Rich nations under pressure over climate finance at COP29 talks

Pressure mounted on wealthy nations Wednesday to put a figure on the table as time runs out at COP29 to strike a deal on climate assistance for poorer countries.


Issued on: 20/11/2024 
By:  FRANCE 24
Developing nations say rich historic polluters have a duty to help them face the challenges caused by the climate crisis. © Laurent Thomet, AFP


At the UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, rich nations have still not revealed how much they are ready to provide the developing world to fight climate change. UN agencies have said that developing nations, not counting China, will need $1 trillion a year by the end of the decade to meet the challenges caused by the climate crisis.

"We need a figure," said Adonia Ayebare, chair of the G77+China group of developing nations.

"Then the rest will follow. But we need a headline," the Ugandan negotiator told reporters.

Developing nations, from islands imperilled by rising seas to drought-afflicted states, contribute the least to global warming but have called for $1.3 trillion annually to prepare for its impacts.


They say rich historic polluters have a duty to help, and are clamouring for an existing commitment of $100 billion a year to be increased many times over at COP29.
 
Read more  How lending-based climate finance is pushing poor countries deeper into debt

Talks have gone around in circles for over a week but a slimmed-down draft is expected to land in the early hours of Thursday, ensuring a sleepless night for negotiators.

"I'm sure we will have some long days and hours ahead of us ... This will be a very steep climb," EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters.

Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said it was difficult to speed things up "when there's nothing to negotiate".

"The concern is that at this moment, nobody is putting a figure on the table," Muhamad said.

Rich countries on the hook for climate finance, including the European Union and United States, say they cannot show their hand until they know what they are agreeing to.

"Otherwise ... you will have a shopping basket with a price, but you don't know exactly what is in there," said Hoekstra.

"We don't just want to pluck a number from the sky," echoed Germany's climate envoy Jennifer Morgan.
China role

Developing countries, excluding China, will need $1 trillion a year in foreign assistance by 2030 to wean off fossil fuels and adapt to worsening disasters.

This number rises to $1.3 trillion annually by 2035, according to an expert economic assessment commissioned by the United Nations.

But many of the nations obligated to pay face political and fiscal pressures, and insist they cannot cover this cost on their balance sheets alone.

Developing countries want public grants from governments – not loans or private capital – to make up the majority of the new finance goal under negotiation.

Three figures – $440 billion, $600 billion and $900 billion – had been floated, said Australian climate minister Chris Bowen, one of the envoys leading the finance negotiations.

Delegates from several countries told AFP these numbers were not proposed by developed nations themselves.

"Many parties told us they need to see certain building blocks in place before they can put forward their suggested number," Bowen told COP29 delegates.

Chief among these is a demand for emerging economies such as China and Saudi Arabia, which have grown wealthy yet remain classified as developing nations, to chip into the pot.

"There are countries out in the world that have an income level that is close to or above the poorest European countries, and we think that it's only fair to ask them to contribute," Danish climate minister Lars Aagaard told AFP.
'Receding hope'

Bowen said some countries had drawn a "red line" over the type of money that could be included in any deal, insisting it come "from a wide range of sources and instruments".

Bolivia's chief negotiator, Diego Pacheco, said there was a "steadily receding hope of getting an ambitious" deal and cited $200 billion as one number in circulation.

"Only 200 billion," he told the conference. "This is unfathomable, we cannot accept this."

The lead negotiator of COP29 hosts Azerbaijan, Yalchin Rafiyev, urged countries to "pick up the pace".

"Let us embrace the spirit of collaboration, compromise and determination to ensure that we leave this conference with outcomes that make a real difference," he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)

Thank You for Emitting: The Hypocrisies of COP29

by Binoy Kampmark / November 19th, 2024

COP29 was always going to be memorable, for no other reason than the hosting country, Azerbaijan, is a petrostate indifferent to the issue of emissions and scornful of ecological preachers.  It has seen its natural gas supply grow by 128% between 2000 and 2021.  Between 2006 and 2021, gas exports rose by a monumental 29,290%.  A dizzying 95% of the country’s exports are made up of oil and gas, with much of its wealth failing to trickle down to the rest of the populace.

The broadly described West, as stated by President Ilham Aliyev in his opening address to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was in no position to be lecturing his country about cutting back on the use of fossil fuels.  They were, he grandly claimed, “a gift from God”.  In this, he should have surprised no one.  In April 2024, he declared that, as a leader of a country “which is rich in fossil fuels, of course, we will defend the right of these countries to continue investments and to continue production.”

A few days later, Aliyev played the other side of the climate change divide, suggesting at a meeting with island leaders that France and the Netherlands had been responsible for “brutally” suppressing the “voices” of communities in such overseas territories as Mayotte and Curaçao concerned with climate change.  (Aliyev himself is no stranger to suppressing, with dedicated brutality, voices of dissent within his own country.)  This proved too much for France’s Ecological Transition Minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who cancelled her planned attendance to the summit while attacking Baku for “instrumentalising the fight against climate change for its undignified personal agenda.”

On the second day of the summit, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, tried to turn the attention of delegates to the urgent matter at hand.  “The sound you hear is the ticking clock – we are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, and time is not on our side.”  Others, however, heard the sound of money changing hands, with the fossil fuel industry lurking, fangs and pens at the ready, presided over by the good offices of a petrostate.

In the background lie assessments of gloomy inevitability.  The Climate Change Tracker’s November 2024 briefing notes this year was one characterised by “minimal progress, with almost no new national climate change targets (NDCs) or net zero pledges even though government have agreed to (urgently) strengthen their 2030 targets and to align them with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.”

