BRICS and Realignment in the Middle East & North Africa

BRICS and Realignment in the Middle East & North Africa

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With all respect to the author, BRICS and Realignment in the Middle East & North Africa would be a more comprehensive title; please read on to understand this, however minor but essential point.

 


BRICS and Realignment in the Middle East

Published January 4th, 2023 

The contrast of the BRICS summit in June with the meeting of G-7 leaders held only a day prior, served as a foretaste of geopolitical competition to come. It won speculation over whether a new geopolitical bloc, even an international order, might finally be finding form.

The summit came ahead of news that several MENA states are expected to be soon welcomed into BRICS. Regardless of whether BRICS lives up to its potential, this news is further indication that the region’s relationship with the West is heading into a wintry chapter as regimes seek to profit from new opportunities in a multipolar world.

Indeed, the competition and conflict redefining geopolitics has also questioned whether realignments are afoot in the Middle East. Developments like regional interest in BRICS and OPEC+ oil cuts suggest that popular belief in MENA neutrality, in what plausibly seems to be a new cold war, merits consideration and even revision.

China’s President Xi Jinping (L), India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (2nd L), Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (C), South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa (2nd R) and Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro (R) are pictured before posing for a family picture during the 11th BRICS Summit on November 14, 2019 in Brasilia, Brazil. (Photo by Sergio LIMA / AFP)

BRICS: A New Geopolitical Bloc?

Global economic power has been reclaimed in the 21st century. The establishment of BRICS in 2006 is a testament to this seismic shift on the world stage. The organisation is membered by industrialised developing countries with emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Representing 23% of the global economy, 18% of global trade, and a combined gross domestic product akin to that of the US, BRICS possesses immense economic power. When the first summit was held, the organisation’s initial goals were modest and focused on investment. But amid the shifting tides of geopolitics, and the concentrated and accruing economic power of BRICS, it bears the hallmarks of a new geopolitical bloc.

Representing 23% of the global economy, 18% of global trade, and a combined gross domestic product akin to that of the US, BRICS possesses immense economic power.

In reality, the potential of BRICS rests on the dazzling rise of China’s economy. China’s GDP is more than double that of the other four BRICS members: almost $18 trillion compared with Brazil ($1.6 trillion), Russia ($1.8 trillion), India ($3.2 trillion) and South Africa ($400 billion). Without China, the organisation would fade into irrelevance; with China, its economic clout, and so potential to exercise geopolitical power, is vast.

As observed in Forbes: “If intra-BRICS commodity trade were to be settled in a commodity-linked basket of currencies among members as well as willing non-members, it would constitute an effective end to the petrodollar, a key pillar of the G7-led global financial system.” The strong resistance of the Russian ruble to Western sanctions – reaping reward from global energy prices – has boosted confidence in this aspiration.

In reality, the potential of BRICS rests on the dazzling rise of China’s economy. China’s GDP is more than double that of the other four BRICS members

President Putin even proposed at the recent BRICS summit the creation of an “international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries” to counterweight US hegemony in the IMF. The desire to create an economic order removed from the US-led dominated one has gained impetus as Russia and its allies have been disturbed by the velocity of Western-sanctions, from which they seek permanent protection and relief.

At the outset of war this year, intra-BRICS trade suddenly won significant sway over oil geopolitics through Western-sanctioned Russian crude oil exports being snapped up by the likes of China, India and Brazil. These purchases have offered welcome relief to the Russian economy and its military expenditures, softening the bite of Western sanctions (including the recently announced policy of capping prices on Russia’s oil exports).

The attendance of President Putin at its virtual summit in June was a jarring reminder to the West of how its mood of anger and reproach not shared universally; for most governments, ethical concerns about Russia’s violence do not eclipse the strategic value of Moscow’s energy and economic deals (hence why Western aims to blackball Russia on the world stage yields only limited success).

intra-BRICS trade suddenly won significant sway over oil geopolitics through Western-sanctioned Russian crude oil exports being snapped up by the likes of China, India and Brazil

By opting to remove Russia from the international economic system, the process of deglobalisation – hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic – assumed new intensity; with its promise of straining geopolitical tensions even further, BRICS is another symptom of this global trend. The consolidation of the organisation could define two dominant blocks in geopolitics, although many countries will resist this simplified division in preference for the strategic rewards of neutrality.

