The new CAP should also be a pact with developing countries
Posted by Joaquin Munoz on 10 June 2010As Europe prepares to negotiate a new common agricultural policy, we want to emphasize that in today’s world, it is impossible to consider the issue without also examining its inevitable corollaries, such as the quality of our diet, maintaining biodiversity, climate change, and the development of rural areas in emerging countries.
We must first reaffirm the urgent need for agricultural policies in both developed and developing countries. Agriculture is a unique sector of activity. It is the foundation of our diet and it has an impact on our environment, our economy, and our territories, all the while being subject to the vagaries of climate. It is both essential to life and constitutes a defining element that structures the identity of our societies. This is the reason why it must be guided by political will and not be buffeted by market forces. Post-war European leaders understood this on a profound level, which led them to the creation of the CAP.
However, the policy’s limitations started to be felt in the 1980s. Support through price control and export subsidies warped the original intent; leading to negative environmental consequences and the export of surplus products at below market cost to developing countries, which then jeopardized local, unsubsidized production.
European agriculture should not produce imbalances in developing countries
Despite successive reforms of the CAP, it is vital we guide European agriculture so that it does not produce imbalances in developing countries. While agricultural policies enabled the United States and Europe to protect and develop their agriculture, developing countries, forced by international institutions to open their borders and deregulate their markets, witnessed the disorganization and discouragement of their agricultural. Their food sovereignty was thus endangered.
Therefore, the new CAP must stop the antagonistic competition between farmers. If we maintain a CAP in Europe, we must also establish a genuine pact with developing countries.
This requires us to change our approach; we must move away from state led decisions to a true cooperative process within concerned sectors
Preserving family farmers
Worldwide, eight hundred million peasants are family farmers. This traditional production method plays a fundamental role in structuring societies. Wherever appropriate, it is crucial to preserve this model in order to avoid a mass exodus. We must strengthen the model, transforming it into a pillar of agriculture organization. To do so requires encouraging family farmers to consolidate into cooperatives, which may in turn develop into organized entities within the sector, first at the national then the sub-regional levels. These organizations can then take part in participatory processes to stimulate market regulations.
Fair trade markets are current examples that these regulations are possible. Within such a context, guaranteed minimum prices are determined after consultations with networks of producers and other economic players in the field.
Thus structured, players can acquire a real working knowledge of markets and related issues. It is indeed a necessary condition to maintain competitive balance; he who possesses information, possesses the power. The choice of products can thus be made consciously, in full awareness.
An agricultural pact between Europe and emerging countries must also include sustainable land management by local communities and a verifiable list of environmental specifications to promote environmentally sustainable production methods that preserve ecosystems.
In addition to the involvement of farmers in the different networks and channels, we must raise awareness amongst citizen-consumers concerning the conditions and stakes of production. Agricultural products should no longer be regarded as merely a flow of interchangeable products. Prices should also incorporate the producer’s survival and development costs as well as that of territorial management. These new prices must also take into account hidden costs such as pollution and the loss of biodiversity, which must no longer be shouldered by the taxpayers or future generations.
The lack of organized stakeholders in developing countries
These measures have already been successfully tested in the life-size laboratory embodied by the international label Fairtrade / Max Havelaar. They could inspire future agricultural policies for both developed and developing countries, particularly in the management of transnational, agricultural industries. This entails overcoming several obstacles. The first is the lack of organized stakeholders in developing countries; their emergence must be encouraged all the while dissipating problems linked to corruption. In many countries, this means strengthening the vigilance of non-governmental groups.
We must also utterly change paradigms by extracting agricultural commodities from a logic of total liberalization issued from WTO negotiations. Finally, we must invest to both improve yields within the framework of ecological sustainability and secondly to reinstate regulatory tools for agricultural raw materials.
Joaquin Muñoz
Directeur / Executive director
Max Havelaar France
www.maxhavelaarfrance.org
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Can there be a post Promethean vision of development?
