The arrest of a Nigerian national suspected of plotting to blow up a transatlantic plane is another worrying piece in the jigsaw of West African Islamic terrorism. Until a year or two ago, Al Qaeda’s presence in the region was more a rumour than a serious concern to Western governments. The group was thought to be involved in diamond smuggling during the Sierra Leonean civil war in the 1990s, and some observers believe it has profited from the heroin trade through the Gulf of Guinea.

But as recently as February this year, when I gave a talk to the UK’s Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism, the British government did not believe Islamic extremism in West Africa would coalesce into a serious threat, especially outside the region itself. Although the FCO has placed half of Mali and Niger and all of Mauritania on its list of travel blackspots, their people still seemed unruffled when I talked to them about their West Africa strategy a couple of months back.

They may be sleeping less easily now. Although Al Qaeda’s infiltration of the region remains at a fledgling stage, the arrest of the Nigerian and the kidnappings of four Spaniards and two Italians – all in the past six weeks – are an indication of the potential dangers both within and without West Africa’s borders. And the pressure that is encouraging young Africans towards extremism – the great collision between demography and poverty that is taking place against a background of inept and venal governance – is intensifying by the day.

The authorities are doing what they can. Nigeria’s police cracked down violently on the Islamist Boko Haram movement back in August, and Mauritania’s police take copies of taxi drivers’ ID cards so that they can haul in their families if passengers disappear.

But without economic development the region’s governments will be fighting an impossible war. Al Qaeda’s wealth will buy off police and army as well as luring in new recruits. It is development that people need – relevant education and infrastructure investment provided by their own governments that are responsive to them and not to donors or other vested interests, and that provide a fair enabling environment for businesses large and small; assistance from the West by means of getting out of the way of trade and migration and forcing Western businesses to behave honestly; and they also need a large dose of luck: they need leaders to emerge who have the will and courage to stop the cycle of selfishness and corruption at all levels of government and to shed the burden of aid in favour of self-reliance; and they need their neighbours to remain stable and peaceful. Only West Africa itself has the power to stop extremist violence in the long-term. As many people I have spoken to in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau realise, the rest of us can help most by clearing their path.

As regular readers will know, we’re always on the lookout for the latest emerging scarcity trend – so, in keeping with the seasonal mood, here’s why your Christmas tree seemed so pricey this year:

The price of trees has risen sharply for the second consecutive year because of the combination of a Europe-wide shortage and the weak pound. A 7ft Nordmann fir – the most popular variety – could now set you back between £40 and £50, up from £30-£40 in 2007.

“It’s very much a seller’s market,” says Ian Millward, managing director of Trees for Christmas, which sells about 8,000 trees wholesale each year. This year Mr Millward sold his entire stock before December 1, two weeks earlier than usual. “It’s certainly the worst shortage I’ve known. I’ve only been able to buy a finite supply of trees,” he says.

Thrillingly, it seems that falling prices a year or two ago led to a precipitous decline in investment, setting the stage for a supply crunch… just like oil!

The supply of Nordmanns from Denmark, the largest exporter of Christmas trees within the European Union, has fallen sharply since 2005 following a steep decline in prices, which caused growers to stop planting.

Peak oil, peak water, peak food… peak Christmas? 

Happily not, dear readers: in fact, there’s a silver lining in here for Britain. You may think that we don’t export much these days other than Collateralised Debt Obligations and The X Factor. But you’d be wrong:

Not only does the weak pound raise the price of imported trees, it also makes exporting a more attractive prospect for UK growers.

Britain to the rescue! The feelgood factor returns! Unfortunately, of course, in what’s probably a taste of what’s to come on the economic front in 2010, that means fewer trees available for those of us at home.

“We used to buy a lot of trees from Scotland but we just couldn’t get any from suppliers there this year,” says Richard Doubleday, owner of Sandon Garden Centre in Chelmsford. “It seems some growers sold out their stock to European buyers because they could get a better price due to the difference in the euro and the pound.”

So, it seems you can add Christmas tree growers to the National Shit List, along with bankers and MPs. Happy Christmas!

Mark Lynas in today’s Guardian:

The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries”.