In which case, the symbiosis between the main economies – the US, China, the EU, but so too emerging ones like Brazil and India – which has been a major determinant of stability in world politics for decades, could falter with competition. Moreover, the deepening rift between G-7 countries and BRICS questions how, for example, cooperative climate action might be possible going forward? It foreshadows a fraught future for multilateralism. But such views are based on the idea that BRICS will decisively shift from an economic club into a coherent political organisation. There is some scepticism over whether BRICS members have the ability to reach a level of cohesion which would permit united political action.

BRICS has little to show for itself apart from the New Development Bank, established to offer an alternative to the World Bank for emerging economies.

A decade ago, a panel at the Wilson Centre strongly agreed that the differences between the group –  namely, trajectories of economic growth and ideological principles – far outweighed commonalities. Anti-Westernism alone is an insufficient ingredient to build and sustain cohesion amongst diverse actors. It is also true that since its birth, BRICS has little to show for itself apart from the New Development Bank, established to offer an alternative to the World Bank for emerging economies.

The institutionalisation of BRICS remains therefore  weak. Nonetheless, news of its expansive ambitions makes such criticisms now seem tenuous. As BRICS members hunt for a credible alternative to the US-led global order with increasing zeal, the organisation could demonstrate in the coming years that it counts for much more than an empty acronym.

AFP File Photo

BRICS, the Middle East, and the West

With war in Ukraine squeezing and shaping world politics, competition between the West and its rivals gained definition.  In this context, BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – has naturally sought to build up the organisation’s membership.

MENA countries have been among those touted as potential members in the near future. The president of the BRICS International Forum announced that he expects Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to join the group “very soon”. BRICS has caught the interest of other MENA countries who might follow suit; in November came news that Algeria had officially applied to join the organisation. The organisation, which has called up speculation as to whether it might qualify as a new geopolitical bloc, seeks to recruit “node” countries of strategic location and economic power.

If BRICS members wish to present the organisation as a credible alternative to the US-led economic order, it needs to co-opt as much of the world economy as possible. The inclusion of the three countries would represent an important win for BRICS and further address the lop-sided distribution of economic power between the West and the Rest: Saudi Arabia with its vast energy reserves, Turkey through its location and economic growth, and the UAE as a global centre of commerce and finance (the inclusion of key commercial and logistical centres within the group would offer more control over world trade).

The organisation, which has called up speculation as to whether it might qualify as a new geopolitical bloc, seeks to recruit “node” countries of strategic location and economic power.

In particular, bringing in oil-producing states, like Saudi Arabia, into the fold would consolidate BRICS’s control over global oil production itself – whose value in geopolitics has been laid bare this year since Russia invaded Ukraine. From a regional perspective, the incentives for joining BRICS are building and the interest expressed by Saudi Arabia, amongst others, has come as little surprise.

Many in the region likely deem it short-sighted to avoid the potential benefits which BRICS, taut with economic/political power and potential, might afford them; in a world retreating to multipolarity, MENA regimes are united in their desire to exploit and exhaust new opportunities. BRICS membership from a regional perspective, therefore, presents a tantalising prospect.

Despite its vast wealth and intimate security relations with the US, Saudi Arabia seeks to grow interactions with China and other emerging economies, given the demands of its restless economy in transformation. But economic interests are only part of the appeal; strategic considerations of geopolitics play a decisive role too. States like Saudi Arabia are presently reassessing who exactly are and are not their allies.

The cooperation of China and other BRICS members, like Russia and India, represent a welcome antidote for MENA countries to their fussy relations with the West. Indeed, it was symbolic that news of Saudi Arabia’s interest in membership of the BRICS group arrived just ahead of President Biden’s visit to the Middle East in July.

economic interests are only part of the appeal; strategic considerations of geopolitics play a decisive role too. States like Saudi Arabia are presently reassessing who exactly are and are not their allies.

