Posts Tagged ‘water’
Women ‘bearing brunt’ of climate change
Critics said that conflating population control with efforts to tackle climate change was overly simplistic. Caroline Boin, an analyst at London-based think tank International Policy Network, also said the report was patronizing to women in the developing world.
“Whatever the problem, UNFPA repeats the same old mantra — the culprit is population and the solution is condoms,” she said. “Food scarcity, water shortages, and health problems in poor countries truly are threats for women. Population and climate control policies are not the solution, and if anything, will give governments an excuse to remain complacent in addressing poverty.”
Article Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/11/18/climate.change.women/
Governments Must Stop Meddling in Agriculture and Forestry, say Experts
In a new report*, Professors Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen, both of
Ohio State University, analyse the likely impacts of climate change on
agriculture and forestry. They argue that these two sectors can adapt to
global warming, provided that food, timber, inputs, and resources are
exchanged in free markets. But if governments interfere with market
forces, adaptation will be impeded and commodity supplies will suffer in
response to climate change.
“With the prospect of higher temperatures and less precipitation in some
geographical locations because of global warming, governments must refrain
from regulating or otherwise meddling with prices and commerce. This means
eliminating agricultural protectionism, subsidies to water users (and
others), and regulations which inhibit the use of technology,” said
Professor Douglas Southgate.
“Successful adaptation to global warming is most likely to happen where
goods, services, inputs, and resources are allocated in markets that are
free and competitive. This means unencumbered agricultural trade at the
international level,” added Southgate.
In the context of growing water scarcity worldwide, Southgate and Sohngen
argue that political mismanagement of water resources must be addressed as
a matter of urgency. “Already excessive, the waste and misallocation
created when water is supplied too cheaply to farmers will grow worse as
the planet warms,” they say.
The authors say that water must be subject to market forces rather than
the misallocation currently created by governments:
“Efficient pricing of water – which occurs if that resource is bought and
sold freely as opposed to being distributed by governments at subsidized
prices – is essential at the national level. In the context of global
warming, farmers in dry regions have little reason to adopt conservation
measures if governments subsidize their use of water.”
The report challenges the idea that less developed regions will suffer
disproportionately because of global warming:
“As temperatures rise, wood products obtained from warm settings will
increase, not decrease, and it is likely that the portion of global timber
supplies coming from the low latitudes will increase as the portion
harvested in temperate settings declines,” say Southgate and Sohngen.
–
* “Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry: It can be done
with free markets” By Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen in the Civil
Society Report on Climate Change,
http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_24.pdf
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The Civil Society Report on Climate Change recommends various policies if
governments are concerned about the implications of climate change on
agriculture and forestry:
1. Remove all subsidies, price-distorting taxes, and regulations from
agriculture, forestry and related sectors. Such policies hinder the
ability of individual actors to adjust to changing circumstances, and thus
stifle the benefits that free competition yields in terms of managing
scarce resources.
2. Enable private ownership, exchange and management of land and water,
without bureaucratic intervention.
3. Privatize government-owned land and water. The combination of (2) and
(3) would enable effective and efficient pricing of water and other scarce
resources, meaning that people and entrepreneurs have an incentive to use
those resources more efficiently.
4. Governments should not unduly restrict the deployment of new
technologies, for instance, genetically modified crops and trees. Such
technologies offer real potential for humanity to use its resources more
efficiently, enabling us to adapt more effectively.
*The Civil Society Report on Climate Change (ISBN 1-905041-15-2, 100 pp.)
published December 2007 by the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change
(www.csccc.info).