by Alex Evans | Mar 12, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity
Our friends at Avaaz have a new campaign on biofuels (full text below the fold). Biofuels are already absorbing 20 per cent of the US corn crop, and that figure’s expected to rise to 32 per cent by 2016. As Avaaz’s email puts it,
Each day, 820 million people in the developing world do not have enough food to eat. Food prices around the world are shooting up, sparking food riots from Mexico to Morocco. And the World Food Program warned last week that rapidly rising costs are endangering emergency food supplies for the world’s worst-off. How are the wealthiest countries responding? They’re burning food.
Go sign the petition to G20 leaders in advance of this weekend’s summit…
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by Alex Evans | Mar 12, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development
As if to prove the point I made back in January about Ban being the ‘scarcity SG’, given his interest in climate change and water scarcity, here’s a piece of his on food prices from the Washington Post today. What he thinks needs to be done:
First, we must meet urgent humanitarian needs. This year, the World Food Program plans to feed 73 million people globally, including as many as 3 million people each day in Darfur. To do so, the program requires an additional $500 million simply to cover the rise in food costs. (Note: 80 percent of the agency’s purchases are made in the developing world.)
Second, we must strengthen U.N. programs to help developing countries deal with hunger. This must include support for safety-net programs to provide social protection, in the face of urgent need, while working on longer-term solutions. We also need to develop early-warning systems to reduce the impact of disasters. School meals — at a cost of less than 25 cents a day — can be a particularly powerful tool.
Third, we must deal with the increasing consequences of weather-related shocks to local agriculture, as well as the long-term consequences of climate change — for example, by building drought and flood defense systems that can help food-insecure communities cope and adapt.
Last, we must boost agricultural production. World Bank President Robert Zoellick has rightly noted that there is no reason Africa can’t experience a “green revolution” of the sort that transformed Southeast Asia in previous decades. U.N. agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development are working with the African Union and others to do just this, introducing vital science and technologies that offer permanent solutions for hunger.
by Alex Evans | Mar 12, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development, Global system
That’s the headline conclusion of an IPS analysis piece by John Vandaele. Average GDP growth in developing countries today is 7 per cent, compared to 3 per cent for developed countries; and even per capita income grew faster in South than North between 2003 and 2007 (old news in East and South Asia, but a big shift in Latin America and Asia). And whereas in 1980 developed country GDP was 23 times higher than in developing countries, it was 18 times higher in 2007. Vandaele comments:
East and South Asia are almost exclusively responsible for this. For Africa, Latin America and the so-called transition economies (former communist countries), the relative gap is much wider today then in 1980. Nevertheless the last five years show a generalised improvement in the South. More and more, South-South relations play a role in the world’s economy. India and China thrive because of their industrial and services success, but their boom drives up commodity prices, and so benefits even quite weak economies in Africa and Latin America. South-South interaction makes globalisation a tide that lifts almost all boats.
But, he goes on, “inside most countries, income inequality is on the rise” – faster in developing than developed countries, and fastest of all in China.
Between 2001 and 2003 the Chinese economy grew 10 percent each year, but the 10 percent bottom earners lost 2.5 percent in income, according to the World Bank. Official figures show that the difference between the top 20 percent and the bottom 20 percent grew 40 percent over the last three years.
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by Alex Evans | Mar 12, 2008 | Conflict and security, North America
William Lind is not what you might call bullish on the US economy (“…the American economy is in free-fall. After decades of frivolity, that economy now amounts to little more than a pyramid of financial pyramids, all requiring a constant inflow of borrowed money…”).
And he thinks this will entail big cuts in federal spending, including the Pentagon. So, “If a new administration were to turn to the military reformers and ask us how to cut defense spending while still securing the country, what would we advise?“. Some highlights:
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by Alex Evans | Mar 12, 2008 | Conflict and security, Middle East and North Africa, North America
Now that Admiral William Fallon, head of CENTCOM, has resigned, the blogosphere is, naturally, shifting into overdrive. Best one-stop summary of comment so far is on Wired’s Danger Room blog; here’s Thomas Barnett’s Esquire article on Fallon which appears to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Spencer Ackerman:
Gates said in a press conference just now that no one should think the move reflects any substantive change in policy. That sure won’t be how Teheran sees it. The Iranians will consider Fallon’s resignation to indicate that the bombing begins in the next five minutes.
