By our staff reporter
The COP28 UAE Presidency has launched its Water Agenda during World Water Week in Stockholm, which took place from August 20 to 24.
COP28 announced its top priority areas, which include conserving and restoring freshwater ecosystems, enhancing urban water resilience, and bolstering water-resilient food systems.
Furthermore, the COP28 Presidency announced a partnership with the Netherlands and Tajikistan to serve as COP28 Water Champions.
This partnership aims to build upon outcomes and momentum from the UN 2023 Water Conference held in March, which was co-hosted by the Netherlands and Tajikistan, and resulted in the Water Action Agenda.
COP28 aims to give unprecedented attention to water risks and opportunities across the agenda, from agriculture to disaster prevention.
This partnership unites the COP28 Presidency, Tajikistan, and the Netherlands to deliver water policy, technology, and financing results at COP28.
Support from the Netherlands and Tajikistan is essential to ensuring progress and commitments from the UN Water Conference are driven forward.
Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, spoke on the launch of the Water Agenda and partnership, saying, “Climate change profoundly affects water through flooding, droughts, and sea level rises, impacting homes, ecosystems, and livelihoods. Yet water is not only essential for human survival, health, and food systems, but it’s also fundamental to nature’s balance and the flourishing of biodiversity. With the COP28 Water Agenda, in collaboration with the Netherlands and Tajikistan, we seek to bridge the insights from the UN Water Conference with the climate community, amplifying our adaptation and mitigation efforts.”
Tajik Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Zavqi Zavqizoda, welcomed the partnership and expressed his commitment to co-lead COP28’s Water Agenda.
“I am pleased that Tajikistan and the Netherlands have recently been invited by the UAE to co-lead the Water Agenda at COP28. We are honored to have this great role and express our strong commitments to work hard to bring water on the top of the climate agenda, since water plays a critical role both in terms of climate adaptation and mitigation and thus greatly contributes to achieving climate resilience,” he said.
René van Hell, Ambassador for Sustainable Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of the Netherlands, also stated, “We need collective action on water and climate now. As co-host of the UN 2023 Water Conference, we firmly believe that the Water Action Agenda commitments, the pathways of change of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, and other initiatives are the backbone for the realization of our goals. Our cooperation will support that, from New York to Dubai, and from Dubai to the world. Tangible outcomes on water and climate at COP28 are essential. There’s no time to waste. We have to act, all together, from public to private sector leaders. And we will.”
This collaboration will help put nature, people, lives and livelihoods at the heart of climate action.
Stuart Orr, Freshwater Practice Leader, WWF International, said, “We welcome the partnership with the COP28 Presidency to restore 30% of degraded freshwater ecosystems by 2030, leveraging the Freshwater Challenge. Rivers and wetlands are among our greatest allies in adapting to the climate crisis and need urgent attention and investment that benefits not only nature but also people across the world.”
The UAE and Brazil will also co-host the first UNFCCC high-level dialogue on building water resilience in food systems at COP28, bringing together ministers, the private sector, international organizations, and civil society to assess water and food resilience within National Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Action Plans (NAPs).
It will take place on Food, Agriculture and Water Day during COP28’s two-week thematic program.
The first day of its kind, it will focus on innovation investment, regenerative agriculture, and national transformation pathways, underpinned by financing mechanisms. Water programming will look at freshwater restoration and conservation, infrastructure for urban water resilience, and integrated governance and management of water-food systems.
Billions of people worldwide are now facing severe droughts, floods, and water contamination due to climate change, further undermining food security, community cohesion, and economic development. These climate impacts worsen existing challenges around clean drinking water access and sanitation.
COP28 UAE Presidency announces priorities to drive water up the climate agenda
The History of Cheap Labour
Alazar Kebede
The Industrial Revolution began in Britain at the end of the 18th century, and for much of the 19th century it was the dominant industrial power in the world. By the 1880s, however, it was bypassed by the United States and then by Germany at the turn of the century. In both cases, the newcomers benefited greatly from absorbing and deploying British technology such as the steam engine and the Bessemer process for steel making.
