Circular Economy or Space Race?

Maybe the whole world speaks about Climate Change and COP21 (as I did three times last week at this blog) and the on-going negotiations (by the way, you can read an excellent article on how to speak like climate negotiator at Scientific American), but there are two other issues that should not be lost, especially for those of us who are involved in recycling and waste management business. And speaking frankly, those two issues are straightforward linked and provide completely different answers to the resource scarcity challenges we face.

The first one is known and pretty well discussed. The European Commission adopted a more or less ambitious CircularEconomy Package to stimulate Europe's transition towards a circular economy, which, according the EU officers, will boost global competitiveness, foster sustainable economic growth and generate new jobs. The proposed actions will contribute to "closing the loop" of product lifecycles through greater recycling and re-use, and bring benefits for both the environment and the economy. The plans will extract the maximum value and use from all raw materials, products and waste, fostering energy savings and reducing Green House Gas emissions. The proposals cover the full lifecycle: from production and consumption to waste management and the market for secondary raw materials. This transition will be supported financially by ESIF funding, €650 million from Horizon 2020 (the EU funding program for research and innovation), €5.5 billion from structural funds for waste management, and investments in the circular economy at national level.

This new package replaced the previous one that the European Commission withdrew on December 2014. Well, there are many things to discuss about this new package, but I will come back later on that. If someone wants to go further, have a look at the reactions of ISWA, CEWEP, EXPRA, FEAD and Municipal Waste Europe.

For me, it is really interesting to notice that while EU tries, faster or slower, more or less successfully, to set the scene for a less linear economy with much more closed loops, at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, we have a completely different signal. So let’s move to the second issue. On Monday, November 16, the USA Congress voted (and later president Obama signed) the ‘‘Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act of 2015’’.  According this bill, the President, acting through appropriate Federal agencies, shall:

‘‘(1) Facilitate commercial exploration for and commercial recovery of space resources by United States citizens;

‘‘(2) Discourage government barriers to the development in the United States of economically viable, safe, and stable industries for commercial exploration for and commercial recovery of space resources in manners consistent with the international obligations of the United States; and

‘‘(3) Promote the right of United States citizens to engage in commercial exploration for and commercial recovery of space resources free from harmful interference, in accordance with the international obligations of the United States and subject to authorization and continuing supervision by the Federal Government.”

Well, if there are still doubts about what it means, allow me to explain it by the words of Representative Lamar Smith, Texas Republican and chairman of the Science Committee who commented that “This bill encourages the private sector to launch rockets, take risks and shoot for the stars". Peter Diamandis, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of the company Planetary Resources, Inc., said, “A hundred years from now, humanity will look at this period in time as the point in which we were able to establish a permanent foothold in space. In history, there has never been a more rapid rate progress than right now.” According Peter Diamandis this is effectively the largest piece of resource legislature ever signed by a U.S. president. There are many concerns about this legislation piece, since international space law is considered as full of gaps and ambiguities and the right of any private company to utilize asteroid’s resources maybe easily be in doubt. However, the reasoning is very clear. Over the last 15 years, large populations of asteroids that come very close to the Earth have been discovered.  They are resource-rich, composed of valuable materials: fuels (hydrogen and oxygen), construction materials (nickel, iron, and cobalt), and platinum group metals (platinum, palladium, osmium, iridium) for strategic uses (like electronics). Peter Diamandis says that “…most of the large 250 meter to 1 kilometer rocks are worth trillions of dollars, and as such, they represent some of the most valuable real estate in our solar system. Even better, most of them are energetically easier to reach than the surface of the Moon.”

Well, clearly we have two completely different directions. EU tries to close the loops and optimize the use of limited resources in order to manage the upcoming resource scarcity and stimulate a circular economy. USA sets the scene for exploiting resources beyond Earth’s limits as a mean to pave the way for private companies to own any natural resources they manage to mine from asteroids. Truly, next time we will discuss on closed loops and circular economy, we have to ask “for which planet?”

