Sunday, November 27, 2022

CAPITALI$T 
Economics has helped to destroy the environment. Can it be used to save it?











By business reporter Gareth Hutchens
The Burnett Mary Regional Group in Queensland has completed Australia's first large-scale environmental audit.(ABC News: Patrick Heagney)

Australia is on the verge of having the world's first national accounting system that tracks the health of a country's natural environment, according to former Treasury secretary Ken Henry.

Key points:

The Burnett Mary Regional Group in Queensland has completed Australia's first large-scale environmental audit

Dr Ken Henry says it could revolutionise the market system

It could lead to the world's first national environmental account

It may help to solve one of the most urgent problems facing humanity: how to reverse global environmental destruction.

"I think this is a game changer, I really do," he told the ABC.

"What we've done for the first time anywhere in the world at regional scale is to make an assessment, an audit if you like, of the environmental condition of the landscape.

"We've now demonstrated that it can be done ... and there is intense interest from financial markets people in seeing whether it's possible to commercialise this data, in the form of a biodiversity credit for example, and it looks like there is the possibility to do so."

Dr Henry said it will hopefully lead to future business profit-making also regenerating the planet.

"After all, almost all of human activity on earth rests one way or another upon the condition of the natural environment, and if we don't address the deterioration of the natural environment sometime pretty damn soon, the rest of it's going to come crashing down," he told the ABC.

So what is he talking about?

Ken Henry, former Treasury secretary, says the traditional business model of profit-maximisation that excludes environmental destruction from its calculations has done terrible damage to the planet(Source: John Gunn, ABC News)

One of Australia's systems of resource management

Australia is divided into 54 natural resource management regions (NRMs — see map below).

They are a mix of government and non-government organisations (NGOs) that deliver projects on the ground designed to improve the environment.

Many have been in existence since the mid-1990s and their origins can be traced to the landcare movement of the 1980s.

They've all been recognised as regional NRM organisations by the federal government as part of the Natural Heritage Trust and its successor programs including the National Landcare program.

The Australian Government has been a major investor in natural resource management since the mid 1980s(Source: NRM Regions Australia website)

One of those NRMs is the Burnett Mary Regional Group (BMRG) in Queensland.

Its territory includes Bundaberg, the Burnett and Mary rivers, and the world heritage-listed K'Gari (formerly Fraser Island).

It is the NRM that has conducted the environmental audit Dr Henry is talking about.



It has employed scientists to take a stocktake of the natural assets within its borders, including its plants and animals, its vegetation cover, its soil condition (including CO2 stores) and the health of its rivers and waterways, over 56,000 square kilometres.

To collect the data, the scientists used eDNA metabarcoding, portable water sensor smart-stations, satellite remote sensing and Bayesian modelling, and their methods were complemented by consultations with traditional owners.

Sheila Charlesworth, BMRG's chief executive, said it took over 18 months to compile the "environmental account", but it took years of work beforehand to perfect the methodology.

And she's excited about the next step.

"Now we can actually quantify and measure, on an annual basis, the difference that we're making [to the environment]," she said.

"It's not just for BMRG, it's for all NRM groups across Australia."

She said at the NRM national conference in Western Australia earlier this month, other NRMs made a commitment to take their own environmental stocktakes using the same methodology.

"We're currently working on the rollout of the road map for training across Australia," she said.

L to R: Tom Espinoza, director of research at BMRG, Brendan Fletcher, land and sea ranger at Gidarjil Development Corporation, Sheila Charlesworth, chief executive of BMRG, Brent Mclellan, operations manager at Gidarjil Development Corporation, Ben Hoekstra, project officer at BMRG
(ABC News: Patrick Heagney)

S
o what exactly does the environmental account do?

Dr Henry said the environmental account in the BMRG was important for one key reason.

He said it created a baseline dataset of the environment in that region, and that will allow scientists to track changes in the health of the environment over time — to see if it's degrading or improving.

He said that will lay the foundation for the creation of new markets that will attach a financial value to the improvement in environmental conditions.

And that means businesses will be incentivised to start pouring vast sums of money into projects that improve the environment because it will be the profitable thing to do.

He said the new markets will hopefully spread across the country as other NRMs take stocktakes of their own natural assets and "environmental accounting" goes mainstream.

YOUTUBE
Why nature is the next big asset class


Dr Henry said this concept was a personal passion.

He's now a director of a company called Accounting for Nature (AfN) that has developed the methodology and scientifically-based framework for the environmental accounting that has been used in the Queensland pilot.

Other AfN board members include Peter Harper, the former Deputy Australian Statistician at the Australian Bureau of Statistics who was responsible for the ABS's environmental statistics program, and chair Peter Cosier, the renowned conservationist and co-founder of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

He said AfN was only established a few years ago, but the history of the company stretched back much further to his time in Treasury when he was having conversations with people like Peter Cosier.

"It's really his brainchild," he said of Mr Cosier.

Dr Henry said when he was Treasury secretary (between 2001 and 2011) he could see how policymakers were trying to make decisions affecting the wellbeing of millions of Australians, but those decisions were based on data about the environment that had huge information gaps.

"It struck me that the information available to us in the environmental area was particularly bad, particularly lacking in breadth and depth," he said.

"When you consider the State of the Environment reports that are published every five years ... you [see] the paucity of data the authors of those reports rely upon.

"The reports are incredibly well written, very high quality, but the data limitations are just absolutely staggering. And you know, report after report, the authors refer to data limitations, saying, 'If only we had better data'."

He said before AfN existed he'd taken the idea of environmental accounting to Malcolm Turnbull to see if he was interested in backing it.

How Turnbull's leadership came crashing down

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"A group of us, four of us, had a meeting with Malcolm Turnbull when he was prime minister, in his office in Sydney, and we took him through the methods and standards, the approach ... and we said the Australian government could roll this out around Australia, through the NRMs, one NRM at a time, and you would have, prime minister, the world's first national environmental account.

"And he said, 'I love it. We're going to do it.' But a few weeks later he lost his job."