The newcomers initially grew by leapfrogging technologies and ramping up production capacities on an unprecedented scale. Consider what happened to the railways. In 1830, the United States had barely 40 miles of railroads but the network had jumped to 28,920 miles by 1860 and further to a staggering 163,562 miles by 1890. This was more than the rest of the world put together, according to the United States Census Bureau. Technological invention was very important for turning Britain, Germany and the United States into industrial powers, but the key factor that allowed mass production was the deployment of cheap labor.
Desmond King, Professor at Nuffield College in UK stated that the share of the population that was urbanized in England and Wales jumped from 20% in 1800 to 62% in 1890 as people from the countryside migrated into the industrial cities. The United States saw wave upon wave of migrants who pushed up its population from a mere ten million in 1820 to 152 million in 1950, according to data compiled by the OECD. In the popular imagination, these migrants headed west to settle in remote farms or participate in the Gold Rush. In reality, the migrants were usually absorbed by the booming industrial sector. At the turn of the century, around 80% of New York’s population of five million was either foreign-born or children of migrants.
Desmond King further noted that many of them were squeezed into the slums of the Lower East Side, with as many as 25 people sharing a single windowless room and sleeping in shifts. Most indicators suggest that living conditions were significantly worse than in the slums of present-day Mumbai. Even as the West was industrializing, the experience was very different for China and India. These two giants had been home to large artisan-based manufacturing sectors in the pre-modern age and had been exporting manufactured products like textiles and porcelain for millennia. However, both of them found it difficult to adapt to the changing world.
Sanjeev Sanyal, Global Strategist at Deutsche Bank in Singapore explained that as the Mughal Empire in India crumbled in the early 18th century, it appeared for a while that the Marathas would replace it. When the Maratha bid for power stumbled, India dissolved into chaos, with many indigenous and foreign groups vying for power. According to Sanjeev Sanyal, the uncertain political conditions severely affected the investment climate and caused many parts of India to de-industrialize. The re-establishment of order under British colonial rule, however, did not help.
The Industrial Revolution had taken off, and cheap goods produced by British factories flooded India beginning in the early 19th century, further damaging the old artisan-based sector. Note that this happened even though Indian labor was much cheaper than that in England. Even in 1820, Indian per capita incomes were less than a third of British levels, but the largely illiterate workforce was not capable of absorbing new technology.
David Rueda, Professor at Oxford University stated that the buildingof new infrastructure like the railways also did not help. In fact, it worsened matters by allowing imported goods to penetrate further inland. Therefore, the de-industrialization of India is a good illustration that neither cheap labor nor improved infrastructure is useful unless the overall investment eco-system is in place. It is important to remember that the productive deployment of cheap labor depends on many factors, ranging from property rights and general governance to the prevalence of basic literacy.
According to David Rueda, Japan was the first Asian country to experience industrialization and, beginning in the 1890s, output rose very rapidly. Despite the devastation of World War II, Japan had built up a competitive industrial sector by the 1950s. Yet again, the deployment of cheap labor was a key component of this success. As recently as 1980, when Japan was already considered a developed country, the unit labor cost in nominal United States dollar terms was barely half of today’s levels. The sharp increase in Japan of the costof labor input in the last three decades has been due mainly to the exchange rate.
Jason Moore, Professor of Economics at University of Leeds stated that the currency appreciated from 250-240 yen per United States dollar in 1985 to just over 120 per dollar by the end of 1987 and then further to 84 per dollar in 1995. The yen would drift weaker to the 100-150 per dollar range for the next decade and a half before appreciating back to the current range of 80-85 per dollar.
This currency movement undid the 0.5% per year decline in unit labor cost in local currency terms that Japanese manufacturing has sustained over the last three decades. According to Jason Moore, this goes to illustrate how the exchange rate is an important factor that needs to be considered when dealing with the international competitiveness of labor. It is possible, of course, to compete on design and quality, but a strong currency does make matters difficult.
