A high-profile report trumpeted by arch-Brexiteers including David Davis, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg as their alternative to Theresa May’s Chequers plan has been withdrawn, after a Charity Commission investigation.

The ‘Plan A+’ report was published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in September. Johnson, the former foreign secretary, hailed it on Twitter as a “fine piece of work”, while Davis, Rees-Mogg and former Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers appeared at the report’s launch.

‘Plan A+’’s lead writer was Shanker Singham, the IEA’s trade policy chief who has been described as the “Brexiteers’ brain”, and whose “unparalleled” contact with influential Brexit-backing politicians has attracted scrutiny.

Overstepped the line

The report called for the UK to drop EU-style regulation, including the bloc’s strict food production and environmental standards, in order to strike trade deals with other countries around the world.  

The IEA is registered as an educational charity. It has been under investigation by the Charity Commission since July, when an undercover investigation by Unearthed, published in the Guardian, raised concerns that the IEA’s work on Brexit may have broken charity rules by campaigning for a specific policy outcome – hard Brexit and a US-UK free trade deal.

On Friday the IEA removed ‘Plan A+’ from its website and deleted its tweets promoting the report. The IEA’s chair of trustees announced in a statement that this followed an investigation by the Charity Commission, the sector’s regulator.

A Charity Commission spokesman confirmed that Friday’s announcement stemmed from a regulatory compliance case it opened after the publication of Unearthed’s investigation.

The Charity Commission’s deputy chief executive, David Holdsworth, said in a statement: “We made clear to the IEA that the report in question overstepped the line of what is permissible charitable activity and requested that it was removed. We are pleased that the IEA has responded by doing so.”

Undercover investigation

He added: “The report was not sufficiently balanced and neutral as required of an educational charity under charity law. We also found that the charity had been undertaking political activity not in line with the charity’s purposes.”

Labour’s shadow Cabinet minister Jon Trickett told Unearthed: “I welcome the fact that the Charity Commission has now confirmed what to many of us has been worryingly clear from the start: that the IEA was using the cover of charity law to pursue its extreme free market agenda. Yet we are still none the wiser as to who funds the IEA and many think tanks like it.”

As an educational charity, the IEA is able to accept tax-free donations but must abide by Charity Commission requirements to be politically impartial, balanced and neutral in how it presents information and stick to its charitable object of education.

The IEA’s director-general Mark Littlewood told an undercover reporter, posing as a representative of investors in hormone-reared beef: “Our principal campaign is on trade arrangements and free trade. We’ll either win or lose in 12 months,” he added. 

In a separate meeting during the undercover investigation, Littlewood explained the think tank’s work on post-Brexit agriculture pursued a specific policy goal: “The key point underlying all of this is that we’ve got to get away from the precautionary principle”, he said, referring to the cautious approach to risk that underpins European environmental regulation.

Think tank

The comments were made in meetings several months before the September publication of the ‘Plan A+’ report. 

Holdsworth said: “Charitable think tanks are first and foremost charities and need to behave as such. The law is quite clear that charitable think tanks and education charities must retain balance and neutrality in any research work and publications… It is disappointing that the trustees of some charitable think tanks appear not to fully understand their duties.”

He added: “We will therefore be writing to all charitable think tanks next week with formal regulatory advice to remind them of their duties.”

The IEA now plans to set up a non-charitable arm to ensure it can continue to put forward “firm policy proposals”, the charity’s chair of trustees, Neil Record announced on Friday.

He added: “We believe it is increasingly unclear what charitable think tank activity is acceptable, and what is not. A worrying precedent is in the process of being set: research papers – and their launches – which put forward firm policy proposals may now fall outside the parameters of what the Charity Commission considers acceptable activity.”

Last year the commission ordered the IEA to withdraw a pre-election press release on Labour’s manifesto and a report it published jointly with the Taxpayers’ Alliance, ‘Policy Proposals for a Conservative Manifesto’, over concerns about partisan bias.

In June a report written by Singham in his previous role at the Legatum Institute, ‘Brexit Inflection Point: The Pathway to Prosperity’, was also withdrawn after a Charity Commission investigation. The watchdog found it “crossed a clear line” by promoting a particular policy outcome and was “not consistent” with the charity’s aims.

The Charity Commission’s investigation into the IEA is ongoing.

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace

The UN’s annual climate talks kick off next week in the southern Polish city of Katowice, in the country’s coal heartland. The stakes are high, but —  as always —  it won’t be plain sailing.

The two-week meeting will be another pivotal moment in the global climate negotiations and the successful implementation of the Paris Agreement. Countries are expected to finalise the accord’s rulebook and start the process of a global stocktake to ramp up ambition to reduce emissions.

The talks are taking place against a backdrop of mounting urgency and expectations following a report from the UNIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which warned that the world has 12 years to halve its carbon dioxide emissionsif it is to keep warming to 1.5 degrees and avoid catastrophic climate change.

Spontaneous protests

In the UK, the report has become the call for action of the grassroots climate campaign Extinction Rebellion, which uses civil disobedience tactics to push the government to take meaningful action to prevent climate breakdown and aims to reach net zero emissions by 2025.

While expectations are high for countries to agree on a robust set of rules to implement the Paris Agreement, the global political context is once again testing the resilience of the UN process. 

DeSmog UK takes a look at some of the issues at stake, and the forces that could hinder the global negotiation process.

Each year, the UN climate talks offer a platform for climate activists and campaigners to take to the streets and demand meaningful climate action. But this year’s meeting could be quite different.

Earlier this year, DeSmog UK revealed the Polish Parliament approved a bill that banned all spontaneous protests in Katowice during the talks. The ban does not apply to demonstrations organised inside the conference centre.

Permission

The bill provides a raft of initiatives to “ensure safety and public order” and allows police to “collect, obtain, process and use information, including personal data about people registered as participants of the COP24 conference or cooperating with its organisation, without the knowledge and consent of the people involved”.

Meanwhile, the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has signed an order declaring an ALFA alert  — the first of four increasing terrorism security levels — across the entire southern province of Silesia and the city of Krakow.

The Polish border police also confirmed that Poland’s borders with Germany, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia had temporarily been restored and that the border could only be crossed in designated areas, with further checks being carried out at ports and airports.

This heightened security has led climate campaigners to describe “a tense atmosphere” in the city of Katowice, days before the start of the talks.

A March for Climate has been organised in Katowice on December 8 with the permission of the local authorities and it is unclear whether other events could take place in the city centre during the conference. 

Cleaner alternatives

Patryk Bialas, a newly elected independent councillor for Katowice and a long-standing climate activist, told DeSmog UK that the mood in Poland “was very bad”.

“There are already a lot of police on the streets and officers are telling people to keep away of the city centre during the talks.

“There will be protests during the talks outside the conference centre in Katowice but also all around Poland but many Poles are afraid of taking part. There is a possibility protesters could face prison if they break the ban on spontaneous protest,” he said.

Meanwhile, there are reports that some climate campaigners from developing countries where there are no democratic institutions have decided not to attend this year’s COP24, fearing that the collection of their personal data by Polish authorities could have implications in their home countries.

