Assesment of DURBAN COP 17 – from a model of league of nations to a Global Communitty for the Environment

 Environment, world governance  No Responses »
Jan 232012
 

Yet another Conference Of Parties (COP) finished in Durban in December 2011 with yet another decision to postpone action. Like in any European Council summit, after more than a fortnight of multilateral negotiations most national and regional delegations returned home and claimed victory in silence while, once again, the common interest was the main loser. A deafening silence that was reported as such by the national and international media who, after the failure of Copenhagen, have learnt to keep expectations low and dance along to the tune of the climate change requiem.

The expectations were so low that this time only 12 heads of state assisted to the negotiations, not a single one from the G20, meaning that none of the leaders among the big polluters bothered to show up.

If we look at what was politically possible, the outcome of Durban can be qualified as acceptable; the process is alive and continues to move forward. Concretely, the COP17 succeeded to “agree to launch a process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or a legal outcome under the Convention applicable to all Parties” (art 2) and it gave itself 4 years to do so “no later than 2015 (…)” although a very late date to enter into force; “and for it to come into effect and be Implemented from 2020.” (art 4). It also managed to create a Green Climate Fund, with the World Bank as a trustee, which is supposed to receive $100bn a year but, with the exception of South Korea, Germany and Denmark, nobody has yet committed to chip money into it.

As a result, the Kyoto Protocol will expire leaving it up to the countries to voluntarily reduce their emissions until 2020. The Kyoto protocol, with all its weaknesses of enforcement and limited scope, was the only legally binding treaty for its signatories. However, Canada for instance didn’t hesitate to stab the dying protocol on the back with her withdrawal from the treaty right after Durban in order to avoid paying $14bn for having increased its emissions in one third –according to the protocol it should have reduced them by 6%-. The move from Canada reminds us that no matter how lengthy the negotiations, there is no guarantee that countries won’t walk away from their commitments later down the line.

Indeed, even if Canada had opted for staying inside the Kyoto protocol and refused to pay the $14bn there is little the feeble Compliance Committee could have done other than naming and shaming. After all, one may wonder whether the end of the Kyoto protocol is so sad when the case of Canada illustrates very well how, regardless of the commitments, it is up to the inner motivation of the parties to reduce emissions. The EU is a good example of how what matters when reducing emissions is the political will and not the protocol itself. It is an illusion to think that an international treaty can compel national decision makers to cut emissions faster than their domestic populations are willing.

On the other hand, if we look at the results of Durban from the point of view of what was necessary to avoid catastrophe the results are, once again, an unacceptable failure. While total emissions continue to grow there are no short or mid-term legally binding measures to reduce or stabilise them.

If we take a step back to observe the evolution of the climate change negotiations it is fair to claim that the weak link between the problem and the solution is the inadequate governance structure under which the negotiations take place. The current methodology consisting in identifying a common problem –excess of emissions- and trying to agree on national emission limits -the final enforcement of which falling on the country itself – is just not working.

In fact, this methodology can be compared with the methodology that was used in Europe to manage a common problem –war- after World War I; the creation of an organisation –League of Nations- where countries would discuss matters and settle multilateral agreements the enforcement of which was inapplicable. In both cases the methods have proven inadequate; the CO2 emissions, far from stabilising, have increased dramatically same as the League of Nations couldn’t settle the disagreements which led to the World War II.

Same as in the post-WWI period, national governments lack the will to challenge entrenched constituencies to change their ways of life and their vision of the world. And even if one would dare to, this is a clear “prisoner’s dilemma” case in which in the short term there is incentive to collaborate and it rather pays off to free-ride on the good behaviour of others.

Another parallelism we can draw between the League of Nations and the UNFCCC is that in both cases the only way for the parties to cooperate, to overcome the prisoner dilemma’s syndrome, is after the cost of non-cooperation has revealed to be higher than the cost of cooperation. It took the Europeans two world wars to politically accept that the risks of integration were worth to be taken. However, so far the price of the cession of sovereignty to create a World Community for the Environment is considered to be higher than the costs of global warming. Considering the scientific evidence and the impressive costs associated to the effects of climate change (according to Lord Stern they amount to 5 to 20% of the world GDP) it is very telling that the national governments regard their sovereignty as something even more precious!

There is still one more thing about the European experience that can be extrapolated to the problem of global climate governance; that is the difficulty of providing common supranational goods without a supranational checks and balances system –judiciary and legislative- and above all without a supranational government –executive- and, as a consequence, a supranational budget. The current European economic crisis highlights how much the lack of an European government and of an European budget are responsible for inadequate action. The parallelism is valid for the UNFCCC negotiations; firstly, without a judiciary capable of penalising those countries breaching the emission limits there is no enforcement capacity. Secondly, without a body representing the citizens of the world –the Conference of Parties represents the governments of the world and as such it can’t represent the common will of the world peoples- the global interest is not pursued. Reality illustrates very well how the sum of national interests is far from being the global interest, rather the opposite. Thirdly, without an empowered global executive, accountable to a global parliamentary assembly, taking the lead and showing the way towards decarbonisation of the world economy it will be in the hands of the G20 –and in the end the G2, China and US- to continue hijacking the fight against global warming. And finally, because if we don’t have the last three institutions it will be very difficult to have a proper budget to invest in the transition to a new industrial model. So far, the absence of a global budget to fight climate change has meant that the financing has gone through bilateral deals in the Clean Development Mechanism and carbon markets which have ended up increasing emissions and fuelling speculation in these very lucrative markets.

The UNFCCC negotiations are providing acceptable deals as regards what is politically possible but continue to fail to provide what is actually needed. Emissions continue to increase and speculation in carbon markets is more profitable than ever. Durban confirmed once again the frightening limitations of the UNFCCC model. In this sense, the precedent of the League of Nations can be a useful example to illustrate what could be the fate of the UNFCCC. The question that humankind faces once again is whether it will take a climate catastrophe of the scale of a world war to realise the real risk of non-integration, to build the political momentum among the peoples of the world and its leaders necessary to create a World Community for the Environment.

 Posted by admin at 11:03

CLIMATE CHANGE – FROM AGONY TO EPIPHANY?

 Environment, world governance  No Responses »
Jan 082011
 

“Cancún may have saved the process but it did not save the climate.” Said a Greenpeace activist at the end of the last Cancun Conference of Parties (COP) 16 Climate negotiations in December 2010.

True. Broadly speaking, what was agreed in Cancun’s COP16 is to continue working together, with more transparency, more cooperation in technology transfer, more money on the table but without the commitment to neither reduce emissions to a level that could keep global warming under the catastrophic 2 degrees nor targets and rules on how to organise the global transition to low carbon economy. To put it simply; the success of Cancun was to avoid the end of multilateralism in climate negotiations. There were no commitments to replace the Kyoto protocol except for its financial mechanisms. The Kyoto protocol, which back in 1997 was seen as nothing exceptional, is now seen as the panacea and few countries are willing to go beyond it even when knowing that Kyoto is insufficient to save us from climate change.

The process was saved but the world citizens continue to lose. The negotiations didn’t collapse but they are far from being able to provide what would be the minimum compromise acceptable for the world citizens: keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius -the agreed text could allow global temperatures to increase by more than 4 degrees which estimations show that could increase climate-change related deaths from current 300.000 to 1 million-. In the current format of intergovernmental negotiations the world citizens are not present in the negotiation table, hence it should surprise no one that they were the losers of the successive COP 15 and 16.

Should we be happy that UN-type multilateralism survived one more round? Arguably this is the best system that we have and although it has not served the purpose of uniting the world against climate change it is our only tool in a “politics as usual” scenario. The problem is that in a “politics as usual” scenario the humankind has little chances of surviving.

If the Cancun agreement had been about global disarmament and not climate change an equivalent of the shady results could be accepted. Some players such as the EU pushed a bit more, some others such as Japan tried to stop it, but overall the result is not a step backwards and hence an acceptable outcome. Fair enough. We can always trust that if we survive another world war we can try to learn the lessons as we partially did after World War II. The problem with climate change is that if the scientists are right and we are facing severe irreversible changes in the climate the result of Cancun is as insufficient as unacceptable. If achieving the maximum of what is politically possible is not enough to save the planet there is a need to change the rules of the game or the game itself. In other words, if we accept Bismarck’s quote “politics is the art of possible” to explain the climate change negotiations, then we have no option other than changing politics until we can make possible what is necessary.

International politics as usual can’t be an option if we want to meet the minimum conditions to have enough chances to survive. A change of the magnitude of what happened in the post-WWII is needed: At the end of WWII the world was split as ever and there was an attempt to unite it with the creation of the UN. However, the high conditionality, the absence of real integration, the veto power, the lack of democracy and the persistent intergovernmental approach made the UN weak and irrelevant when important issues were at stake –wars and others kind of major crisis like climate change-. What history teaches us is that UN kind of multilateralism is not enough to deliver systemic changes.

The other side of the coin was Europe, where a core of countries decided to move ahead with the revolutionary proposal of creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), a common project with common institutions that with limited but real power managed to achieve a common goal. Had the ECSC waited for the United Kingdom to start the process that was to lead to what is today the EU, we would probably not have the EU today. A parallelism can be drawn for the global Climate Change action, the US threat to block the process has conditioned 20 years of negotiations. The system of cap and trade and offsetting of carbon that we have today and which is failing to reduce emissions -but succeeding in creating lucrative speculative carbon markets- is the only concession given by the US. If the US had continued to play the positive role that it played in the WWII period we would probably have established a system of emission limits managed by a small supranational body that would have delivered a lot better results than the current system. But the US has not been in favour of democratic international institutions since 1946 and we have been paying a high price for it. Likewise, currently the emerging economies might be blinded by the illusion of power and not willing to join a supranational institution at once.

It is necessary to move on.
There are three possibilities to move ahead; the first and full-blown possibility is the creation of a Global Community for the Environment (GCE) to manage the emissions, the transfer of technology and the common actions in a democratic and accountable way. It would follow the model of the ECSC; creating of a communitarian body that takes care of the global common interest, a bi-cameral legislative assembly composed of representatives of the people of the union and a council representing the member-states and finally a judiciary with the role of settling disputes. This would be the optimal way to approach a global problem; with democratic institutions that can take democratic and accountable decisions minimising the danger of blockade.

A second possibility is the creation of a World Environment Organisation whose structure would resemble the current World Trade Organisation. It could be created with a treaty and it could do the job if it managed to put in place a good system to settle disputes. This is an old proposal retaken by the German and French leaders, Merkel and Sarkozy, which was proposed to the SG of the UN without much success. The draw-backs of such as solution are; that it only includes the interests of the states but neither the interests of the citizens nor the global interest, that if it is to follow the WTO system the communitarian body –the secretariat- would be too weak to steer anything and that it would be a lost opportunity to engage the citizens in the fight against climate change. The WTO doesn’t have a good reputation among citizens; it is perceived as distant and surrounded by demonstrators and riots. The fact is that despite the procedures can be democratic; the decisions are taken in the intergovernmental limbo far away from the citizens.

A third option is the International Court for the Environment (ICE) following the precedent of the International Criminal Court. A global judiciary on climate issues –ruling on the jurisdiction provided by the convention and protocols- is indispensable to avoid the current lack of enforcement of the policies. The ICE would be a first step towards communitarianism from which it would be possible to evolve towards a democratic and accountable system of world relations.

All three options have no chances to succeed in the short term if all the countries are expected to sign in. It is necessary that a group of countries decide to move ahead –like France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux did 60 years ago with the creation of the ECSC- and set up institutions that are capable to deal with global problems. If we study the impact of the ECSC we see that building a communitarian approach to fight climate change would not only benefit those who are in the union, it would also benefit those who are outside. For instance; the UK, Poland or Spain profited from the stability, common understanding, vision and good management of resources of the European Community even before they joined the EU. The same would happen for the US and the few other countries who would decide to stay out of the first Global Community for the Environment.

For instance, the US, the first polluter per capita in the world, would benefit not only because they will profit from the effort of the others to fight climate change but also because they would understand that it is in the interest of everybody to change the current fossil-fuelled economy into a more efficient and decarbonised one. It is a paradox that a country with a structural fear to state intervention approves that the government continue to use the tax-payers money to subsidise fossil fuels. This is not only against free-market but also against the world interest. For what matters a Global Climate Community would foster pooling of research and technologies and by bringing in the concept of supranational solidarity and thanks to the economies of scale it would allow rapid decarbonisation of the world economy. From the competitive point of view, any country that continues to subsidise fossil-fuels would be interested in joining the community, same as the UK decided that joining the EU is better than staying outside, because of widening technological gap. A coherent and responsible communitarian management of the transition to low-carbon economy would spark a lot more innovation and productivity than an economy that subsidises fossil fuels. The US would have to join the Global Climate Community before the Tea Party can imagine.

What about China and India? They are becoming the biggest world polluters and hence it will be difficult to strike a deal on capping emissions. However their opposition to a better governance solution is not of the same nature as the one from the US. A communitarian approach to GHG emissions, eco-efficiency, resource use, biodiversity, energy savings, transnational infrastructure and renewable energies as well as a progressive deal in worldwide converging emissions per capita are possible positive outcomes of setting up a communitarian system based on trust and equality between the members. The EU enlargement process is a good example of the positive and quick spill-overs of political and economic union. However, whilst the EU is a good benchmark of the positive effects and externalities of setting up a communitarian system, the UN system and more concretely the UNFCCC is a benchmark of how little can be achieved in horse-trading deals in intergovernmental forums.

In order to solve the current challenges it is important to leave intergovernmentalism behind and find ways for human-beings to work in the same direction, towards the same goal. For diplomats and politicians the climate negotiations are seen as a battle-field where there are winners and losers –funnily those who think they are the winners are those manage to continue to pollute and the losers those who have to cut emissions-. The truth is that with the current system all the world citizens lose and as we start to feel the effects of climate change so does the faith in democratic institutions and politics in general as an instrument to serve the citizens problems.

Let us not be blinded by the change of mood after Cancun’s COP 16. World emissions continue to increase and the rhetoric of world cooperation and leaving the solutions to the carbon markets will not suffice. The current economic crisis proves that markets alone –be it financial or carbon markets- will not work; it is the combination of market tools with regulations, democratic control and political leadership that have the power to get us out of the current financial, economic and ecological crisis. And this combination cannot happen without global institutions. Like 60 years ago, history is pushing humankind to the “unite or perish” dilemma. May we be wiser this time.

 Posted by admin at 20:53  Tagged with: , , , ,

COP16 Cancun – All for one and one for all

 Environment, world governance  2 Responses »
Nov 262010
 

A communitarian approach is the only way to save us from Climate Change

The expectations about the outcome of the COP16 in Cancun are low. A sad prospect if we think Climate Change is the biggest threat to our future and we have very little time to solve it. A change of approach is necessary; we need a common solution for a common problem.

Despite the multiple rounds of negotiations since the creation of the UNFCCC the GHG emissions haven’t stopped increasing and there is no sign that the tendency is going to be reversed in the near future. In fact, the only tangible outcome of all these years of negotiations has been the creation of carbon markets and financial mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism. Neither of them have been a big success and it is a fact that lucrative parallel markets to speculate with carbon credits have been created. Many polluters are richer than ever whilst total emissions have not decreased…

The current system needs to be changed. And the solution is not in creating another treaty outside the UN framework, such as the last proposal of the US to work on a kind of new Montreal treaty. Behind the ecological and economical problem lies a governance problem that is blocking the process from moving ahead. And the problem lies in the incapacity to turn rhetoric into action; if Climate Change is a global problem it has to be treated with a global solution. And so far Climate Change has been addressed only from the national level. It is important to remind ourselves that the same way that the addition of national interests doesn’t result in the global interest, the sum of national actions is not a global action.

If we look into history, at the end of WWII the world was split as ever and there was an attempt to unite it with the creation of the UN. The high conditionality, absence of real integration, veto power, lack of democracy and persistent intergovernmental approach of the UN are the reasons of its weakness and irrelevance when important issues are at stake –wars and others kind of major crisis like climate change-. The other side of the coin was Europe, where a core of countries decided to move ahead with the revolutionary proposal of creating the European Coal and Steel Community, a common project with common institutions that with limited but real power managed to achieve a common goal. Had the ECSC waited for the United Kingdom to start the process that was to lead to what is today the EU, we would probably not have the EU today. A parallelism can be drawn for the global Climate Change action, the US threat to block the process has conditioned 20 years of negotiations. The unaccountable and inefficient system of cap and trade and offsetting of carbon that we have today is the only concession given by the US. If the US had continued to play the positive role that it played in the WWII period we would probably have established a system of emission limits managed by a small supranational body. But the US has not been in favour of democratic international institutions since 1946 and we have been paying a high price for it.
It is necessary to move on. The effects of a war can be reversed but those of Climate Change cannot. It is necessary that a group of countries decide to move ahead –like France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux did 60 years ago- and set up institutions that are capable to deal with global problems.

There are three possibilities to move ahead; the first and full-blown possibility is the creation of a Global Community for the Environment (GCE) to manage the emissions, the transfer of technology and the common actions in a democratic and accountable way. It would follow the model of the ECSC; creating of a communitarian body that takes care of the global common interest, a bi-cameral legislative assembly composed of representatives of the people of the union and a council representing the member-states and finally a judiciary with the role of settling disputes. This would be the optimal way to approach a global problem; with democratic institutions that can take democratic and accountable decisions minimising the danger of blockade.

A second possibility is the creation of World Environment Organisation whose structure would resemble the current World Trade Organisation. It could be created with a treaty and it could do the job if it managed to put in place a good system to settle disputes. This is a proposal that the German and French leaders, Merkel and Sarkozy, have already proposed to the SG of the UN without much success. The draw-backs of such as solution are; that it only includes the interests of the states but neither the interests of the citizens nor the global interest, that if it is to follow the WTO system the communitarian body –the secretariat- would be too weak to steer anything and that it would be a lost opportunity to engage the citizens in the fight against climate change. The WTO doesn’t have a good reputation among citizens; it is perceived as distant and surrounded by demonstrators and riots. The fact is that despite the procedures can be democratic; the decisions are taken in the intergovernmental limbo far away from the citizens.