As Sanjeev Sanyal explained, the exchange rate was an important factor in the re-emergence of both China and India on the world stage. There is a great deal of academic debate about the exact impact of this move, but it would be hard to deny that Chinese wages, already low by international standards, became even more competitive.
PERMACULTURE
‘What is permaculture? Here are the basics. Permaculture combines three key aspects: 1. An ethical framework. 2. Understandings of how nature works 3. A design approach. This unique combination provides an ethical framework that is used to design regenerative systems at all scales – from home and garden to community, farm and bioregions. The word ‘permaculture’ comes originally from ‘permanent agriculture’ and ‘permanent culture’ – it is about living lightly on the planet, and making sure that we can sustain human activities for many generations to come, in harmony with nature. Permanence is not about everything staying the same. It is about stability, about deepening soils and cleaner water, thriving communities in self-reliant regions, biodiverse agriculture, and social justice, peace and abundance’!
Why permaculture? The main reason concerned practitioners/articulators initiated the idea of permaculture was to systemically challenge the ridiculous and unsustainable, but widespread notion of unending economic growth. This malaise, which still sways socio-economic narratives in all nation states, is aggressively destroying life and life support systems of the planet. Moreover and socially speaking, the extreme polarization this world system has instituted, within and between countries, is instigating conflicts and outright wars all over the world. Unfortunately, this highly flawed system, supported by entrenched interests (benefitting from the current destructive and lopsided arrangements) is willing to wage wars using WMD, rather than yield to logic, reason and reality! Fortunately, ‘system thinking’ approaches to problem solving, like permaculture, are debunking the half-baked idea of ‘economic growth’ front, left and right! Like many well thought out human constructs, permaculture is first and foremost an ethical system trying to bring sanity to a world that has become literally insane! We construe permaculture as a system of living that tries to abide by the whole cumulative natural processes and purposely leveraging nature’s myriad manifestations to sustain reasonably measured human activities.
Who should practice permaculture? The answer is easy; all of humanity, without exception. Preserving human collectives on a hospitable planet should be the overriding concern of all and sundry! But this is easily said than done. Entrenched interests and their dominant institutions do not like the whole ethos of permaculture, as it tends to undermine the current greed system, rather emphatically. Here are the twelve basic principles of permaculture as outlined by David Holmgren, one of the formalizers of the idea. See the article on page 50. According to the original developers, ethics is central to the concept of permaculture. The three ethics, namely; care for the earth, care for people, and fair share; anchor permaculture! Bill Mollison, the co-originator and sometimes called the ‘father of permaculture’ said: “Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.
What are the major problems the prevailing world system is facing? Resource shortage is one. Cheap energy from fossil fuel, which facilitated all material comforts of modernity, is dwindling fast. It will probably be the first one to create major havoc to the existing order in the near future, assuming climate change and other imbalances can be mitigated, somewhat. To remind our not-so-bright advocates of ‘uninterrupted economic growth’; other mineral resources are also available only on a limited/finite basis on planet earth! In addition, natural sinks that are used to absorb and recycle ‘waste’ are being exhausted, the atmosphere, the oceans, the forests, the permafrost, etc., are all in very precarious conditions. Luckily and despite establishment’s not-so-subtle opposition to permaculture, the concept is catching fast. Unlike the North, those of us residing in the periphery can very much appreciate and relate to the practice of permaculture, since our integration to the unsustainable modern world system is still shallow!
This was first published in December 2017
Africa’s Aviation: Sustainability Vs Survivability
Carriers on the African continent have been facing the steep challenge of high operating costs and the need to be economically sustainable.
With the understanding of these issues, aviation stakeholders have been working together for several years to reduce the impact of air travel on the environment.
Sustainability has been the top priority, with airlines, airports, and manufacturers investing millions in research, new aircraft technology, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and other emission reduction initiatives. Although it is a top priority, not every airline can afford to invest the same funds to implement these environmental solutions. It is even more difficult in Africa, where carriers face significantly high operating costs due to insufficient infrastructure and a weakening economic climate.