Taking place in Poland’s coal heartland, this year’s climate talks are once again expected to provide a platform for more discussion on the future of coal. The fuel powered western countries through industrialisation but is also the dirtiest fossil fuel — meaning developing countries are being asked to largely ‘leapfrog’ this source of energy in favour of cleaner alternatives.

Coal interests

The choice of the city of Katowice, which is home to the EU’s largest coal company Polska Grupa Górnicza (PGG), has angered some environmental campaigners who denounce Poland’s reluctance to fully engage in the UN process while still being influenced by a strong domestic coal industry.

And indeed, the coal lobby is already out in force at this year’s meeting.

Earlier this week, the Polish government announced that six state-owned companies, including Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW), the European Union’s largest high-quality coking coal company, and two other coal-sector companies would sponsor this year’s climate talks.

In a statement, JSW said the partnership would guarantee “the company’s active participation in the event and the possibility of promoting pro-ecological changes in the mining sector”.

For Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, the news of the COP24 sponsors raised serious questions about the philosophy and intentions of the Polish Presidency during the talks.

Technology

“We need to ask ourselves what is the priority of this COP and who does it intend to serve? The pro-coal message signalled by the Polish Presidency through the talk’s sponsorship sends a very contradicting and alarming message,” he said.

A fortnight before the start of the talks, the Polish energy minister Krzysztof Tchórzewski published a statement defending his country’s reliance on coal. A spokesman for the COP24 Polish presidency was quick to tell Climate Home News the statement did not represent the Polish government’s position.

In 2017, coal represented 78 percent of Poland’s energy mix. How this government infighting will translate during the talks is unclear and there are signals that the Polish government wants to ensure some progress is made during its presidency.

But strong pro-coal voices will be coming from other corners of the globe.

The US is again planning a sideshow on coal, with plans to promote nuclear energy as well as technology that allegedly burns fossil fuels more efficiently.

The event is unlikely to go unnoticed and is already on the radar of campaigners, who last year heavily disrupted the Donald Trump-backed pro-coal event.

Governments

Although there is no evidence of an alliance of coal-friendly powers around the US and Poland during the talks, observers will be watching the place pro-coal forces will take throughout the conference.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom on the coal front.

Last week, Climate Home News reported that rapidly increasing EU carbon prices could see Hungary plan an exit from coal-fired power generation by 2030, a move which could shake up eastern Europe, which has traditionally been staunchly opposed to robust climate measures.

Meanwhile, an announcement is to be expected from the “Powering Past Coal Alliance”, which was launched by the UK and Canada last year and aims to build a symbolic alliance of countries, states, regions and businesses committed to phasing-out coal.

The alliance, which currently has 75 members, including 28 countries, 19 sub-national governments and 28 businesses, will be holding an event during the second week of the talks.

Conflict of interest

Every year, the presence of big corporate polluters at the COP sparks vehement debate between climate campaigners arguing they should be “kicked out” of the UN process and those who argue they have their place at the negotiation table.

This year should be no exception.

Jesse Bragg, a spokesman for NGO Corporate Accountability, told DeSmog UK the issue was “likely to be on display in Poland”.

“Corporate sponsors, and direct interference in the negotiations will be rampant as big polluters attempt to lock their agenda into the rulebook,” he said.

For the past four years, civil society groups have campaigned for a “conflict of interest” policy within the UN process, which would develop a set of rules and principles and differentiate between the participation of governments and sub-national governments that represent public interests, and those who represent private interests.

South American countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba and El Salvador have all led on the issue at the UN level. Last year, the African Group of Negotiators submitted a continent-wide position, which demands “a clear framework to address potential conflicts of interest”.

Standing in the way of progress on the issue are the usual suspects led by the US and which include the EU, Norway, Australia and New Zealand.

While discussion on a conflict of interest policy is not on this year’s official agenda at the talks, debates on the issue are most likely to underpin this year’s conference.

Committee for future

One way in which this debate around conflict of interest could be revived at the talks is through a proposal rolled out by Ukraine last year as part of discussions on non-market approaches to implement the Paris Agreement.

The proposal would create a “permanent subsidiary body” known as the “Committee for Future” which would — among other things — “enhance public and private sector participation” in the UN Climate Change negotiation process.

Within civil society, there is much concern the text is a back door to corporate capture and one that would give big polluters a say in the way the Paris Agreement is implemented.

Over the last year, Ukraine has warmed up its relations with the Trump administration following a deal that has seen the country import US coal.

During last year’s talk, Ukrainian diplomats told Climate Home News the initiative received “a positive response” from the USand that both delegations were “in permanent contact”.

As part of the climate negotiations, Ukraine also operates as part of an umbrella group of negotiating bodies which include the US and other major fossil fuel exporters such as Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia and Norway.

According to Arthur Wyns from Climate Tracker, the text was proposed at last year’s talks with the intention of being brought back to the negotiation table at this COP24.

Whether Ukraine will try to take its proposal forward and what this could mean in practice for non-state stakeholders and private interests’ involvement in the negotiation is one to watch.

Greenwash

COPs are a great chance for those that want to take serious action on climate change to meet and try and make that happen. COPs are also a great chance for those that want to seem like they’re taking action on climate change to tout their wares.

After all, given the captive audience of environment journalists and climate policy wonks, what better place than a COP to greenwash your image?

Perhaps the highest-profile organisation partaking in a bit of creative marketing around their industry’s activity is the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) — a coalition of 13 of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.

Each year, just before the COP, the OGCI puts out a statement about how commited Big Oil is to the COPs goal of tackling climate change. Generally, the announcement reaffirms the industry’s commitment to being part of the solution to tackle climate change, while falling far short of promising to stop production of fossil fuels.

Indeed, the industry generally backs a combination of massive new (government-aided) investment in technology to trap and store carbon dioxide emissions from its fossil fuel power plants, and a global carbon price — solutions that have been on the table for decades, but are economically or politically unpalatable for many countries.

Campaigners are generally unimpressed with such statements. They say that Big Oil backs solutions it knows have little chance of becoming reality, effectively entrenching the status quo, which is pushing the world towards run-away climate change.

A quick wander around the shiny stalls that pretty much any energy company worth their salt brings to COP tells you just how prevalent this kind of messaging is — Shell’s emphasis on solar over genuine soul-searching, BP’s emphasis on moving Beyond Petroleum despite doing no such thing, and Statoil’s strategic rebranding to Equinor to remove “oil” from its name but not its business model.

With the fossil fuel divestment movement gaining momentum and the oil industry scrambling to formulate a response, it will be interesting to see how the industry defends itself this year.

Climate science deniers

As always, a fringe group of climate science deniers will be present at COP24. Every year, a small band rolls up, tries to cause a little trouble and get a headline or two before retreating back to the safety of the denier echo-chamber.

For instance, there was the time a widely discredited hereditary peer arrived in full “Monckton of Arabia” regalia and got banned from the Doha conference in 2012. And more recently when Marc Morano, a lobbyist with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), turned up (as he always does) wearing a Make America Great Again hat with a full-sized Trump cut-out the day after the US presidential election at the Marrakech conference in 2016.

