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Kerry to Demand India Must Declare a Net-Zero Emissions Target Date

April 2, 2021by madeleine in Environmentalism updates, General, Green New Deal

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry will visit India in early April, The Hindu reported. The visit is a run-up to the April 22-23 virtual “Leaders Summit on Climate” hosted by President Joe Biden from the White House. Kerry’s April 1-9 itinerary will also include Abu Dhabi and Dhaka.

The Kerry visit is likely to focus on pressuring India to declare a target year, preferably 2050, for achieving net-zero emissions of greenhouse gas. But there is strong opposition to this within India, including prominent advisers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi such as Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, a Member of PM’s Council on Climate Change and former ambassador to China and the EU. In a recent interview with the Indian news daily, The Hindustan Times, Dasgupta answered a question on what he believes would be the impact on the Indian economy of pursuing net-zero emissions target:

“First, it would require us to immediately scrap all existing coal-based power plants and factories, or alternatively, retrofit them with carbon capture and storage technology. This would entail astronomical costs at a time when the economy is already reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.” He added that it would also quickly derail Modi’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) policy: “It would necessitate an immediate switch-over to imported, existing clean energy technologies at a huge cost, denying our own industry the time required for indigenization or development of affordable indigenous technologies. Let us not forget that the US lodged a complaint against us at the WTO when we took some modest measures to promote domestic manufacture of solar cells and modules.”

“Third, we need to examine the trade-related implications of surrendering our principled position on ‘common and differentiated responsibilities’. The European Union is set to impose levies on carbon-intensive imports, even from developing countries. It would be naive to think that the countries calling on India to adopt a 2050 net-zero target are motivated purely by altruistic concerns unrelated to commercial interests.”

The “common and differentiated responsibilities” clause refers to the argument made for decades by developing countries that any global targets have to be applied in a differentiated way to their countries, since they are also trying to overcome underdevelopment.

The pressure on India is intense. Last February, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) hosted an annual event, the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS), in New Delhi with a focus on the climate crisis, with the presence of high-level representatives from the U.S., the U.K., the EU, the United Nations and other countries. At this virtual Summit, John Kerry did not mince his words: “We all have to adopt the notion of zero emissions.” And his finger pointed towards India when he noted that “90% of the world’s emissions come from somewhere other than our country (US)” and “70% come from somewhere other than China”.

The pressure has been building, especially over the last six months as Biden took over the White House. Some analysts claim that China’s 2060 carbon neutrality pledge has also contributed to the pressure, as has the UK’s diplomatic push to ramp up climate matters ahead of Cop26. Cop26 is the next annual UN climate change conference scheduled to be held in Glasgow, UK, from Nov 1-12. Cop26 president Alok Sharma visited India in February and issued a statement before his departure stating, “I firmly believe that powerful action from India will be a catalyst for change, encouraging others to be more ambitious in their approaches to protecting both people and planet.”

With the heat on, discussions have begun in India on what it can do to withstand the pressure.

Implement LaRouche’s 2010 Rebuilding Program in Haiti Now: The 2021 Earthquake Can Not Be Allowed To Be A Further Descent into Hell!

August 18, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Haiti, New Silk Road / BRI updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, United States, World Land-Bridge updates

Had American statesman Lyndon LaRouche’s program to rebuild Haiti been implemented, in response to the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, which killed between 250,000 and 300,000 people, this impoverished nation would not be suffering the level of death and destruction so far wrought by the August 14 earthquake that measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. And the carnage will become much greater as a series of tropical storms hit, which are expected to be rolling in, perhaps one after another. 

As of August 17, reports are that 1,900 people are dead, 10,000 injured, and 37,000 homes have been destroyed. Homes, schools, supermarkets, and roads were leveled in the southern and western parts of the country. People are terrified. They have once again been abandoned by the United States and its international partners, left to perish in extreme poverty, disease, and misery.

