BY SHASHI MALLA
• Earth Watch: Climate Emergency
Climate change has now emerged incontrovertibly as the most worrisome problem in world affairs that puts all others in the shade – not Brexit, the US-China trade war, the looming danger of a global recession, local insurgencies, or even dangerous bilateral confrontations, like the unresolved Indo-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir.
Against a backdrop of the Amazon and Sumatra/Borneo rain-forests ablaze, Hurricane Doran wreaking havoc across the Bahamas, drought in some areas, and flooding in others, as well as, innumerable other climate indicators blinking red, scientists and environmentalists alike have registered irrefutable evidence of the need for immediate, massive action to avert multiple catastrophes world-wide.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we had a window of 12 years to bring carbon emissions under control, and called for US Dollar 2.4 trillion a year to be invested in clean energy.
Now, a new report from the Global Commission on Adaption called for US Dollar 1.8 trillion to be spent between 2020 and 2030 to mitigate a collapse in crop yields; a competition for vital water supplies between up to 5 billion people; the displacement of hundreds of millions of people in coastal communities as sea levels rise; and the dire consequences of around 100 million people being pushed back under the UN’s beguiling US Dollar 2 per day extreme poverty line.
United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres did not mince words: “Nature is angry…You cannot play games with nature. Nature strikes back.” He reminded the 60-plus global leaders attending the Climate Action Summit about their commitments under the Paris Agreement to mobilize US Dollar 100 billion a year to support developing countries in mitigation and adaption (SCMP).
In an innovative and unconventional endeavor to name and shame countries, he only allowed leaders to speak at the summit if they had already committed to one of three conditions: carbon neutrality by 2050; a significant improvement on the present commitment to cut emissions; and a “meaningful” pledge to the Green Climate Fund.
Under these targets, such major countries like the US, Japan and Australia, as well as, South Africa, Brazil and Saudi Arabia were denied speaking slots. China and India are serial offenders in generating coal-fired power but managed to scrape through because of commitments elsewhere.
Last Friday, millions of people across the world participated in the Global Climate Strike, a weeklong protest initiated by Fridays for Future. Organizers are calling for an end to fossil fuels and want governments to implement the Paris Climate Agreement. The 16-year-old Greta Thunberg had launched the climate strike movement with her lone protest in front of the Swedish parliament about a year and a half ago.
On Saturday, Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist from Sweden, opened the Youth Climate Summit at the UN headquarters in New York. More than 700 young activists took part in the conference, and Thunberg said: “We showed that we are united and we young people are unstoppable.” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also attended and conceded: “I encourage you to keep your initiative, keep your mobilization, and more and more to hold my generation accountable,” adding [my] “generation has largely failed until now to preserve both justice in the world and to preserve the planet.”
At the UN Climate Action Summit in New York drawing 60 world leaders [Nepal was conspicuous by its absence], teenage activist Thunberg delivered not just words but an impassioned plea for immediate action. She delivered an emotional and sharp rebuke to world leaders for their inaction in addressing the existential crisis of climate change.
“You come to us young people for hope. How dare you!”, a visibly outraged Thunberg told the high-level audience – including Donald Trump, the climate change and scientific evidence denier-in-chief [and of course the most intelligent US president in history, according to self estimation].
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing,” thundered the 17-year-old-Swedish girl, who has galvanized youth across the world, as no other, to mobilize against climate change.
“We are at the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy-tales of eternal economic growth,” she said passionately, holding back tears. “If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you!”(DW)
• Israel: End of the Netanyahu Era?
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right Likud party, failed to secure a clear election victory twice in six months after dominating Israeli politics, alone and virtually unchallenged, for the last decade. He now seems to have realized that he can only stay in power only by sharing it. Therefore, after last week’s deadlocked parliamentary election, he offered a national unity government [of course, under his leadership!] to his chief rival, the former chief of the army, Lt.Gen.(retd) Benny Gantz, leader of the opposition centrist “Blue & White” party.
General Gantz left it to his junior party leaders to categorically reject this offer, since his party had won two more seats in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. He, therefore, seems to be in a slightly stronger position.
In Israel’s history, no single party has ever won an outright majority in parliament, a reflection of the country’s intense political, religious and ethnic divisions. This has not changed in a year of unprecedented electoral instability, in which two elections – on April 9 and September 17 returned a fractured legislature.
Netanyahu leads an alliance of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties which currently has a strength of 55 seats in the 120-member parliament, thus requiring 61 seats for a governing majority.
President Reuven Rivlin has urged Netanyahu and Gantz to unite in a coalition, but Gantz has so far rejected the idea. Now, Israel’s Arab bloc, the Joint List party, has endorsed the centrist Blue and White Party, giving it an edge.
• Dire Confrontation in the Persian Gulf
US to Send Additional Troops to the Gulf
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced last Friday that the United States was deploying additional troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in response to the kingdom’s request. The deployment will be defensive in nature and primarily focused on air and missile defense. The exact numbers of military personnel and equipment are yet to be decided, according to Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff.
The latest Houthi/Iranian air strikes by drones and cruise missiles on key Saudi oil facilities have demonstrated the utter failure of Saudi defenses, and also of the Americans to provide defense capability. The unmitigated vulnerability of all the Persian Gulf states to Iranian attack became crystal clear.