Mr Turnbull lost the prime ministership in August 2018 when he was rolled by his partyroom and replaced by Scott Morrison as leader.

Dr Henry said after years of frustration and seeing "very little progress" at the national level in Australia on the production of a national environmental account, he and others had decided it was time to do something different.

"The Queensland government got in touch with some of us and said, 'We're aware that you have some intellectual property here, you know how to do this, we want to roll out our land restoration fund, and we need some really good indicators of environmental outcomes to back our scheme so it's a scheme that's credible and has high integrity'," he said.

"They encouraged us to set up this not-for-profit entity called Accounting for Nature, which we did about four years ago."

How will the new financial products work?

Martijn Wilder is the founder and chief executive of Pollination Group, a climate change investment and advisory firm.

He's taking the news of BMRG's environmental account to financial markets to explain to them what's happening in Australia.

He said the development of environmental improvement as an asset class was still in its early stages, but the benefits of the concept were obvious.

As an example, think of sustainability-linked loans.

Martijn Wilder, the founder and chief executive of Pollination Group(ABC News: John Gunn)

That's a type of loan from a bank that incentivises businesses to invest money in the environment around them, to promote sustainability and protect the natural biodiversity of the local area, by offering cheaper interest rates for businesses that invest in local projects.

That type of product makes sense from a bank's perspective because it means the businesses it lends to will have a better chance of remaining profitable in the long-run, and it makes sense from an insurance company's perspective if it reduces the "nature risk" and "climate risk" facing businesses across the country.

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According to Mr Wilder, the BMRG's environmental account is significant because it will clearly show, with demonstrable results, if the environmental health of the region is improving over time. And if the environment is becoming healthier, it will increase the value of the region's natural assets.

He said there was "no clear precedent" for this type of thing and people were still trying to figure out how to value environmental assets as an asset class.

But it essentially came down to one thing: accepting that all human and economic activity relies on the natural environment, so the environment must be protected.

"We're seeing globally a movement towards the importance of trying to protect nature, but the challenge has been how to actually get capital to invest in that," he told the ABC.

"Some of the work we've been doing ... is looking at how do you actually invest in those more traditional activities that interact with nature, like farming, forestry, and do them in a more sustainable, regenerative way, that not only protects nature but also increases the productivity of the land.

"Over time, we're hoping that it will be possible to invest in biodiversity, to invest in wildlife and other aspects of nature, that will produce an economic return."
Who has backed the project?

The pilot in Queensland had some financial backing from Andrew and Nicola Forrest's Minderoo Foundation.

Adrian Turner, who leads the foundation's Fire and Flood Resilience initiative, said the foundation invested millions in the project.

He said the foundation wanted to see a common way of measuring the condition of the environment that took into account how resilient different landscapes were to fire and floods.

"We think what will emerge is multiple classes of credit for investment vehicles, with the ones that take into account fire and flood resilience being valued highest," he told the ABC.

Adrian Turner leads the Minderoo Foundation's Fire and Flood Resilience initiative(ABC News: John Gunn)

"We're familiar with carbon credit schemes, but if we take that as an example, then a carbon offset or a carbon credit that's not taking into account the risk of fire and flood has to be worth less in our view, like if a fire roars through a landscape that's been regenerated, then effectively we're back to square one and having to start again."

Mr Turner said the Minderoo Foundation really wanted this environmental accounting approach to be scaled nationally and internationally.

"So we have a set of national natural capital accounts that can be used to inform private sector investment, government investment, and also to give us a consistent way to measure the impact over time of our actions as a society on biodiversity and the environment more broadly," he said.

When will companies become 'nature positive'?


Dr Adrian Ward, the chief executive of AfN, said the world was familiar with the concept of "climate risk".

But these new environmental accounts should help people think about "nature risk" too.

He said businesses will eventually have to expand their ambitions from being "net zero" to being "nature positive," which is a situation in which profitable companies are profitable precisely because they're having a net positive impact on the environment.

"Many farmers in Australia and worldwide have been doing incredible conservation and land restoration efforts for a long time, but they've never had a framework that shows the improvement in nature [that's occurred from their efforts]," he said.

Dr Adrian Ward, the chief executive of Accounting for Nature(ABC News: Steve Keen)

"So what we really hope is, and it's very early days, as we go into the future new markets will emerge ... that will pay farmers for the improvements they're making across the landscape."

He said AfN will be able to provide third-party audit certification for the environmental accounts of other NRMs to maintain the integrity of the data.

"Accounting for Nature was very much born to bring integrity to new environmental markets, and we'll do that through very strong and stringent governance and certification standards, which includes third-party audits," he said.

"All of the methods that are used to produce the environmental accounts ... are accredited by the group's science accreditation committee which includes some very well known scientists in the Australian community," he said.
Using the market system to save the environment (and capitalism)

Dr Henry said the world had come a long way in recent decades, because concern for the environment was no longer confined to people living on the "fringe" of society.

He said everyone was realising that the old business model of profit-maximisation that excluded environmental destruction from its calculations was an appalling failure.

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"We've now got shareholders, they're the beneficiaries of the profits, but they're saying, 'Hang on, this is not right'," he said.

"We've got workers saying, 'Why the hell would I want to work for you, given the damage that you're inflicting on the natural environment?'

"We've got consumers saying, 'Why would I buy your products, given the damage you've been inflicting on the natural environment?'

"All of these — the shareholders, the workers, and the consumers — they are putting at risk the viability of that business [model], and so the businesses themselves are now reacting and they're saying, 'Okay, in order to save ourselves, we have to address the negative externalities that we're generating.'

"So, this is business saving itself from itself," he told the ABC.

Dr Ken Henry says governments have been "absolutely hopeless" at protecting the environment(ABC News: Joanne Shoebridge)

https://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Money_and_Economics/Natural_Capitalism-The_Next_Industrial_Revolution.pdf

Hunter Lovins sent a draft of Factor Four to Paul Hawken in early 1995. He saw that it was the exposition that natural capitalism needed if it were to make ...


