Excellent Climate Change Teaching Tool

Best teaching tool I have seen on climate change in a while… check it out.

I am going to Amazon to buy the book.

Hat Tip: Dot Earth

Human Security from a US Perspective: Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech

In case, you haven’t had a chance to watch this…

Understanding Big Numbers

Megan McArdle posted this great YouTube video, helping those of us with numerically challenged brains visualize some of these massive spending numbers we have been bombarded with of late.  Enjoy.

Human Security = Enhanced Collective Capacity = State Interest

I was reminded of our many discussions about why it is in a state’s self interest to adhere to the human security road map when reading this blog post by Dan Drezner discussing the role of global governance in responding to the Swine Flu outbreak.  In it, he quotes John Ikenberry’s defense of the need for global collective action by states.

National governments need to strengthen their capacities to monitor and respond. International capacities – at least the sorts that I propose – are meant to reinforce and assist national governments. This international capacity is particularly important in cases where nations have weak capacities to respond on their own or where coordinated action is the only way to tackle the threat. When it comes to transnational threats like health pandemics, everyone everywhere is vulnerable to the weakest link (i.e. weakest nation) in the system, and so no nation can be left behind.

Human security calls upon states to recognize and act upon this need for global cooperative endeavors to protect and enhance individual security in our most vulnerable communities around the world.  Again, not simply because we should do the right thing by helping those in need, but also because it will serve to enhance our shared collective capacity and as Ikenberry emphasizes, “states need collective capacities so they can make good on their own national obligations to respond.”

That said, as one commenter to Dresner’s blog points out, in our current global community of nations states, this is easier said then done.

There’s a natural tension here between a caste of international mandarins, largely unaccountable, who are supposed to put global concerns over their individual national ones, and the basic accountability that comes from representative national governments.  In the first case, it’s questionable whether international mandarins would adhere to the rules during a true crisis if it meant sacrificing their nation’s vital interests. In the latter case, the accountability that comes from representative governments is supposed to insure that government puts the good of the individual nation’s people above others… and it becomes difficult for these governments to mandate sacrifices, because they can then be replaced through the ballot.

While I acknowledge these tensions, I don’t think they have proven or will prove to be insurmountable obstacles to effective global cooperation. Why?  Because publics around the world recognize their futures will be in part determined by the effectiveness of our global governance architecture — the failure of it in the case of the global financial crisis, the success of it (we like the WHO in HK) in grappling with health pandemics.   People will select their political leaders based on that leader’s abilities to effectively manage and respond to these global realities.  A recent example — the US public elected Obama, despite his clear message of shared sacrifice.

– LMC

An Eye-Opening “Landmine” Visit to the DMZ

Dear Fellow Human Security Classmates –

I recently took advantaged of my Hong Kong address to jump on a plane and visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.  Our fellow Human Security student David Cafferty calls it -and not without reason- “the Disneyland of IR”. Indeed, I bought more souvenirs there than I’ve ever bought anywhere else and I found it to be a fascinating place. I have studied the DMZ in different classes, but the chance to visit really opened my eyes, especially with regard to the AP-Landmine treaty.

Being in South Korea is actually an amazing opportunity to talk to people. What struck me as intriguing was that everyone assumed that reunification will happen. It does not even seem to be an issue there. They consider themselves as one nation that ‘should’ be one country.  Of course, no South Korean I’ve met wanted the regime of Pyongyang to be in charge. Seoul is about 60 Km from the DMZ and every South Korean must spend two years in the army after high school, though they can postpone it until they finish college (which is a nice incentive to study!).  You can see a lot of soldiers around in the city. This increases one’s awareness of what the country goes through.

One of the many ironic parts about the DMZ is that South Koreans are not allowed to enter without a month-long background check. When talking to Mr L, among many other South Koreans, he gave me the standard answer to my question about visiting the DMZ — “I don’t want to go. There is nothing there for me. It’s an attraction for tourists.”   Maybe so, but even though they have every gift shop I can think of and even a roller coaster (no kidding!), it sure as hell doesn’t feel like a tourist attraction.