Repercussions in the Yemen Civil War
In the meantime, Yemen’s Houthi rebels [allied closely with co-religionists Shi’a Iran] said that they were calling a halt on drone and missile attacks in Saudi Arabia. Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi supreme political council, said the group was waiting for a “positive response” from Riyadh. Al-Mashat said the key aim of the peace plan was to “preserve the blood of the Yeminis and achieve a general amnesty” [in the raging civil war] and that “pursuing war is not in anyone’s interest” (Deutsche Welle/DW).
Al-Mashat also called for the re-opening of Sanaa’s international airport and access to the Red Sea port of Hodeida.
The Saudi-led military coalition [also comprising the UAE] has been waging a brutal war [ with strong US and UK military support] against the Houthi insurgency in Yemen since 2015. Tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict and the United Nations has called it theworld’s worst humanitarian crisis[ now rivalled by Afghanistan according to latest BBC casualty figures].
The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths said on Saturday that the Houthis offer to halt drone and missile attacks in Saudi Arabia “could send a powerful message of the will to end the [devastating] war” in the country (DW).
The Iranian Connection
US President Donald Trump has announced more sanctions against Iran following the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, calling them the “highest sanctions ever imposed on a country.” This was announced in a wide-ranging press conference with Australian PM Scott Morrison.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has sharply criticized the presence of foreign troops in the Persian Gulf region after the US deployed more soldiers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He also vowed to present a peace plan for the volatile region to the United Nations in the coming days. “In this sensitive and important historical moment, we announce to our neighbors that we extend the hand of friendship and brotherhood to them,” he asserted. Unlike Trump, he is travelling to New York for the start of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
Directly or indirectly, Iran has now made it very clear that first, it is indeed a very powerful player in the region [ it does command not the ‘Gulf’, but indeed, not for nothing, the ‘Persian Gulf’! and it dwarfs all the other countries in the depth and breadth of its ancient civilization ], and that the weak kingdoms and sheikhdoms of the Gulf are extremely vulnerable to its advanced drones and cruise missiles. Second, it has overtaken the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy, which is now approaching the end of the road. Third, the United States has amply demonstrated that it is not willing or able to protect the littoral states of the Gulf. Moreover, Trump is too ‘chicken’ to order a large-scale retribution attack against Iran, as this might negatively impact his re-election chances.
• US-China Trade Impasse
Donald Trump has declared China as “a threat to the world in a sense” because it was building a military faster than any other country, and “frankly using US money” [he didn’t elaborate in what sense!]. At the same time, he characterized his ally Scott Morrison as a “man of titanium”, raising the specter of Australia joining a coalition in military action against Iran.
Trump indicated he wanted to settle the damaging trade dispute between Washington and Beijing, that cast a shadow over Morrison’s first visit to the American capital as prime minister, but said, in order to do that, he needed a “complete deal” from president Xi Jinping, not a partial deal.
Morrison replied that Australia was keen that America and China settle the tit-for-tat trade dispute which was impelling global growth [including impacting Australia’s economy negatively – which Trump curiously denied]. He added [diplomatically] that Trump was attempting to safeguard important principles of international trade and set new benchmarks that would ultimately “put global trade on a stronger footing” (The Guardian, September 21, 2019).
• Trump’s ‘Staggering Abuse of Power’
Domestically, Trump is under attack on many fronts with the campaigns for the 2020 presidential elections in full sway. The democrats are increasingly frustrated with his behavior and are seriously considering impeaching him.
In the latest incident, The Wall Street Journal(WSJ) has revealedthat Trump repeatedly pressured former Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelensky to investigate the son of former US Vice President Joe Biden. This is said to be related to a complaint filed by a whistleblower within the American intelligence community, who had also served for some time in the White House National Security Council.
Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma Holdings in 2014. The company has been accused of corrupt practices, but he has not been personally implicated in any wrongdoing. Joe Biden is the current front-runner in the Democratic presidential primary and is seen by many pundits as a potential strong challenger to Trump in 2020.
According to the WSJ, Trump allegedly urged Zelensky eight times during a phone call in July this year to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on a possible probe of the former vice president’s son. At the time, the US was holding up US Dollar 250 million in military aid for Ukraine!
The whistleblower, whose identity has not been disclosed, filed the complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, labelling the information as of legitimate “urgent concern”. Atkinson deemed it to be “credible” and on August 26, passed it along to acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, a Trump appointee. Maguire, however, blocked the complaint from being forwarded to the US Congress – as he was obliged to do routinely by law – arguing that the whistleblower complaint did not meet the definition of “urgent concern”.
Three committees of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives have now demanded that the Trump administration hand over a transcript of the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call. The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Democrat Adam Schiff said Maguire’s actions raised the spectre of a cover-up designed to protect Trump, and represents “a staggering abuse of power.”
Joe Biden blasted Trump over the WSJ revelations, saying the reports showed the president’s “willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.”
The veteran New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is of the opinion that “something in the White House stinks”. It is indeed an epic confrontation with an out-of-control president, and “The core question is whether our president can get away with weaponizing the federal government to punish political opponents, or whether legal constraints and congressional oversight can keep him in line” (NYT, September 23, 2019).
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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