President Obama ’still undecided’ about attending Copenhagen climate conference

Giles Whittell in Washington

The White House yesterday kept alive campaigners’ hopes that President Obama could travel to the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen despite the slim chances of a comprehensive deal being signed there.
Responding to a report in The Times that a presidential appearance was highly unlikely given the obstacles to a breakthrough at the meeting, an Administration spokesman insisted that “no decision has been made”.
Washington’s official stance on who will represent the US in Copenhagen was set out last week by Todd Stern, the Administration’s special envoy on climate change, who left open the possibility of a last-minute decision by the President to attend depending on what was achieved during and in the run-up to the conference.
“These meetings are always structured… to be held at ministerial level,” Mr Stern said in London. “We are not writing anything off or foreclosing possibilities but we treat this as a ministerial meeting in the first instance and if the kind of progress is made that would warrant the attendance of leaders then certainly we would consider that.”
Privately, experts both inside and outside the Administration have been downplaying the chances of a Denmark trip by the President on the basis that it would be too much of a political risk without a major deal in prospect or already agreed.
He was rebuffed by the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen when he flew there this month to try to win the 2016 Games for Chicago – a bid that had nothing to do with climate change but could all too easily be bracketed with it by his opponents.
No US President has attended a UN climate change conference before. A decision by Mr Obama to break with precedent and make an appearance was considered plausible while a deal to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol was a likely outcome of the December meeting.
The continued refusal by China and India to consider binding limits to their national carbon footprints, and delays in passing a US climate change bill, have all but ruled out such a deal. The headline achievements at Copenhagen are likely to be less sweeping and more practical, with negotiators focusing on specific issues such as energy efficiency, forest protection and reforestation, and renewable energy supplies.
The US delegation under Mr Stern will draw attention to the Administration’s achievements so far, including passage of a climate change bill in the House of Representatives and new car emissions standards.
Whether or not he goes to Copenhagen, Mr Obama “clearly is determined to revolutionise the US posture on climate change and energy,” Paul Bledsoe of the National Commission on Energy Policy said.

Civil engineers call for greater speed in UK carbon capture drive

Report from the Institution of Civil Engineers calls for the UK government to set the framework for industry to develop and implement carbon capture and storage technology
Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 October 2009 00.05 GMT
The government must move faster in implementing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology if the UK is to meet ambitious targets to cut its carbon emissions, according to civil engineers.
In a report published today by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), experts argue that the government must issue a national policy statement for the technology, in the same way that proposals for large-scale future energy projects in nuclear, coal and wind power are planned. This would reduce uncertainty among companies and investors while speeding up the implementation of the technology.
“Seventy per cent of the world’s electricity is generated by coal,” said Geoff French, the vice-president of ICE. “Coal and gas is going to stay an important part of [energy] generation but we desperately need to get CCS implemented and one of the things we desperately need is a clear and stable planning and licensing regime. What we want is for government to clearly set the framework and then leave it to industry to get on with it.”
Despite the recent government consultation on CCS which proposed building several clusters of projects and up to four demonstration plants some time in the next decade, French said there were still too many missing links for businesses. “Nobody’s going to do it unless they have to because inevitably it will increase the price of energy,” he said.
A national policy statement would include decisions on who takes long-term responsibility for the CO2 stored underground and who builds and maintains the network of pipelines required to move the gas to storage areas. “It’s not enough to say each generator of CO2 should put in their own pipework, that would be silly. We need somebody to take responsibility for providing that network,” he said.
Despite government rhetoric, the ICE said that there had not been enough action to cut emissions quickly enough to meet the target of an 80% reduction by 2050 and also to keep the UK at the forefront of the technology. “I don’t think having four demonstration projects by 2015 is what we should be doing – we should be having many many more. None of this is moving fast enough. I,” said French.
The UK government’s CCS competition will see up to four smaller demonstrations of the technology built and operational in the country some time in the middle of the next decade. Later this year, the European Union is expected to approve funding of a €180m award for a CCS demonstration project at Powerfuel’s proposed 900MW coal-fired power station in Hatfield, Yorkshire. The EU wants up to 12 commercial CCS projects to be demonstrated around the continent by 2015.
Commenting on the ICE report, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, Ed Miliband, said that Ernst and Young had recently voted the UK as the second most attractive country for CCS investment. “We firmly believe that the UK will be one of the first to develop clean coal technology. As the [ICE] points out, the UK has shown clear leadership on CCS. We have committed to building up to four CCS demonstration plants and plan a world leading dedicated financial support mechanism for CCS.”
He added: “The UK government has done more than any other to encourage the demonstration and deployment of CCS including: assuming long-term responsibility for storage sites, requiring all new combustion power stations be constructed carbon capture ready and proposing that any new coal plant must demonstrate CCS on a substantial part of its capacity.”