A third option is the International Court for the Environment (ICE) following the precedent of the International Criminal Court. A global judiciary on climate issues –ruling on the jurisdiction provided by the convention and protocols- is indispensable to avoid the current lack of enforcement of the policies. The ICE would be a first step towards communitarianism from which it would be possible to evolve towards a democratic and accountable system of world relations.

All three options have no chances to succeed in the short term if all the countries are expected to sign in. More importantly, it is very unlikely that any of the three options will be supported by the US. Indeed, the US since the end of WWII has opposed any step in the direction of supranational democracy, in 1948 it initially didn’t accept the disputes settlement mechanism of the GATT –precursor of the current WTO- and the US is one of the few countries in the world that has un-signed the Rome Statute which founded the ICC.

There is no reason to believe that the US will be willing to change its policy in the short term, yet in the short term action is needed. A good number of countries in the world are ready to move ahead with a more democratic and communitarian approach for world relations when it comes to Climate Change. Same as with ECSC building a communitarian approach to fight climate change would not only benefit those who are in the union, it would also benefit those who are outside. For instance; the UK, Poland or Spain profited from the stability, common understanding, vision and good management of resources of the European Community even before they joined the EU. The same would happen for the US and the few other countries who would decide to stay out of the first Global Community for the Environment.
For instance, the US, the first polluter per capita in the world, would benefit not only because they will profit from the effort of the others to fight climate change but also because they would understand that it is in the interest of everybody to change the current fossil-fuelled economy into a more efficient and decarbonised one. In a way, the US is committing economic suicide with their reactionary policies of protection of the status quo. It is a paradox that a country with a structural fear to state intervention approves that the government continue to use the tax-payers money to subsidise fossil fuels. This is not only against free-market but also against the world interest. For what matters a Global Climate Community would foster pooling of research and technologies and by bringing in the concept of supranational solidarity and thanks to the economies of scale it would allow rapid decarbonisation of the world economy. From the competitive point of view, a country like the US that continues to subsidise fossil-fuels would be interested in joining the community, same as the UK decided that joining the EU is better than staying outside, because of widening technological gap. A coherent and responsible communitarian management of the transition to low-carbon economy would spark a lot more innovation and productivity than an economy that subsidises fossil fuels. The US would have to join the Global Climate Community before the Tea Party can imagine.

What about China and India? They are becoming the biggest world polluters and hence it will be difficult to strike a deal on capping emissions. However their opposition to a better governance solution is not of the same nature as the one from the US. A global approach to GHG emissions, eco-efficiency, resource use, biodiversity, energy savings, transnational infrastructure and renewable energies as well as a progressive deal in worldwide converging emissions per capita are possible positive outcomes of setting up a communitarian system based on trust and equality between the members. The EU is a good benchmark of the positive effects and externalities of setting up a communitarian system, on the opposite the UN system and more concretely the UNFCCC is a benchmark of how little can be achieved in horse-trading deals in intergovernmental forums.

In historical moments like the one we find ourselves in it is necessary to take a step back and observe our history; understand that humanity has advanced when it has worked together and has failed when it has been split. In order to solve the current challenges it is important to leave intergovernmentalism behind and find ways for human-beings to work in the same direction, towards the same goal. For diplomats and politicians the climate negotiations are seen as a battle-field where there are winners and losers –funnily those who think they are the winners are those manage to continue to pollute and the losers those who have to cut emissions-. The truth is that with the current system all the world citizens lose and so does the faith in democratic institutions and politics in general as an instrument to serve the citizens problems.

Changing the course of history is not easy but if we continue the route of intergovernmentalism is at our own peril. Thomas Jefferson said “One man with courage is a majority” let’s hope we can find one among the hundreds of leaders in Cancun that dares to go for a communitarian solution.

 Posted by admin at 11:32  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

PHILLIPS ANTI-REUSE CAMPAIGN

 Environment, Sustainability  No Responses »
Aug 222010
 

My Phillips razor is 15 years old and still perfectly working. When I bought it the only thing I asked for is that I wanted a machine that works and lasts, for this I paid some extra money which has been largely paid off by not having to buy a new razor.

Yet, is this a good business for Phillips? There is a big problem for those companies who design things that last and can be repaired: the problem is that they risk selling less than those companies who design products to break and can’t be repaired. This is kafkian but this is how it is.

This is the reason that explains why when I go to buy the new shaving heads for my razor they charge me 42€. Yes, 42€!!! It is obvious that three shaving heads don’t cost 42€ but instead Phillips is charging me for not changing my razor. It would only cost me twice as much to get a new razor so why should I stick to my old one which happens to be working perfectly?

On the top of that; in how many places in Barcelona you think you can renew shaving heads for Phillips razors? Only in 1 place especialised in Phillips repairing!!! On the other hand you can guess that Phillips is selling its products in 100s of retailers and shopping malls but they only sell the renewed shaving heads in one place. Wouldn’t I be better off just buying a new razor in the shop next to my place and save all this headache? That’s what the companies would like!

This is just one of the examples I run into my everyday life when trying to be sustainable. In this case Phillips, which is not better or worst than any other company producing electric appliances, has only copied the same system it uses to sell printers –sell them cheap and charge the ink very expensive- to razors. Indeed they would be stupid if they wouldn’t because they could not compete with the other companies that would continue to cheat in their prices and their products. It is a perfectly designed unsustainable system.

As far as the market rewards building obsolescence in products companies such as Phillips can continue to proclaim their love for green economy and whatever other greenwashing statements. The truth is that they are just another brick in the wall of insustainability.

 Posted by admin at 18:59  Tagged with: , , ,

Lebanon – tourism in a dump

 Environment  1 Response »
Aug 162010
 

3 weeks touring around in Lebanon and one thing I can tell is that there is garbage everywhere. Coming from the west I thought Lebanon was one of the most advanced places in the arab world but the truth is that the reality does not match what the lebanese ministry of tourism is promoting abroad. There is a dramatic lack of infrastructure for everything but also for tourism and this is something important when the country wants to prortay itself as the jewel of the middle-east. Tourism is an industry whose capital is the environment and culture of a region. The culture of the peoples living in Lebanon is millenarian yet the environment is so degraded that for me it is enough reason to go spend the holidays somewhere else.
From the seaside to the mountains, from the valleys to the caves and from the cities to the villages everywhere there is waste sidelining the roads, the paths, the rivers and the buildings. Lebanon has no waste management system whatsoever and everything –be it glass bottles, metals, paper, etc…- ends up indiscriminately dumped anywhere.
In Tripoli, north of the country, if you visit the only Islands of the country –which happened to be protected by Unesco because of rare birds and turtles- you will find they have been turned into waste dumps. Families go there to spend the day and all they bring ends up dumped there. Even the former fishermen now employed bringing people to the Islands –no fish anymore- don’t mind throwing their trash into the water. The submarine wildlife is still remarkable and foreign to the inhumane behaviour on the islands but it is a matter of time before the fish and shells will be affected.
In Saida –the famous and ancient Sidon- they have been piling the rubbish next to the sea since decades until it reached a 4 story high. Two years ago it collapsed and half of the dump ended up in the water, only hundreds of meters away from the most famous tourist sites of the city and where the fisherman do their work.
Some years before, Hezbollah burnt down the only incinerator in the country because of the health impacts that this dirty technology was having on the neighbouring communities.
Neither dumps nor incinerators will do the work in a country without law and without government but which wants to be modern. Beirut appeared to me as the perfect example of bad copy of western society: high consumist and individualist attitude, the culture of showing off instead of investing in the being, liberalism for some whilst the people with dark skin can’t step into the beaches or swiming pools… but at the same time unsustainaibilty to the extreme; brand new SUVs and luxury cars blocking the roads and polluting the air, garbage everywhere, exhausted fish reserves, high energy and food dependency from outside when the country could be self-sufficient…
It is difficult to organise a country that is unstable by nature and in a constant state of semi-war. Yet this speaks in favour of a decentralised waste management system in which every village and community should manage its own rubbish. With a couple of tweaks the whole country could offer a completely different face to the world.

First; most of the waste in Lebanon (60%) is organic which means it could be used for compost to replenish the exhausted soils of the Bekaa Valley. This doesn’t need big infrastructure or investment and could easily be organised with a door-to-door separate collection system with assistance from other good practices.

Secondly the remaining waste is plastic, paper, glass and cans from beverages and plastic bags. The glass, metals and plastic could easily be recovered by re-introducing a deposit system (Lebanon had a well-functioning deposit system that is slowly dying in favour of the throw-away society) or just by paying an amount per kg for separately collected pile of paper, PET plastic, glass and metal. This would boost the recycling industry in the country, it would provide jobs to a part of the young and hopeless generation which now wanders around and it would clean the country so that tourists can enjoy visiting one of the craddles of civilisation.

There are lots of other measures that would be necessary and sooner or later someone will have to teach the young lebanese not to dump waste in the street but to these measures could be a good start.
At the moment Lebanon doesn’t have any waste law and the ministry of environment is trying to push forward a law with the help from NGOs. They will need all the help to clean up the country (“cleaning” in the widest sense).

 Posted by admin at 18:32  Tagged with: , , , ,

The Story of Cosmetics

 Environment, Europe english, Sustainability  No Responses »
Aug 122010
 

Another great contribution from Annie Leonard to help us understand the other side of “stuff”:

Yet another fantastic contradiction of our times: the fantastic creams and cosmetics that are supposed to make us look better in fact they are harming us… having said that; if we live in a world of coffee without cafeine, beer without alcohol, meat without fat, etc… wouldn’t if make sense to also consume cosmetics without toxics?

From an European perspective we can be proud that the European Union has been in the vanguard of safeguarding the consumers with the succesful REACH legislation. It also served as a wake-up call for the industry lobbies that since then have geared up and haven’t allowed the EU to score high in any other environmental legislation (IPPC, WFD, Renewables, etc…).

However, the fact that in Europe the companies are forced to state the ingredients of the cosmetics doesn’t mean that we are safe. It’s been years since I stopped using soaps and creams from the famous brands (except for suncream) and went back to authentic soaps that were used since the middle ages and the truth is that I can’t be happier with the results. But that´s another story… :-)

 Posted by admin at 11:33  Tagged with: , ,

HOW I MANAGED TO REDUCE WASTE BY HALF

 Brussels, Economics, Environment, Europe english  No Responses »
Apr 212010
 

Less than a year ago I participated in the 2h training course organised by Bruxelles-Environement in home vermi-composting and it really worked. Looking back to the time when I started to do home-compost, August 2009, I can confirm that the white bag (residual waste for Brussels) has been reduced by more than 50%.
The waste we produce is now so little that we only have to take it out once every two or three weeks!
If you live in an apartment and never heard about vermi-composting you probably think that keeping the garbage at home for 2 weeks must stink as hell… the truth is that it doesn’t because most of the things that stink are biodegradable and hence the worms will eat them without generating odours.

Doing vermi-composting is not difficult but it does require some time and commitment. However, it really pays off in understanding how and what we eat, the cycles of nature –even when living in the city- and in knowing that we are throwing away less stuff which would end up in the incinerator and hence emitting more CO2. Also the by-products of vermi-composting are soil fertilizer and compost which are better than commercial fertilizers and I use for my plants.
The only problem I have is that I produce a bit too much compost for my needs but this is easy to fix by just giving it to your neighbour.

One thing that surprised me is how much water and carbon is in our food; i.e. the worms turn 1kg of food waste into less than 50gr of compost and a bit of fertilizer. When I first harvested the compost it was 6 months after I started and I collected around less than 2kg of compost. Amazing…

If we look at the big picture we can see that in this last year in which I reduced my waste generation in more than 50% without much effort, the European Union continues to deliberate if compost is good or bad, better or worst than incineration, etc and still –after more than 10 years since it first considered it- doesn’t see the point in producing a Biowaste Directive. In the meantime gigatons of waste have been landfilled and incinerated and climate change goes on… it is a good indicator of who does the European Commission listen to when drafting legislation. One more example of how the EU rhetoric is contradicted by its actions: The sad “Do as I say (not as I do)” approach that we are used to.

At a local level, I could have waited for the city of Brussels to start a program of separate collection of organic waste so I wouldn’t need to organize the vermin-composting at home but knowing that the city is obliged to feed the incinerator for the next decades I know too well that this won’t happen.

Conclusion, if you care about climate change, environment and all these sort of things the best is if you start fixing it yourself with small things; by the time the EU or the city gets it right we might be under water.

 Posted by admin at 17:14  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Still drinking bottled water?

 Environment  1 Response »
Mar 222010
 

In Brussels I still run into friends who complain about tab-water -not daring to try it- and prefer driving to the supermarket to spend a good amount of money -and time- in buying the same water -sometimes with less quality- as they can get from the tap.

Both the flemish and walon water authorities declare that “L’eau est le produit alimentaire le plus contrôlé de Belgique et elle est analysée tous les jours dans des laboratoires” or  “L’eau du robinet est testée de manière minutieuse en vue de dépister les éléments comme le plomb, le sodium, le magnésium, les nitrates, les bactéries et divers autres éléments potentiellement dangereux”.

The american activist Annie Leonard has produced an excellent video explaining the economic interests behind bottled-water and how it becomes another example of  ”manufactured demand”:

Another issue is the growing trend to use water as a luxury good and appreciate the different taste and flavours of bottled water. In my opinion this is respectable because it is true that depending on the source the water has different taste and composition and for those who don’t drink wine or beer, matching food with water can be justifiable in some special occasions. Me, I can pay 20 euros for a bottle of wine but not for a bottle of water but I’m fine if others do it as long as the tap water remains good, available and at current prices.

However, as the video rightly points out, lots of the bottled water is a rip-off because they just bottle tap-water which creates this fake demand on a common good but it also is unfair competition with the real special bottled-water which truly offers a product worth paying extra money for.

On the other hand there are the huge amounts of waste (and emissions related to extraction, transport and disposal)  related to drinking bottled water but to get the full picture see the video.

It is funny how changing the business as usual that has created the climate and economic crisis can start with such a simple thing as drinking tap water: saving money, time and the planet!

Still drinking bottled water?

 Posted by admin at 10:31  Tagged with: , , ,

Linking climate change with social change – The experience of the Green revolution in the US

 Environment, Political campaining, Sustainability  No Responses »
Feb 132010
 
The Green revolution in the US
During this last week in Northern California I had the chance to check the pulse not only of the civil society groups but also of the political scene in the US and the most relevant thing I found is how the green movement is really kicking-off with a strong political agenda, very often linking green demands with social justice.
In Europe very often we dissociate green politics from social justice because this allows everybody to be green and trendy –even Barroso from the wheel of his SUV promotes green economy-. This is interesting. The ecological crisis, to a certain extend caused by a concrete economic model of production and consumption, is happening and the mainstream parties tend to see it as a mere technological reshuffling to convert the business as usual into a green business as usual.
There is another approach to the issue of climate change that because of the higher social equality in Europe I haven’t seen in the old continent and that is the social justice approach to climate change and the green economy. Using a politically neutral approach to the current crisis allows to apply technological changes without questioning who profited from the appropriation and exploitation of resources during last centuries. A social justice approach to the current crisis wants to link the problem of climate change to its social causes and impacts, namely; how those who suffer the most from failing states or failing ecosystems are those who profit the less from the economic progress.
Europeans tend to ignore or oversee this point. This is strategically good because it avoids social unrest and allows a civilised response. However this is a problem when dealing with the rest of the world because they have a different take on it. For instance during the Copenhagen summit the developing countries insisted in having Europeans (and north-americans) pay the ecological debt.
In the US, a highly fragmented society in racial, social and economic terms, more and more green movements are linking the green revolution with social demands. After all it is low-wage workers who work in the most polluting industries or live next to a hazardous waste incinerator. Since they are the ones who suffer the most from the wealth that the upper-middle class American families accumulate, it should not surprise anyone that this kind of local movements are growing strong. The reason why it is highly interesting to listen to them is because of the take they have on the green economy i.e.: they promote the real green solutions and do not hesitate bashing the greenwashing from the industry and the political stablishment about using nuclear power or burning waste to fight climate change.
The green revolution has to be linked with a social agenda that allows to decarbonise the economy whilst creating sustainable jobs and social equality. A lots of red-neck Americans call them green-communists. I think that their demands, albeit sometimes too populist, make a lot more sense than the greenwashing with which the industry and in consequence the European and national governments bomb us with everyday. Even what is considered to be quality media promote this greenwashing.
Below a video from Van Jones, one of the leaders of this movement in Oakland, California, founder of “Green for all” and former responsible for Green Jobs for the Obama government –before being target of the neo-cons who ousted him from Washington-. A good example to understand what is going on outside the old continent.

During this last week in Northern California I had the chance to check the pulse not only of the civil society groups but also of the political scene in the US and the most relevant thing I found is how the green movement is really kicking-off with a strong political agenda, very often linking green demands with social justice.

In Europe very often we dissociate green politics from social justice because this allows everybody to be green and trendy –even Barroso from the wheel of his SUV promotes green economy-. This is interesting. The ecological crisis, to a certain extend caused by a concrete economic model of production and consumption, is happening and the mainstream parties tend to see it as a mere technological reshuffling to convert the business as usual into a green business as usual.

There is another approach to the issue of climate change that because of the higher social equality in Europe I haven’t seen in the old continent and that is the social justice approach to climate change and the green economy. Using a politically neutral approach to the current crisis allows to apply technological changes without questioning who profited from the appropriation and exploitation of resources during last centuries. A social justice approach to the current crisis wants to link the problem of climate change to its social causes and impacts, namely; how those who suffer the most from failing states or failing ecosystems are those who profit the less from the economic progress.

Europeans tend to ignore or oversee this point. This is strategically good because it avoids social unrest and allows a civilised response. However this is a problem when dealing with the rest of the world because they have a different take on it. For instance during the Copenhagen summit the developing countries insisted in having Europeans (and north-americans) pay the ecological debt.

