OECD / OSCE
<p>=</p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/heres-why-climate-change-has-become-a-lightning-rod-for-business-and-finance-leaders-report/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/heres-why-climate-change-has-become-a-lightning-rod-for-business-and-finance-leaders-report/</font></a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Here’s why climate change has become a ‘lightning rod for business and finance leaders’: report</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson January 24, 2020</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Countless articles have focused on the environmental and safety aspects of climate change, especially in liberal and progressive publications. But Dino Rabouin and Amy Harder, in an article published by Axios on January 24, discuss and analyze climate change from a business standpoint — explaining that climate change has “suddenly become a lightning rod for business and finance leaders around the world.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Drawing on data Axios received from the High Lantern Group, Rabouin and Harder report that climate change “generated the highest degree of public pressure on corporations by activists, policymakers and journalists” in 2019 — which was a 77% increase from 2018.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">High Lantern’s data, according to Rabouin and Harder, “includes analysis of more than 6 million tweets.” Rob Gluck, managing partner for High Lantern, notes that “the vast majority of relevant public actors” are “using (Twitter) to communicate.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“In recent months,” Rabouin and Harder observe, “the world’s foremost economic institutions have advocated for policies cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This trend is driven by a confluence of factors, including more extreme weather and greater public pressure.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Institutions that have been discussing climate change, Rabouin and Harder point out, include </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“major central banks” as well as the</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> International Monetary Fund (IMF), the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In a research paper released on January 20, BIS warned that climate change could cause “potentially extremely financially disruptive events that could be behind the next systemic financial crisis.”</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to BIS, “This complex collective action problem requires coordinating actions among many players, including governments, the private sector, civil society and the international community.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">IMF head Kristalina Georgieva, in a speech last week, asserted that the IMF “ought to begin to build standards for disclosure of climate risks” — and that includes “mandatory disclosure standards.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Journalist Josh Holland addressed climate change’s financial costs in a September 2019 article for The Nation, stressing that a Green New Deal wouldn’t be nearly as costly as the effects of climate change. Holland noted that in a 2015 report, the Economist Intelligence Unit warned that “the asset management industry — and thus the wider community of investors of all sizes — is facing the prospect of significant losses from the effects of climate change.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rabouin and Harder also note that “<b>BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, says it’s making climate change a pillar of its investment strategy, and even Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase</b> are calling for a price on carbon emissions.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Axios reporters emphasize, however, that “all this rhetoric should be scrutinized carefully and often” because “talking about supporting policies addressing climate change is quite different from actually doing something about it.”</b></font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disenfranchise</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greg Abbott, the Republican Attorney General of Texas, <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/24/51604.htm" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">issued a stern warning</a> this week to members of an international delegation expected to be on hand to monitor voting at polling places around the country on Election Day.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a <a href="https://www.oag.state.tx.us/newspubs/releases/2012/102312abbot_letter.pdf" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">letter</a> to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which works to ensure the integrity of elections, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_Co-operation_in_Europe" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">among other tasks</a>, Abbott warned the diplomatic poll-watchers that their involvement in U.S. elections could have strong legal repercussions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It may be a criminal offense for OSCE's representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance," </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">he writes. "Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE's representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law." Such a restriction makes election monitoring highly difficult.</span></font></p><div id="modulous_mid_article" class="ad_spot" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The OSCE <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/263141-international-monitors-at-polling-places-draw-criticism-from-voter-fraud-group" target="hplink" style="line-height: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">announced earlier this month</a> that it would send 44 observers to polling places around the country on Election Day in order to monitor possible disputes that could arise in the voting process. The move came in response to a petition from liberal-leaning voting rights groups, including the NAACP and ACLU, that suggested the OSCE's presence could help combat what they fear will be a concerted effort to suppress votes from supporters of President Barack Obama.</font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Concerns among Democrats have mounted in the wake of reports that right-leaning groups, such as the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/true-the-vote-target-for-n_1943329.html" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tea Party-aligned True The Vote</a>, had plans to dispatch armies of poll-watchers seeking to root out invalid votes. Opponents warn that the volunteer "poll challengers" will engage in intimidation of legitimate minority voters who tend to vote Democratic.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his letter, Abbott takes issue with the OSCE's supposed opposition to voter ID laws, which won't be in place in Texas after being <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/texas-voter-id-law_n_1843331.html" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">rejected by a federal court</a>, and adds that the group's efforts at polling places are neither needed nor acceptable.