Obama plans big smart grid announcement

President Barack Obama will announce the largest investment of economic stimulus funds in clean energy during a visit to Florida, an Obama administration official said on Monday.

The announcement will involve the smart grid, which will help bring energy from clean domestic sources to consumers in 49 states and help build a strong and more reliable electricity grid, the official said.

Obama is to travel to Arcadia, Florida, on Tuesday to make the speech and take a tour of the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center.

Separately, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden plans on Tuesday to visit a closed General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware, where he is expected to announce that it will be reopened for the building of plug-in hybrid electric cars.

The California-based venture capital firm Fisker Automotive Inc has reached a deal to buy the former GM assembly plant and plans to use it for the manufacture of the cars, according to a source familiar with the details of Biden’s visit.

A White House statement on Biden’s visit said he planned a major announcement about the assembly plant’s future, but gave no other details. Delaware is Biden’s home state.

Source:
Reuters, “Obama plans big smart grid announcement“, accessed October 27, 2009

New nuclear energy will not need a taxpayers’ subsidy

Things have changed. We now face energy shortages and have to decarbonise
Vincent de Rivaz
The Guardian, Tuesday 27 October 2009

Your leader column claims that the “nuclear renaissance” does not make sense on financial grounds (Nuclear power: A bung by any other name, 19 October). However, there is a growing collation of support among the public, politicians of the main parties, industry, scientists and regulators, who recognise nuclear is needed as part of the answer to keep the lights on and tackle climate change.
This was demonstrated in the last two weeks alone by reports from organisations as diverse as the Committee on Climate Change, Ofgem and the CBI. Among this coalition there is recognition that new nuclear can play its part without subsidy from taxpayers.
As a company looking to develop four new reactors in the UK, we have never sought subsidies. Our plans for this much-needed investment are viable without a penny of taxpayers’ money.
Many views in last week’s coverage reflect an outdated analysis of environmental and energy challenges – from a time when we did not face energy shortages, volatile prices and an urgent need to decarbonise electricity. It is simply wrong to assert that “huge cost overruns” and “massive government bailouts” are inevitable. Claims that nuclear has been subsidised in the past, so must be in the future, fail to recognise that the world has moved on.
Britain faces a serious power shortage if it does not invest massively. At the same time we need to reform the energy market to produce energy which is secure and affordable, and low carbon.
The challenge is encapsulated in the UK’s target to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. That will not happen unless we decarbonise electricity generation over the next 20 years, and we will not do this without new nuclear. Recognising this, many environmentalists who were once opposed to new nuclear have recently come to support it.
However, in the current market structure there needs to be more long-term certainty to undertake largescale, 60 year-plus investments. We need a strong, robust carbon price. This is something that anyone who cares about the environment should embrace. It is not an “upfront inducement”, but a cost which will make it more expensive for polluters to go on behaving as they have done in the past. It is emphatically not a subsidy for low-carbon technology.
It is also untrue that developing new nuclear “will be a costlier and riskier journey than politicians are currently willing to countenance”. EDF believes there is an understanding of the costs, the risks and, above all, the need. The recent report from the prime minister’s energy envoy, Malcolm Wicks, suggested that we need to substantially increase the contribution from nuclear. This need is expected to be reaffirmed in the coming weeks in the government’s nuclear national policy statement. It is important that this is clear on the contribution required from nuclear.
Decarbonising electricity is a massive commitment that will create significant UK job opportunities. We must achieve it together. We are in a new world and new nuclear needs to be part of the mix.
Vincent de Rivaz is the chief executive of EDF Energy
comment@edfenergy.com

