Climate Change in Bangladesh

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in conjunction with The Asia Program, The Environmental Change and Security Program, and The Comparative Urban Studies Project, presented a panel discussion about the effects of climate change on Bangladesh on Monday, September 19. The conference, entitled Perfect Storm? Population Pressures, Natural Resource Constraints, and Climate Change in Bangladesh, explored the dangers that global climate change presents for this small nation, which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted as severe. The populous nation is expected to reach 200 million people by 2050; however, with a forecasted sea level rise of two to three feet, one-fifth of its landmass is expected to be destroyed. This loss of land holds particular implications for agriculture, with a predicted loss of staple crops of about 30 percent, as well as for the area’s inhabitants, leading to at least 20 million displaced people.

With such grave implications looming for Bangladesh, an overwhelming need for scholarly discourse presents itself. The conference consisted of two panels and included six speakers: Ali Riaz, who discussed Climate Change and National Security; Mohamed Khalequzzaman, Geological Aspects of Climate Change and the Fate of the Bengal Delta; Adnan Morshed, The Central Threat: Dhaka as a Frontier in the Climate-Change Narrative of Bangladesh; Roger-Mark De Souza, Population and Climate Connections: Effective Pathways to Calming the Storm; Shamarukh Mohiuddin, Adaption Needs in Bangladesh and the U.S. Response; and Philip J. DeCosse, Storm Surges, Coastal Forests, Local Governance, and Food Security: Innovations from Bangladesh.

Many of the speakers framed their talks around security. As Riaz pointed out, security can be both traditional, in military terms, and nontraditional, in relation to human activity and food. Together, traditional and nontraditional security comprise national security. The effects of climate change threaten all aspects of Bangladesh’s security as a nation. Not only does climate change hold repercussions for Bangladesh’s southern low-lying coastal areas, but its rural zones and urban centers are also at risk. Rising sea levels translate to massive internal migration, as individuals are forced out of their homes. However, it also means a considerable shift toward food insecurity, as lands are destroyed and fresh water sources obliterated. Currently, 56 percent of current food production comes from irrigated agriculture, a reality that cannot continue without readily available fresh water. Just as significant of an issue, though, is the uncontrolled urbanization of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital city. The hyper-urbanization of Dhaka has lead to the proliferation of slums and squatter settlements and the dominance of social insecurities over the lives of many inhabitants. This unplanned urban sprawl also has serious environmental consequences, disrupting the fragile river ecosystem that feeds Dhaka and spewing pollution into the air with unprecedented traffic congestion.

Khalequzzaman emphasized that without intervention, that with an acceptance of the status quo, the situation in Bangladesh will result in the “Perfect Storm:” a host of issues and a scarcity of solutions. The issue of Bangladesh’s future needs to be brought to an international level. However, action cannot occur at the expense of the nation’s sovereignty. The speakers warned that if the capacity of the state shrinks, if social wellbeing relies too heavily on international or non-governmental actors, then Bangladeshi governance may turn to the adoption of more authoritarian methods. In the meantime, however, policies need to put in place and alternative solutions explored to help Bangladesh adapt to the severe ecological changes that threaten to redefine this highly vulnerable nation.


Colleen Quinn

Jinko Protested, Citizens Still Unprotected: Another Foreign Firm Continues Illegal and Harmful Practices

A day ago, numerous Chinese news sites published a story on a protest in Jiaxing in Zhejiang province. The story goes that 500 or so people swarmed the Jinko Solar Co Ltd factory last Thursday night to protest what they believed to be exceedingly harmful practices that have created health concerns including highly volatile emissions, and the dumping of toxic chemicals in the nearby river.

International Energy Outlook 2011

This morning I attended the Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Outlook for 2011.  Dr. Howard Gruenspecht, the Acting Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the EIA presented the briefing.  For those of you unfamiliar with IEOs, the International Energy Outlook’s purpose is to give a projection of world energy demand and major energy source through 2035.  The IEO also discusses energy demand among developing countries, as well as recent events that complicate projecting long-term energy outlook. 

The briefing was interesting, but what especially stood out to me was how often “China” and “India” were brought up in the dialogue.  It is projected that energy use will increase about 50% between 2008 and 2035, and half of that increase will be attributed to China and India.  

Unfortunately fossil fuels are predicted to continue to provide 80% of world energy use in 2035.  In consequence, carbon dioxide emissions will rise 43% reaching a total of 43.2 billion metric tons in 2035.  China will account for about three-fourths of the world’s increase in coal-fired generation, of which coal will still fuel the largest share of world’s electricity in 2035.  Though the world will continue to be fossil fuel dependent in the near future, renewables will be the fastest growing energy source at 2.8% per year.  There are projected to be big developments in shale oil and natural gas production.  Oil is predicted to become very expensive as resources are constrained, and so other types of fossil fuels will become more popular.  Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster may possibly affect nuclear energy policy in some nations.  However the outlook report does not take politics or policy shifts into account when calculating their projections; instead it looks at resources and technology available, and supply and demand.  It is the tight supply and demand shifts which really influence energy outlook.

