Climate Change: The G20 can do plenty

Dear G20 leaders,

If necessity is the mother of invention, we should be looking forward to a breathtakingly innovative agreement on climate change in Copenhagen in December. Such an agreement would not only outline how we should curb greenhouse gas emissions, but also how we could realistically adapt to climate change, and help countries cope with its negative effects.

The increasing threat to life and livelihood posed by climate change is already palpable and the need for effective action agreed in Copenhagen is increasingly urgent. Yet the lack of progress in ongoing climate negotiations raises concern as to whether world governments will be able to reach meaningful agreement in December.

For those living on the frontline - the most vulnerable communities living in risk-prone parts of the world - every day wasted could mean a step closer to food or water insecurity; communities having to move to secure adequate and safe services; or even whole regions emptying as they become unable to sustain life.

Changes in the Arctic are accelerating global climate change. Scientists warn that if the Himalayan glaciers disappear, the impact would be felt by more than one billion people across Asia. What will African farmers do when floods wash away their crops as is happening these days in West Africa?

This might sound overdramatic. However, climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme natural hazard events, especially floods, storms and droughts. Weather-related events are affecting or displacing more people every year. During the last decade on average 140 million people annually were affected by floods and storms, or two percent of the global population. All the scientific evidence suggests that these trends will continue and accelerate.

Of course the climate change issue is complex, and cannot be neatly separated from other factors such as population growth, urbanization and environmental decline – all of which are increasing risks to vulnerable communities. But those working in the humanitarian field – whether aid workers on the ground, high level advocates or those providing funds – understand all too well that climate change is now a major factor in the rising numbers of people affected by disasters and therefore in the increasing demand for lifesaving aid. Disasters driven by climate change cost lives here and now and they also have lasting effects that take us back to square one in the fight against poverty.

We are not helpless – far from it. Many of the humanitarian consequences of climate change can be averted or reduced. For example, cyclone preparedness programmes in Bangladesh and Mozambique have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and can be expanded to address the increased risk of heavy storms and floods.

Public hygiene campaigns which have improved health in many villages and cities can be upgraded to address climate change related risks like the spread of dengue and malaria. Upgraded care for the elderly during heat waves, planting trees against landslides and storm surges, fine-tuned water saving systems against droughts. There are a multitude of small and big solutions in our hands. We are committed to bring these solutions to the places where adaptation programmes are needed.

But the humanitarian system will need an overhaul to adapt to this new reality. Better balance must be achieved between the imperative to respond to acute humanitarian need and far greater investment in disaster risk reduction and preparedness measures in risk-prone countries. At the global level, we need to improve our risk-management systems to anticipate and respond better to future climate impacts. We also need to explore more innovative ways of sharing risk, perhaps through insurance schemes, to better protect people in the future.

Time is short. There is a unique opportunity to put in place a comprehensive global approach for climate change mitigation and adaptation. World leaders meeting at the UN in New York and at the G20 in Pittsburgh this month should help to lay the basis for an agreement. Let’s hope so, as the interests of many vulnerable populations depend on a strong agreement signed by all Governments in Copenhagen. The agreement may not tie down every detail, but it needs to be in place to ensure that all the fine words we have heard are followed up by meaningful action.


/PC


This opinion piece was put together with our colleagues over at the UN OCHA and has been distributed to various media, co signed by the heads of the two organizations.

Climate Change - a Force for Global Unity?

This week is crucial in the countdown to the Copenhagen Climate Conference as world leaders gather for the UN Climate Summit in New York to hammer out details and nail down final positions. 


And welcome surprises could yet be in store with reports (against the grain) emerging about China and India taking decisive leadership on this crucial issue.

It could yet be that the threats posed by climate change will unite old foes, dissolve the fog of politics and cleanse the senses of the Great Polluters. And, leading the charge (and the change), the mighty multi-tasker himself, Barack Obama, gave a characteristically rousing and impassioned speech at the UN earlier today.


Get involved - your voice counts

The surprising thing is that many are just waking up to the fact that climate change is very much about people (and not just polar bears). People around the world are suffering the impacts of climate change right now.  Vulnerable communities, rich and poor, need to be assisted so they can protect themselves and better adapt to the known and unavoidable impacts down the road. 