Barack Obama must attend Copenhagen climate summit, says Lord Stern

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

The world “desperately needs” President Obama to attend the United Nations meeting in Copenhagen if an effective deal on tackling climate change is to be reached this December, according to one of the world’s leading climate experts.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford threw down the gauntlet to the US Administration, claiming that American leadership was urgently required if this historic opportunity presented was not to be squandered. “President Obama should be there. His leadership would make an enormous difference. My message to President Obama would be: come to Copenhagen, come in a collaborative spirit and take this message to the American people.”
Lord Stern, who was chief economist at the World Bank and is the author of the landmark 2006 study on the economics of climate change, was speaking after The Times disclosed on Saturday that Mr Obama was unlikely to be there, adding to concerns that Copenhagen is unlikely to yield a workable agreement amid continued deadlock between the US, China and India over pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Lord Stern has a blunt message for the world’s politicians. “If we continue with business as usual we would be looking at temperature increases of 5 degrees centigrade by early next century,” he said.

“We have not seen those sort of conditions for 30million years. These kind of changes will have huge consequences — southern Europe is likely to be a desert; hundreds of millions of people will have to move. There will be severe global conflict.”
It is a crisis, he said, that “will come to us incredibly fast and the scale of the risk is huge”.
So far, he said, public opinion in this country and around the world had simply failed to grasp the significance of the December meeting, the intention of which is to prevent catastrophic climate change by curbing emissions enough to prevent a rise of more than 2 degrees centigrade in average global temperatures.
“People need to understand just how big this is,” he said, adding that consumers needed to face the fact that dealing with climate change would mean higher costs for a range of basic goods, including energy and food.
“Politicians and others should be honest about this. Some prices will go up. In the short run, you are going to see an increase in electricity bills as companies are regulated into using new technologies.” But, he said, society needed to treat this as an investment in the future.
“High carbon growth will kill itself . . . So we are setting up a process that will be extraordinarily beneficial in terms of energy security and biodiversity,” Lord Stern said. “These are benefits that go well beyond tackling climate change. If we get this right and introduce strong policies then we will kick off a process of industrial change that will be more profound than the industrial revolution.”
Lord Stern said that Copenhagen presented a unique opportunity for the world to break free from its catastrophic current trajectory. Despite scepticism about whether a deal could be struck, most governments now agreed on the basic parameters of an agreement, he said. At Copenhagen, the world needs to agree to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to 25 gigatonnes a year from 50 gigatonnes now. By 2050 emissions need to have fallen to below 20 gigatonnes per year.
Rich countries would need to commit themselves to spending $50billion (£31billion) a year by 2015 to help poor countries to deal with the costs of adapting to the climate change that was now inevitable. The US would need to provide perhaps $20billion of this total, he said, while the UK would need to spend $5billion a year — equivalent to £53 for every man, woman and child.
“In the next five years if the rich world can’t put $50billion on the table then there will be real questions about whether or not they are serious,” Lord Stern said. “I would see the US as giving at least $15billion to $20billion, but that is small beer in terms of the US economy. I believe President Obama understands this very well.”
Developing countries, led by China, which is the biggest carbon polluter in the world, and India, say that at Copenhagen the developed world needs to commit itself to cuts of at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst of climate change.
But in the US, which is the secondbiggest producer of emissions, the focus on healthcare reform has reduced the chances of a commitment on anything like that scale. The US Senate has not agreed a goal for 2020.
Although China and India are not expected to agree to achieve cuts in their emissions before 2020, persuading them to agree to longer-term reductions without US leadership will be tough.
Five to watch at Copenhagen
Lord Stern Bookish British academic from LSE, formerly chief economist at the World Bank, earned his place in global climate debate after his 2006 review on the economics of climate change
Rajendra Pachauri Indian chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, among most outspoken figures in climate debate
Al Gore Nobel Peace prize-winning former presidential candidate and without doubt the biggest star on global climate concern circuit thanks to his film An Inconvenient Truth
Yvo de Boer Dutch executive secretary of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who will be expected to pull deal together
Connie Hedegaard Danish Minister for Climate Change and Energy - will have the unenviable role of chairing the meeting.

