Sergio Abranches

Local sustainable development 2.0, that’s how we should call what is happening in 80 municipalities of the Brazilian giant state of Pará, in the Amazon region. Pará is 1.8 times the size of Texas. These 80 towns are basically dominated by cattle-ranching and some timber production. Beef, timber, and soybean have been the main culprits for a long history of illegal logging, that has claimed about 20% of the Amazon rainforest, and 27% of Pará’s forest cover.

Until recently, local development in the Amazon has been based on small scale cooperative-based extractive activities for the production of rubber, fruit or fish. Now local development has to address large-scale production, usually for beef, soybean, and wood products exports.

Deforestation has declined sharply over the last five years, from more than 25,000 sq. Km a year to around 7,000 sq. km. Forest degradation, though, has been rampant, especially over the last three years. Degradation has two main sources. One, is selective logging for  timber production. Loggers cut the most valued species and leave those with less or no commercial value. The other is land clearing for pasture or soybean production. Loggers also cut selectively, to hide the process from common satellite detection, until it is too late for authorities to prevent full clearing.

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Sergio Abranches

Manuel is an investment banker from Mozambique. He runs an investment and private equity company with stakes in pratically all sectors of almost all African countries. He moved from Mozambique to Namibia, where he lives. So far all his company’s investment were financed with its own capital. No leveraging. He is in a strategic position that gives him a broader and yet deep view of what is going on in Africa. We’ve met recently at an event on global sustainable logistics and had a long conversation about China’s involvement in the region. He asked me to have our talk off the records, for understandable reasons, that’s why I don’t write his full name. Our chat was in Portuguese our common language.

“Africa is being dominated by China”, he told me. “It is a voracious and predatory investor.” China is primarily interested in mineral resources of all sorts, and this is shortening the view of governments and reducing the prospects for a true development of Africa. Governments like investments in mining very much. They yield high tax and royalties revenues, without any cost or collateral. The companies even build the necessary infrastructure for mineral logistics. It is also a type of activity that induces a lot of corruption. They are “infertile investments” they don’t generate progress. They have no inducement effect, they don’t promote new investment downstream, they are not interested in the diversification of economic activity. After the ore is gone, they leave the holes behind and go after other sources. The power elite is satisfied with its pockets full of money. “No benefits for the people.” Governments are replacing development plans with a policy of mineral licensing.

Another area of strong Chinese interest is timber, says Manuel. Deforestation with Chinese money is rampant. “But, alas, China is an irresistible power in Africa, we need to learn how to deal with China,” he adds. To understand the Chinese, and be able to anticipate its moves, and learn how to deal with it, his group opened offices in Beijing and Shanghai. They’re even investing in China. At the same time they are looking for cooperation with Brazilian and South African corporations. He thinks that development in Africa will have to turn these three powers into positive forces for the region’s progress: China, Brazil and South Africa.

He came to this traditional global event in Brazil to look for scientific expertise in two areas his group is investing heavily in Africa: logistics and energy. He is very interested in wind and PV (photovoltaic) solar power. I can’t understand why Brazil has not become a major player in wind and solar research and development. We are very interested. Africa, like Brazil has a great potential in these two sources of renewable energy. China is becoming a major player. “With the huge potential for wind and solar power generation in Brazil it is a pity, and a great waste of opportunity not to investment to assume a leading role in this market.” I couldn’t agree more.

Manuel is the face of the new Africa trying to emerge from the wreackage of civil wars, bad, tyrannical and corrupt governance that led to an awful degree of social degradation. There are many like him, he tells me. “We are all striving to change Africa and going through hard times still dealing with very corrupt regimes.”

It is clear that to prosper in Africa to have good relations with local governments is a necessary condition. Good relations in many countries still depend on bribe. “Corruption is everywhere. It is a shame, but there is no place in Africa free of corruption.”

Would he not speak portuguese, be called Manuel and be a black man, he could be taken for any contemporary young investment banker from Wall Street or the City, running the world in search of the best profit opportunities. But Manuel is not a regular investment banker, he is different, not only because of his language, his name and the color of his skin. He does run the world, but looking for knowledge, expertise, and technology, and not only for his company. He has an African dream. He wants Africa as a whole to prosper with the assets he brings home. He is always interested and concerned about Africa. Another distinctive trait that differentiates him even from other Africans: he looks at Africa as a whole, beyond borders, and beyond tribal divisions, just Africa.

Perhaps this is the appropriate 21^st century view for his land. An integrated and unified Africa, that takes its diversity into account, and knows that no part will be fully developed if the whole is not equally developed. That there will be no durable and fair progress while corruption and violence dominates Africa. He is not looking for Africa as a single nation, but he dreams of a true African Union.

A scenario of sustained high oil prices can no longer be discarded. If the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East continue to spread to other countries over the next months, it is quite likely that oil prices will keep high, and may even reach new record heights. Not an unlikely development, particularly if protesters in Libya succeed in overthrowing Gaddafi. But instability will hardly stop with the overthrow of dictatorial rulers. Governance-building is a long process, with likely surges of instability. Attending the demands for jobs and income will not be easy. The global economy has not fully recovered yet, and the region’s troubled local economies need sweeping reforms before they can yield satisfactory results. Frustration of demands can refuel discontent and lead to new waves of instability.

This environment of uncertainty and stress can have an enduring effect on oil prices, leading to a relatively long cycle with frequent upswings, before prices start to settle down. This scenario could further deteriorate if this wave of revolt reaches Saudi Arabia. It looks rock solid today, but its gerontocracy has little future left. Change might be inevitable. Instability in Saudi Arabia would very likely determine a higher floor to oil prices. The effect of Libya’s instability on oil prices has do to with oil quality, rather than with the quantity at risk. In Saudi Arabia it is the other way around, it is about quantity. Sustained high oil prices would jeopardize the still shaky economic recovery in Europe and the US. It would also feed inflation. Food inflation that has resulted from extreme weather events all over the world over the last 14 months would be refueled. There is a clear and present danger of a setback to economic recovery.

