development - Robert Maguire on Diigo

17 Dec 09

a number of core elements
first, that all major economies set forth strong national actions and resolve to implement them; and second, that they agree to a system that enables full transparency and creates confidence that national actions are in fact being implemented.
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- two are shaping up to be essential
- successful agreement
- Transparency, in particular, is what will ensure that this agreement becomes operational, not just aspirational. We all need to take our share of responsibility, stand behind our commitments, and mean what we say in order for an international agreement to be credible.
- It is no secret that the United States turned a blind eye to climate change for too long. But now, under President Obama’s leadership, we are taking responsibility and taking action.
- Some are concerned that a strong agreement on climate change will undermine the efforts of developing nations to build their economies, but the opposite is true. This is an opportunity to drive investment and job creation around the world, while bringing energy services to hundreds of millions of the world’s poor.
- That is why United States is supporting an accord that both complements and promotes sustainable development by moving the world toward a low-carbon economy. The accord we seek will provide generous financial and technological support for developing countries, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, to help them reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. And we are prepared to join an effort to mobilize fast-start funding that will ramp up to $10 billion in 2012 to support the adaptation and mitigation efforts of countries in need.

10 Dec 09

U.S. Diplomacy Makes A Call To Tech Support : NPR

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09 Dec 09

The World Bank is subsidizing coal power plants even as the world meets at Copenhagen to cut greenhouse gas emissions | Foreign Policy

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Even as governments are weighing tough choices to bring down emissions and cope
with rising temperatures, the World Bank is financing -- and plans to continue
financing -- coal projects to the detriment of renewable energy. In
effect, the World Bank is sending the message that coal is not just an
acceptable fuel, but also a resource that should be developed with
international funding. It's a betrayal of everything the World Bank's member
countries are supposed to be working for.
The
bank's recently released draft Energy Strategy,
which will guide its energy lending and influence partner institutions for the
next seven to 10 years and announces its investment in coal, is very, very bad
news.

17 Nov 09

Matthew Yglesias » Birth Control in Afghanistan

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fertility US politics development economy population statistics reference women education

The underlying idea that lowering Afghanistan’s fertility rate would help it develop economically makes a lot of sense. Especially in an overwhelmingly rural country, the tendency is for a rapid increase in population to lead to falling living standards.
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- In Brazil, for example, the wanted fertility rate in 1996 (the most recent year available) was 1.8; the actual fertility rate then was 2.5. In India the wanted rate in 2006 was 1.9, the actual one, 2.7. In Ghana the figures for 2003 were 3.7 and 4.4. The rule seems to be that women want one child fewer than they are having
- That points to another big reason why fertility is falling: the spread of female education. Go back to the countries where fertility has fallen fastest and you will find remarkable literacy programmes.

Fertility and living standards: Go forth and multiply a lot less | The Economist

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31 Oct 09

Interview With Wyatt Andrews of CBS

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hillary statedept US politics waronterror development pakistan afghanistan taliban al-qaeda

And you said, “I find it hard to believe nobody in your government knows where they are,” meaning the al-Qaida leadership, “and could get them if they really wanted to.”
But what I was conveying is really part of the message of my trip.
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- But I do think it’s important for the people of Pakistan and for the government, as they express their mistrust of us, our motives and intentions and actions, to realize that when we arrest somebody like Zazi a few months ago, who was trained in an al-Qaida training pack in Pakistan, we have questions.
- think that in the past, and prior to our Administration, there were many approaches tried by the Pakistanis. As you recall, they struck an agreement in Swat with the Taliban. And the theory behind that was, look, this is a sparsely populated area, it’s a long way away from our population centers. If they want to have some autonomy, we’re willing to give it to them. But of course, they quickly found out that that wasn’t the only objective of the Pakistani Taliban. They continued their offensive.
- They moved into Benir, they moved closer and closer to Islamabad, where we are today.
- I think it’s important for us to recall that this border area in Pakistan has never been “governed.”
- It wasn’t governed by the British, it wasn’t governed by the Government of Pakistan.
- There were not adequate schools, so families turned to the madrassa system for their sons. There wasn’t healthcare. I mean, there were no economic opportunities.
- “Look, you have to have a political, economic strategy that goes along with the security strategy.” And we are working with the Pakistanis on just that approach.
- Holbrooke
- Not to belabor this, but I am hearing that you feel a bit more convinced this time that the goal is military defeat.
- Yes. Now, given the terrain that the military is operating in, I mean, a low –
- -- battle takes place at 7,000 or 8,000 feet. It’s kind of hard to imagine. There is going to be leakage. You are going to have --
- -- people who know these mountains as well as the back of their hand escaping to live to fight another day and launch another suicide attack against Pakistan.
- everywhere I have gone, I have tried to expand my contact beyond just the official government-to-government meetings, which are part of my job, and which are very important.
- QUESTION: Fair to say that the public opinion fight here is high stakes?
  