Methane leakage runs up a $50bn bill

Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so when it’s leaking by the ton, it’s a $50bn problem. From Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
From Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 October 2009 12.20 GMT
Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so when it’s leaking by the ton, it’s a $50 billion problem. The New York Times described the phenomenon of methane leakage in a recent article which raised questions about the true costs of this waste.
The EPA estimates that 3 trillion cubic feet of the invisible gas unintentionally escape into the atmosphere each year from patchy gas and oil wells, pipelines, and tanks. This accidental loss alone is equivalent to about half of the global warming power of all U.S. coal power plants emissions. That is the same climate impact of a quarter billion cars.
Roger Peilke Jr., professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, does an admirable job of estimating the commercial value cost of leaking methane at $24 billion. But there is more to the story—the cost to society of this methane leakage adds up to a much higher number.
Methane, like CO2, carries a social cost which must be accounted for—each ton emitted into the atmosphere exacts a toll. Weather variability will threaten crops; rising sea levels will submerge coastal lands; insurance premiums will rise as more homes are at risk of flooding and fires. As global warming worsens, these costs will become sharper, causing economic pain across the globe. Though no one benefits from leaking methane, we all pay for its effect on our climate.
Recently, the Department of Energy used a conservative estimate, $19, to price out the cost to society of a ton of CO2 emissions. Knowing that, and the fact that methane is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide, we can do some simple multiplication and determine that the social cost of leaky methane hovers around $29 billion annually. This is in addition to Professor Peilke’s commercial value lost, bringing the grand total to over $50 billion.
The irony here is—no one benefits from these leaks. Companies certainly don’t profit from the lost revenue. So if no one benefits, and we will be charged $50 billion for the privilege, why not enforce monitoring and sealing of these leaks?
As the Times noted, next year Japan will release data from the Gosat satellite which will most likely show hot spots of methane gas pouring into the skies from the worst offenders: Russia, the United States, Ukraine, and Mexico. We’ll be confronted with the images of our total emissions of this global warming gas, and it’s probably not a pretty picture. Leaky methane is only part of the overall problem, but the cost-benefit analysis on fixing it is a no-brainer.
There is also a larger lesson to be learned here: our actions have consequences, and some cost more money than others. If we really want to spew methane into the atmosphere in a wasteful and unnecessary way, we must be prepared to pay the price—in this case, over $50 billion. And if we want to continue to rely on dirty coal power plants to generate our electricity, we must be prepared to pay that bill as well—one that is at least $120 billion per year (not even including climate change costs). And if we refuse to invest in controls on our heat-trapping emissions, then we should realize we are likely making a bad bet, one that could wreak havoc on American and global economies.

People may have to go vegetarian to save planet says Lord Stern

Meat wastes water, creates greenhouse gases and could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving
David Batty and David Adam
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 October 2009 15.37 GMT
Eating meat could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving because of the impact it has on global warming, according to a senior authority on climate change.
Lord Stern of Brentford, former adviser to the government on the economics of climate change, said people will have to consider turning vegetarian to help reduce global carbon emissions.
“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better,” Stern said.
Farmed ruminant animals, including cattle and sheep, are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of “man-made” methane emissions worldwide.
Stern, whose 2006 Stern Review warned that countries needed to spend 1% of their GDP to stop greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels, said a successful deal at the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December would massively increase the cost of producing meat.
People’s concerns about climate change would lead to meat eating becoming unacceptable, he predicted.
“I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he told the Times. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”
Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank and now IG Patel Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, also warned that helping developing countries to cope with the adverse effects of global warming would cost British taxpayers about £3bn a year by 2015.
Meanwhile, an international effort to ensure that biofuel used by Britain and other western countries to tackle global warming does not damage the environment is on the brink of collapse.
The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an initiative of companies and campaigners, is divided over the need to control carbon emissions and could break up within days, insiders say.
Ministers last year introduced a demand on fuel suppliers to replace 2.5% of petrol and diesel sold with biofuel, at least 8% of which is currently palm oil.
The RSPO was established to set and enforce environmental standards for palm oil production, but has run into trouble after palm plantation companies in Indonesia and Malaysia blocked efforts to curb their greenhouse gas emissions.
“If this issue is not resolved and greenhouse gas emissions are not included in the standard, then I don’t see how the RSPO can continue to act as a certifying body,” said Marcus Silvius of environment group Wetlands International, who sits on the RSPO’s working group on greenhouse gases.