As easy as it is to rage against the opportunistic Aliyev, who crudely blends environmentalism with ethnic cleansing, few attending the summit in Baku come with clean hands.  As with previous COP events, Baku offers another enormous event of emitters and emission, featuring tens of thousands of officials, advisors and minders bloviating in conference.  That said, the 67,000 registrants at this conference is somewhat lower compared with the 83,000 who descended on Dubai at COP28.

The plane tracking website FlightRadar24 noted that 65 private jets landed in the Azerbaijani capital prior to the summit, prompting Alethea Warrington, the head of energy, aviation and heat at Possible, a climate action charity, to tut with heavy disapproval: “Travelling by private jet is a horrendous waste of the world’s scarce remaining carbon budget, with each journey producing more emissions in a few hours than the average person around the world emits in an entire year.”

COP29 is also another opportunity to strike deals that have little to do with reducing emissions and everything to do with advancing the interests of lobby groups and companies in the energy market, much of it of a fossil fuel nature.  In the spirit of Dubai, COP29 is set to follow in the footsteps of the wily Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who chaired COP28 in Dubai.  Prior to the arrival of the chatterati of climate change last year, the Sultan was shown in leaked briefing documents to the BBC and the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) to be an avid enthusiast for advancing the business of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).  It was hard to avoid the glaring fact that Al Jaber is also the CEO of Adnoc.

The documents in question involve over 150 pages of briefings prepared by the COP28 team for meetings with Jaber and various interested parties held between July and October this year.  They point to plans to raise matters of commercial interest with as many as 30 countries.  The CCR confirms “that on at least one occasion a nation followed up on commercial discussions brought up in a meeting with Al Jaber; a source with knowledge of discussions also told CCR that Adnoc’s business interests were allegedly raised during a meeting with another country.”

The COP29 chairman, Samir Nuriyev, had already put out feelers as early as March this year that a “fair approach” was needed when approaching countries abundant with oil and natural gas, notably in light of their purported environmental policies.  He went so far as to argue that Azerbaijan was an ideal interlocutor between the Global South and Global North.  His colleague and chief executive of the COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, showed exactly how that process would work in a secret recording ahead of the conference in which he discusses “investment opportunities” in the state oil and gas company with a person posing as a potential investor.  (The person in question purported to be representing a fictitious Hong Kong investment firm with a sharp line in energy.)  “We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed,” Soltanov insists.  “We will have a certain amount of oil and gas being produced, perhaps forever.”

In many ways, the Baku gathering has all the hallmarks of a criminal syndicate meeting, held under more open conditions.  Fair play, then, to the Azerbaijani hosts for working out the climate change racket, taking the lead from Dubai last year.  Aliyev and company noted months in advance that this was less a case of being a theatre of the absurd than a forum for business.  And so, it is proving to be.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 

The Planet Under Threat of Breakdown

by Robert Hunziker / November 19th, 2024

There’s a new trend in the world that’s working against the planet, you know, the one you’re standing on. This new trend, over the past year or so, spells “thumbs down” for planet Earth. It’s a disheartening, and fraught with danger, change in attitude, dismissing commitments, left and right.

A figurative Planet Support Switch has been turned off by several key players. Proof of this agnostic attitude is found in every meeting of nations of the world over the past couple of years. They are turning their noses up on prior commitments. This is a new attitude. And it’s happening as climate change has turned into an ogre of destruction that’s impossible to ignore, featured on nightly news programs with automobiles tumbling as if children’s toys in torrential rivers of city streets (Paiporta).

Meanwhile, COP29, the UN Conference of the Parties on climate change, Nov 11^th-22^nd, is being held in oil-rich Azerbaijan. Such a strange coincidence: UN climate meetings have become an outgrowth of oil producer largess. After all, they do have spectacular venues, hmm. Gotta wonder what they’ll do to stave off all-time record heat, caused by fossil fuel emissions, Co2? The paradox is devastatingly inescapable.

A key data point exposes the challenge COP29 faces: Annual CO2 released into the atmosphere, 37.4 billion metric tons in 2023 vs. 9 billion metric tons in 1960.

According to Dr. Patrick McGuire, of the University of Reading and National Centre for Atmospheric Science: “The new Global Carbon Budget reveals a disturbing reality – global fossil CO2 emissions continue to climb, reaching 37.4 billion tonnes in 2024. Despite clear evidence of accelerating climate impacts, we’re still moving in the wrong direction. The need for rapid decarbonization has never been more urgent.” (Source: “Fossil Fuel Co2 Emissions Increase Again in 2024,” University of Reading, November 13, 2024)

Also, of more than passing interest at COP29, according to Victoria Cuming, head of global policy at BloombergNEF: “Donald Trump’s dramatic victory in the US election will drip poison into the climate talks.” (Source: Bloomberg Green Daily: COP29 Climate Money Fight)

The planet is losing key support. Yet, it doesn’t take a climate scientist to figure out the planet has already gone ballistic with (1) rampant wildfires (2) torrential rains (3) massive destructive floods (4) brutal scorching droughts (5) pounding hailstorms (6) frightening thunder/lighting all unprecedented and all on a regular schedule nowadays. There are no more once-in-100-year storms; they’re every other year.

