Clearing the Air? Try Harvesting Methane Instead

 New York Times: To Fight Climate Change, Clear the Air

Ever since the greatest climate negotiation "failure" at Copenhagen, it is hard to blame anyone for having low expectations towards the outcomes at Cancun, which has just begun. Academics Ramanathan and Victor have made an important point however, on the fact there are many other factor issues that negotiators at this round of talks should discuss about i.e. gases such as HFCs and methane. During the run-up to the event, media publicity and debate have been circling around the emission of one major contributor: carbon dioxide. Talks about carbon taxes, cap-and-trade etc. have grabbed the headlines, ignoring other significant contributors to global warming.

There is a lot of potential for the gas methane. The disadvantage, as stated in the article, is that "the accounting systems used in climate diplomacy are cumbersome and offer relatively few incentives for countries to make much effort to control methane". Nevertheless, that excuse of "accounting inconvenience" can also be used to demolish the authors' argument for using clean air as a common platform for negotiations at Cancun! There is no internationally-agreed method to calculating the cost of human lives as a result of polluted air. Many developing countries will even argue that the attracting of coal-reliant industries and destruction of rain forests would probably save more lives from hunger and poverty in the short-term.

The IEA's latest World Energy Outlook 2010, the discovery of unconventional gas in the United States and Qatar's efforts to promote its natural gas as a increasingly important energy resource all indicate that this resource will be playing a huge role in the transition to a renewable energy economy over the next few decades. What this also means is that there is a potentially enormous market for the collection, transportation and resale of methane gas. Energy companies and engineers should not let themselves be setback by the lack of accounting procedures, but instead aim to devise instruments for the collection and storage of methane. There are profits to be made from the sale of effective instruments and re-sale of methane gas especially to developing countries where their use is still significantly prominent. Global economic trends show that entrepreneurs and pioneers are most likely to emerge from immigrants or migrants from developing countries who have social ties that will enable the sale of methane gas back home. An opportunity like this is a clear example of how entrepreneurship and private investment in a global economy can contribute to the environment.

As for air pollution and health, it is only useful so far as it rides on buzz phrases advocating human rights such as "improving the quality of life for our citizens and future generations" and "clean air for all". Although it is true that there is collective interest among the governments to doing so like the authors have pointed out, as long as critics can show that it is disadvantageous to economic growth and production, there will most certainly be delays and worse still, even lower expectations for future climate talks. But we must do what we can now, and that is to find solutions that flow easily with the economic tide until slightly later, when circumstances become hopefully ripe for a united effort to save the planet.

Rethinking the Social Auditing Movement in India's Fight Against Corruption

IHT: India's fight against corruption goes local

New York Times journalist Lydia Polgreen wrote an article on rural India "social audits", an experiment in the local grass-roots democracy that has been gaining momentum recently. Backed up by the recent right-to-information law she outlined how this movement could have "broad implications for India's quest to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty" in the country with the largest number of poor people in the world. She quoted V. Vasanth Kumar, Andhra Pradesh's minister for rural development as saying that "social audits statewide have found $20 million worth of fraud over the past five years, and 4,600 officials have faced administrative or criminal charges".

Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi once estimated that only 15 percent of every rupee spent on the poor actually reaches them, which is a terrible statistic in the light of the Indian government's plans to spend a quarter of a trillion dollars to help the rural poor over the next five years, and such social audits are indeed crucial to reducing waste and fraud. Although Lydia has every right to be hopeful about such a movement, her article is written based on a "Western", anti-corruption perspective. Her idea of an effective democracy that India should work towards is that of an educated, information-rich model based on that of developed countries with long histories of understanding rights as well as relatively equal social statuses.

India's caste system however has been firmly entrenched for centuries, most significantly in the rural areas where mindsets have not altered at the expected pace. A social audit is a "Western" accounting process that assumes the ability to highlight and deter corrupt practices with the use of government funds by corrupted officials, but from a local perspective, that begets the question of the definition of "corruption". The image of "corruption", as often projected by the media and NGOs, portray a picture of a greedy official altering account records so as to embezzle government funds for personal gain. Such actions should rightfully be condemned and portrayed as such, social audit movements can only bring about greater benefit for the rural poor.

However in Indian society (as that of many Asian societies in general), the cultural emphasis on business and social networking has not been understood clearly by "Western" media and NGOs. The importance of entrenched hierarchies and guanxi relations has no monetary value that audits can valuate. The free market economy model assumes an equal standing between negotiating parties that is not reflective in reality, much less in caste-system India. Money exchanged under the table could be used to forge relationships with benefits far beyond what the amount is worth. For example, a village mayor might choose a less valuable construction proposition if along with it comes "unofficial" money that could be used for the development of education and sanitation facilities or increased probability of further ties with the company's partners that could translate into projects that provide jobs for the villagers.

If taken unawares, champions of social auditing might find themselves tools of certain politicians in the government searching for an excuse to rid themselves of rivals and uncooperative officials. With a history of networking and guanxi involved in every dealing, social auditing might become the most accessible way of "discovering" corruption and cronyism in between the lines of every accounting document.