‘Freezer plan’ bid to save coral

The prospects of saving the world’s coral reefs now appear so bleak that plans are being made to freeze samples to preserve them for the future.

A meeting in Denmark took evidence from researchers that most coral reefs will not survive even if tough regulations on greenhouse gases are put in place.

Scientists proposed storing samples of coral species in liquid nitrogen. That will allow them to be reintroduced to the seas in the future if global temperatures can be stabilized.

Legislators from 16 major economies have been meeting in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, to try to agree the way forward on climate change.
The meeting has been organized by the Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment (Globe).

Losing the Fight

One of the issues they have been considering is what to do with coral reefs, which make up less than a quarter of 1% of the ocean’s floor. Despite their small coverage, the reefs are a key source of food, income and coastal protection for around 500 million people worldwide.

At this meeting, politicians and scientists acknowledged that global emissions of carbon dioxide are rising so fast that we are losing the fight to save coral and the world must develop an alternative plan. Freezing samples for the future may be a necessary option.

”Well it’s the last ditch effort to save biodiversity from the reefs which are extremely diverse systems,” said Simon Harding from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

“It would take other work to try and reconstruct the reef so that you can start the process of building up a reef again,” he said.

“That is something that needs to be looked at in detail, but we can definitely store the species and save them in that way.”

According to recent research, one of the world’s most important concentrations of coral - the so-called Coral Triangle in South East Asia - could be destroyed by climate change before the end of this century with significant impacts on food security and livelihoods.

Source:
BBC News, “‘Freezer plan’ bid to save coral“, accessed October 27, 2009

Australia can reach political deal on carbon -govt

Reuters, Tuesday October 27 2009
* Australia govt says carbon compromise would be good
* Farm and coal sectors at the heart of political talks
* Opposition says talks satisfactory (Adds quotes from minister, opposition; background)
By Bruce Hextall
GOLD COAST, Australia, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The Australian government on Tuesday talked up the prospects of a compromise deal on its hotly contested plan to cut carbon emissions, citing the farm and coal sectors as key issues in political talks.
Australia’s plan for the world’s most comprehensive emissions trading scheme (ETS), scheduled to start July 2011, have been stalled with a hostile Senate refusing to pass the ETS laws.
The laws are due for a second vote in November, with the government making veiled threats that it will call a snap election on the issue if rejected again.
But deputy climate change minister Greg Combet used more conciliatory rhetoric at a carbon-trading conference on Tuesday, talking more of compromise than brinkmanship.
“I think it would be a positive public policy outcome were the government able to reach a good faith negotiation process and accommodation with the opposition,” Combet said.
“It is conceivable that the government can reach an accommodation with the (opposition) Liberal Party but that remains to be seen,” he added.
Combet’s comments suggest the ETS laws may pass through parliament next month, though with amendments in some industry sectors such as agriculture and coal, both major emiters.
Opposition parties, whose conservative constituency represents farmers, want agriculture exempt from the ETS and more compensation for emissions-intensive export industries such as aluminium, cement and coal mining.
The opposition also sounded on Tuesday as if an agreement was possible. “Those negotiations are going along very satisfactorily and we expect they will go on into next week,” Ian MacFarlane, opposition climate change negotiator, told reporters in Canberra.
Combet said the question of whether to exclude agriculture or include it at a later date, remained an issue being negotiated.
“This is an issue that is subject to discussions at the moment,” he said. Under the government’s scheme a decision whether to include agriculture from 2015 would be made in 2013.
The debate is being closely watched overseas ahead of December global climate talks in Copenhagen, aimed at reaching agreement on a post-Kyoto deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Australia must pass its ETS laws before Copenhagen to show leadership at Copenhagen.
Australia’s ETS aims to curb emissions by 5 percent by 2020, or by up to 25 percent if there is a deal at Copenhagen. The opposition supports a 5 percent reduction target.
The Australian scheme will cover 75 percent of Australian emissions from 1,000 of the biggest companies and be the second domestic trading platform outside of Europe. Companies will need a permit for every tonne of carbon they emit.
The government plans to give the biggest polluting companies up to 95 percent of permits free in the early years of the scheme, with 66 percent of permits free to industries such as cement and aluminium smelters.
Australia produces about 1.5 percent of global emissions. But it is the world’s biggest coal exporter and one of the highest per-capita emitters due to reliance on coal for 80 percent of electricity. (Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Ethiopia Makes Appeal For Emergency Aid Amid Drought

