Late last year, President of the United States Donald Trump presented the country’s new National Security Strategy. The unveiling was handled with the kind of pomp typical of the current U.S. head of state. Nevertheless, the first reaction to the new Strategy, both within the country and abroad, proved generally lukewarm. There are reasons for this.
First, the new Strategy, like the ones before it, is a result of complex bureaucratic agreements and compromises between different departments. As a rule, such agreements and compromises result in the dilution of the wording, and sometimes even in outward inconsistencies in the final document. Experience suggests that, in practice, the National Security Strategy is rather a set of broad guidelines than a concrete action plan.
Second, a more detailed look at the text of the National Security Strategy makes it clear that the new document lacks originality. The entire document boils down to a set of measures that are intended to preserve the leading role of the United States in the world. But has this not been the goal of all U.S. administrations ever since the end of the Cold War? Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in particular sought leadership supported by military might, whereas Barack Obama wanted to impose partnership relations on other countries that would serve Washington’s interest first and foremost.
In other words, the new National Security Strategy has proved unable to either mitigate the political tensions within the United States or allay the international community’s serious concerns about the current U.S. administration’s global policy.
The international situation is delicate in a sense that all kinds of security threats continue accumulating and require urgent collective to address them. However, not only is the leading global power unprepared for such collective efforts, it is, on the contrary, consistently demonstrating a willingness to act unilaterally, disregarding the interests of other countries, including its allies. This follows not only from the National Security Strategy, but also from Washington’s actions. The most telling recent example was Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
At the same time, there can be no doubt that for a long time to come the United States will remain one of the leading global players whose constructive input will be required, or even indispensable, in resolving many burning problems the international community faces.
The logical next question is how to build relations with the United States in these circumstances. Russia is not the only country asking itself this question. There can be no simple and unequivocal answer. At the same time, it might be useful to look at how individual states went about building relations with the new U.S. administration during the first year of Trump’s presidency.
European countries were at first taken aback by the insolence of the new president. However, they gradually came to the realization that the best approach at this stage would be a flexible combination of a firm stance on matters of principle with active behind-the-scenes work with the U.S. administration at various levels of Washington’s bureaucratic machinery. European countries united against Washington’s attempts to pull out from the multilateral nuclear accord with Iran, and opposed the United States’ initiative to introduce new sanctions against Russia that would have directly affected European interests. Europe also refused to support Trump’s proposal to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and distanced itself from the White House’s belligerent rhetoric towards North Korea. On the other hand, European leaders use every opportunity to voice their desire to preserve and strengthen allied relations with the United States.
China has reacted to the US administration’s attacks with little more than official statements, and seeks to avoid public controversies with the White House over specific issues. The country’s leader, Xi Jinping, visited the United States and treated Trump with utmost respect during the latter’s visit to Beijing. In the course of the talks, Xi Jinping made it clear that, even though China is not going to compromise on its interests, it is prepared for mutually beneficial cooperation, something the United States should be equally interested in.
As for the United States’ two closest neighbours, Mexico and Canada, their initial emotional reaction to Trump’s threats to introduce protectionist measures and revise the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement gradually transformed into diplomatic talks. It is still too early to guess where these talks will lead, but the crisis phase has been overcome for now.
These and other examples indicate that as long as the acute domestic political crisis in the United States continues and the Trump administration seeks to develop its own foreign policy and ways to implement it, the majority of countries prefer to take a wait-and-see approach. They are avoiding direct confrontation with Washington, while making it clear that, if the concept of “America first” is indeed becoming the foundation of U.S. foreign policy, then other countries also have interests they do not intend to compromise on. It is still too early to predict the results of this “silent” standoff, but the results of Trump’s first year in office demonstrate that such tactics can at least offset the destruction of the existing international system and avoid an outright confrontation between the United States and other major global players.
Russia’s relations with the United States under Trump administration are aggravated by a number of additional factors that do not exist in Washington’s relations with other countries. In addition to the well-known disagreements on some key aspects of international relations, the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by Washington over the past several years with overwhelming support from the United States Congress present a serious obstacle to the normalization of bilateral ties. Unfortunately, relations with Russia became one of the primary international and domestic political issues for the United States in 2017, which further complicates the possibility of Washington taking any constructive steps in its interaction with Moscow.
Is this a totally hopeless situation? It is certainly not.
In my capacity as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, I took part in the organization and hosting of President George W. Bush’s first official visit to Russia in May 2002. A Joint Declaration of the Presidents of Russia and the United States was signed as a result of the visit and read: “We are partners and we will cooperate to advance stability, security, and economic integration, and to jointly counter global challenges and to help resolve regional conflicts.” This statement appears dubious today, against the backdrop of the profound crisis in U.S.–Russia relations. Nevertheless, if we look beyond the current differences, which are situational to some extent, we will see that the two countries can, and must, be partners in the fight against terrorism, in nuclear non-proliferation, in settling regional conflicts and in addressing many other problems related to the security of the two states and of the world in general. Concrete facts illustrate that this is possible even in the current complicated situation. The most recent example is the assistance provided by the CIA to the Russian special services in preventing a major terrorist attack on St Petersburg shortly before the New Year celebrations. Everything is possible when there is political will!
Today, the entire world watches anxiously, but hopefully, to see how U.S.–Russia relations will develop moving forward. Everyone understands that any significant step taken by the two countries to meet each other halfway will lead to positive changes in the world and contribute to the strengthening of international security.
To a great degree, U.S.–Russia relations have historically depended on the personal relations between the leaders of the two countries. Each new chapter in cooperation between Moscow and Washington would begin with a summit meeting where the parties would agree on several fundamental issues, alleviate some of the mutual criticisms and old grudges and set relations on a new development course.
Unfortunately, the opportunity to implement this time-tested model has thus far failed to present itself under the current U.S. administration. Trump has held one-on-one meetings with virtually all world leaders. But not the Russian president. We may therefore assume that the President of the United States’ ability to conduct an independent policy with regard to Russia will continue to be extremely limited.
If this is indeed so, then it would be wise to use every opportunity to maintain and possibly expand dialogue. Not only with the executive branch, but with legislators as well. Not just with the Department of State, but with the other departments Russia cooperates with. Not just with Washington officials, but with the numerous independent analytical centres, foundations and public organizations. This dialogue will certainly be difficult and sometimes unpleasant, and there are no guarantees that overnight breakthroughs and radical changes for the better will be made. However, it is only through such dialogue that the foundation of new relations between Moscow and Washington can be laid.
For the American people, America is first. For Russian people, it is Russia that comes first. This was the case long before the Trump administration came to power, and it will remain so after this administration leaves. History demonstrates that this factor is not an obstacle to cooperation, provided that the parties respect each other’s legitimate interests and are guided by the long-term interests of universal security.
First published in our partner RIAC
About the author;
Igor Ivanov, President of the Russian International Affairs Council. Professor of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) of the Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RF MFA). Russian Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation.
The Duma on first reading approved a bill that would allow the government to identify individuals and not just groups as “foreign agents,” an action that Novaya gazeta says means that “if your grandmother in Kazakhstan sends you 100 dollars, you can become a foreign agent.”
That in turn means that almost all Russians could be held to have violated this measure should it become law. That is because, Damir Gaynutdinov, a lawyer who works with the Agora rights group, says, everyone can be deemed to be “a distributor of information” and almost everyone will have received a cash present from a relative abroad.
An additional repressive measure in the new bill is a requirement that all users of social networks indicate that information they are republishing from foreign agent media comes from such media. This would be similar to rules under which Russian outlets are required to specify that any reference to a group Moscow has classified as terrorist have a note to that effect.
Failure to do so, Moscow political analyst Aleksey Makarkin says, would open the way to the blocking of sites that by failing to follow the rules were promoting terrorism or extremism. The most likely consequence of this will be a decline in the reposting of materials that are in any way questionable from the point of view of the powers that be.
And the Duma measure also calls for registering all foreign media with the Russian government as foreign agents, unless they create a special and separate Russian segment. If that segment already exists, then the foreign media are obligated to report that or face being blocked or restricted in operation.
That in turn will give Moscow hostages that it can trade, opening the way for more pressure than it can impose at present when its only option often is to block sites for media outlets based abroad, media rights experts say.
But they add that this law if approved is unlikely to be implemented as intended. “Not a single repressive law adopted in recent times has been applied in the form in which it is written.” But that doesn’t eliminate the damage that a measure opening the way to arbitrary action by the authorities can and will do.
UCLA bioengineering professor Ali Khademhosseini has led the development of a tissue-based soft robot that mimics the biomechanics of a stingray. The new technology could lead to advances in bio-inspired robotics, regenerative medicine and medical diagnostics.
The study was published in Advanced Materials.
The simple body design of stingrays, specifically, a flattened body shape and side fins that start at the head and end at the base of their tail, makes them ideal to model bio-electromechanical systems on.
The 10-millimeter long robot is made up of four layers: tissue composed of live heart cells, two distinct types of specialized biomaterials for structural support, and flexible electrodes. Imitating nature, the robotic stingray is even able to “flap” its fins when the electrodes contract the heart cells on the biomaterial scaffold.
“The development of such bioinspired systems could enable future robotics that contain both biological tissues and electronic systems,” Khademhosseini said. “This advancement could be used for medical therapies such as personalized tissue patches to strengthen cardiac muscle tissue for heart attack patients.”
n a feat of nanoengineering, scientists have developed a new technique to map electrical circuits in the brain far more comprehensively than ever before.
In the brain, dedicated groups of neurons that connect up in microcircuits help us process information about things we see, smell and taste. Knowing how many and what type of cells make up these microcircuits would give scientists a deeper understanding of how the brain computes complex information about the world around us. But existing techniques have failed to paint a complete picture.
The new technique, developed by researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, overcomes previous limitations and has enabled them to map out all 250 cells that make up a microcircuit in part of a mouse brain that processes smell – something that has never been achieved before.
The method, published in Nature Communications today, could be used by scientists worldwide to uncover the architecture of different parts of the brain.
“Traditionally, scientists have either used colour-tagged viruses or charged dyes with an applied electric current to stain brain cells, but these approaches either don’t label all cells or they damage the surrounding tissue,” said Andreas Schaefer, Group Leader at the Crick who led the research.
By creating a series of tiny holes near the end of a micropipette using nano-engineering tools, the team found that they could use charged dyes but distribute the electrical current over a wider area, to stain cells without damaging them. And unlike methods that use viral vectors, they could stain up to 100% of the cells in the microcircuit they were investigating. They also managed to work out the proportions of different cell types in this circuit, which may give clues into the function of this part of the brain.
Andreas added: “We’re obviously working at a really small scale, but as the brain is made up of repeating units, we can learn a lot about how the brain works as a computational machine by studying it at this level. Now that we have a tool of mapping these tiny units, we can start to interfere with specific cell types to see how they directly control behaviour and sensory processing.”
President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13769 on Jan. 27, 2017, effectively barring individuals from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days.
Within a day of his decree, thousands of protesters flooded airports around the country in opposition to what was quickly deemed a “Muslim ban,” and by March 6, the order had been formally revoked.
According to a political scientist at the University of California, Riverside, and his colleagues, visible resistance to the order in the immediate aftermath of its signing may have produced a rare shift in public opinion that resulted in mass opposition to Trump’s policy.
The shift was caused by “an influx of information portraying the ban as being at odds with egalitarian principles of American identity and religious liberty,” said researchers Loren Collingwood, an assistant professor of political science at UCR; Nazita Lajevardi of Michigan State University; and Kassra A. R. Oskooii of the University of Delaware.
Their findings, published last week in the journal Political Behavior, suggest the bounty of information that surfaced after the order went into effect — information that painted the ban as deeply un-American and in fact “incompatible with American values” — contributed to a broad-based increase in opposition to it.
The researchers compared the results of two surveys of the same 311 people — one conducted just days before the order’s announcement, and the other in the two weeks after. They found that among those respondents, more than 30 percent moved against the ban in the interim.
Those who shifted most radically, meanwhile, were “high American identifiers.” Such respondents were shown to consider their status as Americans who belong to one nation to be a defining element of their identities.
Media coverage of anti-ban demonstrations, the researchers noted, often depicted protesters “shrouded in American flags,” visually linking the concept of more inclusive immigration policies to American egalitarianism. The movement against the ban also benefited from the outspokenness of various news commentators and publications, many of whom were quick to criticize the order by characterizing it as antithetical to core American ideals.
To test their results, the researchers also looked at attitudes toward two other hot-button issues linked to executive orders that were signed just days before No. 13769: the Keystone Pipeline and the U.S.-Mexico border wall. They found that although attitudes toward both did shift slightly, the differences were not statistically significant.
The profound response to the ban, the researchers wrote, represents “one instance in which the priming of American identity shifted citizens’ opinions toward more inclusive, rather than restrictive, immigration-related policy stances.”
Overall, their findings suggest that American identity can be “primed” to produce shifts in public opinion. It also demonstrates that public opinion may be more malleable than previously thought, especially as certain policy issues cycle in and out of the news.