POLITICAL ECONOMY WAS ORIGINALLY KNOWN AS POLITICAL ECOLOGY

  • https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-11636-1_9

    Web2019-03-31 · It was originally formulated by Adam Smith and subsequently elaborated by David Ricardo. It is also found in the work of Karl Marx. The theory posits three necessary …

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    https://www.briangwilliams.us/social-science/political-economy-and...

    Web2022-08-10 · World system theory lays the blame for land-use/land-cover change not on population per se, but rather on the organization of the world political economy …

  • https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277242550_Introduction...

    Web2003-03-01 · [Show full abstract] ecology: (1) work employing theorizations of the social production of space and the co-constitution of nature, space, and society; (2) …

  • Political Economy and Ecology on the - History Cooperative

    https://historycooperative.org/journal/political-economy-and-ecology...

    WebThe first involves bringing our knowledge of Chinese economic history closer to parity with what we know about Europe, largely by making estimates for consumption, income, and …

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    Web2011-09-01 · The main discoveries of Marxian and radical political economy 

  • Political ecology - Wikipedia

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ecology

    WebOriginating in the 18th and 19th centuries with philosophers such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Thomas Malthus, political economy attempted to explain the relationships between economic production and political processes.

  • Political Economy and Political Ecology - Teachable

    https://sscc.teachable.com/p/political-economy-and-political-eco…

    WebThe world is beset by crises of a political-economic and political-ecological character. Only by challenging power will we come to grips with these. And South Africa, the world’s most unequal society, offers a clear window into …

  • What Is Political Ecology? - Environment

    www.environment.gen.tr/political-ecology/772-what-is-political-ecology.html

    WebPolitical ecology as a branch of knowledge has to address three crucial problems: limited resources and their uneven distribution; the relationship between industrialization and pressures on the environment; and finally, pollution and waste. The analysis of the problems in this order looks most logical from the standpoint of the production cycle.

  • Political Ecology - EnvJustice

    www.envjustice.org/2013/02/political-ecology

    WebPolitical ecology is at the confluence between ecologically rooted social science and the principles of political economy. It explicitly aims to represent an alternative to apolitical ecology (Forsyth, 2008). The field synthesises the central questions asked by the social sciences about the relations between human society and its bio-cultural ...

  • Political Economy, Political Ecology, and Democratic Socialism

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239556497_Political_Economy...

    Web2007-01-01 · PDF | On Jan 1, 2007, Bob Jessop published Political Economy, Political Ecology, and Democratic Socialism | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

  • Political Economy and Political Ecology - Social Science

    https://www.briangwilliams.us/social-science/political-economy-and...

    Web2022-08-10 · World system theory lays the blame for land-use land-cover change not on population per se, but rather on the organization of the world political economy

  • THREE FORMS OF POlITICal ECOlOgy - JSTOR

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/ethicsenviro.22.2.01 · PDF file

    Weba “broadly defined political economy,” cultural ecology (otherwise known as “ecological anthropology”), and the natural science of ecology. These ... Marxism, giving birth to the first phase of political ecology



  • Failed dreams of building 'New Australia' utopia in Paraguay jungle in 19th century
    The first group of Australians who sailed to South America in the 1890s to start a commune.
    (Supplied: Arthur Edwards)

    Would you give it all up for a new life in a tropical utopia?

    That's what more than 500 Australians did in the 1890s, led by a radical socialist, but the venture didn't quite go to plan.

    It turns out that combining Australian shearers with the South American jungle, jaguars, parasitic insects and strict rules about booze and sex was not the secret to a utopian new life.

    Arthur Edwards is fascinated by the ill-fated New Australia.
    (Supplied: Arthur Edwards)

    The little-known misadventure of founding a New Australia commune still fascinates historians such as Argentinian-born researcher Arthur Edwards.

    "It would have been absolute hell," Mr Edwards said.

    "It was bound to fail. You can't convert a group of hard-working, rowdy shearers into Christian teetotallers, it's just against the Aussie spirit." 

    Promise of a better life

    William Lane was a radical socialist who took on the plight of striking shearers 
     (Supplied: State Library Queensland)

    Life in Australia was tough in the late 1800s with massive shearer strikes, colonial government crackdowns, devastating drought and depression looming.

    Conditions were perfect for the ambitious South American plans of controversial journalist and radical socialist William Lane.

    His promise of a New Australia commune, one that offered a fair deal for all, was enticing for a group of mostly unionists, disgruntled shearers and socialist Christians who sold everything to fund the arduous adventure.

    Paul Taylor's grandfather Harry Taylor was one of Mr Lane's most avid followers.

    "He was one of quite a number of people in Australia at the time who were disenchanted with life … the haves and have-nots," Mr Taylor said.

    "They wanted to live under a fairer socialist or a communist ideal, where everything was shared, and everybody worked for the common good."
    Setting sail

    Mr Lane took advantage of an offer by the Paraguay government to gift 75,000 hectares of free land to migrants in an attempt to repopulate the country after up to 90 per cent of the nation's male population was killed in the war against Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

    The Royal Tar was built with the collective funds of the New Australian followers.(Supplied: Queensland State Library)

    The first group of Australians set off in search of a better life in 1893 on the Royal Tar, a tall ship built with the collective funds of Mr Lane's devotees.

    After months at sea, they arrived, via Argentina, in Paraguay's wet and wild jungle that couldn't be further from the utopia they were promised.

    The group, who'd given up all their worldly goods to start on an even footing, set to work clearing the jungle by hand, under the constant threat of stalking jaguars, disease and skin-burrowing parasitic insects.

    Members of the New Australian commune were mostly single men.
    (Supplied: State Library South Australia)

    "It was really hard work clearing the jungle and planting enough crops to feed them all, and soon the cracks began to show," Mr Taylor said.

    "The idea was they would work on principles of mateship and equality, but human nature being what it is, the whole thing started to fall apart quite quickly."

