Free markets cut Chile quake’s impact

by Tim Wilson, March 3, 2010

A number of articles have been published since the Chilean earthquake rightly pointing out that its magnitude was much greater than the quake that hit Haiti, but the lives lost in Chile is smaller and the capacity to rebuild is much higher than in Haiti. And the reason, as outlined in this WSJ Article is a direct consequence of the free market therapy delivered by the ‘Chicago Boys’, led by Milton Friedman, during an otherwise unpleasant period in Chile’s Pinochet dictatorship.  We cannot condone the Chilean dictatorship or the methods they used, but few today would argue that the shock therapy delivered by Friedman et al wasn’t a good unintended consequence. And doubly so following this earthquake.

Who’s getting the benefits of aid …

by Tim Wilson, February 22, 2010

It’s rare that foreign aid becomes a headline story in Australia, but a front page story last week in The Australian highlighting the incredible salaries of aid contractors is no doubt making some aid activists stomachs churn about the supposed beneficiaries of lifting foreign aid contributions.

But for those who have worked in foreign aid it is hardly a surprise. It is hard to attract technically expert people to go and regularly work in the Pacific Islands unless they are well paid, but there is also a lot of other expenses that weren’t mentioned including when foreign government officials visit Australia under our aid program they stay in five star hotels, get paid good per diems and have most meals covered by the Aussie taxpayer.

For years the government has been contracting out foreign aid work for the very good reason that the expertise of the public service is in policy, not program delivery. But it has also meant many aid contractors have very fat stomachs funded by money to deliver programs to help the world’s starving and poor.

Foreign aid is important. Disaster relief aid is essential. But to be effective non-disaster relief aid has to be targeted and focused. There’s not enough discussion on the importance of targeting aid and what its priorities should be and these even a lack of discussion about this in fora designed to get to the bottom of how Australia’s aid program should be prioritised like at World Vision’s recent One just world debate.

Thankfully some in the media, like the Weekend Australian’s quality columnist, Rowan Callick, had a good piece highlighting the distorted priorities of the current government’s aid program.

But we still need to have a proper, informed public discussion about foreign aid and what our priorities should be. If for no other reason than to give confidence to the public for when it can be beneficial.

LUSH cosmetics washes their hands of poor’s fate

by Tim Wilson, February 17, 2010

Through a friend I received a copy of LUSH Cosmetics press release today regarding their new “Jungle Soap” which is palm oil free. The press release is part of their new promotion to sell Jungle Soap and highlight the claimed impact of palm oil on orangutan populations. All revenue from Jungle Soap will go toward the Australian Orangutan Project.

On face value LUSH’s campaign looks like a legitimate demonstration to care for the globe and draw customers. There’s just one problem. A deeper reading of their press release shows that instead of using palm oil they’re using other oil seeds.

As Sustainable Development has highlighted in the past the attacks on palm oil are bogus when the reason for forest clearing isn’t specifically for palm oil, but to grow crops by South East Asia’s poor to secure a sustainable livelihood. Palm oil is just the crop of choice because it is low cost and high yield.

By switching to other oils, like rapeseed, LUSH is actually using a lesser environmentally friendly oil that delivers a much lower yield – meaning more of the world’s resources will be used to produce less output.

And the cost of the decisions of discerning Australian cosmetic consumers against products with palm oil ingredients will simply be South East Asia’s poor who’ll lose out on income.

But these days I doubt anyone is surprised to see rich country consumers washing their hands of the interests of the world’s poor when they can be seen to be supporting a ‘good’ cause without having to watch the impact on those who suffer the consequences.

On the offensive | Alan Oxley takes aim at WWF …

by Tim Wilson, February 12, 2010

An interesting article appeared in The Australian yesterday by Alan Oxley, former Chairman of the GATT and current Chairman of pro-growth NGO, World Growth.