Ethiopia Makes Appeal for Emergency Aid Amid Drought

U.S.-backed regime faces worsening crisis ahead of 2010 elections

by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
News Analysis

After months of food deficits, deepening political problems domestically and regionally, within the broader context of the world economic crisis, the Ethiopian government has made a request to aid agencies and foreign states for $175 million in assistance to address the pressing needs of 6.2 million people living in the country. The Horn of Africa nation of 83 million has experienced drought for several years along with other countries in the region such as Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Djibouti.

This crisis in Ethiopia comes at a time when the United States-backed government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is making preparations for the upcoming 2010 elections. The government has also been involved in military operations in neighboring Somalia where it invaded during late 2006 and remained until January 2009.

Recent reports indicate that the Ethiopian military is carrying out periodic incursions into central Somalia in response to advances by the Islamic resistance movements which control large areas of the country. In recent months the lack of economic resources being allocated to domestic expenditures has created a grave humanitarian crisis that could threaten famine.

Ethiopia’s State Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mitiku Kassa, said recently that “As a result, the number of people needing emergency assistance during the period Oct-Dec. 2009 has increased to 6.2 million from 4.9 million at the beginning of the year.” (Reuters, October 22) The official indicated that the request included nearly 160,000 tons of food in addition to nonfood assistance such as health and sanitation supplies as well as support for agricultural and livestock production.

A spokesman for the international aid agency Oxfam, Paul Smith-Lomas, said that “This is the worst drought in 10 years. This is a bad year within a number of bad years.”

A report on the Ethiopian situation in the Wall Street Journal stated that “Most aid is expected to come from Washington, according to U.S. and Ethiopian officials. The U.S. represents between 70% and 80% of all food aid to the country, which was an ally in the previous U.S. administration’s war on terror and its efforts to stabilize neighboring Somalia.” (WSJ, October 23)

The U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia has been engaged in discussions with the government around the type and volume of assistance. Embassy spokesman Michael Gonzales said in response to the Ethiopian appeal for aid that “We perceive that as a request to the U.S. government.” (WSJ, October 23)

Gonzales claimed that the first shipment of food was already en route to Ethiopia and would arrive within weeks. The U.S. Embassy spokesman declined to give specific figures related to the assistance but stated that the actual numbers would be released very soon.

In addition to increased assistance from the Obama administration, the World Bank, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., announced on October 24 that it is proving grants totaling $480 million to the Ethiopian government.

“The board of directors approved US$350 million grant and a US$130 million credit to Ethiopia to support an innovative program that is keeping millions of families out of extreme poverty and helping them to achieve food security,” the World Bank said in a statement.

Crisis Must Be Viewed Within Regional and Global Context

The current situation in Ethiopia must be viewed within the broader regional political and social dilemma facing Africa and the overall world economic crisis that has thrust hundreds of millions of people further into poverty and uncertainty. With specific reference to Ethiopia, its close relationship with successive U.S. administrations has served to place the country as a military outpost for imperialism in the Horn of Africa.