China will eventually embark on its vision of building roads, railways and pipelines across Eurasia, irrespective of India’s endorsement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This attempt to lay foundations of a Sino-centric Asia provides India opportunities and challenges alike. An obstructionist approach does not favour India’s interests. It would be more advantageous to complement BRI, providing key low cost links in the greater Chinese jigsaw to optimise competition for strategic space.
Where can India complement Chinese efforts in a way that benefits its own economic and strategic interests? The Central Asia-West Asia corridor is a branch of the BRI where India can reap significant gains. The corridor runs horizontally (east-west) across Asia from western China to Turkey. The connectivity project, North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC), which India is a part of, is a perfect economic complement to the BRI, because it runs vertically across Asia: from Mumbai to Moscow via Iran. Once interconnected, the two initiatives can boost intra-regional connectivity leading to a unified energy market in Asia, allowing for energy price rationalisation. Asia’s natural gas prices are currently the highest globally, almost twice the market price in Europe, and three times the market price in the US (World Energy Council Report, 2016). Greater regional connectivity pushes the bargaining power more in the buyer’s favour – enabling lower prices – which are certainly in India’s economic interests.
Moreover, India does not have to be a member of BRI to benefit from it. China has already signed transportation, customs cooperation, and quality assurance agreements with several BRI member countries. For India to be able to tap into the opportunities created by linking NSTC to BRI, it is important to pursue Free Trade Agreements (FTA) under an India-Central Asia FTA framework and an India-Eastern European Union FTA. These FTAs not only remove tariff barriers but also ensure competitiveness of Indian goods. The recent accession of India to the United Nations Transports Internationaux Routiers (TIR) convention is a promising step in this direction. The TIR convention, which all Central Asian countries are signatories to, allows Indian traders to have access to fast, reliable, and hassle-free border transit across 70 countries.
In the long-term, the NSTC-BRI linkage coupled with FTAs have the potential to change Eurasia’s trade and energy dynamics. This can be strengthened further through the integration of the strategic Chabahar port with the NSTC. Such a link up allows India to benefit from Chinese-constructed access to major markets and resource supplies in Central Asia, West Asia, and Europe by investing capital only in the last mile connectivity to Chabahar. Peripheral projects such as upgrading the NSTC’s existing rail and road infrastructure and setting up satellite hubs for trade can act as value additions to complement the BRI architecture as and when required. The BRI-NSTC linkage thus helps Indian economic interests without making India directly dependent on China or requiring India to subsume its political interests within China’s. It is important to point out that linking NSTC to BRI is not equivalent to India joining BRI. Providing external connectivity to the BRI through complementary value additions is different from signing up as its member. A careful distinction such as this allows enough room for diplomatic manoeuvre. India can thus connect to BRI from the outside, while still abstaining from formally endorsing it.
These opportunities do not come without challenges. In evaluating the threats, it is imperative to factor in Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean. In this context, connectivity between BRI and NSTC and its integration with Chabahar port, increase the stakeholders in trade through the Indian Ocean region. It allows the five Central Asian Republics and Russia the cheapest and the fastest access to the Indian Ocean, opening up new markets in ASEAN and Africa. The more countries depend on Indian Ocean-centric trade, with last mile connectivity provided by India, the less China will succeed in its attempts to militarise the Indian Ocean. This also opens up new balancing opportunities through forums like the Indian Ocean Rim Association (OIRA) on the soft side of the spectrum, graduating all the way up to the India-Australia-Japan-US Quad on the hard power end in the Indo-Pacific.
While economically countering China’s USD 1.3 trillion investments in the region is not feasible, piggybacking on it for economic and political gains, with minimal, carefully planned supplements to it, is not only feasible but also strategically wise. Essentially, this would mean China investing a lion’s share in BRI, and India adding to it marginally from the outside but reaping significant benefits. This ‘complement and compete’ strategy can seamlessly fit within a larger Indian counter strategy towards a China-centric Asia. This approach requires a comprehensive and holistic revaluation of the current strategy by Indian policy-makers.
In early November 2017, Nature published the results of the Scan Pyramids project, led by Mehdi Tayoubi (Hip Institute, Paris) and Kunihiro Morishima (University of Nagoya, Japan): there is a “huge void”, at least 30 meters long, within the Pyramid of Cheops.
Discovering its function and content clearly is a most passionate challenge for archaeologists.
Giulio Magli, Director of the Department of Mathematics and Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the Politecnico di Milano, has formulated one of the first hypotheses of interpretation.
“Cheop’s Pyramid, built around 2550 BC, is one of the largest and most complex monuments in the history of architecture. Its internal rooms are accessible through narrow tunnels, one of which, before arriving at the funerary chamber, widens and rises suddenly forming the so-called Great Gallery. The newly discovered room is over this gallery, but does not have a practical function of “relieving weight ” from it, because the roof of the gallery itself was already built with a corbelled technique for this very reason.”
So what does that mean?
“There is a possible interpretation, which is in good agreement with what we know about the Egyptian funerary religion as witnessed in the Pyramids Texts. In these texts it is said that the pharaoh, before reaching the stars of the north, will have to pass the “gates of the sky” and sit on his “throne of iron”.
Within the Pyramid there are four narrow shafts, the size of a handkerchief, directed to the stars. The pharaoh’s afterlife was in fact, according to the Texts, in the sky, and in particular among the stars of the north, like the Big Dipper and Draco. Two of the four channels open onto the facades of the monument, while the other two run into small doors. One of the two doors, the south one, has been explored several times without results, while the north one is still sealed.
North-south section of the Great Pyramid showing (dust-filled area) the hypothetical project of the chamber, in connection with the lower southern shaft. The upper southern shaft does not intersects the chamber (as instead suggested by the section) because, when viewed in plan, it is displaced to the west with respect to the Great Gallery. Credit: Giulio Magli
These doors are with all probabilities representative of the ” gates of the sky ” and the north one could well come into the newly discovered room. The room may contain, at its upper end and exactly under the apex of the great pyramid, an object needed by Cheops after crossing the doors: the “iron throne” mentioned in the Pyramid Texts.
We can get an idea of how this object could be, looking at the throne of Cheop’s mother, Queen Hetepheres, which has been found in pieces and reconstructed by Harward University. It is a low chair of cedar wood covered with sheets of gold and faience. Cheops’ could be similar, but coated with thin iron sheets. Of course it would not be melted iron, but meteoritic iron, that is, fallen from the sky in the form of Iron meteorites (distinguishable due to the high percentage of Nichel) and again cited in the Texts. It is certain that the Egyptians knew this material since many centuries before Cheops, and continued to use it for special items designed for the Pharaohs during millennia: just think of the famous Tutankamon dagger.
A way to check or discard this hypothesis exists: a new exploration of the north shaft. This is a long-awaited exploration, long before the room’s discovery. At present, it is difficult to say with certainty that the northern channel leads into the newly discovered room – the “big void” as baptized by its discoverers – because the available images are approximate. The Scan Pyramid project indeed used a non-invasive technique based on the measurement of muons: elementary particles that are generated in cosmic rays and are absorbed differently depending on the materials they go through. The result is similar to a radiography which must be interpreted.
In a new commentary in the journal Nature Climate Change, IIASA researchers argue that a broader range of scenarios is needed to support international policymakers in the target of limiting climate change to under 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to avoid potential negative environmental and social consequences of carbon dioxide removal on a massive scale.
“Many currently used emissions pathways assume that we can slowly decrease fossil fuel emissions today and make up for it later with heavy implementation of negative emissions technologies,” says IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Director Michael Obersteiner, lead author of the article. “This is a problem because it assumes we can put the burden on future generations–which is neither a realistic assumption nor is it morally acceptable from an intergenerational equity point of view.”
The researchers point out that 87% of the scenarios in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report that limit climate change to less than 2°C rely heavily on negative emissions in the second half of the century, with most of the carbon dioxide removal coming from a suite of technologies known as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS).
Assuming that it’s even possible to deploy BECCS on the scale required (a big question for a technology that has not yet been widely tested or implemented), massive implementation of land-based carbon dioxide removal strategies would have impacts on both the environment and the food system, with previous research showing trade-offs for food security and environmental conservation.
At the same time, reliance on future negative emissions to achieve climate goals may also fail to account for feedbacks in the climate system such as methane release from thawing permafrost, which are not yet fully understood.
“Many of our scenarios do not account for the uncertainties related to the climate mitigation process. Are our carbon budget estimates reasonable? Are the technologies going to develop the way we need them to be? Are natural carbon sinks reliable, or might they turn around?” says IIASA researcher Johannes Bednar, a coauthor.
In the article, the researchers present four archetype scenarios that incorporate a broader range of potential mitigation options. These include:
Major reliance on carbon dioxide removal in the future, the current archetype of many existing scenarios for achieving the 2°C or more stringent 1.5°C target.
Rapid decarbonization starting immediately, and halving every decade as proposed in a recent Science commentary coauthored by IIASA researchers.
Earlier implementation of carbon dioxide removal technologies, and phasing out by the end of the century
Consistent implementation of carbon dioxide removal from now until the end of the century.
Under all these scenarios, current country commitments under the Paris Agreement would not be sufficient to achieve the required cuts, the researchers say.
The article adds to a large body of significant IIASA research on pathways and scenarios for climate mitigation, as well as integrated research on climate and other sustainable development goals. It also provides a critical look at the current outlook for reaching climate targets.
IIASA researcher Fabian Wagner, another study coauthor adds, “In this paper we have shown that negative emission technologies may not only be an asset but also an economic burden if not deployed with care. We as scientists need to be careful when we communicate to policymakers about how realistic different scenarios might be. When we present scenarios that require the world to convert an amount of land equivalent to all today’s cropland to energy plantations, alarm bells should go off.”
Power generation through fusion reaction has been one of the most attractive fields of nuclear research and has consequently seen considerable investment since the middle of the last century. While the world has been awaiting a breakthrough in an affordable and clean power source for long, nuclear fusion has always been taunted, since the 1950s, as the energy source that was 50 years away from commercial availability and would always remain so. In recent years, however, there has been some noises about getting very close to the first real goals of harnessing this energy, i.e., working prototypes of fusion reactors. Advanced technologies and supercomputing have remarkably accelerated the pace of R&D in this field, which has probably led to the recent confident claims.
In nuclear fusion, various isotopes of hydrogen are fused together to form a new element, helium. In the process, a small amount of matter is converted into heat energy, as in the case of nuclear fission. This energy is enormous and could be harnessed. But the temperature required for nuclear fusion to occur is in the range of 13 million degrees centigrade. No material can withstand such high temperatures. Hydrogen fusion experiments are therefore presently being carried out in apparatuses called ‘Tokamaks’ (toroidal plasma chambers), where the hydrogen in extremely hot plasma form is fused together while being suspended away from the walls of the apparatus using extremely strong magnetic fields.
The problems in achieving successful nuclear fusion have mainly related to sustaining the reaction for long durations and plasma containment.1 The moment the plasma comes into contact with any other material in the tokamak, it immediately loses heat and the temperature required to be maintained comes down drastically, stopping the reaction. At present, it has been possible to stably hold the plasma in the tokamak only for a few seconds or at best a few minutes. Large amounts of input energy are also required for the experimental apparatus to work and to sufficiently raise the temperature of the plasma for the fusion reaction to start. In all the experimentation conducted till date, it has not proved possible to obtain a higher output of fusion energy than the input energy. The best output to input energy ratio has been 65 per cent.2 For fusion to become a viable source of energy generation, the reaction will have to be sustained for long durations and output energy will have to be many times greater than input energy.
In 2013, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works revealed experimental work on a new high-beta reactor design concept, a ‘compact fusion reactor’, for commercial fusion power.3 ‘Skunk Works’ is the official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. When the project was initiated, the aim was to achieve a working prototype compact fusion reactor in five years (2018), make it available for military applications in ten years (2022-23) and make it commercially viable in 20 years. Further, the apparatus to be developed was to be as compact as to fit on the back of a truck and produce energy equivalent to a 100 MW power plant, sufficient for the energy needs of a small city of 100,000 people. Use of the term ‘high-beta’ is indicative of the high ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure, loosely indicating high efficiency. If successful, compact fusion could be a revolutionary invention.
The compact fusion reactor will use deuterium and tritium isotopes of hydrogen as fuel (as in other tokomaks), and a neutron source for the reaction.4 The reactor being researched on is just about two metres long and one meter in diameter (called linear compact reactors) as against tokamaks that are comparatively huge in size. The plasma containment concept being worked on is new and very different from tokamaks, with supposedly better results. The energy produced in the reactor would be in the form of heat which would be harnessed through a turbine as in a fission reactor. But unlike in the case of fission reactors, the by-products of the fusion reactor would be non-radioactive Helium and neutrons. The neutrons would be absorbed by a Lithium blanket on the walls of the reactor, which would produce more tritium –found only in rare quantities on earth.5
Skunk Works has, however, been secretive about the degree of success of the experiment so far and not released any data to prove its claims. It has been conducting briefings and presenting the research concept in many forums, and projecting the venture as a practical solution to all of the world’s energy problems. Many in the scientific community have, however, been terming their claims as outlandish and impractical. But others have preferred to go with Skunk Works’ optimism based on the reputation of the company and is earlier achievements, which include the designing of a number of state-of-the-art aircraft like the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor, and the F-35 Lightning II. But the degree of success achieved so far cannot be judged with any certainty at present because of the company’s policy of closely guarding data and outcomes.