This economic and geopolitical logic is also shared by Turkey and Egypt; however, although the West may regard the accession of countries like Egypt to BRICS as evidence of strategic realignment, some argue that it is more plausible to see it as a natural continuation of foreign policies defined by the principle of balanced international relations. At the same time, suggestions that BRICS represents an attempt to refashion the 1956 Non-Aligned Movement, whose members sought to minimise the Cold War’s interruptions behind a shield of neutrality, ignores its membership’s antipathy to the West.

BRICS seeks to develop and define a credible alternative to the US-led global economy – and particularly the US dollar. With the economic isolation of Russia, MENA regimes have been reminded of the heavy consequences when states fall foul of Washington, and the appeal of an alternative. Western sanctions have stifled many regimes in contemporary history, like those of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. A new economic system out of the thumb of the West would enable MENA regimes in order to indulge their strategic whims with less consequence.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a GCC-China Summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh, on December 9, 2022. (Photo by SPA/AFP)

Middle Eastern Realignment in a Multipolar Order?

Moscow’s efforts to marshal diplomatic support for its invasion of Ukraine might seem to undercut claims of geopolitical reshuffle in the region; despite some hesitation, a U.N. resolution condemning Russia in March was supported by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt.

But this incidence of the region rhetorically aligning with the West has proved anomalous in 2022, a year which has been defined more by tension than cooperation. This condemnation has not translated into support for Western sanctions. Like much of the non-Western world, MENA states are not moved by and even deeply suspicious of Western efforts to preserve a rule-based order.

High-minded Western words about ideas of democracy and freedom are far less appealing to MENA autocracies than the respectful and predictable indifference of Russia and China; the anti-Westernism which courses through the region is shared by its regimes too, ever indignant at the meddling in and criticism of their internal affairs by Western countries.

In Washington today, there is considerable animus towards Riyadh since it took a collective decision with its OPEC counterparts to raise global oil prices by announcing its largest supply cut in years – coolly rebuffing the pleas by the Biden administration.

The Biden’s administration’s resolve to renew democracy worldwide is a continually raw reminder to MENA leaders of their ideological friction with the West. This reality was encapsulated in recent months in Western fury about Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup (which, ironically, may be regarded as the best World Cup tournament ever after such a dazzling final).

The controversy surrounding OPEC has led to the further perishing of US-Saudi Arabia relations. In Washington today, there is considerable animus towards Riyadh since it took a collective decision with its OPEC counterparts to raise global oil prices by announcing its largest supply cut in years – coolly rebuffing the pleas by the Biden administration. Consequently, there is now a growing and plausible view in the US that Saudi Arabia is no longer an ally given its decision to blunt the punitive action of the West against Russia.

As the shadows of competition are thrown further across the Middle East, policy makers on both sides of the geopolitical division are carefully observing the initial reactions of regional regimes when taking stock of their friends and adversaries “It’s clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia” retorted a wounded White House when the decision was taken in October, directing the criticism at its long-standing ally in the Gulf.

Suggestions that Saudi Arabia may be sidling up to Russia on a political footing has been treated with scorn by commentators, whose main criticism is that this position is too binary. “The Saudis weren’t thinking about Ukraine – like many people in Asia and Africa, they don’t think in absolute terms of being pro- or anti-Russian,” wrote Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

The desire to engage more with organisations like BRICS, so the argument proceeds, does not amount to a rejection of the West but represents the desire of Riyadh (and Cairo, Ankara, and Algiers) to strategically plant its feet on both sides of the geopolitical divide. By doing so, MENA states seek to maximise the benefits of geopolitical competition, minimise its consequences, and evade its constraints.

There is a popular perception that every time the US does not get its way in the Middle East, Washington vainly misreads this as a snub; that the US fails to understand that decisions and policies can occur with little consideration of it.  And there is some truth to this view. However, the divergences between the US and MENA states on vital issues in US foreign policy are stacking up.

Whatever the intentions, the action of MENA countries in OPEC+ is not neutral; on the contrary, they have adopted a policy supportive of Russia on the defining geopolitical issue of 2022

Whatever the intentions, the action of MENA countries in OPEC+ is not neutral; on the contrary, they have adopted a policy supportive of Russia on the defining geopolitical issue of 2022. And on other key divisions of contemporary geopolitics – like sovereignty in Taiwan – Arab governments have embraced Beijing’s position. Now with tacit support for Russia through OPEC in the Gulf, in addition to support for China’s repression in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, the Middle East is sharply opposed to the US and wider West on the essential geopolitical issues of today and tomorrow.