(By way of anecdote - we ran out of room on our website last week so inundated were we with stories of flood disasters spanning the globe from Nepal, India, Turkey, Burkina Faso and Sudan among others. All of them unprecedented, affecting millions of people and causing countless millions worth of dollars in damages that will take years to rehabilitate. Nor does this under-estimated figure include the sizable development investments that have been lost and that will now have to be rebuilt from scratch - if the money can be raised, again).

One of the best Climate Change movements out there at the moment - in HDEO's humble opinion - is called Tck Tck Tck. (HDEO is a proud partner). It is an unprecedented global alliance of non-government organizations (including Oxfam, Greenpeace, WWF and many many others), trade unions, faith groups and people like you—all calling for an ambitious, fair and binding climate change agreement. 

There is little doubt that the Copenhagen conference next December is a defining moment in our contemporary history. In the face of such adversity the only option is to join forces, put our differences aside, and do something other than point the finger or drown in denial. It is a time to unite in solidarity. Time to act at the individual level. 

As John F. Kenney once said: “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.” 

And .... THIS just in from Google! And this from the Guardians of all that's good.
/PC

Banking on Ban Ki

Ban Ki-moon isn't having a good year for public relations. Halfway through a five-year term as U.N. secretary-general, he's been hit with a wave of negative assessments by the Financial Times,The Economist, Foreign Policy and other media organisations.

In a March 2009 editorial entitled "Whereabouts Unknown", the Times said Ban was "virtually inaudible" on pressing issues of international security and "ineffectual" on climate change, the one issue that Ban claims he has made the biggest difference on.

The Economist gave him a mixed report card, assigning him two out of 10 points for his management skills while praising him on climate change (eight out of 10 points).

This week, Norway's Aftenposten newspaper made an unpleasant situation much worse. It published a confidential memo assessing Ban's 2-1/2 years in office from Oslo's deputy U.N. ambassador, Mona Juul, to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Juul's report is scathing - and it comes from a representative of one of the world's body's top financial contributors. She says the former South Korean foreign minister suffers from a "lack of charisma" and has "constant temper tantrums" in his offices on the 38th floor of the United Nations building in midtown Manhattan.

FALLING ON DEAF EARS

She describes Ban as a "powerless observer" during the fighting in Sri Lanka earlier this year when thousands of civilians were killed as government forces ended a 25-year civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels, trapping them on a narrow strip of coast in the country's northeast. In Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Congo, she wrote, Ban's "passive and not very committed appeals seem to fall on deaf ears." She says that his recent trip to Myanmar was a failure and that some people in Washington refer to Ban as a "one-term" secretary-general.

Juul's letter could hardly have come at a more inopportune time. Ban is planning to visit Norway in the coming weeks, where he intends to meet with government officials and visit the Arctic Circle to see for himself the effects of global warming and the melting polar ice. Now U.N. officials fear reporters will be more interested in what he says about Juul's memo than climate change. So far Ban has not reacted to the letter.

Ban Ki Who?

Ban's PR difficulties didn't start this year. In March 2008, his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar sent a memo to U.N. employees explaining how to say his boss's name. "Many world leaders, some of whom are well acquainted with the Secretary-General, still use his first name mistakenly as his surname and address him wrongly as Mr. Ki-moon or Mr. Moon," Nambiar complained.

Then came Ban's own speech to senior U.N. officials in Turin, Italy last year, in which he described how difficult it was to improve the working culture inside the United Nations. 


The secretary-general seemed to acknowledge that his internal management style had failed. "I tried to lead by example," Ban said. "Nobody followed."

Ban's aides vehemently defend him, saying he's being treated unfairly by the press. One senior U.N. official suggested privately that Ban could very well turn out to be "the greatest secretary-general ever." They complain that people continue to compare him to his predecessor Kofi Annan, who was a very different U.N. chief and relied less on "quiet diplomacy" than Ban.

Annan became a hero to many people around the world for standing up to the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Annan called the March 2003 invasion illegal.

U.N. officials also complain bitterly about the indefatigable blogger Matthew Lee, whose website Inner City Press regularly accuses Ban and other U.N. officials of hypocrisy and failing to keep their promises to reform the United Nations and root out corruption. (Some U.N. officials accuse Lee of not always getting his facts right, but his blog has become unofficial required reading for U.N. staffers around the world.)

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, diplomats in New York say, is among those supporting a campaign against a second term for Ban. Juul's memo said Helen Clark, New Zealand's former prime minister and current head of the U.N. Development Program, "could quickly become a competitor for Ban's second term." But diplomats say they expect the United States, Britain and other major powers to reluctantly back a second term for Ban, if only because there appears to be no viable alternative whom Russia and China would support.

