Climate change is a major hazard in the international trade system, with increasingly severe and frequent disasters disrupting the economic activity that has underpinned global growth in recent decades. But despite the significant risks, the World Trade Organization (WTO) – the preeminent multilateral global trade body – has been unable to adapt.

Dealing with climate change is essential to achieving sustainable global development and poverty reduction, and international trade plays an important role in addressing this challenge.

However, global trade is also part of the problem. This is because greenhouse gas emissions are integrated into global production and supply chains – as trade volumes have increased, so have emissions.

The wealthiest countries – those that have benefitted most from the current global trade regime – are the worst offenders. According to a 2020 report on carbon dioxide emissions in international trade by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the per capita emissions of its member countries were around 2.5 times higher than the world average and 3.6 times higher than non-OECD countries.

More on this: Can Asia and the Pacific get on track to net zero?

Moreover, as citizens of developing countries become wealthier, they naturally consume more resources and thereby contribute more to global temperature rise. One only needs to look at the increase in emissions from China since its integration into the global economy to see this in action.

However, it is this very economic development via increased trade that developing countries need to successfully mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. So, more sustainable global trade is needed to fund the fight against the very climate impacts globalisation has created.

A well-regulated trading regime could be a net benefit in the fight against climate change – via the promotion of environmentally sustainable goods and services – rather than the anchor on global emissions reduction it is today.

The WTO and its 164 member states have a critical role to playing climate change mitigation efforts, but the organisation’s inefficiencies are preventing it from making progress.

The largest impediment is the ‘single undertaking principle’, which requires complete consensus for the adoption of new rules, and that every member of the WTO abide by all the same agreements, regardless of circumstance. In other words, nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon.

Ideally, the single undertaking principle should promote fairness in the international system, but in reality, it does the exact opposite. It slows down negotiations significantly and raises the risk of them failing.

More on this: Podcast: The loss and damage consensus at COP27

As a result of this requirement for consensus, no specific WTO framework addressing climate change has been adopted. This inaction poses unacceptable risks to lives and livelihoods. Worse still, existing WTO agreements can hinder member state’s efforts to avert climate change and environmental damage.

This is not just detrimental for developing countries, but also for the WTO itself. Due to the obvious inadequacies within the single undertaking principle, many countries are increasingly turning to bilateral agreements, and even new forums, to negotiate green trade agreements. This undermines the legitimacy of the organisation at a time when it is critical make significant strides in climate change mitigation efforts.

In response, reform is needed, for the future of both the planet and the WTO.

One option for the organisation is to pursue ‘plurilateral’ trade agreements, whereby members would have the freedom to choose which agreements they wish to pursue and adopt. Contrary to the single undertaking principle, plurilateral trade agreements are not hampered by the need to be approved by every member.

Freed from the strict single undertaking principle, this plurilateral model has led to some successful negotiations around specific issues, particularly anti-counterfeit measures. If this success can be translated to climate change mitigation efforts, a sustainable trade system could be within reach.

The WTO’s lack of action on the climate crisis only exacerbates disruptions to the global value chain, slowing development and exacerbating poverty.

The international trading system urgently needs to find ways to further environmental sustainability, but so long as the WTO remains inflexible and blind to the disparities between the most and least developed countries, it’s hard to see significant progress being made.

The post Reforming the WTO for a greener future appeared first on Policy Forum.

China’s energy companies are all aboard the global clean power bullet train.

According to China’s National Energy Administration’s national power industry statistics, Chinese power generators installed 37.7 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity from January to July 2022, up 110 per cent per cent from a year earlier.

This installation, over a period of only seven months, is roughly equivalent to India’s total solar build-up since the mid-2010s and total generation capacity in New South Wales and Queensland combined in 2021-22. By the end of the decade, China is aiming to bring total wind and solar capacity to 1200 GW, a massive increase from the 635 GW it recorded at the end of last year.

But this dramatic expansion of clean power generation is still not even close to enough change to power the world’s second-largest economy and its largest manufacturing industry. And if China goes before it is ready, its energy security will be in even more danger.

Since mid-July, some Chinese provincial governments have enforced power rationing across various manufacturing hubs along the Yangtze River. Sichuan province, a net power exporter on the upper reaches of the river, has been the worst affected. Provinces mostly focused their efforts on industrial users, but in some cases were forced to compel homes, office buildings, and shopping malls to cut usage too.

The immediate cause is extreme weather – the region is experiencing its worst heatwave in more than half a century, sending demand soaring.

More on this: Gendering just transition

Meanwhile, in Chongqing, a megacity in Sichuan, rainfall has been 60 per cent less than the seasonal norm and 66 rivers spread across 34 counties have dried up, according to state media.

This has massively reduced the hydropower supply Sichuan relies on. At the peak of the drought, Sichuan’s hydropower fell to 440 million kilowatt hours, less than half of its normal level.

Other cities and regions are affected too, because Sichuan typically exports about a third of its hydropower to other provinces, and is still doing so.