Lyndon LaRouche immediately responded to the 2010 earthquake by calling for an emergency reconstruction program for Haiti, to which, he said, the U.S. had a special responsibility. He called on the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to first deploy to rescue and relocate up to 1 million homeless Haitians from Port-au-Prince to higher ground before the rainy season arrived and unleashed a dangerous health and sanitation crisis for these destitute citizens; he then proposed a comprehensive program to focus on building infrastructure—for sanitation, water management, irrigation, earthquake-proof housing, transportation, agriculture, etc.

LaRouche also recommended that the U.S. sign a 25-year treaty with Haiti, “a treaty agreement to reestablish the efficient sovereignty of the nation of Haiti, after the destructive effect of this and preceding difficulties. We make a contract with the government, as a treaty agreement, between the United States and Haiti, to assure the rebuilding of their country, in a form in which it will actually be a functioning country which can survive.” Those proposals are available here.

President Barack Obama rejected LaRouche’s proposals, and instead removed crucial economic and military aid, encouraging what became known as the “Republic of NGOs” — a large unwieldy network of foreign NGOs that had a lot of money to throw around but did nothing of any real substance. 

Years later, in 2017, when China’s Southwest Engineering Municipal Design Research Institute joined with the Haitian firm Bayti Ayiti to propose a $30 billion program to completely rebuild Haiti, with $4.7 billion to rebuild the capital, Port-au-Prince, with sanitation infrastructure, housing, and transportation, the IMF reportedly stepped in—EIR was told at the time—to make sure the proposal went nowhere.

On March 10, 2010, EIR published a 20-page package which detailed the programmatic solutions Haiti required and identified those monetarist political forces committed to keeping in place the Malthusian economic policies that had made Haiti so vulnerable to disaster, and which remain in effect today. That package is available here.

Blinken Sheds Crocodile Tears for Syrians Forced into Poverty by US Sanctions

March 31, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Color Revolutions, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia, United States, World war danger updates

March 30, 2021 (EIRNS)–The UN Security Council held its monthly meeting on Syria yesterday, focusing heavily on the humanitarian situation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who chaired the virtual meeting, delivered a statement about the worsening humanitarian situation in Syria without once referring to the economic sanctions that the US and its European allies have imposed on the country that have worsened living conditions for millions of Syrians. “While today’s session is focused on the humanitarian crisis in Syria, it’s important to note that the only long-term solution to this suffering is through a political settlement and permanent resolution to the conflict, as outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 2254,” Blinken said, “But even as we work to that solution, we can’t lose sight of the urgent needs of the Syrian people that we’ve heard described so eloquently today. It’s clear that these needs – including having enough to eat and access to essential medicine – are not going to be met by the Assad regime.”

Blinken followed this posturing with the demand that the UNSC authorize the opening of two border crossings in the northeast and northwest into areas of the country that are not under the control of the government. “We have a responsibility to ensure Syrians have access to lifesaving assistance, no matter where they live,” he said. “Given that goal, there was no good reason at the time for the council’s failure to reauthorize these two humanitarian crossings.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin, who delivered the Russian response, minced no words about the roles of the US and Turkish occupying forces in creating the current conditions that prevail in all parts of Syria. “It is paradoxical, yet true — a significant deterioration in the life of the Syrian population has been observed precisely within the past year, when a significant reduction in violence was achieved on the ground,” Vershinin stressed, reported TASS. He also drew attention to the fact that “the most difficult situation is developing in the regions not under the control of Damascus in the northwest, north and northeast of Syria, the responsibility for which, let me reiterate, is with the de-facto occupying countries and local authorities.”

Vershinin accused Western powers of openly discriminating against the areas of the country controlled by Damascus, including with respect to deliveries of humanitarian supplies, the return of refugees, and efforts to control the COVID19 pandemic. “It is done in a bid to undermine Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, due to political motives,” he said.

Then there’s the matter of unilateral US and European sanctions, which are greatly hindering the economic reconstruction of Syria. “The reaction of Washington and Brussels to the call of the UN secretary general to ease and lift unilateral sanctions amid the coronavirus pandemic was, on the contrary, to tighten in an unprecedented way the restrictions adopted bypassing the UN Security Council, including the introduction of the infamous Caesar Act in June 2020,” Vershinin said. “Unfortunately, the honorable representative of the US and other Western colleagues spoke about a lot of things in today’s speeches but for the US and EU sanctions and their dramatic negative effect on ordinary Syrians.”