Well, expect more of the same this year.

While President Trump’s climate science denial will be proffered as offering a veneer of legitimacy to this widely discredited group of lobbyists and PR merchants, much of their activity will continue to take place a long way from the actual negotiations.

On December 4, the Heartland Institute will host an event across the road from — but very much outside — the COP24conference centre. At the event, the cannily named Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (not to be confused with the UN’s scientific advisory body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or “IPCC”) will present a new report, titled “Climate Change Reconsidered: Fossil Fuels.”

The report will claim to assess “the costs and benefits of the use of fossil fuels” by looking at research considered not to be credible by the hundreds of expert climate scientists that comprise the IPCC.

Event organiser, the Heartland Institute, is at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. It has received at least $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 but no longer discloses its funding sources.

The Union of Concerned Scientists found that “nearly 40 percent of the total funds that the Heartland Institute has received from ExxonMobil since 1998 were specifically designated for climate change projects.”

One of the main speakers will be Craig Idso, the Chairman and former President of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CSCDGC).

The CSCDGC ranked at eight on a list of the “Dirty Dozen of Climate Change Denial” compiled by Mother Jones in 2009. According to leaked internal documents from the Heartland Institute in 2012, Idso was receiving $11,600 a month from the Heartland Institute. He has also worked for a range of fossil fuel outfits over the years — from Peabody, the world’s largest privately owned coal company, to the Western Fuels Association.

Also speaking at the event will be James Taylor, president of the Spark of Freedom Foundation, a senior fellow with the Heartland Institute and former managing editor (2001-2014) of the Heartland Institute publication Environment & Climate News. He also writes a regular column for Forbes magazine.

Taylor is fond of making the argument that fossil fuels remain integral to the economies of poor nations, despite a wealth of research suggesting dirty energy actually locks people into poverty.

The group already held a warm-up event in Munich last week, hosted by German group Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie (EIKE), which got precisely no media coverage.

EIKE’s slogan is “Nicht das Klima ist bedroht, sondern unsere Freiheit! Umweltschutz: Ja! Klimaschutz: Nein,” which roughly translates to “It is not the climate that is at risk, but our freedom! Environmental protection: Yes! Climate protection: No.”

In advance of the Munich event, Heartland’s Taylor said in a statement: “The scientific evidence and conclusions reported by climate scientists are far different than what the environmental left and their legacy media allies would like the public to believe.” Expect more such statements around COP.

Energy policies

Every year, the UN climate talks process gets more urgent as the remaining time to avoid catastrophic climate change runs out. And yet, in the midst of high-level negotiations and government diplomacy, there is little space for “real people’s” voices to be heard.

In many ways, there is a strong disconnect between the slow and compromising UN climate talks process and grassroots movements demanding immediate and radical solutions to tackle climate change.

As one member of the climate action movement Extinction Rebellion put it, “this is a 24-time-failed process” and one which growing numbers of climate campaigners have given up on.

And yet, expect a small delegation of Extinction Rebellion campaigners to turn up at the UN climate talks. After a fortnight of “economic swarming” in London blocking key road junctions and bridges and gluing themselves to government buildings, what these protesters have got planned at the UN level will definitely be one to follow.

Meanwhile, inside the negotiating rooms, this year’s conference is expected to debate how communities whose livelihoods have long depended on fossil fuel industries such as coal and oil for jobs will manage a transition to a zero-carbon future without being left behind.

This is the question at the heart of a debate about how to achieve just and fair transitions to net-zero societies and one which will be made a priority by the Polish presidency during the talks. But how this idea will be integrated within the talks is not straightforward.

Although Poland may be keen to share stories about post-mining transformations, its coal industry still wields much influence on its energy policies and its labour market. A “social pre-COP” meeting in Katowice in August was dominated by Poland’s mining and industrial unions, who demanded thorough analysis of the costs and jobs impact of climate policies.

The tension between the need for a rapid decarbonisation of society and ensuring communities continue to have employment opportunities is likely to be high during the climate talks.

While some groups might be tempted to use the key issue of “just transition” as an excuse to delay climate action, there is an urgent need from governments to start preparing this transition and ensure communities who depend on fossil fuel extraction can access work opportunities in the green economy.

Finally, this year’s climate meeting will see naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough telling people’s climate stories gathered from around the world through social media in a bid to bring the voices of millions of citizens to the UN process.

Known as “the people’s seat”, the initiative might be a symbolic gesture towards recognising the lack of voices from the frontline of climate change during the negotiations, but for many Attenborough’s celebrity voice will be far from enough to fill “the people” void.

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk

Most modelled emission scenarios that meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-2C targets include large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) throughout the 21st Century.

While afforestation has been a part of climate policy for decades, the development of other CDR technologies such as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), Direct Air Capture and Storage (DACS) or Soil Carbon Sequestration (SCS) is still in its infancy. No country is presently pursuing substantial research or regulatory support in this area, not even an international climate policy leader like the EU.

Critics usually present CDR as an unreliable magic bullet, a potential moral hazard that will deter serious mitigation efforts or an intervention with side effects worse than the climate change impacts it tries to prevent. But such generalised statements usually ignore that the problem is not the technologies, but the scale they are assumed to be deployed. Therefore, it is important to assess and decide in which climate policy strategy CDR should be embedded.

Policymakers

In this context, is useful to distinguish between gross and net negative emissions. Models currently find that for meeting a 1.5-2C target global CO2emissions will have to reach net zero in the second half of the century and go deeply into negative territory afterwards.

Net zero emissions represent a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, implying that there remain some residual gross positive emissions, stemming from fossil fuel use, industrial processes or agriculture that may be prohibitively expensive or even impossible to mitigate (sources). These need to be offset by gross negative emissions (sinks) that could come from natural (e.g., SCS) or engineered sinks (e.g., DACS).

Net negative emissions occur when the gross negative emissions exceed the gross positive emissions, i.e. when the sinks exceed the sources.

Under the EU’s current 80-95% by 2050 reduction target it is not imperative to discuss CDR politically since this ambition level can in principle be achieved through conventional mitigation measures alone. Only a more ambitious economy-wide headline target, essential to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal of 1.5-2C, can ensure that CDR will enter the EU’s climate policy agenda. Following the release of the European Commission’s proposal on Wednesday for a new long-term climate strategy this is going to be discussed within the EU, and decided by 2020.

Global mitigation pathways consistent with 1.5-2C indicate that the EU would deliver cumulative CDR of at least 50 Gigatonnes CO2 by 2100, more than ten times the EU’s current annual emissions. A comprehensive CDR approach would embrace this challenge by openly acknowledging that the EU would have to reach reduction targets of far more than 100% in the second half of the century to help limiting the global temperature increase to at least 2C, and that this is only possible with huge amounts of CDR – a significant political challenge for EU policymakers.