  SECRETARY CLINTON: It is high stakes. And when we came into office, the attitude toward our country was very negative. And President Obama, who is so popular worldwide and viewed with such great acclaim by people, including here in Pakistan, has high personal favorabilities. But the problem is translating that into an understanding and an approval of what the United States does.
- this is a long trip for a Secretary of State
- My problem is I can’t get the electricity to turn on in my country. What’s the United States doing about that?” Or, “I have no school to send my daughter when she graduates from primary school,” or, “Where do I go to get healthcare?”

30 Oct 09

But rather than just ignore it or paper over it, I invited that. I knew very well that these questions would be asked by the Pakistani press and the people that I am interacting with.
And then she came with a zinger and I thought, oh my gosh, “There but for accident of birth go I 40 years ago,” because it is to the young people that we’re trying to reach out – I announced, as you know, yesterday, a new service that we are partnering with Pakistani telecom companies so that we get young people cooperating and talking about what’s on their minds. We try to increase civil society.
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- QUESTION: And are you persuaded, absolutely convinced that the mission is achievable, the mission that you and the President and the rest of your advisors and military experts – that you can come up with a solution out of these deliberations on Afghanistan that will have a definable, achievable mission of – no matter how many troops we send in?
  SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes, I absolutely believe that, and after sitting through many hours of intense meetings in the Situation Room in the White House, I know that the President is resolved and committed. The strategy hasn’t changed. We know we have to defeat al-Qaida and their extremist allies. How we go about that, how we operationalize it, how we try to make up for, frankly, lost time over the last eight years in working with the Afghans themselves and trying to help train and deploy their own security forces so that they will be able to protect their own country, is what we are trying to determine the best way forward on. But I am absolutely convinced of their resolve.
- QUESTION: And do you think that there is an end that – depending on the kinds of forces, the way they are put in and the mission that’s defined, is there a way out of Afghanistan for the American people?
  SECRETARY CLINTON: Absolutely. I mean, this is not an open-ended, never-ending commitment. But it is one that we have to see through and do our very best to create the conditions inside Afghanistan. I’m not talking about nation-building. That is not at all what we are focused on, but to create a level of stability and security. We have our very best military minds who are looking at that. We have our very best civilian diplomats like Ambassador Holbrooke and others who are very experienced in this.
  And I believe that we’re going to come up with an approach that will enable the people of Afghanistan who do not want the Taliban back. They totally reject the Taliban. There is a misconception, I think, in some quarters that somehow the momentum or the advances that the Taliban is making are because the people of Afghanistan reject the alternative. That is just not true. But the people deserve to have a government that can deliver services for them at the local level, a government at the national level that can help to create a security force that can be appropriately deployed to protect them. Those are very basic needs, but the people do not want the Taliban back.
- Well, Pakistan has a very professional military. They are very committed to this fight. They’re taking it to their enemies who also happen to be our enemies. I have confidence in their ability to secure their nuclear arsenal. So it’s a very different situation on both sides of the border. We have encouraged the Pakistani Government and people to take seriously this threat, which they are doing. We think that they have a struggle ahead of them, because unfortunately, it doesn’t take very many suicide bombers to cause havoc and destruction like we saw in Peshawar.
  But they are in the fight and they know what is at stake. The president lost his wife to these terrorist assassins. So I have no doubt about the resolve and the commitment. There’s a way to go to make sure that in Afghanistan, they have the same capacity and the same resolve to do that.

Interview With Jill Dougherty of CNN

www.state.gov/...131135.htm - Preview

hillary statedept US politics waronterror development pakistan afghanistan taliban al-qaeda

What I was responding to is what I have been really doing on this trip, which is that there exists a trust deficit, certainly on the part of the Pakistanis, toward the United States, toward our intentions and our actions. And yet we have so much in common. We face a common threat. We certainly have a common enemy in extremism and terrorism. And so part of what I have been doing is answering every single charge, every question. I am going to continue today to put myself in as many different settings as possible, because it’s not adequate just to meet with government officials.
But trust is a two-way street. And I think it’s important, if we’re going to have the kind of cooperative partnership that I think is in the best interests of both of our countries, for me to express some of the questions that are on the minds of the American people. And I am not prejudging the answer, but I am asking the question.
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- Three days is obviously a long trip for a Secretary of State.
- Now, we are not always going to agree. That never happens in any relationship that I am aware of, but – we are going to honestly set forth our areas of disagreement, but then we are also going to work on all that we agree on, and we are going to try to demonstrate results from our partnership that the people of Pakistan and the people of our country can see.
- Afghanistan as a country is that it’s never had a strong central government
- So, of course, we are going to work with governors and district leaders and village elders and the like.
- But there are certain functions that only a central government in Kabul can perform.
- One of our goals is to help stand up an effective Afghan national security force. Well, that has to come from Kabul. That has to come from the president, the minister of defense, and others, to create more of a police force to deal with day-to-day crime and some of the challenges that people report to us about. Well, that requires the minister of interior and others to work.
- So, we are not – I think in the past, and it’s difficult to go back – but I think there might have been too much emphasis on the central government, and this idea that there could be some kind of nation-building that would transform Afghanistan overnight. But we don’t accept that. We don’t think that’s going to happen. But what we do believe is that we have to work with the president and the cabinet, the officials in Kabul, and the officials at the local level. And that’s going to be our approach.