Yet, diverting this power back to locals is not an option. Much of these exports go through dedicated network facilities with limited connectivity to local grids and are backed by fixed long-term supply contracts.

Sichuan’s struggles are a great example of a much deeper crisis of inflexibility in an era of transition. The availability of renewable energy is heavily linked to the availability of sunlight, the speed of wind, and water. To balance it out flexibly requires sufficient storage and network infrastructure.

China, like many other countries, doesn’t have this infrastructure in place yet. After all, when China’s power system was developed, it wasn’t designed to handle huge variations in renewable energy. While China is not alone in this struggle, it is handling a transition of far greater scale than other countries.

More on this: India’s road to a sustainable energy future

As it accelerates its clean power transition, China needs to heavily invest in its power system, especially in storage and its network. This will help it respond to abrupt changes in renewable energy, especially under long-lasting, extreme weather conditions.

Of course, this is not an easy task.

China will need to invest in battery storage and pumped hydropower, and smarter and more flexible grid technology. It must reform electricity markets to enable more flexible use of existing supply. And it will have to promote emerging technologies like hydrogen and thermal energy storage to help plug gaps in electricity generation.

Demoting China’s large coal-fired power station fleet to playing the supportive role of responsive back-up capacity, while clean energy provides the core of supply, is one attractive short-term solution.

However, China’s energy planners should look to the long-term. If they focus on attaining the country’s climate obligations – including achieving net zero emissions before 2060 – then China would only need to use coal-fired power as a last resort throughout its transition.

China’s recurring power crises highlight its need to rebuild its power system around clean energy. It must find a balance between its current energy security and its goal of achieving a clean energy future as soon as possible.

To do this, the country needs a long-term plan that not only invests in clean power generation, but also steps up investment in storage, transmission, and grid flexibility. This will do more for its transition than any generation target and stabilise its energy security in the process.

As China embarks on its truly massive energy transition journey, its leaders must remember that keeping the ship steady is just as important as seeing how fast it can go.

The post Executing China’s ‘Transition: Impossible’ appeared first on Policy Forum.

Climate change is an extremely nuanced issue with global effects, but due to structural inequalities, it is women who are the most vulnerable to the consequences of inaction. Climate change exacerbates the inequalities women face, especially in the Global South.

But this also means that when women participate in climate action discourse, they can be invaluable agents of change.

In India, several initiatives exist across states that provide women with the right tools and education to take the lead in energy transition and the effects of climate change.

One non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Ahmedabad, for instance, showcases the approaches needed to tackle inequality and climate change. Through collective action, Mahila Housing Trust is empowering women from some of the most vulnerable communities to become leaders of change. The Trust spreads awareness and knowledge of the impacts and solutions to climate change in local languages.

Governments are taking similar steps too. Maharashtra, the second-most populous state in India, is taking a leading role in subnational climate action. At the start of 2022, in partnership with C40 Cities, it signed a Letter of Intent to launch a Women4Climate Mentorship.

More on this: Why India must make gender equity a top priority

In fact, across India, NGOs and government ramping up their cooperation on this issue.

In coastal districts of Odisha in India’s east, the effects of climate change are already disproportionately affecting women. To tackle this, the Regional Centre for Development Cooperation formed a local committee consisting of men and women in equal numbers, ensuring that the centre can hear the voices of women in community-based management and decision-making and implement their ideas.

Meanwhile, under the State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC), the government of Odisha is implementing various policies aimed at mitigating gender-based vulnerabilities to climate change.

In Kerala, in India’s south, is the Wayanad district. It harbours tiger reserves and wildlife sanctuaries that are crucial to India’s biodiversity. The district has introduced an ambitious women-led policy, the Meenangadi Carbon Neutral initiative, that aims to achieve carbon neutrality through a community-focused, bottom-up approach.

Women-led climate action is crucial to this, and as such the policy focuses strongly on the participation of women to ensure its climate policies are as inclusive as possible.

More on this: Is coal reliance a barrier to gender equality?

Finally, in India’s far-northern Jammu and Kashmir region, women living in rural communities are among the most affected by the adverse impacts of climate change. A women-led NGO there, the Swaniti Initiative, has been working for state governments across India on various sectors and themes, showcasing the ways that inclusivity is key to combating the climate crisis.

These examples leave no doubt – women’s leadership is critical to addressing the climate crisis, yet most decision-makers continue to be men with limited insight on gendered perspectives.

Leaving women out of the climate change discourse will create a vicious cycle of vulnerability, and will make avoidable future disasters inevitable.

India urgently needs women-led climate action. Across the globe, women are under-represented in the decision-making processes around climate mitigation and adaptation. Climate change requires intersectional, long-term solutions. Policymakers must acknowledge the significant role women play as decision-makers, stakeholders, educators, carers, and experts.

In India and elsewhere, there are already many women at the forefront of the climate crisis. Their invaluable work should be celebrated, but it also shows that the world needs more gender-focused climate strategies.