Continuar lendo: NatGeo Blogs: The Great Energy Challenge

Sergio Abranches

Who can influence the most climate change policies? Top economic policy-makers or environmental authorities? In any country of the world, economic policy-makers have far more power to lead us to a low carbon economy, than environmental policy-makers, both public and private. Hence the silence of Finance ministers on climate change is far more meaningful than the eloquence of environment ministers.

And silence was as heavy as the thickest fog ever in Paris at the close of the G20 finance ministers meeting, on February 19. The final communiqué has not a single phrase regarding either climate change or the economic costs and job destruction associated with of land, air, and water pollution.

The Finance ministers of the larger and most powerful economies of the developed and emerging world have used the word ‘sustainable’ only once, on a catch phrase, and in the wrong context. When interpreted by its proximity to other terms receiving greater emphasis, it becomes clear they were not talking about ‘sustainable’ growth, but about ‘sustained’ growth. They did not take notice of UNEP’s report “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication”, released to the public today, February 21, one day after the meeting closed in Paris, on Saturday. They have quoted a few ‘interim reports’, but have ignored OECD’s “Interim Report of the Green Growth Strategy: Implementing our Commitment for a Sustainable Future”. The workshop for the preparation of the final report was held in Paris just one week before the G20 meeting. The final report is to be presented to ministers at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting in May 2011. Perhaps they’ll will be able convey the basic ideas to their cabinet mates and to their leaders at home this time. But there is less than a slim chance that the Finance ministers will, then, come to know a bit more about the synergy between economic recovery, job creation, poverty eradication and the transition to a low carbon, green economy.

The Paris Communiqué has nothing but the following paragraph to say regarding economic growth, and their priorities for economic policy.

“We reaffirm our commitment to coordinated policy action by all G20 members to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Our main priority actions include implementing medium term fiscal consolidation plans differentiated according to national circumstances in line with our Toronto commitment, pursuing appropriate monetary policy, enhancing exchange rate flexibility to better reflect underlying economic fundamentals and structural reforms, to sustain global demand, increase potential growth, foster job creation and contribute to global rebalancing.”

The communiqué expresses high concern about food price volatility, but sees this volatility as part of the larger movement of commodity prices. Within this broader framing it gives far more importance to price instability of oil, gas, and coal. It also takes a strictly financial viewpoint of food price volatility.

On commodity price volatility, the communiqué says that:

“We discussed concerns about consequences of potential excessive commodity price volatility and asked our deputies to work with international organizations and to report back to us on the underlying drivers and the challenges posed by these trends for both consumers and producers and consider possible actions. Keeping in mind the impact of this volatility on food security, we reiterated the need for long-term investment in the agricultural sector in developing countries.”

Reiteration is just a metaphoric way to admit either that ‘nobody listened when we said it before’, or ‘we never really meant that to happen anyway’. The fact that they are reiterating a position about something that is factual amounts to an implicit admission of failure. By readdressing the need for long-term investment in the agriculture of developing countries they are admitting that this investment has not occurred in spite of their previous recommendation. There is no mention whatsoever to the vulnerability of most of the developing countries’ agricultural activities to climate change as well as to land degradation and water scarcity. The Finance ministers have also failed to see the damage to Africa’s agriculture done by agricultural subsidies in developed countries, especially in the European Union.

There is no indication in the communiqué that the Finance ministers have been informed of the effect of  extreme weather on food prices. Extreme weather has hit major portions of the agricultural areas of North and South America, Africa, and Australia. It is quite hard not to have noticed it, even more so, when there is an explicit concern about ‘food security’.

The communiqué has also disregarded that rising prices of fossil fuels could be a strong incentive to investment in low carbon, clean energy. This investment is a better hedge against fuel price volatility, than any intervention in the oil, gas, and coal markets. This Monday, February 21, the price of Brent oil opened at US$ 104,26 a barrel due to events in Libya. It seems no Finance minister has ever read studies showing how clean investment and clean energy could help to effectively address the financial crisis. Or how high oil prices could help a greener economic recovery. Some say that  US$ 100,00 a barrel is the break-even point to the transition to a low carbon economy.

The G20 Paris communiqué mentions several organizations investigating the drivers of fuel price volatility. But the organizations  that are dedicated to understanding food price volatility are treated by the anonymous collective expression “relevant international organizations”. It seems that they are only worried about speculation with agricultural commodity derivatives. Perhaps as a result of pressure from the french presidency inaugurated on the Paris meeting.

“We welcomed the interim report by the IEF, IEA and OPEC to improve the quality, timeliness and reliability of the Joint Organization Data Initiative Oil (JODI oil) and call for further work on strategies to implement these recommendations to be detailed in their final report. Building on the Riyadh symposium held on January 24th, we encourage the IEF to provide concrete strategies to improve the producer-consumer dialogue at its next meeting on February 22nd 2011. Following our Leaders’ request, we call on the IMF and IEF, as well as IEA, GECF and OPEC, to develop by October 2011 concrete recommendations to extend the G20’s work on oil price volatility to gas and coal. We look forward to discussing at our next meeting the report of IEF, IEA, OPEC and IOSCO on price reporting agencies as well as the interim report on food security currently being undertaken by the relevant international organizations, and IOSCO’s recommendations, and the FSB’s consideration of next steps, on regulation and supervision of commodity derivatives markets notably to strengthen transparency and address market abuses.”

The absence of any concern about climate change, about the effects of economic activity on the environment, as well as about the impact of a damaged environment on economic activity at the center of economic policy design is an indicator of a ongoing conservative setback on global climate policy. It is very worrisome that Finance ministers feel comfortable to disregard  studies like those released by the OECD and UNEP on green economics and the costs and benefits of a transition to a low carbon economy. It is also disquieting that UNEP chose to release its new report on the green economy this Monday, one day after the G20 meeting closed in Paris. This report estimates the transition costs to a green economy at 2% of GDP per year. The ‘green economy’ is defined as “one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive”. Far from the vague idea of sustainability adopted by the G20 communiqué.