Another compact fusion experiment proclaiming success in the near future is the Spherical Tokamak-40 (ST-40) experiment by Tokamak Energy, a private company in the United Kingdom.6 The experiment is on similar lines to Lockheed Martin, albeit with a spherical plasma chamber instead of a cylindrical chamber. This company is also keeping much of the experimental data classified. David Kingham, CEO of Tokamak Energy, has said that ‘The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures – 100 million degrees – are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors. This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades.’ And he added that, ‘We are already half-way to the goal of fusion energy; with hard work, we will deliver fusion power at commercial scale by 2030.’7
Tri Alpha Energy is another US company working on commercial fusion power using linear compact reactors like Lockheed Martin with similar timelines.8 A compact fusion device, Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST), is also being developed alongside Joint European Torus (JET), to validate the design for fusion power.
Though research is being carried out at almost 200 tokamaks worldwide, including the famous International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), none is envisaging imminent breakthroughs as in the case of compact fusion, even though some successes have been recently achieved in boosting the energy output tenfold by introducing Helium-3 isotopes in the fusion reaction.9 India is also a prominent participant in the ITER programme.
The various claims being made on harnessing fusion energy in a cost-effective manner may give a feeling that the world is approaching a new clean energy era. But such a development is not likely, even if this technology has the potential to take care of all of mankind’s energy needs. All the developed nations have made major investments in various other fields of the energy sector. None of them would allow their investments to be wrecked. The greatest and immediate hit of attaining success in harnessing fusion energy is likely to be on oil prices. For instance, the world saw a bloodbath in the oil market when the US opened up its oil reserves for export recently. Oil prices probably would similarly plummet if and when the fusion experiment succeeds. As such, global oil demand is predicted to see a downtrend beyond 2025.
Even other energy investments such as in wind, solar, coal, etc. could suffer major setbacks. With such a disruptive potential, it can be logically predicted that the technology would be under strict US or UK governmental controls for many years or even decades to follow. None would allow its own established energy businesses to take a sudden hit. The percolation of fusion technology to other nations in all likelihood would, therefore, be at very carefully measured rates for the next two to three decades. Besides, since compact fusion would be solely their creation, Western companies and governments are likely to exploit it for profits for many years to come. The latest National Security Strategy of the US released in December 2017 explicitly mentions the intention of the US to dominate the energy sector and reiterates the continuing role of fossil fuels in the future energy mix, which shows that even if compact fusion energy is achieved, the US would play all the energy resource cards to its advantage.10
Entities working on compact fusion also claim that their technology will avert the major environmental impacts of global warming, expected by 2050.11 The positive climate mitigating impact of such technologies would, however, depend on the economic viability of fusion energy, which, in turn, would depend on the costs of reactors, cost of materials, complexity of technology, access to technology, product patenting, etc. Only time will tell whether these companies allow their inventions to become tools of environmental redemption. Cost effective fusion reactors would be able to provide practically limitless power for all the needs of mankind from domestic to industrial supply to desalination of sea water without environmental degradation and further energize pollution control mechanisms. It is, however, surprising that the World Energy Council has not factored-in any share of fusion energy in future energy scenarios that it has created for 2050. Even the International Energy Agency sees the possibility of energy being produced from fusion reactors only beyond 2050.12
Other facets of this technology are that it is safe and cannot lead to the making of a fusion bomb.13 There would be no danger of accidents similar to Chernobyl as a runaway fusion reaction is intrinsically impossible and any malfunction would result in a rapid shutdown of the plant. Military applications of fusion reactors would probably be limited to powering the energy needs of ships, aircraft and spacecraft only. Interaction of the neutrons, produced as a by-product, with the walls of the reactor is expected to reduce the reactors’ or their components’ life. These would require replacements,14 which, in turn, would give additional controlling power to the manufacturers. The companies engaged in developing this technology have, however, not drawn attention to this aspect. Research being undertaken in other fields of energy storage, especially vis-à-vis battery technology, are also showing encouraging results. High-capacity battery technology would form a perfect partner with compact fusion technology in providing clean energy in the future.
Although fusion does not generate long-lived radioactive products and the unburned gases can be treated on site, there would a short-to-medium term radioactive waste problem due to the activation of structural materials. Some component materials will become radioactive during the lifetime of a reactor due to bombardment with high-energy neutrons, and will eventually become radioactive waste. The quantity of such waste is, however, likely to be insignificantly small. There is also a possible risk of leak of Tritium into the atmosphere. While Tritium is radioactive and can be inhaled, it has a half-life of only 12.3 years and would be used in small amounts and the risk would still be less than from fission reactors.15
India has its own plasma research experimental tokamaks called ‘Aditya’ and SST-1 at the Institute of Plasma Research, Gujarat, for conducting fusion research.16 These have given invaluable experience to Indian scientists because of which they have found a prominent place in the ITER project. India has not ventured into compact fusion research so far. In view of the various recent developments in compact fusion, India also needs to carefully tread forward in the energy sector, especially when getting into long-term contracts for power generation. India’s demand for forthcoming decades is huge, for which there are plans afoot to have major ventures in various energy sectors. These would require heavy investments. If economically produced fusion power becomes mainstream, such investments would prove to be a waste. It would be prudent therefore to keep an eye on developments in this field, conduct technological forecasts of fusion research and revisit future energy plans as needed.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
About the author:
*Group Captain Atul Pant is Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi.
11. ‘Charles Chase from Lockheed Martin, during a formal presentation spoke about the compact fusion technology being nuclear threat safe’ in the video titled Fusion Update From Skunk Works‘, YouTube, published on March 24, 2016
13. ‘Charles Chase from Lockheed Martin, during a formal presentation spoke about the compact fusion technology being nuclear threat safe’ in the video titled Fusion Update From Skunk Works‘, YouTube, published on March 24, 2016, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9NQgD_5SP4
International resolve to address climate change infused COP23 with an inclusive spirit that resulted in enough progress to take us through to negotiation crunch-time at COP24. The well-below 2ºC degree guardrail, our collectively agreed temperature goal, is still however stubbornly out of reach.1
By Lara Lázaro-Touza*
ackling climate change in earnest requires governing a ‘super wicked’ collective action problem through non-marginal actions across time horizons that expand regular market timescales. From scientists to policymakers and individuals we all need to be involved. Increasingly ambitious global action is key, as analyses by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released prior to COP23 confirm that greenhouse gas emissions are still on the rise while efforts to reduce emissions are insufficient to hold temperature increases to a bearable level in a year in which the world has endured significant extreme weather events. Physical risks from climate change are increasingly clear.
The Paris Agreement provided the collective framework to limit temperature increases to well below 2ºC above preindustrial levels, but international rules that will govern the Paris Agreement are yet to be finalised. National climate laws and policies that are fostered, inter alia, by the Paris Agreement ensure action on the ground. Appropriation of new and existing climate policies is key to ensure their implementation. Citizen concern seems to be mounting, thus favouring increasingly ambitious climate regulation, although further action is needed. The current legal and social contexts highlight both transition risks and market opportunities for stakeholders as a function of their climate action.
Recent developments in climate science, legislation, litigation and citizen engagement provide the context in which international climate negotiations took place in Bonn this year. COP23 delivered, as expected, the necessary procedural progress to consider this COP successful. Negotiations advanced on the inclusion of Parties’ preferred options for the development of implementation guidelines (previously known as the Paris rulebook) that are to govern the Paris Agreement. Progress was also made on evaluating global progress towards our long-term temperature stabilisation target, as the design of the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue (renamed the Talanoa dialogue) was completed. Concrete outcomes were also achieved as regards the Vulnerability Agenda on gender, indigenous peoples, local communities and oceans. Intense negotiations at COP23 helped broker an agreement on agriculture after years of paralysis on this topic. At the request of developing countries, the pre-2020 ambition, an unexpected negotiating issue, was raised to the fore. Developed countries will be subject to evaluation as regards ambition and finance in 2018 and 2019. The Adaptation Fund, which was to expire with the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, will continue serving under the Paris Agreement, an additional win for developing countries.
On Fiji’s expected grand coalition of actors, and building on the work undertaken at Lima (COP20), Paris (COP21) and Marrakech (COP22), the first formal dialogue between non-state actors (sub-national governments, the business sector and civil society) and Parties (national governments) was held in Bonn. Additionally, the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, that seeks to promote pre-2020 ambition, presented its first Yearbook on Global Climate Action. Given the realisation that non-state actors are crucial in the push towards a lower carbon development model, and building too on the increased interest by non-state actors to contribute to the low carbon transition, it is expected that future international climate meetings advance this dialogue. The meeting of the 2050 Pathways Platform to foster the development of long-term decarbonisation pathways also took place in Bonn.
Analysis
Science: urgent climate action required
As COP23 opened in Bonn, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) informed that 2017 was set to be the warmest year ever recorded without an El Niño2 event, and one of the three hottest years on record overall. This year the world has experienced record Extreme Weather Events (EWE), including hurricanes in the Caribbean and the southern parts of the US, the highest cyclonic September on record, global ocean heat content also reaching record levels, continued droughts in Somalia and above-average rainfall in some parts of India leading to significant floods.3 Although single events are difficult to attribute to climate change, as changes in climate patterns are studied over several decades (or longer), scientists agree that climate change is expected to bring increased frequency and severity of EWE such as those we have endured in 2017.
The eighth edition of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report,4 which analyses the information included in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, as well as more updated studies, provides a further warning signal. Full implementation of countries’ Nationally Developed Contributions (NDCs) will only provide one third of the emission reductions needed to meet our 2ºC goal in the most cost-effective manner. In terms of emissions, this implies having a gap (distance to the well-below 2ºC target) of 11 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) if conditional pledges are implemented and a 13.5GtCO2e gap if unconditional pledges are implemented. For the 1.5ºC target, the gap would increase to 16GtCO2e and 19GtCO2e respectively. The gap between our intentions (NDCs) and the 2ºC target is, according to UNEP ‘alarmingly high’.5
By 2030 the implementation of current commitments will use up 80% of the carbon budget6 to stay within the 2ºC temperature limit. Furthermore, the carbon budget for limiting temperature increases to 1.5ºC will be completely exhausted by 2030 if ambition is not ramped up. Therefore, the deadline to close the gap is 2030 if the world is to transition to a low-carbon model in a cost-effective manner. Hence, the 2018 Talanoa dialogue, the first global exam of our collective progress towards the long-term temperature stabilisation target, that will inform the 2020 revision of countries commitments (with a 2030 timeframe for NDCs), is critical in ensuring the world is ratcheting-up climate action.
The UNEP report does, however, provide some guidance as regards the sectors that have significant greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction potential. Over two-thirds of the potential comes from the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The uptake of low carbon energies including renewable energies, the use of carbon capture and storage,7 the recovery and re-use of methane in gas production or the pre-mining degasification in coal mining are some of the key actions that can be taken by the energy sector. Increasing energy efficiency, increasing the use of renewable energy to produce heat, using carbon capture and storage and reducing hydroflourocarbons are actions the industrial sector can take to reduce its GHG emissions according to UNEP. Fuel efficiency measures, transport modal shifts and increasing the use of electric vehicles are the key GHG reduction initiatives suggested for the transport sector.
Climate governance and legislation: the push from above
Since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 climate laws and policies have increased twentyfold. This surge in climate legislation indicates greater concern and action to provide a stable climate as a global public good. Interestingly, and perhaps expectedly, it is developing countries that have put in place greater number of climate laws since 19948 although full integration of climate policy in development policy is yet to occur in developed and developing countries alike. Figure 1 below portrays climate-related laws and policies passed or enacted yearly from pre-1994 to 2016.
The key areas in which global climate laws and policies focus include: the energy sector, accounting for 41% of total climate legislation; low carbon transitions accounting for just under 26% of climate laws; general environmental laws (under 12% of the laws); mainstreaming climate change into planning processes (7.7% of the laws) and the forestry sector (under 5% of the laws analysed).
The reduction in the amount of laws nearing 2016 that can be seen in Figure 1 above might soon be reversed. This is so as the entry into force of the Paris Agreement legally binds countries to present their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years, which could mean an increase in the number of climate-related laws and policies in the coming years. For instance, given that 90% of NDCs9 include the agricultural sector, that it is an under-legislated area and that there has been a decision at COP23, more national regulation in the agricultural sector could be seen in the future.10
Similarly, litigation has also increased throughout the 1994-2016 period analysed. At least 825 court cases related to climate change have been recorded, 600 of which are US-based. Although in most of the court cases to date climate change is not the main concern, this may well change in the future. One possible explanation for this increase in future climate litigation is that it is increasingly perceived as a valid strategy to drive climate action.
