The concept of „Green Economy“ as a solution to the global crises?

This year the global community will discuss about the future of global enviromental politics and sustainability. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development will take place on historical ground, in Rio de Janeiro. Besides the reform of the Global Environmental architecture the international community will also decide about the concept of „Green Economy“, for many the solution to the so-called multiple crises (the environmental crisis, the food crisis and the financial crisis). The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has already defined its concept of a Green Economy. According to UNEP the Green Economy secures welfare and social justice, without increasing the consumption of resources. By investing in sustainable solutions economic growth is still possible. UNEP does not question the idea of growth in itself – a dangerous calculation.

The concept does not reflect the impacts of an increasing world population, nor does it address what critical economists describe as the „Rebound Effect“: „...the 'rebound' effect is the extent of the energy saving produced by an efficiency investment that is taken back by consumers in the form of higher consumption, either in the form of more hours of use or a higher quality of energy service,“ (The Encyclopedia of Earth). This means that even though we invest in renewable energies and sustainable solutions we will not have a real impact on our CO2 emissions or other forms of enviromental polution.

One could argue that we should completely oppose the concept of a Green Economy as a capitalist solution, especially after hearing a OECD-Sherpa promoting the concept as something that can reinforce trust in global financial institutions and help to reinvest the free-floating capital that has been released after the financial crisis. But in my opinion it is dangerous not to get involved in the discussion about concrete measures that will be passed in Rio. Because there is a difference between „green“ ideas. Some would even see nuclear power as CO2-neutral while others are critical about some forms of renewables - it will make a difference which solutions will be included in the outcome document. And besides, the organization of the social pillar and the concrete measures that will address food security will be crucial to the survival of poor people all over the world.

So let's take a critical stance on the international process and let's discuss alternative concepts within the Green Economy framework without loosing our critical stance on capitalist positions at all.

Rebound effect: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Rebound_effect

Poor Economics

At the beginning I did not understand the hype around the book „poor
economics“ by Esther Duflo and Abhijit V. Banerjee. I first heard of it
when a newspaper commented its “main thesis” that it will not be
possible to eradicate hunger because when the poor have a little bit
more money available they will rather buy a television than nutritious
food. And I thought: to what kind of dangerous debate are we shifting
now? The poor are too stupid to feed themselves properly?
Completely wrong. After having read the book I must say the newspaper
article did not reflect at all the intentions of the book. The authors
just have a very close look at the poor people, their lives and their
economics and challenge lots of “common sense knowledge” in development
policy. They do that by a method called randomized control trials. That
means they compare randomly selected households to which a certain type
of aid is given (like handing out free mosquito nets) with households
that do not receive this kind of support.
The results they find and also the reflections about the results are
worth reading.
Just to mention some of them: The state takes over responsibility for
many decisions in richer societies. For example compulsory vaccination
or the obligation for certain insurances. The poor have to deal with
almost all decisions by themselves and moreover, often have only limited
information available. That is why they often take wrong decisions.
Doctors often prescribe more expensive but often useless medication like
injections or antibiotics when for example somebody suffers from
diarrhea. They are doing so because the people believe that only
injections help, what is again a lack of information.
Furthermore, the market for the poor is underdeveloped. It is almost
impossible for the poor to open a savings account. The only possibility
for access to credit is often a local money lender who wants horrendous
interest rates.
People often do not bring their children to the hospital because the
nurses are absent almost all of the time.
To all these little insights Dulfo and Banerjee provide some small-scale
solutions. What the authors rightly say at the end: They do not provide
the magic formula of how to eradicate poverty everywhere with one big
bang but they have many - if you want - micro suggestions of how to
improve the life of the poor. They have been criticised for that micro
approach but when the grand strategies do not help as they promised to
it is perhaps better to refocus on the micro level.

Esther Duflo and Abhijit V. Banerjee: Poor Economics. A radical
rethinking of the way to fight global poverty, New York 2011.

20 years after Rio – Civil society participation in international negotiations

Even though Non-governmental organizations (NGO) are allowed to participate in international environmental conferences there is still a huge gap between the number of participants from the global North and the global South. This is not due to the lack of organizations in those countries it is more about the fact that these organizations often do not have the financial means to take part in international negotiations – especially when they take place in Europe or the United States. In many countries, funding and public support for NGOs is not successfully developed and many organizations have to struggle for their existence and also for the possibility to accomplish their projects.

While there are enough European NGOs which raise their voice for developing countries I would argue that this kind of support cannot make up for their absence. It is important to strengthen civil society organizations in developing countries and to help them participate in international summits, but also to help them being active in their own country. The change of the venues of international summits is one important step to help NGOs participate. The attention of national and international media can help to increase awareness about the policy area in the host country. Besides, the presence of international partners, NGOs and other organizations can boost cooperation opportunities. But, in the long run, it is important to include NGOs from all over the world fundamentally.