In the US, a highly fragmented society in racial, social and economic terms, more and more green movements are linking the green revolution with social demands. After all it is low-wage workers who work in the most polluting industries or live next to a hazardous waste incinerator. Since they are the ones who suffer the most from the wealth that the upper-middle class American families accumulate, it should not surprise anyone that this kind of local movements are growing strong. The reason why it is highly interesting to listen to them is because of the take they have on the green economy i.e.: they promote the real green solutions and do not hesitate bashing the greenwashing from the industry and the political stablishment about using nuclear power or burning waste to fight climate change.

The green revolution has to be linked with a social agenda that allows to decarbonise the economy whilst creating sustainable jobs and social equality. A lots of red-neck Americans call them green-communists. I think that their demands, albeit sometimes too populist, make a lot more sense than the greenwashing with which the industry and in consequence the European and national governments bomb us with everyday. Even what is considered to be quality media promote this greenwashing.

Below a video from Van Jones, one of the leaders of this movement in Oakland, California, founder of “Green for all” and former responsible for Green Jobs for the Obama government –before being target of the neo-cons who ousted him from Washington-. A good example to understand what is going on outside the old continent.

 Posted by admin at 8:52  Tagged with: , , ,

The most sustainable shopping in my life

 Brussels, Environment, Sustainability  2 Responses »
Jan 252010
 
The most sustainable shopping of my life
I never thought I would be writing about such a “simple” thing as going shopping but the experience I had this last weekend really deserves it.
My experience these days is that eating sustainable food has become a fulltime job and it is not cheap. If you go to a local market in Brussels it is possible to buy seasonal products and if you try even harder you can even find out where the products come from (but you are quite likely to go back with a good amount of one-use packaging).
During this last weekend that I spent in Tuscany I went to the most sustainable shop I’ve ever seen. In the shop Effecorta 80% of the products come from 70km around the Capannori municipality (aiming to get to 95%), many of them biological. But this is just the top of the iceberg; the shop adheres to the principle of Zero Waste and it doesn’t use any plastic bag or any non-reusable package. This is not only true for the tomatoes but also for soap, milk products, cosmetic creams, beer, wines, beans, rice, spices, salt, sugar… you name it! Everything they sell is in refillable, re-usable or/and biodegradable packaging.
This system:
- allows every buyer to buy according to its needs which minimises the waste eventually produced by normal packaged stuff and responsible for lots of food to be wasted (8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year), http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/about_food_waste
- saves us from having to check the source and composition of the products because you know they are all local and in most of the cases biological (time saving),
- contributes to minimise the waste generation at home (no waste packaging and a lot less food wasted).
Believe it or not because of what I explain above you end up spending (and buying) less than in a normal supermarket, even if you buy bio!
This initiative was started by 6 idealists from Tuscany in August 2009 and it has already achieved economic stability and from all the products, the sales of the biological products are increasing by a 20%.
A lot of people questioned in the beginning the quality of natural biological refillable soaps and others. For this reason the entrepreneurs gave to normal people (not the already convinced greeny) different soaps to try and in the end the customers decided to stay with the locally produced biological soap with the refillable packaging for pure practical and quality reasons. The customers of the shop are all kinds of people; the main aim being that this shop should be a normal shop of the future and not something strange thought for already aware people. I could see with my eyes that they are succeeding.
Personally, from all the amazing products I tried it surprised me a fantastic local beer, a really authentic wine (without sulfites!) and above all the fact of being in a shop without marketing; a shop where you see, smell and touch what you buy and not end up deciding according to the nice face on the packaging or anything except what matters. This reduces the bill because you get less distracted and you buy only what you need. How twisted can this society be when I can be surprised of being able to see what I buy?
Anyway, back to my cloudy Brussels now I can’t stop from wishing to have one day one of these shops close to my place. I know that there are other sustainable options in Brussels such as:
- the consumers cooperatives that I highly appreciate and value
- and  http://www.reason2.be/ which offers online shopping of seasonal food and even meat with free delivery. It is not a shop as such but a delivery service of mostly organic and local products.
Unfortunately people with jobs like mine can’t use either of these two options because they require a commitment and regularity that I just can’t guarantee with a job that obliges me to travel constantly. Plus they only provide vegetables, fruits and a little more whilst Effecorta offers almost everything you need at home.
If the world is to be sustainable one day Effecorta is the shop of the future.
http://www.effecorta.it/

JM Simon

I never thought I would be writing about such a “simple” thing as going shopping but the experience I had this last weekend really deserves it.

My experience these days is that eating sustainable food has become a fulltime job and it is not cheap. If you go to a local market in Brussels it is possible to buy seasonal products and if you try even harder you can even find out where the products come from (but you are quite likely to go back with a good amount of plastic bags and other kinds of packaging).

During this last weekend that I spent in Tuscany I went to the most sustainable shop I’ve ever seen. In the shop Effecorta 80% of the products come from 70km around the Capannori municipality (aiming to get to 95%), many of them biological. fotos EffecortaBut this is just the top of the iceberg; the shop adheres to the principle of Zero Waste and it doesn’t use any plastic bag or any non-reusable package. This is not only true for the tomatoes but also for soap, milk products, cosmetic creams, beer, wines, beans, rice, spices, salt, sugar… you name it! Everything they sell is in refillable, re-usable or/and biodegradable packaging.

This system:

- allows every buyer to buy according to its needs which minimises the waste eventually produced by normal packaged stuff and responsible for lots of food to be wasted (8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year),

- saves us from having to check the source and composition of the products because you know they are all local and in most of the cases biological (time saving),

- contributes to minimise the waste generation at home (no waste packaging and a lot less food wasted).

Believe it or not because of what I explain above you end up spending (and buying) less than in a normal supermarket, even if you buy bio!

This initiative was started by 6 idealists from Tuscany in August 2009 and it has already achieved economic stability and from all the products, the sales of the biological products are increasing by a 20%.

A lot of people questioned in the beginning the quality of natural biological refillable soaps and others. For this reason the entrepreneurs gave to normal people (not the already convinced greeny) different soaps to try and in the end the customers decided to stay with the locally produced biological soap with the refillable packaging for pure practical and quality reasons. The customers of the shop are all kinds of people; the main aim being that this shop should be a normal shop of the future and not something strange thought for already aware people. I could see with my eyes that they are succeeding.

Personally, from all the amazing products I tried it surprised me a fantastic local beer, a really authentic wine (without sulfites!) and above all the fact of being in a shop without marketing; a shop where you see, smell and touch what you buy and not end up deciding according to the nice face on the packaging or anything except what matters. This reduces the bill because you get less distracted and you buy only what you need. How twisted can this society be when I can be surprised of being able to see what I buy?

Anyway, back to my cloudy Brussels now I can’t stop from wishing to have one day one of these shops close to my place. I know that there are other sustainable options in Brussels such as:

- the consumers cooperatives that I highly appreciate and value

- and reason2.be which offers online shopping of seasonal food and even meat with free delivery. It is not a shop as such but a delivery service of mostly organic and local products.

Unfortunately people with jobs like mine can’t use either of these two options because they require a commitment and regularity that I just can’t guarantee with a job that obliges me to travel constantly. Plus they only provide vegetables, fruits and a little more whilst Effecorta offers almost everything you need at home.

If the world is to be sustainable one day Effecorta is the shop of the future.

foto effecorta 2

 Posted by admin at 11:00  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

The Ryanair Flying Circus

 Environment  No Responses »
Jan 242010
 
I was called to give a conference in Capannori, in Tuscany and unsurprisingly there was no other option than flying there. The train would have taken 14h each way (changing 4 times), cost 4 times as much and taken extra time to book the part of the trip that can be booked in the Belgian station (booking the trip online is close to impossible) and considering the reliability of the train system in Europe lately (link to Jon’s articles) a trip with more than 2 changes involving 3 countries is something that I couldn’t afford to risk. So far about European transnational networks.
So here I go with the fantastic Ryanair, paying 100eur for a return ticket (+ 26€ to get to Charleroi airport from Brussels) and contributing to global warming and global environmental and economical dumping by using a mode of transport that doesn’t pay taxes on fuels. Sadly enough, nothing new until here.
But it is good to always let the events surprise you! Ryanair is as famous for being one of the most punctual airlines in Europe as it is for having the worst labour working conditions (link to Wiego or whatever). My surprise comes from the fact that the 1,5h flight is a flying supermarket circus in which they start with selling hotdogs, hamburgers and drinks to later on move to selling tobacco (with the stewardess seductively walking up and down the corridor showing the cigarettes packages like in a fashion parade) to be followed by selling participations for a lottery for I don’t know which NGO to save I don’t know which children in I don’t which country and to conclude with a duty free with watches, perfumes…
All in all, a flying shopping mall promoting consumism up in the smoky clouds. How better can it get?

RyanairI was invited to give a conference in Capannori, in Tuscany and unsurprisingly there was no other option than flying there. The train would have taken 14h each way (changing 4 times), cost 4 times as much and taken extra time to go to book in the station. Note that the part of the trip that can be booked any the Belgian station (booking the trip online is impossible) and considering the reliability of the train system in Europe lately a trip with more than 2 changes involving 3 countries is something that you just don’t want to risk. So far about European transnational networks.

So here I go with the fantastic Ryanair, paying 100eur for a return ticket (+ 26€ to get to Charleroi airport from Brussels) and contributing to global warming and environmental and economical dumping by using a mode of transport that doesn’t pay taxes on fuels. Sadly enough, nothing new until here.

But it is good to always let the events surprise you! Ryanair is as famous for being one of the most punctual airlines in Europe as it is for having the worst labour working conditions, not displaying the complete prices or charging unreasonable charges to pay with debit or credit cards. My surprise comes from the fact that the 1,5h flight turns into a flying supermarket circus from the moment it takes off. They start with selling hotdogs, hamburgers and drinks, they continue with tobacco advertising and selling (with the stewardess seductively walking up and down the corridor showing the cigarettes packages like in a fashion parade) followed by selling participations for a lottery for I don’t know which NGO to save I don’t know which children in I don’t which country and the flight concludes with a duty free with watches, perfumes…

All in all, a flying shopping mall promoting consumerism up in the clouds. How better can it get?

 Posted by admin at 16:38  Tagged with: , ,

Good news from Copenhagen: how a colossal failure opens new doors to reform

 Environment, world governance  No Responses »
Dec 212009
 
I have to admit that this time our politicians surprised me (which is something very difficult to do). Having spent last week in Copenhagen and last years following climate change negotiations I could have never expected that our politicians could have dared to craft such a disastrous non-existing deal. I just couldn’t even dream that they could be so bad.
Years and years of meetings and negotiations between more than 150 countries have been wasted and in the end US and China decided that the rest of the world can go to hell and decided to pull the hand-break. Copenhagen is an amazingly fabulous failure; a betrayal to the purpose our politicians are elected for.
This exercise of prepotence and dismissal from the US and China towards the rest of the world will have deadly impacts in the trust in international multilateral negotiations. I analyse this in a former post of mine.
But this colossal failure has the potential of bringing to the stage a major problem to which nobody wanted to pay attention to: the way negotiations take place are key to understand why the outcome has been nothing but a waste of time, resources and trust (link a l’article sobre trust I climate change). The UNFCCC is not the right institutional setting to deliver the appropriate decisions and provide its implementation and enforcement.
It was very sad to see that during the negotiations the “relevant” countries were negotiating among themselves bypassing the other countries –even the EU!- and even the UN, the facilitator of the whole thing, didn’t know what was going on.
The UNFCCC has lost all credibility as manager of international relations to fight climate change.
The role of the UNFCCC right now can be compared with the League of Nations during the years preceding the WWII, when Hitler was occupying Austria and Czecoslovaquia the other nations were wasting their time in the multilateral talks in the League of Nations. Menawhile, Hitler and Mussolini were fooling Chamberlain and Daladier in bilateral negotiations. This is why the European Union was created after WWII; as a result of the experience that integration works but cooperation clearly doesn’t. If we want the world to be able to face the threats of Climate Change it needs to integrate and that can only be done by creating global democratic and accountable institutions where the world interest is represented. To know more about the details go here.
Once again Copenhagen has demonstrated that the sum of the national interests is very far from delivering the world interest. It is hence vital that we build institutions that allow the world interest to be represented. A first step in this direction would be to constitute a “world parliament” in line with what the UNPA demands (link to Leinen’s declarations). The second step would require the reform of the world financial institutions (IMF and World Bank) so that they can levy taxes and democratically administer a budget aiming at reducing emissions. The third step would be the creation of a kind of a world government (replacing the security council) charged with the mission to deal with the crisis situations that climate change is causing.
Some environmentalists like Lester Brown argued that the problem is so immediate and huge that we don’t have time to reform the world institutions; we only have time to act! Well, the result of Copenhagen proves them wrong. These are the sad good news to be learnt from the Copenhagen failure.
Obama can’t save the world, neither can the EU nor China. The world can only be saved if we act together, and we can’t act together in the frame of UNFCCC. It is mandatory that UNFCCC is abandoned –it is no longer trusted big majority of the countries- and a new setting is created, a setting capable of providing democratic and accountable results. It is the time for world democracy! I know it is difficult to have world democracy stemming from non democratic countries but no matter how imperfect it can be, it won’t deliver less than the last 2 years of negotiations of UNFCCC.
UNFCCC is deadI have to admit that this time our politicians surprised me (which is something very difficult to do). Having spent last week in Copenhagen and last years following climate change negotiations I could have never expected that our politicians could have dared to craft such a disastrous non-existing deal. I just couldn’t even dream that they could be so bad.
Years and years of meetings and negotiations between more than 150 countries have been wasted and in the end US and China decided that the rest of the world can go to hell and decided to pull the hand-break. Copenhagen is an amazingly fabulous failure; a betrayal to the purpose our politicians are elected for.
This exercise of prepotence and dismissal from the US and China towards the rest of the world will have deadly impacts in the trust in international multilateral negotiations. I analyse this in a former post of mine.
But this colossal failure has the potential of bringing to the stage a major problem to which nobody wanted to pay attention to: the way negotiations take place are key to understand why the outcome has been nothing but a waste of time, resources and trust. The UNFCCC is not the right institutional setting to deliver the appropriate decisions and provide its implementation and enforcement.
It was very sad to see that during the negotiations the “relevant” countries were negotiating among themselves bypassing the other countries –even the EU!- and even the UN, the facilitator of the whole thing, didn’t know what was going on.

The UNFCCC has lost all credibility as manager of international relations to fight climate change.

The role of the UNFCCC right now can be compared with the League of Nations during the years preceding the World War II, when Hitler was occupying Austria and Czecoslovaquia the other nations were wasting their time in the multilateral talks in the League of Nations. Menawhile, Hitler and Mussolini were fooling Chamberlain and Daladier in bilateral negotiations. This is why the European Union was created after WWII; as a result of the experience that integration works but cooperation clearly doesn’t. If we want the world to be able to face the threats of Climate Change it needs to integrate and that can only be done by creating global democratic and accountable institutions where the world interest is represented. To know more about the details go here.
Once again Copenhagen has demonstrated that the sum of the national interests is very far from delivering the world interest. It is hence vital that we build institutions that allow the world interest to be represented. A first step in this direction would be to constitute a “world parliament” in line with what the UNPA demands . The second step would require the reform of the world financial institutions (IMF and World Bank) so that they can levy taxes and democratically administer a budget aiming at reducing emissions. The third step would be the creation of a kind of a world government (replacing the security council) charged with the mission to deal with the crisis situations that climate change is causing.
Some environmentalists like Lester Brown argued that the problem is so immediate and huge that we don’t have time to reform the world institutions; we only have time to act! Well, the result of Copenhagen proves them wrong. These are the sad good news to be learnt from the Copenhagen failure.
Obama can’t save the world, neither can the EU nor China. The world can only be saved if we act together, and we can’t act together in the frame of UNFCCC. It is mandatory that UNFCCC is abandoned –it is no longer trusted big majority of the countries- and a new setting is created, a setting capable of providing democratic and accountable results. It is the time for world democracy! I know it is difficult to have world democracy stemming from a mix of democratic and non democratic countries but no matter how imperfect it can be, it won’t deliver less than the last 2 years of negotiations of UNFCCC.
 Posted by admin at 1:50  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Rewarded to destroy wealth? Recycling has higher social return than banking

 Economics, Environment  No Responses »
Dec 162009
 

Photo: Dave Ciplet

There are lots of new approaches about how economics should be reformed in order to allow prices to tell the truth, internalising future or environmental costs, integrating scarcity in the equation, new indicators of wealth, etc.  All these topics which might have looked revolutionary or idealist not too long ago are not provocative anymore for many.

However I run into a report about a new approach in looking at the value of work which struck me. A study by NEF in which they look at how much the different professions are paid in comparison to how much they contribute to society it concludes that whereas waste recycling workers they generate 12 pounds for every pound they are paid, bankers destroy 11 pounds worth of value for every pound in value they generate. Yet in our economic system those who destroy wealth are rewarded with huge salaries and those who create it receive minimum wages.

I love it when common sense competes with economics even though the former always loses…

Worth a read:

Waste recycling workers do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced when goods are recycled instead of sending them to incineration or landfill. There is also a value in reusing goods, and we have included this in our model. Our model projects that for every £1 of value spent on wages, £12 of value will be generated.
High-earning investment bankers in the City of London are among the best remunerated people in the economy. But the earnings they command and the profits they make come at a huge cost because of the damaging social effects of the City of London’s financial activities. We found that rather than being ‘wealth creators’, these City bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse. While collecting salaries of between £500,000 and £10 million, leading City bankers to destroy £7 of social value for every pound in value they generate.
Although the role of an advertising executive has high status, the impact of the industry has always been a point of controversy. It encourages high consumer spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. In our economic model we estimate the share of social and environmental damage caused by overconsumption that is attributable to advertising. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12 million, top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate.

Waste recycling workers do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced when goods are recycled instead of sending them to incineration or landfill. There is also a value in reusing goods, and we have included this in our model. Our model projects that for every £1 of value spent on wages, £12 of value will be generated.