Technical expertise

Different from global scenarios a limited CDR approach would focus on the path towards net zero emissions. Putting the goal of reaching and maintaining a balance between emissions and removals centre stage, the focus would merely be on offsetting residual emissions from industry, transport and agriculture through comparatively limited amounts of CDR. To address concerns that a deliberate CDR policy might weaken conventional decarbonisation, the EU could split its net zero objective into sub-targets for reducing emissions and for enhancing sinks, e.g. with a 90-10 or 95-5% ratio that could be seen as a smooth extension of the EU’s current long-term target.

Focusing on CDR in the context of net zero could facilitate public authorities (perhaps at city or regional levels) and companies re-setting their objectives to go beyond present claims of ‘100% renewables’ and aiming for full ‘climate neutrality’. Such initiatives would probably avoid potentially controversial and complex BECCS facilities, and more likely start with extending current emissions offsetting practices like afforestation and introducing other forms of small-scale terrestrial CDR, highlighting local ecological or agricultural co-benefits.

Conceptually combining CDR with the logic of net zero emissions would introduce a sequential political strategy. A decarbonisation approach that intends to lead to a low level of residual emissions as soon as possible (to be tackled by a pragmatic phase-in of CDR) should be the priority of EU climate policy.

Only in a subsequent step, would it make sense for the EU to scale-up the deployment of CDR technologies considerably. Aiming for an EU emissions reduction target of more than 100% could be an integral part of a global climate recovery strategy that helps meeting the 1.5-2C target.

But to be successful, such a strategy needs to be based on a much enhanced level of regulatory and technical expertise and on a much higher level of trust that CDR can be a credible climate policy approach.

This Article

Oliver Geden is head of the EU/Europe research division, German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Glen Peters is research director at the Center for International Climate Research. Vivian Scott is senior researcher at the school of geosciences at the University of Edinburgh. This analysis is based on a scientific journal article recently published in Climate Policy. This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

Radical global change is now a necessity. But even small, everyday changes can be fiercely resisted, resulting in stress and conflict. It is the paradox of our time.

This is why I believe we need a sophisticated and widely shared understanding of what change is and how it can be achieved. This series of articles is one attempt to meet that need.

The change we need would involve a rapid evolution to a global economic system that works with and within the global ecological system, the biosphere.  Natural systems are fertile places for exploring how this change could happen. 

Intensely personal

The one constant in my life has been my inherited desire for change. My parents – Ken and Bernie – were both highly committed political activists who wanted to change the entire world. They wanted to see an economic system focused on people’s needs – from the every day to the extraordinary.

I am also of the Watership Down generation. The film is about a rabbit who alone recognises the need for a radical change, and must persuade those around them to take enormous risks to meet that challenge. As a child I wanted to see a different world in which human beings behaved entirely differently towards animals and the environment.

Today I find myself editing The Ecologist. This platform has called for urgent changes to prevent environmental armageddon for decades. From its earliest days it referred to systems thinking as a theory of change that could help diagnose the problems caused by industrial capitalism and its impact on the natural environment.

The Ecologist itself has gone through many changes, including going online. It is now owned by The Resurgence Trust, which promotes the values of empathy, oneness with nature, and wellbeing, and has the core aim of “changing people’s worldviews so they live in harmony with each other, and with nature”. I am very fortunate to be in the change-making business.

The five decades since The Ecologist was launched have witnessed extreme change – but very few of the kind I have hoped and campaigned for. McDonald’s still trades. The Amazon rainforest remains under grave threat. And now climate breakdown is upon us and fascism is the spectre haunting Europe.

Individual failure

This all represents a collective failure of humankind to achieve positive change. It is a failure of human societies to undo the appropriation and exploitation that has characterised civilisation since its inception. It is a failure to address environmental crises. It is the failure of the human species to reach its potential – as a conscious guardian of life on earth. 

But it also feels to me like an intensely personal failure. I – then and now – wanted to change all of this and I haven’t. Fully comprehending the scale of the change we need can be immobilising: how can I, a single human being, really have any expectation that I can effect any real change at all? 

The Amazon website is heaving with books about success, leadership and change management. The authors present themselves as exemplars of success: How I rose to the top. How I transformed my team. How I disrupted an industry. How I gained power and wealth. Yet these personal successes do not aggregate into general, societal success. Things for most are in fact only getting worse.

We have to challenge the assumption that winners are the best advisors. Capitalism is more a roulette wheel than a meritocracy. The secret to making money is simply to have money; you have to take risks, and randomly some succeed. Donald Trump and Theresa May demonstrate that power and wealth is inherited and that it is fiercely protected by those who have it rather than earned by those who ‘deserve’ it.

But those who continually fail have far more data to work from – and have learned more about change – than those who win first time. 

Building resilience

In this series of articles I hope to share the core lessons I have learned from failing hard, failing fast, and then failing again. I have failed in personal relationships, failed at improving the organisations I work for, and manifestly failed to create the kind of world in which I want to live – a world where all of us can survive.

For some reason, I have even failed at giving up. I cannot stop trying. I think it is fair to say that every time I failed, I failed better. Today, this kind of failure is called ‘resilience’.

Each time I fail I tend to hit the bookshop. I have failed to rid myself of the belief that the chances of success can only be improved through learning – through more sophisticated strategies, a better understanding of the world and the people who populate it, and a higher level of self awareness.

Today, I am in a better position to try and change the world than during any previous time. I am much kinder to myself, and enjoy life to a degree I had never anticipated even a few years ago.

My most important relationships are stronger and more reciprocal than before, I’ve never been happier at work. I’ve never been more confident that I can play a constructive role in the changes – and the challenges – that lie ahead.

Supporting groups

This may all just be about getting a bit older. But I feel very strongly that it is in large part because I have never stopped wanting to change the world, I felt I had to learn more and I’ve retained an insatiable curiosity about the world. I have also been able to understand my own weaknesses and limitations.

And today I have reached one of those limitations. I think I am doing as much as I can as a private individual, even with the support that comes from working in a small team working for a charity in North Devon.

I feel that in order to achieve the changes which are still core to my work and my life, I do need to work with more people. I will soon be joining grassroots groups and environmental campaigns so that I can do this.

But I feel the best contribution I can make right now is to try and share the lessons I have learned from my almost a half century of failure with as many people as possible. Having read so much, and found so much of value, it would seem a waste and a dereliction to keep it all to myself.

This series of articles – called On The Nature of Change – represents my best attempt to set out everything I have learned about how change manifests itself, in the individual person, in groups and organisations – in society and in nature itself.

Dialectical thinking

This ‘On the Nature of Change’ series will have three clear sections: 1. The philosophers. 2. Interpreting the world. 3. Changing the world.

The first section will examine a philosophical theory of change, and how this has itself developed and evolved over time. The second will apply this theory to three fundamental areas: the self, the team, society. Finally, the third will present clear ways in which this theory of change can be practically applied to real world challenges.

The theory of change evolves into and then evolves out of a philosophical logic called dialectics. It begins in Ancient Rome, unfolds into a coherent worldview during enlightenment in Germany, is transformed again in the white heat of the Russian revolution and takes on a new pattern and structure as systems thinking, used in boardrooms today around the world.