This year, June 20 and 21 marked a pivotal point for Africa’s Aviation sector. The Ethiopian Airlines on the stated dates hosted IATA’s ‘Focus Africa’ conference, which gathered together airline CEOs along with aviation leader, decision makers and influencers from Africa, the Middle East and the globe; in order to address a collaborative drive towards the advancement of aviation in Africa.
Cognizant of the uphill task that awaits the aviation sector in Africa, with regards to sustainability as well as survivability, Capital reached out to Marie Owens, Senior Vice –President, Sustainability and Chief Economist at IATA, for a deep insight on the status quo of the aviation sector as well as its future ambitions. Excerpts;
Capital: One of the challenges that airlines face these days is high fuel consumption as well as high fuel costs. How is this affecting the status of African aviation?
Marie Owens: The price of the fuel in the continent is higher in contrast to the globe. If we take a look back at history, we had what we called the civil aviation which was actually created during the Second World War with the Chicago convention that was subsequently signed by all United Nations member states. One hundred and ninety three countries have signed the Chicago convention, which established civil aviation in the world. And already at the time of the Second World War those inspired individuals understood that for global aviation to occur we needed a level playing field and the rules to be the same for aviation so that we could fly seamlessly from one country to another.
And that means that the costs and the taxes and everything relating to our operations should preferably be the same so as to best fulfill our duty to transport people and goods around the world. Of course, there are differences in rules and regulations in many areas. Every such difference creates a more fragmented environment for global aviation. And this leads to an inferior service, less service and service at a higher price.
In Africa, it happens that fuel is 20% more expensive than the average price around the globe. So that is of course a handicap for African aviation, compared to all other airlines, that is, African airlines face a higher cost base than other airlines. And that seems it’s first of all not optimal. It seems to me, that it goes against the spirit of the Chicago convention.
Capital: How can this issue be solved?
Marie Owens: The solution is clear, rules have to change. And I think one thing may be that many countries around the world don’t quite embody is the understanding that transportation in all its forms and of course IATA represents aviation. Thus, aviation is an amplifier of economic development. It is of course an industry in its own right, but it’s also an industry that allows other industries to do better. And if we have a taxation policy that penalizes aviation, we penalize the development of all of these other industries. And we can see this right in factual data because we know that unfortunately most of the world’s poorest countries are the ones that are located in the center of Africa and that have an acute lack of transportation and connectivity of all kinds. If a country lacks those types of transportation solutions there will be an inferior economic outcome. And that is obviously a great shame.
In order to combat this issue we ought to ask ourselves, how can we promote aviation in Africa and in particular for these landlocked countries in the center of Africa? In answering this, we will enhance the economic performance of the countries as well as their full potential, which is obviously tremendous.
Capital: The IATA focus Africa conference is the first in its kind; what are the expectations of the conference?
Marie Owens: I think the expectation is indeed to emphasize this necessity of all of us coming together around a common goal and a common vision and sort of make it apparent to everybody that no single one of us can solve this on our own. So we really need everybody in the value chain and the governments to focus their minds on this mission. And there are countries I think one European country for instance, that has set up within the government, a cross sectional unit with a mission to work in this direction to deliver sustainable aviation. And it includes obviously the government, people, airlines, all the suppliers in the value chain and so on. And I think maybe that is something that could inspire other countries to really make it an obvious national strategy; around which everybody can unite.
Capital: African airlines have low performance even in inter Africa connectivity, which many argue as a reason for the expensive nature of air transportation in Africa. What do you suggest to improve this situation?
Marie Owens: When you look at any business, it has to cover its costs otherwise it will fail. So of course if African airlines face higher costs than airlines in other areas of the world, then it will be much more difficult for African airlines to cover their costs and to perform the necessary services. So we see that indeed also in terms of the profitability of the airlines they are at a negative as opposed to other regions which have managed to return to profitability from the COVID crisis. This is a case of efficiency in terms of improvements which are again related to whether we view aviation as a global industry or as a local industry. If we view it as a global industry we can unite our airspace and utilize our airspace more effectively which is necessary if we’re going to fly over other countries airspace. The zero cost solution actually allows for a more efficient use of the airspace which we also struggle with in Europe since we haven’t quite managed to get to full efficiency in the European airspace. This situation becomes more acute for Africa, of course, since the economic situation is dire for so many more people. That’s why it becomes extra important to achieve these improvements in Africa.