High-earning investment bankers in the City of London are among the best remunerated people in the economy. But the earnings they command and the profits they make come at a huge cost because of the damaging social effects of the City of London’s financial activities. We found that rather than being ‘wealth creators’, these City bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse. While collecting salaries of between £500,000 and £10 million, leading City bankers to destroy £7 of social value for every pound in value they generate.


Although the role of an advertising executive has high status, the impact of the industry has always been a point of controversy. It encourages high consumer spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. In our economic model we estimate the share of social and environmental damage caused by overconsumption that is attributable to advertising. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12 million, top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate.

 Posted by admin at 1:00  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Climate Change and the will to exist

 Environment, Political campaining, world governance  No Responses »
Dec 092009
 

If I take a step back to look at the historical moment we find ourselves in, I have to say that the negotiations in Copenhagen are different than any other negotiations I’ve ever assisted to.
Political negotiations are about compromise between the parts, it is about agreeing on the kind of grey that will rubberstamp the agreement. Survival negotiations are not negotiations; they are black or white. In Copenhagen there are two kinds of people; those who take this as a political negotiation and those who take this as a survival decision. Needless to say, a compromise will be more than difficult.

But, as I said, I wanted to look at this with a certain distance; humankind finds it self in a religious moment, in a purely philosophically existential dilemma, in a maturity test, in a “to be or not to be” situation…

We are in a religious moment because the world is about to “flood” for a second time (according to the old testament), the “sinners” have been warned by science (!) that if we continue with our life-style, with the business as usual, we will be flooded. Fair enough. The human race didn’t listen to the warnings of God the first time, the earth was flooded but God gave us a second chance. If we prove again that we are incapable of listening, of taking action to save ourselves… why should nature (or God for that matter) gives us another chance?

We are in a philosophical existential dilemma because as a race, as the big herd that we are, we have to choose between survival and extinction. The evolution of our philosophy has produced a society built on the basis of individuals, with irrational and artificially created material needs, and in which short term profit is put before the preservation of the species. Our philosophical evolution has also equipped us with phantastic logic reasoning, common sense, prudence. What will prevail?

We are in a maturity test because nature is testing our sociological and psicological evolution as a “team” to see if we are ready to survive as a whole or we rather prefer to test our luck. This means that blinded by the short term profit we chose to play our long term existence in a Russian roulette which in the best case will mean the sacrifice of some of us for the sake of the rest but which in 9 out of 10 cases means the disappearance of us all.

It is a “to be or not to be” situation because we have to take a common decision to “be”; to “exist”. Even if climate change would be an invention what is at stake in Copenhagen negotiation is the trust in ourselves as human beings beyond our national borders. If the developed and most polluting countries chose to abandon the developing countries with another treachery compromise the situation will deteriorate and the trust gap will increase. The south will become more and more suspicious about the north; whatever is left of trust will evaporate. And lack of trust in the team is the root of serious and long-lasting conflict.

Sadly, the text leaked today in which Denmark, US and UK worked behind all the other countries is a perfect example of how to destroy confidence with an otherwise very logical short-sighted move from the developped countries.

As redundant as it might sound humankind can only get out of this as a team… Today in Copenhagen I could see Africans screaming and crying out of rage, desertification is literally killing them. It is the second day and this risks getting emotional. Emotions? That animal instinct?

In my opinion the only way we will get anything useful out of Copenhagen is if our repressed animal instinct comes out and we make the irrational decision that “YES! Even though it will cost us money, sacrifice, power, you name it we still want to take the irrational decision to exist.”
Will we be that illogical? I doubt it…

 Posted by admin at 1:30  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Dirty tricks in Climate negotiations

 Environment, world governance  No Responses »
Dec 072009
 
The US has been giving the impression that they were taking the climate change negotiations more seriously than in previous times. And they do. To the extend of influencing the composition of the delegations that other countries are sending to the COP15 in Copenhagen so that they can get their way easily by taking out those negotiatiors known to be a pain.
The ultimate example of this sabotage strategy is the “coincidence” of the visit of US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton to the Philippines with the destitution of Bernardita de Castro Muller as climate-change advisor of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and coordinator for the G77 (group of the 77 development countries) and China Group in the climate-change talks.
Bernadita has been one of the main responsibles that the heterogeneous group of G77+China managed to articulate a strong and united message that tells the inconvenient truths that the developed countries don’t want to hear. Hence, the US thought it would be a good idea to get her out of the way so that the Copenhagen talks can be more “peaceful”. The 20 years experienced diplomat and her whole team were removed from the Philippine delegation, which at the same time left the G77+China without spokesperson.
The surprise came when right before the negotiations the Sudan delegation announced that Bernadita de Castro Muller would be representing the country which happens to chair the G77. Other members of her team appeared representing countries such as Bolivia. The “Ditas” team was back in the game!
The Philippino government made a fool of itself when it came out that the US strategy to behead the G77+China backfired and as Muller declared: “By serving as the negotiator for Sudan/G77, we will all be proving a point to the Annex 1 countries. Vulnerable countries, despite their “vulnerability”, can and will stand as one and be strong for each other and for the entire humanity.”
The US and the EU have been repeatedly trying to torpedo the unity of the developing world so that they can continue polluting whist at the same time even manage to make some money out of it. The old “divide and rule” tactic is being used over and over again.
It is true that the G77 is extremely heterogeneous and that countries like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are radically different than countries such as Ruanda or Bangladesh but it is also true that the only way the G77+China can push the US and the EU to face its responsibilities is by staying together and acting as one. Having the experienced Bernardita Muller back in the negotiations, despite the efforts of the Americans to get her out of the way, will definitely help to bring in realism to Copenhagen.

Rich countries pay your climate debtThe US has been giving the impression that they were taking the climate change negotiations more seriously than in previous times. And they do. To the extend of influencing the composition of the delegations that other countries are sending to the COP15 in Copenhagen so that they can get their way easily by taking out those negotiatiors known to be a pain.

The ultimate example of this sabotage strategy is the “coincidence” of the visit of US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton to the Philippines with the destitution of Bernardita de Castro Muller as climate-change advisor of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and coordinator for the G77 (group of the 77 development countries) and China Group in the climate-change talks.

Bernadita has been one of the main responsibles that the heterogeneous group of G77+China managed to articulate a strong and united message that tells the inconvenient truths that the developed countries don’t want to hear. Hence, the US thought it would be a good idea to get her out of the way so that the Copenhagen talks can be more “peaceful”. The 20 years experienced diplomat and her whole team were removed from the Philippine delegation, which at the same time left the G77+China without spokesperson.

The surprise came when right before the negotiations the Sudan delegation announced that Bernadita de Castro Muller would be representing the country which happens to chair the G77. Other members of her team appeared representing countries such as Bolivia. The “Ditas” team was back in the game!

The Philippino government made a fool of itself when it came out that the US strategy to behead the G77+China backfired and as Muller declared: “By serving as the negotiator for Sudan/G77, we will all be proving a point to the Annex 1 countries. Vulnerable countries, despite their “vulnerability”, can and will stand as one and be strong for each other and for the entire humanity.”

The US and the EU have been repeatedly trying to torpedo the unity of the developing world so that they can continue polluting whist at the same time even manage to make some money out of it. The old “divide and rule” tactic is being used over and over again.

It is true that the G77 is extremely heterogeneous and that countries like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are radically different than countries such as Ruanda or Bangladesh but it is also true that the only way the G77+China can push the US and the EU to face its responsibilities is by staying together and acting as one. Having the experienced Bernardita Muller back in the negotiations, despite the efforts of the Americans to get her out of the way, will definitely help to bring in realism to Copenhagen.

 Posted by admin at 22:19  Tagged with: , , , ,

Climate Change and the Story of a Distraction

 Environment, world governance  No Responses »
Dec 012009
 

Copenhagen negotiations are starting in one week and everything is set for the big show of business bullying the world, fantastic magical solutions and great speeches.
All in all a lot of distraction from what is really the problem:
1- How to effectively reduce emissions
2- How to change the business as usual in the scale proposed by Lester Brown in Plan B 3.0

All the rest is mainly distractions. The video below is an excellent and understandable explanation of what is important and what is superfluous about the historical negotiations we are about to assist to:

 Posted by admin at 9:47  Tagged with: , , , , ,

SEPARATING ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: THE RIGHT WAY TO KILL EITHER OF THEM?

 Environment, Europe english  2 Responses »
Nov 282009
 
In its new European Commission JM Barroso has decided to separate environment from Climate Change; Environment portfolio goes to Janez Potocnik (Slovenia), who wad Research in the last Commission, the new ‘Climate Action’ nominee is Connie Hedegaard from Denmark.
Is this the result of member states short-sightedness and not understanding the system when amending the Constitutional treaty so that the new Lisbon treaty would have an European Commission (representing the European interest) with 27 commissioners?
Could be…
But what is for sure is that Barroso is using this illogical increase in the name of portfolios to divide and rule. It is understandable, this is politics.
The field of Environment has been a pain during the last 5 years; one of the policy fields that more legislation has produced, that more cases has brought in front of the European Court of Justice and with one of the stronger commissioners: Stavros Dimas.
Stavros Dimas, outgoing Environment Commissioner, has been one of the positive surprises of the last commission. Nobody expected the greek conservative to take environment seriously, hence he was the perfect candidate to keep Environment low profile. This didn’t work and luckily for the environment he has been a pain; he has never hesitated in contradicting his president and the member states.
But Barroso is learning; he doesn’t want to have a strong profile on Environment (remember his cutting red-tape obsession) so he separated Environment from Climate Change first and then put Potocnik, a profile with proven record of uncontroversiality, ahead of it. This should help him keep things under control…
But is this good for Europe? The problem with separating dossiers is that when producing policy it is often the case that different DGs of the Commission produce contradictory policies. For instance; the industry DG deciding push for more cars when environment DG says we should have less or Environment DG deciding on policies that reduce employment, contradicting what is preached by DG Employment.
So far, it has been very useful (and logical) to have Environment DG dealing with climate change because it assured that all environmental policies were intended to fight climate change. This might seem obvious but it is not. Even now DG environment has promoted legislation that does not help to fight climate change. For instance; instead of pushing for recycling the EU is effectively promoting incineration. The argument of climate change was useful to make the case that destroying resources and having to start with extraction and production cycle again is worst than recycling. Still the EU chose incineration because of one more example of the power of industrial lobbies. This is one of the exceptions, but generally speaking DG Environment has been consistent in policies that link environmental protection with climate change.
By splitting the Enviroment portfolio and giving it to low profilers we will have more examples of uncoordinated action to fight climate change. More contradiction means less action, less action means less trouble. We can continue to play the role of the naked emperor with the aggravation of using climate change as an excuse to justify anything, even what is not good for the environment. There is a danger that the new Climate Action DG might become the newest greenwashing tool at supranational level.
Barroso is showing he is willing to manage power and it is to be welcomed that he is now taking own decisions under his sole responsibility. But is this emergence of a real head of the European executive good for the environment and, at the end of the day, good for Europe?

climate change heartIn its new European Commission JM Barroso has decided to separate environment from Climate Change; Environment portfolio goes to Janez Potocnik (Slovenia), who wad Research in the last Commission, the new ‘Climate Action’ nominee is Connie Hedegaard from Denmark.

Is this the result of member states short-sightedness and not understanding the system when amending the Constitutional treaty so that the new Lisbon treaty would have an European Commission (representing the European interest) with 27 commissioners?

Could be…

But what is for sure is that Barroso is using this illogical increase in the name of portfolios to divide and rule. It is understandable, this is politics.

The field of Environment has been a pain during the last 5 years; one of the policy fields that more legislation has produced, that more cases has brought in front of the European Court of Justice and with one of the stronger commissioners: Stavros Dimas.

Stavros Dimas, outgoing Environment Commissioner, has been one of the positive surprises of the last commission. Nobody expected the greek conservative to take environment seriously, hence he was the perfect candidate to keep Environment low profile. This didn’t work and luckily for the environment he has been a pain; he has never hesitated in contradicting his president and the member states.

But Barroso is learning; he doesn’t want to have a strong profile on Environment (remember his cutting red-tape obsession) so he separated Environment from Climate Change first and then put Potocnik, a profile with proven record of uncontroversiality, ahead of it. This should help him keep things under control…

But is this good for Europe? The problem with separating dossiers is that when producing policy it is often the case that different DGs of the Commission produce contradictory policies. For instance; the industry DG deciding push for more cars when environment DG says we should have less or Environment DG deciding on policies that reduce employment, contradicting what is preached by DG Employment.

So far, it has been very useful (and logical) to have Environment DG dealing with climate change because it assured that all environmental policies were intended to fight climate change. This might seem obvious but it is not. Even now DG environment has promoted legislation that does not help to fight climate change. For instance; instead of pushing for recycling the EU is effectively promoting incineration. The argument of climate change was useful to make the case that destroying resources and having to start with extraction and production cycle again is worst than recycling. Still the EU chose incineration because of one more example of the power of industrial lobbies. This is one of the exceptions, but generally speaking DG Environment has been consistent in policies that link environmental protection with climate change.

By splitting the Enviroment portfolio and giving it to low profilers we will have more examples of uncoordinated action to fight climate change. More contradiction means less action, less action means less trouble. We can continue to play the role of the naked emperor with the aggravation of using climate change as an excuse to justify anything, even what is not good for the environment. There is a danger that the new Climate Action DG might become the newest greenwashing tool at supranational level.

Barroso is showing he is willing to manage power and it is to be welcomed that he is now taking own decisions under his sole responsibility. But is this emergence of a real head of the European executive good for the environment and, at the end of the day, good for Europe?

 Posted by admin at 10:28  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

ECONOMY – ECOLOGY = 0

 Economics, Environment  No Responses »
Nov 262009
 

Filipines - ManilaJust came back from the Philippines and I could see with my own eyes a very clear example of how the environment is the basis of the economy.

Manila suffered severe floods a month ago: 4 typhoons visited the archipelago and almost all the city (20million hab) was flooded.  Water and mud reached three-stories high. This might sound like the typical climate change story (and it partly is): unusual intense rains blocked the sewers, not used to such big flows. However, the fact is that when being there I could see how the high intensity of torrential waters was only responsible for 50% of the damage; the truth is that sewers were blocked by the huge amounts of waste, mainly plastic bags, dumped in the streams across the city. If the damage that these plastic bags caused had been included in their prices they would have been so expensive that they had not been able to be sold. The price of the plastic bags only reflected part of the cost of production but in no way its environmental cost.

On the top of that, the mud that covered the city was dragged by the waters from the hills surrounding the city. This had not happened in the past because the forests were keeping the soils in place (40 years ago similar storms struck Manila but the mud stayed in the hills) . During the last 20 years all these trees have been cut to build residential complexes and gulf fields. It is now clear that those trees, because of its function, had a lot higher value than what economists and developers thought and what prices reflected. And the top of the paradox is that those paying most of the price of removing the trees are now the poor people living downtown who have seen their households covered with mud. Those who live in the hills only paid a marginal cost for cutting the trees.

All in all; man-made climate change, man-produced plastic bags and forests cut by men are all three the living demonstration of bad economics. The prices didn’t tell the truth; most of the costs (that should have been included in the price) were to be paid after the products were sold and the profit was made by some whilst costs had to be shouldered by many.

Economic theory is useful to nurture philosophical discussions and make one’s ego feel good but seeing with my eyes the effects of getting things wrong (and it’s been 200 years of bad economics) is as humbling as it is infuriating. Being “green” is not a trend, not even a matter of political choice; it is about understanding that the real meaning of economics is the efficient management of today’s and future’s resources in a world of scarcity.