Dialectics is above all a theory of change. It begins with the proposition that change is constant, indeed it is the only constant. The suggestion is that if we can better understand how change already plays out, we may just be able to direct and influence change so that we evolve in a positive direction.

Dialectics as a pure form of logic is presented by the early 19th century German philosopher Georg Hegel, in his Phenomenology of Spirit and Science of Logic. His works are notoriously complex and difficult to understand. I’m going to pull out a few key concepts that I feel are vitally important to developing an understanding of change today.

Hegel sets out how we can understand the world around us from first principles. He uses concepts such as “identity and difference”, “the negation of the negation”, “sublation”, mediated and immediate” in order to describe absolute truth. I will offer a definition of these terms, and explain why the concepts remain useful. In true Hegelian form, I intend to extract what I think is useful but totally ignore (negate) those of his ideas that I feel are less useful.

General theory

The second phase in the transformation of this dialectical concept of change takes place largely in the almost totally forgotten works of Alexander Bogdanov, who lived through the Russian revolution.

He developed key dialectical ideas and in doing so presented a general theory that the world was defined not so much by matter, but by organisation, by systems, by patterns. This theory included concepts of “feedback”, “homeostasis” and “autopoiesis” – the secret to life itself. I will define these terms, and explain their use.

Bogdanov died in obscurity, but his great work was published in Germany in the 1920s. At the same time and in the same place Ludwig Von Bertalanffy began to present ideas which he would later present as a grand General Systems Theory.

This theory of change suggests that our universe is made up entirely of systems, and these systems have many of the same properties. This takes the concepts developed by Bogdanov and takes them even further. This includes the concept of “emergent properties” where the system can exhibit properties that do not exist in any one of its parts.

We can understand human beings, teams of people and indeed society as a whole as interacting, nested systems. Systems theory is today even more advanced, and I hope to take in some of the latest concept to complete this presentation of a theory of change.

This theory of change, I believe, is the solution to the problem of how I – a single individual – can affect change on a global level. By using these conceptual tools I have a greater chance of managing the change I need to make to myself, to the institutions within which I work, and through them to the world at large.

Making change 

My plan to end this series where many people will want to begin. The final phase will take all these concepts, and all the ways they have been used to interpret the world, and then set out some practical examples of how they can be used to effect real change in the world.

I will describe how I used this theory of change to better understand my own behaviour and needs – and the behaviour and needs of those around me. I will talk about my success (and failure) of managing changes in the activist groups and workplaces when I have tried to change the world.

I will give clear examples of where dialectics and systems concepts can help all of us better direct our efforts towards transforming our society into a sustainable system.

The primary claim of dialectics is that everything is in a constant state of flux. It seems fitting to conclude, therefore, with the proviso that I cannot predict the future and that this plan is itself subject to change. A necessary part of making change is being subjected to it.

I feel that the information I have stumbled across over the last twenty years in attempting to achieve change is both fascinating and important and must be shared as widely as possible. I believe it can prepare us better for meeting the changes ahead and bringing about the change we desire, the change we so desperately need.

This Author 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press, 2017). He tweets at @EcoMontague. 

 The heart-breaking moment a pangolin is brutally killed for its body parts to be sold on the black market, in Assam, north-eastern India is captured in footage released by World Animal Protection and  Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford (WildCRU).

The footage was captured by an undercover researcher on their mobile phone, and shows a terrified pangolin hiding from hunters in a hollowed-out tree clinging for life, as its tail is tugged. 

Pangolins are often referred to as the world’s most trafficked mammal and this footage demonstrates the huge cruelty the animals endure when hunted.

International trafficking

The hunters use axes to cut the tree, but failing to remove the desperate animal, they light a fire to smoke it out. As the pangolin starts to suffocate and lose consciousness it makes a bolt for freedom but is captured, bagged and taken to a hut where the next stage of the ordeal takes place. 

The pangolin is repeatedly bludgeoned with a machete until it can barely move. While bleeding and possibly still alive, it is then thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, where its tragic struggle comes to an end.  

The harrowing clip is part of a two-year study by researchers from World Animal Protection and the University of Oxford, into traditional hunting practices in the state of Assam, that borders Bhutan.

Interviews conducted by researchers with over 140 local hunters found that pangolins were largely targeted for their scales that are sold for a premium, with hunters earning the equivalent of four months’ salary for a single pangolin. 

The hunters from these communities were clearly unaware of the part they are playing in the international trafficking trade. Yet the illegal traders that then sell the animal products across the borders on the black market go on to make a large profit.  

High risk

Pangolin scales are used in traditional Asian medicine particularly in China and Vietnam. The scales are made of keratin, the same material that makes human fingernails and hair, and they have no proven medicinal value. 

Pangolin meat is also considered to be a delicacy in some countries, and the scales are also used as decorations for rituals and jewellery. They are considered to be at high risk of extinction primarily as a result of illegal1 poaching.  

Dr. Neil D’Cruze, Global Wildlife Advisor at World Animal Protection and lead researcher said:  “Suffocated with smoke, beaten and boiled alive – this is a terrifying ordeal and Pangolins clearly suffer immensely.  

“This footage shines a spotlight on how shocking the practice of hunting pangolins truly is. Not only is this a major conservation issue it’s a devastating animal welfare concern. If we want to protect pangolins from pain and suffering in the countries they come from, we need to tackle the illegal poaching trade” 

Lucrative catch

Professor David Macdonald, WildCRU, Department of Zoology, Oxford University said “Increasing demand driven by traditional Asian medicine is making pangolins a lucrative catch.   It’s easy to see why they are being commercially exploited, as scales from just one pangolin can offer a life changing sum of money for people in these communities, but it’s in no way sustainable. Wild pangolin numbers are beginning to plummet.”  

Reliable estimates of how many pangolins remain in the wild are lacking, although it is thought that over a million individual pangolins were taken from the wild between 2000, and 2013. There are eight species of pangolin, all of which are considered threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.  

World Animal Protection works tirelessly to prevent cruelty to animals around the world. Although it is well documented that pangolins are being hunted and trafficked, until now, the immense suffering and cruelty that these animals endure when they are hunted has remained relatively overlooked.  

To combat the global trade in their bodies and scales, and to protect pangolins from the unimaginable suffering they endure we are calling for:  

– Strong enforcement of national and international laws  

– Removal of pangolins from the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China – the traditional medicine handbook for the industry  

– Investment in and promotion of herbal and synthetic alternatives   

– Combined and coordinated efforts by governments, NGOs and the traditional Asian medicine community to eliminate consumer demand for pangolin-based traditional Asian medicines, particularly in China and Vietnam   

– Support for alternative livelihoods, alleviation of poverty and education programmes within rural communities wherever pangolins are found globally, to stop the slaughter.  

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from World Animal Protection. 

The 10 countries along the River Nile are set to bring in a shared water and weather monitoring system next year, to promote efficient water use and inform water-sharing negotiations.

An idea first mooted in 2010, the “hydromet” system has been slow to materialize, due to funding shortfalls and political tensions.

Officials at the Nile Basin Initiative told Climate Home News they are ready to start installing equipment in late 2019, subject to resolving legal issues.

