Spotlight Cancún: Opening the Door for Agriculture at COP16

Nathan Russell, Guest Blogger
Another in a series from the Real Climate Economics Blog and Triple Crisis Blog on the Cancún Climate Summit, originally posted on the CGIAR blog.

The mutual dependence of climate security and food security was the clear message from Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010, held on December 4 in parallel with the Sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place at Cancún, Mexico.

These words are only now starting to resonate with climate change negotiators. Hopefully, actions will speak louder than words. Just from the event’s plenary session, it was clear that many countries are already actively seeking ways to achieve the “triple win” of stronger food security, more rapid growth in agricultural productivity and enhanced carbon capture, while also making farming more resilient in the face of climate change.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spotlight Cancún: Economics Textbooks Get Climate Change Wrong

Kristen Sheeran, Guest Blogger
Another in a series from the Triple Crisis Blog and the Real Climate Economics Blog on the Cancún Climate Summit.

A useful new report by Yoram Bauman and the Sightline Institute reveals the deficiencies of many of the best selling economics textbooks in dealing with climate change, arguably one of the most important economic concerns of our time. The report finds that some of the most widely used textbooks present out-of-date accounts of climate science, minimize the economic urgency of the climate crisis, and provide superficial treatment of the real policy challenges inherent to solving the problem.

I wish I could say that I am surprised.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spotlight Cancún: So, Where is the Global Feed-in Tariff these days?

Alan AtKisson, Guest Blogger
Another in a series from the Triple Crisis Blog and the Real Climate Economics Blog on the Cancún Climate Summit.

The movement of ideas through the international system is a mysterious thing. Consider, for example, the circuitous journey of the “Global Feed-in Tariff”: this is the idea of guaranteeing the purchase of renewable energy by electricity utilities, supported by a subsidized price. What is happening with this potential global climate-game winner?

The feed-in tariff model (to simplify, “tariff” means “price support” in this case) has worked brilliantly to spread wind and solar energy in countries like Germany and Spain. Too brilliantly, worry some experts, who point to grid over-load risks. Other experts say that risk is remote. But in the rest of the world, “too much solar energy” is hardly the problem. Despite the amazing, astonishing spread of the stuff, and the steady drop in prices, wind and solar energy are still (says conventional wisdom) “too expensive” compared to “conventional” sources like coal and natural gas.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spotlight Cancún: Climate Economics and Policy Resources

Another in a series from the Triple Crisis Blog and the Real Climate Economics Blog on the Cancún Climate Summit.

Frank Ackerman’s comprehensive book on climate economics: Can We Afford the Future: Economics of a Warming World
Frank Ackerman et al., “The Economics of 350”
James Boyce, “Cap and Dividend, A State By State Analysis”
Climate-L, a knowledge base of UN and intergovernmental activities addressing climate change policy
Earth Negotiations Bulletin
IATP series on Climate and Agriculture: Cancun 2010
ICTSD on trade and climate change
IFPRI on the impacts of climate change on agriculture
IISD Reporting services
Official UNFCCC website
Official Mexico’s COP16 website
Nalin Kulatilaka, “Green Revolution 2.0: A Sustainable Energy Path”
South Centre, “Addressing Climate Change through Sustainable Development and the Promotion of Human Rights”
The UN on Development and Climate Change
The World Bank on Development and Climate Change
UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2010: Investing in a low-carbon economy

Spotlight Cancún: Negative Carbon and the Green Power Fund

Graciela Chichilnisky, Guest Blogger
Another in a series from the Triple Crisis Blog and the Real Climate Economics Blog on the Cancún Climate Summit.

The Kyoto Challenge

Most people know that the United Nations Kyoto Protocol limits global carbon emissions. It is the only international agreement we have for resolving potentially catastrophic climate change. But few people know how it works. Few people are aware that the Kyoto Protocol has already funded US$50 Billion in clean technology projects in developing nations through its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Since the Protocol became international law in 2005, this funding took place in a short period of five years, and continues growing. During this five year period, the carbon market of the Kyoto Protocol grew from zero to US$165 billion in annual trades, and the projects funded by the CDM achieved a real impact. These projects have decreased carbon emissions by the equivalent of 40% of EU emissions.[1]

Read the rest of this entry »

Irish Bailout: Governments and Banks "Bait-and-Switch" Taxpayers Yet Again

Mark Blyth

Triple Crisis blogger Mark Blyth was interviewed by Radio Open Source about the Irish debt crisis and the resulting EU and IMF bailout package, noting that taxpayers pay twice for the crisis: first to bailout the banks and then with cuts to social services like education and health care.