This difference is even more striking regarding ‘food security’. It would be really great if the G20 leaders were to recommend their Finance ministers to read this:

“As regards to food security, we are seeing neither widespread understanding of the nature of the problem, nor globally collaborative solutions for how we shall feed a population of 9 billion by 2050. Freshwater scarcity is already a global problem, and forecasts suggest a growing gap by 2030 between annual freshwater demand and renewable supply. The outlook for improved sanitation still looks bleak for over 2.6 billion people; 884 million people still lack access to clean drinking water. Collectively, these crises are severely impacting our ability to sustain prosperity worldwide and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for reducing extreme poverty. They are compounding persistent social problems from job losses, socio economic insecurity and poverty, and threatening social stability.

Although the causes of these crises vary, at a fundamental level they all share a common feature: the gross misallocation of capital. During the last two decades, much capital was poured into property, fossil fuels and structured financial assets with embedded derivatives, but relatively little in comparison was invested in renewable energy, energy efficiency, public transportation, sustainable agriculture, ecosystem and biodiversity protection, and land and water conservation.”

There is a deadly mismatch between what the political commanding heights of the global economy are saying about growth, and the evidence about the outcomes of the present path of global growth. While the major developed and emerging economies of the world insist on short-term, low quality global economic growth, societies are already facing the burden of the lack of sound and working economic strategies for development in the 21^st century.

Sergio Abranches

Today I saw a Retweet that reminded me of something I thought, and afterwards wrote about, many years ago. The RT by @paulegina (a.k.a Paule Wendelberger), a US citizen born in Haiti, living and working for more than 20 years in Germany (www.wendelberger.com), quoted a Tweet by @wsteffie (a.k.a Stefanie W) conveniently located in “Cyberspace”. Her bio is both a demand and a statement of belief: “human rights for all, and social democracy can work if we all act responsibly.” Her Tweet reads: “@TIME is just teaching us about American Democracy: Ask the people to vote & then screw them!”

The Tweet was about Time Magazine choosing Mark Zuckerberg rather than Julian Assange as Person of the Year. The Twittersphere reports that Assange, Wikileaks mentor and principal person, got 382,000 votes against 18,000 to Mark Zuckerberg, founder of  Facebook. Time magazine’s ranking based on the poll confirms.

But the recollection the RT brought to my mind has nothing to do with TIME’s choices. It was about the view of US democracy on Stefanie W’s Tweet, and the fact it gets an approving quote from another person from the USA living in an European social democracy.

Both Zuckerberg and Assange are controversial characters of their own. Zuckerberg’s nomination is not without merit. Facebook is an important addition to network life. And so is Wikileaks, to network life and journalism. However, Assange’s achievements and predicament this year clearly make him the winner, regarding both relevance and news content. The choice of Person of the Year by a news magazine would seem outright.

I know, the “democracy thing” was to be the lede and I have not spelled it so far. The “democracy thing” is a paradox: there seems to be a permanently high degree of dissatisfaction with how democracy works everywhere at any time; but no society has yet come up with an alternative regime. One that ensures at least as much freedom as a mature democracy does, and works better overall than existing democracies.

I met this paradox almost physically many years ago when I was at Notre Dame University for a brief tenure as senior visiting fellow of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies. I was a young scholar, had gotten my PhD four years before. A group attending a Congress of the International Political Science Association decided to organize this conference on comparative democracy. We should compare democracies, or the “democratic problem”, in Latin America, the US and Europe. I wrote a critique of liberal democracies called “Neither citizens nor free persons: the political dilemma of liberal democracies”. It was a defense of social democracy. The essay was inspired by a paradoxical sequence of feelings I had when I arrived in Chicago, on my way to South Bend. Brazil was slowly moving out of a two-decade long period of military rule. Several friends of mine were still in exile. A few were killed by the ruthless authoritarian government. Being free to speak my mind, to openly discuss issues that were dangerous to bring to public debate in Brazil made me feel exhilarating. After a few hours discussing the shortcomings of US democracy and listening to US liberals’ (in the US sense) complaints about democracy under Ronald Reagan, I though: “well it is far better than a dictatorship, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.”

As I see it today, US Democracy has become far more progressive with Barack Obama than it was with George W. Bush. In the previous administration there were clear and dangerous setbacks for democracy, both domestically and globally. Obama has a tolerant and open-minded political personality. I’ve been to the US several times since 9/11, and the whole environment shows less stress and uneasiness now. I have friends in Germany that are convinced social democracy is not working there. I have heard from British people that democracy is utterly dysfunctional in the UK. The attitude of the Courts on Assange’s case does not bode well to British democracy. The French have always complained about French democracy, and continue to do so. French society is again “enragée” with its democracy and government. Talk to Italians about their democracy, especially after Berlusconi got the vote of confidence, and one’ll probably get a torrent of Italian imprecations as answer. Last year I’ve spent a few months in Toronto, and have been to Montréal. Canadians are not happy with their democracy. I will spare you opinions about Latin American democracies.

Are we dissatisfied with our democracies or with our governments? The right answer is both. But more with the governments, than with democracy in itself. The problems with governments we all know. They’re usually related to economic and territorial management, pressing current domestic issues, foreign affairs. The problems with democracy are more difficult to grasp, they are less tangible. Democracy nonetheless seems in disarray everywhere.