With regards to taxation, if you tax it as an industry and you just want to tax the profits, you forego the dimension of using transportation to promote other economic activities in your countries. And this we see also just in the trade figures for instance, how little Africa trades with itself and how much more it trades with Europe. Primarily, Africa trades with Europe. So now we understand that of course trade is much more expensive for Africans because it has to go so far. It would be much more efficient and less expensive if we could trade more with our neighbors. And for that again we need better transportation interconnections.
And finally, if we could do all of this with sustainable aviation fuel, which at one point in the future, is likely to become way cheaper than jet fuel, will be a great step in the right direction.
Capital: Where do you see the status of African airlines in the implementation of sustainable aviation fuel?
Marie Owens: We have to remind ourselves and everybody perhaps that airlines don’t make fuel yet we buy the fuel from oil companies. Likewise, airlines don’t make aircraft yet we buy them from the aircraft manufacturers. So it’s an odd thing. I think that so much of the public debate centers on airlines responsibilities for these things whereas the actual solution lies outside of our industry, but within our sector for sure.
Somehow we have to get the oil companies to change their ways and get involved on such milestone projects. The investment needs that we think that we need for sustainable aviation fuel are only a third of all the money that goes into oil and gas development today. It’s nothing disproportionate, it can be done. We just need to change the value proposition for these investments.
Today, oil companies can invest in oil and gas production and since they know how to do it, they know the demand and return. Making sustainable aviation fuel is not as certain for them. They don’t quite know how much it’s going to cost. They don’t know exactly when that will be profitable for them. So they prefer not to do it.
I think we need to focus on the energy companies and making them take a full part of the responsibility in this energy transition. And of course, all airlines can vouch to say we will buy all the sustainable aviation fuel that is produced. We think that it will be advantageous for us to buy it at some point in the future when those costs have come down, below the cost of jet fuel. I cannot say for sure what year that will be.
Of course, we realize that at that point in time it’s not only about sustainability with respect to the environment, but also about the industry’s financial sustainability; and that this might be the road for airlines to be able to deliver reliable and regular profits which is what we expect in the industry. And finally, I would add it’s an avenue of sustainability also for the economies and the countries themselves. If countries can free themselves from the dependency on oil companies and instead produce their own renewable fuel at home with domestic ingredients and not have to import it from anywhere, promoting sustainability in the process.
Capital: One of the challenges that African airlines face is blocked funds. How do you see the effect of this in the economic aspects?
Marie Owens: Although in the global economy today we have about 3% GDP growth which is in line with historic averages; on the face of it for the world as a whole we’re doing okay, but that global average masks huge local differences and today we have in the world twice as many countries in outright distress or potentially becoming distressed than we had in 2015. So over 60 countries in the world today are distressed or could become distressed. And with distress often comes, the inability to pay your creditors. It might be a fully blown balance of payments crisis as we call it in economics. The currency depreciates against foreign exchange earnings and this is the situation that many countries find themselves in today, that they simply don’t have the foreign exchange to pay their creditors.
Airlines are one of the creditors. I think obviously all creditors deserve to be paid but the thing to understand here is that we’re not paying the airlines and if they don’t get paid they will have to reduce the service. No company can operate like this and if the service is reduced then we have less transportation and lower connectivity in that country. This will bring lower trade, fewer exchanges between people and less economic development not only today but arguably also in the longer term because you get some sort of permanent economic scarring. So the factor to really understand when it comes to aviation is that as much as we understand and sympathize with countries in distress, we also believe that they are somewhat shooting themselves in their own foot when they don’t priorities aviation, because it becomes a vicious circle. No money to airlines means airlines stop serving the country, less economic activity, less trade, less income, and even more blocked funds for other creditors. And that’s the very peculiar role that airlines play in this context.