The Joint Security Area is where the UN building is located right on top of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which is the centre line of the DMZ, 2 Km from each side of the border. When you enter the DMZ you are escorted by two soldiers in a UN bus. This is after having signed an agreement stating that it is the ‘entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action’ is possible. Besides the legal mumbo jumbo that scares tourists in order to legally cover the UN’s back, it remains a serious threat and the 2 South Korean elite guards inside the joint conference room standing in a “relaxed” Taekwondo position are not there to amuse tourists. When talking to an American soldier, he explained that North Koreans don’t kid around and that some abuse often goes on when US or South Korean military hold a meeting in the room. Since the signing of the Armistice on the 17th of November 1954 over 50 Americans and over 500 South Koreans have died due to hostile North Korean action.

One of the main parts of the visit was going to what is called the 3rd tunnel. As it turns out, North Korea has tried to dig over 20 tunnels under the DMZ in order to enter South Korea. Sadly enough South Korea has only found 4 of them and mainly through the tips given by North Korean dissidents. It is suspected that this is how 31 elite soldiers from NK managed to get as far as the blue house [residence of the head of government] in the 90s in order to try to assassinate the president. [correction: even though I was told the tunnel was how these elite forces got in it appears a submarine might have been their way of entry].

When we talk about AP-landmines, we all think of some poor African kid who’s lost his leg. This is indeed a serious problem and no civilian should live under that fear. However, the DMZ is a 4 Km wide and is spread with 2 million landmines.  As it turns out the demilitarized zone is ironically the most militarized place on Earth and wisely so.  When one considers that North Korea has killed a couple of soldiers in the DMZ in the 1976 –the Panmunjom Axe Murder- and has tried to dig so many tunnels,  one is quite happy to know there are a couple million landmines between the two. The landmines have a function in this part of the world, they are not reminiscent from the Cold War left there by mistake.

It may not be surprising that countries like Canada and Sweden, that don’t need landmines, are quick to ban landmines from the face of the earth. However, when those landmines form a key barrier keeping at bay a totalitarian regime where each man spends about 10 years in the army and every women about 4, one is not so keen on wanting to ban them. Whether we like it or not those landmines have a role to play in that part of the world and they are not there out of a whim. If one thing has been made clear, it is that Kim Jong-il is not one for nuclear dissuasion and one can only wonder what he would have done if it were not for these landmines. For my part, I was quite happy to have them between me and them. Other parts of the world aside, on the Korean Peninsula, Landmines serve to protect real people from a real threat.

Paul-François Polidori

China & UN Peacekeeping

The International Crisis Group just published this report on China’s expanding role in UN peacekeeping operations.

Demand for blue helmets far outpaces supply, and shows no sign of abating. Concurrent to the sharp increase in peacekeeping missions since the end of the Cold War, Western countries have been withdrawing or reducing their commitments. While continuing to provide robust financial support to UN peacekeeping, they send far fewer personnel. Although China’s financial support for peacekeeping remains modest, it is now the second largest provider of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UNSC. While it does not currently provide combat troops, its provision of civilian police, military observers, engineering battalions and medical units fills a key gap and is important to the viability and success of UN peacekeeping operations.

China’s growing peacekeeping role is not really news, but the ICG has provided balanced coverage of this role with this report.  Worth the read.

– LMC

Global warming prevention in South Korea and Mexico: too little, too late?

Global warming is mostly due to human-induced actions and it’s been going on for about 1300 years now. At this point, it’s more than the extinction of species and low quality crops, it’s accompanying national tension over water supply and serious health-related impacts. Are the words prevention or mitigation too late to be used at this stage of global warming?

To answer this question, it is interesting to look at how individual nations are coping. As examples, we wanted to look at the climate change situation in our own countries — Mexico and South Korea.

