The environment in the news friday, 09 July, 2010

Despite this, the World Bank has recently claimed that plans are still on track to meet the criteria of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of eradicating poverty and hunger. This will certainly get a boost from the US Treasury, who has pledged $224 million in grants for five countries to increase food security - Bangladesh, Haiti, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Although achieving the MDG is good news, it has come at a price: MDGs tackling child and maternal health, gender equality, access to clean water and disease control are likely to suffer. Financial demands on the international community following the credit crunch have meant that aid commitments have been cut, as well as investment in development, resulting in domestic borrowing to finance spending.

In reaction to the news, Oxfam claimed that governments "are cutting spending prematurely to avoid a new debt crisis. The biggest impact of the crisis for the world's poorest people is yet to come." Shockingly, it is estimated that 53 million more people will be living in extreme poverty in 2015 as a direct result of the global economic and financial collapse.

Nathalie Applewhite, Managing Director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting will be moderating a workshop entitled MDG 1: How to Address Extreme Poverty & Hunger on Thursday July 22 at the Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) at the Walter E. Washington Center in Washington D.C.

David Smith from the UNDP-UNEP Poverty and Environment Initiative Africa programme will examine how environmental sustainability can help reduce poverty and hunger. Too often the contribution that environmentally sustainable natural resource use can make to poverty reduction and food security is not adequately reflected in government and donor programmes and budget allocations.

Now in its fifth year, this event is a valuable opportunity for the aid, relief and development sector to network, build partnerships and address global humanitarian and development challenges, as well as showcasing goods and services to those who are responsible for delivery.

Registration is free to non-commercial organizations. More information, including the workshop agenda, speaker and exhibitor lists and registration details can be found at www.aidforumonline.org

Aid & International Development Forum 2010 partners include InterAction, IPOA, World Bank Publications and RedR UK.
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IPS: "Latin America Faces an Environmental Emergency"
8^th July 2010
The Latin American economy based on exploitation of natural resources does not create social well-being and is unsustainable in the context of climate change, says Uruguayan Eduardo Gudynas, lead researcher at the Latin American Centre for Social Ecology (CLAES).

Gudynas, who was in Lima to lead a workshop with the Peruvian Network for Equitable Globalisation, is one of the contributors to the new report Global Environmental Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean (GEO-ALC), produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to be officially presented later this year.

A: Latin America is faced with an environmental emergency, because the pace of establishing new protected areas and setting up environmental regulations, for example in the industrial sector, is much slower than the increased pace of negative impacts from resource extraction.

A: Much more, not only because of the vulnerability of developing countries, but also because Latin America isn't taking responsibility.

Always left in the margins is the fact that the region's principal source of greenhouse gas emissions is deforestation, followed by changes in land use and agriculture. As such, discussing climate change means talking about rural development, agricultural policies and land ownership.

But there are economic and political interests that stand in the way. It is simpler to propose using energy efficient light bulbs than talk about these issues.

In the international sphere the focus is on the historic responsibility of the countries of the North for emissions, and requiring compensation from them, but there is little action in this region to confront climate change and preserve our ecological heritage.

Q: How did we arrive at such a state?

A: Historically it has been argued that the road to development for South America is the appropriation and extraction of natural resources. Attention went to how to do it most efficiently and we missed the opportunity to diversify the economies in the years of high prices for basic commodities.

That accentuated the focus on raw materials, to the detriment of the environment, even in countries with strong industry, like Brazil.

Q: Which countries in the region are worst off?

A: Brazil is in a critical state because of its nearly complete appropriation of resources and their impacts. It is followed by the Andean countries, like Peru (with big mining projects) and Ecuador (extensive petroleum exploitation).

Brazil is already a major mining country, mostly iron and aluminium, and has a policy to increase that production through low taxation in order to continue attracting foreign investment. Most worrisome is that the strategy includes flexibilising its environmental policies. Also of concern is the search for "cheap energy" through hydroelectric dams in the Amazon.

Q: Is "extractivism" bad in and of itself, or is the problem that the environmental and social costs are not included?

A: There is global overconsumption of raw materials. The economic impact of the social and environmental damages should be taken into account to evaluate the costs of the productive process, as well as the contribution to climate change.

But these assessments are not done, because if they were the extractive projects would never be approved.