Posted by Geneviève Ferone on 2 April 2010We are depleting our resources and disrupting our ecosystems. Humanity’s future will unfold on a fundamentally different planet from the one we know in this century. This perspective remains theoretical, too distant and far too abstract to impact the course of daily priorities. What lessons, in a general and a literal sense, can we draw about the training of our elite, those individuals who will be confronting highly critical trade-offs between precautionary principles and principles of innovation?
“Sustainable” economy can be compared to a long-haul flight
Compared to an economy based on the extensive exploitation of limitless resources, “sustainable” economy can be compared to a long-haul flight that requires us to minimize the quantities loaded and maximize the range of self-sufficiency. To accomplish this, we must streamline new interconnected systems, optimize flow management, adapt our metabolism, and invent new ways to reduce intelligently and efficiently our environmental footprint.
We must be humble and curious
Tomorrow’s engineers will contribute fully to this challenge. We are looking at a transformation of our civilisation for it is no longer question of man’s technical domination over the environment but rather humanity’s adaptation to the functioning of the overall balance of our ecosystems, which makes life on earth possible for 6.5 billion individuals. We must be humble and curious for we still ignore almost everything about these natural systems. Yet, we can not reduce our environmental footprint if we do not understand and we can not measure what we are destroying.
We need to leave behind the narrow logic of over-specialisations
Faced with these challenges, not only the field of engineering but also its range of skills must expand. We need to leave behind the narrow logic of over-specialisations and open up to other sciences – social sciences and environmental sciences – that will greatly contribute to understanding complex systems and the creation of Environmentally Sound Technologies (ESTs). Conversely, if we remain locked in overly rigid scientific compartmentalization, if we are unable to provide a collective meaning to the technological breakthroughs that are available today, we run the risk of exacerbating the gap between science and governance.
Under the sometimes violent rejection of scientific study on global warming lurks an obvious difficulty to conceive the world in other terms than as part of a Promethean concept of man. This conception is built on faith in the individual and in his freedom and power. It rejects any form of conformism and constraints that society may impose and values above all else the rationality of our choices and actions, devoid of feelings and moral considerations. This stance is the best antidote against mediocrity and intellectual or political totalitarianism.
The Promethean hero dominates nature through his scientific spirit or his qualities as an engineer. He defies the elements and through his courage and commitment encourages us to surpass ourselves. Such a hero is radically against any form of “politically correct” thought and rejects all compromise with the supposedly more gullible and malleable. Ecology, presented by some as a new totalitarian cult that calls for an immediate and planetary communion, clearly collides with the referential framework that is the very foundation of our present civilization.
However, the challenges we must take up demand we display boldness, humility, and solidarity. Until we accept and integrate these new dimensions of dialogue and interconnectivity between various disciplines and communities, our faith in technological progress is will remain a marvellous, magical, promethean wish.
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An end to “climate change”
Posted by Fondation Chirac on 2 April 2010What would a map of climate change look like? We are all aware that climate change or hydric stress will not be identical everywhere. A map of climate change is not a question only for scientists or the curious; it is a political issue. The capacity to convince and mobilize opinions, which have become skeptical, hinges on this question.
The temptation to renounce preventing climate change
If scientific statements do not provide observable proof, then we will certainly throw the baby out with the bathwater… This is even more true as the temptation to renounce preventing climate change grows stronger. States that should be showing the example have been drained by the crisis. The world is divided. Everyone is focusing inward, looking for examples to rebuff, to doubt…. And what if by chance, climate change were simply a myth? Each of us could start to imagine the scientific smokescreen that would dispense us from making the daunting sacrifices demanded by the Stern report.
How can we convince Europeans to fight against global warming after one of the coldest winters in the past decades?
Climate change is far from a myth elsewhere. The drought in northern China is unprecedented. A large part of the Middle East is thirsty. Eastern Syria needs trains of water wagons to answer its demand, in a place where rain-fed agriculture was first created and where nothing has grown in the past three years.