The impact of climate change on South Korea can be seen in a variety of ways. Chungcheong Province has suffered from red tides, exacerbated by climate change, which not only reduce the amount of freshwater, but also kills fish and harms beach-goers. Climate change is also contributing to increasing numbers of heat waves which are especially damaging to people with heart, respiratory disease, diabetes and high blood pressure and the number of malaria patients has increased 400 times within 3 years.

South Korea is also one of the biggest victims of the ‘Asian brown haze.’ It is mentioned as a semi-permanent feature in Dupont’s study on the strategic impact of climate change, but I can say for sure that it has become a permanent phenomenon. Dust from China flies over to Korea (usually Seoul) and flies around for 2~3 days, and within this period, cars are covered in dust as if they haven’t been used for 10 years, and if it were to rain, it would be more like raining mud.

Finally, Korea has been known for its 4 distinct seasons, but this has become an old story now. Spring and fall has vanished for about two years now. Temperature has risen from an average of -5~2 degrees to 18~20 degrees in just two days. Korean research reports have shown that even if countries fully engage in reducing greenhouse gas emission, temperature will continue to rise on an average of 2 degrees each year and that the only way to cope with the abnormal temperature change is to get used to it.

The South Korean government, in order to act against global warming, has created an environmental group call the ‘Korea Green Foundation.’ Yet, many in South Korea are still unaware of the seriousness of global warming and are blaming China for the yellow dust phenomenon.

In the case of Mexico, the most vulnerable regions are the Central and Lerma-Chapala-Santiago Basin because the predicted increase in temperature coupled with a decrease in rainfall could cause severe water supply shortages in those regions. Northern areas and regions with large populations are vulnerable to droughts and desertification, while the Tabasco State Coast is supposed to be the most vulnerable to sea level changes. Northern and Central regions are also vulnerable in agricultural sector because the different temperature and precipitation changes; and finally forests are the most vulnerable ecosystems throughout the country.

SEMARNAT (the Mexican government branch that is in charge of taking care of environmental and natural resources) will seek to promote President Felipe Calderon’s proposal to create a Green Fund to finance green-house gas reduction projects. Also, several movements by national organizations to control vehicle pollution by working to improve car maintenance have been launched. Like South Korea, Mexico has no mitigation targets under Kyoto, but has agreed to play a more active role in the post Kyoto world since it believes that “Latin America and the Caribbean have the resources and leadership to be part of the global solution required to lead the world towards development with low carbon emission”

Human security in both countries has been threatened by extreme weather events linked to climate change. In Mexico, Wilma (2005) wrecked havoc with more than 30 dead and with economic damages of 29 million dollars approximately. In South Korea, an East Asian heat wave in 1994 affected over 1000 people in the region. The Shanshan Typhoon (2006) had more than 100 mm of rain and knocked out electricity to about four thousand homes in southeastern of South Korea.

When we look at these two countries, both of whom rank high on the human development index, yet neither of whom have implemented any serious greenhouse gas mitigation programs to date, we wonder whether it is too late to use the term ‘prevention’? Is it even possible to clean up after this mess?

Patty (Mexico) and Jenna (South Korea)

Sources:

“The Strategic Implications of Climate Change,” Alan Dupont

Korea.net News http://www.korea.net/News/news/NewsView.asp?serial_no=20060726017&part=109&SearchDay=

http://www.korea.net/news/News/NewsView.asp?serial_no=20080102019&part=115&SearchDay=

“If we behave as if its too late, then our prophecy is bound to come true” George Monbiot
EPA. Climate change. Retrieved on April 2nd from:

Conde, Cecilia; Gay, Carlos. “Impacts of Climate Change and Climate Variability in Mexico” (September-October 1999) Retrieved on April 2nd, 2009 from: http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/newsletter/1999.10/Mexico.html

Mexico’s Involvement in Efforts to Combat Climate Change (Monday, December 15, 2008) Retrieved on April 2nd from: http://mexidata.info/id2098.html and

Red tide spreads over west coast (July27, 2006) Retrieved on April 2nd from: http://www.korea.net/News/news/NewsView.asp?serial_no=20060726017&part=109&SearchDay=

2000w per person. Can we do it? Do we want to do it?

