WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS COULD KILL YOU #29
“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.
- Climate Change: Worsening and Growing Driver of Humanitarian Impacts
The goal of maintaining global temperatures from rising 1.5C (degrees Celsius) or more is getting harder to meet. The Earth has warmed an average of 1.1C since the dawn of the Industrial Age in the late 18th century. Back in 2020, the World Meteorological Organization estimated that breaking the 1.5C threshold might not occur until the 2030s, and there was only a 20% of it transpiring in the next 5 years. Last year, however, that likelihood jumped to 50% and this year to 66%. This is significant because climate change is wracking humanitarian havoc. Since the 1950s, the frequency and intensity of storms, wildfires, heatwaves, and drought has increased significantly. Present trends suggest that globally the number of disasters per year will grow around 40%; from around 400 in 2015 to as many as 560 by 2030. Disasters now account, far more than armed conflict, for forced displacement. Furthermore, by 2100, extreme heat will cause as many or more deaths as all cancers or all infectious diseases—the World Health Organization estimates an extra 9 million deaths each year by the end of the century. If somehow the planet beats the odds of a catastrophe rise of 1.5C rise in the next five years, the path to avert this looming disaster requires dramatic cuts in burning carbon; industrialized nations must reduce emissions by 60% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels and get to net zero by 2050 to keep warming around 1.5C by 2100.
- Least Developed Countries: COVID-19 and Debt Perpetuate Position
The designation of “least developed countries” is given in cases of a gross national income (GNI) below $1,018 (US dollars)—compared with $71,000 in the United States, $44,000 in France, $9,900 in Turkey and $6,530 in South Africa. There are currently 46 LDCs: In Africa, 33 countries (Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia); in Asia, 9 countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Yemen); in the Caribbean, 1 country (Haiti); and, in the Pacific, 3 countries (Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu). The 46 LDCs are home to some 1.1 billion people, that’s 14 per cent of the world’s population, and more than 75% live in poverty. The list of LDCs is reviewed every three years by the UN Economic and Social Council. Only six countries have “graduated” from LDC status between 1994 and 2020: Botswana (in 1994), Cape Verde (2007), Maldives (2011), Samoa (2014), Equatorial Guinea (2017), and Vanuatu (2020). LDCs are among those most affected by COVID-19. All but eight LDCs experienced negative growth rates in 2020 and the pandemic fall-out is predicted to last longer for them than in richer countries. Debt is a major problem for all LDCs: four are classified as in debt distress (Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia and Sudan) and 16 LDCs are at high risk of debt distress.
- Municipal Solid Waste: Another Window into Wealth Inequality
UN Habitat reports that the world generated 2.4 billion tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2018. But, with increases in urbanization and inefficiencies, it could reach 4 billion tons by 2050. Moreover, it is not just about waste, it is about inequality and colonialism. UN Habitat Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif notes, “The developed world produces one third of all waste generated although it is only 16% of the global population.”
- Water: National Governments Undermining Global Goals
By 2030, global freshwater demand will outstrip supply by 40%. Nevertheless, over $700 billion in government subsidies are directed to agriculture and water, which often leads to excessive water consumption. Rather than directing money to skew water consumption that money could be better spent toward making it water accessible for all. According to Global Commission on Economics of Water, $400 billion is needed each year to “achieve universal access to clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030.”
- Big Chocolate: The Bitter Price of Sweets
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s four largest public chocolate corporations—Hershey, Lindt, Mondelēz and Nestlé—have together made nearly $15 billion in profits from their confectionary divisions, up by an average 16 percent since 2020. At the same time, an Oxfam survey of more than 400 cocoa farmers supplying chocolate corporations across Ghana found that their net incomes have fallen on average by 16 percent since 2020, with women’s incomes falling by nearly 22 percent. Nine out of ten farmers said they are worse off since the pandemic. Up to 90 percent of Ghanaian cocoa farmers cannot afford enough food or other basics such as clothing, housing, and medical care. Many of the 800,000 farmers in the country survive on just $2 a day. Ghana produces around 15 percent of the world’s cocoa beans yet receives only about 1.5 percent ($2 billion) of the chocolate industry’s estimated annual worth of $130 billion.