Three recent cases illustrate this increased demand for action. First, in October 2016 a group of young plaintiffs and the climate scientist Dr James Hansen won the right to trial according to US District Court Judge Anne Aiken. The plaintiffs argued that the US government had not upheld its obligation to ensure a stable climate, in line with the public trust doctrine, endangering plaintiffs’ fundamental rights to life and liberty. As judge Aiken stated: ‘the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society’.11 Secondly, during COP23, in November 2017 a German regional court deemed a Peruvian farmer’s demand for damages admissible. The farmer was demanding Germany’s RWE (one of the largest greenhouse-gas emitters) to contribute to the protection of his town in Peru that is at risk of overflows from a melting glacier. Lastly, in the Netherlands a Dutch court determined that, based on established climate science, the government had to increase its climate ambition by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020 compared to 1990.12 Although in countries such as Spain a significant number of climate litigation cases in the past have been motivated by disputes between companies that operate under the European Emission Trading System (EU ETS) and the national government regarding allocated emission allowances,13 this need not be the case in the future.
The sharp increase in climate legislation and litigation since the 90s, coupled with the expectation that the Paris Agreement will inject climate laws with renewed impetus, will no doubt be understood by stakeholders as what the future holds. The development of increasingly ambitious climate laws exemplifies one of the transition risks laggards will face.
Society: increasingly concerned worldwide but actions lagging behind
Concern for climate change has waxed and waned for over three decades14 subject to economic development, political support for climate action, increased experience with climate-change related impacts materialising15 and heightened media coverage of climate change, among others (see Figure 2 below).
Sources: the author based on Capstick (2015), Pew (2017), Eurobarometer (2017)16 and Lázaro (forthcoming).17
The underlying trend, however, seems to point towards an increase in citizen concern about climate change. This can turn into demand for action from policymakers and businesses as part of a new social contract.18 For instance, in May 2017 a majority of Exxon Mobil shareholders voted19 for greater disclosure from the company as regards the company’s exposure to climate risks, a first in the firm’s history, with institutional investors strongly pushing for this move.20
As reported in the latest surveys, climate change is Africa’s and Latin America’s primary concern as a threat to their countries while in Europe and the US climate change is the second concern for citizens after international terrorism, according to the latest research published by Pew (2017).21 According to the 2017 Eurobarometer climate change is the third most serious problem facing the world for Europeans, preceded by poverty, hunger plus lack of drinking water, and international terrorism. For two EU countries, however, Sweden and Denmark, climate change is the most serious problem facing the world. As regards foreign policy priorities, citizens in the US, Germany and France rank fighting climate change as their second priority after fighting international terrorism.22 In Spain climate change has consistently been ranked as a second foreign policy priority from 2011 to 2016.23
So citizen concern about climate change is significant and indicates that, at least in some jurisdictions, foreign policy is expected to engage in earnest with climate action. As regards the willingness to pay for climate policies, analyses show it is, overall, significantly different from zero,24 albeit with stark geographical differences.25 As for individual’s self-reported behaviour regarding climate change, the latest Eurobarometer states that 49% of Europeans spontaneously report climate-conscious behaviour such as separating waste and reducing waste, but when prompted with specific examples of these types of behaviour the percentages reaches 90% of Eropeans.
Actions to curb GHG emissions at an individual level are, however, yet to follow in earnest according to per capita GHG emission accounts (see Figure 3 below), despite energy-related CO2 emissions having stalled in the past three years (IEA, 2017)26 (see Figure 4 below).
Furthermore, citizens cite national governments, the EU and business and industry as the key institutions that should engage in climate action, which highlights the market and reputational transition risks different stakeholders can expect.
COP23 in context: enough to keep going but immense work ahead
In the aftermath of the adoption of the Paris Agreement at COP21, seasoned negotiators, observers and researcher alike started warning the international community that implementation and increased ambition, subject to adequate means,27 were paramount to take Paris beyond a diplomatic success.
COP22 provided the timeframe for finalising the implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement, ie, the set of rules, modalities and procedures that will make the Paris Agreement operational. The rulebook deadline, which coincides with the Facilitative Dialogue enshrined in the Paris Agreement (now known as the Talanoa dialogue),28 was set in 2018. COP24 is therefore set to be a decisive milestone in the fight against climate change. Hence, the expectations for COP23 were those corresponding to a technical international climate meeting. And yet, the work during 2017 and 2018, prior to COP24, is of utmost importance in determining the resilience, effectiveness and buy-in of the Paris Agreement.
As regards the resilience of the Paris Agreement, 2017 was a premature test for global climate action. Prior to this year’s COP, on 1 June 2017, the 45th president of the US announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The arguments for withdrawing from the agreement were based on the misunderstanding or misrepresenting of three key issues:29
The nature of the Paris Agreement. This is an agreement in part crafted to suit US political circumstances (ie, circumvent America’s political gridlock on climate change). It is only binding on procedural issues and explicitly excludes the possibility of being exposed to liability claims for losses and damages. The Paris Agreement, like any other international environmental agreement, has not been imposed on any country by any other country as Donald Trump claimed. The Paris Agreement is a voluntary undertaking. Additionally, all Parties to the Agreement have expressed their voluntary commitments through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) according to their national circumstances, ie, they are asymmetric in nature to allow for differentiation in terms of will and xapacity to act.
The economics of climate action. Trump misleadingly cited a partial study30 to provide only cost estimates of climate action, forgetting his own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates of the benefits of globally-concerted climate action.31
The scientific consensus on the impacts of climate action. The insufficiency of current NDCs notwithstanding, Trump underestimated the impacts of current mitigation commitment by a large quantity.32
Although every diplomatic effort, both within and outside the White House, was made during 2016 and 2017 to prevent the withdrawal announcement, on 4 August 2017 the Department of State announced the US had submitted a letter to the UN expressing America’s intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as possible.33 A withdrawal that, according to article 28 of the Paris Agreement, would not occur before Trumps’ term in office ends. In the meantime, the US has sent a technical-profile group of seasoned negotiators to COP23, and will continue sending an official delegation to the negotiation in order to ‘to protect US interests and ensure all future policy options remain open to the administration’.34 Even though the official US delegation at COP23 has not had a leading role in the negotiations, it has been argued that it has not disrupted the negotiations either.
The political declarations during COP22 regarding the resolve to push ahead with the climate action agenda have fortunately proceeded apace throughout 2017. This should not be mistaken, however, with an innocuous US climate default. America’s first climate default (when it failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol) arguably resulted in lowering ambition and expectations as regards climate action, something we cannot afford at present according to climate science. Trump’s decisions on cutting international climate finance can hinder cooperation between developed and developing countries, slowing down, to some extent, the low-carbon transition and leapfrogging processes in the latter. Trump’s disregard for established climate science, with currents reports of lawyers in the Justice Department questioning climate scientists regarding uncertainties in the science,35 his announced budget cuts to the EPA as well as to international institutions such as the IPCC, and the limitation imposed on EPA’s scientists to disclose their findings, can endanger the traditionally world-class climate science that, along with many other institutions worldwide, inform international climate negotiations and actions.
Europe’s resolve to fill the finance gap, as exemplified by declarations such as those of President Macron during COP23 and the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS),36 the significant contribution by the EU to international climate finance, €20.2 billion in 2016 according to the Council of the EU,37 and the decisive support of climate scientists working, among others, at the Joint Research Center, the Copernicus Programme, Barcelona’s Supercomputing Center and H2020 programmes, will in all likelihood become increasingly important to fill the science-finance void left by the US.
As regards China, its New Normal economic38 development and its overwhelming investment in renewables39 provide reasons for optimism. However, China’s expected leadership role that was envisaged after Xi Jinping’s speech at the World Economic Forum in 201740 has arguably not yet materialised in international climate negotiations. China’s historical principled resistance to external oversight of emissions has been a stumbling block during COP23. This is so despite its technical capabilities41 as regards satellite monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions. The leadership role in international climate negotiations seems to be (at least partially) vacant for the time being.
COP23 priorities and key results
Prior to the celebration of COP23 in Bonn, under the Fiji Presidency, the key priorities were to advance on the rules that will govern the Paris Agreement, to design the first exam of the advances made towards meeting our long-term temperature goal, to advance on the vulnerability agenda and to foster climate finance. All these while avoiding re-opening issues that had been agreed in Paris and in Marrakech such as that on differentiation between developed and developing countries (see Box 1 below).
Source: UNFCCC (2017)42 and OECC (2017a).43
Some of the key outcomes of COP23 include: (1) the Paris work programme; (2) finalising the design of the Talanoa dialogue; (3) reaching an agreement on evaluating pre-2020 ambitions and requesting ratification of the Doha Amendment; (4) progress on the Vulnerability Agenda; and (5) the grand coalition, or the increasing (yet still fuzzy) role of non-state actors.
(1) The Paris work programme44
The implementation guidelines have made progress. The negotiating texts being developed for the implementation of the Paris Agreement managed to include the preferred options from all Parties. This was essential in ensuring the appropriation by all countries of the rulebook that will govern the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The work ahead will entail treamlining the negotiating texts that it is to be hoped will be adopted in COP24. As the amount of work ahead is immense, the topic complex and the issues of mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building are highly interlinked, there will be an additional negotiating session in the period between May 2018 and COP24. Additionally, there was a request to the UNFCCC secretariat to develop an online platform to track the progress made in the Paris work programme. The goal is to avoid having lengthy negotiations such as those prior to the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. The key outcomes are presented in Table 1 below.
(2) Finalising the design of the Talanoa dialogue
Previously known as the Facilitative dialogue the Talanoa dialogue will take place throughout 2018 and will conclude in COP24. The goals of this first evaluation are to analyse the progress towards our long-term temperature stabilisation goal and to inform the upcoming review of national commitments (NDCs) in 2020 in which ambition has to be increased. The key features of this dialogue will be the inclusive, participatory and non-confrontational nature of the analysis, in line with the Talanoa spirit.
The Talanoa dialogue is structured in two phases. The first phase is a technical one that will gather evidence from scientific institutions (eg, the IPCC’s special report on climate change scenarios in a 1.5ºC warmer world), stakeholders and Technical Expert Meetings (TEMs) and will summarise the information for the second phase (the political phase) that will report on the findings of the dialogue and will help in the development of the next generation Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Parties are expected to bring to the Talanoa dialogue their national or regional progress and initiatives to achieve the long-term temperature goal. In this respect, the EU has communicated during COP23 that it will strive to bring to the table the most advanced legislative package possible, which includes the recently reformed EU ETS,48 the Effort Sharing Regulation proposal for 2021-30,49 the land use and forestry proposal for 2021-3050 and the energy Package.51 This, it is hoped, will demonstrate that the EU is a credible and ambitious partner. The EU claims that not only does it have a strong track record in climate action, having disbursed €20.2 billion in climate finance last year and decoupling economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions, as GDP has grown over 50% since 1990 while emissions have fallen over 20%, it also has a clear vision of how to decarbonise its economy and it has in place (or it is developing) the policies to support the low carbon transition.
(3) Reaching an agreement on evaluating pre-2020 ambitions and requesting ratification of the Doha Amendment
Pre-2020 ambition was, arguably, an unexpected negotiating topic at COP23. The African Group wanted to ensure climate actions and finance were disclosed prior to the implementation of the first set of NDCs, to ensure continued post-2020 ambition. The EU’s expected overachievement of 2020 goals plus its significant contribution to international climate finance, and its recurrent narrative of Europe’s will to keep leading by example voiced by Commissioner Arias Cañete, were some of the drivers for the EU agreeing to the decisions taken on pre-2020 ambition.
The pre-2020 decisions include, first, sending letters to Parties to the Kyoto Protocol to ratify the Doha Amendment so that the second period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-20) would enter into force. The EU stated it would strive to send its ratification before the end of 2018 and Spain deposited its instrument of ratification on 14 November 2017, joining 15 other EU countries that have also ratified the Doha Amendment.52 The EU ratification has not materialised yet due to the Polish veto to ratify, but Poland has announced it will do so ahead of COP24,53 which will be hosted in Katowice under its Presidency.54 The EU’s ratification will not, however, imply crossing the threshold for the Doha Amendment to enter into force. Secondly, the decision was taken to hold a stock-taking meeting in 2018 and 2019 in which mitigation efforts, support and information regarding the actions under the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action by non-Party stakeholders will be analysed.
(4) Progress on the Vulnerability Agenda
The first COP presided by a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), plus a year of extreme weather events, fostered the vulnerability agenda at COP23. The outcomes within this agenda included:
(a) The establishment of a Gender Action Plan55 in order to mainstream gender-responsive climate action. Mainstreaming would in turn result in increasing capacity building through, inter alia, specific training programmes, increasing access of women to the international climate negotiating process and fostering gender-related approaches in national climate action plans.
(b) The development of the local communities and indigenous peoples platform56 whose goal is to preserve local and indigenous knowledge through the exchange of information and best practices. It also aims to improve local communities and indigenous peoples’ access to the international climate negotiation process and to improve the communication between the platform and other stakeholders.
(5) The grand coalition, or the increasing (yet still fuzzy) role of non-state actors
The first formal open dialogue between Party (national governments) and non-Party stakeholders (subnational governments, cities, firms and civil society) took place at COP23.57 A dialogue that is expected to continue in future COPs.