Disclosure: the author is an employee of the Climate Group, which works with a number of organisations and governments mentioned in this piece, including through the Under2 Coalition, of which Climate Group is the Secretariat.

The post The women leading India’s climate struggle appeared first on Policy Forum.

While recent international headlines on Indonesia’s economy have focused on Indonesia’s restrictive export policies, its impending carbon tax poses a more pressing policy challenge.

Indonesia has been in the spotlight, having postponed the implementation of its carbon tax twice in the past year.

This has raised questions about the seriousness of the Indonesian government’s commitment to tackling climate issues. Indonesia’s G20 presidency, underpinned by the theme of transitioning to a green economy – and its own ambitious emissions target of a 29 to 41 per cent reduction by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2060 – adds to the urgency of the country’s situation.

Indonesia’s proposed carbon tax was set in motion in October 2021 as part of a wider overhaul of its taxation regime, with the promulgation of Law No.7 Year 2021 on Tax Harmonization. While initially restricted to coal-fired power plants, the carbon tax will eventually apply to all sectors of the economy.

Imposing this carbon tax is step one of the government’s plans to transition to a low-carbon economy. Once it is implemented, the government has further plans to develop a broader carbon tax and a carbon exchange mechanism, before introducing a pilot carbon trading project in the energy sector.

Both these processes hinge upon the carbon tax, the success of which will come down to two main factors.

Firstly, is the price signal strong enough to build urgency among carbon emitters to limit their emissions?

At 30,000 Indonesian Rupiah (roughly AU$2.99) per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted, some doubt the ability of such a low price to drive down emissions effectively.

More on this: Carbon pricing insights from Vietnam

Secondly, will the income derived from the carbon tax be allocated to the government’s other climate efforts, namely renewable energy and its research and development?

As it stands, Indonesia’s carbon tax needs some fine tuning in both these areas.

At its current proposed rate, the tax is indeed too meagre to serve as a strong disincentive to reduce emissions. Meanwhile, the details of Indonesia’s national economic recovery program are inconsistent with its lofty climate goals, as it remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels to sustain the country’s energy needs.

For instance, the state still provides trillions of rupiah to fossil fuel-dominated state-owned enterprises, casting doubt on whether the proceeds from a carbon tax would really go towards creating a greener economy.

Also, while the carbon tax could be a groundbreaking policy, the story of its postponement shows that the government lacks the experience and initiative to enact it properly.

In the face of uncertain global economic conditions and rising domestic inflation, the government needed to consider the potential of legal risks arising out of its carbon tax, particularly disputes with emitters, when it designed it.

More on this: Warming up Indonesia’s climate change policies

Its failure to do this is part of the reason the carbon tax is still on the shelf – relevant agencies need more time to settle outstanding issues and to implement the complex regulations necessary for the tax to take effect.

While existing taxation measures are subject to appeal through Indonesia’s administrative courts, the carbon tax may be subject to international investment disputes if its implementation is unfair or arbitrary, which the government will want to avoid. This is especially risky for a government that has just begun acquainting itself with its new policy measure.

To address this, Indonesian policymakers must closely consider Indonesia’s international obligations in accordance with investment protection provisions under various international instruments.

They must mitigate the risk of investment disputes arising in connection to the implementation of the carbon tax if the policy is to be a success.

Once implemented, it is paramount that the carbon tax aligns with the government’s climate targets, while accounting for the interests of business actors and investors.

On investment, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati mentioned that as a newly introduced policy, the carbon tax must also consider the social, political, and economic conditions of Indonesia, as well as its goals.

Ultimately, the government needs to keep in mind the purpose of the policy – to protect the environment, and by extension, the population and the economy in a changing climate. Unlike fiscal and monetary policies, there is no wriggle room on climate. The effects and intensity of climate change do not respond quickly to the pulling of policy levers.

For sure, the government must balance climate action with businesses’ concerns, but it must stay focused on the main goal – a just transition to a low carbon economy.

The post Indonesia’s obligations to its people and the planet appeared first on Policy Forum.

In some cultures, including in Indonesia, women are considered primarily responsible for housework and caregiving duties. In many families, men do not expect to perform such duties, seeing their designated role as providing the family’s main source of income.

For Indonesian women, working and earning income does not automatically change this dynamic. Families with two working parents do not always adjust to equally share housework if a mother is working. In many cases, women decide to leave their careers after having their first child because of these norms.

Some mothers, however, must continue to work to make ends meet and lack access to reliable and affordable childcare. In such cases, children may be left with a caregiver who might not be able to provide appropriate care, and some are left to care for themselves.

Our preliminary study on childcare arrangements in Indonesia finds that it is common practice to rely on grandparents and other family members to help with childcare. According to the Sociocultural and Education Module of Indonesia’s 2018 National Socioeconomic Survey, nearly 47 per cent of mothers have had to leave behind children younger than five to engage in activities away from home. Nearly half of these reported that the children were under the supervision of their grandparents.

