 100 for eight days this month, the worst readings in the past five years. China's environmental standards rate a reading below 50 as "excellent", from 50 to 100 as "good" and above 100 as "polluted". The latest pollution occurred on Monday when the index reached 107. On Nov 13 it skyrocketed to 370, the highest level in the past decade.

When the index exceeds 300, even healthy people are likely to experience reduced endurance during physical activities, and are likely to suffer strong irritations and other symptoms. Local residents started to complain about poor air a day after the World Expo finished, when the index hit 156 on Nov 1, the highest level since March. Readings for the next day dropped to 138 and rose again to 151 on Nov 8.

The recent pollution data stood in sharp contrast to figures recorded during the multibillion-yuan fair, when more than 98 percent of the days were recorded as "good". "It seems things have returned to what they were before the Expo. I guess it is because many of the compulsory measures to fight air pollution have come to an end," said local resident Zhao Yi'an...

Still, many people believe the resumption of construction work after the Expo and the easing of pollution controls in suburban and rural areas have contributed to the recent increase in pollution. Many construction sites in the city were told to stop work during the Expo to ensure smooth traffic flow and good air quality. The government also prohibited farmers from burning straw, which is a major source of air pollutants, and launched clampdowns on heavily polluting trucks.

Shu Jiong, a climate professor from the Shanghai-based East China Normal University, said although there were "outside influences" on the recent surge in air pollutants, the government still needs to build up long-term environmental protection mechanisms to ensure hard-earned benefits from the Expo would not be wasted. "It's about building an integrated system, which includes better management of construction sites so that they control dust emissions, as well as reduced ownership of private cars and encouragement for people to use public transport," he said.

Shu added that many construction sites were again raising large clouds of dust. "The government should abandon the short-sighted attitude that priority is given to a specific event without sustained efforts to keep the measures in place for lasting improvement," he said.

The WSJ's China Real Time blog notes that things are actually worse in Beijing, if that's imaginable. So many years after Premier Wen Jiabao suggested that China growth pattern had become "unstable unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable," there are precious few signs of change--especially in the environmental department and in the capital.

Additionally, you have to question if the internal combustion engine-powered automobile is really appropriate for China. What are the health implications if automobile ownership is to rise? While denying car ownership from the Chinese is not really defensible, can you say this is progress from the bicycle-powered days of yore? Perhaps alternative ways of propulsion are needed. I sense a business opportunity somewhere in here.

Battle Rejoined on Climate Causing African Wars

While the publication Nature usually features stuff that interests research scientists rather than social scientists, this news item may be of interest to IPE followers as well. Two years ago, there was a well-publicized book called Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats that made exactly the case that climate change triggered conflicts. In line with this idea, the economist Marshall Burke and his colleagues at UC Berkeley empirically investigated the relationship between indicators of climate change and conflict. Here is the abstract of their downloadable paper from last year:

Armed conflict within nations has had disastrous humanitarian consequences throughout much of the world. Here we undertake the first comprehensive examination of whether global climate change will exacerbate armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. We find strong historical linkages between civil war and temperature on the continent, with warmer years leading to significant increases in the likelihood of war. When combined with climate model projections of future temperature trends, this historical response to temperature suggests a roughly 60% increase in armed conflict incidence by 2030, or an additional 390,000 battle deaths if future wars are as deadly as recent wars. Our results suggest an urgent need to reform African governments' and foreign aid donors' policies to deal with rising temperatures.

So far, the pop notion of climate change triggering conflict is given some empirical support. However, a newer paper by Norwegian political scientist Halvarg Buhaug of the Peace Research Institute finds otherwise. Here's the abstract from his likewise downloadable paper in which he says climate is not to blame for Africa's civil wars:

Vocal actors within policy and practice contend that environmental variability and shocks, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, drive civil wars in Africa. Recently, a widely publicized scientific article appears to substantiate this claim. This paper investigates the empirical foundation for the claimed relationship in detail. Using a host of different model specifications and alternative measures of drought, heat, and civil war, the paper concludes that climate variability is a poor predictor of armed conflict. Instead, African civil wars can be explained by generic structural and contextual conditions: prevalent ethno-political exclusion, poor national economy, and the collapse of the Cold War system.

Which is correct? Beats me, pal. I haven't had the time to look over the methods and whatnot to form an opinion like, say, the one which made dubious claims that IMF structural adjustment caused tuberculosis deaths in Eastern Europe. As with many of these econometric studies, there are definitional issues: On the independent variable side, what constitutes an incident of climate change? On the independent variable side, what constitutes and incident of civil war? In its writeup Nature starts off with the later study...

But is there real proof of a link between climate change and civil war — particularly in crisis-ridden parts of Africa — as many have claimed?

No, says Halvard Buhaug, a political scientist with the Peace Research Institute Oslo in Norway. In research published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1, he finds virtually no correlation between climate-change indicators such as temperature and rainfall variability and the frequency of civil wars over the past 50 years in sub-Saharan Africa — arguably the part of the world that is socially and environmentally most vulnerable to climate change. "The primary causes of civil war are political, not environmental," says Buhaug.

The analysis challenges a study published last year that claimed to have found a causal connection between climate warming and civil violence in Africa. Marshall Burke, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues, reported a strong historical relationship between temperature and the incidence of civil war. They found that the likelihood of armed conflict across the continent rose by around 50% in unusually warm years during 1981-20022. Projected future warming threatens to offset the positive effects of democratization and eradicating poverty in Africa, they warned.

...before discussing quarrels on method mentioned above:

The two rival groups are now disputing the validity of each other's findings.

Buhaug says that Burke's study may have been skewed by the choice of climate data sets, and by their narrow definition of 'civil war' as any year that saw more than 1,000 fatalities from intra-national conflict. The definition is at odds with conventional measures of civil war in the academic literature, says Buhaug: "If a conflict lasts for 10 years, but in only 3 of them the death toll exceeds 1,000, [Burke et al] may code it as three different wars...You'd really like to apply as many complementary definitions as possible before proclaiming a robust correlation with climate change," Buhaug adds.

Burke maintains that his findings are robust, and counters that Buhaug has cherry-picked his data sets to support his hypothesis. "Although we have enjoyed discussing it with him, we definitely do not agree with Halvard on this," says Burke. "There are legitimate disagreements about which data to use, [but] basically we think he's made some serious econometric mistakes that undermine his results. He does not do a credible job of controlling for other things beyond climate that might be going on."

Buhaug disagrees vigorously. "If they accuse me of highlighting data sets in favour of my hypothesis, then this applies tenfold more to their own paper."

I think regression models are too blunt a tool for answering this question. Disaggregating political and social variables was already hard enough before they threw ecological ones into the picture. Interaction effects, anyone? Judgement will inevitably play a role as this issue will become an increasingly more important one in national, regional, and international policy circles. Stata may help, but it isn't a substitute for clear-headed thinking.