Part of the problem comes, very likely, from a permanent mismatch between desire, or, more properly, expectations and the performance of democracy. In other words, frustration with what democracy has managed to deliver is rampant. Democracy is a process and, as such, it can improve or decay. Usually it does have ups and downs. It seems fair to say that it is on a phase of decay. There is no final stage for the process of “democratic development”. It is a moving target. And it depends on the engagement of civil society to make any progress towards this target. Democracy decays when civil society is not engaged, is not aiming higher.

Democracy has not adapted yet to the new technological revolution – of which Facebook and Wikileaks are an offspring – to globalization, climate change, new waves of migration and a basketful of new issues and processes that will be the building blocks of this century’s history.

Adam Przeworski, born in Poland, a US Citizen, and very successful scholar, now teaching political science at NYU, was at the conference in Notre Dame. During the discussions, to my amazement, he reacted to my paper saying he couldn’t understand why I didn’t stress the role of the party as one of the major elements of the dilemma of liberal democracies. I did not understand, at the time, how someone could envisage democracy without political parties. At the time I believed that political parties were an essential element of democracies.

My first impression was that Adam invested against the party because it clearly was an instrument of oppression and privilege in communist regimes. This discussion took place seven years before their demise. It was also an instrument of oppression and privilege in authoritarian regimes. Like in Mexico, when the PRI was the only party. The party machinery and the state apparatus were intertwined. That much I was prepared to admit: party bureaucracies having promiscuous and non-competitive linkages to the state structure were a clear and present danger to democracy. I was also prepared to accept Peter Bachrach’s concept of “democratic elitism”, or E. E. Schattschneider’s idea of a semi-sovereign people. I have read their books in graduate school, and dealt with them in my essay. But I was not prepared to toss parties in the garbage can of political history.

It took me some time to understand that there was a deeper truth to Adam’s argument. The political party is an outdated technology of representative democracy. A necessary contraption, perhaps, before the advent of the network society. Today they do belong into the garbage can of political history. But, again, what will replace the parties? Will parliaments still make sense without parties? Is deliberation better than representation, even when we know how unequal is the distribution of knowledge, information, and education? Is legitimate and democratic deliberation possible in the absence of civic education, or in a situation it is declining? A civic culture, or social capital, or whatever one likes to call this “spirit of citizenship” is a sine qua non for truly democratic and participatory deliberations. This sentiment of belonging and togetherness, of collective responsibility is indispensable to what Machiavelli has called the “virtuous republic”. Today we would call it full-citizenship, or responsible citizenship, aware of both its rights and obligations, capable of a high degree of self-government.

Yes, back to Utopia to fight dystopias. We ought to fight democratic decay. That much is clear. We’ve got to bring to political life the new technologies and practices we use in our private and collective everyday life to our own benefit, our new forms of socializing, debating, exchanging ideas, seeking knowledge information and references.

So it has to do with Zuckerberg, Assange, Facebook and Wikileaks after all. We have, in several ways, a more democratic social exchange in the network society than in political society. We’ve got to bridge this gap moving towards more political democracy. But let’s not fool ourselves: we all live in a private and collective world of micro-tyrannies, prejudice, and exclusion. These social micro behaviors are also present in the Websphere. We won’t have more political democracy without democratizing private and collective life. We’ve got to take the network society to higher levels of openness and equal exchange. Nobody will do that for us. Certainly not the power-holders in both government and opposition. Political parties will not be a part of this (re)volution, they don’t belong into this future.

This process of permanently improving democracy, preventing its decay, and transforming it from the inside out, from top to bottom, to design a legitimate and functional regime for this century is a task for us all. It is a global endeavor. A collective challenge. A network mission. We have the technology and the dissatisfaction to begin with. But can we do it?

PS.

I know tons of theories have been written about this “democracy thing”, the network society, and everything else. But I am afraid we have been theorizing too much among ourselves, like a tribe of pundits, and have lost the praxis, as a collective body.

Humans are today a major factor of global warming and climate change. Humans are also victims of radical environmental changes. Both statements are true and correlated. They mark the complex interactions between humans an the environment. The issue that most directly reflects these interactions is health.

Sergio Abranches

The world will have to manage an altered human health environment resulting from climate change, says an important report on the health effects of climate change issued by the medical journal The Lancet, and the University College of London Institute for Global Health Commission.

Effects of climate change on health will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives and well-being of billions of people at increased risk.

Management of the health effects of climate change will require inputs from all sectors of government and civil society, collaboration between many academic disciplines, and new ways of international cooperation that have hitherto eluded us. Involvement of local communities in monitoring, discussing, advocating, and assisting with the process of adaptation will be crucial. An integrated and multidisciplinary approach to reduce the adverse health effects of climate change requires at least three levels of action. First, policies must be adopted to reduce carbon emissions and to increase carbon biosequestration, and thereby slow down global warming and eventually stabilize temperatures. Second, action should be taken on the events linking climate change to disease. Third, appropriate public health systems should be put into place to deal with adverse outcomes.

Many situations of high risk to human society also entail significant benefits from the endeavors to manage and prevent probable hazards. This is the case of health risks associated to climate change. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), tells how and why on her article for The Lancet commenting the results from the report “Managing the health effects of climate change”. Environmental events such as climate change are not quirks of nature, she argues.

Instead they are markers of massive failure in international systems that govern the way nations and their populations interact. The contagion of our mistakes shows no mercy and makes no exceptions on the basis of fair play. For example, countries that have contributed least to greenhouse-gas emissions will be the first and hardest hit by climate change.

Health consequences of climate change are no longer a matter of scientific uncertainty. They have been identified and their projections are anything but uncertain.

Several health consequences of a changing climate have been identified with a high degree of certainty. Malnutrition, and its devastating effects on child health, will increase. Worsening floods, droughts, and storms will cause more deaths and injuries. Heat waves will cause more deaths, largely among people who are elderly. Finally, climate change could alter the geographical distribution of disease vectors, including the insects that spread malaria and dengue. All these health problems are already huge, largely concentrated in the developing world, and difficult to control.