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If OSCE members want to learn more about our election processes so they can improve their own democratic systems, we welcome the opportunity to discuss the measures Texas has implemented to protect the integrity of elections," he writes. "However, groups and individuals from outside the United States are not allowed to influence or interfere with the election process in Texas. This State has robust election laws that were carefully crafted to protect the integrity of our election system. All persons -- including persons connected with OSCE -- are required to comply with these laws."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Abbott's opposition is consistent with a growing trend of conservative distrust toward the United Nations and other international organizations. On Tuesday, Florida GOP Senate candidate <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/connie-mack-un-united-nations_n_2008694.html" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Connie Mack said</a> that the U.N. should be defunded and "kicked off of American soil." In a statement, Mack <a href="http://www.conniemack.com/mack-united-nations-should-be-prohibited-from-u-s-elections-monitoring/" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">appeared to suggest</a> that the broader U.N., and therefore presumably the OSCE as well, was driven by nefarious motives.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The very idea that the United Nations -- the world body dedicated to diminishing America’s role in the world -- would be allowed, if not encouraged, to install foreigners sympathetic to the likes of Castro, Chavez, Ahmadinejad and Putin to oversee our elections is nothing short of disgusting," he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">UPDATE: 3:10 p.m. EST</strong> -- Ambassador Janez Lenarčič, director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), <a href="http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/96639" target="hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">responded in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton</a>, saying that Abbott's threat put the state of Texas at odds with an agreement between the body and state authorities.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable,” Lenarčič said. “The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lenarčič took issue with insinuations that officials in the group would meddle with elections, reiterating that they were bound by national laws and regulations, as well as their own strict code of conduct.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Our observers are required to remain strictly impartial and not to intervene in the voting process in any way,” Lenarčič said. “They are in the United States to observe these elections, not to interfere in them.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A release relaying Lenarčič's comments pointed out that the OSCE has observed five previous U.S. elections since 2002, all without incident.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CORRECTION: </strong>This article originally reported that the OSCE was created by the United Nations. While the OSCE and UN <a href="http://www.osce.org/ec/43240" target="_hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">partner on some operations, </a>they are independent organizations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="line-height: 21px;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/greg-abbott-texas-un-elections_n_2010081.html</span></font></p><p>
</p><p>===</p><p>LONDON, Oct 9 (Reuters) – The world must eliminate emissions from
burning fossil fuels in the second half of this century to lower the
economic cost of climate change, the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) said on Wednesday.
Leading economist and climate change expert Nicholas Stern has said
that investment equivalent to 2 percent of global gross domestic product
a year is needed to limit and adapt to climate change.
OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria acknowledged that climate change
had serious economic consequences that could not be ignored.
He said simply reducing emissions would not be enough to lower the
economic costs because carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere.
Sixty percent of every tonne of CO2 emitted now will still be in the
atmosphere 20 years from now and 45 percent 100 years from now, he said,
citing a scientific report this year from several universities and
research centres around the world.
“We need to achieve zero emissions from fossil fuel sources by the
second half of the century,” Gurria told reporters at a briefing in
London.
“That doesn’t mean by 2050 exactly but it means by that time we need to be pretty much on the way to achieving it,” he said.
“This is worse than a debt because there is no bailout and if you
have two or three good budget years a debt can be reduced, but emissions
hang around for 100 years,” he said.
He said there needed to be a “big, fat price on carbon” – either
through carbon taxes of emissions trading schemes which send out
consistent and clear price signals.
Last month, leading climate scientists said the world was set to
experience more heatwaves, floods and droughts as greenhouse gas
emissions built up in the atmosphere.
The OECD said Hurricane Sandy in the United States last year was
estimated to have cost around $75 billion in damage and economic losses
and that it expects the global costs of flood losses to rise to over $50
billion a year by 2050.
“ACHIEVABLE”
Many countries already have national policies in place to lower
emissions over the next decade or more. Governments are also working to
get a global deal to cut emissions signed by 2015, to come into force by
2020.
However, a lot more progress needed to be made to cut emissions immediately, not after 2020, Gurria said.
According to the International Energy Agency, two-thirds of world
electricity generation comes from fossil fuels and 95 percent of energy
consumed by transport is from fossil fuels.
In 2012, the world’s top 200 listed oil, gas and mining companies
spent $674 billion on finding and developing new sources of oil and gas,
the OECD said.
Achieving zero emissions from fossil fuel sources is achievable but current policies need to be changed, Gurria said.
<font color="#FF0000"><b>Fossil fuel subsidies, totalling $523 billion in 2011,</b></font> need to be reviewed and government policies made more consistent.
Even though a shift in some countries to natural gas which emits less
carbon dioxide than coal – namely a shale gas boom in the United States
– is “good news”, it should not be the end of efforts, Gurria said.
“Any new fossil resources brought to market – conventional or
unconventional – risk taking us further away from the trajectory we need
to be on,” he said.
Governments should also not presume carbon capture and storage
technology, which buries and traps CO2 underground, will be a silver
bullet, because it is as yet unproven on commercial scale, Gurria said.
The OECD, an organisation of 34 member nations which aims to promote
economic progress, plans to analyse each country’s efforts to cut
emissions in its annual economic surveys.</p>