Recent talks on protecting nature at the UN Biodiversity Conference d/d October 21-November 1st in Colombia collapsed when nations could not agree on key goals. This was the 16^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. It was a disaster: “Talks were overshadowed by a lack of progress on implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the landmark ‘Paris Agreement for nature’ deal made at COP15 in Montreal in 2022.” (Source: Carbon Brief Nov. 2, 2024) By summit’s end, only 44 out of 196 parties had come up with a new biodiversity plan. This is pitiful.

As for Net Zero prospects to halt global warming, forget it!

At the G20 summit September 9-10 countries demanded rolling back promises to cut back burning oil, coal, and gas (Source: “G20 Countries Turning Backs on Fossil Fuel Pledge, Say Campaigners,” The Guardian, Sept. 10, 2024).

“Over the last few months, we’ve seen everyone from major corporations to countries backpedaling on climate commitments made in the recent months and years. Despite growing, urgent evidence that climate change continues to accelerate, this is no real surprise.” (Source: Countries Are Rolling Back Their Climate Commitments, Climatebase, October 7, 2024)

Global corporations from Ford to J.P. Morgan Chase are all rolling back their commitments to climate change, which is all deeply intertwined with what played out ahead of COP29, now playing before bemused Middle Eastern oligarchs.

“Instead of indicating that the money required to green the economy is ready to flow, industry leaders now say their first priority is delivering financial returns for clients—and that means energy-transition investments will only be undertaken if they’re considered profitable,” (Source: “Wall Street Wants You to Know Profit Comes Before Net Zero,” Bloomberg, September 18, 2024.)

The bankers are pointing their fingers at the politicians and governments, who have been largely unwilling to make significant headway in fighting climate change globally.

Meanwhile, stating the obvious, which cannot be emphasized enough, climate warning signs have never been stronger than this year. Just for starters, a 2–3-foot sea level rise hangs by a cryosphere thread at the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. If it goes down for the count, and there’s reason to think it’ll happen during current generations, all bets are off for 8 of the world’s 10 largest megacities, nestled along coastlines. This is but one of several tipping points at the edge, and tipping. The protagonist is fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide (CO2) which makes up around 76% of total greenhouse gas emissions, making it the primary greenhouse gas responsible for the majority of climate change impacts.

And it is a fool’s errand that carbon capture/sequester will save the day; it’s too slow too unwieldy too expensive too inefficient takes too long and overwhelmed by the task at hand, sans super-duper-effective technology. “Despite its long history, carbon capture is a problematic technology. A new IEEFA study reviewed the capacity and performance of 13 flagship projects and found that 10 of the 13 failed or underperformed against their designed capacities, mostly by large margins.” (Source: “Carbon Capture Has a Long History of Failure,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 1, 2022)

Losing key support for the planet couldn’t come at a worse time. According to Perilous Times on Planet Earth: 2024 The State of the Climate Report, 25 of 35 planetary vital signs are at record extremes. Two-thirds with record-extremes is viewed by climate scientists as a clear mandate for a planet “on the edge.”

Alas, losing key support because of “concern over profits” is nonsensical and trivial at best, thinking small, not big. A report by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research contradicts that notion and exposes the silliness behind focus on “profit over planet,” to wit: “The analysis of data from 1,500 regions over the past 30 years showed that 30 percent have managed to lower their carbon emissions while continuing to thrive economically.” (Source: Green Growth: 30 percent of regions worldwide achieve economic growth while reducing carbon emissions, Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research, Oct. 29, 2024)

Beyond the insanity of profits at the expense of mitigation efforts for the planet, which exposes the underbelly of high-end capitalism, some good news: According to some climate experts, Trump’s re-election and his statements that green energy is a scam, and the likelihood that he withdraws the US from UN Climate agreements might drive a new sense of unity, even building a coalition that actually does something positive to stop fossil fuel emissions to support a parched planet. It’s possible, but here in America Wall Street prefers profits over planet. Umm, honestly, shouldn’t that be reversed?

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

 

This year’s dazzling aurora produced a spectacular display… of citizen science

Research Organization of Information and Systems

 

image: 

a) Aurora photos taken from Aomori, b) from Hokkaido, c) from Chubu, and d) from Tohoku, Japan

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Credit: a) 🄫KAGAYA b) ~d) @Courtesy of a citizen scientists

Citizen scientists in Japan enabled researchers to learn why May 2024’s aurora appeared a magenta color over the country. This effort in extending research beyond academies and laboratories has greater consequence for humanity than explaining pretty lights

Around the world, the historic geomagnetic superstorm of late spring 2024 inspired millions of non-scientists around the world—many armed with highly sensitive smartphone cameras—to take a fantastic, unprecedented number of images of the aurora it produced.

In Japan, this widespread popular uptake of what is now quite advanced imaging technology (even if it is kept in everyone’s pocket) proved to be a tremendous boon for atmospheric physicists and other scientists specializing in “space weather.” It allowed them to discover why the Northern Lights over Japan appeared as a mysterious magenta color this time instead of the typical red that is observed when aurorae are visible over that country.

The researchers describe both their findings and what could be a model for the organization of future “citizen-science” operations in the journal Scientific Reports on October 28.

In early May this year, one of the most extreme geomagnetic storms in the history of recording such events hit the Earth’s atmosphere. This great ‘storm’ in space, composed of ionized particles, is what produces the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, in the northern hemisphere and the aurora australis, or Southern Lights, in the southern hemisphere.

This time, however, the storm was so strong—the ninth most severe storm in the 110-year history of Japan’s Kakioka Magnetic Observatory, one of the oldest geomagnetic stations in the world—that the polar lights could be photographed at much lower latitudes than normal.

