24 May 2016, ECO 8, Barro Blanco: Never Again. ECO is deeply concerned by the current developments in the Barro Blanco project in Panama, a hydroelectric dam registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and financially backed by the German and Dutch development banks. In 2015, Panama recognised that the Barro Blanco project had been approved in violation of the Ngäbe’s social and cultural rights. The government temporarily suspended the construction of the project. Later in the year, the government fined the project developer $775,000 for failing to negotiate with, relocate and compensate those affected by the dam. How can it be that the dam is fully constructed, and still no agreement has been reached with the affected Ngäbe communities? Just two days ago, Panama announced that it will “initiate the filling of the dam reservoir” today on May 24. While the government claims that the measure is “temporary and will allow for the necessary testing,” it will flood homes, schools, and religious sites and threaten the cultural heritage of the indigenous Ngäbe communities. The flooding will severely affect the Ngäbe’s territorial lands and means of subsistence, and will result in the forced relocation of several families. Barro Blanco is a clear example of why human rights protections must be included in the newly established Sustainable Development Mechanism. Despite the Parties’ failure to reach agreement on the scope of an appeals procedure for the CDM, the SDM must learn from CDM’s mistakes and provide an accountability mechanism that allows affected peoples and communities to raise concerns about harms associated with these mitigation projects. As the Paris Agreement calls on Parties to protect human rights in climate action, Parties must ensure that another Barro Blanco never happens. Source here
Tag Archives: Economy
April 2016 GrowthBusters: Great news about progress in questioning the worship of perpetual economic growth! The UK Parliament has officially convened an “All-Party Parliamentary Group on Limits to Growth.” This collection of members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords will “create the space for cross-party dialogue on environmental and social limits to growth; assess the evidence for such limits, identify the risks and build support for appropriate responses; and contribute to the international debate on redefining prosperity.” This should be headline news around the world. I’ve always said elected officials will be the last to adopt 21st century thinking about true sustainability – especially the unsustainability of economic growth; it appears they are finally getting on the bus. This is a truly significant step. Be sure to check out the new publication prepared for this launch, Limits Revisited: A Review of the Limits to Growth Debate.
21 April 2016, ECOS/CSIRO, Systematically addressing disaster resilience in Australia could save billions. The cost of replacing essential infrastructure damaged by disasters will reach an estimated $17 billion in the next 35 years, according to the latest set of reports from the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities.The reports, Building Resilient Infrastructure and the Economic Costs of Social Impact of Disasters, outline the costs associated with replacing essential infrastructure damaged by disasters and provide an overview of the direct costs of physical damage within the total economic cost of disasters. In 2015, the total economic costs of disasters exceeded $9 billion, a figure that is projected to double by 2030 and reach $33 billion per year by 2050 – funds that could be spent elsewhere on other major national projects. During the Roundtable’s launch of the reports at Parliament House last month, risk expert and CEO of reinsurer Munich Re, Heinrich Eder, noted that these projections are based only on economic and population growth. They do not even include the increasingly detectable effects of climate change. These are big, and socially traumatic, numbers. Long-term they have the same sort of potential to create holes in national and state budgets as our ageing population does—the subject of repeated Intergenerational Reports and eventual decisions about adjusting retirement age. Read More here
21 April 2016, The Conversation, Limits to growth: policies to steer the economy away from disaster. If the rich nations in the world keep growing their economies by 2% each year and by 2050 the poorest nations catch up, the global economy of more than 9 billion people will be around 15 times larger than it is now, in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). If the global economy then grows by 3% to the end of the century, it will be 60 times larger than now. The existing economy is already environmentally unsustainable. It is utterly implausible to think we can “decouple” economic growth from environmental impact so significantly, especially since recent decades of extraordinary technological advancement have only increased our impacts on the planet, not reduced them. Moreover, if you asked politicians whether they’d rather have 4% growth than 3%, they’d all say yes. This makes the growth trajectory outlined above all the more absurd. Others have shown why limitless growth is a recipe for disaster. I’ve argued that living in a degrowth economy would actually increase well-being, both socially and environmentally. But what would it take to get there? In a new paper published by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, I look at government policies that could facilitate a planned transition beyond growth – and I reflect on the huge obstacles lying in the way. Measuring progress First, we need to know what we’re aiming for. It is now widely recognised that GDP – the monetary value of all goods and services produced in an economy – is a deeply flawed measure of progress.Read More here