 Posted by admin at 14:04  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

CRONIQUES FILIPETES

 Environment, Viatges  No Responses »
Nov 252009
 
CRONIQUES FILIPETES
00.30h Dimarts 17 Novembre 2009, aterro a Manila despres de mes de 20i-tantes hores de viatge. Arribo a l’hotel a les 2AM amb una dosis de jet-lag considerable. Nit en blanc que s’acaba rapid perque per sort, o per desgracia, el programa del dia comenca d’hora. Retrobo amics de la xarxa Zero Waste d’arreu del planeta per esmorzar i acte seguit els organitzadors filipins ens coloquen en un autobus per anar a visitar una escola.
A l’escola ens reben a la hawaiana, amb collarets de flors, discursos… els professors de l’escola ens fan el passadis a l’entrada del pavello on ens hi esperen mes de 1000 (!!!) alumnes. La trobada comenca amb una pregaria (aqui tot comenca amb pregaries) en que es demana a Jesucrist que ens ajudi en la gestio de residus. No se si aquesta era la seva especialitzacio pero qualsevol ajuda es benvinguda sobretot si ve del cel. Segueix l’himne de Filipines i despres ens presenten a la delegacio d’internacionals com si fossim estrelles del rock. Flipo.
Despres dels nostres discursos ens obsequien am danses locals la musica de la qual recorda moltissim a la musica mariachi, els gestos a una jota i les cançons acaben amb un “ole!” general. El que poden fer tres segles d’ocupació espanyola!
Filipines va ser “descoberta” pels espanyols l’any 1571  i el nom de filipines ve del rei Felip II que reinava aleshores en aquell fantastic imperi “en el que no se pone el sol”. Els espanyols van ocupar l’archipelag durant 4 segles, imposant la religio catolica pero en aquest cas no la llengua. El 1898 els americans van fer fora les restes de l’imperi espanyol i s’hi van estar fins al 1946. D’aqui el fet que els filipins parlin molt be l’angles, l’educacio sigui bastant a l’americana i tot estigui senyalitzat en angles. La llengua local es el tagalog, el dialecte majoritari, pero hi ha unes 180 altres llengües indigenes aixi com el xines, de sempre les filipines han tingut colonies de comerciants xinesos, i l’arab que es parla cap al sud, reminiscencia de quan els arabs controlaven els mars fa uns mil anys.
Tornant a l’escola: els 1000 alumnes entomen les presentacions sobre el tema de gestio de residus, la importancia de separar, reciclar i compostar, etc amb un interes sorprenent i per les seves intervencions es pot veure que el tema no es gens nou per a ells. Es ben trist que aquesta gent que no te gairebe res (a nivell material), sapiga i es preocupi mes pel medi ambient que nosaltres que som els que portem mes de 100 anys promovent  destruccio mediambiental, consumisme i que, al cap i a la fi, ens estem carregant el seu futur… Esta clar que la justicia no s’imposara per si sola.
Despres de l’escola anem a visitar l’alcalde de Manila a l’ajuntament. Ens rep la banda municipal amb honors d’ambaixadors. La trobada es d’allo mes interessant. L’alcalde –un ex-general- es sorprenentment receptiu i coneix el problema dels residus i llur relacio amb la inmundicia i la pobresa. Companys de sud-africa i la India li donen consells que son molt ben rebuts pels gestors municipals i pel mateix alcalde.
Mes tard ens reunim amb el vice-alcalde de nomes 35 anys que el primer que ens diu es que ell coneix el tema dels residus molt be perque dels 9 als 15 anys va haver de fer de drapaire per a sobreviure, despres va compaginar l’escola amb fer de taxista a pedals i d’alla es va aconseguir muntar la seva campanya per a ser elegit i vet-el aqui amb 35 anys i essent la segona maxima autoritat en una ciutat de 20 milions d’habitants. Coneix la pobresa i la importancia del sector informal en el reciclatge i ens entenem la mar de be. Comentem entre la delegacio internacional la diferencia en coneixement del tema entre els politics a Europa o als EEUU i aquests de països menys “desenvolupats”.
Una cosa esta clara: La politica –sigui democratica o no- funciona quan els politics tenen els ciutadans al darrera. Com hem vist a Catalunya, a Espanya i mes enlla, de seguida que els politics nomes tenen diners i empreses al darrera no nomes explota la corrupcio sino que la credibilitat del sistema es desmorona i els ciutadans es comencen a preguntar per a que paguen impostos. A Filipines la societat civil es ben viva i ben propera als politics cosa que ajuda a que el seu rudimentari sistema democratic funcioni.
Despres de l’exitosa trobada a l’ajuntament ens porten a l’aeroport on volem cap a la illa de Palawan, al bell mig de les filipines. Arribem a Puerto Princesa, la capital, on ens hi estarem una setmana en un simposi nacional sobre la gestio alternativa de residus. La ciutat no s’ha triat a l’atzar. Es un dels exponents del desenvolupament sostenible a Filipines. 20 anys enrera les Filipines tenien un 90% del pais cobert de boscos i selves, a l’actualitat la tala d’arbres per a l’exportacio i per a fer lloc a l’agricultura ha reduït la superficie arborea a un 12%. L’illa de Palawan es la unica que ha augmentat llur massa forestal (60%). Des dels 90s que basen el seu desenvolupament en la sostenibilitat mediambiental; prohibicio de talar arbres, proteccio d’especies animals i tribus indigenes, agricultura organica… El seu alcalde ens explica com aquesta aposta els ha permes creixer economicament i invertir en educacio i mes desenvolupament sostenible. L’alcalde es un altre exemple d’heroi local i mireu si ha anat lluny que ha imposat a totes les parelles que es casin que despres del casament plantin un arbre.
El temps s’ha encarregat de demostrar que aixo de plantar arbres i conservar ecosistemes no es un caprici del moviment hippy sino la base per a una economia amb futur; a Manila ho van patir a la carn quan un mes enrera el 80% de la metropolis es va inundar per culpa dels 4 tifons que van visitar l’illa. L’aigua i el fang van arribar a 3 pisos d’altura i al nord del pais es va emportar per davant la collita anual d’arros just abans de la collita (en un pais en que es menja arros per esmorzar, dinar i sopar i es la base de la dieta). Ara s’han adonat que si no haguessin talat boscos sencers dels turons de la periferia per a construir-hi zones residencials i camps de golf, els boscos haurien pogut aturar les riades de fang que van inundar camps i ciutats. A mes, es veu que la meitat de la culpa de la inundacio de Manila es de les bosses de plastic que s’acumulen en els rierols i que van bloquejar les clavegueres impedint el drenatge. Un desastre. Vet aqui un exemple clarissim de com l’ecologia es la base de l’economia i els que planifiquen l’economia sense tenir en compte principis de sostenibilitat mediambiental estan construint un edifici sense fonaments que fa anys que no para d’esfondrar-se.
Vaig a sopar amb amics filipins a un restaurant tipic. Bevem aigua de coco i mengem peixos locals rarissims. La cuina filipina es riquissima. No mengen pa, nomes arros per tot i a tot hora. Tindre temps de cansar-me’n.
Dimecres18 Novembre
Els amics filipins em proposen d’anar visitar illes properes pel mati. Ens llevem a les 5AM i saltem en unes motos amb sidecar en els que s’hi poden encabir fins a 5 persones i que son el metode de transport a l’illa. Lentes, pero segures.
Anem amb aquests sidecars fins a un port on hi lloguem unes barques d’aquestes polinesies amb bambus estabilitzadors a cada costat. Salpem amb la sortida del sol despres d’haver esmorzat arros amb tonyina. Pasarem el mati visitant illes on podem fer capbusades i observar-ne el corall i una gran varietat de peixos, cloïsses, estrelles de mar i altres coses rares. Un peix particularment curios es un de verd, quadrat i amb banyes que es veu que s’infla quan se li fa no se que. Rarissim.
Feia temps que no veia tanta varietat i riquesa marina. Fins i tot em trobo amb el peix “clown”, el Nemo de la pelicula! Per desgracia molt dels coralls son morts per culpa de la pesca amb dinamita que es practicava abans i que encara de forma ilegal algun pescador fa servir. Hi ha cada troglodita…
(Es fantastic aixo d’estar a 25 graus a ple sol, capbussant-me en aigües calides a finals de novembre!)
Per la tarda tornem cap a Puerto Princesa on comença la trobada.
Sopem amb l’alcalde de Puerto Princesa que ens explica lo ve que li ha anat a l’illa per haver apostat per la sostenibilitat des de fa 15 anys. Un tio molt dinamic. Despres indigenes de l’illa ens fan una demostracio de danses tradicionals.
Dijous 19 Novembre
Ens passem tot el dia de simposi. A la conferencia hi participen uns 1.000 participants vinguts de tot el pais, hi ha alcaldes, politics, religiosos, mestres, gestors, filosofs, estudiants d’instituts… deu ni do!
L’ambient a la trobada es molt bo i parlo molt amb els participants filipins que s’interesen en la situacio dels residus a Europa i em meravellen amb les seves experiencies que, sovint sense recursos, duen a terme. El Romualdo per exemple m’explica com a l’escola on treballa (barri pobre) els alumnes aprenen a fabricar el seu propi paper reciclat, a fer compostatge i com els alumnes poden pagar part de la matricula portant materials per reciclar de casa que l’escola els hi compra a preu de mercat. Han aconseguit reduir els residus en un 90% i la repercusio d’educacio els fills per a que aquests eduquin els seus pares ja es deixa veure al barri.
Vaig a sopar amb els meus amics filipins que em porten a un lloc tradicional on l’aperitiu son cucs en una mena d’escabetx. En tasto un, te un regust a ostres pero la textura i el fet de saber que aquesta cosa llargaruda (10cm) i viscosa que tinc a la boca es un cuc em regira l’estomac una mica. S’ha de provar de tot en aquesta vida.
Divendres 20 Novembre
Esmorzo el meu peix amb arros i vaig cap al simposi. De cami em trobo amb un grup de monges que participen a la trobada. Hi parlo. Quan saben d’on vinc em recorden els temps de l’ocupacio espanyola i em demostren que saben algunes paraules en castella (de fet, la llengua oficial filipina, el tagalog, te moltes paraules en castella) comencen amb “abrelatas”, “puerta”, “luego” i quan s’animen pasen a “atras satanas” i entre mil rialles diuen “conyo!”. Quin fart de riure amb les monges. Precisament Sor Arcelita parlara despres de mi el mateix mati sobre la seva gestio de residus a un hospital que gestionen les monges i com han aconseguit millorar la qualitat mentre rebaixaven els costos gracies a una gestio mes sostenible. Admirable.
A la conferencia tambe hi apareixeran alguns politics a practicar l’autobombo. Les eleccions son d’aqui 6 mesos i tothom va  escalfant motors. Pel que em diuen els meus amics filipins les eleccions normalment es desenvolupen de forma prou lliure a les ciutats pero es al camp on exercits privats coaccionen als camperols a votar per uns o altres. La situacio pel que fa a normalitat democratica dista de ser optima pero com he explicat abans, la xarxa social es ben densa i trobo que els ciutadans son mes propers als politics (i/o viceversa) que a Catalunya. Es nomes una impressio.
Pel vespre s’acaba la trobada amb una declaracio sobre el canvi climatic en la que es demana als representants a la cimera de Copenhagen que tinguin en compte els sols per lluitar l’escalfament global. Si tota la materia organica dels nostres residus es compostes i acabes tornant als sols enlloc de ser cremada en incineradores (alliberant carboni a l’atmosfera) o podrint-se a abocadors (generant gas meta) s’aconseguirien efectes importants. Es important tornar el carboni als sols.
Sopar de comiat i festa.
Dissabte 21 Novembre
Anem a visitar la joia natural de Filipines: el riu subterrani de Palawan, candidat a ser una de les 7 meravelles de la natura http://www.vote7.com/n7w/nature/finalists . Arribar fins al paratge natural on es troba el riu subterrani es una odissea que ja paga el viatge per si sol: jungla, camps d’arros, palmeres, bufals, micos… de pel•lícula, jo no m’hauria pensat mai que visitaria paratges com aquests i la veritat es que no els ubicava a les filipines.
Despres de dues hores de jungla sortim a un embarcador des d’on agafem barques polinesies que ens arriben fins a la cala on es troba l’entrada del riu subterrani. Mes jungla, micos i llangardaixos llarguissims i arribem a l’entrada. Muntem en canoes i ens escorten cap a dins. 8km de riu navegable dins les entranyes d’una muntanya de roca massissa. Ratpenats i mosquits a mansalva. En sortim uns hora mes tard i refem el cami fins a l’embarcador inicial on mengem sota les palmeres a primera de linia de mar. Cocos, peix fresc, porc, platans i, com no, arros i mes arros.
Tornem cap a Puerto Princesa i amb uns quants anem a visitar les entranyes de la ciutat; mercats, drapaires, botigues… Els mercats no passarien cap regla d’higiene europea, no perque estiguin bruts, sino perque no hi ha refrigeracio i tant el peix com la carn s’ofereixen a temperatura ambient (mes de 20 graus). Aixo si, els productes son fresquissims i la varietat de peix i marisc deixaria en ridicul a la Boqueria.
Acabem la passejada sopant a una pizzeria local farts de menjar arròs a tots els àpats des que vam arribar. Tota la cervesa local es San Miguel, aquella que alla on va triomfa, pero tot i que te el mateix logo que la marca catalana els locals diuen que la versio filipina es de propietat nacional. Per la varietat i sabor crec que deu ser cert.
Diumenge 22 Novembre
En el darrer dia a Puerto Princesa decideixo embarcar-me sol a visitar el complex de “Dos Palmas” http://www.dospalmas.com.ph/corporate_profile.php on a part d’un ambient paradisiac hi tenen uns coralls protegits de fa temps i que per tant em permeten veure com era el fons mari de les filipines abans la pesca en massa en fes malbe una gran part.
L’experiencia val la pena; capbussant-me nomes amb ulleres d’aigua i tub assisteixo a l’espectacle mari mes bell que hagi vist mai. Es de National Geographic; coralls de mil colors i formes, cloïsses gegants (1 metre de llarg i tones de pes), marisc, anemones, tortugues i peixos de tota mena. Torno a veure el peix pallasso “clownfish” http://www.aquariumbcn.com/AQUARIUM/exhi_acu_tropical.php?id=cw42f0f820e3296&id2=cw42f0f997be8a6  (el Nemo de la pelicula) en el seu medi.
Despres de dues hores de capbussades vaig a explorar coralls amb kayak. Despres de l’esport matinal dino en el complex i acte seguit vaig a fer la migdiada en una hamaca entre dues palmeres arran de platja.
Per la em reuneixo amb els amics que queden a Puerto Princesa i anem a sopar a un restaurant xines (de la comunitat xinesa de Filipines).
Dilluns 23 Novembre
Pel mati volem de Puerto Princesa a Manila on amics Filipins ens ensenyen parts de la ciutat i les experiencies veïnals mes reeixides en la gestio de residus. Hi ha barris de Manila en els que es recicla i/o composta gairebe el 90% dels residus (a Catalunya no es superem el 30% tot i que hi ha municipis que si que arriben a mes de 80% de recollida selectiva). El millor es que durant els darrers 10 anys amb els diners que han guanyat i s’han estalviat gestionant els residus correctament el barri que visitem ha aconseguit finançar una escola i un poliesportiu i donar feina a mes de 20 persones.
Manila es una ciutat caotica i monstruosa (20 milions d’hab), amb molt de transit i molta gent (molta miseria). Tanmateix te racons que valen molt la pena. Jo no tinc temps de veure’n gaire coses perque pel vespre em toca envolar-me’n cap a Europa.
En total una experiencia del tot recomanable tot i que potser no apte per a turistes cercant comoditats i tranquilitats. Les filipines tenen molts paraisos terrenals pero s’han de buscar, a primera vista Manila es un horror pero despres tot millora rapid.
Els filipins son gent petita (en comparacio als europeus), simpatica, educada, xerraire i extremadament agradable. Com la majoria d’asiatics, els filipins son gent que no s’enfada i que no diuen mai que no. Quan parlen tenen un to de veu dolcissim i la manera de dir bon dia transmet ganes de viure. Com tothom tenen els seus quès pero fet i fet, les filipines es un pais amb una temperatura tropical tot l’any (l’estiu es d’Abril a Juny i es quan fa mes calor), una paratges meravellosos i tothom parla o enten l’angles. Aixi doncs, un lloc que val la pena visitar.
A la matinada del 24 m’envolo cap a Bahrain, d’alla cap a Londres i de Londres agafo el tren eurostar fins a Brussel.les. Mitja volta al mon en 24h, suficient per descolocar al mes colocat. Tornada a la “normalitat”.

Filipines - transit ManilaDimarts 17 Novembre

00.30h, aterro a Manila despres de mes de 20i-tantes hores de viatge. Arribo a l’hotel a les 2AM amb una dosis de jet-lag considerable. Nit en blanc que s’acaba rapid perque per sort, o per desgracia, el programa del dia comenca d’hora. Retrobo amics de la xarxa Zero Waste d’arreu del planeta per esmorzar i acte seguit els organitzadors filipins ens coloquen en un autobus per anar a visitar una escola.

A l’escola ens reben a la hawaiana, amb collarets de flors, discursos… els professors de l’escola ens fan el passadis a l’entrada del pavello on ens hi esperen mes de 1000 (!!!) alumnes. La trobada comenca amb una pregaria (aqui tot comenca amb pregaries) en que es demana a Jesucrist que ens ajudi en la gestio de residus.

Filipines - Numero Uno

No se si aquesta era la seva especialitzacio pero qualsevol ajuda es benvinguda sobretot si ve del cel. Segueix l’himne de Filipines i despres ens presenten a la delegacio d’internacionals com si fossim estrelles del rock. Flipo. L’organitzador de tot plegat es un electe municipal de 30 anys amb un futur prometedor i membre de la nostra xarxa de Residu Zero, el seu nom ho diu tot: Numero Uno (“Numero” es el nom i “Uno” es el cognom). La majoria de noms i cognoms de la gent son castellans.

Despres dels nostres discursos ens obsequien am danses locals la musica de la qual recorda moltissim a la musica mariachi, els gestos a una jota i les cançons acaben amb un “ole!” general. El que poden fer tres segles d’ocupació espanyola!

Filipines va ser “descoberta” pels espanyols l’any 1571  i el nom de filipines ve del rei Felip II que reinava aleshores en aquell fantastic imperi “en el que no se pone el sol”. Els espanyols van ocupar l’archipelag durant 4 segles, imposant la religio catolica pero en aquest cas no la llengua. El 1898 els americans van fer fora les restes de l’imperi espanyol i s’hi van estar fins al 1946. D’aqui el fet que els filipins parlin molt be l’angles, l’educacio sigui bastant a l’americana i tot estigui senyalitzat en angles. La llengua local es el tagalog, el dialecte majoritari, pero hi ha unes 180 altres llengües indigenes aixi com el xines, de sempre les filipines han tingut colonies de comerciants xinesos, i l’arab que es parla cap al sud, reminiscencia de quan els arabs controlaven els mars fa uns mil anys.

Filipines - alumnes

Tornant a l’escola: els 1000 alumnes entomen les presentacions sobre el tema de gestio de residus, la importancia de separar, reciclar i compostar, etc amb un interes sorprenent i per les seves intervencions es pot veure que el tema no es gens nou per a ells. Es ben trist que aquesta gent que no te gairebe res (a nivell material), sapiga i es preocupi mes pel medi ambient que nosaltres que som els que portem mes de 100 anys promovent  destruccio mediambiental, consumisme i que, al cap i a la fi, ens estem carregant el seu futur… Esta clar que la justicia no s’imposara per si sola.

Filipines - alumnes 2

Filipines - banda municipalDespres de l’escola anem a visitar l’alcalde de Manila a l’ajuntament. Ens rep la banda municipal amb honors d’ambaixadors. La trobada es d’allo mes interessant. L’alcalde –un ex-general- es sorprenentment receptiu i coneix el problema dels residus i llur relacio amb la inmundicia i la pobresa. Companys de sud-africa i la India li donen consells que son molt ben rebuts pels gestors municipals i pel mateix alcalde.