A permanent dialogue mechanism between Parties and non-Party stakeholders has been recognised as key to deliver effective climate action. Bottom-up actions by non-state actors have surged since Copenhagen (COP15), with cities for example demanding greater involvement in the UNFCCC process.58 Key initiatives in the post Copenhagen era include:
(a) The Lima-Paris Action Agenda and the establishment of the Non-state actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) platform at COP20 in Lima that records commitments by non-Party stakeholders.
(b) The development of the roadmap for Global Climate Action59 at COP21 in Paris to enable the formal liaison between Party and on-Party stakeholders, with Laurence Tubiana and Hakima el Haite as High-Level Climate Champions.
(c) Also at the behest of the first climate champions, the 2050 Pathways Platform60 was launched at COP22. The key goal of this initiative is to support governments at all levels as well as companies61 to develop long-term decarbonisation strategies to achieve the long-term net-zero GHG goal. During COP23 Spain announced it had joined the 2050 Pathways Platform.
(d) The Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action62 that seeks to enhance pre-2020 actions and engagement by Party and non-Party stakeholders, which is complementary to Party negotiations. The Marrakech Partnership also tracks progress by non-party stakeholders using the NAZCA platform and reports actions annually in the Yearbook of Global Climate Action.
The first Yearbook on Global Climate Action was published in 2017. Although the yearbook has, understandably, not recorded all on-going initiatives, the following show the widespread engagement by non-Party stakeholders. First, over one billion (109) people have committed to reduce their GHG emissions by 80% by mid-century. Secondly, water adaptation capacity is to be scaled up by megacities with over 300 million inhabitants, with a significant number of initiatives being announced in developing countries. Third, a significant number of companies are committing to using 100% renewable energy. Companies are also increasingly willing to be subject to science-based targets in line with a 2ºC temperature target in their GHG reduction commitments. This alignment with science-based targets can furthermore help future capital allocation decisions by institutional investors that are increasingly mindful of companies’ exposure to climate risks. Science-led climate action and disclosure is potentially a means for attracting investment.
One of the most notable initiatives as regards non-Party stakeholders at COP23 was arguably the presentation of America’s Pledge, an initiative developed by cities, businesses and civil society in the US that was presented by Michael Bloomberg and Jerry Brown. In contrast with Donald Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, over half of America’s population (amounting to over half of the US GDP, equivalent to the third-largest GHG emitter globally) committed to uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement. This contrasted to the relatively low profile of the US delegation at COP23 that focused its work on, inter alia, a working group on NDC implementation, loss and damage, climate finance and avoiding reopening the issue of country differentiation. The only official American side event at COP23, titled ‘Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation’, was disrupted by protesters, a clear sign of the deep divide in the US between the federal government and non-Party stakeholders.
The key gaps identified to implement and scale-up climate action in the 2017 Yearbook on Global Climate Action are: integrating approaches, closing the financial gaps, enhancing capacity and addressing technology and information gaps. Moving forward, however, the challenges include: institutionalising the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action and ensuring it has the appropriate means to develop its work; and setting up a system to account rigorously for all non-state actor climate actions in a transparent way that can be verified and compared and that ensures non-Party commitments are additional to Party commitments. The design of this accounting mechanism is expected to occur after the implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement are finalised.
An additional high-profile initiative presented at COP23 was the Powering Past Coal Alliance,63 fostered by the governments of the UK and Canada. Initially signed by 25 governments (national and subnational) the alliance seeks to accelerate traditional coal phase-out (ie, coal-fired power plants without Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS).64 At the One Planet Summit that marked the 2nd anniversary of the Paris Agreement,65 24 businesses and other organisations joined the initial list of national and sub-national signatories of the Powering Past Coal Alliance.66
Based on the work by Climate Analytics,67 the alliance declaration states that given that 40% of current electricity worldwide is supplied by coal and that there are significant health impacts from the use of coal for electricity production, amounting to 800,000 deaths a year, traditional coal should be phased out. This phase-out, it is argued, should occur by 2030 in the OECD and the EU and by 2050 in the rest of the world. As regards Spain, the question was asked during COP23 regarding the potential adherence to the Powering Past Coal Alliance. At present, the reasons given for not doing so include the potential increase in the price of electricity,68 the job losses this would entail and the need to ensure security of supply. There is, however, an on-going dialogue with the energy sector regarding the coal phase-out.69
Other achievements
Other achievements include: (1) breaking the gridlock on agriculture; (2) launching the Ocean Pathway at COP23; and (3) involving institutional investors in climate change.
Breaking the gridlock on agriculture70
After years of unfruitful negotiations, COP23 brought greater understanding and trust among Parties as regards agriculture. In moving forward, the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) will jointly address the topic of agriculture and climate change through workshops and expert meetings. The topics to be addressed are yet to be finalised but they are expected to include the enhancement of soil carbon, increasing adaptation and resilience, improving livestock and food security. The issue of how to account for emissions by the agricultural sector was a contentious one once again during COP23, with methane at the centre of the disputes. Latin American countries including Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay71 (with a large cattle industry) raised, once again, the issue of the disadvantages they faced due to the current Global Warming Potential72 used to calculate the warming impact of methane.73
Launching the Ocean Pathway74 at COP23
This initiative seeks to include the issue of oceans and climate change within the UNFCCC negotiations given the importance of oceans for SIDS and coastal states and the role that oceans play in (and impacts they endure from) climate change.75 It also seeks to include ocean-related climate mitigation and adaptation actions in NDCs. The IPCC is additionally preparing a Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC)76 that will be published in 2019 and that will inform the debate moving forward.
Involving institutional investors in climate change
Some of the key messages coming from investors both prior77 to and during COP23 as regards climate change include the reiteration that climate change is increasingly being considered a systemic risk. Climate change may reduce the value of assets under management due to both physical and transition risks. Climate action is in turn seen as a potential value-creating-strategy. More is being done, though, on the side of mitigation than on the side of adaptation for the time being. Some of the requests from investors to ramp-up climate finance include:
Embedding climate finance considerations both in future rounds of NDCs (starting in 2020) and in the development of national climate policies.78
Fostering blended finance so that investment risks be minimised.
Ensuring predictable climate (and related) policies to attract climate finance.
Providing ex ante public climate finance information to enable low carbon investment in developing countries, a demand by institutional investors that is aligned with that of developing countries, and which is enshrined in article 9.5 of the Paris Agreement.
Project aggregation to ensure institutional investors can finance the low carbon transition.
Ensuring independent science-based targets guide national climate policies.
The most progressive climate laws and policies have introduced institutions and mechanisms that respond to institutional investors’ demands, among other, to help secure future capital for the low carbon transition.
Conclusions
Reflecting on the results of COP23
On evaluating the results of a largely technical COP it is important to reflect on the goals set for such a meeting, the broader temperature stabilisation goal and contextual factors.
As regards the goals set and the expectations on achieving these goals prior to the meeting in Bonn, the outcome could be judged as positive. Despite the temptations to reopen historical discussions on differentiation, and the expected wrangling on ex ante information relative to international climate finance, COP23 managed to advance on the Paris work programme by producing a set of pre-negotiation texts that are acceptable to all Parties. Inclusiveness and trust are known to be key drivers of climate negotiations and thus having all options in the texts that contain the rules (implementation guidelines) that will govern the Paris Agreement was crucial in moving forward. Such all-encompassing negotiating texts have to be narrowed down prior to the celebration of COP24 in December 2018. The workload is such that at COP23 an additional negotiating session prior to COP24 was planned. Some negotiators are somewhat sceptical of the possibility of closing every negotiating item on time, despite this additional session.
The second key goal of COP23 was the design of the Talanoa dialogue, which was achieved. It is unclear at this stage whether the inputs from the IPCC and other stakeholders, which will be reviewed prior to the political phase of the dialogue, will be enough to spur the increase in ambition that is needed to ensure we do not overshoot our long-term temperature goal. The first key test of the Talanoa dialogue will come in 2020 when Parties have to submit their updated NDCs, with commitments to be met in 2030. The third key goal of COP23 was the advancement of the vulnerability agenda. Both the Gender Action Plan and the platform for local communities and indigenous peoples have been long-awaited and positive outcomes. Advances on agriculture materialise at COP23, after years of entrenchment.
Finally, the advancement of the Global Climate Action Agenda was arguably the space where the greatest climate action and engagement were seen during COP23. This multi-stakeholder engagement is a key element of the social appropriation of the new low carbon development model countries have signed up to.
Though the negotiation process might be progressing according to COP negotiation timescales, the progress as regards limiting temperature goals is still disappointing. GHG emissions are on the rise and 2017 has brought record extreme weather events. Speeding up the pace of negotiations and actions through the development of national climate laws with the 2050 horizon in mind is expected to be an increasingly pressing topic.
As for contextual factors, the US announcement of its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement could have taken a bigger short-term toll on international climate negotiations, especially if the Trump Administration had sent a high political profile negotiating team to undermine the work at COP23. No backsliding or domino effect has occurred so far, but both the international climate finance gap left by the US as well as Trump’s disregard for climate science can imperil years of hard-won trust in the international climate negotiations as well as in established climate science, two key issues to watch moving forward.
About the author:
*Lara Lázaro, Senior Analyst, Elcano Royal Institute | @lazarotouza
Notes: 1 The author would like to thank Gonzalo Escribano Francés and Miguel Muñoz Rodríguez for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the article. The usual disclaimer applies.
2 According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), El Niño is a ‘warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures (SST), in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Over Indonesia, rainfall tends to become reduced while rainfall increases over the tropical Pacific Ocean’ (see What is the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in a nutshell?, last accessed 26/XI/2017).
3 Although rainfall in India was 5% less than average, some parts in the north-east and neighbouring countries have had more severe flooding than usual.
4UNEP (2017), ‘The Emissions Gap Report 2017’, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi, last accessed 26/XI/2017.
5 The emissions gap is the difference between emissions consistent with achieving a given temperature goal, say limiting temperature increases to well below 2ºC compared to pre-industrial levels, and expected emissions according to a given set of climate commitments, for instance those of current Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs.
6 The carbon budget is the amount of carbon that can be emitted if the goal is to stay within a certain temperature rise limit. In order to limit global mean temperature increases to 2ºC compared to pre-industrial levels, the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (5AR) stated that the carbon budget amounts to 2,900GtCO2, of which 65% (1,900 GtCO2) had been used up by 2011. More updated figures by Carbon Budget estimate significantly lower remaining carbon budget, reducing the amount of years we have left to exceed the 2ºC and 1.5ºC temperature targets in the next years or decades (see Analysis: Only five years left before 1.5C carbon budget is blown, last accessed 26/XI/2017). Glen Peters at CICERO reminds that at 40 GtCO2 there are only have 20 years left until the carbon budget is exhausted at current emission levels under the assumption that meeting the IPCC’s overall carbon budget will give a 66% chance of limiting temperature increases to 2ºC. It has to be noted, however, that uncertainties and model assumptions provide a range of carbon budget estimates. For further information see How much carbon dioxide can we emit? (last accessed 26/XI/2017).
8 M. Nachmany et al. (2017), ‘Climate change laws of the world database’, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law, last accessed 27/XI/2017.
14 S. Capstick et al. (2015), ‘International trends in public perceptions of climate change over the past quarter century’, WIREs Clim Change, nr 6, p. 35-61, doi 10.1002/wcc.321.
15 Attribution studies are needed to establish the causal link between a given event and climate change. However, climate science warns that extreme weather events such as severe storms, droughts and cyclones will become more frequent and severe due to climate change.
24 M. Hanemann, X. Labandeira & M.L. Loureiro (2011), ‘Public preferences for climate change policies: evidence from Spain’, Documento de Trabajo nr 2011-06, Federación de Estudios de Economía Aplicadajo, http://documentos.fedea.net/pubs/dt/2011/dt-2011-06.pdf, last accessed 2/XII/2017.
26 IEA (2017), ‘IEA finds CO2 emissions flat for third straight year even as global economy grew in 2016’, last accessed 30/XI/2017. Key contributors to current GHG emissions in percentages in 2014 include: China (30%), US (15%), EU-28 (9%), India (7%), Russia (5%), Japan (4%) and others (30%), according to T.A. Boden, G. Marland & R.J. Andres (2017), ‘National CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning, cement manufacture, and gas flaring: 1751-2014’, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, doi 10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2017. See also WRI (2015), ‘Infographic: what do your country’s emissions look like?’, last accessed 22/XI/2017.
32 Sergey Paltsev Sokolov, Henry Chen & Erwan Monier (2016), ‘Climate impacts of the Paris Agreement’, Geophysical Research Abstracts, vol. 18, EGU2016-8016, last accessed 11/XII/2017.
39 Amounting to just under a third of renewable investment globally in 2016 but with a significant drop in investment compared to 2015. See Frankfurt School-UNEP Centre/BNEF (2017), ‘Global trends in renewable energy investment 2017’, last accessed 5/XII/2017.
52 The 16 EU countries that have ratified the Doha Amendment at the time of writing include Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The full list of ratifications can be seen at Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol (last accessed 9/XII/2017.
54 In any case, the real value of the ratification is symbolic as even EU ratification will not mean going over the 144 ratifications needed for the Doha Amendment to come into force.