Only this month, President Xi was honoured by Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, serving as further evidence to some that MENA states are eyeing alternatives to the “liberal world order,” regarding China’s authoritarianism as a more natural ally given their own politics. Saudi officials insisted that the generous reception of Xi is perfectly suitable for a state as powerful as China; yet its timing brimmed with geopolitical symbolism and was credibly seen as a rebuke to the US given its contrast with the wintry welcome which met Biden in July.

Sergio LIMA / AFP(L to R) South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, China’s President Xi Jinping, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro at the 11th BRICS Summit, Brasilia, Brazil, November 14, 2019.

New Friends and Foes

A feeling of change hangs over MENA geopolitics as wider international dynamics evolve. Many commentators and scholars have been rightly dismissing simplistic readings of this change which talk of the emergence of well-defined boundaries and blocs; they remind audiences of the banal but important fact that geopolitics resists crude simplifications (whose consequences in policy making were painfully present and predictable in the Cold War of the last century).

there is a growing and tangible dislocation between the region and the West.

Despite this wisdom, there is also a risk that such commentary becomes too focused on teasing out nuance while failing to see the woods from the trees. Whether shown by news of BRICS pulling new membership from the Middle East, or by Gulf leaders humiliating President Biden over oil production, there is a growing and tangible dislocation between the region and the West.

Talk of neutrality and the need to avoid simplifications may prevail for the time being in policy chatter, but the sense of striking geopolitical shift – even realignment – in the Middle East is gathering credibility. For as the geopolitical crises of the 21st century continue to fall thick and fast, the West and their supposed allies from the region are likely to repeatedly find themselves on opposing sides of the geopolitical divide.

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People who migrated to European countries are . . .

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According to the following, people who migrated to European countries are . . . like all those Turkish people who are worse off than those who stayed at home.  Let us see why and how.

 


Many Turkish people who migrated to European countries are worse off than those who stayed at home

Sebnem Eroglu, University of Bristol

Many people migrate to another country to earn a decent income and to attain a better standard of living. But my recent research shows that across all destinations and generations studied, many migrants from Turkey to European countries are financially worse off than those who stayed at home.

Even if there are some non-monetary benefits of staying in the destination country, such as living in a more orderly environment, this raises fundamental questions. Primarily, why are 79% of the first-generation men who contributed to the growth of Europe by taking on some of the dirtiest, riskiest manual jobs – like working in asbestos processing and sewage canals – still living in income poverty? There is a strong indication that the European labour markets and welfare states are failing migrants and their descendants.

In my recent book, Poverty and International Migration, I examined the poverty status of three generations of migrants from Turkey to multiple European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. I compared them with the “returnees” who moved back to Turkey and the “stayers” who have never left the country.

The study covers the period from early 1960s to the time of their interview (2010-2012), and draws on a sample of 5,980 adults within 1,992 families. The sample was composed of living male ancestors (those who went first were typically men), their children and grandchildren.

For my research, the poverty line was set at 60% of the median disposable household income (adjusted for household size) for every country studied. Those who fall below the country threshold are defined as the income poor.

Data for this research is drawn from the 2000 Families Survey which I conducted with academics based in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The survey generated what is believed to be the world’s largest database on labour migration to Europe through locating the male ancestors who moved to Europe from five high migration regions in Turkey during the guest-worker years of 1960-1974 and their counterparts who did not migrate at the time.

It charts the family members who were living in various European countries up to the fourth generation, and those that stayed behind in Turkey. The period corresponds to a time when labourers from Turkey were invited through bi-lateral agreements between states to contribute to the building of western and northern Europe.

The results presented in my book show that four-fifths (79%) of the first-generation men who came to Europe as guest-workers and ended up settling there lived below an income poverty line, compared with a third (33%) of those that had stayed in the home country. By the third generation, around half (49%) of those living in Europe were still poor, compared with just over a quarter (27%) of those who remained behind.