Riparian states

“The system will help us to know how much water is available and where, to enable us have a water accountability system,” NB river basin management specialist Mohsen Alarabawy said. “This will help to enrich the dialogue we are having on cooperation.”

The plan, according to a draft work programme, is to establish 53 hydrological stations in select areas in the 10 countries, plus a central database for capturing and storing the observations.

This information will be shared with all the governments, to help them monitor changes in rainfall and water consumption, improve climate change adaptation plans, and prepare for climate-linked hazards like floods and droughts.

The longest river in the world, the Nile drains around 10% of the African continent. Its catchment area is shared by Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania, and DR Congo.

That makes the river a theme for political interaction and more than once has jolted relations of riparian states that share the river with distinct variations, uses and interests.

Environmental degradation

Egypt and Ethiopia, and sometimes Sudan are the usual warring parties over the river’s waters; they have been at loggerheads since 2011, when Ethiopia started building the 6.5-gigawatt Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, set to be the largest dam in Africa.

While each country along the river has some hydromet capacity, NBI studies have found substantial gaps in the monitoring infrastructure.

“There are hydrologically important areas of the basin that are poorly monitored due to inadequate monitoring network; many monitoring stations are poorly equipped – some not operational for quite substantial periods of their history since establishment; many stations are not equipped with modern instruments that ensure more precise data collection and continuous and timely transmission of data,” one NBI brief reads.

Alarabawy said the system installation is expected to start later next year after officials from all countries have met to thrash out issues like how the regional database will communicate with national systems. A summit was planned in Kampala late last month but was indefinitely deferred due to organisational hiccups.

The pressures over the river are rising every day, with high population growth, climate change, infrastructure development, and environmental degradation.

Water quotas

The World Bank and European Union are funding establishment of the hydromet system.

The two development partners have also been pushing the riparian countries to strike a middle ground on the new Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) that espouses equitable utilisation of the river, and seeks to replace the colonial agreements that granted Egypt and Sudan veto powers on how other countries use the river’s waters. The CFA was adopted in Entebbe in 2010.

The CFA was signed by Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Burundi and Kenya to work towards attaining a greater share of the Nile shares, but Egypt and Sudan declined, insisting on the colonial-era agreements which grants them bigger shares of the Nile water.

In 1929 Britain (then colonizing, and on behalf of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania) negotiated an agreement granting Egypt 75% share (55.5 billion cubic meters), and in 1959 negotiated another agreement granting Sudan 25% (18.5 billion cubic meters) of the river’s total flow, on the assumption that the upstream countries can rely on other sources like rain or underground aquifers.

According to these older deals, upstream countries cannot undertake any activities, say irrigation or dam construction, which could significantly affect Egypt’s or Sudan’s allocated water quotas without first notifying and presenting detailed impact studies to Cairo.

Booming population

Uganda’s permanent secretary in the ministry of water and environment, Alfred Okot Okidi, described the hydromet as “a step in the right direction”. It will help to build on the ongoing discussions for a better water-sharing regime and better prepare of climatic variations like floods and drought, which are prevalent in the basin, he said.

According to the last published State of the Nile Basin report, the Nile Basin is highly vulnerable to the impacts of global warming owing to a multiplicity of factors, and the basin communities have limited ability to cope with the negative impacts of climate variability.

“Nile flows are very sensitive to small changes in average basin rainfall, but the Nile Basin consists of a number of distinct sub-basins that each respond quite differently to possible climatic variations,” the 2012 report says.

The senior regional climate changer advisor on trans-boundary water cooperation in the Nile basin at the German development agency, Michael Menker Girma told CHN: “You can look at the hydromet in two aspects: one, the climate change variability, and two we don’t have a regional/African model for climate change projects so having such data can help us to have a starting point, like in this case specifically on the Nile.”

While climate variability is an issue of concern, Girma said the basin’s main problem is the booming population in all countries, which means pressure on available water means in the not-so-distant future, and the decline in water quality due to increased pollution and urbanisation.

“The system will help in knowing how much water is available: if countries work together towards how it is used, they can use it efficiently,” Girma said.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News. It was produced as part of an African reporting fellowship supported by Future Climate for Africa.

There are the rumblings of rebellion across the world. From the bridges of London where ordinary people want to be arrested to the schools of Australia where pupils are striking. The shared aim of these groups is averting climate catastrophe.

The ‘green revolution’ with its utopian ideal of a transition to a low carbon economy – where all are winners with a cleaner economy and green pounds in our pocket – has been joined by the far from utopian ‘Extinction Rebellion’ – demanding immediate action. 

Aside from traffic delays causing comedian Jim Davidson extreme frustration, can the call for rebellion be justified?

Social justice 

The debate about climate has moved on from the false balance of ‘science’ and ‘denial’ to one about rights and power – the essence of a rebellion. The democratic process has failed to deliver real solutions to the issues. This necessitates more direct political engagement – the right to protest and rebel.

The rights of younger people – and future citizens – are being eroded and oppressed by the current political and economic masters of our planet. This is typified by the rise of populist politicians, such as President Trump, who makes a virtue of feeling secure financially in the short term at the expense of long-term environmental insecurity. 

We stand at an interesting crossroads in the way we talk about climate. My friends and colleagues are returning from holidays with their children boiling with anger about the immediacy of the risks of climate change and the costs their offspring will have to pay for our lack of action.

Adair Turner (a former guardian of financial stability as head of the Financial Services Authority) can say on BBC radio that he ‘shares the aims’ of the Extinction Rebellion, whilst also promoting the benefits of the transition to a low-carbon economy.  

At Abundance we also promote the positive opportunity of investment in clean energy technologies and the idea that green economic growth can boost social justice. But is that enough to produce the change we need?

Fiduciary duty

Arguably the human right that is most constrained and eroded has been our right to control our money. Democracy is not only about exercising political will and rights, it is also about access to and control of financial capital.

In the case of climate change, financial capital is a claim on the future and how we exercise those claims has a direct impact on the rights of future generations.

Conventional wisdom is that ‘fiduciary duty’ is to protect our pensions and our investments no matter what the long-term cost to the planet.

We have become a society that promotes stability above all else, especially financial stability. The oxymoron is that it creates runaway climate change, resulting in the destruction of the environment and natural resources upon which we depend as a species. 

Our system of money is far from democratic. Institutions like pension funds are accountable to governments and officials rather than directly to the electorate, despite the fact that their decisions impact our economic future.

Although, they are sensitive to their reputations for looking after the financial interests of ‘the people’ and we are starting to see some movement in the right direction.

Evaluating risk 

Financial rebellion is no longer a simple case of ‘moving your money’, it is about campaigning for reform of the financial system, which must also include what the wealth accountants refer to as ‘natural capital’ and what we call our shared home. 

We need to shift our focus from counting our trillions in the present – using clever accounting tricks to justify asset valuations – to evaluating the risk of those assets to and from climate change. 

So yes, we need to resist and rebel. While humans are betting on the future of the planet, you might want to check whether you are betting against yourself and the health and wellbeing of future generations. 

