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Cows graze in a deforested pasture on the Yari plains, in Caqueta, Colombia March 3, 2021. Picture taken March 3, 2021.
Deforestation surges in Colombia – and you’ll never guess why
For years, Colombian rebels and narcos perfected the art of kidnapping people for ransom – now they are holding the rainforest hostage.
New figures show that after declining for many years, deforestation in the Andean country has shot up 40% in each of the last two quarters.
The culprit? A major armed group that controls vast swathes of the jungle rescinded an earlier order to protect the vital forest resource. The “Estado Mayor Central,” as the guerilla command is known, is now using the rainforest as a bargaining chip in peace talks with the government, by allowing, or forcing, local farmers to clear trees for cattle or coca farms.
By way of background: In 2016, the government signed a peace accord that ended decades of war with the FARC, the largest of various Marxist and narcotrafficking groups active in the country. But as those rebels demobilized, other violent groups filled the vacuum.
President Gustavo Petro, the country’s first leftist president (himself a former guerrilla), pledged during his 2022 campaign to reduce chronic violence by negotiating a “Total Peace” with all armed groups. He also committed himself to a pro-environment agenda. Suddenly, those are two branches of a common problem.
An aerial view shows trees as the sun rises at the Amazon rainforest in Manaus, Amazonas State, Brazil.
Lula celebrates big drop in deforestation
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell 66% in August compared to the same month last year – a huge achievement reflecting the ambitious climate goals of President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. What’s more, cumulative deforestation for the first eight months of 2023 was down 48%.
Lula has staked much of his political capital on environmental priorities, promising to end deforestation by 2030. His administration is using satellites to monitor the forest and sending in police to disrupt illegal logging. The fact that the reductions have come during the Amazonian dry season, when illegal loggers and miners usually take advantage of the weather to push their operations into high gear, is all the more impressive.
Lula also officially recognized two indigenous territories within the forest, granting their inhabitants legal protections from encroachment. Brazil’s indigenous peoples are considered particularly effective custodians of the environment and figure prominently in Lula’s policies.
The bigger, bleaker picture. These efforts, for all their success, are facing headwinds. In June, Brazil’s opposition-controlled legislature rolled back the powers of the environmental and indigenous affairs ministries, and in August, the Senate passed legislation restricting the ability of indigenous people to make land claims, though it faces a Supreme Court challenge.
When leaders from all eight countries that share the Amazon gathered last month, they were able to create a notional alliance to combat deforestation — but they did not agree on goals.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General António Guterres says the “climate breakdown has begun” amid the hottest summer on record, devastating wildfires in the northern hemisphere, collapsing Arctic sea ice, and surging ocean temperatures.
Hard Numbers: No Aussie tech for China, young Bosnians want out, US fossil fuel auction, EU deforestation import ban
63: Australia will prevent Chinese companies from importing or investing in a group of 63 technologies that Canberra considers critical to its national interest. The off-limits areas include 5G, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and quantum computing.
47: Nearly half (47 percent) of young Bosnians want to leave the country, according to a new UNFPA poll. Bosnia is currently mired in its worst political crisis since the end of the bloody Yugoslav civil, as the country's ethnic Serb enclave threatens to secede.
2,700: The US government auctioned on Wednesday almost 2,700 square miles of oil and gas leases in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental groups have blasted the bidding of fossil fuels, which happened after Republican-led US states sued to lift an earlier Biden administration freeze on federal oil and gas sales.
6: The EU is looking to ban imports into its single market of six commodities — beef, cacao, coffee, soy, palm oil, and timber — if they are produced in areas at risk of deforestation. This could spell trouble for countries like Brazil, which exports a lot of beef to the bloc and has a big Amazon fire problem.
Why CIA director Bill Burns visited Moscow; COP26 limited results
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Europe:
What was the CIA director doing in Moscow the other day?
I think it was an attempt to bring more stability to the long-term relationship between the US and Russia. That does not hide that there are serious concern when it comes to the Russian intention versus Ukraine. And you never know, you might have a crisis there, if not any day, then at any time. But of course, stability and the long-term relationship is good anyhow.
What's the nature of the different agreements that are concluded at the COP26 deliberations in Glasgow?
Well, there have been a number of them, minor, if you compare it to the big issue, but I mean, important in themselves. Deforestation is of course important. Methane gases to limit their exposure to the atmosphere, is of course extremely important, more coming. But it doesn't hide the fact that it seems to be very difficult to get progress on the real big issue. And that is more substantial reductions of fossil fuel in the major emitters of the world.
Leaders at COP26 pledge to end deforestation by 2030; US election day bets
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week with a look at world leaders' deforestation pledge, US election outlooks, and China's "zero COVID" policy.
