by Tim Wilson, July 14, 2011
Seeing this article made my blood boil. In short, it is an article about how Greenpeace is targeting and attacking genetically enhanced crops. What’s there to say really. They are deniers of the benefits of scientific advancement and enemies of the future. Around the world there’ll be starving children one day because of these people.
by Tim Wilson, July 13, 2011
Interestingly the Indonesia government has started to kick up a fuss about Australia’s palm oil labeling bill. It’s actually too little, too late now that it has passed the Parliament. Meanwhile New Zealand Greens have announced their support.
Neither should really surprise. The more interesting discussions are going behind closed doors. Currently the Australian government is negotiating an asylum seeker swap with the government of Malaysia. According to reports the deal is nearly clinched.
Considering palm oil is such a major export industry for Malaysia I wonder whether discussions about the Parliament’s recent passage of the bill is being included in discussions. If it isn’t there, it certainly is in free trade agreement negotiations. Neither augur’s well for this Bill standing the test of real policy and political scrutiny.
by Tim Wilson, July 4, 2011
Last year SD spoke at the New Zealand Food and Grocery Council’s annual conference about a range of public policy challenges that affect both the developed and developing world. One key issue was the continuing focus of government’s to separately label palm oil.
Since then the Australian Parliament has voted to separately label palm oil in a political capitulation to populist Senator, Nick Xenophon.
Interestingly now the New Zealand Food and Grocery Council has announced that they think it breaks a bilateral treaty between Australia and New Zealand. We suspect they’re correct since most Australians don’t even think to consider their obligations to those across the Tasman.
While bilateral treaty obligations are important, they are not the real reason this Bill should be junked. The real reason is the livelihoods of millions in the developing world who’ll pay the costs of rich-world snobbery who ignore that part of sustainable environmental development is sustainable economic development as well. If the opportunities for the poor to lift themselves out of poverty disappear they don’t take it, they just shift to other avenues, often which are less efficient, more costly and consumer more of the world’s scarce resources than the first option.
by Tim Wilson, June 18, 2011
Today SD released its latest report on the impact of Australian environmental regulation on the developing world. Upward pressure looks at the impact of politically abusing food labelling regulation to achieve environmental objectives.
The report highlights that:
1. The regulations are clearly designed to foster consumer boycotts against palm oil.
2. Switching from palm oil is likely to lead to buying comporable oils that are 20 per cent more expensive resulting in increased food prices.
3. Introducing compulsory palm oil labeling is likely to breach the World Trade Organisation’s Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement.
4. Introducing labeling to foster consumer boycotts against major exports of Indonesia and Malaysia is likely to create political and diplomatic headaches between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur with Canberra.
5. Most concerning of all the livelihoods of the developing world’s poor would be put second to indulge the whims of attention seeking Australian politicians.
I recommend Australian politicians read the paper before they decide the fate of their current plans, and realise the absurdity of their proposals. The paper can be found here.
by Tim Wilson, May 25, 2011
One of the areas of public policy often overlooked in poverty alleviation is that around foreign direct investment. FDI is clearly an enormous boon for countries because it normally brings with it money, technology, skills and most importantly, jobs. It also tends to bring infrastructure.
Significant investment flows are already going into South East Asia and China because they are where growth opportunities exist as people are lifted out of poverty. Indonesia is a good example, despite the global financial crisis its investment flows have remained strong and GDP growth has also been up.
Encouraging FDI is tough. We live in a capital constrained world. And as developed countries come out of recession it will become more constrained.
The challenge is to create the proper environment to ensure government policy is not a barrier to growth. SD has an op-ed on the subject today looking at the institutional barriers in Indonesia and also looking at recent evidence and examples that highlight the challenge. The article is available here.
by Tim Wilson, April 5, 2011
There’s nothing new about the enormous importance mobile phones are playing in the developing world to empower entrepreneurs to engage successfully in the marketplace. There are lots of stories of fisherman using phones to find the best port to deliver their catch because it sells at the highest price. They’re not alone.
This article is an interesting reminder of that argument focusing on an alternative area of poverty alleviation – sanitation. It’s a quirky look at the issue, but interesting nonetheless, especially in this period where mobile phones are as much a tool of communication as an instrument of banking and revolution.
by Tim Wilson, April 4, 2011
The contribution, whether positive or negative, of foreign aid to helping developing countries lift themselves out of poverty has always been somewhat controversial.