Migrants from three family generations residing in countries renowned for the generosity of their welfare states were among the most impoverished. Some of the highest poverty rates were observed in Belgium, Sweden and Denmark.

For example, across all three generations of migrants settled in Sweden, 60% were in income poverty despite an employment rate of 61%. This was the highest level of employment observed for migrants in all the countries studied. Migrants in Sweden were also, on average, more educated than those living in other European destinations.

My findings also reveal that while more than a third (37%) of “stayers” from the third generation went on to complete higher education. This applied to less than a quarter (23%) of the third generation migrants spread across European countries.

Turkish guest workers in a Berlin park in the 1980s. DPA/Alamy

Returnees did well

Having a university education turned out not to improve the latter’s chances of escaping poverty as much as it did for the family members who had not left home. The “returnees” to Turkey were, on the other hand, found to fare much better than those living in Europe and on a par with, if not better than, the “stayers”.

Less than a quarter of first- and third-generation returnees (23% and 24% respectively) experienced income poverty and 43% from the third generation attained a higher education qualification. The money they earned abroad along with their educational qualifications seemed to buy them more economic advantage in Turkey than in the destination country.

The results of the research should not be taken to mean that international migration is economically a bad decision as we still do not know how impoverished these people were prior to migration. First-generation migrants are anecdotally known to be poorer at the time of migration than those who decided not to migrate during guest-worker years, and are likely to have made some economic gains from their move. The returnees’ improved situation does lend support to this.

Nor should the findings lead to the suggestion that if migrants do not earn enough in their new home country, they should go back. Early findings from another piece of research I am currently undertaking suggests that while income poverty considerably reduces migrants’ life satisfaction, there are added non-monetary benefits of migration to a new destination. The exact nature of these benefits remains unknown but it is likely to do, for example, with living in a better organised environment that makes everyday life easier.

However, we still left with the question of why migrants are being left in such poverty. Coupled with the findings from another recent study demonstrating that more than half of Europeans do not welcome non-EU migrants from economically poorer countries, evidence starts to suggest an undercurrent of systemic racism may be acting as a cause.

If migrants were welcome, one would expect destination countries with far more developed welfare states than Turkey to put in place measures to protect guest workers against the risk of poverty in old age, or prevent their children and grandchildren from falling so far behind their counterparts in Turkey in accessing higher education.

They would not let them settle for lower returns on their educational qualifications in more regulated labour markets. It’s also unlikely we would have observed some of the highest poverty rates in countries with generous welfare states such as Sweden – top ranked for its anti-discrimination legislation, based on equality of opportunity.

Overall, the picture for “unwanted” migrants appears to be rather bleak. Unless major systemic changes are made, substantial improvement to their prospects are unlikely.

Sebnem Eroglu, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Riskiest investments and Big Oil’s greenwashing campaign

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In today’s world, the riskiest investments are in the Middle East and Africa, whilst Big Oil’s greenwashing campaign is in full swing, as described in RGnB.org.  Aren’t Big Oils and Hydrocarbon economies of the MENA in cahoots? 

The above Image is of Canva


Big Oil’s greenwashing campaign

A released new memo and documents last week showed how the fossil fuel industry engages in “greenwashing” to obscure its massive long-term investments in fossil fuels and failure to reduce emissions meaningfully, writes Dan Bacher.

The new documents are part of a Committee’s ongoing investigation into the “fossil fuel industry’s role in spreading climate disinformation and preventing action on climate change,” according to a press statement.

“Even though Big Oil CEOs admitted to my Committee that their products are causing a climate emergency, today’s documents reveal that the industry has no real plans to clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more dirty fuels for decades to come,” said Chairwoman Maloney.

Middle East, Africa riskiest investments in the world: Report

Syria, Yemen, and Libya were on the list of the highest-risk countries in the third quarter of 2022

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) have been identified as the region with the highest risk offerings, with a score of 54 out of 100, for investors driven by “social unrest, food insecurity, rising debt, and inflation,” according to a leading data and analytics company, GlobalData.

Syria, Yemen, and Libya were on the list of the highest-risk countries in the third quarter of 2022.

The research showed that the Americas region’s risk score was 47.7 out of 100 during the third quarter, making it the second-highest area with investment risk, followed by the Asia-Pacific region at 41 and Europe at 33.4.