This correlation between climate change and collective health hazards calls for linking climate and health security goals globally.

Most of the mitigation measures for climate change investigated (including cleaner household-energy sources, less dependence on automobile transport, and reduced consumption of animal products in developed countries) would bring public health benefits. In many cases, these benefits are substantial, and would help to address some of the largest and fastest growing global health challenges and the greatest drains on health-sector resources, such as acute respiratory infections, cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes. While the climatic effects of mitigation measures are long term and dispersed throughout the world, the health benefits are immediate and local, making them more attractive to politicians and the public.

Mitigation and its side benefits

As a political agreement on global climate policy seems now more likely to be reached in Copenhagen than it was a few weeks ago, we should start looking at the benefits of taking immediate action, and what to do to make it happen.

The issue now is not whether climate change is occurring, but how we can respond most effectively. The first steps are clear. In the short term, strengthening health systems, and widening coverage of proven and cheap public health interventions to control climate-sensitive diseases, would accelerate progress towards the health-related Millennium Development Goals and save millions of lives. In the long term, the same actions would also reduce vulnerability to climate change. Responding to climate change is not a distraction from the business of protecting health: it is part of the same agenda.

The Lancet has also published a series of articles dealing with the relationship between climate change and human health.

A group of academic and government health and energy specialists led by Paul Wilkinson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine developed an interesting model to examine the possible health gains from reducing green-house gases emissions of household energy use. The model shows that mitigation strategies bring benefits to health for both high-income and low-income households.

The broad conclusion is clear—that in both high-income and low-income settings there is a set of abatement actions with appreciable potential overall benefits to health. In the contrasting examples we investigated, the health benefits seem especially great for the populations of India that rely on inefficient combustion of biomass fuels for household energy. Evidence from many studies shows that women, children, and men in such settings are exposed to very high concentrations of particles, gases, and other noxious pollutants that are often at least an order of magnitude higher than the health-protection values set by national and international agencies. Further, these populations might be especially vulnerable to the health consequences of breathing such pollution because of poor nutrition, poor access to health care, and other risk factors.

Climate change and urban transport

Health and transportation professionals used comparative risk assessment methods to estimate the health effects of alternative urban land transport scenarios for two settings—London, UK, and Delhi, India.

We developed separate models that linked transport scenarios with physical activity, air pollution, and risk of road traffic injury. In both cities, we noted that reduction in carbon dioxide emissions through an increase in active travel and less use of motor vehicles had larger health benefits per million population (7332 disability-adjusted life-years [DALYs] in London, and 12 516 in Delhi in 1 year) than from the increased use of lower-emission motor vehicles (160 DALYs in London, and 1696 in Delhi). However, combination of active travel and lower-emission motor vehicles would give the largest benefits (7439 DALYs in London, 12 995 in Delhi), notably from a reduction in the number of years of life lost from ischaemic heart disease (10—19% in London, 11—25% in Delhi). Although uncertainties remain, climate change mitigation in transport should benefit public health substantially. Policies to increase the acceptability, appeal, and safety of active urban travel, and discourage travel in private motor vehicles would provide larger health benefits than would policies that focus solely on lower-emission motor vehicles.

Their conclusions are both far-reaching and clear. There are concrete advantages from linking policies addressing urban transportation hurdles to the reduction of GHG emissions. A climate change perspective enriches and strengthens urban policies. At the end of the day it yields direct health benefits to citizens and financial gains to households’ budgets and taxpayers.

Important health gains and reductions in CO2 emissions can be achieved through replacement of urban trips in private motor vehicles with active travel in high-income and middle-income countries. Technological measures to reduce vehicle pollutants might reduce emissions, but the health effect would be smaller. The combination of reduced reliance on motorized travel and substantial increases in active travel with vigorous implementation of low-emission technology offers the best outcomes in terms of climate change mitigation and public health. In many cities, the increase in use of cars, motorcycles, and HGVs, with the resulting increase in road danger has meant that many individuals who can afford to are changing to private motorized transport. An increase in the safety, convenience, and comfort of walking and cycling, and a reduction in the attractiveness of private motor vehicle use (speed, convenience, and cost) are essential to achieve the modal shifts envisaged here.

Low-carbon power

A study on low-carbon electricity and public health concludes that reduction of particle air pollution emissions from coal-fired power plants have highly positive effects on health in developed regions like the European Union, or emerging countries, such as China and India.

Changes in modes of production of electricity to reduce CO2 emissions would, in all regions, reduce PM2·5 and deaths caused by it, with the greatest effect in India and the smallest in the EU. Health benefits greatly offset costs of greenhouse-gas mitigation, especially in India where pollution is high and costs of mitigation are low. Our estimates are approximations but suggest clear health gains (co-benefits) through decarbonizing electricity production, and provide additional information about the extent of such gains.

The gains are greater, the more coal-intensive electricity generation is. But even “cleaner” fossil energy would have an incrementally positive effect on health.

This study indicates that some health benefits will result from changes in the means of electricity generation in response to a 50% CO2 reduction target by 2050. Estimates indicate savings in years of life that will be greatest in India, followed by China. If in 2030 changes were made that were consistent with the 2050 reduction targets, gains in India and China would be about 1500 and 500 life-years per million people, respectively. In the EU, the benefits are expected to be more modest, at around 100 life-years per million people in 2030. The modest improvement in Europe expected in a carbon-mitigated future compared with that in a business-as-usual future is mainly the result of the existence of already clean methods of electricity production from fossil fuels. These methods are projected to become cleaner in the business-as-usual setting. This is also the case, but to a lesser extent, in China.

The food system

What about land use change and agriculture? It is well known that the food system is a major contributor to global greenhouse-gas emissions, “from farming and its inputs through to food distribution, consumption, and the disposal of waste.” The major challenge would be to link improvements on agriculture with GHG emissions reductions and redirecting production to the provision of a balanced and healthier human diet.