    Commune abandoned

    Harry Taylor recruited people willing to travel to Paraguay to live by Mr Lane's strict socialist ideals.(Supplied: State Library South Australia)

    The environment may have caused cracks, but Mr Lane's rules and regime potentially did more damage to the fledgling community's long-term hopes.

    He immediately set very strict rules banning alcohol or any fraternisation with the local women, which proved particularly difficult for many of the young single shearers.

    "Paraguay had lost a lot of its male population due to war, there were 150,000 single women there after the war, and only 14,000 men," Mr Taylor said.

    "So, to not be able to fraternise with the local women was a pretty tough call for the shearers."

    Mr Edwards said it was hard to imagine how challenging the journey would have been 130 years ago.

    "The shearers had lost all faith in Australia after fighting for their rights to fair pay," he said.

    "They had to start from scratch … carving a town and farms out of thick jungle with barely enough food to survive.

    "It would have been hard enough without William Lane's strict rules."

    After almost three years, New Australia comprised a few small villages and farms but many settlers had left to seek a better life in larger cities.

    In response to falling numbers and failing finances, and appalled by the behaviour of the young shearers, Mr Lane abandoned the community.

    Mr Lane broke away with a smaller group of followers to start another commune
    .(Supplied: State Library South Australia)

    He then led another attempt with an even more devoted group of 60 Christian socialists, who built a new community named Cosme.

    That too failed.

    Five years after leaving Australia, Mr Lane ditched his socialist utopian dream and moved to New Zealand. In a twist, he returned to journalism, this time for a right-wing newspaper.

    Paul Taylor grew up hearing stories of his grandfather's life in the socialist Paraguayan utopia.(Supplied: Paul Taylor)

    Many of the other Australians returned home and settled in Mildura, Victoria, and the South Australian Riverland.

    In his later years, Harry Taylor purchased the Murray Pioneer newspaper, which is still run by the Taylor family, now in its fourth generation.

    To this day, there are descendants of the original New Australians in Paraguay, with names like Woods or Burke. Gone are the Aussie accents, but some traits of red hair and fair skin remain.


    Among those who returned to Australia was poet Mary Gilmore, who believed in socialist ideals throughout her life and wrote about her time in South America.

    Mary Gilmore who was among the original socialists who travelled to Paraguay to build the commune.(Supplied: RBA)

    "Mary Gilmore says it wasn't a success, but she'd never call it a failure, it was just an experience," Mr Edwards said.

    "Under a dictatorship by William Lane it was never going to work … really he got the wrong group of people to do it, especially shearers who wouldn't put up with it."


    https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_Socialism_Utopian_and_Scientific.pdf

    Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Frederick Engels. From http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc- utop/index.html. Converted to eBook by Andrew ...


    Head of Ukraine’s state nuclear power company on Zaporizhzhia plant: 'Russians are packing their bags’

    9:45 am, November 27, 2022
    Source: Ukrainskaya Pravda

    Petro Kotin, president of Ukrainian state nuclear power company Energoatom, said he sees signs that Russian troops are planning to leave the area around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

    “First of all, there’s a lot coming out in the Russian press about how maybe it would be worth it to give up the ZNPP, maybe it would be worth it to let it come under IAEA’s control. You know, it gives the impression that they’re packing their bags and that they’re going to steal everything they can find,” Kotin said, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

    Kotin emphasized that “it’s still too early to say Russian troops are leaving the ZNPP,” but that they are “preparing.”
    Canada ended 122—year wait to hold the trophy aloft

    Canada trounce Australia in Davis Cup final as Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime run hot
    Felizx Auger-Aliassime is mobbed by his teammates as Canada celebrate their historic Davis Cup triumph. (Getty Images: Fran Santiago)

    Canada has easily defeated Australia to claim their first ever Davis Cup title as Denis Shapovalov and Félix Auger-Aliassime powered past opponents Thanasi Kokkinakis and Alex De Minaur at the final in Malaga.

    Australia was looking for a 29th Davis Cup title, and first since 2003 but it would not eventuate as Canada ended their own 122—year wait to hold the trophy aloft.

    And while it was heartbreak for Australia, for the Canadians it was redemption.

    They were humbled 2-0 by a Rafael Nadal-led Spain in the first final of the tournament's revamped model in 2019.

    After Shapovalov played near faultless tennis to overpower Kokkinakis 6-2, 6-4 in the opener it was left to De Minaur to try and emulate some of the heroics Australia captain Lleyton Hewitt was famous for during his career.

    But try as he might, on the big points De Minaur just couldn't come up with the goods, whereas his 22-year-old Canadian opponent and world number six could do little wrong as he won the deciding rubber 6-3, 6-4.

    Hewitt said the loss was devastating for the Australian team.

    "I'm gutted for the boys. They've put in the commitment and the work and done absolutely everything right all year," Hewitt said.

    "They left it all out there once again; we came up slightly short, but I couldn't be prouder - and all of Australia should be proud."

    Auger-Aliassime described the victory as a "dream come true" for Canada and himself.

    "These guys around me ... we grew up together from the ages of 7-8 years old back in Canada dreaming about being on this stage of winning these types of matches and winning Davis Cup," Auger-Aliassime said.

    "It's a great moment for myself and the country."
    Félix Auger-Aliassime was made to work to hold his service games early in the match.(Getty Images: Fran Santiago)

    A break in each set was enough for the rising Canadian star but the match could have been so different if De Minaur had have been able to convert his opportunities.

    The Australian earned eight break points to Auger-Aliassime's four but could never get the break he needed.

    The rut started in the opening game when at 15-40, Auger-Aliassime served his way out of trouble. He saved a break point in his next service game too, before breaking the Australian for a 5-3 lead and serving out the opening set.

    The second set played out in similar fashion.

    De Minaur again had break point in the Canadian's opening service game but it was saved before he was broken to put Auger-Aliassime up 2-1.