This Author 

Bruce Davis is managing director of Abundance Investment, which advertises with The Ecologist.

Jade is the diamond of the East. A fast-growing, high-income class in China – who often cherish mystical values associated with jade – are causing a booming demand for jade. In the shadows of this jade-rush, hellish stories emerge from the depths of the jade mines in Myanmar.

Just this year, a landslide caused by the jade mining activity in Myanmar killed 17 people. At least 113 – and maybe as many as 200 – workers died in another accident in 2015.

Working conditions in the mines are so dire that in order to endure the harsh conditions, most miners become heroin addicts. Rivers are polluted and vast swaths of pristine jungle are levelled through illegal land grabs, using intimidation and violence.

Blood jade

Myanmar produces around 70 percent of the world’s jadeite, a variety of jade. Jadeite deposits found in Myanmar’s northern regions are considered to be the highest quality jadeite in the world.

The main production site is located in Kachin state, where an ethnic conflict between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Myanmar army has been running for decades. A brutal war is paid for by both sides almost entirely through glamorous jade.

According to a damning Global Witness report released by in 2015, the jade industry is mostly controlled by “[old junta] military elite, US-sanctioned drug lords and crony companies” while “very few revenues reach the people of Kachin State […] or the population of Myanmar as a whole”.

Global Witness names and shames the families of former dictator Than Shwe and two generals. They also estimate that the value of the industry was about USD 31 billion in 2014, or nearly half of Myanmar’s official GDP.

The largest importer is China. Global Witness asks: is this the biggest natural resources heist in modern history?

Did the report have any impact on the ground? Maybe it had. In 2016, the government announced a suspension of the mining until a new law on gemstones is passed. In 2017, a draft was published. But people in Kachin state say it still doesn’t take local interests into account.

The bigger picture

Arnim Scheidel, an ecological economist from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has been studying social and environmental conflicts in Myanmar as part of a European research project that studies and contributes to the global environmental justice movement.

He says that the conflict for jade is a big one, but at the same time only one of many struggles for environmental justice in Myanmar:

Mining, agribusiness, logging and so forth finances the interests of Myanmar’s powerful elites. Pressure on the country’s resources increased with the recent opening to foreign investment. Locals tend to lose access to land and to a healthy environment to live in. Civil society argues that aggressive resource extraction in historic conflict zones threatens ceasefire agreements and the country’s fragile peace. They demand to return resource control to local groups and call for a moratorium on large-scale extraction projects until the country achieves stability.

The almost exclusive availability of valuable stones in the middle of a minority ethnic area in a not that democratic country seems to be a very potent mix for violent conflict.

According to Global Witness, jade is the main source of income for the Kachin Independence Organization – aside from being almost half of Myanmar’s economy.

After 17 years of ceasefire, fighting re-erupted in June 2011, displacing an estimated 90,000 people by September 2012 and killing hundreds.

From artisanal to industrial mining

Until not so long ago, finding jade was a relatively low impact artisanal mining activity. Looking for surface coloration, checking the sound by tapping with metal tools and feeling subtle rock differences while rocks are submerged in water were common methods to find jade.

Now, the Myanmar Gems Enterprise simply uses heavy machinery to cut through big boulders to reveal pockets of jade. The heavy-handed approach has taken over, both towards the stones and towards the communities who happen to live in the area where jade is found.

The story of jade from the mines of Myanmar is one of fulfilling the fantasies of rich consumers who don’t care about human rights or the environment.

It is also an example of how an officially communist state, China, is now making the same “consumer-is-king” mistake that has been cherished and created since capitalism took root in the West.

But whether the consumer comes from China, The West or elsewhere: the slogan that the consumer is not king is in urgent need of a graphic warning message that the consumer also kills.

This Author

Nick Meynen is a geographer, author of Frontlines. Stories of Global Environmental Justice (now in Dutch, English forthcoming) and policy officer at the European Environmental Bureau. He’s also a regular contributor to The Ecologist.

The author benefited from a case study in the Environmental Justice Atlas written by Laura Villadiego.

On an unseasonably hot mid-September Friday afternoon, more than 100 pastoralists drive their cattle to Kobebe dam to drink, jostling for space.

The dam in Moroto district, northeastern Uganda, attracts herders with cows, goats, sheep, donkeys and camels from far and wide. Up to 5 million animals a day drink and graze nearby.

Simon Lomonyang trekked 50 kilometres here with his cattle from neighbouring Amudat district, and plans on staying for a week as he and his sons pondered their next move.

Aid workers

“I don’t think I will go back home soon,” the father of five says, in between barking orders to his sons as they herd their 40 head of cattle. “I came here for water, but there is not enough pasture so I have to go to another area but we don’t know where.”

With conditions getting worse, Lomonyang foresees his sons and grandsons traveling even longer distances in search of good grazing land.

This is part of Karamoja, a hotspot for climate change impacts bordering on Kenya and South Sudan.

For decades, the sub-region has been stereotyped, marginalised, and ostracized, seen by the rest of the country as a no-go zone. Although that is changing, thanks in part to a steady flow of donor-funded recovery programmes, the journey to walk remains long.

Far from the urban centres, bustling with aid workers, out here the people face a double tragedy: extreme climate variations and chronic poverty.

Carelessly implemented

During rainy seasons rivers flood, gardens are submerged and roads are cut off for days.

When the sun shines shines, pastoral communities roam – sometimes across the border to Kenya – in search of water for their animals. Competition for grazing land has often sparked conflict between rival tribes.

Since the 1960s, average temperatures in the region have risen by 1.3C, while the number of extreme hot days increased 20-28 percent.

In the last twenty years, a plethora of development programmes have aimed to boost Karamoja’s prospects, variously focusing on health, education, infrastructure, livelihood restoration, food security and climate change.

But they are not always well received. “Most have been carelessly implemented,” complains Francis Kiyonga, a local councillor in Amudat district.

Dynamics

“We cannot talk about policies while structures for implementation of the projects are lacking,” Kiyonga says.  

“Most of the activities, including sensitisation of people about what needs to be done, are thriving in district towns/urban centres but you go down [in Amudat] and talk about climate change, the majority of the people are clueless, and yet they are the most at risk.”

During the recent 2017-18 drought, Kiyonga said the entire Karamoja sub-region lost 2,000 head of cattle “and if pastoralists had not moved to areas with water, more heads would have died”.

The government promotes valley dams as a way of conserving water. They are a partial solution, but their long-term viability is doubtful.

Kobebe’s construction in 2011 certainly changed the dynamics of the area.

Valley tanks

Pastoralists who previously migrated downriver to Teso sub-region in times of drought, clashing with its regular inhabitants, can instead camp out by the reservoir.

But there is another source of tension: the water source attracts herders from Turkana, across the border in Kenya. The Ugandan military is usually on standby.

While the dam offers a buffer against variable rainfall, its usefulness still depends on the weather. Already in the extreme droughts of 2014 and 2015, the 2.3 billion-litre capacity Kobebe reservoir dried up completely and the dam started cracking. As temperatures rise, water stored in this way will evaporate more quickly.