 But besides those two different directions, the discussion on asteroids’ resources and the right of private companies to utilise them (actually the USA Congress bill says something very simple: first comes, first takes) creates an interesting question for circular economy too. The question is about the ownership of critical resources, in the framework of closed loops and circular economy. Prioritising access above ownership, as it is the main stream thinking in circular economy, we can’t overlook the fact that access will be finally given by the owners of critical materials. Let’s suppose that gradually we will develop, globally, almost completely closed loops for materials like mobile phones – then sooner or later, the companies that produce mobile phones (and take them back at the end of their life time) will control the loops of metals like copper, gold, lead, zinc, beryllium, tantalum or coltan. So what will happen around 2030, when the world’s reserves in copper are going to be depleted? Are we going to live in a world that critical resources will be fully controlled by big private sector multinational companies? If this is the case, then access to those materials will be also completely governed by those companies too. So, both the case of asteroids’ resources and the case of circular economy should be alarming – we need to open a broad discussion about the ownership of the critical resources and the rules that will define the access to them, independently of their location on Earth or in asteroids  - otherwise the problem will be solved according the jungle rules “first comes, first takes” and “the winner takes it all”.

COP21 & Climate Finance, investment or assistance?

As the discussions in Paris are getting hotter, some serious dilemmas are getting more obvious – unfortunately, we are still far away from having a common and targeted response to the questions posed. Let’s see the example of Bangladesh. With a population of 140 million, Bangladesh is one of the world's most populated countries. It is also one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Cyclones, floods and droughts have long been part of the country's history and they have intensified in recent years. As a result of the long exposure to these hazards, Bangladesh is a world leader in adaptation strategies but this has come with a heavy price tag. Bangladesh’s Ministry of Finance has been working with the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative to launch its first comprehensive climate change accounting system. The results of the financial review were really astonishing.

Bangladesh currently spends $1 billion a year, 6 to 7% of its annual budget, on climate change adaptation. This is roughly 20% of the World Bank’s forecasted adaptation budget for the next 35 years! But it was spent just for one year (but this is another story, there are a lot of questions about the reliability of those long-term forecasts and their documentation). The facts reveal that 75% of money spent on climate change in the country comes directly from the government, while 25% comes from international donors. There is one more shocking detail: the average European citizen emits as much carbon in 11 days as the average Bangladeshi in an entire year.  

Then, allow me to come back to my previous post on Climate Justice. We can’t put the burden for fighting climate change and funding adaptation strategies to the citizens of Bangladesh, we simply can’t ask them to pay for their protection from the pollution that the Western World has created – but this is exactly what’s happening now, in many cases, as the case of Bangladesh. If we don’t stop this practice, we simply erode any reliable agreement on Climate Change – as I have already written there is no real agreement without Climate Justice.

Ok, but someone can say that rich countries are committed to provide 100 billion dollars to developing countries by 2020. On December 2, the US special envoy for climate change Todd Stern had told a press conference that donor countries were “well on the way to beating that pledge”. But allow me to mention that I have some doubts about those 100 billion dollars. Initially, I doubt a little bit about if those money will be, finally, available and also, I have my questions regarding the time horizon in which they will be given. In addition “If today’s public adaptation finance were divided among the world’s 1.5 billion smallholder farmers in developing countries, they would get around $3 each year to cope with climate change – the price of a cup of coffee in many rich countries,” as Oxfam’s climate policy adviser Jan Kowalzig recently said.

But, unfortunately, I have a more important doubt. Are those 100 billion dollars going to be given as loans (which means actually as an investment that will provide a certain profit) or as grants? Is it going to be recognition that rich countries have to pay a big part of the bill they have created or it will be one more way to create long-term dependencies of the poor countries? Gambia’s environment minister, and representative of the least developed countries group, Pa Ousman Jarju was absolutely right when he said: “We cannot take loans to pay for climate change and take that as climate finance. For us it needs to be grant-based finance because we are not responsible for what is happening.” So, let’s hope he will be heard, but let’s think that if the rich countries follow the path of loans, any climate deal will be fragile, ineffective and it will create much more problems than it will resolve.