Filipines - AjuntamentMes tard ens reunim amb el vice-alcalde de nomes 35 anys que el primer que ens diu es que ell coneix el tema dels residus molt be perque dels 9 als 15 anys va haver de fer de drapaire per a sobreviure, despres va compaginar l’escola amb fer de taxista a pedals i d’alla es va aconseguir muntar la seva campanya per a ser elegit i vet-el aqui amb 35 anys i essent la segona maxima autoritat d’una ciutat de 20 milions d’habitants. Coneix la pobresa i la importancia del sector informal en el reciclatge i ens entenem la mar de be. Comentem entre la delegacio internacional la diferencia en coneixement del tema entre els politics a Europa o als EEUU i aquests de països menys “desenvolupats”.

Una cosa esta clara: La politica –sigui democratica o no- funciona quan els politics tenen els ciutadans al darrera. Com hem vist a Catalunya, a Espanya i mes enlla, de seguida que els politics nomes tenen diners i empreses al darrera no nomes explota la corrupcio sino que la credibilitat del sistema es desmorona i els ciutadans es comencen a preguntar per a que paguen impostos. A Filipines la societat civil es ben viva i ben propera als politics cosa que ajuda a que el seu rudimentari sistema democratic funcioni.

Filipines -aeroport puerto princesaDespres de l’exitosa trobada a l’ajuntament ens porten a l’aeroport on volem cap a l’illa de Palawan, al bell mig de les filipines. Arribem a Puerto Princesa, la capital, on ens hi estarem una setmana en un simposi nacional sobre la gestio alternativa de residus. La ciutat no s’ha triat a l’atzar. Es un dels exponents del desenvolupament sostenible a Filipines. 20 anys enrera les Filipines tenien un 90% del pais cobert de boscos i selves, a l’actualitat la tala d’arbres per a l’exportacio i per a fer lloc a l’agricultura ha reduït la superficie arborea a un 12%. L’illa de Palawan es la unica que ha augmentat llur massa forestal (60%). Des dels 90s que basen el seu desenvolupament en la sostenibilitat mediambiental; prohibicio de talar arbres, proteccio d’especies animals i tribus indigenes, agricultura biologica… El seu alcalde ens explica com aquesta aposta els ha permes creixer economicament i invertir en educacio i mes desenvolupament sostenible. L’alcalde es un altre exemple d’heroi local i mireu si ha anat lluny que ha imposat a totes les parelles que es casin que despres del casament plantin un arbre.

El temps s’ha encarregat de demostrar que aixo de plantar arbres i conservar ecosistemes no es un caprici del moviment hippy sino la base per a una economia amb futur; a Manila ho van patir a la carn quan un mes enrera el 80% de la metropolis es va inundar per culpa dels 4 tifons que van visitar l’illa. L’aigua i el fang van arribar a 3 pisos d’altura i al nord del pais es va emportar per davant la collita anual d’arros (en un pais en que es menja arros per esmorzar, dinar i sopar i es la base de la dieta). Ara s’han adonat que si no haguessin talat boscos sencers dels turons de la periferia per a construir-hi zones residencials i camps de golf, els boscos haurien pogut aturar les riades de fang que van inundar camps i ciutats. A mes, es veu que la meitat de la culpa de la inundacio de Manila es de les bosses de plastic que s’acumulen en els rierols i que van bloquejar les clavegueres impedint el drenatge. Un desastre. Vet aqui un exemple clarissim de com l’ecologia es la base de l’economia i els que planifiquen l’economia sense tenir en compte principis de sostenibilitat mediambiental estan construint un edifici sense fonaments que fa anys que no para d’esfondrar-se.

Vaig a sopar amb amics filipins a un restaurant tipic. Bevem aigua de coco i mengem peixos locals rarissims. La cuina filipina es riquissima. No mengen pa, nomes arros per tot i a tot hora. Tindre temps de cansar-me’n.

Dimecres 18 Novembre

Filipines - Honda bayEls amics filipins em proposen d’anar visitar illes properes pel mati. Ens llevem a les 5AM i saltem en unes motos amb sidecar en els que s’hi poden encabir fins a 5 persones i que son el metode de transport a l’illa. Lentes, pero segures.

Anem amb aquests sidecars fins a un port on hi lloguem unes barques d’aquestes polinesies amb bambus estabilitzadors a cada costat. Salpem amb la sortida del sol despres d’haver esmorzat arros amb tonyina. Pasarem el mati visitant illes on podem fer capbusades i observar-ne el corall i una gran varietat de peixos, cloïsses, estrelles de mar i altres coses rares. Un peix particularment curios es un de verd, quadrat i amb banyes que es veu que s’infla quan se li fa no se que. Rarissim.

Filipines - peix quadratFeia temps que no veia tanta varietat i riquesa marina. Fins i tot em trobo amb el peix “clown”, el Nemo de la pelicula! Per desgracia molt dels coralls son morts per culpa de la pesca amb dinamita que es practicava abans i que encara de forma ilegal algun pescador fa servir. Hi ha cada troglodita…

(Es fantastic aixo d’estar a 25 graus a ple sol, capbussant-me en aigües calides a finals de novembre!)

Per la tarda tornem cap a Puerto Princesa on comença la trobada.

Sopem amb l’alcalde de Puerto Princesa que ens explica lo ve que li ha anat a l’illa per haver apostat per la sostenibilitat des de fa 15 anys. Un tio molt dinamic. Despres indigenes de l’illa ens fan una demostracio de danses tradicionals.

Dijous 19 Novembre

Filipines - conferenciaEns passem tot el dia de simposi. A la conferencia hi participen unes 1.000 persones vingudes de tot el pais, hi ha alcaldes, politics, religiosos, mestres, gestors, filosofs, estudiants d’instituts… embolica que fa fort.

L’ambient a la trobada es molt bo i parlo molt amb els participants filipins que s’interesen en la situacio dels residus a Europa i em meravellen amb les seves experiencies que, sovint sense recursos, duen a terme. El Romualdo per exemple m’explica com a l’escola on treballa (barri pobre) els alumnes aprenen a fabricar el seu propi paper reciclat, a fer compostatge i com els alumnes poden pagar part de la matricula portant materials per reciclar de casa que l’escola els hi compra a preu de mercat. Han aconseguit reduir els residus en un 90% i la repercusio d’educacio els fills per a que aquests eduquin els seus pares ja es deixa veure al barri.

Vaig a sopar amb els meus amics filipins que em porten a un lloc tradicional on l’aperitiu son cucs en una mena d’escabetx. En tasto un, te un regust a ostres pero la textura i el fet de saber que aquesta cosa llargaruda (10cm) i viscosa que tinc a la boca es un cuc em regira l’estomac una mica. S’ha de provar de tot en aquesta vida.

Divendres 20 Novembre

Esmorzo el meu peix amb arros i vaig cap al simposi. De cami em trobo amb un grup de monges que participen a la trobada. Hi parlo. Quan saben d’on vinc em recorden els temps de l’ocupacio espanyola i em demostren que saben algunes paraules en castella (de fet, la llengua oficial filipina, el tagalog, te moltes paraules en castella) comencen amb “abrelatas”, “puerta”, “luego” i quan s’animen pasen a “atras satanas” i entre mil rialles diuen “conyo!”. Quin fart de riure amb les monges. Precisament Sor Arcelita parlara el mateix mati sobre la seva gestio de residus a un hospital que gestionen les monges i com han aconseguit millorar la qualitat mentre rebaixaven els costos gracies a una gestio mes sostenible. Admirable.

Filipines - Zero Waste

A la conferencia tambe hi apareixeran alguns politics a practicar l’autobombo. Les eleccions son d’aqui 6 mesos i tothom va  escalfant motors. Pel que em diuen els meus amics filipins les eleccions normalment es desenvolupen de forma prou lliure a les ciutats pero es al camp on exercits privats coaccionen als camperols a votar per uns o altres. La situacio pel que fa a normalitat democratica dista de ser optima pero com he explicat abans, la xarxa social es ben densa i trobo que els ciutadans son mes propers als politics (i/o viceversa) que a Catalunya. Es nomes una impressio.

Pel vespre s’acaba la trobada amb una declaracio sobre el canvi climatic en la que es demana als representants a la cimera de Copenhagen que tinguin en compte els sols per lluitar l’escalfament global. Si tota la materia organica dels nostres residus es compostes i acabes tornant als sols enlloc de ser cremada en incineradores (alliberant carboni a l’atmosfera) o podrint-se a abocadors (generant gas meta) s’aconseguirien efectes importants. Es important tornar el carboni als sols.

Sopar de comiat i festa.

Dissabte 21 Novembre

Filipines - selvaAnem a visitar la joia natural de Filipines: el riu subterrani de Palawan, candidat a ser una de les 7 meravelles de la natura . Arribar fins al paratge natural on es troba el riu subterrani es una odissea que ja paga el viatge per si sol: jungla, camps d’arros, palmeres, bufals, micos… de pel•lícula, jo no m’hauria pensat mai que visitaria paratges com aquests i la veritat es que no els ubicava a les filipines.

Filipines - mono

Despres de dues hores de jungla sortim a un embarcador des d’on agafem barques polinesies que ens arriben fins a la cala on es troba l’entrada del riu subterrani. Mes jungla, micos i llangardaixos llarguissims i arribem a l’entrada. Muntem en canoes i ens escorten cap a dins. 8km de riu navegable dins les entranyes d’una muntanya de roca massissa. Ratpenats i mosquits a mansalva. En sortim uns hora mes tard i refem el cami fins a l’embarcador inicial on mengem sota les palmeres a primera de linia de mar. Cocos, peix fresc, porc, platans i, com no, arros i mes arros.

Filipines - JM

Tornem cap a Puerto Princesa i amb uns quants anem a visitar les entranyes de la ciutat; mercats, drapaires, botigues… Els mercats no passarien cap regla d’higiene europea, no perque estiguin bruts, sino perque no hi ha refrigeracio i tant el peix com la carn s’ofereixen a temperatura ambient (mes de 20 graus). Aixo si, els productes son fresquissims i la varietat de peix i marisc deixaria en ridicul a la Boqueria.

Acabem la passejada sopant a una pizzeria local farts de menjar arròs a tots els àpats des que vam arribar. Tota la cervesa local es San Miguel, aquella que alla on va triomfa, pero tot i que te el mateix logo que la marca catalana els locals diuen que la versio filipina es de propietat nacional. Per la varietat i sabor crec que deu ser cert.

Filipines - transit

Diumenge 22 Novembre

Filipines - Dos PalmasEn el darrer dia a Puerto Princesa decideixo embarcar-me sol a visitar el complex de “Dos Palmas” on a part d’un ambient paradisiac hi tenen uns coralls protegits de fa temps i que per tant em permeten veure com era el fons mari de les filipines abans la pesca en massa en fes malbe una gran part.

L’experiencia val la pena; capbussant-me nomes amb ulleres d’aigua i tub assisteixo a l’espectacle mari mes bell que hagi vist mai. Es de National Geographic; coralls de mil colors i formes, cloïsses gegants (1 metre de llarg i tones de pes), marisc, anemones, tortugues i peixos de tota mena. Torno a veure el peix pallasso “clownfish” (el Nemo de la pelicula) en el seu medi.

Despres de dues hores de capbussades vaig a explorar coralls amb kayak. Fet l’esport matinal dino en el complex i acte seguit vaig a fer la migdiada en una hamaca entre dues palmeres arran de platja.

Per la tarda em reuneixo amb els amics que queden a Puerto Princesa i anem a sopar a un restaurant xines (propietat de la comunitat xinesa de Filipines).

Dilluns 23 Novembre

Pel mati volem de Puerto Princesa a Manila on amics Filipins ens ensenyen parts de la ciutat i les experiencies veïnals mes reeixides en la gestio de residus. Hi ha barris de Manila en els que es recicla i/o composta gairebe el 90% dels residus (a Catalunya no es superem el 30% tot i que hi ha municipis que si que arriben a mes de 80% de recollida selectiva). El millor es que durant els darrers 10 anys amb els diners que han guanyat i s’han estalviat gestionant els residus correctament el barri que visitem ha aconseguit finançar una escola i un poliesportiu i donar feina a mes de 20 persones.

Manila es una ciutat caotica i monstruosa (20 milions d’hab), amb molt de transit i molta gent (molta miseria). Tanmateix te racons que valen molt la pena. Jo no tinc temps de veure’n gaire coses perque pel vespre em toca envolar-me’n cap a Europa.

Resumint; una experiencia del tot recomanable tot i que potser no apte per a turistes cercant comoditats i tranquilitats. Les filipines tenen molts paraisos terrenals pero s’han de buscar, a primera vista Manila es un horror pero despres tot millora rapid.

Els filipins son gent petita (en comparacio als europeus), simpatica, educada, xerraire i extremadament agradable. Com la majoria d’asiatics, els filipins son gent que no s’enfada i que no diuen mai que no. Quan parlen tenen un to de veu dolcissim i la manera de dir bon dia transmet ganes de viure. Com tothom tenen els seus quès pero fet i fet, les filipines es un pais amb una temperatura tropical tot l’any (l’estiu es d’Abril a Juny i es quan fa mes calor), una paratges meravellosos i tothom parla o enten l’angles. Aixi doncs, un lloc que val la pena visitar.

A la matinada del 24 m’envolo cap a Bahrain, d’alla cap a Londres i de Londres agafo el tren eurostar fins a Brussel.les. Mitja volta al mon en 24h, suficient per descolocar al mes colocat. Tornada a la “normalitat”.

Filipines - coco al cap

 Posted by admin at 18:02  Tagged with: , , , ,

Lost Generation

 Environment, Filosofia, world governance  No Responses »
Nov 202009
 

I am part of a lost generation
and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world
I realise this may be a shock but
“Happiness comes from within.”
is a lie, and
“Money will make me happy.”
So in 30 years I will tell my children
they are not the most important thing in my life
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
work
is more important than
family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stayed together
but this will not be true in my era
This is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
30 years from now, I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope.

And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it.
Read the message, then read it again in reverse.

By Jonathan Reed

 Posted by admin at 10:57  Tagged with: , ,

Duros a quatre pessetes

 Curiositats/Funny things, Environment  No Responses »
Sep 212009
 

vineyardAhir al mercat de St Giles (Brussel.les) vaig comprar 3 kg de raim italia fantastic per dos euros i una senyora pinya del Senegal per un euro. Com ens recorda l’Oriol “todo necio confunde valor con precio” aixi que no entrare en valoracions sobre que val un gra de raim o una pinya, doncs el valor sera diferent per cadascu de nosaltres, pero el preu el trobo un disbarat.

Belgica no es un pais barat per  la fruita si el comparem amb Franca o Holanda, i no cal dir que aixo no es el tropic i aqui no hi creixen pinyes. De raim, gracies al canvi climatic, se’n comenca a cultivar a Walonia. Tanmateix, quin mon es aquest en que li pot sortir a compte al productor d’oferir al consumidor aquests productes a aquests preus quan segurament nomes les despeses de transport, l’intermediari, el marge del distribuidor i altres drets d’importacio (no tenint en compte el preu ecologic de consumir productes tropicals al nord d’Europa) es deuen endur el 90% del preu total deixant 10 centims per kg (si arriba) pel productor.

Els economistes segur que ens podran donar una explicacio logica del perque aixo passa i fins i tot perque es bo que aixo passi.

Per les persones normals aixo no te ni cap ni peus.

 Posted by admin at 15:58  Tagged with: , , , ,

Belgium rollers parade greenwash – a breath of CO2?

 Brainwashing, Environment  No Responses »
Sep 202009
 

belgiumrollersI’ve been a passionate supporter of the Brussels rollerskate parade www.belgiumrollers.com since 5 years. Thanks to the rollers parade I managed to skate thousands of km in this otherwise ill-prepared city for skaters and cyclists.

However, something that from the beginning has surprised me is how the opportunity to promote green transport and practices in these congregations is being missed. The parades are lead by a hummer and a 4WD which run on LPG -see pic- which is all very well because this Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) reduces around 20% the CO2 emissions in comparison with a normal car in petrol. But for heaven sake, the consumption of such an irrational and mad machine as the Hummer is still of 24 liters per 100km in the city!

So, the logo claiming to be riding green is nothing less than greenwashing and being severely misleading as it is the organisers should make a point in replacing it by a normal car with capacity to carry a couple of good speakers. The ideal solution -if they want to use a car for it- would be to get an electric car running on clean electricity powered by Lampiris. It will help reduce the consumption, the noise, the pollution, it will not stink -if you skate after the car or even during the breaks the skaters are inhaling the fumes of this thing- and it will allow them to correctly brand themselves as “we ride green”.

One more thing that can be improved from the environmental impact point of view is the disposal of the bottles of water given by the sponsor evian to the sweaty rollers -also the cans from Redbull-. Even though Evian as a company has some good environmental credentials the truth is that they are really committed with the environment they should make sure that the bottles they distribute are collected and recycled. Having participated in many of the roller events I can assure that all these bottles are not separately collected and I would bet more than 80% of them end up in the Brussels incinerator. Therefore it would be good if Redbull or Evian would ask the organisers to take care of the collection of the waste produced by the parade. I’m sure the rollers themselves would be happy to collaborate and it would really be preaching by doing which would be a lot more effective than just sticking the label “we ride green”.

The season of  belgianrollers will be finishing in two weeks. Let’s hope next year the organisers plan these things better and improve this great initiative to give the city to the skaters for some hours.

 Posted by admin at 23:41  Tagged with: , , ,

Crònica d’un festival entre brossa

 Curiositats/Funny things, Environment, Viatges  No Responses »
Jul 242009
 

Tren eurostar de Brussel•les a Londres, dues hores i mitja per passar del continent a l’illa mes gran d’Europa. De Londres agafo el tren cap a l’est, regió de East Anglia. Dues hores mes i arribo a Norwich on canvio de tren cap a Lowestoft, el port més a l’est de Gran Bretanya. Abans terra de pescadors ara, sense cap peix per pescar, port industrial.