A recent article in the Times of London said the best U.N. chief in the organization's 64-year history was not Swedish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dag Hammarskjold but the Peruvian diplomat Javier Perez de Cuellar, who held the top U.N. post for 10 years until 1992. Nicknamed "mumbles" because he was so difficult to understand, Perez de Cuellar kept a low profile and, like Ban, preferred backroom diplomacy, not Annan's bully pulpit.

Among the Peruvian diplomat's successes were managing the end of the Cold War, leading a long-delayed revival of U.N. peacekeeping and encouraging member states to back a U.S.-led military operation to drive Iraq's invading forces out of Kuwait in 1991.

Whether Ban's preference for quiet diplomacy will produce similar successes remains to be seen.

/PC

This was first published on the Reuters Global News Blog 

Moving Moolah, Somali style

Anyone out there guess the fastest, surest and cheapest way of transferring money these days? Western Union you say? Wrong. It's Hawala, and its likely to be for some time to come.

You haven't heard of it because you've never been in a foreign city and received a desperate call from the folks back home who need cash fast to buy an air ticket out, bury a body, pay for a wedding, repair a bombed house, or any one of the myriad emergencies that can strike your average Somali family.

This is how it works. You bring your money to a Hawala point or contact. He then contacts, either by phone or e-mail, an agent in the other location. The first agent confirms that money has been received for transfer, the second confirms that he has enough cash on hand to complete the transfer. If this is the case, a password is shared among the originator, the recipient and the two agents. The originator passes the password along to the recipient who then provides the second agent with the password to receive the money. The cash debt is settled later between the two money transfer agents, usually by using traditional banks to transfer funds to a central bank account, in a third country in the case of Somalia.

The fee is about three to five per cent, and the money is normally in the hands of the intended recipient within 24 hours. Incredible when you think of it, that some sophisticated systems can survive 20 years of bloody conflict, a tattered, battered, shattered infrastructure and the absence of any real rule of law. Money can fly over borders in seconds, evading the grubby fingers of customs officers or crooked postal workers. How? Because it works on honour, a word not normally associated with the banking system that we know and tolerate.

There's some dispute over the provenance of the word Hawala. The original Arabic means to change or transform, and when the word passed into Hindi it took on the meaning of "trust". And I remember buying a board game in Abidjan called "Awalé" which I was told meant "to share" in one of the local languages.)

Hawala exists in many parts of the world but is probably most famous - and successful - in Somalia where the World Bank (how sweetly that spoonerises!) even coined a name for it. Don't get excited, the name was invented by bankers after all, the prosaic "Somali Remittance Organisation".

Back in the days of BC (Before Children) Head Down Eyes Opener in Chief and myself broke bread together on a regular basis in Geneva, that bastion of world bankers. On one of those fine occasions we got a lesson in the Somali Remittance Organisation form a wily old Somali, with the standard issue impish grin and straggly beard so frequent back in Hamar.

Our friend, let's call him Hassan, even gave us a real time illustration of how it worked - cash was transferred in front of our eyes from the counter of an Irish bar to the fragrant African night, within an hour. It was a little piece of sorcery Hassan weaved for us. You couldn't help but imagine a knock on the door somewhere in downtown Mogadishu, hushed voices, a torch flitting over a face, a child crying out, a crackle of nearby gunfire, a handshake, and the relieved sigh from the woman of the house at the soft thud of notes hitting the table.

Sadly, that picture is being seen less and less in these straightened times. Remittances from overseas are 25 per cent down in the first quarter of 2009. This is seriously bad news for a country where the one million Somalis in the diaspora basically keep the country's economy - such as it is - afloat with remittances of up to US$1 billion. These funds - "money from America without writin for it" as we used to be known in Ireland, have kept a third of the population alive.

Some 3.4 million people are dependent on food aid in Somalia, where violence is on the up and where the worst drought in ten years is causing concern. Another 120,000 people fled the capital in May and the UN is warning of an emerging catastrophe. Mark Bowden, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the country said: "this is a critical year for Somalia because of the potentially collapsing economy due to the drought," he said. "There is a real danger that Somalia can become more dependent on humanitarian assistance than ever before".

The UN is looking for almost a billion bucks for its operations in Somalia this year (ironic that it's almost the same sum that the diaspora has been sending home) but has only received one third of that appeal to date. (Some would say that even that response is a miracle, given the complexities of working in Somalia.)