If we want to continue to mobilize opinion, climate change should no longer be exclusively associated with the idea of warming. The concept must be perpetually associated with its own, precise map; one that clearly identifies in a recognizable fashion for each and everyone.
What does a map of climate change look like ? What will happen should the theory prove to be correct?
− First there is the increased continentalisation of temperate latitudes: with more rain, snow, floods, lower temperatures on seaboards of temperate latitudes. The phenomenon is much more noticeable on the western edges of the continents of the Northern Hemisphere: the United States, western China, Japan…. Rainfall is on the rise in mountainous regions, accompanied by all the dangers of increased torrential forces downstream. At the same time, aridness and drought are increasing at the heart of continents: the great American plains, especially west of the Mississippi; the mountain plateaus of Eurasia from the Don River to the plains in North-East China….
- Then, there is the increased aridity of almost all the tropics and the ensuingconsequences for subtropical zones: northern India, the Mediterranean, South Africa, Mexico, Central America will all be subject to increased hydric stress.
- A more complicated situation faces the Equator with pluses that could become catastrophes but also localized deficits that could upset fragile ecosystems.
This data, gathered by organisms such as the German Advisory Council on Global Change, deserve to be better known. It means that water is at the heart of tomorrow’s political issues in ways that are even more essential than foreseen by the Camdessus report, and that investments to re-equip all over the globe will be considerable. Solidarity around water issues – to prevent the damage it could engender, to compensate and manage its lack, to ensure urban water supplies – is as important as preventing the emission of greenhouse gases.
Find maps created by German Advisory Council on Global Change
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Scientists, politicians, and the Sumatran tiger are all in a boat….
Posted by Geneviève Ferone on 17 March 2010The sometimes violent reconsideration of the work performed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, sharply highlights our society’s fault lines; emerging from the confrontation with unprecedented issues of governance and an economic crisis that has strangled western economies. Debates have become highly confused and issues have changed fields without lessening in number.
The summit clearly delineated the limits of our institutions
Thus, before Copenhagen, the key question was how to contain global warming under the cap of 2 degrees. The question now calls into question the amount of trust we should place in our scientists, especially when it comes to human responsibility in global warming. The summit clearly delineated the limits of our institutions. The 192 politicians would never have met had it not been for the work of the IPCC scientists. Scientists though can not dictate politics. Two groups of people are therefore in the game: a group of experts who understand the stakes but were not elected and a group of elected individuals who do not fully grasp the ramifications.
This protest is not meant to heap scorn on the scientific community whose rehabilitation has become urgent. Is this a simple phenomenon of isostasy, a normal and healthy return to a balanced middle path, or signs of a deeper unease? Our elite, today’s deciders, are not adequately steeped in scientific culture and the last minute activists sometimes ignore almost everything about the subjects. To forge ahead, we must invent a reconfiguration of these two groups, both political and scientific, whose social involvement is more than ever a necessity.
In our rush to solve an inextricable problem that we would all like to be rid of, we are in grave danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
In sum, climactic anomalies and an erosion of biodiversity can clearly be observed, but humans have nothing to do with it. What a relief. We will finally be able to resume our daily activities free of the guilt constantly fueled by defenders of an ever more virulent clerical ecology. Indeed, how can we poor, frail creatures pretend to battle on the same level as the sun, tectonic plates, the clouds, and oceans? All our efforts to be more frugal, all our little green acts won’t change a thing. Time will surely take care of things; scientists need to be able to continue exploring our planet step by step. We should all adopt the well known position that relies on the fact that no problem can resist for long against the absence of a solution. We should however, avoid raising such a stance to the level of a political model.
The limits of prosperity are much more dependant on available natural capital
In the name of a code of ethics for researchers (fortunately some of them do have one) and of the great complexity of barely explored domains, science will never be able to provide an absolute answer, free of margins of errors, for our political deciders. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of people and industries, evermore capable and competitive, increase pressure on ecosystems. However, the limits of prosperity are much more dependant on available natural capital than on current or future technological prowess. While technology continues to postpone the depletion of resources by providing materials that seem cheaper and cheaper, it is an illusion for their production costs do not include the disappearance of forests, the accumulation of toxic waste that is dumped into our rivers, the depletion of soil, and the erosion of cultures.