Matthew Yglesias » Commitment to Development

yglesias.thinkprogress.org/...commitment-to-development.php - Preview

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Nicest overall country is Sweden.

22 Oct 09

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush

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8. In the Yellow Sea coastline, countless sewage pipes buried in the beach and even extending into the deep sea. April 28, 2008
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- 9. In Ma’anshan, Anhui province (安徽马鞍山), along the Yangtze River there are many small-scaled Iron selection factories and plastic processing plants. Large amounts of sewage discharged into the Yangtze River June 18, 2009
- 16. Hebei Province Shexian Tianjin Iron and steel plant (河北省涉县天津钢铁厂) is a heavily polluting company. Company scale is still growing, seriously affecting the lives of local residents. March 18, 2008

19 Oct 09

Supply and Debate | Foreign Policy

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politics oil energy economy china russia india development US statistics reference peak oil

Data from the International Energy
Agency (IEA) and the U.S. Energy Department show that the global flow of crude
oil peaked in 2005 and is now sliding steadily. The world will never run out of
oil altogether, but oil's flow is in decline.
There might still be ample
reserves left in the ground when production falls to half of today's use. But
these remaining reserves are either very low-quality heavy oil, which is
difficult to process, or tainted with toxic elements that make them hard to
refine into usable petroleum products.
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- Until the
  world's oil producers allow third-party audits of the flow rates of the world's
  largest oil fields, which they have so far been reluctant to do, it is
  impossible to know just how dire a situation we are in. I believe that such an
  audit would prove peak oil, but either way it is certainly irresponsible to
  make optimistic projections without hard data.
- Yergin's company, ihs Cambridge
  Energy Research Associates, as well as the iea and my own group, Global Energy
  Systems (GES), have analyzed the world's giant oil fields, and all have drawn
  approximately the same conclusion: Those fields that provide today's production
  will, in 20 years, have lost production equivalent to five times the current
  production of Saudi Arabia.
- There is a very strong connection
  between access to oil and political, economic, and military strength. Of the
  world's four centers of power, three -- China, the European Union, and the United
  States -- are heavily dependent on imported oil. Only Russia is self-sufficient in
  supply. This, combined with China's ever-expanding energy needs, will provide
  the primary sources of conflict in Yergin's "new world of oil."
- He does suggest that my article is unaware of the growth of Chinese
  demand. I find this puzzling, as I write: "But now, the growth is in China,
  India, other emerging markets, and the Middle East. Between 2000 and 2007 ...
  [almost] 85 percent of that growth [in world oil demand] was in emerging
  markets." As he does observe, China now imports more than half of its oil, and
  that share will increase. But one thing that he does not address is why China's
  domestic oil production has increased 10 percent since 2004.

09 Oct 09

What’s Your Consumption Factor? - New York Times

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sis689 US china consumption politics environment resources oil development climatechange jareddiamond

What really matters is total world consumption, the sum of all local consumptions, which is the product of local population times the local per capita consumption rate.
The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.
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- A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans.
- With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.
- There will be more terrorist attacks against us and Europe, and perhaps against Japan and Australia, as long as that factorial difference of 32 in consumption rates persists.
- People who consume little want to enjoy the high-consumption lifestyle.
- Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let’s also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens to increase world consumption — that is, no other country increases its consumption, all national populations (including China’s) remain unchanged and immigration ceases. China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.

05 Oct 09

Matthew Yglesias » Building Factories in Afghanistan

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afghanistan trade development waronterror india turkey commerce taxes tarrifs politics

“A lot of people who join the Taliban are jobless, too. If you want to stop the fighting, don’t send us more troops; build us more factories.”
Of course we could build a bunch of factories, but that wouldn’t do any good unless the factories had customers.
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- Changing that rule might encourage some factory-building in Afghanistan. Similarly we see here that some of Afghanistan’s key trade partners have very high tariffs on Afghan agricultural products. Perhaps we could persuade Turkey and India that they don’t need to be charging 50+% taxes on imports of Afghan grapes. India is Afghanistan’s largest export market right now despite those high taxes; changing it would open some additional economic opportunities for people.

28 Sep 09

Marginal Revolution: Sobering Reality

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23 Sep 09

China Will Cap Emissions Intensity: Your Move, U.S. : TreeHugger

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China's president Hu Jintao offered his country's biggest climate change initiative yet at the UN this morning, saying China would establish emissions intensity targets --not absolute targets, but cuts in emissions per unit of GDP.
They could achieve emissions reductions that are "measurable, reportable, and verifiable" -- a Copenhagen goal -- and could establish a framework for future emissions caps.

11 Sep 09

India's Afghan Aid Irks Pakistan - WSJ.com

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07 Sep 09

UNCCD - United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

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Robert Maguire's Library tagged development → View Popular

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Matthew Yglesias » Birth Control in Afghanistan

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India's Afghan Aid Irks Pakistan - WSJ.com

UNCCD - United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

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