However, relying on grandparents for childcare comes with consequences for families. Some parents reported conflict over parenting styles and discipline. In any case, mothers still hesitate to put in extra hours at work if it means having less time to bond with their children.

More on this: Finding the right childcare formula

Meanwhile, families who do not live close to their relatives have an even tougher task. Mothers juggling multiple odd jobs struggle with childcare arrangements, given that their hours of employment are often uncertain.

One mother reported that she had to take her two youngest children to work when there was a client for her job as a massage therapist.

When there weren’t clients, she would go around the village selling fried foods while carrying her youngest children. Her life became easier when she was able to open a food stall in front of her house and as her children grew older, as she could rely on her older daughter to take care of her younger sister.

Her experience is common. Low-income families who live apart from their relatives often rely on their older children to take care of the younger ones. They believe that caregiving duties, such as feeding and bathing, can easily be performed by older children.

Unfortunately, children are not meant to be parents.

While older siblings may be able to watch over the younger ones occasionally, they are not emotionally ready to assume the position of parents long-term, and this can affect the development of children and family dynamics.

In Indonesia, childcare arrangements have never been easy for low-income families.

For these families, putting food on the table often comes first, with childcare only being considered once an adequate income is secured. Due to scarce resources, they don’t have much of a choice.

More on this: Ending child poverty in Australia

When asked about the need for assistance, low-income families said they preferred programs that can reduce expenses or increase incomes over those that offer childcare directly. Even if daycare facilities are available, they often did not know about such services. This shows that availability is not the whole story – the need to avoid poverty and local norms affect parents’ decisions about childcare.

Employers are key actors when it comes to childcare arrangements. Families in the study expressed hope that employers could provide more accommodating policies for women with children.

Overall, these findings highlight the need for an industrial relations ecosystem in Indonesia that better supports working parents.

Those on low incomes in particular need access to desirable childcare arrangements. To them, this means services that do not reduce the income they take home to their families.

To create this environment, the Indonesian Government must formulate policies that protect flexible working arrangements.

This could involve incentivising employers to incorporate flexible working arrangements into their workplace policies. For jobs where flexible working arrangements are not feasible, the regional labour agency could step up supervision to ensure that employers adhere to fair and reasonable working conditions for parents.

In addition, the government still needs to provide more affordable childcare facilities for low-income families working in the formal and informal sectors. It must also ensure that working people know about these services.

This would especially benefit working parents who do not live close to their relatives. Aside from protecting incomes, leaving children in childcare facilities minimises the risk of danger to children that are left at home.

Lastly, the government should support all this work by engaging public figures to campaign for social change.

Indonesian conceptions of the responsibilities of men and women in employment, care work, and domestic chores need to adapt to the changing environment. Moreover, the public should be better informed about the importance of adequate supervision for keeping children safe.

More families are relying on multiple working parents to live and economic conditions are requiring more workers to travel long distances or work multiple jobs. In this challenging atmosphere, Indonesia’s working families need more support from their government in the form of policies that help them earn a decent income and provide appropriate care for their children.

This piece is published as part of our new In Focus: Indonesia section, ahead of this year’s ANU Indonesia Update conference.

The post The struggle for adequate childcare in Indonesia appeared first on Policy Forum.

Many economic indicators of gender equality in Indonesia improved over the last 20 years.

From those born in early 1950s to those born in the late 1980s, each new cohort of Indonesian women became more likely to be more educated, have fewer children, and participate more in the labour force in the years immediately following the completion of their education than the last. According to data from the Indonesian National Socioeconomic Survey (SUSENAS), women’s tertiary educational attainment has also overtaken that of men since the 1976 cohort.

These improvements are largely driven by increased living standards and better economic opportunities for women. The country’s previous model of economic growth, which was driven by export-oriented manufacturing, stopped working after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. However, between the early 2000s and mid 2010s, a resource boom helped Indonesia grow at the relatively fast rate of around six per cent every year.

This sustained period of economic growth in the post-Suharto era has led to a substantial expansion of Indonesia’s middle class. In turn, this new middle class has demanded more and higher quality consumer goods and services, such as manufactured food and beverages, tourism, health, and education. Crucially for gender equality, many of these industries employ more women than men.

At the same time, Indonesia has improved education for girls due to the demand from middle class families. As a result, economic opportunities for women have improved.

This change is illustrated by the growing share of working age women who are employed in high-end services, such as legislators, senior officials, managers and professionals. The percentage for women has increased from four per cent in 2001 to seven per cent in 2021, while the share for men has not changed, according to data from the Indonesian National Labour Force Survey (SAKERNAS).

More on this: Disability in Indonesia – from charity to human rights

Considering the size of the population of working age women in Indonesia, which numbers in the tens of millions, this is a huge increase in the number of high-end jobs for women.