In Japan, space weather researchers took advantage of ordinary people taking pictures of the aurora with their smartphones to organize one of the densest citizen science observation efforts anywhere, despite being a low-latitude country where the aurora was somewhat fainter than in places like Canada or northern Europe.

The different colors of an aurora come from the emission of light from different atoms and molecules in the atmosphere when they are bombarded by the particles from space. The dramatic green hue seen in many photographs of the polar lights comes of atomic oxygen (single atoms of oxygen rather than molecular oxygen, or two oxygen atoms bound together) at the lower altitudes within the atmosphere that are visible to people. (The human eye is also just very sensitive to this color). At even lower altitudes, where atomic oxygen is less common, blue is more visible, and this comes from the greater presence of nitrogen.

At the very highest altitudes in the atmosphere, however, there is a lower concentration of atoms of any kind. The fewer collisions there result in a perception by humans of the excited atomic oxygen atoms as the color red. This is why the upper parts of the aurora curtains can appear as green fading into a scarlet hue.

At low latitudes as in Japan, normally there is no green at all, only red because only the upper part of the aurora can be seen above the horizon.

“Yet this time, weirdly, the images revealed a very clear and dominant magenta hue to the aurora ‘curtains’ over Japan, not red,” said Ryuho Kataoka, the lead author of the study and a specialist in extreme space weather.

To solve the mystery, the researchers quickly took to social media to encourage people to observe and report their sightings of the auroras, as well as to input data into a questionnaire asking about observation locations, time, elevation angles and other details, allowing researchers to analyze the auroras' characteristics in unprecedented detail.

The effort resulted in an impressive 775 grassroots submissions, which the researchers then combined with satellite observations and advanced modeling techniques to explore the conditions that had led to the magenta aurora.

The elevation data from these citizen scientists proved to be particularly useful. The researchers used elevation angles to calculate the position of the aurora over time, and found that it was often a surprisingly high altitude of roughly 1000 km above sea level—which should thus drive a red appearance. But on top of this, the time and season of year meant the atmosphere was more “preheated” ahead of the aurora, in turn driving an upwelling of ionized molecular nitrogen—what is usually responsible for a blue hue.

“Blue plus red makes us see magenta,” added Professor Kataoka. “And the magenta was made all the more visible and vibrant by the sheer volume of solar activity, even though, ironically, the preheating would also have worked to reduce the peak brightness of the aurora.”

Better understanding of magnetic storms goes beyond explaining why humans see the pretty colors of aurorae; these storms can have profound, negative impacts on satellite operations, GPS systems, power grids and even the safety of passengers and crews aboard high-altitude flights.

And so ahead of the next magnetic storm, the researchers want to take an even more coordinated approach to citizen science and spread their efforts further afield. This particular study was limited to Japan and used only the Japanese language, representing something of a proof of concept.

But by using automated translation of their questionnaires and social media posts into local languages around the world, the researchers feel that they will be able to produce a global replication of this effort, with the ultimate aim of analyzing different phases of magnetic storms, to better protect humanity from the dangers posed by extreme space weather.

###

About National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR)
The NIPR engages in comprehensive research via observation stations in Arctic and Antarctica. As a member of the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS), the NIPR provides researchers throughout Japan with infrastructure support for Arctic and Antarctic observations, plans and implements Japan's Antarctic observation projects, and conducts Arctic researches of various scientific fields such as the atmosphere, ice sheets, the ecosystem, the upper atmosphere, the aurora and the Earth's magnetic field. In addition to the research projects, the NIPR also organizes the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition and manages samples and data obtained during such expeditions and projects. As a core institution in researches of the polar regions, the NIPR also offers graduate students with a global perspective on originality through its doctoral program. For more information about the NIPR, please visit: https://www.nipr.ac.jp/english/

About the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS)
ROIS is a parent organization of four national institutes (National Institute of Polar Research, National Institute of Informatics, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and National Institute of Genetics) and the Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research. It is ROIS's mission to promote integrated, cutting-edge research that goes beyond the barriers of these institutions, in addition to facilitating their research activities, as members of inter-university research institutes.

The distribution of 179 auroral observations over Japan during the 11 May 2024 magnetic storm

Credit

🄫 National Institute of Polar Research

Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-75184-9 

Article Title

Extended magenta aurora as revealed by citizen science

 

Political shadows cast by the Antarctic curtain

Kobe University

 

image: 

To protect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from melting, a gigantic underwater curtain has been proposed to be installed on the Antarctic seabed. However, the political ramifications of such a superproject urgently require careful consideration by scholars of international law to anticipate potential political fault lines for the Antarctic Treaty System that has preserved the seventh continent as a place for peaceful scientific exploration.

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Credit: SHIBATA Akiho

The scientific debate around the installation of a massive underwater curtain to protect Antarctic ice sheets from melting lacks its vital political perspective. A Kobe University research team argues that the serious questions around authority, sovereignty and security should be addressed proactively by the scientific community to avoid the protected seventh continent becoming the scene or object of international discord.

A January 2024 article in Nature put the spotlight on a bold idea originally proposed by Finnish researchers to save the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from melting, which is estimated to potentially raise global sea levels by up to 5 meters. The idea of installing an underground curtain 80 kilometers long and 100 meters high to prevent warm underground water from reaching the glaciers made an international splash, and “What had been a technical discussion among some scientists quickly became a social debate involving the general public,” says Kobe University international law researcher SHIBATA Akiho. In the scientific debate, however, the political aspect has either been completely ignored or dangerously downplayed, which runs the risk of kindling conflict around a project that is meant to protect humanity, in a setting that has been a model for peaceful international collaboration for over 60 years.