55 See FCC/SBI/2017/L.29 for further reference.
56 See FCCC/SBSTA/2017/L.29 for further reference.
61 Spanish companies that had joined the 2050 Pathways Platform prior to COP23 include ACCIONA, Correos, FERROVIAL, Gamesa Corporación Tecnológica, Gas Natural, Gestamp, Grupo Logista Spain, Iberdrola, Inditex, Maessa and NH Hotel Group. See: 2050 pathways platform announcement, last accessed 11/XII/2017.
66 Businesses and organizations in the Powering Past Coal Alliance: Abraaj Group, Alterra Power Corp., ArcTern Ventures, Autodesk, Avant Garde Innovations, BT, CCLA Investment Management Limited, Diageo, DSM, Econet Group, EcoSmart, Electricité de France (EDF), Engie, GreenScience, Iberdrola, Kering, Marks and Spencer, Natura Cosmetics, Ørsted, Pacific Islands Development Forum, Salesforce, Storebrand, Unilever and Virgin Group. See: Powering Past Coal Alliance Declaration, last accessed 22/XII/2017.
69 I. García Tejerina (2017), personal communication.
70 Agriculture and land use, land use change and forestry are the only two sectors included in the negotiations due to their relevance for developing countries. See FCCC/SBSTA/2017/L.24/Add.1.
75 In terms of mitigation and impacts the ‘Ocean Pathway’ underlines that oceans are key in ‘management of carbon, the absorption of heat and regulation of global weather patterns… climate change has negative impacts on the ocean in terms of acidification, warming, rising sea levels and de oxygenation’.
Plans to open a Salafi missionary centre in the Yemeni province of Al Mahrah on the border with Oman and Saudi Arabia raise questions about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salah’s concept of a moderate form of Islam.
The crown prince has created expectations of more social liberalism with the lifting of a ban on women’s driving, a residual of Bedouin rather than Muslim tradition, as well the granting of female access to male sporting events; the legitimization of various forms of entertainment, including cinema, theatre and music; and the stripping away of the religious police’s right to carry out arrests.
While removing Saudi Arabia as the only Muslim country that didn’t permit women to drive or allow various recreational activities, Prince Mohammed has yet to conceptualize what a rollback of Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism would mean in a nation whose public life remains steeped in a puritan interpretation of the faith. (The lifting on the ban of women entering stadiums leaves Iran as the only country that restricts female access to male sporting events.)
The disclosure of the plan for a Salafi mission suggests Prince Mohammed may only want to curb ultra-conservatism’s rough edges. It also calls into question Saudi policy in Yemen that is reminiscent of past failures.
Saudi Arabia’s conflict with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, a Zaydi Shiite Muslim sect with roots in a region bordering the kingdom, dates to Saudi employment of Salafism to counter the group in the 1980s.
The plan harks back to the creation of an anti-Shiite Salafi mission near the Houthi stronghold of Saada that sparked a military confrontation in 2011 with the Yemeni government, one of several wars in the region. The centre was closed in 2014 as part of an agreement to end the fighting.
Prince Mohammed’s use of ultra-conservative Sunni Islam in his confrontation with the Houthis was also evident in the appointment as governor of Saada of Hadi Tirshan al-Wa’ili, a member of a tribe hostile to the Shiite sect, and a follower of Saudi-backed Islamic scholar Uthman Mujalli. Mr. Mujalli reportedly serves as an advisor to Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the exiled, kingdom-backed Yemeni president.
“Over the past forty years, the Saudi government has invested heavily in Salafi-Wahhabi-style madrasas and mosques in the northern areas, only to realise that this programme was jeopardised by the Zaydi revival movement. If the Houthis were to be defeated in their home province, it is likely that the Salafi-Wahhabi programme will be revived, and implemented more fiercely than in previous years,” said Yemen scholar Gabriele vom Bruck.
The disclosure of the Al-Mahrah plan coincided with a damning 79-page United Nations report that condemned Saudi, Iranian and United Arab Emirates interventions in Yemen. The report concluded that Saudi and UAE proxies threatened peace prospects and that a secession of South Yemen that includes Al Mahrah had become a distinct possibility.
The questions about Prince Mohammed’s concept of a moderate Islam go beyond Yemen. The arts, including cinema, remain subject to censorship that is informed by the kingdom’s long-standing ultra-conservative values. A soccer player and a singer are among those who face legal proceedings for un-Islamic forms of expressing themselves.
The government last year introduced physical education in girls’ schools and legalized women’s fitness clubs, but has yet to say whether restrictions on women competing in a variety of Olympic disciplines will be lifted.
Similarly, and perhaps more importantly, it has yet to indicate whether male guardianship, gender segregation, dress codes that force women to fully cover, and the obligatory closure of shops at prayer times will be abolished. Also, the government has still to declare a willingness to lift the ban on the practice of non-Muslim faiths or adherence to strands of Islam considered heretic by the ultra-conservatives.
The example of Yemen suggests that little has changed in Saudi Arabia’s four-decade-old, $100 billion global public diplomacy campaign that promoted Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism as an anti-dote to revolutionary Iranian ideology.
Yemen is but one extreme of the spectrum. The Saudi-funded and operated grand mosque in Brussels is the other. Saudi Arabia, responding to Belgian criticism of the mosque’s ultra-conservative management, last year appointed as its imam, Tamer Abou el Saod, a 57-year polyglot Luxemburg-based, Swedish consultant with a career in the food industry. Senior Saudi officials have moreover responded positively to a Belgian government initiative to prematurely terminate Saudi Arabia’s 99-year lease of the mosque so that it can take control of it.
In contrast to Yemen, where the use of ultra-conservatism is a deliberate choice, Prince Mohammed may feel constrained in his moderation quest in the kingdom by the fact that his ruling Al Saud family derives its legitimacy from its adherence to ultra-conservatism. In addition, the kingdom’s ultra-conservative religious establishment has repeatedly signalled that the views of at least some its members have not changed even if it has endorsed the crown prince’s policies.
Saudi Arabia last September suspended Saad al-Hijri, a prominent scholar in charge of fatwas in the province of Asir, for opposing the lifting of the ban on driving because women allegedly had only half a brain that is reduced to a quarter when they go shopping. Sheikh Saad made his comment after the Council of Senior Scholars, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, had approved the move.
By the same token, no public action was taken against Sheikh Salih al-Fawzan, a member of the council, who declared on his website that “If women are allowed to drive they will be able to go and come as they please day and night, and will easily have access to temptation, because as we know, women are weak and easily tempted.” A video clip of Sheikh Salih’s view was posted on YouTube in October. It was not clear when the scholar spoke or whether he had approved the posting.
A main thrust of Prince Mohammed’s drive to return to moderate Islam is the fight against extremism, involving among others the creation of a centre to oversee the interpretations of Prophet Muhammad’s teachings in a bid ensure that they do not justify violence.
There is indeed little doubt that the kingdom is serious about countering extremism. Opposing extremism, however, does not automatically equate to moderation or concepts of tolerance and pluralism. Prince Mohammed has yet to clarify if those concepts are part of his notion of moderation. His track record so far is at best a mixed one.
Hawaii Governor David Ige said the false missile alert that panicked islanders on Saturday morning was “totally unacceptable” and said the warning was caused by human error.
Ige told reporters Saturday afternoon (local time) that he is “angry and disappointed” by the situation. “Today is a day that most of us will never forget — a day when many in our community thought that our worst nightmares might actually be happening,” he said.
Questioned repeatedly by reporters about how such a mistake could happen, the governor said his administration is doing everything possible to make sure it does not happen again.
The administrator of Hawaii’s Emergency Management Administration, Vern Miyagi, told reporters that the person responsible for the erroneous message “feels terrible” about it. Told by reporters that emergency sirens had actually gone off in some communities, Miyagi said he would have to look into the matter.
Hawaiians described panic when they got the emergency alert Saturday morning on television, radio, email and mobile devices.
Shortly after 8 a.m. local time in the U.S. Pacific Island state, Hawaii residents got the message, “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
Panic
Hotel guests were herded into basements, while residents tried to find the safest places inside their homes. Some people were seen on video opening manhole covers to shelter underground.
Donna McGarrity of Oahu was at home with her 30-year-old son when they got the alert. She said they took shelter in the center of the house, where she called her daughter in Vancouver, “just to actually tell her I love her, just in case we got bombed,” she told VOA.
The mistake was discovered within 20 minutes, but it took 38 minutes for state officials to issue a correction on mobile devices, which brought criticism from islanders, government officials and the media.
Hours later, McGarrity said she and her son are still shaken.
“We just kept looking it up just to make SURE that it was, you know, a false alarm,” she said after the event. If it had been real, she said, they had been told a missile could have hit as soon as 12 minutes after the alert.
“I’ve never had anything like this happen, where it could be imminent, where in just a couple of minutes we could all be dead,” she said.
Employee error
Earlier, Governor Ige told CNN television that the mistake happened when an employee simply erred.
“It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the changeover of a shift,” he said, “and an employee pushed the wrong button.”
The White House sent out a statement by deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters: “The president has been briefed on the state of Hawaii’s emergency management exercise. This was purely a state exercise.”
The U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command also confirmed that the alerts had been sent in error.
“USPACOM has detected no missile threat to Hawaii,” U.S. Navy Commander Dave Benham said in an email message. “Earlier message was sent in error. State of Hawaii will send out a correction message as soon as possible.”
Ajit Pai, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), tweeted Saturday that his agency was launching a “full investigation” into the false wireless emergency alert. The FCC has jurisdiction over the nation’s emergency alert system.
Hawaiian lawmakers react
U.S. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii tweeted, “What happened today is totally inexcusable. The whole state was terrified. There needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process. … There is nothing more important to Hawaii than professionalizing and fool-proofing this process.”
State House of Representatives Speaker Scott Saiki released a statement saying, “This system we have been told to rely upon failed and failed miserably today. I am deeply troubled by this misstep that could have had dire consequences. Measures must be taken to avoid further incidents that caused wholesale alarm and chaos today.”
Saiki’s statement continued, “Apparently, the wrong button was pushed and it took over 30 minutes for a correction to be announced. Parents and children panicked during those 30 minutes. The Hawaii House of Representatives will immediately investigate what happened and there will be consequences. This cannot happen again.”
Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard told CNN television Saturday that the first message had started a panic.
“You can only imagine what kicked in,” Gabbard said. “This is a real threat facing Hawaii, so people got this message on their phones and they thought, ‘We have 15 minutes before me and my family could be dead.’”
Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono tweeted a reassurance that the alarm had been false, adding, “At a time of heightened tensions, we need to make sure all information released to the public is accurate. We need to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it never happens again.”
Just a few weeks ago, Hawaii reinstated its Cold War-era alarm sirens amid growing fears of nuclear aggression by North Korea.
The Russian embassy and the office of the Bosnian Serb president have dismissed reports of a Russian-trained Bosnian Serb paramilitary unit as scaremongering.
The presidency of Bosnian Serb’s entity Republika Srpska and Russia’s embassy to Bosnia in separate statements on Saturday dismissed as “dangerous” reports that Bosnian Serb paramilitary units are being formed under the joint auspices of the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, and of Moscow.
“The [claim] that appeared on certain websites that President … Dodik with the support of Moscow is forming paramilitary units are extremely dangerous and are not in the function of informing citizens,” the presidency of Bosnia’s Serb-led entity said in a written statement.
“This is also confirmed by the fact that the author of the controversial text did not invite any verifiable facts that would indicate the accuracy of his allegations of the formation of such units in the Republika Srpska,” the statement added, noting that the cabinet of the Republika Srpska leader discarded such speculation.
On Friday, the local website Zurnal reported that a militia called “Serbian Honour”, which it said had been trained in the Russian-funded centre in Nis, Serbia, was in the process of setting up a paramilitary group that would used if need be against Dodik’s opponents.
The report included a picture of the group reportedly taken on Bosnian Serb entity’s “Statehood Day” on January 9 in Banja Luka, says one of the group’s leaders, Bojan Stojković, is a former Serbian paratrooper who trained in Moscow and had been awarded a medal there by a Russian general.
The report on the news site comes at a time of mounting concern in the West about Russian efforts to destabilise the Balkans in order to slow NATO enlargement in the region.
On Friday, Dragan Mektić, Bosnia’s security minister and member of the Serbian Democratic Party, the main opposition party in Republika Srpska, said the intelligence and security services were aware of the presence and activities of the group.
“There is information about this whole matter; we even managed to document certain things. In the end, you saw people in uniforms in the pictures; that it is enough for it to be taken seriously,” Mektic told BIRN on Saturday.
“I do not expect the Prosecution to work on this case, based on their previous work, but will send them documentation at the beginning of the next week, that is the only way we can work,” Mektic added.
He could not comment further on details in the report, he said. Last year, Mektic accused Dodik of being involved in different criminal affairs, but none of the accusations ended up in a court case.
Russia’s embassy to Bosnia on Saturday meanwhile dismissed the accusation as nonsense and fabrication.
“We do not consider it worthwhile to comment on this stupidity and series of ridiculous fabrications that have been transmitted by some media,” the embassy said in a statement.