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

Meanwhile, the FT observes, cracks are starting to appear among the emerging economies:

Cracks emerged on Tuesday in the alliance on climate change formed at the Copenhagen conference last week, with leading developing countries criticising the resulting accord.The so-called Basic countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China – backed the accord in a meeting with the US on Friday night, and it was also supported by almost all other nations at the talks, including all of the biggest emitters.

But on Tuesday the Brazilian government labelled the accord “disappointing” and complained that the financial assistance it contained from rich to poor countries was insufficient. South Africa also raised objections: Buyelwa Sonjica, the environment minister, called the failure to produce a legally binding agreement “unacceptable”. She said her government had considered leaving the meeting. “We are not defending this, as I have indicated, for us it is not acceptable, it is definitely not acceptable,” she said.

Today, the Brookings Institution publishes Hitting Reboot – a new paper from Alex and I reviewing climate policy in the aftermath of Copenhagen.

The picture is a bleak one – there’s no point pretending otherwise. Copenhagen took us only a little further than Bali, despite two years of negotiations. In some crucial aspects, we actually seem further away from a robust and comprehensive climate deal than we were in 2007.

Rather than hitting the brakes, however, we argue that deal-makers need to steer into the skid – upping the level of ambition. Climate isn’t a problem that can simply be put on pause.

Believe the science (and most still do), and you have little choice but to find new ways of bringing countries into some kind of binding agreement to control emissions.

That means finally getting countries to lay all their cards out on the table. Copenhagen failed, in part, because governments were far too slow to level with each other about what they really wanted. They spent two years pussy-footing around – and were then surprised when it proved difficult to engage in Copenhagen’s frenetic last few days.

How can we ever get to a deal when it’s considered perfectly acceptable to talk about rigorous (and often unachievable) targets for 2050 – but a faux pas to talk about the tough decisions and painful trade offs that need to be taken over the next few years if the climate is to be pushed onto any stabilisation trajectory?

That’s why much of our report is about getting back to the basics – taking 2ºC as a starting point, and then building up the blocks that are needed to seize the increasingly slim chance of making that aspiration a reality. (more…)

A tragic tale from the Khaleej Times of the UAE:

At long last there is a foreign minister on the international scene with ice-cold blood in his veins and an uncomplicated, unemotional comprehension of national interest. His name is Kieren Keke. He carries the flag for Nauru, an eight-square-mile island-nation of 11,000 inhabitants in the South Pacific famous on two counts.

It is the smallest republic in the world, and its principal source of revenue was through the export of phosphates formed by bird droppings [guano]. That was undoubtedly the most valuable bird waste in history, but the republic killed the local version of the golden egg by selling more phosphate than the birds 
could drop.

When the money ran out, Nauru’s imagination blossomed. It invested millions of dollars from its national saving in a London musical. The musical flopped, wrecking the country’s bank balance. It then tried to solve Australia’s troublesome problem by providing a base for immigrants en route to the Pacific El Dorado, in return for suitable compensation. Regrettably, the refugees wanted refuge in Australia rather than amidst lost bird droppings.

But Nauru’s imagination remained fertile. In 2002 Nauru took $130 million from China to break relations with Taiwan. In 2006, presumably after this sweetener was exhausted, it reopened links with Taiwan. It is not known whether there was a financial angle to this decision, but the track record tells its own story. This year Nauru recognised Abkhazia [population: 215,000], one of two “nations” that Russia “liberated” from Georgia in 2008. The price: $50 million. Mr Keke has also paid a visit to the second region, South Ossetia, possibly with an accountant as travelling companion. The message has gone to every chancery: if the price is right, Nauru, a full member of the United Nations, will oblige.

(more…)

Report by Alex Evans and David Steven analysing the post-Copenhagen context on climate change, including a proposed 12 point action plan. Written for the Brookings Institution / NYU Center on International Cooperation Managing Global Insecurity programme.

Download Report

“This agreement is a vital step forward for the whole world,” Gordon Brown after the Bali climate summit in December 2007.

“This is the first step we are taking towards a green and low carbon future for the world,” Gordon Brown after the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009.

“A pivotal first step toward an agreement that can address the threat of climate change,” Ban Ki-Moon after the Bali climate summit in December 2007.

“It is a step in the right direction,” Ban Ki-Moon after the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009.

So here’s a very rough first analysis of the Copenhagen outcome.