    The Australian's serve was broken but not his spirit and he summoned fighting courage that was reminiscent of Hewitt in his heyday.
    Alex de Minaur was fired up for the contest.(Getty Images: Fran Santiago)

    De Minaur roared on court when he held for 2-3 and then gave himself three break points in the very next game as he played defence before executing a trademark of Hewitt, a perfect backhand lob, to get triple-break-point.

    It seemed almost inevitable that this could be a turning point but Auger-Aliassime saved all three with some massive serves and forehands before managing to put away the match and the title with minimal fuss.

    It was much the same for Shapovalov in the opening singles rubber.

    The left-hander was in sublime touch from the opening point at the Palacio de Deportes José María Martín Carpena, breaking Kokkinakis's opening two service games with a powerful display of precision hitting.

    Denis Shapovalov looked in sublime touch from the first point.
    (Getty Images: Diego Souto/Quality Sport Images)

    In what was the first ever competitive meeting between the pair, Kokkinakis struggled to dictate pace in the rallies, with Shapovalov dominating with the forehand.

    Shapovalov, the world number 18, was coming into the match having lost both his quarter final and semi-final rubbers against Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany and Italy's Lorenzo Sonego — handing the Italian the match with three double faults in the final game.

    But there was no sign of any jitters from the 23-year-old Canadian in this final, responding to every unforced error with more daring shots.

    Kokkinakis finally got on the board in the fifth game, but surrendered the first set in just 32 minutes
    .
    Thanasi Kokkinakis was blown away in the first set, but fought back well in the second.(Getty Images: Diego Souto/Quality Sport Images)

    The Australian, ranked number 95 in the world and playing in just his second match of the week, showed glimpses of what he is capable of, including a sublime cross-court backhand winner at 2-5 down.

    But every time Kokkinakis lifted, Shapovalov slapped him back down, responding with a sumptuous drop shot to set himself back on course to hold serve and claim the opening set.

    Shapovalov broke again in the third game of the second set, but Kokkinakis earned three break points in a marathon fourth game thanks to more confident hitting from the baseline, targeting the Canadian's backhand.
    Australia captain Lleyton Hewitt encouraged Kokkinakis throughout. (Getty Images: Fran Santiago)

    Kokkinakis was far better in the second set, saving two break points in the seventh game of the set with some excellent deep serves.

    But a double fault handed Shapovalov the double-break and a chance to serve out the match.

    Kokkinakis hit back immediately off the back of a rank service game filled with wild errors from the Canadian to earn a surprising lifeline, a break-back he consolidated with a hold to love.

    But the nerves dissipated the very next game as Shapovalov completed the victory.

    The final loss in 2019 had hurt Shapovalov badly as had an incident in 2017, when he hit the chair umpire with a violently struck ball and saw himself defaulted in the deciding rubber of a quarter-final with Great Britain.

    This victory seemed to finally put that pain behind him.

    "We were in the finals a couple of years ago ... that was a tough one to lose and we got left with an empty feeling, so we wanted this one bad," he said.

    Trump dines at Mar-a-Lago with Ye and white nationalist Holocaust denier amid antisemitism storm
    November 27, 2022 

    Donald Trump.
    AP PHOTO/ANDREW HARNIK, FILE

    Former President Donald Trump is renewing attention to his long history of turning a blind eye to bigotry after dining with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West just days into his third campaign for the White House.

    Trump had dinner Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago club with West, who is now known as Ye, as well as Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist who has used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white nationalist rhetoric.

    Ye, who says he, too, is running for president in 2024, has made his own series of antisemitic comments in recent weeks, leading to his suspension from social media platforms, his talent agency dropping him and companies like Adidas cutting ties with him. The sportswear manufacturer has also launched an investigation into his conduct.

    In a statement from the White House, spokesman Andrew Bates said: “Bigotry, hate, and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America — including at Mar-A-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned.”

    Trump, in a series of statements Friday, said he had “never met and knew nothing about” Fuentes before he arrived with Ye at his club. But Trump also did not acknowledge Fuentes’ long history of racist and antisemitic remarks, nor did he denounce either man’s defamatory statements.

    Trump wrote of Ye on his social media platform that “we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.’” He added, “Why wouldn’t I agree to meet?”

    The former president has a long history of failing to unequivocally condemn hate speech. During his 2016 campaign, Trump waffled when asked to denounce the KKK after he was endorsed by the group’s former leader, saying in a televised interview that he didn’t “know anything about David Duke.” In 2017, in the aftermath of the deadly white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump was widely criticized for saying there was “blame on both sides” for the violence. And his rallies frequently feature inflammatory rhetoric from figures like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who spoke earlier this year at a far-right conference organized by Fuentes.

    The latest episode, coming just one week after Trump launched his third run for the Republican nomination, also underscored how loosely controlled access to the former president remained, particularly without a traditional campaign operation in place.

    Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club came under intense scrutiny amid revelations that Trump was storing hundreds of documents with classified markings there — sparking a federal investigation. But the club — and the people it gave access to Trump — had long been a source of consternation among former White House aides.

    Mar-a-Lago is not only Trump’s home, but also a private club and event space. Paid members and their guests dine alongside him and often mingle with him; members of the public can book weddings, fundraisers and other events, and Trump often drops by.

    Ye first shared details of the dinner in a video he posted to his Twitter account Thursday. Ye said he had traveled to Florida to ask Trump to be his 2024 running mate, and that the meeting had grown heated, with Trump “perturbed” by his request and Ye angered by Trump’s criticism of his estranged wife, Kim Kardashian.

    “When Trump started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was gonna lose. I mean, has that ever worked for anyone in history, telling Ye that I’m going to lose?” Ye asked in the video. “You’re talking to Ye!”

    Ye also said Trump was “really impressed with Nick Fuentes,” whom he described as “actually a loyalist” and said he’d asked Trump, “Why when you had the chance did you not free the January 6th-ers?” referring to the defendants who were alleged to have participated in the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Trump released a series of statements Friday trying to explain the circumstances of the meeting.

    “Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about,” Trump said in his first statement released by his campaign.