Oxley uses the recent exposure of the link between environmental NGOs attempts to ’sex up’ the questionable science used to justify anthropogenic climate change claims to take aim at the anti-development agenda of NGOs like the World Wildlife Fund. In particular the arguments ally well with Sustainable Development’s view that many environmental NGOs are running campaigns that will harm economic development that is necessary to be able to afford environmental preservation.

The article is well worth a read and is likely to stir some emotions at WWF headquarters, especially because the accompanying cartoon was the Panda logo holding a chain saw.

Taxes on medicines are still a problem …

by Tim Wilson, January 27, 2010

Anyone following the long-running debate about access to medicines in the developing world will know that intellectual property is regularly sharply criticised as the culprit. It is a highly disputed claim. And even then, we know IP is necessary to help promote medicine innovation which is vital to ensure there are medicines to distribute.

But there are dead weight losses on the sale of medicines that only add to the final cost, without benefit, and particularly tariffs. A new report from the International Policy Network makes this point that highlights the current trend in medicine tariffs in the developing world.  The report finds that generally the tariff levels are going down, but still remain prohibitively high in the least developed countries of the world. Tariffs are also more widespread on antibiotics in places like Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ensuring universal access to medicines is one of the greatest challenges humanity faces. But first, and foremost, governments shouldn’t be shifting the blame when they’re still clearly responsible for high prices themselves.

Poverty maximises the human cost of natural disasters

by Tim Wilson, January 15, 2010

I was going to write an article along these lines, but Richard Fleming from the Global Poverty Project did it for me. Like with climate change, the biggest threat from natural disasters isn’t an unforeseen or unpredictable event but the amplification of its impact caused by poverty.

Fleming correctly points out that there are plenty of equivalent natural disasters around the world in rich countries that take a much smaller toll on human life. The reason is because the population is wealthy and can a) cope with the disaster better such as fresh water supply and distribution channels for food, and b) less damage is done to the country that increases the events impact such as the Japanese buildings in earthquake prone areas built on springs.

The situation in Haiti is an absolute disaster. But in addition to delivering a band aid solution through post-disaster aid, we must promote economic development that means the next natural disaster in Haiti isn’t as severe and enables the Haitians to better manage the consequences.

Day 12 | COP15 | Obama and Rudd third way dream team fails to deliver …

by Tim Wilson, December 19, 2009

The ambition for the city of Copenhagen to have its name bandied around as a major international treaty, like the Kyoto Protocol, is officially over.

After two weeks of mostly show-ponying by negotiators, Ministers, and now leaders the Copenhagen Conference has resulted in a weak Copenhagen Accord to commit countries to further cooperative efforts to cut emissions, and that is really about it.

Unsurprisingly green groups are outraged, but it begs the question – why? The Kyoto Protocol was a monumental failure and didn’t deliver any significant emissions reductions but still rallied activist and political campaigns to dupe the public into thinking its ratification would mean something. Why don’t they just go on that roundabout again?

To their credit leaders have managed to whittle down the pre-conference one hundred and eighty-odd pages of negotiating text down to just three, but it has come at the expense of meaning anything.

Some negotiators were clearly hanging out for President Obama’s arrival to either charm leaders out of their established negotiating positions or bring something new to the table. He did neither.

Instead Obama’s short speech to the conference plenary was probably the most insulting and patronising speech delivered by a US President in a long time. Obama poorly understood the mood of the audience and chose to behave like an infallible school master lecturing children about the importance of keeping their socks up to maintain school dignity, rather than appealing to each leader’s hopes to share in collective victory. It was put best by a journalist from The Guardian that Obama’s speech received “polite applause”.

Reportedly there was a lot of “mistrust” in negotiations, with bitterness in the mouths of some countries who have experienced the behaviour of leaders, like Kevin Rudd, who has allegedly personally bullied small Pacific island nations into gaining support for Australia’s position. But small Pacific island nations clearly responded to Rudd with the strength bullies cannot counter.

Now the politicking of the conference, at least in the English language press, has veered sharply in favour of Europe and the United States who have made it clear they believed the major barrier to an agreement was China. But calling out an entire country with a culture that believes in the importance of ‘saving face’ is unlikely to prompt endearment.

