Category Archives: Environment

Environment, Government, Nature, Society, United Nations

The COP15 agreement in Montreal was a success, but it needs to be acted upon

COP15

Intro: The historic global agreement this month at the UN conference in Montreal, Canada, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 is just the beginning. Governments and businesses now need to carry out the pledges made

THE COP15 agreement in Montreal, Canada, earlier this month, commits countries to implementing and funding ambitious global targets and national plans that can halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity. Our hopes of reversing the global crisis facing the natural world remain alive with the release of the new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). It puts us on course for a nature-positive world.

By setting a target to conserve at least 30 per cent of land, freshwater and the oceans by 2030, and by restoring 30 per cent of degraded land – while respecting the rights and leadership of indigenous peoples and local communities – governments have chosen the right side of history. If the promises made in Montreal are delivered, history will truly be made.

During the early stages of the convention, hopes were high that negotiators could secure a “Paris Agreement for nature”. Just as the Paris Agreement targets guided subsequent actions on the climate, the GBF and its aims can now drive action to restore nature. This substantive agreement must be the catalyst for action from governments, business and society where we must transition towards a future with more nature, not less.

During the symposium, one of the most contentious issues arising was the finance package to support conservation efforts globally. It is a major achievement that negotiators forged an agreement that could pave the way for the mobilisation of at least $200bn a year in nature financing by 2030. The agreement commits signatory governments to eliminating subsidies to fertilisers and other products and practices harmful to nature.

The importance of the GBF affording full recognition to the rights and roles of Indigenous peoples and local communities cannot be emphasised enough. Indigenous peoples make up just five per cent of the global population, but they safeguard 80 per cent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. It was vital that they were recognised in the agreement and their rights protected.

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Environment, Government, Politics, Society, United Nations, United States

Globalised food systems are making hunger worse

LONG-READ: FOOD SUPPLY

Intro: Food disruptions from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine show the need for strong local supply chains. Yet the US and others won’t learn

FROM COVID-19 to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine to climate change, it seems all the calamities afflicting the world are converging to make hunger worse. The latest United Nations report on hunger finds the increase in the number of undernourished people globally this year has eliminated any progress over the past decade.

Yet while the world has not seen hunger at these levels for years, scholars have long warned that a catastrophe was looming. The world’s food system is more interconnected and complex than ever, built upon layers of transnational dependencies. It is why a war in Europe can exacerbate a famine in Somalia — a country which imports most of its wheat and saw its supply of bread all but collapse overnight when exports of Ukrainian wheat ceased.

But instead of reducing the fragility of the food system, the latest international efforts led by the United States to end hunger are only exacerbating it — especially for Africa — by globalising the system further. Just this week, US President Joe Biden has promised African leaders gathered in Washington that the United States is “all in” on Africa. But the US needs to make sure that it is “all in” the right way, particularly when it comes to food.

The current crisis began when multiple pandemic-related shocks converged on the system, including lockdowns, a global economic downturn, and illnesses among food system workers, especially factory workers and migrant labourers. Climate change-related weather events, inflation and the Ukraine war have aggravated these stresses, rendering a complex and highly industrialised food system unable to serve the neediest people in the world even as it maintains steady supplies for the Global North.

It is increasingly clear that in moments when the world is under severe stress, globalisation is not a strength but a weakness, not a foundation for the system’s stability but a reason for its fragility. Any calamity anywhere in the world — whether a viral outbreak, drought or conflict — is a shock to the entire system, but one felt most acutely by the most vulnerable people and in the most vulnerable places.

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Britain, Economic, Energy, Environment, Government, Society

The looming crisis of an energy shortage

ENERGY RESERVES

NEVER in history have modern societies relied so heavily on secure supplies of electricity. Half a century ago, when the nation was last subjected to major power cuts, the effect was mainly on heating and lighting.

Now, however, the computer revolution has changed that completely.

People shop online, we work online, and much study is also done online. International trade and financial transactions depend entirely on a functioning computer network.

The same is true of everything from the police to the transport system. And a power shutdown or outage of only a few hours, even if scheduled, could do lasting damage.

In the same period, we have grown accustomed to a more or less regular and reliable power supply.

Thanks partly to investments made decades ago, the country still has a significant amount of reliable nuclear-generated electricity, plus a small, dwindling reserve of coal generation.

But both these sources are shrinking, because we have phased out coal for a greener environment and because we have failed to plan effectively to replace ageing nuclear plants. A great deal of our remaining energy now depends on gas, much of it imported.

The revolutionary switch to renewable energy, made in response to global warming and the climate change crisis, has been for some years the main focus of planning and building.

This is excellent when it works, but it is completely dependent on the caprice of weather, or on the simple realities of climate.

Solar power, predictably, is of little use here in winter. Wind power can vanish without warning or can be made unusable because the wind is actually too strong for safe generation. Proud announcements that the country has generated 50 per cent of its power through wind on any given day should be greeted with caution. On a windless day, that figure could be tiny.

Some of these problems are alleviated, but not solved, by connectors from our neighbours.

These can rescue us at awkward moments, but France, for instance, has run into major maintenance problems with its elderly nuclear generators, and winter weather simply increases pressure on scarce resources, everywhere. Up to a point, sudden shortages may be dealt with by paying large consumers to switch off, or by bringing in banks of costly and far-from-green diesel generators.

But the risk of actual power cuts, especially in weather such as we have recently been experiencing, is worryingly high.

We really are not very far away from imposed power cuts in our homes and offices, which – as well as leaving the old and vulnerable in the cold and the dark – will do serious damage to the economy.

So, it is perplexing to find that the Government has been relying on predictions by the Met Office in making its plans and calculations. Not only is the Met Office honest about the difficulty of long-distance forecasting, but winters in the UK can be very severe indeed.

Who knows what we would do if Britain once again faced a relentless long-term freeze such as that of 1962-63, itself the coldest since that of 1895?

Events such as the “Troll of Trondheim” often come with little warning. So do interruptions in supply, hugely important now we are no longer self-sufficient in gas.

The one thing that the Government can do is to be prepared for all eventualities. It has been many months since the poor state of our reserve capacity was revealed.  Let us hope that Ministers and officials have not wasted a single second in getting ready.

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