Al tren em trobo amb gent de la London Recycling Network i part de la xarxa Zero Waste a Anglaterra i a l’estació ens esperen membres del grup local de l’organització. Ara fa sol, ara plou, vet aquí el temps britànic.

lattitude-festival2

L’organització Bright Green ha estat contractada pel Republic Festival per a organitzar la gestió de residus del festival de musica Lattitude i passaré uns dies al festival observant i aconsellant sobre aquest tema així com gaudint d’aquest festival amb caps de cartell d’anomenada com Nick Cave and Bad Seeds, Tricky, Pretenders…

Tinc l’ocasió de veure el festival des de dins amb el privilegi de tenir temps de reflexionar sobre la logística d’un esdeveniment d’aquestes proporcions. Amb 30.000 participants, l’organització del festival Lattitude va a ser com fer aparèixer i desaparèixer una ciutat en només 5 dies. Fer aparèixer i desaparèixer vol dir agafar un prat i quatre boscos i habilitar-hi electricitat, aigua, aprovisionaments, accessos, salubritat, gestió de residus… La natura d’aquests esdeveniments permet experimentar i innovar mes que el que seria possible en una ciutat tradicional. Les dinàmiques de poder no difereixen massa de les d’un municipi però almenys no s’arrosseguen els tractes, favors i corrupteles que apareixen amb el temps en la gestió municipal. L’altra diferencia és que a diferencia d’un municipi els “alcaldes” o “gestors” d’aquesta ciutat efímera que son els festivals no son elegits democràticament sinó que segueixen els seus propis objectius i patrons normalment en cerca del benefici –en teoria els càrrecs electes ajuntaments segueixen o haurien de seguir el interès públic-.

Tanmateix, tot i el interès empresarial d’empreses d’aquest tipus el fet és que ofereixen més oportunitats d’experimentació i innovació urbanística que les que es donen en una ciutat normal i corrent.

lattitude-compost-binpunt-reciclatge-festival-lattitudeConcretament, per la gestió de residus, que és el que m’ha portat a aquestes racó d’Anglaterra, se’ns permet replicar politiques de recollida selectiva, compostatge i reciclatge que permeten que enlloc d’enviar el 100% dels residus a l’abocador se’n puguin reciclar més del 50%. Es una experiència gratificadora i alhora frustrant el veure que quan es vol i si hi ha els recursos suficients es pot reduir i/o reaprofitar la major part dels residus. Sembla que els organitzadors també se n’han adonat que amb una mica mes d’esforç es pot aconseguir reduir la part residual –no reciclable o compostable- a menys d’un 10% i a la fi del festival ens garanteixen que l’any vinent ens donaran més suport per a assolir aquesta fita.

Resultat: un festival de musica net com una patena. 30.000 persones participant a  escenaris de musica, poesia, teatre i d’altres en una extensió de 2km quadrats i no trobareu un lloc amb brossa pel terra. Es tant net que no sembla un festival.

Al festival coneixo en Martin de Natural Event una empresa que “Compost Loos” lavabos compostables que sorprenen a propis i estranys amb uns waters secs, on no es fa servir aigua i on tota “la cosa” es composta per a posteriorment utilitzar com abono natural. Espectacular. Mentre els lavabos químics fan una pudor insuportable, malgasten aigua a base de bé i necessiten quantitats ingents de químics per a tractar “la cosa” els lavabos compostables només amb serradures aconsegueixen una netedat que dona ganes d’anar al wàter.

lattitude-compost-looslattitude-lavabo-compostableEn Martin m’explica com venint a festivals com aquests ell gairebé no hi guanya res i que si ho fa és com exercici per conscienciar la gent sobre els avantatges de sistemes sanitaris secs i com aquests poden ser la solució ideal per ciutats amb manca d’aigua, amb alt risc de pandèmies que es propaguen per l’aigua com ara el colera o camps de refugiats… Una vegada més sembla que la solució pel futur es troba en mirar al passat i tornar a les tècniques que han funcionat des de temps immemorials. I és que la gestió dels propis excrements és una de les bases per a que la Xina o la India hagin pogut augmentar la productivitat del camp i  augmentar llur població durant els darrers segles.

Martin m’explica com en alguns pobles colindants amb el Sàhara, massa pobres per a poder permetre’s fertilitzants, la millor compensació que se’ls hi pot fer a llur hospitalitat és anar al “wàter” i deixar-hi la nostra contribució per al creixement de l’hort…

I ja veieu quin festival! De container d’alumini i plàstic a wàters de compost passant per containers de matèria orgànica… evidentment tenim temps d’anar a concerts i quan no plou estirar-nos a la gespa per a contemplar aquest paratge natural que la veritat és que no m’esperava trobar-me al bressol de la revolució industrial.

Així com a Londres es veu gent immigrada per tot arreu a East Anglia nomes és veuen blancs autòctons. Anglesos de pura raça, vaja, que jo encara no havia tingut ocasió d’observar com a poble. Tot i haver tractat amb molts anglesos a Brussel•les sempre m’he preguntat quines son les característiques de la personalitat anglesa que va ser capaç de dominar el mon durant 2 segles. Cada potencia europea té la seva nota característica: Els alemanys tenen la disciplina, els francesos la supèrbia, els espanyols la sort de la providència… i els anglesos? Els anglesos son uns grandíssims racionalistes, d’una lògica pesadíssima nomes suportable gracies al que s’entén com a actitud mediterrània; el saber gaudir i riure de la feina sense perdre de vista el que s’ha de fer.

Els anglesos son els mediterranis del nord d’Europa.

Rellegeixo el que acabo d’escriure i em sorprenc, però ho mantinc. Tot i l’aiguabarreig, fora de Londres Anglaterra és una terra amb una personalitat marcadíssima. Com a prova irrefutable hi ha l’humor: Monty Python, l‘Escurco Negre, Els Joves… vet aquí un sentit de l’humor que no trobareu enlloc del nord d’Europa.

La cultura anglesa, que no acabareu de trobar a Londres, és quelcom que val la pena de conèixer i experimentar. 4 dies treballant amb anglesos en un ambient 100% angles –tot i admetre que potser és una experiència massa curta per a extreure’n conclusions- et fa respectar aquest ex-imperi que avui dia nomes sembla exportar bevedors compulsius cap a la costa brava.

A part d’això el Regne Unit és un estat on hi regna l’esquizofrènia, la histèria i el sensacionalisme. Seguint l’exemple nord-americà els mitjans de comunicació només fan que alarmar la població i potenciar els sensacionalisme i la banalització. Allà on vagi hi ha càmeres de vigilància i la policia no s’està per orgues. Per sort la meva experiència a Lowestoft és relaxant al tractar amb molta gent que ha decidit viure per sobre de l’estrés que se’ns imposa. Deu ser l’estadi superior de desenvolupament que ens espera si no volem perdre la xaveta.

En vistes al progrés accelerat de la ciència i l’estancament en la mentalitat de la gent ja cal que ens preparem per a pair/combatre la civilització 3.0 del Big Brother sinó volem acabar malament.

En fi, 4 dies entre trens, prats, residus, wàters, sol-i-pluja, hippies i corders de colors, despatxeu a la dida que el nen ja s’entreté. O l’entretenen.

lattitude-coloured-sheeps1

 Posted by admin at 10:24  Tagged with: , , , ,

Enjoy Brussels or put worms in your life

 Environment, Europe, Europe english  3 Responses »
Jun 032009
 

wormpower-soon-in-your-homesToday I assisted to a session to learn to do compost at home with worms -vermicomposting- organised by the Inter-Environment Bruxelles and it showed me to which extend we live in a strange world.

The session was very entertaining and a huge success. I was expecting that in a meeting like this I would find 5 to 10 housewifes and/or old hippies, rather the opposite: it was mainly young people -both genders- that you could find any day in the metro. We were taught how to build a worm composter and everything we need to know about the life of the worms: what do they eat, what do they like, when to feed them, how to protect them, how -and when!- they have sex, how long do they live… amazing. I found a bit surreal that our civilisation has reached this level of paroxysm.

On one hand it is clear that more and more people are starting to be conscious about the unsustainability of the throw-away society we live in and this is good. It is good when people look at the garbage bin and ask themselves how can they generate so much trash and they want to help by doing home-composting. On the other hand it shows how people are starting to take the initiative as a reaction to the inaction from the institutions. Because, wasn’t it the role of the municipality to take care of our garbage?

Don’t get me wrong, I think that doing home composting -and vermicomposting which enables those of us who live in apartments to do compost- is great and necessary because it raises awareness about the impact of our actions and it reduces the amount of mixed waste we generate, which in Brussels ends up in the incinerator (producing CO2, toxic ashes and destroying resources; let’s not forget that organic waste is more than 60% water and burning water is not very smart). HOWEVER, shouldn’t it be the authorities who should be ordering the organic waste to be collected separately in order to either generate energy with anaerobic digesters or directly compost it?

I mean, vermi-composting and home composting are great but having seen how it works I can tell you it is not as easy as it looks, it is time consuming and having worms at home is something that we can’t expect that everyone will accept with open arms. Personally I’ll do vermi-composting because I believe in it but I know that the market of this is rather limited and I’m fully aware that nothing really substantial will really change until organic waste is separately collected and treated.

Currently EU legislation says that organic waste should be gradually phase out from landfills -where it produces methane- but it doesn’t say what should we do with it. So we burn it. The EU has been avoiding having compulsory separate collection of organic waste since 10 years and only some countries have taken the initiative to impose it. Of course the incineration industry is happy to burn organic waste -again, mostly water- that would be a lot more valuable as carbon returned to the soil and the European Commission is also happy because less legislation means less work -even when this is effectively damaging the environment-. How long will we have to wait to make possible what is environmentally and economically sensible?

In Flanders they collect organic waste separately and they have reached recycling rates of even 75%, in San Francisco they do the same and they are also recycling 70%. Separate collection, better if door-to-door, radicaly increases recycling which saves money to the people, helps the environment, creates jobs and is the right path towards a Zero Waste society. 

I was surprised by today’s unexpected interest generated by the training on vermicomposting, more and more people are realising that things need to change and they are willing to their bit. Will the competent authorities also dare to look beyond the interests of the industrial lobbies?

In the meantime I’ll start taking care of my worms :-)

 Posted by admin at 1:32  Tagged with: , , , ,

Climate Change fever: without a World Environmental Communitty temperature will go up!

 Environment, Europe, Europe english, world governance  1 Response »
May 042009
 

world-environmental-communityAs the economic downturn and the swine flu dominate the pages of newspapers a lot more important issue, for it affects our long term survival in this planet, disappears from the media: the fight against climate change.

In December will take place in Copenhagen the next United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in which the new rules and targets will be laid to replace the Kyoto protocol. The Kyoto treaty was based on 5 principles: commitment to reduce greenhouse gases, implementation measures, minimization of impact in developing countries –via adaptation fund-, accounting reporting and review and compliance.

A decade later evidence shows that worldwide emissions have increased by 38% and even though the EU15 did a good job in stabilizing the emissions the increase of emissions in China (+150%), India (+103%) or the US (+20%) among many others has caused the emissions to grow.

Hence, the Kyoto protocol, albeit its concretion in what needs to be done is failing to deliver what it was designed to do. And what is worst, we are not learning.
The relative failure of Kyoto can be due to the wrong setting of objectives or to the inadequacy of the tools used to meet the objectives. I believe the objectives, although sometimes arbitrary and not scientifical enough, are not the problem. The instruments we use are clearly failing.

The weakest point of Kyoto, same as any international treaty, is its implementation and enforceability. Who does what, how, and who monitors that job is done properly and has the power to sanction it when this is not the case.
The EU offers a good example about implementation and compliance: whilst cooperation has proven its inability to deliver, integration has clearly been the key to success. Once something is agreed among the 27, implementation takes place –at European, national or regional level- and enforceability is monitored and the European Court of Justice can sanction the non-complying member states. This effective system of supranational governance descends from the European Coal and Steel Community, where the 6 founding states decided to put under a supranational democratic rule what they considered was a public good, and which had been the cause of disputes and wars over the years. From this milestone the successful story of European integration unfolded.

The EU is the most successful example in the history of supranational governance for it has had the capacity to deliver. Yet, the virtues of the model have not been followed by other supranational structures. Kyoto has had a very weak mechanism of enforcement; a feeble compliance committee has been deciding on who was following the commitments. For instance: Greece was excluded of the Kyoto protocol in 2008 due to unfulfilled commitment of creating mechanisms of monitoring and controlling emissions and reporting false data.
Excluding countries from the protocol is not the way to guarantee enforcement; it is just a declaration of impotence to manage the system.

Environment is a common public good for humankind; pollution doesn’t stop at the borders, can’t be fought with weapons but it has the potential to exterminate us. It is therefore high time to get organized to fight climate change effectively and this can only be done with the right tools. Never before we have known so much about the threat before us. Yet, knowledge is a mighty two-faced asset for it gives us the false impression that we control the situation: We know what is happening, we know what we need to do and hence we might think that we can solve it. But we can’t.

Whatever objectives the world community sets for itself in Copenhagen, they can only be met if we manage to set up an institutional structure where global interest is put before the national interests. This world institutional setting that we could call “World Environmental Community” would treat environment as a global public good and would have a “High Authority” which would care only about the global interest. The national interests could be represented in intergovernmental meetings such as UNFCCC or in a more formalized body. However, the “High Authority” should be supervised by a body not representing the states but the global interest and the members of which could be elected or appointed by the states. The system would need of a Court of Justice able to guarantee the enforcement of the decisions. Such a structure would create the space and the tools where a system of global taxes could be set up –if needed- and properly managed in a democratic and transparent manner.

What stays on the way?
The will of the our elected governments who have to decide what is the best way to defend the national interest: by not letting go in the short term and putting our survival in danger in the mid term or by ceding a bit of sovereignty in the short term to be able to have a long term at all.
Also, Environmental NGOs should look at broader picture and along the world emissions targets; ask for a governance deal that empowers the treaty to deliver.

History shows that humans always learn the hard-way. Sane decisions tend to take place after disasters such as WWII.

Would we be the first generation to anticipate and prevent the disaster?

The world has climate change fever and temperature keeps going up. We have all the symptoms to get pneumonia soon and we continue to stay alone in the cold.

Until when?

 Posted by admin at 11:03  Tagged with: , , ,

Napols 3

 Environment, Viatges  2 Responses »
Feb 252009
 

El sud es passio. Costa acostumar-se a la vida amb tant de moviment, soroll, somriures… El fet que participi en una conferencia sobre residus en la ciutat amb la pitjor gestio de residus a Europa fa que quan em passejo per la ciutat amb els companys d’organitzacio no fem mes que parlar d’escombraries i a cada container s’hi dediqui un comentari. Fins i tot en vaig fer un video:

I es que sembla mentida que la capital d’una regio eminentment agricola i turistica es dediqui a 1) abocar residus perillosos al camp, 2) renuncii a utilitzar la materia organica com a compost per a abonar una terra en perill de desertitzacio i 3) deixi perdre el turisme per la mala fama que continua guanyant la xona per la camorra i la crisi de residus.

Sino, Napols es una ciutat preciosa i colossal. Que us dire? Me l’imaginava menys gran. En certa manera esta al nivell de Roma i alguns barris centrics mantenen una autenticitat encisadora. Pels carrerons laberintics del centre hi ha cristos i verges a cada cantonada, a cada cafe que s’entra hi ha la foto dels dos Deus de Napols: l’enviat del senyor i el Deu del futbol: Maradona. Tambe hi ha fotos del Papa actual, el precedent, algun futbolista, alguna actriu… pero es curios observar la mitologia que acompanya l’astre argenti tot i que tothom de seguida comenta que la seva addiccio a les drogues que va comencar a Napols es una pena. Pero aquesta humanitat es precisament el que l’ha transformat en idol…

Vaig de bolit tots els dies i aixo m’impedeix de gaudir de la gran invencio de Napols: la pizza. Nomes en podre menjar una pero es ben be excepcional. Es curios que la major part de la cuina italiana, tant copiada i envejada al mon, sigui fruit de la creativitat al combinar ingredients d’allo mes simples. La pizza no es res mes que farina, aigua i sal, la pasta es pot fer amb farina i aigua i/o ous… Els raviolis es van inventar per a reciclar les restes de carn… La necessitat estimula la creativitat i es el que realment multiplica els pans i els peixos.

La creativitat d’Italia es impresionant. De ciencia -de Galileo a Da Vinci- de musica -de Verdi a Pucini-, de moda -de Valentino a Zegna-… aquest pais sempre ha anat al capdavant de la innovacio. Tanmateix ja fa anys que viu de prestat i la corrupcio se l’esta menjant per dins. La poblacio envelleix i la classe politica esta preparant el caldo per una cataclisme social. Els rics cada dia son mes rics, els corruptes son cada dia mes corruptes i descarats, i les politiques s’imposen amb l’ajuda de l’exercit -l’exercit es l’eina de Berlusconi per a aplicar els seus plans de residus-. La gent esta que trina i els politics no els escolten. Si aixo continua aixi tornaran els temps del feixisme amb un nou Mussolini o un dels tants Berlusconis reciclats. Fa por de pensar-hi.

Els napolitans son gent calida, amable i passional. Gairebe el contrari que els belgues. Despres de dos dies m’hi trobo be exclamant-me i gesticulant com ells. La complicitat que s’estableix en qualsevol conversa sigui amb un cambrer o guardia urba es d’agrair en els temps que vivim. Clarament, la gent aqui no te gaire mes que la gent. Tot i el fred que fa aquests dies hi ha moltes colles pels carrers i a cada cantonada hi ha tertulies. Una ciutat d’allo mes social.

Pel que fa a la crisis de residus nomes us dire que despres de 15 anys de corrupcio i blanqueig de diners, la situacio a Campania no millora. Els abocaments de residus urbans i/o perillosos de Napols pero tambe provinents del nord d’Italia es continuen produint de forma legal o ilegal -que la ilegalitat sigui legalitzada per Berlusconi no la fa mes sensata-. El gran invent dels darrers anys son les “eco-balles” que no son mes que muntanyes d’escombraries sense triar embolicades amb plastic i colocades al mig del camp. Abarquen una superficie de 800 camps de futbol i com us podeu imaginar el goteig de toxics cap al sol es constant. La incineracio d’ecombraries a cel obert tambe es una practica habitual que genera dioxines a dojo. Tot plegat provoca que una de les regions mes fertils d’Italia estigui contaminada fins a nivells desconeguts perque ningu sap exactament que, quant i quan i com s’ha abocat desde residus industrials a toxics, etc… Un xou.