As experts on the international law that governs the Antarctic’s peaceful existence dedicated to scientific investigation, Shibata and a visiting scholar from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Patrick FLAMM, scrambled to put together a careful analysis of the political repercussions of the global superproject. Shibata says, “We believe that it was important to publish a paper within one year of the original proposal, before the social debate takes on a life of its own.”

In a policy paper now published in the journal International Affairs, the Kobe University researcher points out consequences along three main themes: authority, sovereignty and security. Concerns about authority ask who is in a position to decide on the realization of such a project and what this means for the power balance in the body governing access to the Antarctic. Sovereignty concerns are centered around the implications for extant and dormant territorial claims. And questions around security consider how to practically safeguard a structure that would certainly be seen as planetary critical infrastructure. Shibata sums up, saying: “This paper sheds light on the political and legal ‘shadows’ hidden behind the exciting surface of science and technology. However, we believe that it is necessary for the members of society to make decisions on the development of these technologies based on a thorough understanding of such negative aspects.”

While the researchers write that “In the current climate, with growing international rivalry and great power strategic competition, it would be an extremely unlikely diplomatic achievement to secure the level of international cooperation … required for the proposed glacial geoengineering infrastructures,” they also point out a way forward by looking back. In the early 1980s, a smoldering conflict around guidelines for Antarctic mineral extraction got resolved by the 1991 “Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty,” which proactively prohibited mining in the Antarctic indefinitely. This solution set a precedent for the treaty parties to seek solutions that avoid international discord over the Antarctic.

The Kobe University law expert is careful to point out that prohibition is not the default solution, however. He explains: “Recently, momentum has gathered among natural scientists to examine such technologies more multilaterally from the viewpoint of whether they are appropriate in the first place. If in such a deeper scientific and technical discussion the argument is that there are social benefits that outweigh the governance risks we have presented, then again, we international political scientists and international legal scholars need to be involved in this discussion. Perhaps then the discussion will no longer be about protecting the key principles of the current Antarctic Treaty System while considering this technology but about modifying those key principles themselves.”

This research was funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant 21K18124) and the Kobe University Strategic International Collaborative Research Grant Type C. It was conducted in collaboration with a researcher from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt.

Kobe University is a national university with roots dating back to the Kobe Commercial School founded in 1902. It is now one of Japan’s leading comprehensive research universities with nearly 16,000 students and nearly 1,700 faculty in 10 faculties and schools and 15 graduate schools. Combining the social and natural sciences to cultivate leaders with an interdisciplinary perspective, Kobe University creates knowledge and fosters innovation to address society’s challenges.

---

Journal

International Affairs

DOI

10.1093/ia/iiae281 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

‘Ice sheet conservation’ and international discord: governing (potential) glacial geoengineering in the Antarctica

Article Publication Date

18-Nov-2024

"At the Mountains of Madness" by H. P. Lovecraft

The H.P. Lovecraft Archive

https://www.hplovecraft.com › writings › texts › fiction

Aug 20, 2009 — I could not help feeling that they were evil things—mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That ...

 

WWIII

To Prepare for a Pacific War, U.S. must Harden Southern Flank

Vessel traffic backed up near the Panama Canal in August 2023. (NASA photo)

Published Nov 16, 2024 3:57 PM by CIMSEC

 

 

[By Henry Ziemer]

The United States’ foundations as a global great power rest in no small part on its status as a regional hegemon. No single country in the Western Hemisphere can make a serious bid to balance Washington’s economic and military might, to say nothing of competing with the close but often-overlooked bonds of trade, culture, and family which constitute vital elements of U.S. strength in the region. Because they are so easily forgotten however, the United States has shown an alarming willingness to take its position in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) for granted. The 2022 National Security Strategy proudly proclaims that “No region impacts the United States more directly than the Western Hemisphere,” but the U.S. defense posture in LAC is at risk of being outflanked by extra-hemispheric competitors, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) first among them.

While the PRC has led with economic engagement in its approach to LAC countries, military considerations have not been far behind. China has funded dual-use civilian and military infrastructure, most notably ports and satellite ground stations throughout the region. Today, Chinese-owned or operated ports dot the coastlines of LAC countries, secretive satellite ground stations collect signals intelligence in Argentina, and potentially Cuba, and PRC-supplied weapons have made their way into the hands of dictatorial regimes like Venezuela. In the event of a Pacific War, these capabilities and more would likely be leveraged by China to collect intelligence on and disrupt U.S. operations within the Western Hemisphere, as well as leverage its soft power within the region to court influence and keep LAC governments neutral or even sway some towards overt support of Beijing’s position in the conflict. While it remains improbable that China would seek to contest the Western Hemisphere theater with the United States by 2027, the combination of these hybrid tactics could severely undermine the United States’ position in the very region most critical for U.S. physical security.

Fortunately, the next three years present a number of opportunities for the United States to meaningfully strengthen its southern flank. Specifically, the United States should prioritize better coordination between its Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and strengthen ties with regional allies such as Colombia and Argentina. Finally, any strategy aimed at countering China’s expansion in LAC must incorporate a resource-backed counteroffer to PRC investment in strategic sectors like ports, telecommunications, and power generation.