Dot Earth had a good post recently about one US family’s quest to reduce their energy consumption by 80% (to around 2000 watts per person), without radically decreasing their standard of living. A 2000 watt target (based on a Swiss target called the 2,000 Watt Society) would mean that their energy output would equal the world average per capita output — helping them to contribute to their goal of insuring that families in the developed world would be consuming the same amount of energy as those in the developing world.

The [Hager Family] seek to prove that personal choices matter. Here’s their query to you:  Hello from Oregon — We’re a family of five in Eugene, involved in rehabbing an older, inner-city house for maximum energy efficiency. We were inspired by the 2,000 Watt Society in Switzerland, and are hoping to cut our per-capita energy use down by 80 percent or so, to a globally sustainable level — without losing a lot of quality of life. I guess you could say we’re … seeking single-family, real-world contributions to big environmental problems. Please let us know if you’re involved in similar efforts (you can track our family blog at thinhouse.net ).

Could you do it?  Use the ECo2 calculator here to determine your own energy consumption.  I roughly estimated my family’s to be around 7000 watts per person (air travel was a real killer for us), so we too would have to reduce by about 70-80% to hit the 2000 watt mark.  Could we do it?  Honestly, I’m not sure.  2000w might not be possible, but 4000w certainly would be.  It would be expensive in the short run to “retool” our lives to make this shift, but over the long run I think it might improve our overall quality of living.

Is this the best path to follow?  According to the American Enterprise Institute’s calculations here, it would be economically devastating if everyone in the US economy engaged in such massive energy reductions.   While I find their quality of life arguments to be weak (living in smaller houses/flats, driving/ flying less, reducing mindless consumption would improve quality of life in my view), I do worry about the impact on employment opportunities if overall consumption dropped dramatically.  Yes, a “green new deal” might help restructure the economy to maintain sustainable rates of growth and employment over the long run, but in the short run it could be economically very painful and the short run could very well coincide with much of your your own life.   Rather than cutting our own consumption to benefit the next generation, are we better off simply saving a chunk of money for the next generation to use as they see fit (i.e. building typhoon-proof houses on stilts)?

– LMC

Human Security: Noble but Flawed

The human security model, while noble in aim, remains fundamentally flawed in definition and implementation.

Supporters claim that its “cultivated ambiguity” allows human security actors to overlook individual disagreements and will bring more participants onto the bandwagon of a particular human security threat, as was seen with the Ottawa Convention’s ban against landmines. Moreover, they claim that it allows a wider paradigm of threats to individual security to be addressed—for instance, infectious diseases, terrorism, nuclear technologies, and environmental threats.

Yet, the actions of the United States in the post-911 ‘war on terror’, and its subsequent wars in Iran and Afghanistan, is sound proof of the danger of the human security model’s ambiguity since it was used in this case to legitimize the US’s own foreign policy agendas.  Indeed, the US war on Iraq points to the vulnerability of ‘human security’ in becoming little more than a puppet in the hands of powerful nations. A Christian Aid study has concluded that “the year 2004 saw $1 billion in aid was diverted to the war on terrorism at the expense of poverty and Millennium Development Goals.”

While it is perhaps too early to see the effects of the economic downtown, the economic climate does not bode well for human security’s development agenda.  In view of the the current worldwide economic fiasco, governments will prioritize saving their economies and well-being of their newly-impoverished citizens over championing the right to clean water in some developing nation.   Moreover, we can also expect that the sentiments of populations will shift from placing priority on human security violations across the globe, to trying to pay their own mortgage.

Optimists have pointed out that there is still hope for the human security model in the current political climate. Indeed with the fast-growing media, more worldwide attention can be brought to human security violations around the globe. The exposure of the hypocrisy of nations manipulating the human security model and the resultant public censure may change the course in which it will play out in the future. And the growth of non-state actors, such as NGOs, INGOs and even the UN, may offer hope for the human security paradigm.