We (…) used these data to model the potential benefits of reduced consumption of livestock products on the burden of ischaemic heart disease: disease burden would decrease by about 15% in the UK (equivalent to 2850 disability-adjusted life-years [DALYs] per million population in 1 year) and 16% in São Paulo city (equivalent to 2180 DALYs per million population in 1 year). Although likely to yield benefits to health, such a strategy will probably encounter cultural, political, and commercial resistance, and face technical challenges. Coordinated intersectoral action is needed across agricultural, nutritional, public health, and climate change communities worldwide to provide affordable, healthy, low-emission diets for all societies. (…)

Inadequate policies, social inequality and a distorted structure of market incentives and disincentives lead to a pattern of food production and consumption that is unfit to human health. Correcting these factors would lead to both a cleaner food production system and greater supply of a more balanced diet.

[A] strategy to reduce production and consumption of foods from animal sources would help to prevent dangerous climate change from greenhouse-gas emissions and benefit the health of adults in countries consuming high amounts of animal products. (…) An important challenge in public health is to balance the need for adequate population intake of animal-source protein and essential nutrients with reduced consumption of saturated fat. Almost a billion people have protein-energy undernutrition, most of whom are also undernourished in micronutrients, especially iron and zinc. Adequate protein, energy, iron, and zinc can be obtained from a plant-based diet. However, the consumption of a small amount of animal-source foods per day in low-consumption populations could help to alleviate the burden of undernutrition. At present, agricultural production is mismatched with the provision of a diet that is balanced in terms of foods from plant and animal sources. Globally, production per head of energy, fats, proteins, and micronutrients has increased and is sufficient to meet global population needs, but the benefits have not been distributed evenly across countries and regions. A wide range of factors affect the supply and demand for animal-source foods; some policy levers offer potential approaches to change consumption patterns in populations.

Pollution

Short-lived greenhouse pollutants emitted from fuel combustion account directly or indirectly for a large proportion of present global warming as well as for most of the direct damage to human health from energy use worldwide.

Short-lived greenhouse pollutants include gases such as the directly health-damaging carbon monoxide and non-methane volatile organic compounds, and others responsible for ozone creation in the lower atmosphere such as methane. Aerosols of short-lived greenhouse pollutants include sulphate, organic carbon, and black carbon particles, which have differing climate implications: the first two cooling, but the third strongly warming.

Short-lived greenhouse pollutants need to be controlled in addition to regulating carbon dioxide emissions because they collectively create a substantial proportion of all human-contributed global warming and directly damage health. Importantly, control of some short-lived greenhouse pollutants may lead to quick reductions in global warming.

An agenda for human advancement

This collection of papers together with the full report offer us a wealth of reasons to see cuts of carbon emissions as a developmental issue and not as a limiting factor to human well-being.

The finding of generally positive health effects of mitigation shows that strategies promoting a low greenhouse-gas emission economy can also have potential to improve public health. It also provides a rationale to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that is not wholly confined to the achievement of climate change mitigation. Some commentators suggest that many features of climate change are now irreversible and that the most important objective is to try to adapt to it and other global environmental threats. However, the case for mitigation is greatly strengthened if it has direct collateral benefits in addition to restriction of climate change.

Mitigation strategies can be designed as development strategies. Investment in emissions reduction can also result in less expending in health and nutrition. Changing energy and transportation strategies should not be viewed as limits to growth, but rather as a contribution to better urban living, lower overall costs, and new opportunities for investment and employment.

If societies change their energy systems in ways that improve outdoor and indoor air quality, change their methods of transport in ways that encourage physical activity and social contact, and modify intensive food production practices and consumer choices in ways that reduce dietary risks to health, then many positive health consequences will result. Despite uncertainties about the magnitude and timescale, health co-benefits from mitigation can be anticipated. Therefore, commitment to mitigation actions producing many such benefits becomes very appealing, especially if (as is likely) the health gains entail substantial national cost savings as an offset to the costs of the mitigation actions. The strategic significance of this issue is potentially great. If the health co-benefits from mitigation activities in lower-income countries were sufficiently large, it would strengthen the rationale for achieving convergence of mitigation schedules between low-income and high-income countries.

These studies add strength to an argument I use to guide most of my writings on global warming: the climate change agenda is an agenda for real human progress. It should be, from now on, the guiding principle of every public and private policy-making agenda.

Amid strong controversies among his ministers, president Lula has supposedly concluded a cabinet meeting, last Tuesday, by saying “we’ll move ahead, but first bring me a consensual policy with figures all of you agree with.”

Sergio Abranches

The decision was postponed to November 14. Meanwhile government officials will try to agree on a set of actions and figures that go beyond the commitment 80% reduction  of deforestation by 2020.

The new commitment would include the agricultural sector (land use change), by means of a program of quality and productivity gains to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. The program could include new production practices, increasing non-tillage farming, and direct seeding; changing use of fertilizers; fighting agricultural wildfire, especially on sugar cane plantations; and recovery of spoiled land to move the agricultural frontier without forcing deforestation.

Another action considered almost fully approved is to ban wood from deforestation in the production of charcoal for steel mills. Government officials are labeling it “green steel”. President Lula has recently criticized private giant iron ore mining company Vale, for not producing steel for export. He and his Chief of Staff (also his presidential candidate to be) Dilma Roussef are staunch supporters of steel production.

Some sources have told me there wasn’t too much conflict over goals or over the idea of an enlarged commitment to be taken to Copenhagen. Most of the divergence centered on figures and procedures. The meeting was adjourned so that the different ministries could get together and agree on both.

The major source of opposition to an extended commitment continues to come from the Foreign Ministry. They argue that the Kyoto Protocol does not impose such obligations on Brazil. President Lula’s political advisors, however, are reported to have said that there is great expectation in the Brazilian society about a new attitude in Copenhagen. The president was apparently sensitive to the argument, because he is very fond of his domestic popularity, and also because he is already looking at the 2010 presidential elections.