The introducer to the briefing commented how she was troubled to hear that energy is becoming more and more non-U.S. centered.  The future is in the hands of China and India! 

Relating this somewhat to IFCE and environmental issues in China, I was thinking about how in China individuals owning automobiles is on the rise.  Personal transportation in China (and other countries which are projected to have significantly high energy demand) will be important in deciding what energy source will be chosen and what the CO emissions associated with it will be.

Statistics are taken from the International Energy Outlook 2011 presentation from the Center for Strategic and International Studies which can be found at: http://csis.org/files/attachments/110919_IEO2011.pdf

The Paradigm of China's Developmental Problem

This past Wednesday I was fortunate to have the opportunity (seriously) to attend an event at the wonderful Brookings Institute, a premier organization of scholars and intellectuals. Their Thornton Center continues to attract some of the best and brightest China-focused minds, whose quality of output might be matched, but hardly surpassed. The event was entitled “Intellectuals Divided: The Growing Political and Ideological Debate in China”, and a more apt title, there are none. Regardless of your level of expertise regarding China, this talk was exceedingly informative and in-depth, while remaining accessible. For individuals interested in what is occurring on the ground in China, the internal governmental and intellectual debates as well as a non-economic assessment and prediction regarding the big red state’s future should hit the jump for more.

Intellectuals Divided: The Growing Political and Ideological Debate in China

The John L. Thornton China Center, within the Brookings Institution, hosted an event on September 14, to discuss the role of intellectualism in China. Cheng Li, Yawei Liu, and Jianying Zha each offered their thoughts on the role of increasing intellectual debate in China and the outlook for China in light of this shift towards scholarly discourse.

Cheng Li began the discussion by dissecting this issue into three components: what is new, why it is extraordinary, and to what it will ultimately lead. He recalled the anti-intellectualism of Mao and the Cultural Revolution, noting the many changes that have occurred in recent years. In particular, he discussed changes in the social sphere, such as an increase in the college graduation rate from 0.4% in 1982 to 8.9% in 2010 and a new sense of individual economic independence. Partially shaping these trends are the influence and prevalence of the media as well as the advent of foreign-educated returnees, think tanks, NGOs, and interest groups. However, he highlighted that what is extraordinary about the intellectual debate is the wide range of views, yet profundity of ideas, as distinctions that used to play a factor, such as generation, educational background, and academic field, no longer hold. For Cheng Li, this era of dispute is both promising and dangerous at the same time, with hope and fear coexisting. He warns that if both sides blindly push for radical change, then the threat of political deadlock will become a reality and possible sociopolitical chaos will ensue.

Next, Yaiwei Liu discussed “The ‘Rise’ of the Chinese Intellectuals and Its Consequences,” drawing upon the analysis of China by Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, in order to reframe the intellectual debate in terms of economics. According to Friedman, to achieve success, China must develop a knowledge-based service/finance economy, completing the shift from “Made in China” to “Designed in China” to, eventually, “Imagined in China.” However, China’s economic future also relies heavily on the elimination of the gap between rich and poor. Yaiwei Liu discussed the prospect of China’s growth in terms of the cake theory, whereas if the bakers of a cake know that the cake will be fairly divided, they will have the incentive to bake a bigger and better cake. In the same way, if Chinese citizens feel confident that they will experience a reasonable and fair return on their efforts, they will be motivated to work towards the economic success of their country. The people of China, therefore, can grow rich together. However, debate has flared about whether the prospect of a combined effort toward financial growth is truly necessary for the continuation of the CCP or if it is merely a pseudo-goal, with the poor eventually abandoned. Scholars remain sharply divided on this issue; however, the debate has convinced top leadership of the overwhelming need for a social safety net. As of now, the resolution of this dispute is uncertain. Yaiwei Liu, though, closed his talk by posing a possible scenario resulting from the rise of such intellectual debate: partisan politics in China.

Finally, Zha Jianying framed the intellectual debate in a different, yet constructive, light, noting the danger of rushing to accord: without disunity, true consensus cannot be built. She continued her talk in a similar tone, exploring the new breed of Chinese public intellectuals and the great influence they wield. As a whole, China has opened up, increasing consciousness about individual rights and the value of democracy. In particular, she noted, intellectual debate focuses on quintessentially middle class issues, as a yearning for peace and prosperity combined with a fear of disorder drive the discussions taking place in China. However, this enlightenment process of modernity began almost a century ago with the May Fourth Movement. Protests have evolved, though—now, more moderate in tone and shaped by new social media. In addition, official responses to protests have been restrained, with concessions offered or damage control quickly employed. Zha Jianying recognized this change in attitudes as a sign of the growing maturity of intellectualism, as individuals realize that politics is not a zero-sum game. Into the future, intellectual debate will continue to flourish, and, as all three speakers echoed, the struggle between fear and hope will persist. However, the potential that this scholarly discussion holds creates an air of excitement and promise as China launches into a new era.