World leaders are pledging to end deforestation by 2030. What are the updates on COP26?
Well, that is one of the wins. It's the same pledge, but more countries are on board. The Russians, the Chinese, others that weren't before, and also, we're seeing movement on methane reduction pledges. Not as significant in amount as carbon dioxide emissions, but more dangerous in terms of impact on global warming. But the big issue, of course, is that still on carbon into the atmosphere, much lower coordination than you desperately need between north and south, rich and poor, Americans and Chinese. We are very far from where we want to be on that, and there, COP26 is a disappointment.
How are the elections going in the United States?
Well, it's early for me to say. I feel very comfortable saying Eric Adams here in New York City is going to be the next mayor. That doesn't require any intelligence on my part. Dems just win in New York. Plus, Sliwa on the Republican side has something like 18 cats in a studio apartment. You can't vote for that. You just can't do that. You can't do that. But of course, Virginia is what's interesting. If you made me bet, gun to my head, I'd say Youngkin wins, the Republican, in part because he has been able to navigate both getting Trump's support without being seen as close to Trump, which is hard to do. He's been more effective at most things. He's also been playing the culture war, the education war, identity war card very effectively and McAuliffe has not been very effective in response. So, it looks to me like the most important election of the day probably goes GOP, but it's really tight and I wouldn't want to make a big bet on that.
China urges families to stock up on food for winter months. How long can China's "zero COVID" policy last?
This is really not the message you want to be sending, as the Chinese President, trying to get his unprecedented third term, getting rid of term limits and saying, "By the way, we've got all of these energy challenges and now we might have food challenges." China's supposed to be the manufacturing center and the supply chain center for the world, but because they have zero tolerance for COVID, that has meant absolute lockdowns in addition to surveillance whenever they have outbreaks. That's a really hard thing to handle when you've got Delta variant that transmits very easily. And your vaccines, which are being rolled out across the country, but they don't work very well against Delta variant. I have to think that at some point, they're going to need to show more flexibility and avoid "zero COVID". As challenging as it will be to say that they got it wrong, they just need to say something like, "Well, we have more people vaccinated so it's not as lethal, but we can handle some level of spread," because otherwise, the economic hit for China, and of course the rest of the world, is going to be come increasingly hard for them to bear. A very tough corner they have backed themselves into on COVID, the Chinese.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a pistol as he attends an exhibition together with Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev before the annual expanded meeting of the Interior Ministry Board in Moscow, Russia.
What We’re Watching: Putin to tighten Russian gun laws, Iran-Saudi thaw, new forests vs climate change
Putin orders review of gun laws after school shooting: Details remain sketchy following a shooting at a school in the Russian city of Kazan. At least seven children and one teacher were killed, and a 19-year-old has been arrested, according to local officials. In response to the attack, President Vladimir Putin "gave an order to urgently work out a new provision concerning the types of weapons that can be in civilian hands, taking into account the weapon" used in this shooting, according to a Kremlin spokesman. There's an irony here that extends to the United States, where school shootings are all too common. In 2018, a Russian woman named Maria Butina pleaded guilty to using the National Rifle Association, the gun rights lobbying group, to "establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over American politics." At the time, Putin described Butina's 18-year sentence as an "outrage." The NRA, of course, works hard to prevent Congress and the president from taking precisely the kinds of actions that Putin swiftly ordered following the shooting in Kazan.
Forests growing back: Finally some good news about the environment. According to a new WWF study, an area of forest equivalent to the size of France has regrown across the world in the past 20 years. These "new" forests in places like Brazil, Mongolia, Canada or parts of Africa could possibly trap up to 5.9 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually — more than the US, the world's second largest emitter, puts into the atmosphere annually. The forest regrowth is the result of planting new trees, keeping livestock away, eliminating invasive plants, and, interestingly, not doing anything at all. While this is a welcome development in the global struggle against climate change, unfortunately it's still being offset by alarming rates of deforestation, especially in the Amazon. The experts tell us that for forests to become a true climate solution, we would need to grow new forests at least twice as fast as we're destroying them around the world. So time to plant a lot of trees, or to just leave forests alone.
Iran-Saudi talks: Could longtime bitter Middle East rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia be on the cusp of an understanding? Tehran has just confirmed that both sides actually sat down recently for the first time in years to ease tensions — perhaps in part as a consequence of the Biden administration's move to cut support for the Saudis in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting a proxy war since 2014. Washington, which aims to draw back from the region more broadly, also wants the Saudis to go along with any US-Iran deal to resurrect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman recently said he wants to get along with the Iranians, a major change of tone for him. Let's not get carried away of course: there's still a lot of bad blood between both sides, but the mere fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia are talking is progress towards avoiding a major conflict between the region's two main powers.