Why LAC Matters to the PRC

China’s relations within its own “near abroad” understandably figure heavily in most analyses of potential Indo-Pacific conflicts and their outcomes. To a lesser extent, scholars have also looked to Africa and the Middle East as regions that would be critical to secure China’s energy imports during a conflict. Even less understood, however, is the importance that the Western Hemisphere holds for the PRC and its ability to wage war from an ocean away. This is a major blind spot, as LAC has emerged over the past two decades as a keystone region for China’s economy and industry, exemplified by Brazil’s longtime status as the single largest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment.

LAC, and particularly South America, is a vital source of natural resources to China. While the Middle East is crucial for China’s energy supply, the Americas are a linchpin of China’s food and mineral imports. In 2022, Brazil alone accounted for nearly 23 percent of China’s food imports, and nearly 60 percent of its soybean imports in particular. Maintaining access to LAC’s rich agricultural industry will be critical for China to continue to feed its 1.4 billion inhabitants in the event of a major conflagration.

LAC is also a key supplier of critical minerals to China, especially copper and lithium. Chile and Peru together accounted for half of China’s copper imports in 2022, while as of May 2024 Chile and Argentina provided a staggering 97.7 percent of China’s lithium carbonate. These minerals are essential for China’s economy as a whole, but also its defense sector as they are instrumental in everything from high-capacity batteries used to sustain fleets of autonomous systems, to the wiring and interconnects needed for basic vehicles and communications systems. More high-end capabilities depend on a staggering variety of rare minerals and metals, such as niobium, a critical component in advanced aeronautics and hypersonic missiles. Brazil sits roughly 94 percent of global niobium reserves, leading the PRC to assiduously cultivate an ownership stake over roughly a quarter of Brazilian niobium production.

Finally, China, like Russia, has almost certainly realized the benefits that a presence within the Western Hemisphere can accrue in terms of capacity for horizontal escalation. Moscow, under the so-called Primakov Doctrine has practiced this frequently, pursuing military maneuvers in the Western Hemisphere as a tit-for-tat escalation in response to U.S. support for Ukraine. In July 2024 for instance, Russia dispatched two naval flotillas to Cuba and Venezuela in direct response to U.S. easing of restrictions on long-range strikes by Ukraine into Russian territory. For China, the cultivation of dual-use infrastructure, combined with support for anti-U.S. authoritarian regimes like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, would surely prove an asset in the event of war in the Indo-Pacific.

Understanding the Risks

China’s current position in the Western Hemisphere presents three key wartime risks for the United States: (1) control over ports and maritime choke points, (2) dual use of space infrastructure to degrade U.S. space capabilities and threaten the homeland, and (3) disinformation and diplomatic pressure towards U.S. allies and partners.

The first risk is potentially the most proximate and decisive in the event of a major conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Chinese state-owned or based firms currently own or operate at least twelve ports across the LAC region. This includes the ports of Balboa and Cristobal, located on either side of the Panama Canal. The ports are leased and operated by Hutchison Ports, a Hong Kong-based private company which acquired the sites in 1997. While even at the time observers raised concerns over the potential for the Chinese government to exercise undue influence over Hutchison’s operations along this critical maritime artery, over the past decade the PRC’s steady erosion of Hong Kong’s independence only elevates this risk. Indeed, in 2017 a slew of laws, notably the National Intelligence Law, National Defense Mobilization Law, and National Defense Transportation Law, underscored that the Chinese government can enlist the services of any private company for the purpose of nebulously-defined national security interests. Two PRC state-owned companies, the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC), were also part of the winning bid to build the $1.3 billion fourth bridge over the canal, a major undertaking which (after serious delays) has at last begun to move forward.

The confluence of PRC infrastructure and China’s impressive soft power influence in Panama opens up a potential nightmare scenario for the United States in the event of an Indo-Pacific war. In such a scenario, China could either directly, or through a proxy, sabotage port infrastructure on either side of the canal, disrupting or entirely preventing transit through the choke point for a period of time. Not only would this serious impact U.S. trade and shipping, it would cripple the United States’ ability to quickly shift forces between Atlantic and Pacific theaters. With current wargames suggesting the first phases of a naval clash would result in major losses, the added weeks it would take for reinforcements to transit around the Strait of Magellan rather than through the Canal Zone could prove decisive.

While loss of the Panama Canal is one of the most clear-cut risks presented by China’s power position in LAC ports, it is by no means the only way China could leverage maritime infrastructure to its advantage. Ports by their nature collect massive amounts of data on the shape and flow of international trade. The PRC’s planned port and special economic zone in Antigua, together with other PRC-controlled ports, may grant Beijing a one-of-a-kind window into commerce moving throughout the eastern Caribbean and the sea lines of communication which run through it. In the case of ports directly owned or operated by PRC-based firms, like the Brazilian port of Paranaguá or the planned Peruvian megaport of Chancay, this intelligence-gathering capacity could be turned into an operational capability by strategically delaying or seizing key shipments to snarl supply chains for key goods and apply economic pressure on the United States and allies. Finally, presence in regional ports may allow the PRC to carry out more sensitive sabotage operations targeting associated maritime infrastructure, particularly the undersea cables which comprise the backbone of global internet communications. While perhaps not decisive in their own right, China’s position in LAC ports could accord it a host of benefits that are currently underappreciated in planning around a potential Pacific conflict.

Ports are not the only dual-use infrastructure of note. In recent years, reports have highlighted a proliferation of PRC-operated space infrastructure stretching from the very tip of the Southern Cone through Venezuela, and potentially even into the Caribbean. Most notable among these is the Espacio Lejano Research Station operated by the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) and located in Neuquén, Argentina. Authorized in 2014 under the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the site has become notorious as a “black box” which even Argentine government authorities struggle to gain access to. To date, two inspections have been conducted of the facility, one in 2019 and another more recently under the Milei administration in April 2024 – indicating that serious political will is needed to gain access. In both cases, the Argentine delegation coordinated with the Chinese embassy prior to arrival, and the overall inspection process was relatively perfunctory, doing little to assuage U.S. or Argentine concerns about the facility’s potential for military use.

