Did COP26 Work?

If you look at the recent global climate change Glasgow conference through the lens of negotiation, a great deal of work produced a measurable outcome. John Kerry tried to sell this line. Ian Bremmer agrees (mostly) that COP26 represents a corner turned where the world begins to take some collective action on greenhouse gasses.

But when looking at the science of warming global temperatures, industrial output, and the latest models, COP26 seems weak and inadequate.

Consider this fresh take by writer Nathaniel Rich, who sees that summits and big negotiations with world leaders aren’t where the action happens.

The daily news report is solid. We get a fairly good sense of what’s happening. I think there’s less attention drawn to the fact that these meetings, just like every other climate conference that’s preceded it over the last 30-some years, are more or less symbolic. They’re covered often in the press as if it’s the negotiation of armistice or an arms agreement when in fact they’re much closer to diplomatic meetings between heads of state to express shared principles to say that we believe in human rights, say.

Interview with Brooke Gladstone, On the Media

Also, sees a change in messaging from activists–who tend to be young and represent an entirely new demographic. They take a “moral approach” that is more personal and honest, according to Rich.  He notes, “They don’t really bother to get into those bad faith debates and they move straight past that into, “I am being harmed, you have failed.” It’s a different register, it’s angry, it’s personal, it’s emotional.” And even just in the time from Obama to Biden, it seems to be working.

The Formula for a Richer World? Equality, Liberty, Justice

 

Are you idealist? Want to make a difference in the world? What is the key to ending poverty? Would it surprise you to learn that some development experts see this as a human rights and international legal issue, based in economic terms, or the notion of inequality?

In any case, the problem is poverty, not inequality as such — not how many yachts the L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt has, but whether the average Frenchwoman has enough to eat. At the time of “Les Misérables,” she didn’t.

In the last 40 years, the World Bank estimates, the proportion of the population living on an appalling $1 or $2 a day has halved. Paul Collier, an Oxford economist, urges us to help the “bottom billion” of the more than seven billion people on earth. Of course. It is our duty. But he notes that 50 years ago, four billion out of five billion people lived in such miserable conditions.

In 1800, it was 95 percent of one billion.We can improve the conditions of the working class. Raising low productivity by enabling human creativity is what has mainly worked.

By contrast, taking from the rich and giving to the poor helps only a little — and anyway expropriation is a one-time trick. Enrichment from market-tested betterment will go on and on and, over the next century or so, will bring comfort in essentials to virtually everyone on the planet, and more to an expanding middle class.

Source: The Formula for a Richer World? Equality, Liberty, Justice – The New York Times

 

Is the UN Relevant in Development? David Malone responds.

Consider the state of development thinking as considered in a new book by David Malone, UNU’s chief rector and the former head of Canada’s International Development Research Centre. He explores whether new development goals–for any millennium–will matter:

When the Millennium Development Goals were adopted shortly after the turn of the millennium, they were fairly succinct, and they were mostly about quantities of things—for example, universal primary education available to all kids around the world. That was a goal because many kids didn’t have access to primary education around the world.

This time round, the goal is much more qualitative. Experts, societies themselves are quite worried about the quality of what kids get in school, and quite rightly so. Just having bums on seats in schools doesn’t achieve a great deal in terms of rapidly changing economies and societies. You need to be learning useful skills and knowledge that is valuable to kids. That insight on quality more than quantity is increasingly reflected across a wide range of fields of human endeavor in the developing world, and it shows how much progress there has actually been in development, that you have moved from worrying about the number of kids in primary school to thinking about things like quality education, and perhaps even—although it is very aspirational for many—lifelong education, which is a great idea.

These are fundamental shifts in thinking about what is achievable in the developing world and what the developing world wants to achieve for itself.

And concerns about “one-size-fits-all”:

By the way, if you need any convincing on how different very successful development tracks can be from each other, think of India and China over the last 30 years. These are the two large countries that have produced consistently the two highest rates of growth over the last 30 years. They had completely different development models. China first, after Deng Xiaoping came to power, focused on feeding the population, so much of which had starved during earlier waves of economic policy in China, then moving to export-oriented industries, for which they needed strong infrastructure, which they somehow or other managed, such that, within 30 years, probably the greatest growth in history, and also the largest adventure in pulling people out of absolute poverty unfolded in China over the last 30 years. It’s worth reflecting on, as we are often quite critical of China, what they have achieved in the last 30 years.

via The UN’s Efforts in International Development: Relevant or Not?.

Violence Against Women across the World

What is the state of women across the globe? At the ongoing #Beijing+20 Conference in NY at the United Nations, the stubborn and perplexing case of violence against women comes to the fore–with useful data analysis from BYU and Texas A&M’s WomanStats project, as reported in this article by Somini Sengupta:

“Overall, as you look at the world, there have been no large victories in eradicating violence against women,” said Valerie M. Hudson, a professor of international affairs at Texas A & M University who has developed world maps that chart the status of women.

In some cases, the laws on the books are the problem, women’s rights advocates say. In some countries, like Nigeria, the law permits a man to beat his wife under certain circumstances. But even when laws are technically adequate, victims often do not feel comfortable going to law enforcement, or they are unable to pay the bribes required to file a police report.

via U.N. Reveals ‘Alarmingly High’ Levels of Violence Against Women – NYTimes.com.

Moyo: China Sets a Bad Example.

Making the case that China’s success isn’t worthy of emulation, economist Damboso Moyo suggests the following:

China’s track record is unquestionably impressive. But the Chinese model isn’t as viable as its admirers in the emerging world often think. First, unlike many emerging markets, China’s growth has been driven largely by exports. Its success has been dependent on the free markets of the West. Most other emerging-market economies are based on agricultural commodities—just the sort of produce that the U.S. and Europe undercut with their own domestic subsidies.