Vershinin also pointed out the US looting of Syrian oil and wheat. “Reports continue to come in that American convoys are trucking out oil and grain from Syria to Iraq daily. The information [we] receive suggests that 300 oil tank trucks and more than 200 cargo trucks with grain had crossed the Syrian-Iraqi border by March 23 since the beginning of the month,” he said. “It turns out while Syrians are suffering from acute shortage of basic products, including bread and petrol, a wide stream of Syria’s smuggled natural resources is flowing from the Trans-Euphrates region controlled by the US, while the country is simultaneously suffocated with unilateral sanctions which essentially are a form of collective punishment,” he underlined.

Prior to the US and Russian (and other) statements, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock reported that the need for aid has jumped 20% from last year and humanitarian organizations coordinated by the U.N. are seeking an estimated $4.2 billion to reach 12.3 million Syrians inside the country. He said another $5.8 billion is required for support to countries hosting Syrian refugees in the region. “We need more money, not less, if we are to avoid a further deterioration — the consequences of which could be dramatic and widespread,” Lowcock said.

Henrietta Fore, head of the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, said Syria’s worst economic crisis is “plunging 90% of the population into poverty, and across the country nearly 90% of children now require humanitarian assistance.”

Syria Coverage of Sen. Black in English

March 31, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Media coverage of our activity, Our conferences, World war danger updates

March 29 (EIRNS)–The Syrian official English-language daily Syria Times published a short review of what it considers the main points of former Virginia state Senator Richard Black’s speech at the Schiller Institute international conference on March 21. The daily then links to the video of the speech. I have asked them to link to the Schiller Institute conference page. The coverage can be found here.

CGTN Dialogue with Zou Yue Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Others on Xinjiang

March 30, 2021by madeleine in China, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Video, United States, World war danger updates

Helga Zepp-LaRouche was one of the guests on CGTN’s “Dialogue” program’s coverage of the situation in Xinjiang. She focused on the tremendous development of China that he she had seen over the years, and the background to Xinjiang destabilization in Brzezinski’s creating terrorism in the U.S. war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Also appearing on the show was Sultan Hali, speaker at the recent Schiller Institute conference.

Catholic Cardinal in Syria Tells World ‘Time Is Running Out’ for Syria Reconstruction

March 30, 2021by madeleine in Economic development updates, General, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, World Land-Bridge updates

Roman Catholic Cardinal Mario Zenari, the representative of the Vatican in Syria since the beginning of the Syria war, issued an appeal for international support to reconstruct the country, as time is running out. “Peace, I repeat, will not come to Syria without reconstruction and without economic recovery,” Zenari said March 23. “But how long will Syrians have to wait? Time is running out. Many of the people have lost hope. Urgent and radical solutions are needed.”

Zenari said that the “present political deadlock” between the parties in the Syrian conflict must be overcome through “mutual and reciprocal [steps], step by step from the Syrian government and the opposition and key international players.” He further stated, “While the peace process is in this moment in a complete deadlock, poverty, on the contrary, is moving forward fast.”

Zenari was speaking via Zoom from Damascus at a virtual event organized by the Catholic charity Caritas Internationalis.

Zenari said about 90% of the population of Syria is living below the poverty line, which according to UN figures is “the highest percentage in the world.” He cited the Lebanese financial crisis, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, internal corruption, and foreign sanctions have all contributed to the deepening poverty in Syria caused by 10 years of war.

“The Syrian pound has lost much of its value against the U.S. dollar. The price of food has significantly increased. At the bakeries, people queue to try to get limited subsidized bread that is available. The same scene for petrol all around the country. … The people call this difficult time an ‘economic war,’ worse than that of previous years,” he said.

The World Bank estimates that the country has suffered at least $197 billion worth of infrastructure damage during the war.