Notwithstanding a general increase in economic opportunities, women still face significant barriers to entering the labour market. Although each new generation of women in urban areas is more likely to be employed in the formal sector at the start of their career, our research shows that they are also likely to drop out of the formal workforce and begin informal work around the time they get married, especially in cities.

While the number of jobs in high-end services for women have dramatically increased, the gender wage gap in these jobs has also widened in the last 20 years.

These two phenomena could be interrelated, as wage growth for women is hampered by the fact that they enter high-end service jobs at the bottom of the pay scale, before dropping out when they get married and have children.

Another recent trend is that, contrary to the overall improvement in gender equality, SUSENAS data shows that women born after 1980 are getting married and having their first child earlier than previous cohorts.

More on this: Saving lives will save Indonesia’s economy

This is happening for women across all education levels and in both urban and rural areas, and is likely driven by an increasingly conservative attitude towards dating and marriage across the country. When seen together with the trend of women dropping out of the workforce at this point in their lives, this can exacerbate the negative career and economic impacts for women, making them more economically dependent on their husbands.

So how can the Indonesian government help women overcome these constraints?

The phenomenon of women dropping out of the formal sector at around child-bearing age in urban areas deserves government attention.

The nature of formal sector work in urban areas, with long and inflexible working hours, and even more time spent commuting, can mean that many women with a young family are not able to do this paid work while also in many cases acting as their child’s primary caregiver.

Addressing the lack of affordable and reliable childcare would be a start. Investing in better transport infrastructure would also help to alleviate the commuting burden, making life as a working mother more achievable.

The pandemic has also shown that working from home can be a genuine option for many professionals, and better Internet infrastructure can facilitate this – allowing both women and men greater flexibility.

Although the government can play limited role in affecting cultural change in dating and marriage, enforcing the recently legislated higher minimum age of marriage can help to ensure that young women have at least a chance to obtain education and explore economic opportunities before they get married.

For Indonesian women with young families, caring responsibilities can often mean they drop out of the formal labour market, and in many cases never return. By investing in measures that enhance flexibility, such as affordable childcare, transport, and Internet infrastructure, Indonesian policymakers can ensure women don’t have to choose between family and their career.

This piece is published as part of our new In Focus: Indonesia section, ahead of this year’s ANU Indonesia Update. The authors’ full study will be published as part of a collection following the conference. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors’ own.

The post Flexibility for women in Indonesia’s labour market appeared first on Policy Forum.

There is consensus amongst Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) on the need for an effective and comprehensive binding plastic pollution treaty. PICTs do not extract natural resources for plastics production, and only a small volume of plastic products are manufactured in the region. Regardless, they are disproportionately affected by plastic pollution.

Plastics enter the Pacific Islands via multiple pathways – trade, offshore operations, transboundary oceanic and atmospheric flows, shipping, fishing, and tourism. Despite originating elsewhere, increasing amounts of plastic waste are accumulating in the region.

This has potentially dire effects on the oceans that Pacific states rely on for physical and socio-cultural survival. Plastic pollution threatens economies, food security, food safety, human and ecological health, air quality, and cultures. It increases biosecurity risks and exacerbates already untenable climate change impacts in the region.

Despite the known environmental and human health harms of plastics all along the supply chain, the region is under tremendous pressure to continue to import pre-production plastics and unnecessary and hard-to-recycle plastic products.

Key players in international trade regimes exerting pressure in the region include financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization as well as transnational corporations such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé. Moreover, regional free trade agreements like the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus also make it harder for PICTs to prevent the entry of plastics into their waters.

More on this: Plastic? Poison

Thankfully, earlier this year, 170 United Nations member states endorsed a mandate for a new plastic pollution treaty: End plastic pollution: toward an international legally binding agreement. The scope of the treaty mandate captures the full life cycle of plastics and includes micro-plastics, with the aim of preventing further plastic pollution.

However, whilst there is support for the establishment of a treaty, the specifics of what it will contain are yet to be set out. As such, treaty negotiations will take place across five intergovernmental negotiating committees (INCs) over the next two years.

The agenda of INC-1 to be held in Uruguay in November this year includes the aim, objectives, priorities, definitions, procedures, and institutional arrangements of the plastic pollution treaty. PICTs will want to use this meeting to put forward their goal of ‘turning off the tap’ on flows of plastics into the region and to emphasise the importance of principles of prevention, precaution, polluter pays, and intergenerational equity in guiding treaty negotiations.

However, despite being disproportionately impacted by plastic pollution, PICTs are likely to face an uphill battle in ensuring that their priorities are addressed and over more powerful states and the plastics industry. As such, they will need effective coordination both across the region and with other small island developing states (SIDS) to amplify their voices in these treaty negotiations.

In order to further this goal, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP) organised an INC-1 preparatory meeting for Pacific Island and metropolitan members like Australia in Suva, Fiji in August this year.