 

Second, an economic system with the state at its heart is inefficient because it dislocates markets. When the government is the ultimate economic arbiter, assets are inevitably mispriced, which hinders sustained, longer-term growth. It also creates imbalances between supply and demand, which can spark inflation and distort interest rates.

 

Finally, policies that mimic China may yield a short-term burst in employment, but they also produce serious negative externalities and economic dead weight. China itself is now grappling with massive debt woes in its financial sector, a property bubble that could burst at any time and pollution that slows growth.

via For Poor Countries, China Is No Model – WSJ.

Booklist | ‘The Tyranny of Experts’ by William Easterly

History gets forgotten. Experts ruin everything.  Racism and colonialism were the frame. And the poor are global losers in the “war on poverty” being waged by big institutions, states, and “donor communities.”  Welcome back, William Easterly–whose latest book makes the case for bottom-up governance, openness and democracy.

The author’s persistent emphasis on liberty, and his touting of the “Invisible Hand” might tempt some readers to write him off as a doctrinaire conservative, an inclination that might be encouraged by Easterly’s frequent citation of intellectual favorites of the right like Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek. It’s the odd conservative, however, who would read history like Easterly, who blames much of the failure of development as a Western movement, and a great deal of misery in Africa specifically on the twin legacies of imperialism and racism. He brandishes this claim of racism liberally but not gratuitously; his point being that paternalism and a belief in the incapacity of others is an unexamined foundation of development ideology. “Locating the formative years of development between 1919 and 1949 highlights a critical point,” Easterly writes: “Development ideas took shape before there was even the most minimal respect in the West for the rights of individuals in the Rest.” Western racism, he asserts, spared no one, but in Africa it was at the very heart of the concept of development.

via ‘The Tyranny of Experts,’ by William Easterly – NYTimes.com.

The end of the world as we know It?

Could unsustainable resource exploitation combined with unequal wealth distribution be the end of modern society?  A new NASA Goddard Space Flight Center study suggests the possibility, using simulations of civilizational survivability.  Could this be how “our” world ends–with a bang instead of a wimper?

The NASA-funded HANDY model offers a highly credible wake-up call to governments, corporations and business – and consumers – to recognise that ‘business as usual’ cannot be sustained, and that policy and structural changes are required immediately.

Although the study is largely theoretical, a number of other more empirically-focused studies – by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance – have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a ‘perfect storm’ within about fifteen years. But these ‘business as usual’ forecasts could be very conservative.

via Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’? | Nafeez Ahmed | theguardian.com.

For more, Jared Diamond has written a book on the subject, chock full of examples of historical indicators that reveal how past civilizations have ended.  Key factors include human impact on the environment, climate change,  changing alliances, and dysfunctional political and cultural practices.

Mormon Humanitarian Efforts at the UN

Mormon priorities “correspond with U.N. priorities” noted Ahmad Corbitt, senior manager of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last week at the United Nations. For starters these include violence against women, maternal mortality, environmental stewardship, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

The series highlights UN partners among a wide range of non-governmental organizations to further the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), even as the goals are undergoing debate on a post-2015 framework. One of those NGOs–LDS Charities, sponsored by the Mormon Church–provided $84M in total assistance to individuals in 130 countries last year according to Sharon Eubank, director of this ECOSOC-accredited group at the UN.

“We work with lots and lots of partners,” said Eubank. She mentioned organizations such as Rotary International, Islamic Relief, Catholic Relief Services, World Health Organization, U.N. High Commission for Refugees and others.

Eubank reported that in 2013 LDS Charities provided $84 million in total assistance to individuals in 130 countries. “Faiths and religions are central to achieving common goals and transformational change,” said Eubank.

Initiatives of LDS Charities in 2013 include clean water (560,000 people in 37 countries), neonatal resuscitation (28,000 people in 37 countries), vision care (89,000 people in 34 countries), wheelchair distribution (66,000 people in 55 countries), family gardens (35,000 people in 20 countries), immunizations (18 projects in 12 countries) and emergency response (103 projects in 54 countries).

via Mormon Representatives Discuss Church Humanitarian Efforts at the United Nations.

Watch the full session on UNtv.

Collier on How Migration Hurts the Homeland

Should borders be open? Essential, irrelevant–or even more so, a “fundamental freedom?” The notable developmental economist Paul Collier makes the case that migration can cause economic harm, contrary to some economic arguments:

Migration is good for poor countries, but not in every form, and not in unlimited amounts. The migration that research shows is unambiguously beneficial is the kind in which young people travel to democracies like America for higher education and then go home. Not only do these young people bring back valuable skills directly learned in the classroom; they bring back political and social attitudes that they have assimilated from their classmates. Their skills raise the productivity of the unskilled majority, and their attitudes accelerate democratization.

via Migration Hurts the Homeland – NYTimes.com.

Switzerland’s Proposal to Pay People for Being Alive – NYTimes.com

The kernel idea behind the basic-income movement, described as stimmig, a German word that could be translated to be “coherent and harmonious”:

This fall, a truck dumped eight million coins outside the Parliament building in Bern, one for every Swiss citizen. It was a publicity stunt for advocates of an audacious social policy that just might become reality in the tiny, rich country. Along with the coins, activists delivered 125,000 signatures — enough to trigger a Swiss public referendum, this time on providing a monthly income to every citizen, no strings attached. Every month, every Swiss person would receive a check from the government, no matter how rich or poor, how hardworking or lazy, how old or young. Poverty would disappear. Economists, needless to say, are sharply divided on what would reappear in its place — and whether such a basic-income scheme might have some appeal for other, less socialist countries too.

via Switzerland’s Proposal to Pay People for Being Alive – NYTimes.com.