Pope Francis marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Syrian war by praying for an end to the war and a renewed commitment from the international community for rebuilding efforts, at the end of his Sunday Angelus on March 14. Zenari first arrived in Syria as apostolic nuncio in 2008, and in 2016 Pope Francis made him a cardinal as a sign of the Pope’s closeness to Syria, Cardinal Pietro Parolin told Catholic News Agency (CNA) at the time.

Here we review a proposal for the reconstruction of Syria called Project Phoenix, focusing on how Syria, which enjoys an ideal position at the crossroads of three continents, can benefit from connecting to the New Silk Road and the emerging World Land-Bridge. This video was produced for the June 25-26, 2016 Schiller Institute conference in Berlin, Germany, “Common Future for Mankind, and a Renaissance of the Classical Cultures”

Blinken Attacks China; Wang Yi Says None of the ASEAN Nations Agree

August 9, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, General updates, Geopolitics updates, United States

Blinken Attacks China; Wang Yi Says None of the ASEAN Nations Agree—

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)–The final conference of the week of ASEAN meetings this week, the East Asia Summit Ministerial, involved a larger group in the Asia-Pacific region, including the United States, Japan and Australia. U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, like the skunk who came to the picnic, decided to do something of a repeat of Anchorage, going after China’s alleged human rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. While there was no transcript to the meeting, it seems that Japan and Australia may also have chipped in on this. Wang Yi asked for the floor a second time to respond to the attacks.

Wang Yi said that as expected, the United States and other countries will use the multilateral platform to attack and smear China’s internal affairs. “These clichés are not worth refuting, and none of the ASEAN countries agree with you, but out of the principle of reciprocity, China certainly has the right to refute them. But for such abominable behavior, we will resolutely make refutation each and every time it comes up,” Wang asserted.

COVID-19: Brazil Now “Threat to Global Public Health”

March 26, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Healthcare

“Brazil Now Represents a Threat to Global Public Health”: Brazilian Epidemiologist

March 25 (EIRNS) — Dr. Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist and Dean at the Federal University of Pelotas in southern Brazil, stated that “Brazil now represents a threat to global public health” that must be urgently addressed by international action. Hallal is the coordinator of Epicovid-19, the largest epidemiological study into the coronavirus in Brazil. Hallal stated that the pandemic is out of control in Brazil, which is now a breeding ground for dangerous new variants. “The virus is circulating so widely in Brazil that it is possible, and I would say likely, that new variants will appear in the near future. We need to stop that urgently,” he said.

Hallal called for an international task force to address the crisis, since the policies of the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro have brought the country to the brink of collapse. If not, “global efforts to control COVID-19 will be jeopardized,” he said.

An open letter from hundreds of leading financial figures in Brazil, including former ministers and five former presidents of Brazil’s Central Bank, also slammed Bolsonaro’s COVID policy and demanded urgent change. Without ever mentioning Bolsonaro by name, the letter is clear, attacking Brazil’s “top political leadership” which displays “a disdain for science, looks to remedies without evidence of their effectiveness, encourages crowds, and flirts with the anti-vax movement.” They demand a nationally coordinated policy of social distancing, including a national lockdown if necessary.

Bolsonaro is feeling the heat, and has reluctantly agreed to meet with Brazil’s governors – who universally oppose his do-nothing policy and have tried to impose state-by-state measures – and has even promised to start a serious vaccination campaign (so far, less than 7% of Brazilians have had one dose of a vaccine). In over half of the country’s 26 states, the rate of occupancy in ICUs tops 90%. Last Tuesday, daily deaths in the country topped 3,000 for the first time, with 3,251 deaths recorded. Brazil now accounts for one out of every four deaths worldwide from COVID. The biomedical research institution Fiocruz, a week ago reported that Brazil’s public health systems are “living through the worst collapse in history.”

“The situation is very, very concerning,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization. “Brazil has to take it seriously.” Dr. Hallal stated: “If we do not have enough vaccines in the next 30 to 45 days, the situation will be terrible — not only for Brazil, but for the rest of the world.”