The impacts in the areas where the resources are extracted are ignored, and that explains why there are conflicts. It's the paradox of macroeconomic well- being at the cost of local harm.

A: It does. Although there are substantial differences in the role that the government plays in the extractivist sector. In the countries governed by the left, like Bolivia or Brazil, a portion of the wealth generated by that sector is used for social programmes as a way to legitimise the policy in order to continue exploiting the resources.

At this point, extractivism, in addition to being a political problem, is a cultural problem. It is deeply rooted in the idea that mining and petroleum are sources of wealth and that they should be exploited as soon as possible.

The governments of the left have used that idea to say that they are more efficient in using the Earth's resources. But being a cultural problem, it is reproduced in different political currents.

A: That is the problem. Because the idea of extractivism is so widespread, other possibilities are seen with mistrust or are rejected. And that is a serious situation because there are sectors like petroleum that are going to disappear. Survival lies on the "post-extractivist" path.

A: It plays a fundamental role. To escape the old approach requires economic and social coordination among neighbouring countries, even if those alternatives do not aim to annul the mining or petroleum industries, but rather to reformulate them.

A: A prime objective is to reduce the asymmetries among the nations so that the smallest can have relatively the same level of development as the largest.

Peru shouldn't just sell electricity to Brazil and be left with the environmental and social damages as well as having to buy Brazilian cars. They have to find other ways so that the neighbour advances as well.
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Trading Markets (US): Q&A: "LATIN AMERICA FACES AN ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCY"
8^th July 2010
The Latin American economy based on exploitation of natural resources has not improved the lives of citizens and is unsustainable in the context of climate change, says Uruguayan researcher Eduardo Gudynas at the Latin American Centre for Social Ecology (CLAES).
Gudynas, who was in Lima to lead a workshop with the Peruvian Network for Equitable Globalisation, is one of the contributors to the new report Global Environmental Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean (GEO-ALC), produced by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), to be officially presented later this year.
Q: You assert that there is an imbalance in Latin America between the exploitation of resources and protection of the environment. How serious is the problem?

A: Latin America is faced with an environmental emergency, because the pace of establishing new protected areas and setting up environmental regulations, for example in the industrial sector, is much slower than the increased pace of negative impacts from resource extraction.

Q: How did we arrive at such a state?

But these assessments are not done, because if they were the extractive projects would never be approved.

The governments of the left have used that idea to say that they are more efficient in using the Earth's resources. But being a cultural problem, it is reproduced in different political currents.

A: That is the problem. Because the idea of extractivism is so widespread, other possibilities are seen with mistrust or are rejected. And that is a serious situation because there are sectors like petroleum that are going to disappear. Survival lies on the "post-extractivist" path.

China and the UN are working closely to prepare for the Tianjin meeting, although Chinese authorities have not officially announced it, said UN Under-Secretary General Achim Steiner.

UNEP in China: Building Back Better outlines the shared learning from UNEP's work in China to help rebuild lives and landscapes in the aftermath of the 8.0 quake that affected 70 million people, destroyed some 6.5 million homes, and caused 15 million people to be evacuated.

The skipper was speaking as two of the subs - which can dive to 6,000m - started a campaign of exploration at the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia.

He added that there was still time for the subs to help BP with the disaster.

The subs are searching for gas hydrates - a potential alternative fuel source - on the bed of Baikal.

Yevgenii Chernyaev told BBC News that the problem had to be addressed at the highest level.

Two oval-shaped submersibles have recently started their third season of exploration in Baikal - the world's deepest lake.

Standing on a barge that transports the two subs after their submersion, the Mir-2 captain underlined that the subs were probably the only deep-sea vessels in the world capable of stopping the leak.

"We need a team of international specialists and we have to know all the details and probably even build a special device to attach to the subs, and all this needs time," said Mr Chernyaev.

The submersible's pilot also said that the Russians were very surprised that BP and the US government had not asked them for help from the beginning.

Mr Chernyaev was one of the pilots on the first manned descent to the seabed under the geographic North Pole, carried out using the Mir mini-submarines. The expedition was widely reported as a bid to further Moscow's territorial claims in the Arctic.

The current expedition aims to obtain important data about these findings, and is also searching for new life forms, which might be unique to Baikal.