    Not long after, Trump took to his social media network to say that Ye and “three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about” had “unexpectedly showed up” at his club.

    “We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. They then left for the airport,” he wrote.

    Hours later he again posted, saying he had told Ye that he “should definitely not run for President,” and that “any voters you may have should vote for TRUMP.”

    “Anyway, we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.’” he added. “Why wouldn’t I agree to meet? Also, I didn’t know Nick Fuentes.”

    Fuentes, meanwhile, said after the trip that, while he couldn’t rule out that Trump had heard of him, “I don’t think he knew that I was me at the dinner.”

    “I didn’t mean for my statements and my whole background to sort of become a public relations problem for the president,” he added on his show.

    The meeting drew immediate criticism from Trump critics as well as some supporters, including David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel.

    “To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this. Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable,” Friedman wrote in a tweet. “I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”

    On Saturday, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a potential 2024 rival, also denounced antisemitism, without directly referencing the dinner or the president under whom he served.

    “Anti-Semitism is a cancer,” Pompeo wrote, adding: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

    Biden, asked about the Trump dinner meeting while vacationing in Nantucket, Massachusetts, replied, “You don’t want to hear what I think.”


    HOLODOMOR
    90 years on, Ukrainians see repeat of Russian ‘genocide’


    By AFP
    Published November 27, 2022

    Holodomor in Ukrainian means 'death by starvation' — © AFP
    Ania TSOUKANOVA

    Ninety years ago, millions perished in Ukraine in a manmade famine under Joseph Stalin that many in the country call genocide. For Ganna Pertchuk, the current Russian invasion is a case of history repeating itself.

    At the tall candle-shaped Holodomor (Ukrainian for death by starvation) memorial centre in central Kyiv, a dozen Orthodox priests in black and silver robes gathered Saturday for a religious ceremony for the victims of the famine.

    The event was held outdoors despite sub-zero temperatures.

    Before starting the ceremony, Archbishop Filaret, 93, laid a wreath of red carnations at the monument with a statue of an emaciated girl clutching some stalks of wheat against her chest.

    “We pray for those who perished in the famine,” he said.

    “The Holodomor was not a result of a bad harvest but the targeted extermination of the Ukrainian people,” he said.

    “What happened in the 1930s was genocide and what is happening now is also genocide,” said Pertchuk, a pensioner, who attended the ceremony

    “The parallels are very clear.”


    Millions of Ukrainians died in the 1932-1933 famine – Copyright AFP Pedro Rances Mattey

    Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe for its abundant wheat crops, a product of its rich, black soil. But under Soviet rule it lost between four and eight million citizens during the 1932-1933 famine. Some researchers put the figure even higher.

    While some historians argue the famine was planned and exacerbated by Stalin to quash an independence movement, others suggest it was a result of rapid Soviet industrialisation and the collectivisation of agriculture.

    Ukraine officially considers it a “genocide” along with a number of Western countries, a label that Moscow vehemently rejects.

    – ‘Victory of Good over Evil’ –

    Pertchuk, like many Ukrainians has heard horror stories from family members.

    Her mother-in-law, remembered as a young girl hiding with her family in a village near Kyiv so “that she wasn’t eaten up,” Pertchuk said, speaking of a famine that fuelled rare cases of cannibalism.

    “Imagine the horror,” said the 61-year-old former nurse, with tears in her eyes.

    She said she was “praying for our victory which will be a victory of Good over Evil”.

    “It was an artificial genocidal famine…,” priest Oleksandr Shmurygin, 38, told AFP. “Now when we experience this massive unprovoked war of Russia against Ukraine, we see history repeating itself.”


    The memorial has a statue of an emaciated girl clutching some stalks of wheat. — © AFP

    Among those gathered to commemorate the victims of the famine was lawyer Andryi Savchuk, who spoke of its “irreparable” loss for Ukraine.

    “Stalin’s system, the repressive state, wanted to destroy Ukraine as a nation,” he said. “Today we see that the efforts made by Stalin are continued by (President Vladimir) Putin.

    “At that time, they wanted to exterminate Ukrainians through famine,” he added.

    “Today, they are exterminating us with heavy weapons,” and bombing energy installations to deprive citizens of electricity, heating and water just as the punishing winter sets in.

    But just as Ukrainians hold on in the 1930s, so they would against Moscow today, said Savchuk.

    “We have an unyielding will and confidence. And the whole world is with us.”

    UKRAINIAN NATIONALIST ARMY OUN–UPA AND THE NAZI GENOCIDE

    THEORY AND PRACTICE

    Historical representation of the wartime accounts of the activities of the OUN–UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Ukrainian Insurgent Army)




    Twin crises: experts say nature and climate can’t be siloed

    By AFP
    November 24, 2022

    The crucial COP15 meeting comes as scientists warn the world is potentially facing its sixth mass extinction event - Copyright AFP Khaled DESOUKI
    Kelly MACNAMARA and Jenny VAUGHAN

    Experts and activists were hoping UN climate talks would end last week with a prominent mention of biodiversity in the final text. They walked away disappointed.

    Some say delegates at the COP27 summit missed a key opportunity to acknowledge the connection between the twin climate and nature crises, which many believe have been treated separately for too long.

    Failing to address both could mean not only further decimating Earth’s life support systems, but also missing the key climate target of limiting warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius, they warn.

    “We’re doomed if we don’t solve climate, and we’re doomed if we don’t solve biodiversity,” Basile van Havre, co-chair of the UN biodiversity negotiations, told AFP.

    At the COP15 UN biodiversity talks next month, dozens of countries will meet to hammer out a new framework to protect animals and plants from destruction by humans.

    The meeting comes as scientists warn that climate change and biodiversity damage could cause the world’s sixth mass extinction event.

    Such destruction of nature also risks worsening climate change.

    The oceans have absorbed most of the excess heat created by humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and, along with forests, are important carbon sinks.

    “(Nature) is up to a third of the climate solution. And it is a proven technology,” Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, told AFP.

