Village communities in Western Kenya alongside ones in Niger, Nigeria and China could become the key to unlocking the multi-billion dollar carbon markets for millions of farmers, foresters and conservationists across the developing world.
Catchments in and around Lake Victoria have been chosen as a test-bed for calculating how much carbon can be stored in trees and soils when the land is managed in a sustainable, climate-friendly ways.
The initiative, known as the Carbon Benefits Project, was launched today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Agroforestry Centre, along with a range of other key partners. The project is being funded by the Global Environment Facility.
This technique, known as carbon sequestration, is a win-win strategy, both economically and environmentally. As part of the UN Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries can pay to offset carbon emissions by funding such sequestration schemes in the developing world. These countries, in turn, benefit from the investment and from the more sustainable agricultural projects that it engenders.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered some remarks to students attending a model UN conference in Washington, D.C. today. She spoke plainly about why the UN is such a valuable organization for the United States.
Some people criticize the United Nations for good reasons. I mean, it's a big organization and it's a difficult one to really get your arms around. There's so many different countries, and people have different points of view, but that's the point of it. If we didn't have the United Nations, we would have to invent one. On issues like piracy or the H1N1 flu virus, we have to work together. And we do so through organizations that are either formed by, run by, or associated with the United Nations. And that's why it was important, when the United Nations was created back in 1945 here in the United States, that people admitted that we can't solve all the problems on our own. No nation, even one as powerful as ours, is able to do that.
Just look at what's happening as we meet today. More than a hundred thousand UN peacekeepers are stationed around the world. I was recently in Haiti and there's been a great degree of security and stability achieved because of the blue helmets. In particular, that UN force is led by a Brazilian general. We know the difficulties of trying to deal with failed and failing states where conflict and violence is just an every-minute occurrence.
And the United Nations brings relief, they bring humanitarian aid. We're looking at what can be done to help the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Swat region of Pakistan because of the Taliban and the Pakistani army's offensive. We worry about displaced people in Darfur, the Sudan. We just have so many concerns, and the United States cares deeply about the entire world, but we could not be a presence working on all of these issues were it not for the United Nations.
The United Nations Secretariat upped its rhetorical heat as carnage continued in Sri Lanka over the weekend. The military resumed shelling the last densely populated 2.5 square mile sliver of land still held by LTTE separatists. In the process, as many as 1,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone may have been killed. This morning, the United Nations spokesperson in Sri Lanka called the killing there a 'bloodbath.' From the New York Times.
“The U.N. has consistently warned against the bloodbath scenario as we’ve watched the steady increase in civilian deaths over the last few months,” Gordon Weiss, the U.N. spokesman in Sri Lanka, said Monday. “The large-scale killing of civilians over the weekend, including the deaths of more than 100 children, shows that that bloodbath has become a reality.” [emphasis mine]
Reporting on this conflict has been exceedingly difficult as the Sri Lankan military has prevented the media from accessing both the conflict zone and internment camps that hold many tens of thousands of civilians who have managed to escape. However, through ingenuity and at great risk to its reporters Britain's Channel 4 has managed to file a few reports from behind the lines, including this May 5 report from a military-run internment facility/IDP camp.
The report is difficult to watch but offers a rare look at the deplorable conditions of these thinly disguised concentration camps. The reporter, camera man and producer responsible for this report were all deported yesterday.
An international peacekeeper has been shot dead in Sudan's Darfur region, in an apparent bid to steal his car, the joint UN-African Union mission said.
He was shot outside his home on Thursday night in the south Darfur town of Nyala as he was parking his car, Unamid officials said.
The situation in Darfur degenerated for a reason, to be sure, and those responsible for creating and perpetuating this state of anarchy will have to be held accountable. But the reality is, this kind of opportunistic banditry is what is going on in Darfur right now, and efforts should be focused on ensuring that the people of Darfur -- let alone those who risk their lives protecting them -- be protected from this kind of wanton violence.
(image of UNAMID peacekeepers at a funeral, June 2008, from United Nations Photo)
Israel has nuclear weapons. The United States supports universal ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treay. Q.E.D. Right?
Not according to some. What should be a simple, logical extension of standing U.S. policy is being swept up into a fit of paranoia that, as The Washington Times' headlinescreams, a "secret U.S.-Israel nuclear accord [is] in jeopardy." The faux controversy has emerged because Rosa Gottemoeller, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State present at the NPT preparatory committee meetings, made the following outrageous comment:
"Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States," Gottemoeller told the meeting...
Since Israel developed a nuclear weapon, about 40 years ago, the prevailing convention has been for Israel's allies all to know that it had the bomb, but just not to talk about it. If this seems silly, it's because it is. What's more, though, is that, as several experts and administration officials assuredThe Cable's Laura Rozen, Gottemoeller's comments -- which a State Department spokesman somehow characterized as "dramatic" -- emphatically do not signal a shift in U.S. policy.
This makes sense -- of course the administration supports Israel's right to defend itself. But it has also made global nuclear non-proliferation a paramount goal. Articulating the need for worldwide cooperation -- that means by every country -- toward the target of zero nukes is fundamentally not about U.S.-Israel relations or Israeli security. The United States will have to give up nuclear weapons, too -- a hell of a lot more of them, in fact -- and the NPT is simply a framework toward reaching that goal.
(As an aside, I was also pleased to learn that the United States did not use the NPT meetings, as per prior Bush Administration custom, simply to rail on Iran and North Korea. There is a time and place for censuring those countries, but allowing the NPT forum to degenerate into accusations always struck me as far too similar to Iran's and North Korea's own distasteful habits -- attempting to drown the focus of meetings in tirades against the United States and Israel -- to be a worthwhile policy.)
(image from flickr user kolya under a Creative Commons license)
The excitement over who will be the next director of the International Atomic Energy Agency has got me thinking: Who runs the world? Or, more accurately, who runs organizations designed to add order and structure to international cooperation?
Here is a back-of-the envelope roundup of all the international organizations of which I could think. Have I missed any? Would you have counted FIFA? A prize goes to the reader who can correctly pick the nationality of the person who runs the Universal Postal Union. No cheating!
If a country had 65 infections of a disease, causing 4 deaths, in a month, with very poor health infrastructure, you'd be worried, right? Well, we're talking about cholera in Zimbabwe, not swine flu in Mexico, so more likely not. But it remains worth noting: these numbers, which are roughly similar -- albeit with fewer deaths -- than those caused by the H1N1 virus represent a vast decrease in infections and deaths from cholera in Zimbabwe, which has experienced a staggering 97,400 cases, including 4,271 deaths, since the devastating outbreak of the disease last August.
Shows you why cholera is first in this list of "five disease outbreaks that are worse than swine flu."
I just caught a great set of articles in The Economist on the pandemic flu and its costs, with solid reporting on the prep work it takes to adequately confront a budding pandemic (surprise, you can't show up to the party late). The WHO gets a shout out for its role:
Thankfully, prodding by the WHO and lessons from SARS and avian flu have caused governments to strengthen their disease-surveillance systems, improve communications channels between their health ministries and co-ordinate their stockpiling of drugs.