Neuquén was notably also the first ground station operated by the PRC outside Chinese territory and capable of providing telemetry tracking and control (TT&C) which enables the maneuver and operation of satellites and other orbital vehicles. The facility’s strategic location in the southern hemisphere was also particularly important to supply TT&C capabilities for China’s Chang’e 4 and 5 lunar probes. Neuquén, and similar ground stations in turn compliment China’s growing space presence in Antarctica where in 2023 the PRC announced plans to begin construction of a new dual-use satellite ground station at its Zhongshan research base. TT&C is not just important for satellites and other scientific craft, it is vital for the operation of hypersonic glide vehicles, which conduct complex maneuvers that depend on ground data links for guidance and to better evade missile defenses. China, which according the Congressional Research Service, has conducted 20 times as many hypersonic weapon tests as the United States, could use this network of ground stations in the event of a conflict to strike at the United States from the south, in doing so evading U.S. missile defenses which are primarily concentrated on northern approaches. Chinese space infrastructure in LAC could furthermore help the PRC collect key data on the orbits and locations of satellites in doing so enabling PRC anti-satellite warfare capabilities during a Pacific war scenario.

The final risk involves PRC use of diplomatic influence alongside dis- or mis-information campaigns to shape the political environment in LAC to its favor in the event of a war with the United States. Key targets in such a scenario would likely be the seven LAC countries which still recognize Taiwan instead of the PRC. Beijing would undoubtedly seek to isolate and pressure these countries to shift their recognition prior to or even during a PRC invasion of the island. China could cooperate with other U.S. adversaries to magnify the effect of its disinformation campaigns. According to one report, in Argentina, Chinese and Russian media outlets work in concert with one another to produce “a virtuous cycle of disinformation.” Critically, these efforts would not need to actively sway countries into fully backing China’s campaign (with the exception of those regimes like Venezuela and Nicaragua likely predisposed to do so already), but would instead merely need to convince governments to remain on the sidelines. 

China could also use its economic heft as the number one or two trading partner for a majority of LAC countries to ensure neutrality, if not support from countries in the region. Again, the case of Russia proves instructive of how an authoritarian regime can deploy messaging and economic pressure to compel LAC governments. Shortly after his inauguration, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa proposed selling $200 million in legacy Russian and Soviet weaponry to the United States in exchange for new equipment (the United States would presumably pass the weapons it received along to Ukraine). Moscow retaliated by threatening phytosanitary restrictions on Ecuadorian banana imports, while launching a media push to claim that if the deal moved forward, Ecuador would make itself a belligerent on the side of Ukraine. The pressure worked, Noboa relented, and Ecuador’s banana exports continued apace. China, which carries significantly more economic weight in the region than Russia could prove a frightening prospect indeed for any government considering taking a vocal stance against the PRC in wartime. 

Taken together, the PRC has quietly amassed a host of capabilities within the Western Hemisphere to give it both tactical and strategic advantages against the United States in the event of a crisis or conflict in the Indo-Pacific. The United States, for its part, has been slow to react to the scope of this threat and adjust priorities in LAC accordingly.

Bolstering Readiness in the United States’ Shared Neighborhood

There are a number of steps the United States can and should take between now and 2027 to gird itself and its regional allies in preparation for potential conflict with China.

Better Integrate SOUTHCOM in Pacific War Planning: A lack of integration across U.S. combatant commands risks cultivating a myopic view of Pacific war. Given the PRC and PLA’s global ambitions, any future conflict with China is unlikely to be restricted solely to one theater. As the above sections have illustrated, there are a number of areas where China could pursue a horizontal escalation strategy to gain an edge against the United States. Fostering greater exchange and intelligence sharing across combatant commands should be a priority to ensure the United States is ready to fight and win a war on multiple fronts. One early step could be to create a designated role for SOUTHCOM in key Pacific exercises like the Rim of the Pacific maritime warfare exercise. LAC militaries such as Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, already participate in this exercise. Carving out a greater role for SOUTHCOM could help bolster U.S. defense ties with regional militaries and build closer partnerships across combatant commands.

Another area for increased cooperation could be a cross-cutting effort across SOUTHCOM, INDOPACOM, and partner governments to tackle illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, a threat which plagues communities and ecosystems across the Pacific. While not directly applicable in a warfighting scenario, such an effort would serve to build greater partnership and information sharing between combatant commands, and build goodwill among partners throughout the Pacific domain. 

Double Down on Defense Cooperation: While China has made headway in defense cooperation activities, the United States remains by far the preeminent security partner for the vast majority of LAC countries. However, more can be done to strengthen these ties and build partner capacity to respond to potential malign PRC activity in the hemisphere. One easy step would be to amend the Department of Defense’s Section 312 and 321 requirements that foreign military education training focus on “developing countries.” The Department of Defense’s current standards for designating a country as “developing” prevent partners like Chile, Panama, Uruguay, and most recently Guyana, from benefiting from U.S. training programs. Amending these to include a more nuanced standard would open the door to a much wider array of military-to-military engagement.