The Ugandan government has secured €20 million ($23m) from the German government, through the seven-member Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), to build three large valley dams in Moroto, Kotido, and Kaabong.

Separately the €150m ($170m) multi-sectoral Development Initiative for Northern Uganda (Dinu), funded by the EU, German, British and Ugandan governments, will bring smaller ‘valley tanks’ to each parish in Amudat and Moroto.

Pastoralists

District officials questioned whether this was the most appropriate intervention, grumbling to CHN about a lack of consultation on the ground. Researchers from Nairobi and Makerere universities found in a 2014 studymost valley dams had little community buy-in and as a result were poorly managed.

European Union officials in Kampala referred the matter to the Uganda authorities for comment. Ugandan officials insisted wide-ranging consultations were carried out in all areas set to benefit from the project.

Those complaining are “selfish individuals,” they said, who want specifically tailored programmes for their areas that resources don’t permit.

Officials also indicated that consultations on the Igad-funded project are ongoing.

Climate change impacts are compounded by other environmental problems. Trees are being cut down for fuel faster than they regrow. Pastoralists periodically burn the bush as a method of pest control. Lately, there has been a surge in mining activity.

Chebet Maikut, head of climate change in the ministry of water and environment, said government and development partners were pursuing measures like tree-planting too. As temperatures continue to rise, though, it is a race against time.

“Karamoja and the entire cattle corridor (from south western Uganda to the north east) are already on the brink,” Maikut said. “Any increase in temperatures, as it is expected, however minor it gets, will just shatter livelihoods.”

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

You can tell when it is winter in Hanoi – the country’s Northern capital – because everyone is wrapped up in puffer jackets, hats and scarves; hands are pushed deeply into pockets, elbows are kept straight and chins are tucked firmly into chests. 

The only conversations seem to be: “It’s cold; so cold!” This means temperatures have dropped below 20⁰C. 

Meanwhile, I browse pictures from home (England) – no doubt at some point there will be widespread snow across the country. My social media feeds will fill with pictures of snowmen and wooded landscapes wonderfully buried under a few inches of the white stuff. 

Cool humidity 

In the UK — and I’m sure in any cold or colder countries — we keep warm. A brisk venture out into the freeze before rushing back inside to an open log fire, mulled wine, hot whisky, carpet, slippers and so on. It’s the cool humidity of a Hanoi winter that penetrates you. Tiled floors, lofty rooms, no heating. All abodes are built with the intention of keeping out the searing summer’s heat, but no consideration for keeping in the warmth during the winter months.  

I get a call: “Do you want to come on a mission?” I am asked, “…up to the mountains in the north, to Sin Ho?”

“Well yes, but I’m busy complaining about the winter in Hanoi – surely it’s going to be bitterly cold up there?” 

Never one to turn an adventure down, I pack my warmest clothing and not before long we catch the night train north. The task in hand turns out to be shooting videos and taking photographs of some trees, my favouritekind of job.

My good friend sells produce in Hanoi from the ethnic minorities that reside in and around Sa Pa, she also sells walnuts from Sin Ho province (Two of Vietnam’s most northern provinces).

Splendor and spoil 

A rather bizarre scenario had emerged, in which an ugly social media activity had led to a slander of the walnut harvesters in the north. We sought to redress some balance in a very negative situation.

We set off on our motorbikes from Sa Pa: an Englishman, a Kinh Vietnamese and two Red Dao women – all wrapped up under many layers of warm clothing and head out into the near freezing fog. 

It’s approximately a 120km drive and will probably take most of the day. Visibility is down to just a few meters, my sight is instantly impaired by thick droplets of water on my eyelashes, and the temperature is so low it immediately breaches every item of protection. I wonder if we will make it there by the end of the day. 

Riding out of Sa Pa we pass the contrastingsplendor and spoil, one moment a glorious waterfall, the next a mountain munching cement factory or limestone quarry. 

We pass Mount Fansipan, Indochina’s highest peak at 3.143 meters, and ride out onto Tram Ton Pass, Vietnam highest road at 1900 meters. This pass is known as Heaven’s Gate, and we are soon to discover why.

Stunning peaks 

As we rise out of the murk — in bright sunlight above the clouds and fog — the views of the unfolding hills ahead enthral majestically. 

Unlike the valleys of Sa Pa, with their quintessential rice terraces, these lands are much more desolate. The sheer scarps and steep blankets of forest remain uninhabited by man. I ponder what might live up there, high above these roads.

Towards lunchtime we descend down a corkscrew road to catch the first glimpses of the mountain city of Lai Chau, nestled amidst stunning limestone peaks. We pause to refuel both our motorbikes and ourselves and soon press on. 

By chance we seem to have taken the old road to Sin Ho and are treated to further glorious ascents and consequent descents; at times the route deteriorates into mere muddy tracks. Just before sunset we eventually arrive at our destination.

We are greeted by our Black Dao hostesses and are quickly taken out to be shown some walnut trees before the sun fully sets. Somehow I had imagined orchards of the aforementioned trees, but contrary to my preconceptions we are taken to various farmsteads and small holdings where clusters of the walnut trees remain. 

In the recent past these trees were presumed to have little or no value, and many were felled. As new markets have opened up in Hanoi and even as far south as Ho Chi Minh City, their worthiness has been revaluated. 

New saplings are being planted, fresh grafts are being made. The Black and Yellow Walnut trees of Sin Ho live on.

Fairy tales

The following morning we rise early and are taken to a magical site in the middle of one of the villages. We climb a small hill and I am surprised to find three large stone tablets, one written in Vietnamese, one in Hmong-Dao and one in pigeon English. 

The story tells of an earth fairy that flew in the sky and visited this village. It left behind an umbrella that became encased in stone. It has become a spiritual alter for the local people and is a wonderful start to the day.

Soon we are back on our bikes and off to another neighbouring village. These tiny settlements host a curious assemblage of ethnic minorities: the Flower Hmong, Blue Hmong, Black Hmong, Lu, Black Dao and Red Dao. 

For me, with fairy tales in my mind, it as if I’m in some wonderland – truly magical landscapes reveal themselves. This is some of the most unspoilt and original Vietnam I think I have encountered. 

Glorious fanfare

We reach our final destination and boldly ascend a rocky track through an idyllic community; dogs are barking, cockerels crowing, piglets squealing – a glorious fanfare for our parade. 

At the highest point and at the very end of the village and here proudly stands a magnificent walnut tree; coated in mosses, lichens, ferns and bromeliads – as if to quantify its age.

My colleagues make their videos; I take my photos. All is overseen by an elderly couple peering over their fence. 

Come, come and tell us your tale – the elders are invited. The old man disappears briefly and returns wearing a black beret and a loosely knotted tie – smartened for his camera appearance. He relates how this very tree has always generously given great yields of black walnuts, since his birth – in 1933. 

I stand, lost in my own thoughts, and deliberate what it must be like to have lived with and known a single tree for 84 years.

This Author 

Grant J Riley is a writer, photographer and freelance ecologist from the south-west of England.  He is the author of A Journal from the End of Times and Marginal.