In the aftermath of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December 2006, the country and region was driven into a worsening humanitarian disaster. Over four million people have been displaced inside and outside of Somalia. In the breakaway autonomous Republic of Somaliland, there is an ever rising tide of immigrants fleeing the fighting inside both Somalia and Ethiopia.

In a recent report published by the Inter-regional Information Network (IRIN), “Immigration officials in the self-declared republic of Somaliland have expressed concern over the increase in the number of illegal Ethiopian migrants entering the region, with claims of up to 90 people are arriving daily, against 50 in 2008.” (IRIN, October 23)

This article goes on to state that “An immigration official, who requested anonymity, said most of those arriving in Somaliland were asylum-seekers from the Oromiya region of Ethiopia. Others transit through Somaliland en route to the Arabian Peninsula.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that there are 1,600 Ethiopian refugees in Somaliland and some 14,000 asylum-seekers. A spokesman for the Horn of Africa Human Rights Organization, which is based in Hargeisa, Somaliland, said that: “UNHCR has granted refugee status to only 1,500, but it is estimated that there are thousands of Ethiopians in Somaliland.”

In addition to Somaliland, there are thousands of Ethiopians and Somalis who have fled to across the Red Sea to Yemen where many are subjected to forced labor and imprisonment. A recently issued press release from the Horn of Africa League for Human Rights (HRLHA) on October 20 claims that “Hundreds of Oromos and Somalis from Ethiopia and Somalia, who fled their respective countries due to political unrest, are currently facing very harsh situations, including forced labor and extrajudicial imprisonment in Yemen.”

A HRLHA representative in San’a, Yemen is quoted in the press release as saying “hundreds of Oromo and Somali refugees, who were apprehended at different times from different places in Yemen on various allegations, are currently being held in Jawazata prison.

“The HRLHA representative, who managed to talk to imprisoned refugees themselves and take the list of some of those refugees, has learnt that the Oromo refugees, in particular, were arrested from around the UNHCR office in San’a, where they usually spent their day times in order to hear or see if there were any changes to their asylum cases. The allegation was that they protested against attempts of deportation by the Yemeni government, as their cases of asylum claims and re-settlement in a third country were pending.” (HRLHA Press Release, No. 20, October 20, 2009)

At the same time, neighboring Djibouti has a U.S. military base which serves as the launching pad for the so-called “war on terrorism” in the Horn of Africa. The government in Djibouti has targeted the small Red Sea nation of Eritrea by accusing the country of training resistance movements throughout the region.

Djibouti, a former French colony, also hosts France’s largest military base on the African continent. The country of only 800,000 people is the main route to the sea for the landlocked nation of Ethiopia.

The port in Djibouti is utilized by many foreign naval vessels which travel the Gulf of Aden to purportedly fight piracy in the region. The foreign minister repeated claims that Eritrea is supporting al-Shabaab, one of the Islamic resistance movements fighting the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) based in Mogadishu, Somalia. The U.S. government alleges that al-Shabaab and the Hizbul Islam organizations fighting the TFG are affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssef told journalists in Cairo recently after talks with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa that “Eritrea is exporting chaos. Exporting chaos has become routine in Eritrea . They have started training militias and arming them to carry out sabotage in Djibouti, just as they support elements in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.” (Reuters, October 25)

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki denied that his government was supporting resistance groups in Somalia and Ethiopia. Isaias charged that the internal problems in Somalia derive from the interference of neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya, all of which are heavily backed by the United States.

According to Reuters, “The U.N. Security Council, the African Union and Washington have all warned Asmara (Eritrea’s capital) against destabilizing Somalia, and a move to impose sanctions has gathered speed, with Britain joining a chorus of states willing to punish Eritrea.” (Reuters, October 25)

Finding Long Term Solutions to the Food Deficits

Even though the United States government has pledged to provide the overwhelming majority of assistance to Ethiopia in the current period, aid organizations have begun to question the policy of responding to crisis situations without addressing the underlying causes of food deficits and famine.