Brazil would present a new and more ambitious set of NAMAs – Nationally Appropriated Actions, that, although not considered technically as legally binding commitments, are “quantifiable, reportable and verifiable commitments.”

Although there are those who say the government has already decided to commit only with the 80% reduction of deforestation in the Amazon, I heard from more than one official source that the president wishes to go beyond that.

The expectation is that actions and corresponding quantitative figures, consensually supported by all ministers involved, should be finally evaluated with the president next November 14.

President Lula’s last words were “let’s move ahead, but bring me a consensual policy with figures all of you agree with.”

There is a missing link in the mainstream discussion about climate change mitigation. We’ve been talking about the risks and worse-case scenarios, when we should be highlighting the flow of benefits that such endeavor would carry.

Sergio Abranches

The Brazilian government, for instance, is divided about the country’s standing in Copenhagen. The Environment Ministry has proposed stabilizing the country’s emissions relative to 2005 by 2020. The Ministry’s proposal shows that this is a feasible target requiring minor efforts compared to the gains it entails. Most of the job would be done by reducing deforestation, and stopping building coal and oil-fired power plants. This scenario for a 20% reduction of emissions would be possible maintaining a rate of 4% of annual growth of GDP with the same – and outdated – economic model we have today.

The likely presidential candidate and Lula’s present Chief of Staff, minister Dilma Roussef refused the proposal asking for growth rates of 5% and 6%. One decade of an average 4% annual GDP growth is already a high enough goal. This squabbling about average growth rates seems oddly misplaced.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Amorim, argued that this is not what the world is asking from emerging countries. We could do less. The Brazilian chief climate change negotiator Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado stated that “financing and an inadequate level of financing are a deal breaker for us.” Brazil wants developed countries to finance its emissions reductions. So do China and India. Financial aid is certainly part of the deal, but it is far from being the core issue.

Mediocre goals, wrong views, petty demands. Emerging countries’ obligations are not related with what is being asked from them by other nations. It is about their people’s future and wellbeing.

The controversies over the US climate change bill are not too different. They dwell around costs, sacrifices losses.

What is missing? Talking about the benefits of a transition to a low carbon society. Not only the obvious ones related to mitigating global warming and reducing the risk of cataclysmic climate change. Not the ones related to the public health and welfare gains of reducing pollution, increasing tree coverage, or protecting clean water sources. The missing links in the discussion about the route to a low carbon economy are the short to medium term purely economic benefits it entails.

Most of the discussion treats the money to be used to achieve reductions of emissions as expenditure, rather than as investment. Yet most of it is reproductive investment: it generates demand for new goods and services, and it creates jobs.

The view that sees a risk to GDP growth is a static one. Shifts in the supply-chain are not adequately accounted for; feedback effects are absent. When looked dynamically, what one can see is that most localized losses represent increasing gains elsewhere. Employment reduction and increased costs in the fossil fuel sectors, lead to job creation and cost reductions in clean tech and clean energy sectors. Retrofitting adds new momentum to the industrial and commercial building industries, creating new demand and generating jobs. New demand for goods and services that increase the energy efficiency or replace carbon-intensive activities with low-carbon ones are opportunities for investment and jobs in many other sectors of activity. Investment and job creation have always meant more income. More income has always meant more savings (and investment) and more consumption.

A recent report, “Clean Tech Job Trends 2009”, from Clean Edge, shows that “from wind-turbine production line workers in central Pennsylvania and ethanol distillers in São Paulo, Brazil, to smart-grid software designers in northern California and PV manufacturers in China’s Jiangsu province, clean tech has come a long way from the “alternative energy” pioneers of off-the-grid solar and other first-generation commercial technologies of the 1970s. And the clean-tech field is hot, particularly among younger students and graduates of community colleges, universities, and business schools and those in the high-tech centers of Abu Dhabi, Silicon Valley, Singapore, and Tokyo.”

A study by University of Massachusetts’ Political Economy Research Institute states that “investments in clean energy in today’s U.S. economy will generate roughly three times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within our fossil fuel energy infrastructure.” In another study, PERI reports that the number of “US direct jobs created per million dollar investment in building retrofits and smart grid is far greater than direct jobs created in the coal industry, by a factor of 8:1 and 5:1 respectively.”

Moving towards a low-carbon economy is not about sacrifice. It is about opportunity, a better society, more income distribution, improving air quality, reducing poverty. That’s one of the messages we should convey today to our representatives and governments. We want a new progressive world, we want the investment opportunities, the jobs and the benefits of a low-carbon economy. That’s why we want to seal the deal in Copenhagen in December. We want to start the new year already working towards this new society.

Blog Action Day

The answer is simple: we don’t want a future of decay. We want a major breakthrough for humankind. As significant as the Enlightenment was. The path to a society where all the potential present in today’s scientific, technological and societal change can fully flourish and lead to a new stage of human evolution.

Sergio Abranches

The Kyoto Protocol has failed on almost all counts. It was remarkably durable. Yet, it’s single noticeable virtue was to act as a catalyst for the development and experimentation of regional and global carbon markets, as Mike Hulme argues. But these markets weren’t even capable of stopping the growth of carbon emissions. Its flaws far outweighed its very few benefits. It has become a shield for large emerging emitters to elide their responsibilities. It conveys a mediocre vision of the future, it is a treaty for muddling-through, not for progress.

Sergio Abranches

Kyoto took too long to come into force, and when it did, it was ineffective. The Protocol was mostly a political contraption, having no firm scientific or economic basis. As Oliver Tickell writes it has “emerged from a maelstrom of negotiation and horse trading dominated by national, political and commercial vested interests”.