Colleen Quinn

The Environment and Human Rights: the International Community’s Responses to Emerging Local and Global Challenges

This event, co-hosted by the Swiss Embassy and Wilson Center, examined the relationship between environmental issues and human rights.  The speakers specifically talked about the Human Rights Council of the U.N. and its role in preserving human rights while environmental policy decisions are made. Unfortunately human rights and environmental conservation have come into conflict numerous times.  The speaker looked at specific cases the Council has dealt with which concern local pollution being a violation of privacy rights.  The Council also looked at cases where protecting the environment appeared to be a justification for infringing on human rights, such as a case involving a gypsy family wanting to settle temporarily in England’s green belt, a protected open space.

The panel also spent a while discussing water and it’s relation to human rights.  After all water is important; without water, there is no life.  They stated that it is a U.N. declared human right for “access to clean water and sanitation.”  However the right to clean water is complex because it involves many other rights, such as the right to information, the right to be involved in decision-making processes, and the need to protect the environment.  If the environment is not protected, then where will clean water come from?  After all, the wetlands in the New York City Watershed supply water to half of New York’s population.[1]

There were a lot of interesting questions addressed during the panel.  One of the questions was, what happens to human rights during wartime when access to water is purposefully turned off?  If water is shut off, there is the intention of exterminating the civilian population just like starvation, and so it is looked at as a war crime.  Unfortunately there is sometimes an overlap between environmental conservation and violation of human rights, so it was interesting to explore this overlap with qualified panelists who have experience in this field and in the Human Rights Council.

---

[1] “Wetlands in the Watersheds of the New York City Water Supply System.”

New York City Department of Environmental Protection. www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/brochures/wetlands.pdf

News Article: The Human Cost of Energy

Hi there!
Here is an article I came across from Scientific American. Very interesting perspective, and worth digging into.
Happy friday!
Haiya

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy

Rotten Apple

No one will argue that Apple makes visually stunning products: sculpted metal, sleek curves, and bright glass. Since Steve Jobs took the helm for a second time (after bombing with NeXT) the company rose from alt-obscurity, to mainstream media darling. There is no other technology company (maybe even no other company at all) whose products are received with such grandiose fanfare. Apple's product releases are like holidays to their fans who line up for hours to hear the turtlenecked man speak, and make glorious fodder for bloggers. I mean, HTC makes some beautiful phones, yet no one is so interested in taking the damn thing apart and examining every last crevice, or pouring over nondescript and vague patents (okay, fine I'm guilty of it..). They have seemingly out of nowhere, become a shining beacon of American export. The Shanghai store mimics the flagship downtown New York cube-store and is rivaled only perhaps by the Beijing branch in Sanlitun, or the store in the Ginza district of Tokyo. People are crazy about these products not only domestically, but in China as well... I mean the Shanghai branch was literally cloaked in gigantic red drapes, and literally guarded by ninjas on top of it. Unfortunately, some of the people who make these products have actually gone crazy.

They have done so not from fandom mania, but because of the work environment created by the outsourcing of a supply chain so as to cut down on production costs and maximize profit for Apple. By having an extremely segmented supply line and using individual manufactures for separate parts, Apple has in a way limited itself from exposure largely to the fact that these companies would be shut down in the United States for how they treat their workers. This is not to say that Apple is the only company responsible for this type of practice -- they are not -- but given their prominence in international economics (I mean, they have a higher market capitalization than the US government) they should certainly be looked at long and hard, as we consider our developing relationship with China. Encouraging an exploitative relationship has been allowed to flourish, not the least of which is China's vast (though dwindling) supply of labor, lax regulations, and an export-driven economy. The problem is, that because Apple is an international company these sales, where the real value is made -- with the sale of the finished product, not assembling or sourcing of parts -- China, and god forbid their workers, benefits little from their massive profits.

Foxconn, who produces some of the most complex individual components for Apple products, including touchscreens, has become the prime example of unexpected exposure for international companies with the practices outlined above. They have had a rash of employee suicides stemming from question corporate practice, and numerous other companies in the supply chain have had large-scale unease, complaints, and protestation for the negative and unregulated impact of chemicals used in production on employee health, and local quality of life as effected by unregulated and damaging emissions, and dumping practices. None of this is new information, but something that is new is the second part of a report called 'The Other Side of Apple II' (Part II found here, and Part I here) by five environmentally focused NGOs: Friends of Nature, The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, Green Beagle, Envirofriends, and Green Stone Environment Action Network.