Rush to buy Middle East oil amid Russia supply fears in 2023

“While rising oil prices have increased the revenue of major oil producers and exporters in the MEA, high fuel costs have adversely impacted low-income nations – especially given their heavy dependence on staple food imports from Russia and Ukraine,” GlobalData economic research analyst Puja Tiwari said.

Tiwari added: “Humanitarian crisis across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, along with skyrocketing poverty, is impacting the MEA region. Due to curtailment of wheat exports from two main producers in the world (especially wheat from Russia and Ukraine), many countries across the MEA are already facing a major food crisis.”

The research also showed that global risk rose from 44 and 44.9 out of 100 in the second and third quarters of 2022, respectively.

 Tiwari said the major causes of global risk include rising costs due to the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and sanctions on Russia, followed by Europe’s energy crisis, China’s slowdown of growth, aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks, currency depreciation and stock market crashes.

“While governments of major economies are undertaking various fiscal measures to deal with the rising prices, this will weigh on already strained government finances. Moreover, with several economies tightening monetary policy, the increased borrowing costs will remain another challenge moving into Q4 and beyond,” Tiwari said.

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Breakthrough – or Another Empty Climate Promise

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Is it a Breakthrough – or Another Empty Climate Promise from COP27? Wonders Adil Najam of Boston University.

 

 

COP27’s ‘loss and damage’ fund for developing countries could be a breakthrough – or another empty climate promise

 

By Adil Najam, Boston University (Picture above)

 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry closes COP27 in the early hours of Nov. 19, 2022.
Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images

 

Developing nations were justifiably jubilant at the close of COP27 as negotiators from wealthy countries around the world agreed for the first time to establish a dedicated “loss and damage” fund for vulnerable countries harmed by climate change.

It was an important and hard fought acknowledgment of the damage – and of who bears at least some responsibility for the cost.

But the fund might not materialize in the way that developing countries hope.

I study global environmental policy and have been following climate negotiations from their inception at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Here’s what’s in the agreement reached at COP27, the United Nations climate talks in Egypt in November 2022, and why it holds much promise but very few commitments.

3 key questions

All decisions at these U.N. climate conferences – always – are promissory notes. And the legacy of climate negotiations is one of promises not kept.

This promise, welcome as it is, is particularly vague and unconvincing, even by U.N. standards.

Essentially, the agreement only begins the process of establishing a fund. The implementable decision is to set up a “transitional committee,” which is tasked with making recommendations for the world to consider at the 2023 climate conference, COP28, in Dubai.

Importantly for wealthy countries, the text avoids terms like “liability” and “compensation.” Those had been red lines for the United States. The most important operational questions were also left to 2023. Three, in particular, are likely to hound the next COP.

1) Who will pay into this new fund?

Developed countries have made it very clear that the fund will be voluntary and should not be restricted only to developed country contributions. Given that the much-trumpeted US$100 billion a year that wealthy nations promised in 2015 to provide for developing nations has not yet materialized, believing that rich countries will be pouring their heart into this new venture seems to be yet another triumph of hope over experience.

2) The fund will be new, but will it be additional?

It is not at all clear if money in the fund will be “new” money or simply aid already committed for other issues and shifted to the fund. In fact, the COP27 language could easily be read as favoring arrangements that “complement and include” existing sources rather than new and additional financing.

3) Who would receive support from the fund?

As climate disasters increase all over the world, we could tragically get into disasters competing with disasters – is my drought more urgent than your flood? – unless explicit principles of climate justice and the polluter pays principle are clearly established.

Why now?

Acknowledgment that countries whose excessive emissions have been causing climate change have a responsibility to pay for damages imposed on poorer nations has been a perennial demand of developing countries in climate negotiations. In fact, a paragraph on “loss and damage” was also included in the 2015 Paris Agreement signed at COP21.

What COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, has done is to ensure that the idea of loss and damage will be a central feature of all future climate negotiations. That is big.

Seasoned observers left Sharm el-Sheikh wondering how developing countries were able to push the loss and damage agenda so successfully at COP27 when it has been so firmly resisted by large emitter countries like the United States for so long.