    He said oceans in particular are unsung “superheroes”, which have absorbed carbon and heat, at the cost of acidification and coral-killing heatwaves.

    As the world warms, species and ecosystems can also play a crucial role in building resilience. Mangroves, for example, can protect against coastal erosion caused by rising seas linked to a warming planet.

    – ‘Missed opportunity’ –


    Perhaps the most attention on the natural world at COP27 came during a visit by Brazil’s president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will take office in January.

    He has vowed to halt the rampant deforestation of the Amazon seen under incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and announced during the climate talks plans to create a ministry for indigenous people, custodians of the rainforest.

    The crucial “30 by 30” biodiversity target also got a boost when a bloc of West African nations vowed to adhere to the goal of protecting 30 percent of the natural world by 2030.

    Biodiversity received a nod in the final COP27 text, including in a paragraph calling for “the urgent need to address, in a comprehensive and synergetic manner, the interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss”.

    But the upcoming COP15 meeting in Montreal — tasked with setting out an ambitious plan for humanity’s relationship with nature for the coming decades — did not get the encouragement many were hoping for.

    “It is a missed opportunity that COP15, taking place just in two weeks’ time, did not get a highlight by COP27,” Li Shuo, senior global policy adviser at Greenpeace East Asia, told AFP.

    But he cautioned it “should not be a deal-breaker, this should not be the end of the world”.

    For Zoe Quiroz Cullen, head of climate and nature linkages at Fauna & Flora International, it was “deeply concerning” that the text “fails to recognise the crucial linkage to COP27’s sister convention on nature,” the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

    “The twin climate and biodiversity crises are at risk from being considered and treated in silos,” she told AFP.

    – ‘Subcategory’ –

    While energy policy has dominated the climate talks, and plastic and pesticide pollution are more the preserve of the biodiversity talks, other issues — food production, indigenous land rights, protections of oceans and forests — are entwined with both.

    The United Nations has traditionally treated the climate and biodiversity crises distinctly, each getting their own COP meetings (Conference of the Parties), and each managed by its own institution: climate by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and biodiversity by the CBD.

    Most experts say the two crises are serious enough to warrant this separate treatment. But some complain that biodiversity has been seen as “just a subcategory of climate”, as O’Donnell put it.

    “Decades of approaching these things in isolation still continues, unfortunately, too much to this day.”

    In the long term, neglecting nature could mean the unabated destruction of ecosystems and species — and missing the Paris Agreement climate goals.

    “We cannot meet the 1.5 degree target for climate without bold action on nature,” O’Donnell said.

    “We need to solve them both if we want to have a liveable planet for future generations.”

    Five key decisions at global wildlife summit

    By AFP
    Published November 25, 2022

    Marine turtles and their uncertain fate are on the agenda of a global wildlife summit taking place in Panama City. — © AFP

    A global wildlife summit that ends Friday passed resolutions to protect hundreds of threatened species, including sharks, reptiles, turtles as well as trees.

    Here are some highlights of the two-week meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Panama.

    1) Sharks steal the show

    No longer just the villains of the deep, these ancient predators were the stars of the summit.

    Delegates from more than 180 countries agreed to regulate the trade in 54 species of the requiem shark and hammerhead shark families.

    These species are the most hunted for their shark fins — seen as a delicacy in some Asian countries — and their numbers have been decimated, putting the entire marine ecosystem at risk.

    Only Japan grumbled over the resolution, arguing restrictions on the trade of the blue shark would be a blow to the livelihoods of its fishermen.

    CITES also voted to restrict the trade of guitarfish rays and several other freshwater ray species.

    2) See-through glass frogs

    The skin of these nocturnal amphibians can be lime green or so translucent their organs are visible through their skin.

    This has made them sought-after pets, and intense trafficking has placed the species in critical danger.

    CITES also placed more than 160 species of glass frog, found in several rainforests in Central and South America, on its Appendix II, which places trade restrictions on threatened species.

    The European Union and Canada withdrew early reservations about the resolution, which was adopted unanimously.

    3) Weird and wonderful turtles

    CITES approved varying levels of protection for around 20 turtle species from America and Asia.

    These include the striking matamata turtles, with their prehistoric, beetle-like appearance, which have also become sought-after pets and are hunted for their meat and eggs.

    They live in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, but scientists do not know how many there are.

    Freshwater turtles are among the most-trafficked species in the world.

    The unusual-looking North American Alligator Snapping Turtle was also granted trade protection.

    4) Crocodile bans lifted

    Brazil and the Philippines now will be able to export farm-raised crocodiles, after a total trade ban was lifted.



    Sharks were the star of the CITES summit Panama, which approved the protection of more than 50 species – Copyright AFP/File Chris DELMAS

    Delegates also allowed the export of skin and meat of the broad-snouted caiman — found in the wild in the Brazilian Amazon and Pantanal as well as wetlands, rivers, and lakes of neighboring countries.

    “The population of these animals is very big. There has been a great reproductive success,” said researcher Miryam Venegas-Anaya, a crocodile expert with the University of Panama.

    In the Philippines, a trade restriction was lifted on the saltwater crocodile that lives mainly on the islands of Mindanao and Palawan.

    However, Thailand’s efforts to lift a ban on its Siamese crocodile was rejected.

    5) Ivory ban stays, no luck for hippos

    Zimbabwe and its southern African neighbors have seen their elephant populations soar in recent years, and pushed a drive to re-open the ivory trade which has been banned since 1989.

    One-off sales were allowed in 1999 and 2008 despite fierce opposition.

    However, in the rest of the continent poaching for ivory is still decimating elephant populations and the request was rejected.

    Delegates also rejected a request by Botswana, Namibia and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), to allow the sale of southern white rhino horn.

    Meanwhile, after a fierce debate, a request by ten west African nations to ban the trade in hippopotamus, was rejected by delegates.