More on this: Real solutions for plastic problems

The workshop was funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and aimed to prepare and enable SPREP Pacific Island members to actively engage at INC-1 in ways that reflected the Pacific regional Declaration on Plastics. The workshop also supported the establishment of regional positions and negotiating positions with other SIDS.

At the workshop, one major concern for SPREP Pacific members was that their specific needs and priorities could be diminished and diluted when they are represented through the ‘Asia Pacific’ and Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) groups.

While the Pacific Island region shares some of the challenges of these broader collectives, the socio-cultural, historic, political, economic, and ecological contexts of PICTs are vastly different from those of other Asia-Pacific countries and SIDS.

To this end, Pacific members emphasised the need for a shared and distinctly Pacific voice at the five INCs to ensure the final text of the treaty affords PICTs the protections they need from increasing plastics contamination. To ensure this occurs, United Nations member states must ensure that equitable representation of those most vulnerable to plastic pollution are reflected in the adoption of the rules of procedure at INC-1.

However, ensuring PICTs have the ability to equitably negotiate will also depend on increased financial and technical support from SPREP and its metropolitan members, and the United Nations Environment Programme.

INC-1 will set the tone for all future negotiations toward a treaty to minimise the environmental, economic, and cultural catastrophe caused by plastic pollution. Ensuring that the priorities and challenges of those most vulnerable to the harms of global plastic pollution are not only heard but enacted in the treaty will ultimately benefit everyone

The post Speaking up to end plastic pollution appeared first on Policy Forum.

Demand for protein is changing.

Growth in the protein industry is rising, driven by growing global demand, especially in Asia and the Pacific. For many reasons, the growth of the plant-based meat market is especially bullish and is projected to increase from $4.6 billion in 2018 to $85 billion in 2030.

But does Australia have enough plant-based sources to take advantage of the growing demand for these emerging proteins?

Currently, Australia produces most of its protein as livestock. While the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has projected that global demand for meat will reach 455 million tonnes by 2050, a 76 per cent increase from 2005, livestock production is under more community scrutiny than ever.

Its large carbon footprint, risks of animal welfare issues, and high land and water use are crucial costs of livestock production.

For example, lamb produces between 50 and 750 kilograms of carbon per kilogram of protein, beef produces between 45 and 640, and poultry produces between 10 and 30. Yet ‘pulse crops’ like chickpeas, broad beans, peas, lentils, lupin, and mung beans produce between four and 10.

In terms of land use, beef requires 37 to 2,100 square metres to produce one kilogram of protein, while lamb requires 100 to 165, poultry 23 to 40, and pulse crops between 10 and 43 square metres.

Plant-based alternate protein also has the advantages of versatility, affordability, and a lower non-carbon environmental impact. It is a growing market with increasing demand coming from new consumer behaviours such as a growing number of vegans, vegetarians, and flexitarians.

More on this: Podcast: Food, water and energy for all

Key sources of protein inputs for plant-based protein are also relatively inexpensive.

Per gram of protein, soybeans cost just $0.01 to produce, and wheat costs $0.03. This is much cheaper than cows at $0.32, pigs at $0.22, and chickens at $0.12.

Many traditional meat and poultry companies, including Tyson, Smithfield, Perdue Farms, Hormel Foods, and Maple Leaf, have entered the plant-based market, usually developing their plant-based meat products.

They should be incentivised to invest further by the Australian Government.

Currently, soybean, peas, lupin, and gram are the main sources of plant-based protein in the market. Fava beans, rapeseed, duckweeds, lentil, and quinoa are promising but currently niche sources.

Many unconventional sources of plant-based protein are poorly understood and technologically complicated. Policymakers should incentivise more exploration in this space – currently, more than 75 per cent of the global food supply comes from only 12 plant and five animal species.

Just three plant species – rice, maize, and wheat – make up nearly 60 per cent of calories the world consumes from plant-based sources.

Unconventional food plants such as white acacia, jatropha, bamboo, and edible flowers have great potential to be used as an alternate source of protein, fiber, and bioactive compounds, but few companies have taken this leap.

Discarded vegetable tissues such as seeds, stems, and leaves during post-harvest and industrial processing could also be an excellent source of bioactive compounds and protein, reducing waste in the process.

Australia can step up in this space. It should invest in a strengthened pulse crop industry with intensified pulse-based farming systems, looking to increase pulse area, yield, and quality. It should see this as a pillar of its vision of achieving a $100 billion agriculture industry by 2030.

More on this: The road to climate-smart agriculture

The country is ready for this. It has cutting-edge expertise in legume science in genetics, agronomy, adaptation, biochemistry, physiology, pathology, and food processing. Still, there is much room to grow. Currently, Australia is a tiny but promising player in the global pulse crop industry – it produces less than India, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Brazil. Investment in innovation and direct financial support can significantly increase pulse production in Australia.

By intensifying its pulse-based cropping systems, adding value, and implementing a market strategy, Australia could double its production by 2050, and even take the place of a leading actor in the global pulse crop industry alongside India.

