Global Dashboard: window of opportunity on scarcity issues starts to close

Alex Evans from the Global Dashboard has commented in a recent post on the lack of political initiatives to take preventive action regarding food (and resources in general) scarcity. The window of opportunity presented them by the credit crunch and the global downturn starts to close with rising oil prices.

As we are barely climbing out from the worst recession since 1930, oil prices have reached mid 2007 levels already. Together with that, food prices have followed suit:

As I’ve argued in numerous previous posts, we were never out of the woods on the food / fuel pincer movement; it was the collapse in prices following the credit crunch that was the blip, not the price spike that preceded it. And what’s most frustrating now is the extent to which policymakers have frittered away the chance we had to get onto a more secure footing.

[...] Now, on top of all of that, it looks like policymakers are also in the process of fudging the one policy process that could manage oil scarcity and climate change at the same time: the Copenhagen talks on the UNFCCC post-2012 commitment period.

The problem, of course, is that once prices for oil and food rise beyond a certain level, we all go back into kneejerk / panic mode – and try talking about the need for cooperative long term frameworks then. Sigh. #Fail.

Maps: climate injustice and the first humanitarian map to really help aid workers

Here are a few interesting updates from the mapping department:

The Global Dashboard posted two interesting maps offering a view on the world from the perspective of climate change. They show the countries' size according to their fossil-fuel carbon-dioxide emissions and the burden they are carrying due to climate change. Note the startling contrast between 'the West' and Africa-Asia! Both maps come from a recent report of the World Population Fund (UNFPA) on women, population and climate change.

The Aid Worker Daily also posted about the release of the first interactive map that allows everybody to update its contents. This way aid workers have an excellent up to date account of the site they're working in (c.q. Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya). To be expanded soon to other (urban) areas, hopefully!

AlertNet: A humanitarian's guide to Copenhagen

In attendance of next week's COP 15, AlertNet published a list of humanitarian focal points for Copenhagen. Although not party to the actual negotiations, aid agencies will try to influence the negotiations with presentations on the sidelines of the conference. In so doing, they will provide the negotiators with the humanitarian story of climate change.

A few of the points discussed:

• How much money will be available to help communities adapt to an increasingly erratic climate?
• How will money be channelled to affected countries or communities?
• How do you define who is most vulnerable to climate change?
• Will forest-dwelling communities receive benefits from REDD?
• What about the rights of people displaced by increasing and more intense natural disasters?
• Will food security and agriculture get their due?
• Is anyone paying attention to protecting people's health?