by Norman Lowe
(c) Genetically modified (GM) crops
One of the economic issues that came to the forefront during the 1990s, and which developed into a political confrontation between the USA and the EU, was the growing of genetically modified crops. These are plants injected with genes from other plants which give the crops extra characteristics. For example, some crops can be made to tolerate herbicides that kill all other plants; this means that the farmer can spray the crop with a ‘broad-spectrum’ herbicide that will destroy every other plant in the field except his crop. Since weeds use up precious water and soil nutrients, GM crops should produce higher yields and require less herbicide than conventional crops. Some GM crops have been modified to produce a poison which kills pests that feed on them, others have been modified so that they will grow in salty soil. The main GM crops grown are wheat, barley, maize, oilseed rape, soya beans and cotton. Advocates of GM crops claim that they represent one of the greatest advances ever achieved in farming; they provide healthier food, produced in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way. Given the problem of the growing world population and the difficulties of feeding everybody, supporters see GM crops as perhaps a vital breakthrough in solving the world food problem. By 2004 they were being grown by at least 6 million farmers in 16 countries, including the USA, Canada, India, Argentina, Mexico, China, Colombia and South Africa. The main supporters of GM crops were the Americans, who were also the world’s largest exporter.
However, not everybody was happy about this situation. Many people object to GM technology on the grounds that it can be used to create unnatural organisms – plants can be modified with genes from another plant or even from an animal. There are fears that genes might escape into wild plants and create ‘superweeds’ that cannot be killed; GM crops might be harmful to other species and also in the long term to the humans who eat them. Genes escaping from GM crops might be able to pollinate organically growing crops, which would ruin the organic farmers involved. These unfortunate farmers might find themselves being sued for having GM genes in their crops, even though they had not knowingly planted such seeds. The main objections came from Europe; although some European countries – Germany and Spain for example – grew GM crops, the amounts were small. Scientists on the whole tended to reserve judgement, claiming that there should be long field trials to show whether or not GM crops were harmful, both for the environment and for public health. Opinion polls showed that around 80 per cent of the European public had grave doubts about their safety; several countries, including Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Greece, banned imports of individual GMs either for growing or for use as food. Americans, on the other hand, insisted that the crops had been thoroughly tested and approved by the government, and that people had been eating GM foods for several years without any apparent ill effects.
Another European objection was that the GM industry was controlled by a few giant agriculture businesses, most of them American. In fact, by 2004 the American company Monsanto was producing more than 90 per cent of GM crops worldwide. The feeling was that such companies had too much control over world food production, which would enable them to exert pressure on countries to buy their products and force more traditional farmers out of the market. The controversy came to a head in April 2004 when the USA called on the World Trade Organization (WTO) to take action. The USA accused the EU of breaking WTO free-trade rules by banning GM imports without any scientific evidence to support their case.
However, by no means does everybody in the USA support GM farming. An organization called the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) has launched several cases in the Supreme Court, most notably in 2006 when a group of organic alfalfa farmers sued Monsanto for growing GM alfalfa, without first carrying out safety checks. They were afraid that their organic alfalfa would be cross-pollinated by GM alfalfa, which would make their organic alfalfa unsaleable in countries where GM crops were banned. The judgement was that the planting of GM alfalfa should stop until a full-scale investigation into possible ill effects had been carried out. A spokesman for Monsanto stated that they were confident that tests would be completed in time for the autumn planting in 2010. Encouraged by this result, the CFS organized another lawsuit against Monsanto in 2009, this time against the growing of GM sugar beet. In August 2010 a similar judgement halted the planting of GM sugar beet until the necessary tests had been completed.
At the same time not everybody in Europe was against GM farming. In Britain, for example, at the Rothamsted Agricultural Research Centre at Harpenden, experiments were being carried out with GM wheat which is resistant to several kinds of insects and should therefore need fewer pesticides. In June 2012 a group of protesters calling themselves ‘Take the Flour Back’ threatened to destroy the crop. Several hundred protesters, including some from France, attempted to invade the research centre, but were prevented by a large police presence. Fortunately they were persuaded to call off their plan and meet the research team for discussions. At the end of June 2012 it was revealed that recent tests in China on GM cotton crops showed that some insects were developing increased resistance to these crops, and that an increasing number of other pests were developing in and around the cotton crop, and these were affecting surrounding crops too. In other words, the early benefits were now being replaced by unexpected problems. And so the basic problem still remains: how is agriculture going to produce enough to feed the steadily growing world population, given that the amount of land suitable for agricultural production makes up only about 11 per cent of the earth’s surface, and that a lot of this land is being contaminated by salt (salination), and therefore unsuitable for agriculture? Continuing global warming and rising sea levels are not likely to improve the situation (see the next section). At least there was one piece of good news in 2012 – in March it was announced that Australian scientists had tested a new strain of wheat that could increase yields by 25 per cent in saline soils. Perhaps in the end, if the world is to survive, we shall have no choice but to accept GM produce. On the other hand it could be that scientists will succeed in producing new non-GM strains of all foodstuffs, like the Australian wheat, which will give higher yields from the same size of land area.
