WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS COULD KILL YOU #26
“What You Don’t Know About International Affairs Could Kill You” spotlights current issues in international affairs from the unique perspectives of GPIA faculty. This post is by Peter J. Hoffman.
The Reaction Distraction
As the war in Ukraine brutally churns into its third month, reaction to Russia’s invasion consumes much of the political oxygen in international politics, asphyxiating other crises and issues. While the West obsesses over the return of great power struggle in Europe, and in some other quarters the focus remains on addressing the social and economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental disasters are fading from the headlines. At the United Nations, there are routinely calls for changing the Organization—not surprisingly, the Ukraine conflict has resurfaced proposals and politics of Security Council reform—but much of this is theater as deadlock and inertia reigns. When the latest outrage fuels a demand to “do something,” this is often code for the ritual of reaction; counter the force, salve the wound, aid the poor. But what is done may not be the right thing. The Ukraine war reaction distraction is a case in point of two dangerous dynamics at work: First, the frenzy around this crisis obscures all others, such as ongoing wars in Yemen, Ethiopia, and Mali, and diverts resources, including from what has been termed the “triple planetary crisis” of climate, biodiversity, and pollution; and, second, it underscores that the United Nations is fundamentally reactive, not proactive.
The UN is designed to clean up messes, not prevent them, because averted crises are not rewarded the way mitigated ones are. Coming to the rescue in a tangible crisis is heroic as the harm is measurable, but visionary action cannot be similarly appraised and therefore is not as appreciated. Furthermore, it’s hard to make a claim that the UN is necessary when there is no obvious, widely acknowledged crisis for it to respond to. Prevention sounds good in principle, but empirically, it’s not “risk” that sells politically, it’s “threat”—there is little interest in getting ahead of crises until their impacts are palpable. The UN’s recent Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction is telling. It notes that the number of large-scale disasters has been growing steadily; from 1970 to 2000, it was on the order of about 90-100 per year. But it has since soared and is continuing to increase, in 2015 alone, there were 400 such disasters, and last year it was around 500. By 2030, it is estimated, there will 560 annually—or average over 10 a week or 1.5 each day.
More disasters have been met with more spending; in 1990 about $70 billion, and currently about $170 billion (adjusted for inflation). However, note two things: First, the level of spending has not (and likely cannot) kept up with the increases in the number of disasters. This means that although more money is spent than ever before, on a per-crisis basis each receives less. Second, and perhaps more significantly, is where the money goes. Data on disaster-related spending from 2010-2019 shows that 90% went to emergency relief, 6% to reconstruction, and only 4% to prevention. This is the structure of spending despite that research shows that there is truth to the proverb “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”—for example, in humanitarian crises, preventive actions, such as prepositioning relief supplies based on risk analysis has a multiplier effect, making aid far impactful.
Historically, major wars among the great powers and global crises create the political will required to respond to exigencies of the moment but also to restructure global governance. The “reaction distraction” is symptom of a world order under threat, but such behavior is also a convenient excuse for the narcissism of the powerful to justify its narrowness and to eclipse the potential of preventing disasters. Confronting the “reaction distraction” would make the Organization less preoccupied with the drama of response and at the same time more efficient in its use of resources. With the climate catastrophe already at hand, and growing worse each day, we all have a stake in not settling for reaction but in reimagining and reorienting global institutions to invest in prevention. The UN has unrealized value and potential; it can do more than merely come to the aid of victims that actually receive attention, it could be organized to do more to stop victimization, which ultimately has more possibilities for helping the neglected.
What recently caught my eye:
- Climate Change
Global warming has already increased the temperature on the planet by 1.1 degrees Celsius since 1890. The goal is to limit it to 1.5 though at current rates of greenhouse gas emissions it will surely climb to between 2 and 3 degrees. At 1.5 degrees, up to 8% of the world’s agricultural areas will be unable to produce food. At an increase of 2 degrees, between 800 million and 3 billion will face chronic water scarcity and food production will likely decline. At an increase of 3 degrees, 29% of known plant and animal species on land could become extinct.
- Climate Displacement
Population growth combined with the climate crisis could displace between 140 million and 1.2 billion people in the next 30 years. A myriad set of circumstances will feed this, including water and food insecurity—the world has 60% less freshwater available now than 50 years ago, and by 2050 demand for food will increase by 50%. Conflict also plays a role in displacement and is often correlated with changing climate; currently, the nineteen countries that are most in danger environmentally are also among the forty least peaceful countries.
- Environmentally Harmful Subsidies
The world spends at least $1.8 trillion a year, or the same as 2% of global GDP, on subsidies contributing to climate change and species extinction. Tax breaks, financial support, etc. Most of this is concentrated in three industries: fossil fuels ($640 billion), agriculture ($520 billion), and water ($350 billion). Other sectors that receive environmentally harmful subsidies include forestry ($155 billion), construction ($90+ billion), transport ($85+ billion), marine capture fisheries ($50 billion)—mining is also on this list but due to a lack of data, it is not certain how much it receives in subsidies.
- Plastics
From 1950 to 2017, 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic were produced of which 7 billion are now waste. 400 million tonnes of new plastic are manufactured every year—set to double by 2040, triple or quadruple by 2050. Only 9% is recycled; 50% to sanitary landfills; 19% incinerated; and, 22% disposed of at uncontrolled dumpsites, burned in open pits or leaked into environment. Plastics contribute 3.4% of global greenhouse gases—90% of this is from production and conversion from fossil fuels—and by 2050 could account for 10-13% of the global carbon budget. Consumption of plastic is 2.5 times higher per capita in developed countries than in the developing world. An early March resolution at the recent UN environment assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, calls for a treaty to cover the “full lifecycle” of plastics to be negotiated and finalized by 2024.