Srdjan Puhalo, Banja Luka-based political analyst, told BIRN that whether true or not, any reports about paramilitary units would raise tensions in the country, especially ahead of general elections due in the autumn.
“This can also be seen as part of the election campaign. Above all, it is about creating a climate of distrust and fear, which is the result of the calculation of domestic politicians,” he said.
“Information about alleged paramilitary units often appears in Bosnia, but without any concrete evidence,” he added.
“Not so long ago, we had a similar story in the Federation [entity] when a member of the Bosnian Presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, was accused of creating a private army,” he noted.
In November, the Serbian newspaper Vecernje Novosti reported that Izetbegovic is forming a secret military unit which also created tension even though no evidence for it emerged.
It turned out that the story was based on the activities of the Airsoft Club in Bosnia. Members said that a TV station based in Banja Luka had used pictures of their members to publish lies.
Turning to the group alleged formed in the RS, Puhalo continued: “This group in the RS is marginal. They have no influence; they do not matter except they look scary. However, they have now become famous.”
The governing party has declared 2018 as “100 Years of Nelson Mandela: The year of renewal, unity and jobs”.
This will see the African National Congress (ANC) holding celebrations to pay tribute to the former President, who would have turned 100 years this year had he lived. Mandela passed away on 5 December 2013.
As such, the party will also use the year to draw lessons and inspiration from Mandela’s life to unite, rebuild and renew the movement, ANC President and Deputy President of the country, Cyril Ramaphosa, said on Saturday.
Ramaphosa addressed thousands of ANC members, as part of the party’s 106th anniversary celebrations, for the first time after being chosen at the elective conference in December 2017.
Today’s celebrations were held at Absa Stadium in East London. The event was also attended by, amongst others, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and President Jacob Zuma.
Outlining the organisational plans, which also lay the foundation for the party’s 2019 election campaign, Ramaphosa put the economy at centre of his address.
Guided by the National Development Plan, Ramaphosa said they aim to restore focus on building an economy in which all South Africans can flourish, an economy that benefits the people as a whole, rather than a privileged few.
“We seek an open, dynamic economy that embraces technological innovation, pursues higher productivity, creates jobs that pay better and improves the quality of life of our citizens. We recognise the challenges of modernisation and the imperatives of structural change in all sectors, especially in mining, manufacturing, agriculture and finance.”
He said the ANC’s vision is an economy that encourages and welcomes investment, offers policy certainty and addresses barriers that inhibit growth and social inclusion.
As such, he said their commitment is to build strong partnerships in which efficient and accountable government agencies, responsible citizens and businesses, effective trade unions and civil society work together for the common good.
Eye on development
Among other things, Ramaphosa addressed the concentration of ownership in the country’s economy and how the party intends to address the issue.
South Africa, he said, needs to pursue a multi-faceted growth strategy in order to promote job creation on a far larger scale.
“We need to revitalise our manufacturing sector through a number of measures, including preferential procurement in both the public and private sectors, to stimulate demand for local goods and to reduce domestic manufacturing costs.”
The country will be learning from the experiences of other emerging markets, where the industrialisation strategy focuses on sectors with the greatest potential for growth such as tourism, agriculture and mineral resources.
Protecting the integrity of governance
Ramaphosa committed to decisively to improve governance, financial management and performance in all SOEs and protect them from improper interference.
He committed that anti-corruption efforts within the State will be more effectively coordinated and all forms of corruption must be exposed and prosecuted.
He said strong and efficient law enforcement agencies are critical to the fight against corruption and crime generally.
Land
On land expropriation without compensation, Ramaphosa said it will be implemented sustainably.
However, he assured that it will be implemented in a manner that not only meets the Constitutional requirement of redress but also promotes economic development, agricultural production and food security.
Furthermore, the ruling party committed to continue working towards improving the lives of South Africans through improving health, education, providing housing, fighting crime and creating more opportunities for the youth to address unemployment
Since November 2015 unprecedented protests have been taking place in Ethiopia: angry and frustrated at the widespread abuse of human rights and the centralization of power in the hands of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) tens of thousands have taken to the streets. The ruling party’s response to this democratic outpouring has been consistently violent; hundreds have been killed and beaten by security forces, tens of thousands arrested and imprisoned.
In an attempt to gag the people, a highly repressive State of Emergency was imposed in August 2016. It failed, the protests continued, the movement strengthened. The regime then tried to inflame ancient ethnic differences amongst various groups by staging attacks using plain-clothed security personnel. In the border region of Oromo and the Ogaden Tesfaye Robela of the Ethiopian Parliament claims that over 10,000 people have been killed. ESAT News (the sole Ethiopian independent broadcaster) quotes the findings of a parliamentary report into the ethnic clashes, which concluded that: “based on interviews with victims of the violence, squarely puts the blame on Somali Region Special Police, local police and militia for perpetrating the killings.” The Liyu Police is controlled by the Ethiopian military.
Despite these attempts to extinguish the movement for change, the people of Ethiopia are continuing to demand freedom, justice and democracy; this time they will not be silenced. The minority powers within the ruling EPRDF coalition – The Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO) and the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) have been empowered by the popular uprising and there are signs that they are at last standing up to the majority TPLF members. Under pressure from the OPDO and ASDM and in a further attempt to distract attention from the protests and undermine the protestors’ claims, on 3rd January the government put out a convoluted statement relating to political prisoners.
The Prime-Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said that the regime would release “some political prisoners”, prisoners that for the last 27 years they have denied even existed. ESAT News (which is based in Europe and America) reports he went on to announce that, “members of political parties and other individuals would be released to widen the political and democratic space” and that “the government would review the cases of certain individuals affiliated with political parties, including party leaders, [and] in some cases, charges would be dropped or people would be released or pardoned, depending on investigation results.”
His words, which have been widely reported in mainstream media, were not only disingenuous they were ambiguous and inconclusive. He failed to acknowledge that those imprisoned for expressing political dissent had been falsely incarcerated; repeatedly stating they were behind bars because they were guilty of breaking the law.
Whilst the release of any political prisoners at all would be a move in the right direction, in its present form the policy, if indeed it is a policy and not simply a public relations exercise aimed at international benefactors, is an insult to the thousands languishing in prison for no other reason than they disagree with the ruling TPLF. The statement is inadequate and needs clarification: who will be considered for release and when? Does it include opposition politicians charged with fictitious terrorist offences under the universally condemned Anti-Terrorist Proclamation of 2009? Will this long-overdue gesture mean that politicians who have been forced to live in exile for fear of arrest and imprisonment can safely return home?
These and other pressing questions need to be raised by opposition groups and human rights organizations, and indeed Ethiopia’s major donors — America, Britain and the European Parliament, all of which have allowed the TPLF to trample on human rights and the people for decades. Intense pressure must be applied on the government to articulate its intentions and, for once in their tyrannical reign, do the right thing and release all political prisoners, including journalists, bloggers, protestors and activists of all kinds.
It was also announced by the PM that Maekelewi prison in Addis Ababa, which has been used as a torture chamber by the TPLF for years, will be closed down, and rather bizarrely, turned into a modern museum, unless common sense prevails and it is demolished. This is a positive development but is again short on detail, there has been no mention of what will happen to the inmates. All political prisoners held there should be released unconditionally, and an independent international monitoring group established to oversee the release and or transfer of all other detainees.
The current of change
Despite being enshrined as rights within Ethiopia’s liberally worded constitution, for over two decades all forms of freedom of speech and political dissent have been virtually outlawed. Anyone who openly disagrees with or questions the ruling party is seen as a threat, and persecuted, arrested, imprisoned and, commonly, tortured. The Anti-Terrorism Act, together with The Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSP), both passed in 2009, are the primary tools of suppression within the regime’s Arsenal of Control.
Both laws have been widely criticized by Human Rights groups; responding to the CSP in 2012 Amnesty International said that, “The law has had a devastating impact on human rights work, both in terms of the practical obstacles it creates for human rights defenders, and in exacerbating the climate of fear in which they operate.” This is of course precisely what it was intended to do. Commenting on the Anti-Terrorist Proclamation when it was drafted, Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that it provided “the Ethiopian government with a potent instrument to crack down on political dissent, including peaceful political demonstrations…It would permit [indeed has facilitated] long-term imprisonment and even the death penalty for ‘crimes’ that bear no resemblance, under any credible definition, to terrorism.”
For 27 years the TPLF group within the coalition have dominated all life in the country and like all such tyrannical regimes they have ruled through violence and fear. But we are living in new times; the days of tyrannical regimes is all but over, those that persist are sustained by the polluted energies of the past and are on their death bed. The people of Ethiopia sense that this is their time, that change is not only possible, but is coming.
The government’s half-baked move to release a few political leaders will not appease anyone, but should embolden many. It reveals a crack in the democratic facade presented by the regime, which must be split open under the force of sustained political activism, civil disobedience and public protest.
The minority members of the coalition — the OPDO and ANDM — now have an opportunity, indeed a responsibility to act boldly, to stand up and take a lead. As representatives of the two largest ethnic groups in the country they are in a position to do a number of things: demand The Anti-Terrorism Act, and The Charities and Societies Proclamation be immediately repealed, compile a comprehensive list of all political prisoners (working in cooperation with Amnesty International or The Ethiopia Human Rights Project), and vigorously press for their immediate release. Then, providing opposition politicians are released and political groups outside the country — including Ginbot 7 — are allowed to operate freely, work vigorously to campaign for fair and open elections (such a thing has never taken place in Ethiopia) to be held sometime in late 2019. This is a moment of significance in the country. There is an unstoppable force for justice and freedom sweeping across the world and Ethiopia is firmly within that current of change.
What gets measured gets done, the old saying goes. Setting specific targets — aka key performance indicators (KPIs) — can motivate teams and align interests to firm goals.
But how should management come up with annual targets to motivate peak performance? From the organization’s own past performances? When is outside information from other businesses factored in?
Setting Effective Targets
To learn about real-world inputs for target-setting, Carmen Aranda, Javier Arellano and IESE’s Antonio Dávila analyze data from a large travel agency over a four-year period of rapid expansion. During this period, the company opened many new regional offices that operated comparably to existing branches. The detailed data from 421 branches shows how newer units, still in their entrepreneurial stage, combine different ways of learning when setting their goals.
The study found that managers of more recently opened branches tend to focus on learning from the current performance of other, comparable business units, which they combine with information from their own organization’s history. But as the branch grows over time, managers become more likely to focus inwards. The study finds mature units often discount information from outside, using their own past performance as the benchmark instead.
What’s more, the study shows managers think differently about how to learn from surprising successes and failures, based on whether their organization is young or old. That means targets are both set differently and adjusted differently by company units at different stages.
Learning Through Success and Failure
When organizations deviate from their own performance norms — whether this is a positive deviation (success) or negative deviation (failure) — management must decide how much to adjust future targets. After all, when targets are off, managers run the risk of leaving sales staff unchallenged by lowball objectives or overwhelmed by unattainable figures.
Here, young units learning from others (vicarious learning) as well as from their own past performances (experiential learning) can benefit from having more learning inputs. More information can lead to better target-setting. Why, then, do organizations stop combining knowledge, and start focusing on their own past performance when setting targets later in their lifecycle? The authors say that this is an important question for future research.
Effective target-setting is a learning process, the authors note. For more learning inputs, managers could make more efforts to think more like they did in their organization’s entrepreneurial stage.
Methodology, Very Briefly
The authors collected data from a large European travel agency over a four-year period of rapid expansion. Tracking performance targets set at 421 branches, the authors compare how managers of newer units and more mature units use knowledge to set targets. More specifically, they look at how managers learn from extrapolating from other similar agencies (vicarious learning) and how they learn from their own experiences when setting targets, while controlling for other factors which could explain this difference (like increased resources as the organization matures). They also measure correlations between branches’ deviations from performance norms and their sources of learning in target setting over time.
“It was like I was watching a horror movie” is how the bishop of Mamfe diocese in Cameroon’s South West Region described the scene he saw in the village of Kembong village.
Mgr Andrew Nkea had visited the village in the wake of the deaths of four soldiers late December, killed by unknown assailants (although the government claimed they were secessionists). In a retaliatory move, Cameroonian soldiers had incinerated the whole village.
Location of Cameroon. Source: CIA World Factbook.
“I saw more than 20 houses burnt down by soldiers and one dead body still lying there, being fed on by dogs and chicken,” said Nkea. Of the village’s 5,000 or so residents, only 30 remained, all huddled in the house of the area’s priest because “they had nowhere else to go.”
The December attack is the latest in an ongoing crisis – pitting Cameroon’s English speakers (who make up 20 percent of Cameroon’s estimated 24 million people) against the Francophone-dominated government – that now risks exploding into a full-scale civil war.
With Anglophone Cameroonians having long complained that they are being marginalised, resentment burst into the open a year ago with teachers and lawyers in the English-speaking part of Cameroon taking to the streets to protest against the use of French in their schools and courts.
What started as a teachers’ and lawyers’ strike has escalated into a full-blown political crisis, with many in the English-speaking regions now calling for secession.