Instead Western leaders appeared to be accepting what the Chinese negotiators have been whispering for two days – worthwhile negotiations are over. As a consequence they’re calling out China to try and save their own ‘face’ for when their domestic constituencies rightly criticise them for lumping so much false hope onto the outcome of a conference any considered observer knew wasn’t going to deliver before it started.

The Australian population now rightly should be asking Kevin Rudd why he kept pointing to a presumed new Copenhagen treaty to justify his failed Emissions Trading Scheme when he knew deep down it was misleading at best, and deceptive at worst.

Negotiations continued late into the night with the ambition of the US delegation to bring China to the table with a signing pen in hand. It appears to have succeeded. But rather than being remembered for a significant global commitment to cut carbon emissions the city of Copenhagen is likely to be recognised as the first of many uncrossed hurdles to secure a credible post-Kyoto pact.

Day 11 | COP15 | China and India’s game of “the US started it” …

by Tim Wilson, December 18, 2009

Apparently the arrival of Gordon Brown, Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez and Kevin Rudd in the Danish capital wasn’t enough to seal a climate change deal and everyone is now waiting on Barak Obama to arrive and deliver. But the warning from US negotiators today was “No, he can’t” break any deadlock between countries because what’s on the table is as good as he’s able to get through the US Congress.

But then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, arrived to declare “Yes, she can” by offering the US’ help to create a $100 billion-a-year climate adaptation for developing countries on the condition that they also seek emissions cut. Developing countries now finally have the adaptation slush fund they want, but with strings they don’t want attached.

The test is now whether developing countries can now get past their childhood taunting games where the United States emits carbon, then India and China reciprocates, and when daddy Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, intervenes India and China claims “the US started it” as a means of absolving themselves of any wrongdoing.

But China’s view isn’t shared by all countries. The focus of the last scheduled day of the conference tomorrow is whether developing countries will hold together and take the US’ adaptation fund bait or whether the mounting criticism of India and China’s hardline negotiating position will break them apart. It’s not clear, but like separating a politician from tax dollars, it’s hard to stand between developing country governments and a pot of gold especially when the obligations that come with it will fall onto their successors.

Meanwhile Kevin Rudd has been trying to deal himself into the negotiations by pulling at heart-strings in a speech to the conference arguing for an agreement to make Canberra primary school girl “little Gracie” proud. It’s cute, but is more likely to sway the Australian public that many developing country governments who have, and in some cases let, thousands of little Gracies die each year from a lack of food because they’d rather protect the interests of their mates or use food money to line their Swiss bank accounts.

Speaking of Robert Mugabe, his attendance is correctly causing a stink after his recent speech declaring that the West responsible for any anthropogenic climate change. It is certainly a safe claim for him to make since his thinly veiled dictatorship has destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy ensuring they couldn’t emit greenhouse gases even if they wanted to.

And it may shock some readers, but today I agree with Deputy Greens Party leader, Christine Milne, when she said on Sky News yesterday that “There is a real risk here (in Copenhagen) that you will get a political agreement because world leaders are not coming here to go home with a loss of face and they will want some sort of photo opportunity”. And her criticism is spot on because a bad deal is actually worse than no deal at all.

A bad deal is likely to only be a puff political statement that all leaders can agree to. But the risk is also that it sets out the architecture for an agreement while pushing all of the unresolved issues to contact groups, reference groups or sub committees.

That’s a risk because it means issues start to be dealt with in isolation rather than being negotiated as part of a broader package where costs in one stream are offset by gains in other streams.

If a bad deal is struck it would be better for the meeting to fail because the risks of doing so are comparatively small, climate aside, and that is where discussions are now heading.

And before everyone loses perspective international negotiations regularly fail, and normally more than once. In fact most take at least five years to secure an insufficient agreement and longer for a semi-good one.