    Illegal trade in the surly semi-aquatic mammal — for its meat, ivory tusks, teeth, and skull — rose after elephant ivory was banned.
    Thousands of Argentines pay tribute to late Mothers of Plaza de Mayo co-founder

    By AFP
    November 25, 2022

    A woman touches a picture of the late Hebe de Bonafini during a ceremony at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires on November 24, 2022 
    - Copyright AFP Luis ROBAYO

    Thousands of Argentines on Thursday paid tribute to Hebe de Bonafini, who helped found human rights group the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, as her ashes were scattered in Buenos Aires in the public square where she led demonstrations for decades.

    Bonafini, who died Sunday at age 93, helped found the women-led movement in 1977 in defiance of the country’s former military dictatorship, demanding the truth about their missing children.

    Some 30,000 people were abducted and presumed killed by the regime or right-wing death squads in the 1970s and 1980s for being suspected leftists.

    Alongside the disappearances were the widespread kidnappings of babies born to suspected dissidents held under the right-wing dictatorship.

    Bonafini last protested in the plaza on November 10 despite frail health, stating that her doctors had authorized the activity because “they know it’s good for my health — that I need the plaza in order to take care of myself.”

    For 45 years, through multiple governments, the women marched around the Plaza de Mayo in their trademark white headscarves, in an often futile search for justice.

    On Thursday, five of her colleagues who are among the last in the aging army, scattered her ashes in the greenery at the foot of an obelisk in the plaza, while the crowd applauded and sang: “Mothers of the plaza, the people embrace you.”

    Elected officials and a substantial number of women were in the crowd, including many who lived in fear during the brutal 1976-1983 military regime.

    “For me, Hebe is a heroine, because looking for the missing is something that few people dared to do,” Virginia Garcia, 42, told AFP.

    The Plaza de Mayo was adorned with photos of Bonafini and messages such as “We love you Hebe, mother of the people” and “Resisting is fighting, until forever Hebe.”

    Bonafini, who attended rallies in recent years in her wheelchair, was born in 1928 in Ensenada, a town 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Buenos Aires.

    She was a housewife when the military seized power in 1976, ousting Isabel Peron, the wife of late president Juan Peron.

    In 1977, her sons and daughter-in-law were kidnapped and disappeared.

    A few months later, she and a small group of women began protesting in front of the Casa Rosada, the pink presidential palace.

    The mothers risked the same fate as their political activist children — torture, death or simply disappearing without a trace. Instead, the generals tried to laugh them off, mocking them as “madwomen.”

    French-Lebanese architect seeks pro-climate construction transformation


    By AFP
    November 25, 2022

    Lina Ghotmeh wants to reduce the use of concrete in building 
    - Copyright AFP/File Peter PARKS

    Isabel MALSANG

    Lina Ghotmeh has pegged her career on sustainable construction.

    The French-Lebanese architect wants to see her industry transformed by drastically reducing the use of concrete — a major CO2 contributor — using more local materials and reusing existing buildings and materials.

    “We need to change our value system,” the 42-year-old told AFP last month.

    The aim is to reduce the carbon footprint of the construction industry and create buildings that can better resist the impacts of climate change.

    But it’s not an easy battle.

    The industry accounts for almost 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations.

    Ghotmeh, who designed the Estonian National Museum and taught at Yale University, doesn’t advocate for fewer buildings — she knows that’s an unrealistic goal in a world with a growing population.

    “That would be like saying ‘stop eating,'” she said.

    – ‘Don’t demolish’ –

    Instead, we should “keep what already exists, don’t demolish,” but refurbish and retrofit old buildings in a sustainable way where possible.

    Building a new detached house consumes 40 times more resources than renovating an existing property, and for a new apartment complex that rises to 80 times more, according to the French Agency for Ecological Transition (Ademe).

    And where new constructions are needed, local materials and design should be used in a way that incorporates natural surroundings and saves energy.

    Ghotmeh used more than 500,000 bricks made from local dirt for a new Hermes building in France, expected to open early next year.

    The bricks also regulate the building’s temperature and reduce energy needs.

    The building will produce as much energy as it consumes, by being made energy efficient and using geothermal power.

    – ‘Circular thinking’ –

    Architects must, early in the project process, “think in a circular way,” Ghotmeh said, choosing reusable organic or natural materials like wood, hemp, linen or stone.

    This shouldn’t stymie the design process either, she insists.

    “In Canada, we build wooden towers, in Japan too. It’s a material that is quite capable of being used for tall buildings,” added Ghotmeh, who will build a wooden tower in Paris in 2023.

    Another key approach is to build lighter, using less material and fewer toxins.

    And then there’s concrete, the main material in so many modern buildings and perhaps the most challenging to move away from.

    “We must drastically reduce the use of concrete”, she said, insisting it should only be used for essential purposes, such as foundations and building in earthquake-prone areas.

    Some 14 billion cubic metres of concrete are used every year, according to the Global Cement and Concrete Association.

    It emits more CO2 than the aviation industry, largely because of the intense heat required to make it.

    Alternatives to concrete already exist, such as stone, or making cement — a component of concrete — from calcium carbonate. There are also pushes for low-carbon cement made from iron and steel industry waste.

    – Beirut inspiration –


    Building more sustainably often comes with a higher price tag — it costs more to double or triple glaze windows and properly insulate a house — but the long-term payoff is lower energy costs.

    For Ghotmeh, it’s an imperative investment in our future.

    It was her birthplace of Beirut that inspired her to become an architect, spurring a desire to rebuild the so-called “collapsed city” ravaged by war.

    In 2020, she completed the “Stone Garden” apartment tower in the city, built with concrete covered with a combed coating, a technique often used by local craftsmen. She used concrete in the construction because of earthquake risks.

    The building was strong enough to survive the port explosion in 2020 that destroyed a large part of the city.

    And the city continues to inspire her today, even when it comes to climate sustainability.

    “Since there is practically only an hour of electricity per day, all the buildings have solar panels now. There is a kind of energy independence which is beginning to take place, by force,” she said.

    “Does it take a catastrophe like the one in Lebanon to make this transition?”