Capital: How can it be solved?
Marie Owens: It’s always extremely difficult for countries in this unfortunate situation and it does need some drastic economic policies. Often this involves for instance putting limits on how much money companies and individuals can take out of the country, limits on capital flows and other drastic solutions for countries. It obviously depends very much on the local situation but it will impose a fair amount of economic distress on everybody in those countries to solve those problems. And in real terms, incomes will have to decline. Finally, I would say that we have to note also the limited capacity of institutions such as the IMF. The IMF is today quite limited in how it can provide assistance for many of these countries. So that’s an additional problem. The world as a whole hasn’t really figured out how to be able to help countries in distress in an immediate and fair fashion for everybody. And this is because of multiple factors but also it depends on who has lent money to those countries.
And that whole landscape is fluctuating today. Countries find themselves owing money to countries that the IMF cannot necessarily solve their credit issues for. So the system becomes yet another example of the problems that come when we get fragmentation in global systems. When the global system is no longer global and it breaks up into little pieces, then it’s much harder to collectively actually provide the solutions that these countries need.
Capital: What’s your view on the overall development of African airlines and the aviation sector in the near future?
Marie Owens: I really think that as much as we are probably feeling intimidated by the scope of the change that has to happen when we replace fossil fuels with renewable fuels; we have to lift our line of vision and look at the end result. And if the end result is a situation where we have cheaper renewable energy and sustainable energy accessible in abundance, then surely that is worth all the effort.
And if we arrive at that stage, this will benefit all the countries and its industries and obviously it will also benefit aviation which has this peculiar role of being an amplifier of any kind of economic activity that happens in a country. So that’s why we are not the only necessary ingredient in terms of economic development but we are necessary along with a number of others.
And if we can free ourselves collectively of this energy constraint, then I think the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal and that goal of having a global economy that is sustainable and inclusive, then equal opportunity and prosperity for all can actually happen.
So if we can focus on airlines around that objective, we as an industry in the near future can have an opportunity for African airlines.
Developing countries not only in Africa, but also elsewhere as well have this fear of the costs of investments to which I fully sympathize with. But again if we can overcome that fear and look to the opportunity, development is imminent. Of course, we need help from the rich countries. I think we cannot say that often enough either. And the rich countries as a group have promised to put up financial aid and every time every such promise has yet to be realized. So we are eagerly awaiting that support.
And again, if we have this as a common goal and we actually manage to work together, think across frontiers, think across you know the decades a little bit, then I know that this is possible. The world has already innovated solar and wind energy. It didn’t exist before. So we know that we can do this. We just have to understand together what the end goal is. When our policy priorities are mixed then the policies go in all kinds of directions and we don’t get the results that this endeavor should be able to produce.
We call our conference here, ‘Focused on Africa’. So this is also part of it. We need to focus as airlines on the goals of freeing ourselves from the fossil fuel energy constraints. And then, I certainly hope that we can pull the people out of poverty, particularly in Africa.
Capital: Do you see African airlines achieving Net Zero emission by 2050?
Marie Owens: Yes, I certainly do. This is because we believe in sustainable aviation in general by 2050. So that means that in 2050 we must all be sustainable. But then of course how we articulate that over this remaining time span of 27 years that we have ahead of us is a different question.
Today there’s so little sustainable aviation fuel available on the market and actually in existence. But the US and Europe are currently in the lead in terms of that production. Other areas of the world economy will follow later. So I think it’s absolutely realistic to assume that Africa will not be in the lead. There’s also every reason to hope that toward drawing closer to 2050 Africa could be one of the world’s major sustainable aviation fuel producers because Africa has all the necessary ingredients and all the feedstock. Every country, every region, every continent will come into this with its own individual timescale. And that’s fine. And we can all learn from each other. And maybe that’s also an advantage for Africa in the sense it’s not always best to be the first in the market. Sometimes it’s better to come in a little bit later and learn from other people’s mistakes.
