United Nations Climate Conference in Dubai

Israel-Hamas War: What Changed for Hamas & Palestinian Politics

Putin’s Ukraine War

Myanmar’s Junta Under Siege

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

Climate Conference in the Desert

After 14 days in the desert, the UN Climate Conference ended with a “beginning”

Last week, the 2023 United Nations climate conference in Dubai, also known as COP 28, concluded with nearly 200 countries and territories agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels.

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the decision the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era.

But the agreement text was only one of many outcomes from the conference, including the activation of the loss and damage fund and pledges to abate methane gas emissions and triple renewable energy.

The Atlantic Council experts who were on the ground in Dubai share their insights on the agreement and the road ahead:

No ‘Phase-Down’ or ‘Phase-Out’

• The compromise agreement to transition away from fossil fuels was ‘commendable’, but the lack of a timeline for attaining this goal “puts the world at risk of crossing the 1.5 degree Centigrade warning threshold, significantly increasing the risks and impacts of climate change.”
• At the same time, “the ‘success’ of COP 28 was never going to be measured by unrealistic expectations around phasing out fossil fuels.”
• Among the opponents of “phase-out” language were African nations.

This is because they: need to be able to harness their fossil fuel resources, namely natural gas, in order to provide electricity to the 600 million” people on the continent who lack reliable access.

• But for others, the compromise was a deep disappointment. The decision “evoked widespread frustration, notably among the small island developing states, indigenous communities, and climate activists.”

Big Wins

• The compromise over fossil fuel use overshadowed what COP 28 had already accomplished: pledges on renewable energy capacity expansion, energy efficiency, and methane reduction that add up to “a global reduction in energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 of around four gigatons of CO 2 equivalent.”
• And in a larger sense, the cooperation of governments and businesses means that “the fabric” of these conferences “has been permanently altered.” A senior European official attending the conference said: “COP is the ‘new Davos’ for the energy transition.”
• That spirit came in the increased climate commitments from industry.” We have seen at COP28 an unprecedented participation of the private sector not only in numbers but also in real leadership, taking on actions and measurable commitments in the energy, insurance, and banking sectors, among many others.”
• African countries were able to achieve most of their pre-COP checklist. These include the launch of the loss and damage fund, US$ Dollar 175 million in pledges to the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa, and the Declaration on Climate and Health

Room for Improvement

• But the agreement lacks quantifiable targets or substantial financial aid for adaptation, meaning it falls short of the “pivotal moment we need as a global community to bring climate adaptation from being a second-tier priority in the climate process” to being prioritized equally with mitigation.
• Protests throughout the conference, “highlighted concerns about the influence of oil businesses on climate equity and resilience,” and encapsulated “the perspective of the upcoming generation from the Global South regarding the outcomes of this COP.”
• Zooming out, the goal now for governments, activists, and industry should be to make sure that these promises don’t end up as just hot air. “Global meetings alone do little to change the economic and climate realities on the ground in African countries,” for example. “Pledges must become reality.”

Israel & Palestine

Hamas’s horrific massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, and the war in Gaza that has followed, have marked the culmination of a shift undergone by the terrorist group.

“Hamas Contained” author Tareq Baconi wrote for Foreign Policy last month that although few may have noticed, Hamas evidently has recommitted itself to violently disrupting the status quo. The wanton killing and kidnapping on Oct 7 contradicted impressions that Hamas’s containment in Gaza and the responsibilities of governing the territory had “pacified” the terrorist group.

In an essay in Foreign Affairs, Leila Seurat argues that, internally, Hamas has shifted the centre of gravity from political leaders living abroad to those guiding the group in Gaza – and that externally it has established Gaza, not East Jerusalem and the West Bank, as a relevant territory in the broader sphere of Palestinian politics.

“In the weeks since Hamas launched its attack, much international attention has focused on the unprecedented massacre of Israeli civilians,” Seurat writes.

“Far less noted has been what the assault revealed about strategic shifts within Hamas itself. By forcing Israel to launch a huge war in Gaza, the October 7 operation has overturned the prevailing understanding of Gaza as a territory that had been liberated from Israeli occupation and whose status as an isolated enclave could be sustained indefinitely. However great the cost to the Gazans themselves, for Hamas, the war has already achieved the goals of positioning Gaza as a key piece of the Palestinian liberation struggle and of bringing that struggle to the center of international attention. In turn, for the Palestinians, the war has reconnected Gaza to some of the central traumas of their historical experience.

Hostage Ethics

The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian – who spent 544 days imprisoned by Iran – writes that freeing hostages is an unambiguous moral imperative, even though negotiating for hostages could incentivize hostage-taking.

“That deal was no failure,” Rezaian writes of the brief truce between Israel and Hamas, which saw some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners released.

“Freeing more than 100 (Israeli hostages) is a success by any metric. But even more critically, the effort should stand as a wake-up call to the world about the urgent need to combat the scourge of hostage-taking, a phenomenon that has only become more prevalent in recent years.”

Furthermore, Rezaian points out: “Above all else, the hostage deal stands as a rebuke of the tired notion that one does not negotiate with terrorists – state or non-state alike – to free the unjustly detained.”

Rezaian underlines the moral plane, where the argument should be self-evident, especially for democracies: “While autocrats can shrug, citizens’ lives and freedom are of paramount importance to democratically elected officials. This is as it should be. Part of the essence of being a citizen of a democracy is that your welfare matters to your country and its leaders.”

[The fate of a single Nepali student Bipin Joshi, also a Hamas hostage, remains uncertain. The lackadaisical efforts of the Dahal government have led nowhere. It was a question of too little too late.