Less Relief Aid to Disasters that Unfold Slowly

Awareness of the flood has brought more donations, but as winter approaches, more than seven million people are homeless and malnutrition is rising. As schools reopen, families sheltered in them will again be on the streets. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

New York Times: The Special Pain of a Slow Disaster

For the layman with a good heart, philanthropy is, undoubtedly, very much pegged to emotional strings and the economics of media channels. However, Lydia Polgreen made a very sharp observation supported by statistics which show overwhelmingly that donors are more likely to give to causes raising funds to aid areas with high immediate death-rates, as opposed to disasters that destroy means of livelihood and infrastructure.

Although in this case, U.S. sentiments and politics play a significant role influencing the stream of financial and material aid from Western countries to Pakistan, a lot of it depends on the organization of charity organizations and international aid foundations, and especially the way they view their role in providing assistance.

Charity organizations almost always have a target group of people they would like to help, and their donors and supporters both constrain and drive their mission at the same time. Many donors are also not shy to make demands and influence the channeling of funds, without considering the fact that they have little experience in the field. In so doing, financial and material assistance become disproportionately distributed to places around the world that need them. The floods in Pakistan, for example, may not seem to be as "disastrous" as the Haiti earthquake, but the media, in their rush to cover the situation on the ground, sensationalized the death toll without considering numerous other factors. Driven by the same forces that drive these publications, social media duplicates the same observations and multiply the emotion-factor, and what results is a well-meant but inaccurate description of the situations.

Two things must happen in society.

Firstly, there is a need for greater emphasis on logical analysis and evaluation of disaster areas, as well as the impact on the country and world economy. Although it will be difficult to remove the emotion-factor that drives many charities and foundations, a large portion who hold on to religious and moral principles, there is a need for organizations to provide the media and public a clear, logical picture of the situation on the ground, with projections of what the future could hold if investments and aid are not properly channeled and distributed. The media and the public are most turned off by complex statistics, abundant jargon and numerous models. Neither is there enough awareness of the importance of staff payroll, transportation costs etc., necessities that donors are most reluctant to give to.

Secondly, there is a need for donations to be unpegged from social status i.e. more anonymous donations and less public declarations, as well as greater trust in charities and aid-relief organizations to make decisions as to where funds should go. Philanthropists must understand that they cannot demand for immediate results, and that effects can only be seen if these charity organizations are constantly supported over a period of time instead of having to make rash decisions for fear of a loss of support. As for these organizations, their goals must be aimed at the long-term welfare of the target group and not just making the best of whatever they have got.

Such mindsets will take a long time to change, but only with a concerted effort from members of the public, charity organizations and the media can we be seen to take a step towards improving disaster-relief as we know it.

Taxing the Way to Cancun?

 The Financial Times: UN wants taxes to fund climate change fight

At the Singapore International Energy Week, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the country's willingness to implement a carbon tax, a forward step for the prosperous nation as the world anticipates the global climate talks soon to occur at Cancun, Mexico at the end of this month.

Fiona Harvey (an eminent journalist from the Financial Times I had the honor to meet at the International Energy Week) noted that some of the measures set up by the international panel led by Jens Stoltenberg and Meles Zenawi to get rich countries to help poor countries to cut emissions are "controversial". This is understandably so, since none of the rich countries will voluntarily handicap their economies to aid a developing country with the potential of becoming a future competitor. With the US and China, the two largest economies in the world, unwilling to participate in a global carbon market, carbon taxes and carbon trading will have little meaning or positive impact on climate change.

With the Republicans regaining political control in the United States, the climate outlook seems pretty bleak. Obama's push for the development of locally-situated clean energy industries has been hamstrung, and China continues to power theirs on with enormous subsidies. In addition to that, the surge in support for the Tea Party (both financially and numerically) came significantly from two very powerful groups of people: coal miners whose jobs are being threatened, and factories owners who are only too happy to pick the cheaper option of coal power. Behind such a sociopolitical backdrop, policy makers are turning their gaze towards China to set a positive example and lead in the set up of a global carbon market.

But can China do it? Depending on what perspective one takes to view the country, China is not ready to implement a country-wide carbon tax on its industries. Given that carbon taxes are borne by consumers, implementing such a regulation might lead to the total collapse of the already-crumbling mini-economies that pervade the rural countryside. Many of the laborers, most significantly the rural migrants who come to the cities in search of a livelihood, do not have the financial capacity to feed themselves, much less pay the levies as a result of carbon taxes.

However, China is a huge country, and with time, it might be possible to levy carbon taxes on the products sold in certain areas, especially in the rapidly urbanizing cities. A carefully calculated move will propel industries to consider moving to specially demarcated "carbon tax-free zones", and populate the areas currently seen as "ghost towns" where large capital was spent on infrastructure but were never populated by industries. This will also redirect migration flows, lower urban crime rates, develop specific areas, and decentralize the political leadership.

By considering the potential of these possibilities, China has much more to gain than it realizes through the readjustment of its economy. It is also likely that the moment the Chinese juggernaut shows a firm desire to lead the rest of the world towards a global implementation of a carbon tax, the other rich countries will have little choice but to follow along. Thus, two things remain in the way: The overpowering desire for greater profits and the entrenched mindset that carbon taxes must be implemented nationally without considering their relative geographical and economic situations.