I penned a few lines on leaving Somalia in June 1993 after the most intense six months of my life. They're still rattling round my skull - excuse the ultimate introspection of quoting myself:

Sometimes I see a star bleached white on blue

like bones in the ocean

and I hear your voice Mohammad Farah:

"Defend your freedom, your honour"

Sometimes I catch myself staring at a child with a baby in her arms

An old man atop a termite hill watching the tanks roll by

Blood and shit on main street

Nights of sweat and anguish as together we tore our hearts out

Was any of it worth it?

Whose hearts, souls, minds, bodies did any of us save?

/JL

Gazans still knee deep in rubble

It is now three months since the end of the latest round of conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel. Last December and January this conflict topped the news agenda and the world was appalled by the shocking and disproportionate force against the civilian Palestinian population which was literally trapped inside the Gaza enclave. More than 1300 Palestinians (an estimated 400 of them children) lost thier lives in the military operation and some 5000 suffered serious and debilitating injuries. 

In early March, the 'international community' gathered in the Sharm el Sheik Red Sea resort in Eygpt and pledged some US$5 billion in assistance - a record when it comes to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). At the time, we posted a slightly tongue in cheek blog about past experiences when the Israeli authorities cut Gaza off and not even washing machines were allowed in. We wondered aloud whether the 5 billion would get to those who really needed it or if it would stay stuck at the crossing points, and suffer the same fate as the washing machines. It seems our worst fears were realized. 

Despite the vast majority of these pledged funds being earmarked for reconstruction, Israel has continued to refuse the transport of badly-needed construction materials into Gaza. This means that Palestinian families are still standing knee deep in the rubble of their homes (it is estimated as much as 20% of Gaza's buildings were razed to the ground during the conflict). 

After some research on this issue here are a few bullet points of interest taken directly from the most recent online humanitarian reports:

• No construction materials, industrial/electrical appliances, livestock, vehicles/transport and/or any other type of commodity were allowed entry this week.

• Fishing continues to be restricted to three nautical miles only, causing major losses to fishermen. Sardines were not available last week in the market even though the sardine season has already started. Fish imported from Israel (at 30-40 NIS per kg) was available.

• On 19 March COGAT (the Israeil authority in charge of access in and out of the OPT) refused clearance for tomato paste, white tahine, macaroni and jam to Gaza. This decision meant that 150 pallets of food parcels (approximately 6 truck-loads) were prevented from delivery to Gaza. 

• Plastic floor mats were rejected by COGAT, the reason being their potential use in mosques.

• No petrol or diesel for public use was allowed entry from Israel to Gaza during the reporting period. Petrol and diesel were last allowed entry for public use on 2 November 2008.

• A total of 2,159,620 litres of industrial gas for the Gaza Power Plant was allowed in; similar to the amount being allowed in during the last seven weeks. This amount represents only 69% of the required weekly needs set by the Power Plant authority.

• As of 25 March one out of the six Gaza flour mills is still not operating (El Bader Mill), destroyed during the military operation. The total stock of wheat flour at the Gaza mills stands at 11,300 tons, sufficient for approximately 25 days.

• The Crossing Points, controlled by Israel (except for Rafah which is mainly controlled by Egypt) have been more or less sealed off. This is the latest status report for the last week of March: Sufa crossing was last open on 12 September 2008. Karni crossing was closed. Karni grain conveyor belt was operational on three days. Karni cement lane has been completely closed since 29 October 2008. Rafah border crossing was closed for cargo on all days during the reporting period.
  

If this issue were not so serious in humanitarian terms it could be an amusing exercise in comic absurdity. What justification can there be one wonders for prohibiting macaroni and tomato paste? At least an excuse was provided for refusing plastic mats (in case they were used as prayer mats). 

But behind these statistics are human needs that are not being met. Shelter is not being provided to people left homeless by the destruction caused by the military operation; livelihoods cannot recover without raw materials for production; fishermen in ricketty boats are not allowed past three nautical miles and are left to stand on the shore as others hunt the seasonal shoal of sardines (interestingly Gaza is allowed to import fish products from Israeli merchants).

Three months on and Gazans are still in dire need. Little has changed for them and even while the Israeil military operation is officially over, incursions continue and violent internecine clashes between Palestinian factions are a daily reality for the population. The only difference today is that much of the worlds media attention has moved on (piracy being the topic of the hour). 