COP 21: No deal on Climate Change without Climate Justice

As the European Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete announced that EU is ready to work day and night for a right climate deal in Paris, it was really out of my control to combine and compare this statement with the EU’s statements and the actions taken for the refugees. "The EU will fight for a very ambitious deal. When you have 196 parties, the easy way out is to agree a minimalistic agreement," Miguel Arias Canete told reporters and he continued "We will work day and night to have an ambitious agreement that is fit for purpose". Clearly the 28 EU member states will be unified and supportive for a new climate deal.

Well, that’s fine but compare this statement with the delayed, completely uncoordinated, sometimes racist and finally ridiculous discussion about the EU refugees’ crisis. As The Guardian recently wrote “Months of European efforts to come up with common policies on mass immigration unraveled on Sunday when Germany led a “coalition of the willing” of nine EU countries taking in most refugees from the Middle East, splitting the union formally on the issues of mandatory refugee-sharing and funding. An unprecedented full EU summit with Turkey agreed a fragile pact aimed at stemming the flow of migrants to Europe via Turkey. But the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, frustrated by the resistance in Europe to her policies, also convened a separate mini-summit with seven other leaders to push a fast-track deal with the Turks and to press ahead with a new policy of taking in and sharing hundreds of thousands of refugees a year directly from Turkey”. So, we are ready for an ambitious climate deal but we are 100% unprepared and (many) unwilling to deal with the stream of refugees that are coming mainly from Syria – so how are we going to deal with the roughly 200 million climate refugees that are expected for the next 20-30 years?

The question is not theoretical at all. Between 2008 and 2013, some 140 million people were displaced by weather-related disasters; meanwhile, gradual displacements, such as those caused by droughts or sea-level rise, affected the lives of countless others. Today’s policies on climate change cast migration as an impending humanitarian catastrophe and as a failure to adapt to changing environments back home. As a result, policies focus on reducing migration, commonly assuming that overwhelming flows of migrants from poor countries will be flooding industrialized countries. But many believe that climate migration is one of the most important ways for climate adaptation.

In the recent report State of the World 2015, it is clear that there are two policy options for climate refugees. The first is to provide migration opportunities for the most vulnerable populations, including improving access to resources, information, and networks to allow them to relocate. The second opportunity lies in adapting destinations, such as urban areas in developing countries, to host and integrate communities of migrants. One of the report’s contributors, Francois Gemenne commented that “The paramount goal of policy responses should be to enable people’s right to choose which adaptation strategy is best suited for their needs. This implies that people should be entitled with both the right to stay and the right to choose.” He also noted “Current adaptation policies tend to focus on the right to stay. Today, governments are aiming to reduce the number of people who are forced to migrate, ignoring those who might in fact prefer to leave but are forced to stay against their will or ability. Extending the migration options of populations…would require a broader development agenda.” Clearly this is a key – issue of the emerging movement for Climate Justice. There are many different definitions of Climate Justice but I prefer this one, as the Global JusticeEcology Project proposed it.

Climate Justice is “The historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialized countries of the Global North. Even though the primary responsibility of the North to reduce emissions has been recognized in the UN Climate Convention, the production and consumption habits of industrialized countries like the United States continue to threaten the survival of humanity and biodiversity globally. It is imperative that the North urgently shifts to a low carbon economy. At the same time, in order to avoid the damaging carbon intensive model of industrialization, countries of the Global South are entitled to resources and technology to make a transition to a low-carbon economy that does not continue to subject them to crushing poverty. Indigenous Peoples, peasant communities, fisherfolk, and especially women in these communities, have been able to live harmoniously and sustainably with the Earth for millennia. They are now not only the most affected by climate change, but also the most affected by its false solutions, such as agrofuels, mega-dams, genetic modification, tree plantations and carbon-offset schemes”.

As India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed during the 2015 UN General Assembly 

"When we think of climate change, somewhere we try to safeguard our personal interests. But if we talk of climate justice, we spontaneously resolve to keep the poor safe during natural disasters".

 So let me finalize putting one more question. How is it possible to have a fair climate deal without Climate Justice? Is it possible, at all, to have a successful fight against climate change without a global, coordinated and fair response to the climate refugees? And how about considering climate migration as one of the key-ways for adaptation?

I will come back to those questions very soon, but until then think that we have to change our attitude: mass migration and massive refugees’ streams should not be considered as crisis anymore – they are the new normal reality in the planet we made!