In fact, on October 1, 2016, secessionist leaders in the English-speaking part of the country announced a nominal declaration of independence, provoking a muscular reaction from Cameroon’s security forces, with the ensuing clashes leaving at least 17 people dead according to the government (although opposition leaders claimed at least 100 died).
Rift between Anglophone and Francophone bishops
The crisis has drawn sharp lines between Catholic bishops from the English-speaking and French-speaking parts of the country.
Anglophone bishops described the killings as “a growing genocide” and published a long and detailed statement on Oct. 4 in which they decried a “warlike atmosphere” of killings, looting and arson carried out by “young people” and acts of “brutality, torture, inhuman and unjustified treatment meted out” by the “forces of law and order”.
But the characterisation of the crisis as genocide was not shared by the bishops from the other regions of the country.
Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala, Cameroon’s largest city, who is president of the country’s Episcopal Conference issued a statement condemning the violence, but refusing to use the inflammatory language of his Anglophone colleagues.
“In the name of our common citizenship, brotherhood and humanity, the defence of legitimate interests must go hand in hand with social harmony, which is what is being sought … Violence, regardless of its source, does not build, it destroys,” said Kleda.
The archbishop pointed out that all regions of Cameroon face problems which, he said, can be resolved through dialogue, arguing that decentralisation would resolve many regional problems in Cameroon, including the Anglophone problem.
That drew sharp criticism from the clergy in Anglophone Cameroon who have always seen the ‘Anglophone Problem’ as one that is unique.
Father Gerald Jumbam said that by lumping the ‘Anglophone Problem’ with all other problems in the country, Kleda was ignoring a key historical fact: that English and French-speaking Cameroons were two countries that had decided to come together and that that they had come together under agreed terms which have been jettisoned to the disadvantage of Anglophones.
In a lengthy missive to Kleda, Jumbam wrote that by virtue of their history, Anglophone Cameroonians “cannot be loyal subjects to the despicable and tyrannous Yaoundé government. Archbishop, you speak of decentralisation and you offer us it as the best gift you think fitting for the resolution of this crisis? We are determined to decline a gift so laden with spurious promises and deceitful propensities.”
Church leaders in Anglophone Cameroon have also accused the president of the National Episcopal Conference of failing to as much as acknowledge the ‘Anglophone Problem’, let alone condemn the arrests and detention of Anglophone leaders and the “grotesque campaign of human savagery and barbarism perpetrated on the people of Southern Cameroons by the government.” Instead, they said, the Prelate seems to be toeing the government line by reducing the ‘Anglophone Problem’ to just another Cameroonian problem.
Cardinal Christian Tumi, one of Cameroon’s most revered clerics who comes from the English-speaking part of Cameroon, says that such corrosive representation of the problem must be discontinued. “I would say that the others should keep quiet when the bishops of [English-speaking] Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province write because they know better what is happening.”
Genesis of a crisis
French-speaking Cameroon obtained independence from France in 1960, with British Cameroons obtaining independence in 1961. Both sides agreed to reunite following an 11 February 1961 plebiscite, but they did so under a federal system of governance that guaranteed the survival of the political, cultural, educational and judiciary legacies of both sides inherited from the colonial masters.
Just three years after that reunification, English speakers began feeling they were being marginalised.
In a confidential letter to Cameroon’s first President, Ahmadou Ahidjo, Professor Bernard Fonlon, a senior official of the ruling KNDP party in the then Southern Cameroons (now the English-speaking part of Cameroon) summed up this feeling: “Since we came together, the KNDP has hardly done more than stand by and look on. For, talking sincerely, can we name one single policy in any field – economics, education, external affairs – that has been worked out jointly by the two parties? Can we point a finger at one idea that took birth in the KNDP and was welcomed and implemented by this government?
“There is disillusionment; discontent and frustration are sinking and spreading. There is nothing so calculated as to wring and crush the human spirit, before a lofty enterprise, as to know what should be done and yet to have to stand by impotent and see the opposite taking place. This desperation has become explosive.”
Even then, a controversial referendum scrapping the federal system in 1972 meant that whatever protections the federal constitution gave English speakers were simply destroyed.
Anglophone Cameroonians believe that the agenda has always been that of annihilating their identity as a people, which is why their simmering discontent exploded in late 2017.
(RFE/RL) — Iran’s judiciary says that about 465 people are still being detained across the country for taking part in a wave of antigovernment protests that began nearly three weeks earlier.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhosein Mohseni-Ejei also acknowledged that 25 people were killed in violence surrounding the protests that began on December 28.
Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said 440 “arrested rioters” had been released from detention facilities in Tehran alone in recent days.
Mohseni-Ejei said there were still 55 people being held in the Iranian capital.
He also said that 25 “ordinary citizens and our own forces were killed during the recent troubles,” and claimed that none were killed by gunfire from security forces because “they were ordered not to use their weapons.”
Officials had previously said 21 people were killed.
Mohseni-Ejei did not provide details on how the members of the security forces or civilians were killed, including six protesters who died while trying to storm a police station in the central province of Isfahan.
An Iranian reformist lawmaker, Mahmud Sadeghi, said last week that about 3,700 people had been arrested across the country during the weeks of protests, which were sparked by anger about Iran’s troubled economy and official corruption but escalated rapidly with some calling for the overthrow of the country’s clerical rulers.
Iran’s parliament said on January 7 that low-level protesters, particularly students, were to be released in waves while protest leaders would be punished.
Hamid Shahriari, deputy head of Iran’s judiciary, said last week that antigovernment protest leaders should be handed the “maximum penalty” under Iranian law for organizing what the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has repeatedly described as acts of “sedition.”
The death penalty is the most severe sentence imposed by courts in Iran, where it can be applied for a range of crimes including treason, murder, and drug trafficking.
Popular agitation began in Iran in a low-key manner in the holy city of Mashhad on Dec. 28, when hundreds of people came out on to the streets shouting slogans such as “No to high prices” and “Death to Rouhani.” Within a few days, protests had spread to 20 towns and soon involved 50 others. The demonstrators were generally working class, most of them very poor, some even destitute. They were the latest of more than 900 strikes and public protests in Iran since March last year.
On Jan. 7, the security authorities announced that the agitation had ended, but most observers believe public anger has not been assuaged, nor have the issues raised been addressed.
The common driver of the protests was anger at high prices, poverty, unemployment and corruption, embracing all aspects of national governance. This was reflected in the increasingly strident slogans: “Death to the Dictator” (a reference to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei), “Death to the Revolutionary Guards,” “People are paupers while the mullahs live like gods,” “Independence, freedom, Iranian republic,” and “We don’t want the Islamic Republic.”
The demonstrations were a sharp critique of the repression, mismanagement and clerical greed that most of the Iranian poor have experienced over the past few years, with the children of the revolutionaries of the 1970s now rudely flaunting their wealth and power amid widespread national poverty.
The demonstrators also chanted slogans criticizing Iran’s foreign policy, such as “Leave Syria alone, do something for us” and “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran.” They signaled widespread anger at Iran’s expensive regional interventions and sought to remind the leadership that its priority should be the welfare of its citizens.
Today, Iran is involved in several regional theaters of contention and conflict. In Lebanon, Iran helped raise the militia, Hezbollah, which defended Shiite interests in the country and fought the Israelis in 2006. It is now also deployed in Syria to defend the Assad regime, and is part of the government of national unity in Beirut.
In Iraq, following the occupation of Mosul by Daesh in June 2014, Iran financed and trained a largely Shiite militia, the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which led the fight against Daesh and played an important role in the liberation of several towns from the terror group’s control. After the Kurdish referendum in favor of independence in September last year, PMU militia besieged Kirkuk, and an Iranian general negotiated the vacation of that oil-rich city by Kurdish Peshmerga.
In Yemen, Iran is backing the Houthi militias in their fight against government forces by equipping them with weapons, particularly short-range missiles. Some Hezbollah fighters are also believed to have been deployed in Yemen.
The most important battleground for Iran today is Syria, where it has been an ally of the Assad family for a few decades. Hence, not surprisingly, it sprang to the defense of the Bashar Assad presidency in 2011, when it was under attack from domestic forces seeking reform and regime change. Later, Hezbollah militants were also deployed in Syria, when the pressure upon the regime was at its height. Iran has itself announced that more than 1,000 of its revolutionary guards have been killed in Syria.
The Ankara-based commentator on Iran, Farhad Rezaei, has recently provided some figures on Iran’s financial commitments to supporting its regional activities. He estimates that Iran’s annual assistance to Syria is in the range of $6-15 billion, while aid to Hezbollah could be about $1 billion annually, with another billion dollars spent in Iraq, Yemen and on Hamas in Palestine. Rezaei also says that Iran is providing $2,000 a month to individual Iraqi and Lebanese fighters it has deployed in Yemen to fight on the side of the Houthis.
While some of Rezaei’s figures could be disputed, there is little doubt that a large part of Iran’s revenue is being used to fund its overseas interests. Linked with this, in Iran itself the annual budget for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been raised to $8 billion, even as the same budget provides for increased fuel prices and cuts in cash subsidies. This is a source of popular anger in Iran.
Are Iran’s regional policies likely to change in the wake of the popular protests? A simple yes or no answer is not possible due to Iran’s unique political system, which empowers unelected cleric Khamenei, who enjoys a lifetime appointment with full authority in the security area, leaving the popularly elected president with full responsibility for steering the economy and providing for the welfare of his people with the meager resources made available to him.
Khamenei and the IRGC have adopted the position that the recent protests are the result of external conspiracies aimed at undermining national interests. This posture is unlikely to lead to any policy changes in the region.
• Talmiz Ahmad, a former diplomat, holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune.
Ankara has slammed the plan to create a 30,000-strong force from the Kurdish-dominated SDF militias on its border with Syria, accusing its NATO ally of presenting its “unilateral” move as a joint decision of the US-led coalition.
The Turkish government perceives the so-called Syrian Border Force, that may be stationed along the Kurdish-controlled parts of the Syrian border with Iraq and Turkey, as well as in the Euphrates River Valley, as a threat to its national security, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in the statement on Sunday.
“Turkey is determined to eliminate any threats against it, and has all possibilities to do this,” it said, denouncing what it called “the persistence of the United State in this erroneous approach” of cooperating with the Kurdish militias.
The US-led coalition’s plan to set up such a force on the basis of the Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) veterans, who are set to make up half of the recruits, was unveiled by US Army Col. Thomas Veale, a spokesman for the US-led coalition, on Saturday.
However, Turkey, which is also a part of the coalition to defeat Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), was not consulted prior to the announcement, according to the ministry. It accused Washington of misleading the public into believing the decision was taken on behalf of the coalition, while in fact the US was likely acting unilaterally.
“It is unknown what coalition members made of this decision. Explaining the unilateral steps on behalf of the coalition is an extremely wrong move that could harm the fight with Daesh [the Arabic acronym for Islamic State],” the ministry said.
Turkey has been calling on the US to withdraw its support for the Kurdish YPG units, a cornerstone of the SDF militia, as Ankara considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), outlawed as a terrorist entity in Turkey. In November, Washington promised to wind down its support for “certain groups” fighting IS in Syria following a phone call between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump.
US Defense Secretary James Mattis later confirmed Washington would stop arming the Kurdish militias, noting that “police forces” comprised of the local population would still be needed to “make certain that ISIS doesn’t come back.”
The creation of the thousands-strong force build on the shoulders of the SDF runs contrary to Washington’s assurances to Turkey, the ministry argued. “Continued US cooperation with the YPG [US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units], which is contrary to its [the US’s] own obligations, jeopardize our national security and [the] territorial integrity of Syria, and that is unacceptable,” the statement read.
The presence of the Syrian Border Force will pose a challenge to Turkey, which might eventually push it into confrontation with the US on the ground, defense analyst Ivan Eland told RT, arguing that preserving relations with NATO-ally Washington will take second place in these circumstances.
“They [Turkey] could run into even more tension with the US than they already have and their forces could run into conflict with these forces that the US is sponsoring and maybe even the US forces,” Eland said.
Given that the US officially considers PKK a foreign terrorist organization, it is “very strange” that Washington continues to support Syrian YPG units, Eland said, alleging there are indeed some close ties between the two Kurdish groups. “If they are not brother groups, they are certainly cousins,” he argued.
Although creating a brand-new SDF-dominated border force deepens Washington’s rift with Turkey, it is not on the list of its primary concerns, the analyst said.
“What the US is trying to do there is to establish some influence on the eventual settlement for Syria and to do that they want to control some territories and to do that they need to keep their allies supplied and trained.”
The presence of well-trained and armed units in the border area as part of the US military legacy in Syria, Eland noted, can become “a problem not only with Turkey, but also with the Syrian government and the Russian forces.”
The plan to establish the unit has also been condemned by Russian officials, who claimed Washington is pursuing shadowy goals in the region. “There’s a clear equivocation here, I think it’s an obvious attempt to reanimate the militants, who can flow from neighboring states, namely Iraq,” said the deputy head of the State Duma’s defense committee Yuri Shvitkin. Creating such a “force,” the official stressed, can help the Washington “to achieve their geopolitical goals, escalate tensions, and, probably, attempt to overthrow the legitimately elected president Bashar Assad.”