At the time of the negotiations, the scientific consensus about global warming and climate change was not as overwhelming as it is today. Dissenting voices were still taken seriously. Not now. Hard evidence of accelerating global warming and climate change has increased manyfold since then. Kyoto does not represent the present state of the World regarding climate change risks and opportunities.

I am not going to discuss in detail Kyoto’s failures. I recommend Mike Hulme’s “Why We Disagree About Climate Change”; Oliver Tickell’s “Kyoto 2”; Nicholas Stern’s “The Global Deal”; Anthony Giddens’ “The Politics of Climate Change”; Scott Barrett’s “Climate change negotiations reconsidered”.

Suffice it to say that the Kyoto Protocol has no targets for large emerging countries, and mediocre ones for developed countries. China, India and Brazil have interpreted its clause of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, as no obligation at all. A new deal would have to set more clearly that all large emitters, developed and emerging, have shared responsibilities, that lead to binding, though differentiated, quantitative commitments. Developed countries do have a carbon debt, but it cannot be paid with waivers for emerging countries to follow their high carbon path. It has to be paid with the creation of financial and technical mechanisms to help them thread a new low carbon path.

Kyoto failed to provide a sound financial mechanism for adaptation. The new deal has to set adaptation as a high priority and devise the institutional financial means to effectively help poorer countries to adapt to climate change, while establishing new, low-carbon economic activities to generate employment and income, and fight extreme poverty.

The Protocol has been inefficient and ineffective regarding all its main goals. It is too flexible. It’s compliance mechanism too weak. It has failed to change the behavior of its parties, admitted non-compliance, induced generalized complacency. No wonder, it will not  even meet its mediocre target of around 5% decrease in GHG emissions by 2012. Next to the required 90% fall by 2030, it has been a dismal one. As Nicholas Stern points out, “from 1930 to 1950, the concentration of Kyoto gases increased by about 0.5 ppm per annum, from 1950 to 1970 by around 1 ppm per annum, and from then until 1990 the rate of increase doubled again. In the past decade [the one Kyoto was supposed to address] it has been around 2.5 ppm a year.”

One of the pillars of the Kyoto Protocol was the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It was a good idea that helped to provide the catalyst for the development of the global carbon markets, as Hume ponders. However, as Stern says, in its current form it is not able to generate or absorb the financial and technical flows needed under a “global deal”. The mechanism is too complex and too bureaucratic. It is based on the unfettered discretion of regulatory and bureaucratic agents. In Brazil, for instance, one bureaucrat alone has been able to totally stall the licensing process. It is prone to idiosyncratic behavior, leading to different outcomes, at different countries, largely impossible to be systematically compared for evaluation purposes. What is required is a new conceptual and methodological non-discretionary framework, to reduce transaction costs, gain scale and expedite decision-making.

It should not be the pivotal mechanism for the whole deal, but part of a system of mechanisms with the ultimate goal of promoting a technological revolution, as Scott Barrett   contends. The global deal should not be designed to have as its final goal meeting the emissions targets. This is a critical goal, but its sustainability depends on a new political economy, a new industrial revolution. This new political economy requires a full-blown technological revolution. To create momentum for such a technological breakthrough we’ll need wise market inducements and regulatory constraints.

To meet this ultimate goal, that will guide us into a low-carbon society, we do need market mechanisms, and the institutional discipline of a global new green deal, but we should concentrate most of our attention on the state, and the new governance needs. The “state will have a major role in all countries in setting a framework for these endeavors,” as Giddens argues.

The basics for a new global deal are already well known: GHG emissions of developed countries should peak by around 2015 to subsequently decrease continually and fast. GHG emissions of emerging powers (especially China, India and Brazil) should peak by 2020, to then converge towards developed countries’ trajectories. Global emissions should drop to 50% of 1990 levels by 2050, at least, and global per capita emissions should reach at least 1 ton by 2050. The goal is to eventually stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases. Scott Barrett correctly stresses that “there is disagreement about what this stabilization level should be.” It is now clear that before even thinking about stabilizing we must ensure they reach 350 ppm.

Stabilization, says Barrett, “requires that the atmosphere and the oceans be in chemical balance. Over time, take up by the oceans will decline as emissions fall. In equilibrium, if concentrations are to be stabilized, emissions will have to fall to zero.”

Kyoto has left the world forest out of its mechanisms. The new deal must find a way to include them and create the means to encourage zero-deforestation and the maximum possible afforestation targets.

We’ve got to create the conditions to write these goals into a binding agreement. Governments should adhere and provide the domestic governance required to meet these goals. The governments among indisputable large emitters, that are today in denial, are betraying the concrete interests of their people, not forsaking any moral obligation to humankind.

The deal must be ambitious. We must aim high and look far. Those proposing negotiations to aim at what’s possible, are looking for something impossible to have: an incremental, muddling-through solution to a cataclysmic threat.

Looking into the limits of the possible is to wish for accommodation. It is a self-defeating formula. We’ve been accommodating, compromising, tolerating, and failing to mitigate and adapt. We are building a dystopia, envisioning doomsday, almost unconsciously, through complacency and lack of vision.

What we need is ambition, boldness, climate radicalism, rather than political maneuvering, or diplomatic wavering. We’ve got to have a dream, a global dream. The low-carbon society is possible, it is within our reach. We’re not talking about de-growth. De-growth is the threat ahead if we keep with our dystopian outlook. We are talking about a new development pattern. A turning point like the passage from the Middle Ages to Enlightenment, like the transition from feudalism to capitalism via the Industrial Revolution. We’ve done it before. We can mitigate global warming, improve our well-being and fight global poverty. Why should we accept our future history to be poorer than our past history?

Dystopia leads to paralysis, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Utopias breed revolutions. We can be technical, practical, and effective, and yet have a dream, pursuit an Utopia for ourselves and the generations ahead.

The story is simple: the Supreme Court, still in the long gone Bush years, determined that EPA should fulfill its mandate under the Clean Air Act and control emissions of greenhouse gases.