It is neither oil nor copper resources that are limiting our development but rather “Biogée”, term coined by Michel Serres meaning the earth and life. It is not the limits of pumping power but rather the drying up of aquifers that is threatening access to water. There are dozens of other examples.
The stock of natural capital is collapsing rapidly
Humanity has inherited a natural capital of 4 million years. At our current rate of use and deterioration, there will be very little left at the end of the next century. It is neither a dogmatic nor moral question but rather a subject of the utmost importance for our society and for human beings. Despite innumerable articles, books, and conferences on the state of the environment, the stock of natural capital is collapsing rapidly and the vital services it offers are crucial for our survival.
Despite all of this, our collective survival instinct has not yet been triggered. The tiger of Sumatra is forced to leave his island because when it comes to protecting the tiger’s natural habitat or maintaining palm oil revenues, the choice is foregone.
Unemployment is more widely feared than the destruction of the environment because it strikes cruelly at the heart of each family in each country. We share nonetheless the same struggles without realizing it: the flourishing of our species within its dependant ties with the Earth.
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Is man a spectator or an integral part of biodiversity?
Posted by Geneviève Ferone on 9 February 2010Global warming, its effects, and the measures to be adopted have become major political issues. In 2010, the effects of global warming on biodiversity have clearly risen to the top of political and scientific agenda. The big news however is that it has also started emerging as part of business concerns. Firms address biodiversity in their economic models with great difficulty. In general, they list out their good deeds in terms of the preservation of natural resources and the balance of ecosystems. More often than not, they highlight their foundations’ virtuous efforts.
Urban Man still depends on nature and biodiversity
In general, regardless of his occupations, man (and of course woman) has become an increasingly urban creature, pacing the pavement, regarding biodiversity as a nice window to be opened every now and again with a hint of nostalgia. Humanity believes it does not belong to this biodiversity. We as humans admire it, take walks in it, but we never consider ourselves a part of it.
It is evident though that man cannot position himself beyond the reaches of biodiversity to which he (still) belongs. We are all tied to the Earth by an incredibly fragile umbilical cord of which we ultimately know so very little. We are not fully conscious of our vulnerability. Therefore, who is truly capable of measuring how much of our daily lives depends on the astounding favours Mother Nature freely provides?
“Climate Refugees”, an example of species dispersal
Should we decide to ignore the fate of the other species with which we share our planet, we could at least wonder about our own capacities to adapt within the final link of dependence that ties us to the living. Our species does indeed play a specific and major role in current and future climate modifications. It is equally a part of biodiversity. As such, it is not spared by the factors of biodiversity erosion, be they the effects of pollution on our health or the introduction of new species, bacteria, viruses and their vectors. Our adaptive mechanisms can be understood on the same levels as those of other species: physiological, behavioural, and genetic. Climate refugees are another example of biological dispersal, members of a species looking for a new, more favourable ecological niche when former habitats have been modified.
Consolidating the management of our planet’s resources
Biodiversity management cannot be separated from that of other natural resources with which it interacts and which are also heavily impacted by global warming. This is particularly true in terms of competition for land, flow management, and the handling other vital fluids: mobility, energy, water, natural and nourishing resources, waste production… To further compel man to a permanent awareness of his vulnerability and dependence, we must create without delay governmental instances that encompass all aspects of the sustainable management of biodiversity and threatened resources, avoiding if possible the trap of parcelling specializations and responsibilities.
Mission Impossible?
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“Climategate” Who profits by the crime?
Posted by Geneviève Ferone on 22 December 2009Indifference is a dangerous posture when confronted with the growing importance of those who dub themselves “climate sceptics”. The latter really and truly exist; they appear powerful, organised, and indulge in subversive techniques with means that certain, rather pugnacious, environmental NGOs would use readily. A number of people have expressed legitimate concerns about their influence on international opinion, which has just recently been sensitized and mobilized concerning global warming.