UN Security Council Unanimously Pushes for Afghan Political Solution

August 5, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, China, France, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia, United States, World war danger updates

UN Security Council Unanimously Pushes for Afghan Political Solution—

Aug. 4 (EIRNS)—In New York, the UN Security Council unanimously issued a press statement condemning deliberate attacks on civilians in Afghanistan and all instances of terrorism “in the strongest terms” on Aug. 3, while declaring its opposition to restoration of rule by the Taliban, reported The Associated Press. The council called on the Afghan government and the Taliban “to engage meaningfully in an inclusive, Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process in order to make urgent progress towards a political settlement and a ceasefire.” The council statement also expressed “deep concern” at the high levels of violence and reported serious human rights abuses in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s offensive. It urged an immediate reduction in violence.

It is noteworthy that the U.S., China and Russia (as well as the U.K. and France) all agreed with this perspective on Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani by phone yesterday to press for a political settlement and lecture Ghani on democracy and human rights.

Afghanistan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar told TOLOnews in an Aug. 2 interview that the Taliban enjoys the support of foreign terrorists in Afghanistan. “The Taliban relies on the support of foreign terrorists and mainly aims to attack cities,” he said. “Afghanistan’s international allies hold the same opinion.”

“Two important encounters will take place in Doha (Qatar) in the coming days: One with our regional allies and the other with international allies in the format of the Extended Troika,” comprised of Russia, the United States, China and Pakistan, Atmar continued. “We are turning to the international community with a request to exert pressure on the Taliban so that this movement observes human rights. Up to now, the Taliban has been brutally assaulting civilians.”

On the ground, heavy fighting reportedly continues in both Herat in western Afghanistan and in the southern province of Helmand. Several airstrikes were reportedly launched by Afghan and U.S. air forces since Tuesday night (Aug. 3), according to security sources. The commander of the Army’s 215 Maiwand Corps, Gen. Sami Sadat, called on residents in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, to evacuate their homes as the army was preparing for a large-scale operation to clear the city of the Taliban. However, as of the latest reports, the army had not made much progress beyond controlling government buildings.

Climate Models: With Enough ‘Free Parameters,’ Data Will Confess to Anything

August 5, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Green New Deal

Aug. 3, 2021 (EIRNS)—One of the criticisms leveled against the climate models used to terrify the world with the unfathomable horror of a change of 1.5 degrees by the turn of the century, relates to how modelers deal with uncertainties.

The entire Earth is a very complex system to model, and our understanding of many of its processes—wind patterns, rainfall, ocean circulation—is incomplete. This means that models cannot claim to be based purely on fundamental physics and well-known laws of nature, the way a simple physics demonstration used in a classroom would.

Instead, each of the uncertain values that is incorporated into the final model has some “wiggle room” in the specific value given to it.

If there are only a few uncertainties, the model as a whole will have only a few adjustment points, and there may be a very small range of setting the uncertain parameters that results in the model accurately producing past data, against which it can be verified.

But if there are many “knobs” on the machine, so to speak, there can be many ways of adjusting them such that the model matches the past relatively well (given the extremely incomplete data, no one expects perfection), while offering wildly different predictions for the future.

Climate models have many free parameters, many knobs to adjust, such that their matching past data says little about their ability accurately to predict the future. In this sense, you can get the underlying climate data to confess anything you’d like about the future, including out- of-control warming.

The Executive Director of the CO₂ Coalition recently wrote about the origin of climate models: “The father of these models was Cold War military theorist John von Neumann, who wanted to see if we could cause drought in the Soviet Union. He failed, thank goodness. Von Neumann joked, ‘with four parameters I can draw an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.’”

Professor Will Happer uncovered a 2010 paper by Jürgen Mayer et al. (DOI: 10.1119/1.3254017) that does just that. They use a Fourier coordinate expansion with four complex parameters to successfully parameterize a shape resembling an elephant. And adding a fifth causes the trunk to move around as its path is traced.

(Unlike the cases in climate models, in this case there was no data against which to validate the parameters, so the authors were completely free to set them as they pleased.)

What can a climate modeler achieve with hundreds or thousands of free parameters?

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