I have just published an article about this topic focusing on international climate negotiations. I would appreciate to receive comments. You can find it here:
http://www.inwent.org/ez/articles/197598/index.en.shtml

Don’t fall into the trap of „Glamour Aid”

Following the media reports on the current MDG+10 summit of the United Nations in New York is quite interesting: How is it possible to explain such complex socio-political and economic processes to the public? Which examples are selected for showing failure and success? And which experts are allowed to explain who this plight can be solved? And, yes, it is not surprising that Bob Geldof is present at the summit and meets all the high level politicians (media report 22.9.2010 at German Tagesthemen).

Honestly, I can’t stand Bob Geldof and other celebrities like Bono being engaged on such a high political level as I see two fundamental problems: glamour aid is both paternalistic with regards to the poor people in the world and it is anti-democratic with regards to global governance. To be clear: I find it important that many people engage in raising awareness on the MDGs in the public, but I find it problematic if celebrities act like politicians and claim to be speaker of the poor people in the political arena. Let me quickly explain my two points:

With regards to the paternalistic behaviour by celebrities I would like to refer to Dambisa Moyo who illustrated this point quite good – though I do not support Moyo’s simplistic theses on “Dead Aid”, but on this point she is right:

“There are African policymakers who are charged with the responsibility of creating policy, and implementing policy. That's their job. Long, long lines of people have stood in the sun to vote for a president who is effectively impotent because of donors or because glamour aid has decided to speak on behalf of a continent. How would British people feel if tomorrow Michael Jackson started telling them how they should get out of the housing crisis? Or if Amy Winehouse started to give the US government advice about the credit crunch? And was listened to? I think they would be perturbed, and worried. I mean, they've completely disenfranchised the very people we've actually elected!" (highlights by me, Interview with The Guardian, 19.2.2009)

So let me explain my second criticism: glamour aid is anti-democratic. In politics, it is all about legitimacy. So what is the legitimacy for celebrities to be invited in the political arena? Do I have to produce at least five number one hits in the charts that I’m invited to the plenum of the United Nations? What kind of democratic understanding is it? No democratic understanding at all. So what’s the reason for letting celebrities speak to high level politicians? Both want to create a win-win-situation: Politicians gain public support for being friends with celebrities and celebrities gaining attention for seeming to do something good to achieve the MDGs. The problem, however, is that celebrities are not being acknowledged for telling something clever or something that is new, it is just because they are celebrities. Wonderful democracy.

So please, politicians and the public, do not fall into the trap of glamour aid. It is very paternalistic and it harms the democratic understanding – and that’s not how development politics should be in the future!

Human Rights in Mexico

In Mexico, the fight for Human Rights is very closely connected to the Zapatista movement and its fight for the rights of indigenous people. But unfortunately there are other human rights violations. Just to name a few: There are cases of torture in prisons, the presumption of innocence does not hold and so-called defenders of natural resources - persons that fight for example against illegal logging - are often threatened, violated or even killed.
The notorious "war on drugs" brings further dangers of human rights violations. In order to combat the drug cartels, the state responded with counter violence and increased massively the police and military forces in the country - this entails a militarization of the society. The killings and violence in the country augmented dramatically after this decision. There is a high degree of impunity amongst the military personal as they are held responsible only to a special military court. Since 2006 - the beginning of the "war on drugs" - the number of appeals exploded. Protection of civilians is not anchored in the Mexican law. Finally, the cartels are said to be involved in the military.
More information about human rights in Mexico: http://centroprodh.org.mx/centroprodh/

It is not only about counterfeiting sunglasses...

The EU is negotiating with the USA, Canada and a few others a new trade agreement that aims at enforcing intellectual property rights – the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or short: ACTA.

Several aspects of this agreement are seen as problematic: Amongst others, ACTA circumvents multilateralism and established multilateral fora and Individual internet users may be criminalized using free software.

Moreover, ACTA will have severe implications for developing countries. First of all, it is problematic for developing countries that they do not take part at the negotiations but are affected by the results. Although the EU Commission states that ACTA will not have any negative effect on the access to medicine, several experts think that exactly this will happen. Counterfeiting is not only limited to fake products like sneakers but also to patents, trademarks and thus medicine. With ACTA, the current trend of anchoring stricter rules in ongoing trade negotiations than in TRIPS will be strengthened and it will be more difficult for developing countries to have access to affordable medicine. The enforcement of intellectual property rights is not cheap and there is the danger that money will be shifted for example from the health sector to the implementation of ACTA in developing countries. The transfer from generic medicine produced e.g. in India heading for African countries through the EU is also jeopardized.

See also petition by professors, MEPs and others.

EU-India Free Trade Agreement threatens access to medicine

Since 2007 the EU is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India. This is part of a trade web the EU is spinning all over the world since the Doha talks in the framework of WTO do not advance. This evolution is - without looking at the substance - already questionable as multilateralism is weakened and the huge EU trade block usually faces less strong developing countries during the negotiations.

Critics fear the negative impact on the liberalization of the financial and agricultural sectors.

Of special concern is however the danger that the FTA might hinder the access to medicine for developing countries. India is the “pharmacy” of the world producing 80% of the generic medicine for AIDS/HIV. This medicine is crucial for the treatment of poorer people. The EU now wants to put high enforcement standards on intellectual property rights into the agreement. The Commission wants to prolong the duration of patents and pushes for data exclusivity which would make India to undertake clinical studies although existent again on its own.