The logic of climate justice has always been impeccable: The countries that have contributed most to creating the problem are a near mirror opposite of those who face the most imminent risk of climatic loss and damage. So, what changed?

At least three things made COP27 the perfect time for this issue to ripen.

First, an unrelenting series of climate disasters have erased all doubts that we are now firmly in what I have been calling the “age of adaptation.” Climate impacts are no longer just a threat for tomorrow; they are a reality to be dealt with today.

Second, the devastating floods this summer that inundated a third of my home country of Pakistan provided the world with an immediate and extremely visual sense of what climate impacts can look like, particularly for the most vulnerable people. They affected 33 million people are expected to cost over $16 billion.

The floods, in addition to a spate of other recent climate calamities, provided developing countries – which happened to be represented at COP27 by an energized Pakistan as the chair of the “G-77 plus China,” a coalition of more than 170 developing countries – with the motivation and the authority to push a loss and damage agenda more vigorously than ever before.

Activists from developing nations pressed for a loss and damage fund during the COP27 U.N. climate conference, the first held in Africa.
AP Photo/Peter Dejong

Finally, it is possible that COP-fatigue also played a role. Industrialized countries – particularly the U.S. and members of the European Union, which have traditionally blocked discussions of loss and damage – remain distracted by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and seemed to show less immediate resistance than in the past.

Importantly, for now, developing countries got what they wanted: a fund for loss and damage. And developed countries were able to avoid what they have always been unwilling to give: any concrete funding commitments or any acknowledgment of responsibility for reparations.

Both can go home and declare victory. But not for long.

Is it just a ‘placebo fund’?

Real as the jubilation is for developing countries, it is also tempered. And rightly so.

For developing countries, there is a real danger that this turns out to be another “placebo fund,” to use Oxford University researcher Benito Müller’s term – an agreed-to funding arrangement without any agreed-to funding commitments.

In 2001, for example, developing countries had been delighted when three funds were established: a climate fund to support least developed countries, a Special Climate Change Fund, and an Adaptation Fund. None ever reached the promised scale.

Writing prior to COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, Müller boldly declared that developing countries would never again “settle for more ‘placebo funds’.” I very much hopes he has not been proven wrong at Sharm el-Sheikh.

Adil Najam, Professor of International Relations, Boston University

Read the original article.

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Investment plans within concept of ‘smart’ cities, villages

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The COP27 delivered partial success in an agreement on a fund for those vulnerable countries; however, it still needs to provide an understanding of the most basic requirements for stopping the current climate breakdown. That is mainly to slash the burning of fossil fuels as promptly as possible.  In the meantime, life carries on. Like in the story that follows, it is not building better with less at this conjecture and not about decarbonising all active ingredients but, like Azerbaijan sharing investment plans within the concept of ‘smart’ cities and villages.


Azerbaijan shares investment plans within concept of ‘smart’ cities, villages

The image above is of TRAVEL TRIANGLE

BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 21. Azerbaijan cooperates with the world’s leading companies in the building of ‘smart’ cities and villages, Azerbaijani Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev said on November 21 during an international conference on ‘smart’ cities and villages, being held in Baku, Trend reports.

According to Nabiyev, the concepts of ‘smart’ cities and villages contribute to the efficient use of water and other natural resources.

“In the next five years, $2.5 trillion will be invested in these concepts. Azerbaijan has been working in this direction since 2020. Our ministry has studied the experience of leading countries when elaborating on the concepts. Within the framework of the ‘Online Azerbaijan’ concept, large-scale work is being carried out to integrate state systems, switch to ‘cloud’ technologies and other work,” the minister noted.

Besides, Nabiyev noted that the effectiveness of the concept of ‘smart’ cities and villages may differ depending on the region.

“When implementing these projects, we take into account the factor of development of local companies and their localization,” he said.

The minister pointed out that over the past two years, 472,000 households in Azerbaijan have been provided with fiber-optic communication, and by 2024 even the most remote villages will be provided with it.

Speaking about the development of these projects, Nabiyev said that more attention should be paid to ensuring the security of information systems.

“In the next three years, 932 highly qualified specialists in the field of cybersecurity will be trained in Azerbaijan,” he added.

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