From, “Mark Blyth on Ireland: The Circle will not be Squared”:

“The just thing is that the banks should pay. No question. You made the mess. Clean it up. It’s a pretty simple rule. But the basic line is this: if you let the banks fail, there’s nothing coming back. So if you’re Ireland, the Celtic Tiger, and over 10 percent of your GDP is in the financial sector, that’s where you make a lot of money, bankers’ salaries and all that. So let’s say you decide to blow up 10 percent of the economy. What’s your next trick? We can try to reflate it. We can hope that it comes back. We can hope to raise the patient from the dead basically. In order to do that you need to have a growing economy. So obviously hacking away at austerity politics is not going to bring back the bankers’ balance sheets. But on the other hand, it’s not clear what else you do with them. They don’t have any money to pay back, unless you bring the corpse back to life. Now the only way you can do that is by having growth-enhancing policies, and that’s why austerity is not one of them…”

Listen to the full interview at Radio Open Source.

Irish Bailout: Governments and Banks “Bait-and-Switch” Taxpayers Yet Again

Mark Blyth

Triple Crisis blogger Mark Blyth was interviewed by Radio Open Source about the Irish debt crisis and the resulting EU and IMF bailout package, noting that taxpayers pay twice for the crisis: first to bailout the banks and then with cuts to social services like education and health care.

From, “Mark Blyth on Ireland: The Circle will not be Squared”:

“The just thing is that the banks should pay. No question. You made the mess. Clean it up. It’s a pretty simple rule. But the basic line is this: if you let the banks fail, there’s nothing coming back. So if you’re Ireland, the Celtic Tiger, and over 10 percent of your GDP is in the financial sector, that’s where you make a lot of money, bankers’ salaries and all that. So let’s say you decide to blow up 10 percent of the economy. What’s your next trick? We can try to reflate it. We can hope that it comes back. We can hope to raise the patient from the dead basically. In order to do that you need to have a growing economy. So obviously hacking away at austerity politics is not going to bring back the bankers’ balance sheets. But on the other hand, it’s not clear what else you do with them. They don’t have any money to pay back, unless you bring the corpse back to life. Now the only way you can do that is by having growth-enhancing policies, and that’s why austerity is not one of them…”

Listen to the full interview at Radio Open Source.

Spotlight Cancún: Key Issues in the Cancún Climate Conference

Martin Khor
Another in a series from the Triple Crisis Blog and the Real Climate Economics Blog on the Cancún Climate Summit.

Triple Crisis Blogger Martin Khor published the following South Centre policy brief on what to expect from the Cancún climate negotiations on issues like the global climate regulatory regime, proposed obligations for developing countries, and others.

Key Issues in the Cancún Climate Conference

A year after the chaotic Copenhagen summit, the 2010 UNFCCC climate conference begins in Cancún.  Expectations are low this time around, especially compared to the eve of Copenhagen.

That’s probably both good and bad.  The conference last year had been so hyped up before hand, with so much hopes linked to it, that the lack of a binding agreement at the end of it and the last-day battle over process and text made it a near-disaster.

Few expect this year’s meeting in the seaside resort of Cancún to produce anything significant in commitments either to cut Greenhouse Gas emissions or to provide funds to developing countries. Thus if Cancún ends with few significant decisions, it won’t be taken as a catastrophe.  It will however be seen as the multilateral system not being able to meet up to the challenge.  And that system will be asked to try harder, next year.

Despite Financial Collapse, Neoliberalism Holds Sway

C.P. Chandrasekhar

The crisis in the eurozone is leading, once again, to the adoption of policies such as bail-outs and austerity that belong to the neoliberal paradigm that partly precipitated the crisis. In fact, a feature of the recent global conjuncture, starting with the 1997 crisis in East Asia and culminating in the financial crisis and Great Recession of more recent date, is that while economic events have discredited neoliberalism as an economic ideology, it continues to dominate policy discourse and practice. One reason is, of course, the continued domination of the global economy by finance capital.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hogging the Gains from Trade and Agricultural Policies

Timothy A. Wise

Triple Crisis blogger Timothy Wise was interviewed by the Real News Network on why NAFTA has undermined Mexican agriculture and caused many Mexican farmers to migrate North to seek employment. It is based on his policy brief with Betsy Rakocy, “Hogging the Gains from Trade: The Real Winners from U.S. Trade and Agricultural Policies.”

For more on this topic see Wise’s 2010 Woodrow Wilson Center paper, “Agricultural Dumping Under NAFTA: Estimating the Costs of U.S. Agricultural Policies to Mexican Producers” as well as his recent Triple Crisis posts on agricultural dumping in Mexico and agribusiness and food security.

| Posted in: Videos | Comments Closed