Of the three Copenfailure scenarios David and I outlined, we think this morning’s Copenhagen Accord is closest to a very, very weak version of Bali #2. On that basis, here are 10 initial thoughts on what happened, where we go next, and how countries performed at the summit.

1. Don’t Panic.

2. We need to own up to how weak and ineffective deal-makers have been.

3. We also need to face the fact that the international system for dealing with climate is broken.

4. With this said, as UN Assistant Secretary-General Bob Orr observed in a press conference this morning, the head of governmment level engagement was “the most genuine negotiation I’ve ever seen between leaders”.

5. The main thing deal-makers need to do now remains: be brave, and steer into the skid.

With regard to countries’ positioning:

6. The US is still all about domestic legislation – which is as far away as ever.

7. The EU had a shocking summit, captured for all to see in its exclusion from the closing hours caucus of US, China, India, South Africa and Brazil. The open question of whether any hypothetical deal would have been bad enough for the EU to reject it did nothing whatsoever to enhance EU influence.

8. Appeasing China has failed. Period.

9. Much of the G77 participated in its own shafting – a point seen most clearly in Sudan’s chairmanship of the bloc.

10. But there are some weak signals of fragmentation in the G77 – seen most clearly in the case of the Maldives, which showed real determination in standing up to China.

From Sparxoo, this:

1. Do you have a profile on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook?
2. Do you have more than 300 friends on Facebook?
3. Do you know what a twestival is?
4. Do you have so many Facebook friends, that you’ve actually started to de-friend people?
5. Have you tried other social networks such as Friendster, Myspace, or more niche communities?
6. Do you have a Facebook app on your phone?
7. Do you know who Mark Zuckerberg is?
8. Do you update your Facebook status at least once every 24 hours?
9. Have you heard of FourSquare?
10. Have you read Trust Agents or the New Influencer?
11. Do more people follow you than you follow on Twitter?
12. Do you have a “persona” (i.e. use the same pseudonym across all social platforms)?
13. Are you on more than 15 Twitter lists?
14. Do your friends like four out of five of your Facebook status updates?
15. Are you such a social media maven you need a manager like HooteSuite?
16. Do you have more than 5 Twitter lists?
17. Do you find out about valuable articles through Twitter?
18. Do you participate in Twitter games, like #followfriday?
19. Do your followers retweet your tweets?
20. Do you have more than 250 connections on LinkedIn?

Now count up all the times you answered yes and let’s see how you did:

18-20 — Social Maniac
14-17 — Social Climber
8-13 — Social Wannabe
Less than 7 — Newbie

- With the US and Russia reportedly close to agreeing a successor START deal, Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi chart the next steps for a secure nuclear future. Details of their recently published report on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament can be found here. Henry Kissinger, meanwhile highlights the importance of kick-starting progress on six-party talks with North Korea.

- Elsewhere, Nouriel Roubini reflects on “gold bubbles” and the need to beware the calls of “gold bugs”, given that the “recent rise in gold prices is only partially justified by fundamentals”. The FT’s Alphaville blog offers an alternate view.

- Catherine Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, outlines her vision of a “quiet diplomacy” keenly focused on “getting results”. The BBC’s Europe Editor, Gavin Hewitt, assesses the upcoming challenges she is likely to face – whether a winter energy crisis, shaping a coherent EU policy towards the Middle East, or establishing the much-trumpeted EU diplomatic service. Charlemagne, meanwhile, argues that when it comes to European foreign policy there are simply “too many cooks”. Philip H. Gordon, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, offers his thoughts on what the post-Lisbon landscape is likely to mean for US-EU relations.

- Finally, Prospect presents 25 key public intellectuals that have helped us navigate the squalls of the financial crisis – Simon Johnson, Avinash Persaud, and Adair Turner make up the top 3. Niall Ferguson, meanwhile, offers his take on the most influential thinkers of the past now showing renewed relevance – Keynes, Polanyi, Kindleberger and Darwin, among others, have places on his list.

This just in from Andrew Ward:

Environmental groups have complained about heavy-handed tactics by Danish police throughout the conference. But they can be reassured that climate change sceptics are receiving the same treatment.

