On Speech Puts the US Government on Defense in Durban

This is how a single speech–by a youthful member of a non-governmental organization–can frame an issue and challenge the power of an entire government.  Forget the concern that small states may not have as much relative power; in a multilateral forum, even a simple representative can shape the narrative and thus influence the outcome.

A Middlebury College junior confronts the chief American envoy at the global climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, demanding an “urgent path” to a legally binding treaty. She draws a standing ovation but is then ejected from the room.

via Energy and Environment – Green Blog – NYTimes.com.

Environmental Group Breaks the Silence on Population Control – NYTimes.com

Population is a hot button issue, that’s turning red again.  (Did you wonder what was so compelling about last week’s “7 Billion” story?  Here is the explanation.)

As recently as the 1970s, the subject of population control was less controversial, partly because the baby boom years had given rise to concerns about scarcity of resources, some population experts and environmentalists said. Then came China’s coercive one-child policy and a rise in social conservatism in the United States, combined with the country’s aversion to anything perceived as restricting individual freedoms, be it the right to bear arms or children.

Some groups also fear whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment and opposition to family planning. Immigration now accounts for about one-third of the growth rate in the United States.

“We see reluctance and fear to deal with this issue,” said Jose Miguel Guzman of the United Nations Population Fund.

via Environmental Group Breaks the Silence on Population Control – NYTimes.com.

Seven Billion – NYTimes.com

What does seven billion people mean for this planet?

Can the earth support seven billion now, and the three billion people who are expected to be added by the end of this century? Are the enormous increases in households, cities, material consumption and waste compatible with dignity, health, environmental quality and freedom from poverty?

via Seven Billion – NYTimes.com.

Issue Promotion/Diminution

Issues are not just research topics–they can come alive or be killed off.  Take the issue of global climate change:  groups and efforts to encourage skepticism are documented in this dotearth NYT blog:

That there are such well-financed and coordinated efforts is not contentious. And this is not the first attempt to map them.

But it’s important to keep in mind that not everyone skeptical of worst-case predictions of human-driven climate disruption, or everyone opposed to certain climate policies, is part of this apparatus.

via A Map of Organized Climate Change Denial – NYTimes.com.

Ever wonder who is opposed to decreasing smoking?  Or how Big Tobacco addressed changes in US society from the 50′s to today–as attitudes changed due to research showing that tobacco was linked to serious health consequences?  Hint – it involves raising ‘doubts’ rather than winning an argument based on longer arguments.

Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dies at 71 – NYTimes.com

The phrase “speaking truth to power” sounds like a good slogan. Dr. Maathai truly exemplified it.

Mr. Moi [Daniel wrap Moi, former leader of Keyna] was particularly scornful of her leading the charge against a government plan to build a huge skyscraper in one of central Nairobi’s only parks. The proposal was eventually scrapped, though not long afterward, during another protest, Dr. Maathai was beaten unconscious by the police. …

In 2008, after being pushed out of government, she was tear-gassed by the police during a protest against the excesses of Kenya’s well-entrenched political class.

via Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dies at 71 – NYTimes.com.

Super Bon Bonn

Engaging little radio ditty about a city that houses the UN Climate Change agency and a whole lot of history.  Learn about how Bonn, Germany moves from diplomacy and capitol-status to being smaller, less significant–and possibly more interesting:

Cities are pretty robust organisms, they tend to survive even when put under tremendous stress and strain. Local industries rise and fall, people immigrate and emigrate, but most of these changes happen over decades. What happens to a city when its purpose is stripped away virtually overnight? Bonn was the quiet, unlikely capital of West Germany and then the newly unified Germany for 50 years, and then the Cold War ended and the seat of government was moved back to its historic home of Berlin. Ten years after the move, Bonn is finding its new identity and purpose, but hidden clues in the urban landscape remind us of the city it used to be.

via 99% Invisible.