Penny Lawrence, the Oxfam International Aid Director stated in a recent report that “We cannot make the rains come, but there is much more that we can do to break the cycle of drought-driven disaster in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Food aid offers temporary relief and has kept people alive in countless situations, but does not tackle the underlying causes that continue to make people vulnerable to disaster year after year.” (Band Aids and Beyond, October 22)

Another aid agency, ActionAid, also issued a report which dealt with the same problem of crisis-driven humanitarian assistance in Africa. The report entitled “Who’s Really Fighting Hunger,” questioned why over one billion people in the world today are hungry.

The report read in part that “Almost a third of the world’s children are growing up malnourished. This is perhaps one of the most shameful achievements of recent history, since there is no good reason for anyone to go hungry in today’s world.”

ActionAid continues in the report by saying “hunger begins with inequality—between men and women, and between rich and poor. It grows because of perverse policies that treat food purely as a commodity, not a right. It is because of these policies that most developing countries no longer grow enough to feed themselves, and that their farmers are among the hungriest and poorest people in the world. Meanwhile, the rich world battles obesity.”

Moreover, the nature of agricultural production and food distribution in developing countries must be examined in order to get a clearer picture of why these problems reoccur on a periodic basis.

As a result of the legacy of colonialism and neo-colonialism, agricultural production in many African countries is geared towards export to western industrialized states. The export of agricultural crops and raw materials to the industrialized and imperialist nations is the major source of foreign exchange or what is known as “hard currency.”

With the decline in commodity prices and the fluctuations in demand for exports, the developing states are dependent upon the economic conditions in the imperialist states and the terms of trade set by the international organizations that are dominated by the West. Consequently, since the advent of the economic crisis in the western industrialized states, the impact on developing countries has been quite severe as it relates to the decline in foreign exchange earnings as well as the overall gross domestic product.

Subsistence farming is also difficult for independent producers due to the lack of credit to acquire seeds, livestock and implements. When governments are being influenced by the economic interests and foreign policy imperatives of the imperialist states, it is almost impossible for them to focus on the concrete needs of their own people, particularly the workers and farmers.

In Ethiopia during 1973-74, famine struck large sections of the country. In February 1974, mass unrests developed in the capital of Addis Ababa and spread throughout the country. Workers and students engaged in general strikes and rebellions which eventually led to the overthrow of the monarchy of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie. The monarchy had been dominant in Ethiopia for centuries and its reign on power was swept away in a matter of months.

The country instituted massive and unprecedented land reform policies that empowered workers and farmers in the rural areas of the country. The mass struggles of the 1970s were led by various leftist parties and mass organizations. However, since there was no unified revolutionary front that could seize power in its own name, a provisional military council took control and instituted the socialist-oriented reforms.

When the Workers Party of Ethiopia was formed in mid-1980s, the country was engulfed with internal and regional conflicts. Changing policies within the Soviet Union, which had provided assistance to the Ethiopian revolution along with Cuba, hampered the ability of the country to maintain a foreign policy independent of the United States.

Drought and famine struck in 1984-85 and was utilized for propaganda purposes by the United States and British imperialists. The Soviet Union worked with the Ethiopian government at the time to re-locate thousands of people from drought affected areas to other regions of the country. Nonetheless, by the beginning of the 1990s, the Soviet Union was in decline and the Worker’s Party government collapsed in 1991.

Since the early 1990s, the Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi has been closely allied with the United States and western imperialism. The federal government that is currently controlled by the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front presides over what Alemayehu G. Mariam described in a recent article as “an extensive security and media network entirely in its own interests. Ethiopia’s 2010 elections appear likely to be far from ‘free and fair.” (Pambazuka News, October 22)

The experience of the last two decades in Ethiopia illustrates the failure of capitalist agricultural policies which have not empowered the workers and farmers and have made the country even more dependent on assistance from U.S. imperialism. What is needed is a break with U.S. imperialist-controlled domestic and foreign policy and the creation of a government that is committed to the interests of the workers and farmers of Ethiopia and the development of fraternal relations with the peoples throughout the Horn of Africa region.