The exploration is compelling, and I highly recommend you to read or at least skim parts of it to get a sense of how far these negative and damaging practices go. Despite a strict regulatory framework, pollution and dangerous chemical standards were, well, standardly ignored. It was your all-too-typical leaving a box blank on a form, botching some figures, and some outright disregard as well. Local rivers surrounding these factories have toxicity levels that make them nearly useless for farming, let alone evening thinking about using it as a potable water source. This is a just the continuation of a broken cycle in the agrarian countryside where a minute number of individuals are already entrusted with the literally impossible task of feeding their nation. What is interesting, is that an increasing number of individuals, and in fact, employees are finally getting fed up with this shit -- many leaving their jobs despite no other immediately viable employment opportunities.

Eventually, China is going to have to own up to its own 'standards', but for now as lax regulation reigns supreme in an export-driven, money-crazed CCP focused on maintaining obviously unsustainable levels of economic growth, there doesn't seem much hope. There are only two occurrences which could lead to China actually caring about this type of issue (rather than Wen Jiabao's wonderful rhetoric, followed by predictably falling out of view, and subsequent inaction). Firstly, they regional governments will become disempowered by the fact that the central government realizes that such environmentally damaging practices are actually limiting their long-term growth (which no one seems to care about, yet feel fine on chastising the West for acting as such, but that's another article...) losing what academicians Elizabeth Economy out of the Council for Foreign Relations, and Vaclav Smil out of the University of Manitoba to have estimated to the tune of one-third of a trillion dollars squandered due to political fallout, corruption, employee compensation (minimal), and most of all inefficiencies. When this amount of money starts mattering to the central government (and it's hard to undersand how it doesn't) international firms will start to have to care about how they act, or else risk being boxed out of the most stable, and potential-laden global economy -- one that will remain as such for a good 5-7 years depending on how fast civil unrest can spread. It is sad that companies and governments only pay mind when money is involved, but if that is the reality, so be it. As for now, companies should think about their image (and who cares more about theirs than Apple?) by doing the morally responsible, respectable, and correct thing by taking slightly more care, paying their workers a little more, and thinking long-term about how they want to be thought of, rather than simply the quarter-by-quarter P&L breakdown.

Or maybe I'm just unrealistic.

Happy Mid - Autumn Festival!!

Moon Festival lunch in a Korean B-B-Q restaurant[From left to right: Josh (new intern), Dr. He, Haiya, and Elizabeth (new intern); and photo taken by Jie:P]



Yummmmmmmmmmy!Tha's the first thing I'd like to say.

Dr. He took us to such a nice place to treat us such good food, which makes him such a great boss, lol. It was just in time to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival as well as to get to more about each other. We enjoyed a lot, except we are sorry that Colleen, another new intern this semster, missed the lunch as she had to go to class. However, Colleen tasted the moon cake from Dr. He. I think it was the first time for her to have moon cake, hope you like it. You will experience more Chinese culture here in IFCE, and you're difinitly put into a Chinese vibe, not only that you have Chinese colleagues, but also that Josh and Elizabeth all have had experience in China before.

Hopefully everybody had a joyful Mid-Autumn Festival!!

Colleen's First Day at IFCE

Last Friday was my first day as an IFCE intern, and, after spending most of the day learning more about environmental and energy issues in the United States and China, I am very excited for this semester to begin. Despite talking about many of these issues in previous classes, from my one day spent at the office, I realized that there remains an incredible amount of information for me to discover and topics to further explore. This Wednesday, I am planning on attending an event for IFCE at The Brookings Institution, entitled Intellectuals Divided: The Growing Political and Ideological Debate in China. I think that this discussion will be extremely beneficial in helping me to establish a framework with which to better understand the current political mood in China and the effect that it has on environmental issues. As for now, I am working on deciding on a topic for my first presentation on Friday and looking forward to returning for my second day this afternoon!

Liz's first day interning at IFCE

Despite the torrential rain this morning, I made it safely and relatively dry to the IFCE office.  After meeting the AEPA interns and being a bit confused where the actual office was, I finally made it to the IFCE office.  Today was a relatively short day because I had to go to a class in the afternoon, but I can already see how being an intern at IFCE will be interesting, as well as benefit me.  The internship seems pretty academic because it includes a lot of researching, presenting and taking notes from going to speaker events located around DC.  I’m very excited to start going to these events, especially because previously I had signed up for email lists (such as from the Wilson Center) and had the intention and interest of going to these speakers, but never actually had the “push” to make myself get there.  Now, because I am interning for IFCE I have a reason to make myself get there!  One of my tasks today was to prepare for a presentation on Monday on whatever topic pertaining to the environment I would like to research.  I am excited for this opportunity to practice my presentation skills, and hope people will be interested in geo-engineering, the topic I will be talking about on Monday!