Per veure mes “ecobales”: http://is.gd/kNfC

La solucio de l’infame Berlusconi es construir 4 incineradores que tindran capacitat per cremar mes residus dels que es generen a Campania. Deixant de banda que aixo es ilegal perque la legislacio europea obliga a separar les escombraries i reciclar-ne una certa quantitat -50% del paper, plastic, metall i vidre- el voler perpetuar la Campania com a abocador d’Italia es un atemptat que els Napolitans no crec que aguantin.

vesubi-expulsant-escombrariesDurant els 5 dies que he estat a Napols he vist l’emprenyamenta acumulada que porta la gent, l’absoluta desconfianca en els politics i les institucions i en definitiva el caldo de cultiu per un aixecament. La gent esta molt be organitzada i a la minima et tallen carrers, et monten manifestacions, etc… podeu veure la manifestacio que van organitzar coincidint amb el simposi sobre Residu Zero “Zero Waste” aqui: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73161538@N00/

En fi, hi ha qui diu que aviat hauran d’utilitzar el Vesuvi per a desfer-se dels residus. Tal com estan carregant-se la terra aquests gamarussos no m’estranyaria que un bon dia petes el volca i s’endugues per davant els politics, la mozarella de buffala, les buffales, la camorra i l’ultim que tanqui.

Jo a Napols hi he de tornar :-)

 Posted by admin at 21:08  Tagged with: , ,

Napols 2

 Environment, Viatges  No Responses »
Feb 192009
 

talps-i-escombraries-a-napolsEm llevo i plou. Mes esrany encara es que per esmorzar neva… Soc a Napols? Es veu que si…

Els companys de conferencia van arribant d’arreu del mon. Conferencia sobre Zero Waste -Residu Zero- a la ciutat mes pertinent per llur incapacitat -o discapacitat provocada per la Mafia- de tractar la materia.

El centre de Napols es un viatge al passat, carrers caient-se a trocos i preus rebentats per gairebe tot. A la conferencia em trobo xapurrejant l’italia amb gent que em confesa la seva vergonya pel sistema d’ensenyament italia que no els ha preparat per parlar idiomes. Italia, i en particular Napols es un lloc on encara s’hi poden trobar comunistes de la vella escola que volen l’abolicio de la propietat privada i no se que mes. Es dificil arribar a acords amb gent que viu tant lluny de la realitat pero alhora, venint de Brusel.les, la terra dels compromisos i minims comuns denominadors es una alenada d’aire fresc el trobar-se amb gent tan pura en els principis. Elaborem el document per Residu Zero per Europa intentant trobar un punt d’equilibri acceptable per tots/es.

A banda d’aixo, la vida de panini i expresso es fantastica i per sopar ens endinsarem en un dels barris tipics napolitans on tot es possible. Verges is sants a cada cantonada, cotxes i motos aparcats en llocs impossibles, roba estesa al carrer… sopem tres plats, dues ampolles de vi, postre i limoncellos en un restaurant -Nenella- per nomes 10 euros per barba acudits del cambrer inclosos. Experiencia impagable.

De tornada comentem els curios sistema de recollida selectiva de Napols: el camio de les escombraries recull i trinxa paper, cartro, plastic, metalls i organica amb residu… els participants a la conferencia de Zero Waste ens parem embadalits a fer fotos d’un moment tan surrealista. Segurament tota aquesta desafortunada barreja de residus acabara al nou abocador que acaben de reobrir a Napols i on s’accepta residus barrejats incomplint flagranment la directiva  europea d’abocadors…

Lo dels residus i les autoritats italianes es la historia d’una desgracia continuada i de mostrar la corrupcio de l’estament politic italia: A Napols hi ha propostes per construir 5 incineradores per cremar mes del 100% dels residus produits per la ciutat. Representants de Sicilia ens expliquen com volen construir incineradores per cremar 95% dels residus de l’illa. Aixo deixa 5% per reciclar i incompleix de forma espctacular la directiva d;abocadors europea. Pero aqui tant se’ls hi en fot. La multa de la UE es pagara amb fons publics pagats amb impostos dels ciutadans i el benefici de les subvencions i la cremacio de residus anira a mans dels quatre politics corruptes… Trist, trist…

Tornem cap a casa per carrerons carregats de verges que farien millor si sortissin de les gabies i comencessin a fer quelcom per llurs seguidors…

 Posted by admin at 2:40  Tagged with: ,

Poznan negotiations – Apocalypsis now!

 Environment  No Responses »
Dec 182008
 

When I was leaving the venue of UNFCCC in Poznan someone was whistling the soundtrack of Titanic, I ignore whether the choice of the song was deliberate but it well described the situation we are in.

We have hit the iceberg and our politicians continue to dance in the hall. With small island in the pacific or even big countries as Bangladesh starting to go under water the deal last Week’s deal in Poznan was to postpone decisions (and action) one year more; to Copenhaguen 2009.

Having been in Poznan the first impression that I have is that, among the political leaders such as ministers or heads of environmental policy of the various countries, there is no consciousness about the gravity of the climate problem. They all know the problem exists but their reactions and proposals do not reflect the gravity of the situation. For example, they talk of reducing emissions by 20% by the year 2020 and 50% by 2050. But the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that, in order to have a 50% probability of keeping global temperature rise to 2C (after which there would be true environmental catastrophes), we would have to stabilize the concentration of CO2 equivalent gases in the atmosphere below 450ppm (parts per million). The problem is that in 2005, the concentration of CO2 had already reached 379ppm (before industrial revolution it was 280ppm). In other words, we are already past the limit for a scenario where we have only a 50% probability of holding the temperature below dangerous levels, and even so we are not acting with the necessary urgency.

This goal that so many politicians mention, of not passing 2C seems to be merely wishful thinking since we have already increased 0.8C; as the British scientist Bob Watson said: “…we have to try to keep the temperature increase to 2C but we also have to prepare for an increment of 4C…and of course if it rises by 4C most probably there will be a series of feedback mechanisms such as the escape of methane from the permafrost of Siberia, the Canadian tundra and ocean clathrates, as well as the destruction of the Amazon and the melting of the glaciers, which will push the temperature rise above 5C, then to 6C and then… ?”

To see the gravity of the case, we only have to remember that less than

8 months ago there was a tropical cyclone in Burma that left more than 150,000 dead, the equivalent of 2 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs together.

And this is before the temperature has increased even 1C. I wonder, what will be these catastrophes that the IPCC speaks of if the temperature rises more than 2C? Millions of dead in one single climate event?

In spite of all this, the principal polluters (the countries of the

North) want to continue polluting, and in order to do so, we want to give the Southern countries money to plant trees, capture the methane from landfills or put up wind turbines. This we call carbon trading, clean development mechanisms, joint implementation – we have plenty of creativity to continue inventing names when an intelligent and honest analysis of the problem demands an immediate halt to any additional CO2 emissions. The problem is complicated because many Southern countries agree with this approach, as it provides them with funds.

On the other hand, although the historical responsibility for the current problem lies with the industrialized countries, since we have produced 70% of all greenhouse gases emitted since the start of the industrial revolution (in spite of having only 17% of the global population), the problem is that, in the last decade, the situation has changed. Those countries called “developing countries” now emit more than the “developed” countries. For example, China has passed the US as the world’s principal emitter of CO2. This means that, in order to solve the problem, the Southern countries must also embark on an effective program of emissions reductions; this could be done if the industrialized countries recognize their historical responsibility of having caused the problem and provide the necessary capital and technology to do so. Some estimates of the necessary investment run on the order of US$200 billion per year; but the industrialized world seems not to be prepared to put in more than 10% of this amount at best.

The final decisions will be taken in Copenhagen in one year, but everything indicates that, if the decision makers of Northern and Southern countries do not change their positions, we will soon face climatic situations never before seen in the history of humanity. In the face of this challenge, only a citizen movement can steer the humanity into salvation. Our politicians can’t.

Now, I don’t doubt of the abilities/skills/preparation of our politicians (at least of not all of them ;-) ) but in the current system it is just impossible that they will take us out of this mess. Why? Because it is not their job; they are in this to defend their national interests and nobody is there to defend the world’s interests!

If the organization of Small Pacific Islands turned up to be the most progressive in Poznan it was because their survival is at stake. If Saudi Arabia or the US block any kind of deal is not because their citizens are better or worst than those of Spain or Bangladesh, it is because their representatives have to defend the national interests (oil, weapons…).

The current system of intergovernmental negotiations at world level is doomed and time will show the price we are about to pay for having internationalised everything but democracy. Only by building world institutions, which would have as main interest the protection of the interests of human kind, we will be able to address global problems.

The continuous failure of Climate Change negotiations only show how good our representatives are doing their job of representing national interests. The problem is “who represents the interests of all of us, citizens of the world”?

Lester Brown, from the Earth Policy Institute, claims that the danger we are in is so big and urgent that we don’t have time to build world institutions to deal with the problem. We don’t have time to plan, only time to act, he says. The problem is that the reality shows that we are not able to act. Since Kyoto not much has moved and Poznan is only one more chapter of the drama. The representatives of the governments are not agreeing on the minimum measures to save the planet and something needs to be done.

Building the supranational structure of the EU has taken 50 years and we just don’t have this time. However, we might be about to witness a new way to build supranational institutions; from the bottom-up.

Al Gore and many others agree that the only way we can use our possibilities of survival is by creating a citizens movement that works beyond borders and that can put the interests of the earth before the interests of the nation-states.

This would be the first stone in the creation of World Institutions; the creation of a self-appointed world-demos.

I believe the only way we will get something out of the next meeting in Copenhaguen is by having a massive pressure from the world citizens who will have to face, once again, the fierce opposition of the nation-state.

Margaret Meade once wrote “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it is the only thing that ever has”, we have no other chance.

 Posted by admin at 15:24  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Estem fets un embolic

 Curiositats/Funny things, Environment  No Responses »
Dec 122008
 

Un company de feina ha encarregat online uns auriculars pel mobil i l’hem rebut avui. En veure que per a enviar dos cables que no arriben a pesar 100gr s’han fet servir dues capses de cartro i dues de plastic mes 5 bosses de plastic –en total 600gr- no he pogut evitar documentar aquest moment culminant de desenvolupament del sentit comu hominid…

 Posted by admin at 20:41  Tagged with: , , , ,

EU difficult to understand? Try the UNFCCC!

 Curiositats/Funny things, Environment, Europe english  2 Responses »
Dec 082008
 

It is nice to see the EU, the G77, the US and all the others gathered in the Poznan UNFCCC to discuss the NAMAs, the NAPAs and the QUELROs both in AWGKP and AWGLCA. As expected CAN and CJN have been critical and it looks like the BINGOs are going to get a good result in front of the TUNGOs and the RINGOs.

REDD and LULUCF don’t seem to be taken very much seriously despite the efforts of REFUK and the PAM and it is clear that SIDS will end up paying the highest price of the inadequacy of CDMs and others measures.

After all agreeing on MRV targets and a common vision is not a technological problem but a political one.

——–

This is just an example of how codified the talks on the Climate Change Conference taking place in Poznan until 12th December can be.

For those who say the European Union is difficult to understand; you haven’t tried the UN negotiations on Climate Change. EU is peanuts!

UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change

NAMAs: Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions

NAPAs: National Adaptation Programmes of Action

BINGOs: Business and Industry Non-Governmental Organisations

TUNGOs and RINGOs: Trade Unions and Research and Independent NGOs

RFUK: United Kingdom Rainforest Foundation

REDD: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation

PAM: Policies and Measures.

SIDS: Small Island Developing States

LULUCF: Land-use, Land-use Change and Forestry.

QUELRO: Quantified Emissions Limitation and Reduction Objective

MVR: Measurable, Reportable and Verifiable

 Posted by admin at 0:54  Tagged with: , ,

The excessive carbon footprint of the European Parliament

 Coses que pasen, Environment, Europe, Europe english, Viatges  No Responses »
Oct 282008
 

The European Parliament -EP- is unique. It is the only directly elected supranational parliament in the world. It is also quite especial for having two meeting places; Brussels and Strasbourg.

The recently released study on the carbon footprint of the EP confirms the fact that commuting between the two seats is not only stupid but also envirnmentally harmful.

If we look at the distribution of Green House Gas (GHG) per source at world level we see that transport causes 13,5% of GHG, whilst electricity and heat represent 25%. It is quite shocking that the EP is close to producing 30% of its GHG from transport costs (home to work commuting, duty travel between and outside the three main working sites and transport using official and hired cars). This is more than twice as much than the average!!

The study doesn’t reveal how much of this 30% of GHG is caused by commuting from Brussels to Strasbourg. What is clear is that whatever these emissions could be easily saved just by stopping the commuting.

The Resolution of the Parliament of 24 April 2007 decided to cut the EP carbon emissions by 30% by 2020.  Stopping the commuting between Brussels and Strasbourg is something feasible, sensible, necessary and it even has a political majority in the house, among the governments and among the citizens.

The step number one to reduce the carbon footprint of the EP has to be stopping this travelling circus!

 Posted by admin at 18:17  Tagged with: , ,

Who would die for free? Who would die for Freedom?

 Environment, Europe, Europe english  1 Response »
Oct 202008
 

Today I visited the american cementery at Omaha Beach, Normandie, where 3000 american soldiers died on the 6th of June 1944 whilst trying to gain the shore in the first step to free Europe from Nazi occupation.

Everywhere in this memorial we are reminded that these soldiers died for our Freedom.

I walk around these many crosses wondering, once again, about the limits of human stupidity whilst I read amazing stories of courage and sacrifice of these soldiers in their twenties coming from the other side of the ocean to give their lives for us. By “us” I mean “us” in the broadest sense.

Could a scene of sacrifice like this be repeated today? I remember reading of a soldier from Illinois, 18 years old, who lied about his age to be enroled as volunteer and who was among the first to be killed in Omaha beach… Would a white, middle-class, 18 year old american of today be capable of a similar sacrifice? Would a 18 year-old, middle-class european bother enrolling in an army to go defend freedom in the other side of the ocean?

More amazing even is the fact that these people died “for free”.  They were not a professional army, they were not getting paid -as we understand a “pay” today-, yet they gave their lives when its country requested them to do so.

Currently, the armies have been professionalised and middle-class boys -an girls- can easily avoid getting killed in wars. Wars are fought by “latinos”, afro-americans, arabs… and they don’t fight for “freedom” in general but for the ticket for their families to a better world. They don’t fight for general ideas or countries but for papers and money to bring their families out of poverty. In this sense, modern soldiers put a price to their lifes. Yet, I don’t think they would dare to jump on the beaches of Normandy like these soldiers of the second world war did. The price is “too” high.

We definitely live in a different world where “freedom” doesn’t mean what it meant to those youngsters in the 1940s. We can say that the pursue of freedom has been individualised in the same way as the consumist society has turned the “people” into a “consumer”. We are all different individuals having our individual freedom as one of our main assets. The concept of collective freedom has been diluted and prostituted to an extend that it is only use by clowns such as G. Bush to justify forcing ilegal wars upon empoversihed countries.

This is not the freedom the american, british, polish, french, russian soldiers died for during the WWII. However, the need for this “collective freedom” tends to be rediscovered in times of economic, political and moral crisis. The current systemic crisis has the capacity to rally the youngsters of the world to save the destruction of the planet resources, to bring them together to ask for their right to freedom and consequently build structures and institutions that make war impossible but also that control the financial markets, the fiscal paradises, the food markets, etc…

The question is: will the new generation be ready to jump in the Omaha beach of the 21st century exposing themselves to the enemy fire?

Would they be willing to do it “for free”?

 Posted by admin at 1:46  Tagged with: ,

Vols aigua? doncs dues tasses!

 Curiositats/Funny things, Environment  No Responses »
Oct 062008
 

A Brussel.les hi plou mes aviat massa. Vet aqui un cap de setmana com qualsevol altre en que el sol no nomes s’ha agafat vacances indefinides sino que no ha parat de caure aigua.

Per amagar-nos de la pluja i d’aquest temps insuportable decidim anar al cine. Un cop a dins, i encara xops de l’aiguat que cau a fora, l’Elina es compra una aigua de 25cl a 2,5 euros -no em pregunteu perque a segons qui la pluja li dona set-. Fent numeros, en una de les capitals de la pluja mundial estem pagant l’aigua a 10eur el litre…

Enriu-te’n de la crisis del petroli! Beure benzina a Brussel.les ens sortiria gairebe 10 vegades mes barat que beure aigua.

PS1: la legislacio comunitaria obliga que tota l’aigua de l’aixeta sigui potable.
PS2: l’home -i la dona- son, clarament, essers irracionals i burros.

 Posted by admin at 0:46

Imagine a public market without plastic bags…

 Environment  7 Responses »
Sep 302008
 

When will the most environmentally friendly food be packed in something that is not plastic?

Whilst some supermarkets in Belgium start charging the customers for the plastic bags it is sad to see that in public markets in my Brussels neighbourhood, where the freshest food can be found, the plastic is still everywhere and for free.

It felt strange to see how a normal young hippy-happy family with three children who were queuing before me in one of these market grocery shops, left the market with more than 20 plastic bags. The family left the market carrying 4 or 5 plastic bags each of them, almost empty…

It is a paradox that in the public markets, where the freshest food can be found especially in summer, plastic bags are a lot more present than in supermarkets, the main representative of mass-consumption.

The democratic instruments such as regulation on bans or taxes on plastic bags can be better implemented in big supermarkets than in public markets. Yet if we want pubic markets to keep its share as providers of season food, supporting producers living in the city surroundings and hence support self-sufficiency and avoid all the pollution of importing the fruits from the other side of the world an effort needs to be made to educate consumers in public markets to bring their shopping carts or cloth bags instead of opting to ask for a plastic bag.

 Posted by admin at 12:41
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