Dead Green Treaty Stinks Up The Room | W.R. Mead

Let’s just say that Walter Russell Meade’s past predictions on the procedural achievements of Kyoto were spot on–even if many will continue to worry about the problems at stake, namely climate change.  The UN treaty system is messy, complex, difficult, and inefficient.  Three cheers for multilateralism?

The whole UN treaty process is increasingly being seen as a colossal and humiliating blunder.  Embarrassed environmentalists are finding it harder and harder to pretend that this particular parrot is only, as the Monty Python skit put it, ‘pining for the fjords.’  Worse, some of the smarter greens out there are realizing that the UN process is not going to disappear just because it is a dead end.Most people have long stopped following the tortuous saga of the collapse of the UN process to fight climate change by adopting a treaty to be signed by all 192 members of the United Nations.  The treaty was intended to be the successor to the ineffective and expiring Kyoto Protocol, and was conceived of as a ‘grand bargain.’  The US Senate had in effect rejected Kyoto 95-0 because the Protocol limited US emissions without placing restrictions on the rapidly growing economies of the developing world.  Son of Kyoto call it SOK for short would get around this by placing limits of some kind on all the world’s countries.  The geniuses behind SOK framed the problem this way: how do we get the developing countries to sign on to carbon limits strict enough that the US Senate would ratify the next global treaty?The answer was obvious: bribe them.

via Dead Green Treaty Stinks Up The Room | Via Meadia.

The Age of Possibility – NYTimes.com

Do you wonder what era we’re in now?  From Post-Cold War to Globalization to 9/11 and the “War on Terror”?  The IHT has an interesting series, with Roger Cohen leading off:

The essential global divide today is between a worried, depressed and disoriented West (where free trade is framed as loss of jobs) and the buoyant, questing and increasingly confident emergent world of nations like Brazil and Turkey and South Africa. The West suffers from a nagging feeling its time has passed; outside it many countries believe their time is now — or near.

Although there’s talk in the West of a new Age of Anxiety, the neurosis is in fact fairly narrowly confined. True, the unease lies in what is still by far the world’s largest economy — the United States — and is shared by the European Union.

via The Age of Possibility – NYTimes.com.

Powerpoint Diplomacy and more – Dot Earth Blog

A full court press to state support with caveats as the US case is made by Energy Secretary Chu:

In the early days of climate diplomacy, when the original 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change was negotiated and enacted, most senior officials at treaty talks came from environment ministries and agencies.Reflecting the reality that recent efforts to strengthen that treaty are as much about economics and energy policy as climate change and its impacts, the flow of attendees has greatly broadened. The halls at talks this year are filled with a variegated array of finance ministers, foreign secretaries and energy officials not to mention armies of energy lobbyists, investors and environmental campaigners.

via Natural Resources and the Environment – Dot Earth Blog – NYTimes.com.

An interesting lesson in diplo-speak:

The diplomatic term of art for such documents is “non-paper.” The idea is to have something ready for high-level officials to firm up before the meeting ends a week later.

via Natural Resources and the Environment – Dot Earth Blog – NYTimes.com

 

U.N. Sets Goals to Reduce the Extinction Rate – NYTimes.com

Even though the US has not ratified the underlying treaty that would allow for enforcement, this agreement marks a set toward a measurable outcome:

“We would have liked to see more ambitious targets in protected area goals and the financing,” said Glenn Prickett, the chief external affairs officer for The Nature Conservancy. “But the fact that they were able to reach an agreement is a big deal.”

The goals, 20 in total, are specific enough to be able to gauge whether progress is being made, he said. A previous and vague agreement in 2002 to substantially reverse the loss of species by 2010 failed to achieve that target.

The most significant change was breaking a nearly 20-year impasse over the issue of sharing the benefits of medicines or other products developed from plants or animals. Developing nations have long complained of exploitation by richer nations, and have been imposing stringent export controls on such material.

via U.N. Sets Goals to Reduce the Extinction Rate – NYTimes.com.