John Ging, the Irish Director of the UN relief agency in Gaza, and someone who has demonstrated incredible dedication to the humanitarian plight of Gazans, declared recently, the exasperation obvious in his voice: "We need access. Its the number one issue, the number two issue and the number three issue".

A trickle of less than one hundred trucks a day are entering Gaza, about 20% of which are carrying humanitarian assistance and the remainder an assortment of commerical goods (mostly of Israeli origin) which are considered 'safe' by the Israeli authorities. To be noted, that even during the impoverished times of June 2007, Israel was allowing in some 500 truckloads of goods a day to 'maintain' the population. But it is not enough to gaurantee survival for the population in Gaza. It is not about keeping people alive but about giving them a reason to live a dignified life.

Meanwhile, the political landscape has reshaped itself with some interesting dynamics in place. Fatah and Hamas are today heading off to Egpyt for another round of reconciliation talks with zero headway reported to date. A far right of centre coalition has taken power in Israel, torn up the Annapolis peace agreement and asserted its intention to expand illegal settlements in the West Bank (this gives us the sad irony that while Gazans cannot rebuild their homes, illegal settlements continue to be built on Palestinian lands in the West Bank). 

The whereabouts of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit remain unknown, presumably still held by Hamas inside Gaza after nearly three years. Talks on a prisoner swap with Gilad as Hamas' bargaining chip, have all but failed. George Mitchell has been appointed by President Obama to mediate the Arab-Israeli peace process. He is a skilled and brilliant man whose role in Northern Ireland proved to be key to building peace there. My fear would be that like many of his predecessors, including Condoleza Rice, Mitchell gets stuck at the micro level negotiating the opening hours of crossing points with Israel while the big picture remains untouched and any hopes of real rapproachement and a political solution grows ever more distant.

For more on the daily life of Palestinians, I would recommend the reports of Ayman Mohyeldin, a brave and objective journalist.

/PC

The Ship is Sinking

Transatlantically yours part 2 - leaving New York

I am winding up a week or so of hectic meeting and greeting Stateside. Yesterday, I had my first visit to the UN headquarters on the banks of the east river. My guide, a veteran of the aid world and our head man in New York, regaled me with tales from the diplomatic frontlines. The president of the UN General Assembly had just declared starkly that "the ship is sinking" because of the financial crisis. There is a palpable feeling here that Europeans are not fully awake to the depth and danger that lies ahead on a global scale.

The latest assessments, pulling together data from a number of sources including the authoritative World Bank, estimate that we now have an incredible three billion people living in poverty. That's more or less half the world's population and it has more than doubled in recent years. The current crisis was of course preceded by a sudden soaring of food and fuel prices, to the extent that people rioted and died in Asia, Africa and the Americas.

Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the UN and a man with an acute understanding of the financial world, has called for a major international conference this coming June in order to have a global approach to minimize the humanitarian consequences that we know are certainly happening and will only escalate. World leaders like Moon are worried that the reality of domestic economic concerns will lead to a blinkered neglect of the big picture. Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank is echoing similar concerns fearing that as developed countries focus on stimulus packages for their own economies and withdraw capital from foreign markets they may neglect to understand that developing countries also need to be protected so that we can work towards a complete global recovery.

Zoellick's World Bank report warns that 129 developing countries are facing an investment shortfall of 270 to 700 billion U.S. dollars this year and international institutions alone can not fill the gap. "This global crisis needs a global solution and preventing an economic catastrophe in developing countries is important for global efforts to overcome this crisis," he said. The fundamental lessons may be slowly learned as economists now believe that economic catastrophe may have yet to reach the developing world since the waves of the crisis have not entirely hit ashore from where they were generated. One to watch in this regard, among several vulnerable economies, is Ukraine.

The UN, in my opinion, is best placed to lead and partner on a global solution - especially in humanitarian terms - to the current crisis. Their June conference on the East River in New York will be a key moment in defining whether or not the community of states -- many of whom are genuinely reeling from financial woes at home -- can pull together for a global good. In the halls of the UN hq I took note of a quote from one of the more famous UN Secretary Generals, Dag Hammarskjold, who died tragically in a plane crash before he could complete his work. The quote resonates as much today as it did when he first uttered it at the dawn of the sixties: "Everything will be all right - you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves." If Hammarskjold's committment and faith in UN institutions holds true in June maybe, just maybe, with all hands on deck, we can stop this ship from sinking.

(written in a real rush - plane boarding - in JFK NY).

/PC