In spite of the enormous contribution of Nepalese migrant workers to the prosperity and development of the Emirate of Qatar (which is a key mediator in the Hamas-Israeli conflict), the Nepali government’s toothless and impotent foreign policy was quite evident.

In a more general sense, it is also crystal clear that Nepal is not a functioning democracy, since the people’s welfare does not matter at all to its so-called leaders – who have emerged as rapacious dons of Mafia families.]

United States Should Recognize Palestine

In an opinion essay in The New York Times, R. David  Harden and Larry Garber, both senior policy officials of USAID, and with a lot of experience working in both the West Bank and Gaza, plead that it is high time that the United States recognize the state of Palestine and join the 139 other countries that have done so (Dec. 18).

Harden and Garber see four main benefits to official recognition:

1. American recognition of Palestine would demonstrate to the Palestine people (secondly, to the immediate neighbours; and thirdly to the world at large) that the United States is finally matching its talk of peace with meaningful action.

It would be demonstrating that it is not only ‘talking the talk’ but ‘walking the walk’.

2. S. recognition of Palestine would undercut Hamas’s ambition to establish an Islamic state “from the River to the Sea” (i.e. from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and obliterating Israel as we know it).
3. Recognition would send a strong message of repudiation of the ultra-nationalist, extremist, right-wing Netanyahu government.
4. Recognizing Palestinian statehood would have a domestic political benefit for Biden by shoring up Democratic support in battleground states.

Must Ukraine Fight On Without US/Western Help?

Not everyone is down on Ukraine. New Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has called for “the full mobilization of the free world, the Western world, to help Ukraine in this war.”

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington last week highlighted a grim fact for Kyiv: Western support, as Matthew Kaminski writes for Politico Magazine, appears to be shrinking.

It’s a far cry, as Kaminski writes, from the bold and expansive vision of Ukraine’s counteroffensive on display earlier this year.

As Congressional Republicans block additional assistance for Ukraine, tying their votes to demands for changes in US immigration policy, a perplexed Le Monde asks in an editorial: “Do the United States’ strategic interests stop at the border with Mexico?”

Two essays in The Atlantic highlight the current problem for Kyiv. “How is any of this happening?” anti-Trump Republicam commentator David Frum asks, of the Congressional deadlock.

Weighing Congressional Republicans’ likely sentiments for helping Ukraine as a stand-al;one matter, apart from the issue of US immigration policy to which Ukraine is politically linked, Frum surmises: “On past evidence, a clear majority of Senate Republicans sincerely want to help Ukraine. Probably about half of House Republicans do too.”

Examining less the partisan politics and more the potential consequences of eroded Western support for Kyiv, George Packer, staff writer for The Atlantic sounds the alarm: “The end of American aid will not end the killing and dying in Ukraine. It will only allow Russian missiles to turn more cities into the hell of Mariupol, and Russian troops to inflict more agony on civilians under occupation. It risks making the immense Ukrainian sacrifices and achievements hollow. Vladimir Putin has never shown any desire to negotiate an end to the war, and now he can smell victory – perhaps not the total elimination of independent Ukraine that he sought in February 2022, but the conquest of the Donbas, the re-conquest of territory Russia seized and then lost, and the steady demoralization of the Kyiv government and its allies” (Dec. 9).

Ukraine’s Path to Victory

Ukraine’s foreign minister,  Dmytro Kuleba, however, insists that there is still a path to victory.

In a new essay in Foreign Affairs, Kuleba convincingly contradicts the “delusions and dangers of defeatist voices in the West” (Dec. 14).

He insists that “continued international support for Ukraine will, over time, ensure that local counteroffensives achieve tangible results on the frontlines, gradually destroying Russian forces and thwarting Putin’s plans for a protracted war.”

Kuleba is of the opinion that Ukrainian objectives will remain militarily feasible as long as three factors are in place:

1. Adequate military aid
2. The rapid development of industrial capacity in the US, Europe and Ukraine
3. Principled and realistic approach to the prospect of negotiatings with Russia.

The Ukrainian foreign minister is convinced that with these elements in place, their effort will bring marked progress on the frontline.

After all, even with significant challenges, Ukraine hhas achieved notable results in recent months:

1. Ukraine won the battle for the Black Sea (although it is not a maritime power) and thereby restored a steady flow of maritime exports, benefitting both its own economy and global food security.
2. It made gains on the southern front, recently securing a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River.
3. Elsewhere, it held off enormous Russian assaults and inflicted major losses on Russian forces.

According to Kuleba: “Against all odds, Ukrainian forces have liberated more than half the territory taken by Russia since February 2022.”

Myanmar Rebels Seize Town From Military Junta

Ethnic minority fighters battling Myanmar’s hated Junta seized a trading hub in Shan state, days after China said it had mediated a temporary ceasefire.

Clashes have raged across Myanmar’s northern Shan state since the

• the Arakan Army (AA),
• the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and
• the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA)

launched a joint offensive this October.

The three allied groups – known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance say they have captured military positions and border hubs vital for trade with China, posing what analysts say is the biggest military challenge to the Junta since it seized power in 2021.

Last week, Beijing announced a temporary ceasefire between the alliance and the Myanmar military.

There have been peaceful spells in MNDAA-held areas, but clashes have continued in areas controlled by the TNLA and the AA.

The TNLA said they captured Nahsan after launching an attack in the area more than two weeks ago.

According to TNLA, the Myanmar army also lost the 105-Mile Trade Zone, a major trading conduit on the border with China in Muse township, Shan state.

In total, the three-group alliance says they have seized 422 bases and seven towns from Myanmar’s army since October 27.

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.

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