Furthermore, the United States should seek to rise to the occasion in cases where LAC governments have already expressed interest in a closer security partnership. Ecuador, which is currently contemplating reversing a constitutional prohibition on foreign military basing to allow for a reopening of the former U.S. naval base at Manta could be a key ally in this effort. Argentina, which is currently pursuing an ambitious military modernization effort, and has expressed a desire to rise to NATO Global Partner status, could be another.

Harden Allies Against Chinese Economic Coercion: China’s investments in critical infrastructure throughout the region pose risks not only for the United States, but its LAC allies and partners as well. For instance, two PRC based companies, China Three Gorges Corporation and China Southern Power Grid International, now collectively control the entirety of Lima, Peru’s power supply. Combined with the forthcoming port of Chancay, China has a number of vectors through which it can apply pressure against a Peruvian government seeking to pursue a policy against Beijing’s interests. The State Department could lead a regionwide effort with allies and partners to map and evaluate risks posted by Chinese investments in critical infrastructure. The findings of this review should also be passed along to the U.S. Development Finance Corporation for review and to help prioritize investments aimed at reducing the amount of influence China can wield over LAC government through its infrastructure projects and trade links.

Conclusion

Future conflicts will not be constrained to a single geographic region. In the event of a Pacific war between the PRC and United States, LAC will almost undoubtedly find itself a zone of contention, whether it wishes it or not. Failure to incorporate this understanding into U.S. contingency planning for such a conflict therefore creates risks not just for the United States itself, but also its regional allies and partners who may find themselves in the crosshairs of PRC coercive efforts. There is still time to patch key vulnerabilities in the region, but a recognition LAC’s important role in future global crises cannot come soon enough.

Henry Ziemer is an Associate Fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His research focuses on great power competition, transnational organized crime, as well as security and defense in the Western Hemisphere. His writing and commentary have been featured in CSIS, War on the Rocks, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

This article appears courtesy of CIMSEC and may be found in its original form here. 

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

OSG's CEO Proposes One-Cent Export Tax to Fund U.S. Tankers

File image courtesy OSG

Published Nov 17, 2024 5:01 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

In the event of a major war in the Western Pacific, U.S. forces are going to need fuel, and a lot of it. Government estimates of the supply needs for carriers, warships and ground forces run in the range of 50 million gallons per day, all of which would have to be transported over the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean. U.S. war planners are well aware that the U.S.-flag tanker capacity to deliver this fuel is insufficient. The U.S. Tanker Security Program (TSP) subsidy has helped to offset this deficiency by recruiting 10 product tankers into the U.S.-flag fleet, but may not be enough in its current form. Sam Norton - CEO of Overseas Shipholding Group - has a plan to do much more, and make foreign consumers of American energy pay to do it. 

According to Norton, a 30-ship Tanker Security Program fleet would go a long way towards bridging the national security gap, but the cost of tripling the program, would be significant. By his calculations, a viable plan for keeping 30 tankers in the TSP would require subsidies of about $400 million to cover the "higher operating costs of crewing and maintaining a US flag vessel." 

Applying a levy of $0.01 per gallon on the 125 million gallons of refined fuel that American exporters ship out of the country every day would raise $400 million a year, Norton pointed out. He noted that this $0.01 per gallon tax on foreign buyers would be a tiny fraction of the $0.184 tax that American citizens pay on each gallon of gasoline at the pump. The gas tax raises billions for the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which is an economic and national-security priority. 

"The US deems maintenance of its federal highway systems a necessity and asks taxpayers to bear the cost of that priority. Doesn’t a similar commitment to maintaining maritime logistical readiness at a cost of only one percent of the money spent on federal highways demand equal attention?" Norton asked. 

China Responds Angrily to Philippines' Plan to Buy U.S. Missile System

Courtesy U.S. Army

Published Nov 14, 2024 9:54 PM by The Maritime Executive

China has responded angrily to news that the Philippine government might purchase an American-made missile system that could be used for coastal defense or medium-range strike. The Philippine military is reorienting its strategy to focus on defense against an external threat, and an intermediate-range missile system would augment its newly-purchased BrahMos antiship missiles. 

Last weekend, the Financial Times reported that Manila might buy the Typhon Mid-Range Capability (MRC), also known as the Strategic Mid-range Fires System (SMRF). The Typhon is a truck-mounted system that can launch the Tomahawk cruise missile and the SM-6 supersonic air defense missile. The latest variants of these two missiles have anti-ship capabilities, and the Tomahawk could reach mainland China from Luzon. 

The U.S. Army deployed one Typhon launcher to the Philippines during an exercise in April, and it has remained in place - much to China's ire. Despite Beijing's objections, Manila may buy the Typhon for its own use, without relying on U.S. forces to operate it. 

"We do intend to acquire such capabilities. We will not compromise our right to obtain these kinds of capabilities in the future within our territory," said Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, speaking to the FT.

Beijing has been building up its strike capabilities in the region for years: it has constructed seven large artificial island bases off the Philippines' western coastline, and it has fully militarized three of them with strategic runways, fighter squadrons, air defense systems and antiship missile systems, according to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The Asia-Maritime Transparency Initiative has observed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile systems and YJ-12B antiship cruise missile batteries at Chinese island installations in the Spratlys since 2018.  

However, China is unwilling to accept similar weapons installations in other countries, and has urged Manila to send the Typhon system home to the U.S. immediately. "The Philippines, by bringing in this offensive strategic weapon, is enabling a country outside the region to fuel tensions and antagonism," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian on Thursday. "Such a move is provocative and dangerous, and it is an extremely irresponsible choice to its own people and people of all Southeast Asian countries."