Christopher Monckton, the British hereditary peer and high-profile sceptic, claims to have been knocked unconscious by police after being refused entry to the conference hall. The 57 year-old, who was an adviser to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, gave a blow by blow account on his blog.

“I came to some time later, to find my head being cradled by my friends, some of whom were doing their best to keep the police thugs at bay,” he wrote, adding a characteristically right-wing interpretation of the incident. “It is exactly this species of tyranny that the UN would like to impose upon the entire planet.”

More from Lord M later in the programme…

David Corn at Mother Jones has been one of the must-read bloggers from Copenhagen over the last fortnight. Here’s an edited-down version of his take on Obama’s speech in the plenary session this morning (emphasis added):

Obama’s eight-minutes of remarks signaled a global train wreck. Not hiding his anger and frustration, he said, “I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt.” He maintained that his administration has started to mount an “ambitious” plan to cut emissions. And he contended that it is “in our mutual interest to achieve a global accord in which we agree to  steps, and to hold each other accountable for certain commitments.” According to his prepared text, Obama was next supposed to say, “I believe that the pieces of that accord are now clear.” (Emphasis added.) Instead, he asserted, “I believe that the pieces of that accord should now be clear.” That is, there was no consensus among the major global leaders regarding what a deal would look like–not even one that would paper over the deep differences that have plagued the Copenhagen summit from the start: what targets to set; how to include both developed and developing countries within the same framework; what financing would be available for international programs to help poorer nations contend with climate change.

(more…)

In the first three parts of this series (1, 2, 3), David and I have explored how Copenhagen might fail; what might lead it to do so; and why some kinds of failure are better than others.  With the summit now into its closing hours, this final post turns to how leaders should respond if the summit really is headed for deadlock.

Right now, the likely outcome of the talks remains shrouded in uncertainty.  All three of the possible scenarios we discussed in Part 1 of the Rough Guide – a Bali 2 political deal without numbers, a Bad Deal with weak numbers, or an out-and-out Car Crash – remain entirely possible. (And let’s not forget that it’s still at least conceivable that the summit could actually succeed – in other words, reach a binding deal which puts the world clearly on track for limiting warming to two degrees C – which would be by far the best case scenario.)

But if, as currently looks more likely, the summit fails to produce a robust deal, then we argue that the most important thing is for policymakers to steer into the skid.

When a car loses grip on the road and begins to slide, the driver’s every instinct is to turn away from the skid to try to control the car. Actually though, what the driver must do is to steer into the skid – or, as driving instructors put it nowadays, “take your feet off both pedals and align your tires with the direction of your intended travel”.

If things start to slide at Copenhagen, the instinct of some policymakers will be settle for whatever deal they think they can reach. It’s a well-honed script; and if, this time tomorrow, you see pro-deal policymakers like the UK’s Ed Miliband doing the rounds of TV news studios saying things like “No, it’s not all we were hoping for – but it is a step in the right direction, and in the end, we mustn’t let the best be the enemy of the good”, then you’ll know that this is what has happened.

Other policymakers will react to a skid by slamming on the brakes (e.g. “This thing is just too complicated to deal with through an international treaty – let’s just all do national policies and see what they add up to in emissions reduction terms”), or indeed by applying more gas (“Two degrees was a total sell-out anyway! When policymakers come back, we have to push them for zero emissions by next Thursday!”).

What advocates of a serious deal should actually do, on the other hand, is – ready? – take feet off both pedals and align the tires with the direction of intended travel.

For better or for worse, two degrees has become a widely agreed upon reference point. So what policymakers should do at Copenhagen is keep their tires resolutely aligned with two degrees. If what’s on the table at the end of the day is clearly off track for that, they should still keep steering towards it – even if that means refusing to sign the deal.

If pro-deal policymakers – especially the EU – do no better today than merely deferring failure, then they’ll allow themselves to pushed into a defensive posture.  That will make them  look weak, further eroding their (already declining) influence over the process.  Worse, it will undermine the principles that are the essential rationale for an eventual deal. Only by guiding, shaping – and, if necessary, accelerating – breakdown, will champions of a deal have the basis for turning defence back into attack.

True, the best should not be the enemy of the good. But neither should the ever-changing calculus of political possibility lead us to shut our eyes to another crucial test: what’s good enough.  The EU and other champions of two degrees must stick to their guns today.