Take the Doha Round of trade negotiations that are stalled in their eighth year, and they’re about liberalising trade to increase economic gain. This round of climate change negotiations is only in its second year and is all about how we’re going to distribute economic pain.

A Copenhagen failure will be like getting an extension on a school assignment where everyone aims to get it done by the deadline, but work, or in this case the global economic crisis, and breaking up with your boyfriend, meaning insufficient political will, always seems to hit right at the part when you were about to put pen to paper.

Eventually you do get the assignment done, it just tends to be when you have more breathing space, or you just push off dealing with something else. And for punishment you get a little knock down in your final grade for being late or if climate change evangelists are to be believed, a couple of more floods per year.

Day 10 | COP15 | Carbon taxes on trade will hit Kevin Rudd hardest …

by Tim Wilson, December 17, 2009

The great Australian post-pubescent European backpacking self discovery tour is about to get a lot more expensive if a tax proposal is adopted to break one of the many Copenhagen deadlocks.

The deadlock-busting proposal is to tax international travel and shipping to be tipped into a fund for developing countries to adapt to a changing climate which might bring many developing countries closer to the main negotiating proposals.

At this point the proposal appears to have taken the interest of Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, whose arrival last night was the chatter for the conference, at least for a couple of minutes, but even then no one was say anything very nice.

Reportedly chief negotiator for the G77 developing county bloc plus China took a leaf out of Bob Brown’s hymn book attacking Rudd because on climate change “the message Kevin Rudd is giving to his people, his citizens, is a fabrication, it’s fiction … (and) all that Australia has done so far is simply not good enough”.

Tough words, and they’re deliberate for two reasons.

First, it is a political/media strategy to get negative publicity for developed country leaders in their domestic press in the hope that it will make them blink during the current Mexican standoff over whose Copenhagen proposals will win the day. Developing countries also know they’re harsh quotes will, for example, get a better run in Australian media, than Kevin Rudd’s will in Chinese media.

Second, China knows that developed country governments aren’t nearly as committed to reducing carbon emissions as they claim when they call climate change the greatest moral challenge of our time.

Earlier this year I read a report from the Victorian State government about its climate change efforts and by the end was convinced there were emissions from producing the report than those reduced by the policies articulated between its covers.

And government indifference to serious emissions reduction is driven by political greed because they don’t want to be exposed to the voter policy backlash from actually cutting emissions.

If you, yes YOU, genuinely care about climate change you wouldn’t be reading my or Christine’s blog posts because you wouldn’t be prepared to emit the carbon caused by electricity generation.

Cutting emissions requires a radical reapproach to the way we live our lives, not just the low hanging fruit of installing the occasional pink batt and encouraging consumers to buy GreenPower.

But the actual indifference of developed country taxpayers may be why the developing country tax proposal may sneak through because the cost will principally fall onto rich people in developed countries because they’re both the source of outbound tourists and also trade most in goods and services.

Australia will carry a particularly large part of the cost because of our necessity to fly and ship goods and services because of our geographic isolation. And the extra cost on international travel will largely hit people who travel overseas regularly including wealthy people, business travelers and Kevin Rudd. Unpopularly though it will also hit the once-in-a-lifetime Disneyland trip for the average Aussie battler family.

Apart from the developing country tax proposal there has only been one other area of significant negotiating progress on deforestation issues.

In a shout out to Australia’s Climate Change Ambassador, Louise Hand, the current negotiating position of Australia is against the conversion of forests for agriculture use to sequester carbon and provide sustainable industries for rural developing country farming communities.

I disagree with this policy since if you can convert forest land into both a carbon stock and provide sustainable economic development you should, but apparently it’s not a view shared by others as reflected in deforestation negotiating text like the NGOs who have now been rationed out of attendance.

Since attendance rationing for NGOs commenced yesterday the proportion of adults with tidy haircuts and designer clothing has risen against the number of large groups of ‘yoofs’ wearing the same slogan-laden t-shirts.

But that doesn’t mean all the theatrics have been lost.