Of course, pulse crops are not sustainable and profitable by default. Preparing pulse farmers for rising temperatures and ensuring sustainable water and land use takes work and pushing them towards intensive and sustainable farming is not an easy job. Besides, shifting to a new farming system or modifying an existing one is a slow process, even if it is sustainable and profitable.

The significant challenges for plant-based protein missions are supply chains, sustainability, safety, consumer acceptance, nutritional value, and climate change.

Pulse-focused innovation could help with these issues. It could take the form of government-encouraged research into plant genetics and food technologies that remove barriers like texture, quality, appearance, price, and flavour, to encourage even more uptake of plant-based protein.

Investing in farming system improvements, smart soil management, modern seed technology, and digital information systems can also help prepare the sector for a stronger plant-based protein industry.

In terms of direct support, governments could also incentivise farmers to adopt new technology, improve cultivation, and gather high quality data on their pulse crops.

An agricultural sector that is investing in plant-based protein can help unlock yet more of Australia’s economic potential and reduce industry emissions in the process. While this means facing many multifaceted challenges, the dream of a strong plant-based protein industry to support Australia’s future is worth investing in.

The post Going green, eating clean, and embracing the bean appeared first on Policy Forum.

Russia and Ukraine supply more than 30 countries that are net importers of wheat with at least 30 per cent of their overall wheat imports. Both countries are also top global exporters of barley, maize, and fertilisers.

Ukrainian grain is used to feed some of the world’s most vulnerable people. The country supplies over half of the wheat distributed by the World Food Programme, to alleviate hunger and boost food security in many developing countries.

Naturally, Russia’s invasion has affected sowing and harvesting in Ukraine. It has also affected availability and production in the rest of the world. In early March 2022, prices were reported to have increased by more than $2.60 per bushel for wheat, more than $0.90 per bushel for corn, and $0.60 for soy. Prices of fertiliser have risen too.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), global food prices in real terms reached an all-time high in March 2022. Although prices fell in June, they are much higher compared to last year.

Egypt, for instance, is highly dependent on wheat from the two countries and has seen its estimated annual cost of food and energy alone rise to 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves. Many other countries have been affected by lower imports, high international food prices and high transportation costs.

But rising prices aren’t the whole story. The invasion of Ukraine is contributing to food insecurity in multiple ways.

The invasion, and sanctions Russia earned for itself in the process, have also contributed to an exponential increase in energy and commodity prices.

This exacerbates the situation, especially because of how much energy is used in milling. Whether it be wheat, edible oils, animal feed, fertilisers, food processing, packaging, or transport or storage, agriculture requires energy and energy is getting more expensive.

This means food supply problems go far beyond Ukraine, Russia, and the countries that import their grain directly.

On top of power prices, international trade barriers are making things worse. Russia suspended grain and white and raw sugar exports to ex-Soviet states and suspended wheat, rye, barley, and maize exports to neighbouring Eurasian Economic Union states including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Further, port operations in Ukraine are unusable for commercial activities and very high insurance premiums for vessels have affected exports through the Black Sea. After the agreement signed between Ukraine and Russia, however, a solution seems to have been found for exports from Ukraine via the safe corridors.

More on this: Podcast: Food, water and energy for all

As far afield as the United States, farmers have had to grow crops that are not fertiliser-intensive, such as soybeans, on an additional two million acres, where normally they would have planted corn. This will have important implications for crop availability and prices in the country later this year.

The Center for Global Development estimates that interruptions and disruptions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine will push 40 million people back into extreme poverty. This is in addition to the 150 million people pushed back into poverty globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as estimated by the World Bank.

So, what are policymakers doing to mitigate the damage?

The United States will use the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, a strategic grain reserve of commodities and cash, to provide food assistance to Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen, as well as cover freight transportation and inland and internal transport, shipping, and handling.

The European Union activated its 2021 contingency plan for food supply and security in times of crisis to accelerate the mapping of the risks and vulnerability of the region’s food supply chain. It is looking to reduce overall dependency, including in terms of food, feed, and fertilisers, and considering alternative organic sources of nutrients.

Both the European Union and the United States are also considering allowing farmers to use fallow land – arable land that is not harvested for one crop year to allow it to recover. This would be a temporary measure to grow crops to address supply disruptions, enhance food security, and reduce inflationary pressures in the short term.

China, the largest crop market globally, is considered self-sufficient in terms of wheat and corn. But even there, domestic corn prices have increased due to other factors like fertiliser and energy prices. In April 2022, China lifted trade restrictions with Russia for wheat and barley.

To offset crop losses, production of wheat in Canada, the United States, and Australia is expected to increase compared to 2021. American corn exports have increased and new crop supplies from Brazil and Argentina have eased stress on markets.

More on this: The state of the global food market

India has positioned itself as a main wheat exporter and large shipments from India also helped to reduce stress on markets when the conflict struck. Nevertheless, in mid-May, the Indian government announced a suspension of wheat exports to protect domestic consumption and prices.