However, even under the most optimistic conditions, human security requires a tighter definition. Without it, as David Chandler has pointed out, human security runs a risk of descending into a mere ad-hoc, short term foreign policy formulation used to legitimize the global policy interests of powerful states.

Tiffany Lam

Source:

Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, “Human Security: The Seven Challenges of Operationalizing the Concept,” paper delivered at UNESCO conference entitled “Human Security: 60 Minutes to Convince,” Paris, September 13, 2005

Roland Paris, “Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?”, International Security, vol. 26, no. 2, Fall 2001, pp. 87-102

David Chandler, “Human Security: The Dog that Didn’t Bark”, Security Dialogue, vol. 39, no. 4, August 2008

Neil S MacFarlane, Carolin J Thielking, Thomas G Weiss, “The Responsibility to Protect: Is Anyone Interested in Humanitarian Intervention?” Third World Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 5, (2004) pp. 977-992

Tackling global terrorism requires abandoning full blown military approaches

On September the 11th 2001, the world was issued a wake-up call to the lingering threat of global terrorism. The symbolic attacks on the world’s greatest power’s core institutions of finance and military highlighted the vulnerability of the even the strongest nation to this emerging form of violence. Subsequent attacks on Bali, Casablanca, Madrid and London demonstrated that this threat was to continue, and it was not confined to one nation.

Some questioned the effectiveness of this threat, dismissing its feasibility to persist in the long-run. This has been dismissed with the swift withdrawing of Spanish troops from Iraqi soil following the Madrid train bombing. The persistence of Al Qaeda to fight in Iraq and now the redeployment of Al Qaeda to Afghanistan demonstrate that there is no sign of this problem evaporating.

However a more poignant question to ask is whether inter-state warfare, focusing on nations and high politics is the right response? We have had correspondents telling us that if we do not fight them there, we will have to fight them at home. However this is only looking at half the picture. The inter-connectedness of these groups and their presence in certain safe-havens does partly require a multi-national militaristic approach.

But this does not mean that going to war with every country that harbours terrorists is always the solution. In terms of eradicating a problem, the Iraq War increased the presence of al Qaeda. Staying in Afghanistan and fending off the Taliban would have done more to help the situation.

The other half of the picture described is tackling the roots of terror with a long-term deterrence approach. Taking the 7/7 bombings in London into account, the bombers were not necessarily directly linked to the culprits of 9/11, and possibly not ideologically the same. New security approaches, focusing on the psychological, financial and social factors that breed radicalism need to be addressed more stringently to eliminate future occurrences of terror.

Looking at the recent terrorist attacks on Mumbai;  they were the result of a myriad of intermingling financial sources, actors and interests. There exists the alleged role of elements within Pakistani intelligence services (ISI) and Indian criminal groups based in Pakistan conspiring with the Taliban and Islamist tribal groups to de-stabilise India’s Kashmir region. Military responses alone cannot address these issues. Instead increased regional co-operation is needed to tackle criminal elements, and paving the way for democratic reform in Pakistan by empowering society will help eliminate agitating forces within the intelligence services. The majority of Pakistanis want greater democracy, albeit an Islamic form, which is greatly at odds with the Islamist factions within the government which do not reflect public opinion.

A step forward in initiating this dualistic approach is the Obama administration’s new policy towards Afghanistan. There will be an increased presence of American troops, but at the same time a bigger focus on increasing human security through ‘lite nation building.’ This in turn will make Afghanistan a more tolerable country to live in where civilians will not turn to radical elements as their means for survival. The danger here is to insure that the mistakes of ‘humanitarian war in Iraq’ are not repeated. The Iraqi people felt threatened by the humanitarian message as soon as they saw their living standards deteriorate. An effective management of allocated resources must be overseen to improve relations with locals and to build a sustainable infrastructure.

– Peshko