De facto, it is always wise to remain humble especially in scientific domains and to ensure that all voices are heard in a rigourous and exacting peer review such as the IPCC members perform amongst themselves. The real question is elsewhere. The violence of the accusation against climatologists, accusations of conspiracy and falsification, make you wonder if certain individuals wouldn’t suffer steep losses if the international community went forward with global agreements at Copenhagen.
A closer examination shows these attacks are particularly predictable. Those who are living very comfortably off of fossil fuels do not defend a non-carbon based economy. They can easily see that we are on the cusp of a new world, which will surely gnaw away at their privileges. Paradoxically, by stooping to such intimidation techniques, stirring up trouble, and discrediting the most covered summit of the decade, these detractors very clearly show that yes, global warming is a real threat to them and their business.
These methods therefore are not new and have been largely deployed, sometimes successfully by other industries who have felt threatened. Above all else, they are proof of the immaturity of a segment of economic and political actors who categorically refuse to consider clearly and bravely the immense stake that awaits humanity at the dawn of this century. The rarest of resources is not oil, nor the collective intelligence that we can all deploy together. The rarest of all resources is simply time. We cannot buy time. Let us not waste our strength. Let us not confuse our battles. Yes there are obviously margins of uncertainty. Yes, nobody can exactly predict the earth’s temperature in 2032. We have however, an important mass of information that supports the theory that humans have contributed to global warming. A cyclone is approaching and several extremely violent storms are converging at high speeds on us. Each of these fronts in and of itself would be a major disruptive event, destabilizing our social, economic, and ecologic models. Together, they form a revolutionary challenge, bringing together a number of actors with differing agendas, who must find a single, common solution within a very narrow timeframe.
How much longer will we wait before realising it is already too late?
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Copenhagen: Requiem for a summit?
Posted by Geneviève Ferone on 22 December 2009With the Copenhagen summit only a few weeks away, it seems everyone is either predicting a stalemate in international negotiations or listing all the reasons it is useless to hope for an agreement in principle on a global roadmap towards an economy based on new energy paradigms.
Indeed, it is already a given that promises to reduce greenhouse gases established by the Kyoto protocol will not be respected by the end of the first commitment period in 2012. Prospects are even more bleak as the latest assessments by the IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – demonstrate that these initial goals will be insufficient to restrain climate change within a “reasonable” limit.
Bringing players with such divergent interests to an agreement and ensuring they honour them seems illusory at best. The path of international diplomacy has indeed been paved with failures and compromises in all fields: developmental aid, agriculture, trade, human rights, fight against corruption. Why would global warming be any different? Why shouldn’t we simply allow technology to accomplish miracles and the invisible hand of the trade market to slowly go green?
This kind of thinking is intolerable and irresponsible. It is particularly dangerous to give up on our only arena and tool of international negotiation by holding up as pretexts our eternal rivalries and our incapacity to fairly share the planet’s resources. We have reached a point of no return. The very foundations of our societies are shaken. The fragile balance of our social, economic, and political organisations are threatened. We can no longer get by with lukewarm sentiments, with opportunistic haggling. We need to grow, we must learn to live and talk together differently.
We must invent a new economic model that is fairer, which fully integrates the environmental constraints for 7 billion human beings within the next 10 years. We are helpless and incapable of finding the determinants of this green growth for which we so ardently hope, as though it were a magical wish. Before we can enjoy the fruits of this new golden age, we must first start on a long and delicate transition period. If we look closer, this passage closely resembles the eye of a needle. We can either go through it or fail. This passage demands each and everyone of us to become thoroughly aware of climate and energy stakes. To get through the eye of the needle together means collectively choosing the right path. There is very little room for error and
We must cut away the extraneous and increase our adaptability.
Both these questions are at the very heart of the Copenhagen negotiations and all together we must find an answer as soon as possible. We cannot precipitously dismiss the rudiments of the only green alphabet at our disposal. Our future common language depends on it.
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