In a corridor yesterday a woman was handing out chocolate coated ginger ‘carbon cake’ to people from developed countries who’d already emitted enough carbon and was going to be allowed to emit more under a Copenhagen agreement.

Tomorrow the real clamp down occurs and delegates need a special silver pass to get anywhere near the conference centre. But with only one thousand issued my only chance of getting one is to buy one off EBay.

But instead of coming from the inside of the Bella Conference Centre I’ll probably be blogging from inside a pub surrounded by other kicked out observers who’ll be watching proceedings while playing drinking games and taking a shot every time the Chinese blame developed countries for risking failure, G77 countries threatening a walkout and America calling for China to do more.

It’s a good thing the sun sets early because with a drinking game like that beer-o-clock is going to need to come around earlier rather later.

Day 9 | COP15 | Who’ll win Copenhagen’s wackiest?

by Tim Wilson, December 16, 2009

The first snow fall of the conference hasn’t stopped people wanting to get into the Bella Conference Centre with waits of up to four hours for new registrants, with total registrations now topping 45,000 to get into a venue that holds only 15,000. And the biggest overflow is from non-government observers.

NGOs don’t actually like being called NGOs. They prefer being referred to as “civil society” because it bestows greater establishment and credibility to claim they’re representing people, like governments, and as a consequence should participate in negotiations. Fortunately governments aren’t stupid enough to give them that license, but they come close.

A friend of mine has a theory that deep down all NGO delegates attend because they want to be in the actual negotiating rooms working on an agreement. Following yesterday’s walkout by developing countries such a fantasy could have been realised since negotiating rooms were empty but all perfectly set up for a game of mock NGO UN.

But the recommencement of negotiations means NGO delegates have had to ditch their serious-suits and get back into their polar bear costumes.

In response to rationed attendance NGOs have demanded that they still have access to conference proceedings and copies of all conference material, despite just about everything being available on the UNFCCC website.

So because some NGOs don’t have access to some documents and closed-door negotiations they’re planning to storm the conference centre at 10am. Organisers claim it will be a non-violent storming, but when you have Danish Police pushing one way and protestors pushing in the reverse I’m willing to bet at some point someone will do something more than simply push.

And apparently we should get used to climate civil unrest. That was the warning from former Irish President and now head United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, who has claimed that people affected by climate change are likely to start getting unruly and may even start litigating against governments for climate-inaction.

That seems unlikely since the world’s poor haven’t been able to litigate against bad trade subsidies in the United States and Europe that have been doing much more harm for a lot longer.

Meanwhile officials are only reporting negotiating progress at the fringes, which means they’ve all agreed they might be working through this weekend as well.

But the media void left by negotiators has quickly been filled by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not that anyone appears to be listening to what he’s saying.

And local governments are also seeking to appear to be stepping up to the climate-leadership plate, or at least that is what capital city Mayors think they’re doing in their push to have local governments referenced in a final Copenhagen text.

But since local governments aren’t recognised under international law it seems ‘recognition’ means the permanent right to dupe the public that they can do anything to tackle climate change to fulfil their Copenhagen obligations. That or it’s that or symbolism? Or just a junket?

At least a junket is rationally motivated, unlike the entrants in the competition for Copenhagen’s wackiest.

The current contenders are the LaRouche Movement conspiracy theorists decrying global warming as “British genocide” as they approach conference-going delegates arriving each morning.

But they now face stiff competition from Supreme Master Ching Hai’s followers who, dressed in animal suits, are also lining the train stations to hand out hardcover copies of the Supreme Master’s books “The dogs in my life” and the Amazon bestseller “The birds in my life”.

Then there’s the head of the British National Party, Nick Griffin MEP, who compared biofuel policies with the managed agriculture policies that led to the deaths of millions under China’s Mao and Russian’s Stalin.

Mary Robinson’s commentary today also deserves a worthy mention.

Al Gore also probably deserves entry for his stumble, some say deliberate, over the rate of melting of the polar ice caps.

Who’ll be the winner? I’ll let you decide.