Overall, grain demand continues to exceed supply. In response to this set of issues, policymakers must reassess their concepts of food security.

For example, a country like Singapore, which is considered one of the most food-secure countries in the world, announced in 2019 an ambitious goal of producing 30 per cent of its nutritional needs at home by 2030.

Supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 and the invasion of Ukraine have shown the value of this choice – its experience shows that focusing on food security can be a good thing.

Pure self-sufficiency, however, limits the variety of food products available. It also makes markets more vulnerable to climate events affecting agriculture.

Urban agriculture, including ‘vertical farming’, can help some developed cities provide foodstuffs, but it is unclear if this could ever be enough to feed growing urban populations. Trading only with trusted countries may also pose serious limitations in addition to possibly reshaping global value chains, for good or bad.

Because these problems are global and interconnected in character, they need global solutions. Rather than blindly pursuing self-sufficiency, policymakers across the world need to work together. Only then can they find longer term solutions.

Together, leaders must strengthen global value chains, protect market access, and invest in technological solutions to meet the food security challenge they all face.

The post The price of grain, the global supply chain, and the invasion of Ukraine appeared first on Policy Forum.

Most of the 2.1 billion strong workforce in Asia and the Pacific are denied access to decent jobs, health care and social protection, but there is an array of polices and tools that governments can use to remedy these deficiencies and ensure that the rights and aspirations of these workers and their families are upheld and that they remain the engine of economic growth for the region.

A new report released today, the Social Outlook for Asia and the Pacific: The Workforce We Need, offers tangible solutions to immediately address alarming trends that both preceded the new coronavirus and were exacerbated by the pandemic.

While 243 million new people were pushed into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic, half of all people in our region already had been surviving without cash, a third without necessary medicine or treatment, and a quarter had gone without enough food to eat. This can lower productivity, which has fallen below the global average, but also tax revenues and future economic output.

With two-thirds of all workers in the region being employed informally, often with low wages, in hazardous working conditions and without a contract, half of our workforce are at the brink of poverty. People in our region are also at a higher risk of being pushed into poverty by health spending than anywhere else in the world, causing inequalities to widen further.

More on this: Creating a future without poverty

With more than half of all people being excluded from social protection, pandemics, disasters, economic downturns, or normal life events, such as falling ill, becoming pregnant or getting old, often have detrimental impacts on households’ wellbeing and life prospects.

The reality is harsh: our workers are generally ill-equipped to unlock new opportunities and fulfil life aspirations for themselves and their families, but also to face ongoing challenges emanating from megatrends of climate change, ageing societies, and digitalisation.

Climate-induced natural disasters cause businesses to relocate and jobs to disappear, disproportionately affecting rural communities.

Digital technologies are bringing disruptive change to the world of work and the digital gap is intensifying inequalities in opportunity, income, and wealth. Population ageing means that the number of older people will double by 2050, making policies to support active and healthy ageing ever more urgent.

None of these vulnerabilities are inevitable. With the right policies, our region’s workforce can become more productive, healthier, and protected.

First, active labour market policies, through life-long learning and skill development, can support a green and just transition into decent employment and improve access to basic opportunities and adequate standards of living. Harnessing synergies between active labour market policies and social protection can help workers upgrade their skills and transition into decent employment while smoothing consumption and avoiding negative coping strategies during spells of unemployment or other shocks.

More on this: Tackling the pandemic of inequality in Asia and the Pacific

Second, extending social health protection to all can significantly improve workers’ health, income security, and productivity. COVID-19 demonstrated the weakness of a status quo in which 60 per cent of our workers finance their own health care and receive no sickness benefits. A focus on primary health care as well as curative health protection is needed, also to support healthy and active ageing. People who are chronically ill or live with a disability must be included in health care strategies. Given the large informal economy across the region, extending social health protection is the key policy instrument for achieving universal health coverage in our region.

Third, building on the ESCAP Social Protection Simulator, a basic package of universal child, old age, and disability social protection schemes, set at global average benefit levels, would slash poverty in our region by half.

Our analysis also shows that social protection helps increase access to opportunities, particularly for furthest behind groups. This income security would improve the workforce’s resilience. Extending social protection to all means increasing public spending by between two and six per cent of gross domestic product — an investment well-worth its cost. The Action Plan to Strengthen Regional Cooperation on Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific can guide action towards broadening social protection coverage.

With this information at hand, there is a long overdue need for action. The policy recommendations set out in the Social Outlook are a priority for most countries in the region. These require bold but necessary reforms. For most countries these reforms are affordable but may require a reprioritisation of existing expenditures and tax, supported by tax reform.

Decent employment for all and an expansion of social protection and health care should form the foundations of a strong social contract between the state and its citizens — one where mutual roles and responsibilities are clear, and where our workforce is given the security to fulfil their potential and be the force for achieving the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific.

The post The right policies can protect the workers of Asia and the Pacific appeared first on Policy Forum.