But it is reaching a new high as there is so little evidence showing its efficacy over the years, especially when it is not targeted.
Increasingly the evidence appears to be that private aid support through micro-finance and equivalent schemes is far more effective because rather than seeking to lift people out of poverty it helps them participate in a marketplace and enables them to lift themselves up.
With the US House of Representatives no voting to cut the aid budget this piece from the Wall Street Journal grabbed our attention because it argued aid money was increasingly something for elites to redistribute at a whim. There’s some truth to that. But it all depends on whose giving it and what it is being used for. We recommend a read.
by Tim Wilson, March 29, 2011
One of the major outcomes of the Cancun UNFCCC meeting was the official agreement to establish a $100 billion-a-year Green Climate Fund to assist in climate change adaptation for the developing world. Investing in climate adaptation makes sense, regardless of whether anthropogenic climate change is occurring.
But interestingly it may not be so urgent. A new research paper has come out highlighting that one of the biggest threats to the developing world – sea level rises – may not be a threat at all. In fact the paper concludes:
“Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S. tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each time period we consider, the records show small decelerations that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of worldwide-gauge records. The decelerations that we obtain are opposite in sign and one to two orders of magnitude less than the +0.07 to +0.28 mm/y2 accelerations that are required to reach sea levels predicted for 2100 … Bindoff et al. (2007) note an increase in worldwide temperature from 1906 to 2005 of 0.74uC. It is essential that investigations continue to address why this worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years, and indeed why global sea level has possibly decelerated for at least the last 80 years”.
We’re agnostic about the science of climate change at Sustainable Dev. But as a contribution to the general body of scientific theory supporting the cause and impact of climate change this paper matters. It can be found here.
by Tim Wilson, March 22, 2011
The Australian government has taken the extraordinary step of announcing it will seek to legislate a carbon tax as a stepping stone to an emissions trading scheme while political will on the issue elsewhere is in retreat.
The impact on the Australian economy from a carbon tax is huge, but not relevant to this blog. What is relevant is the impact on those in the developing world and whether Australia will impose taxes and tariffs on imports.
Australian Trade Minister, Craig Emerson, has importantly rallied against a push for a retaliatory carbon tariff against imports from countries without a carbon price.
But there’s no guarantee it will end there. Advocates for a carbon tariff include the heavily political and influential Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.
During the last Australian debate about a carbon price the then Rudd government proposed providing free permits into the scheme for emissions intensive trade exposed industries to avoid tariff calls. It was arguably not enough. A tax would require equivalent rebates to avoid similar calls.
Trade Minister Emerson is one of the most market-orientated Ministers in the Gillard government, but he is often a lone voice of dissent against bad policy. And rarely gets his way.
As the debate about a carbon tariff develops it will be important for poverty-alleviating free trade advocates to hold their ground.
by Tim Wilson, January 25, 2011
With food prices back on the international agenda largely as a consequence of weather events we were heartened to read Director General of the World Trade Organisation Pascal Lamy’s recent address on the importance of free trade to bring down prices for the world’s poor.
Throughout his career Lamy has been soft on the poverty-alleviating benefits of free trade. His term as EU negotiator defending their awful subsidy regimes were shameful. But we give him credit that since taking on the job as D-G of the WTO he has changed his tone. In fact he’s transformed himself from a spokesperson for rent-seekers to becoming one of the most forceful advocates for trade liberalisation in the world. This turn hasn’t delivered the sort of concrete results we would like to help the millions trapped in poverty, but at least the rhetoric is right.
And while Doha stalls Lamy has been giving some excellent speeches on the benefits of trade as a solution to global economic problems. And his speech to the Berlin Agriculture Minister’s Summit is no exception.
In fact Lamy highlights some truths that are too often missing in international debate.
First, free trade will increase global food supply at cheaper prices – the solution is more trade, not less.
Second, where global food supply is increasing it is because of increased efficiency and yields, not expanded land use. That matters because it means humanity is producing more with less which is both economically and environmentally sustainable.
We recommend a read of Lamy’s speech here.