27.5 GLOBAL WARMING
(a) Early concerns
In the early 1970s scientists became concerned about what they called the ‘greenhouse effect’ – the apparently uncontrollable warming of the earth’s atmosphere, or ‘global warming’, as it became known. It was caused by large amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, three gases produced during various industrial processes and by the burning of fossil fuels, being released into the atmosphere. These gases acted like the glass roof of a greenhouse, trapping and magnifying the sun’s heat. Opinions differed about exactly what its effects would be; one alarming theory was that the ice caps, glaciers and snow in the polar regions would melt, causing the level of the sea to rise, and flooding large areas of land. It was also feared that Africa and large parts of Asia could become too hot for people to live in, and there could be violent storms and prolonged drought.
Some scientists dismissed these theories, arguing that if indeed the world was becoming warmer, it was a natural climatic change, not a man-made one. They played down the threats of flooding and drought, and accused those who suggested them of being anti-West and anti-industrialization. Industrialists themselves naturally welcomed these sympathizers, and as the debate between the two camps developed, nothing was done to reduce or control emissions of greenhouse gases.
Gradually the scientific evidence became more convincing: the Earth’s average temperature was definitely increasing significantly, and the fossil-burning habits of humans were responsible for the changes. The evidence was enough to convince US vice-president Al Gore, who in 1992 wrote a pamphlet advocating international action to combat the greenhouse effect. President Clinton later proclaimed: ‘We must stand together against the threat of global warming. A greenhouse may be a good place to raise plants; it is no place to nurt
ure our children.’ In June 1992 the UN organized the Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) to discuss the situation. Representatives of 178 nations attended, including 117 heads of state; it was probably the largest gathering of world leaders in history. Most of them signed a range of treaties undertaking to protect the environment and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
However, signing treaties was one thing, enforcing them was quite another. For example, in 1993 when President Clinton introduced a bill to tax energy, the Republican majority in the Senate, many of whose supporters were industrialists and businessmen, threw it out. By this time many other countries were showing concern at the worsening situation. In 1995 an Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change produced a report outlining the probable effects of global warming and concluding that there could be little doubt that human actions were to blame.
(b) The Kyoto Convention (1997) and after
In 1997 another large international conference was held, this time in Kyoto (Japan), to work out a plan for reducing harmful emissions. It was appropriate that the conference was held in Kyoto, since, of all the industrialized countries, the Japanese had achieved most success in limiting their carbon emissions; and they had achieved it by heavy taxation on power and petrol. Statistics were worked out to show how much carbon each country was producing. The USA was by far the biggest culprit, emitting an average of 19 tons of carbon per head a year; Australia was not far behind with 16.6 tons per head. Japan emitted 9 tons per head a year, while the countries of the EU averaged 8.5 tons. On the other hand, the countries of the Third World emitted very modest amounts per head – South America 2.2 tons and Africa less than one ton.
The target set was to return global emissions to their 1990 levels by 2012. This meant that countries would have to reduce their emissions by different amounts to comply with the regulations; for example, the USA was required to reduce by 7 per cent, whereas France needed no reduction, since by 1997 the French were producing 60 per cent of their energy from nuclear power. In the end, 86 nations signed the agreement, which became known as the Kyoto Protocol. However, over the next few years this seemed to have little effect; in 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change reported that climatic conditions were getting steadily worse. The 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and 1998 was the hottest year. In March 2001 the Kyoto Protocol was dealt a fatal blow when newly elected US President Bush announced that he would not ratify it. ‘I will not accept a plan that will harm our economy and hurt American workers’, he said. ‘First things first are the people who live in America. That’s my priority.’
Thus, early in the twenty-first century the world found itself in a situation where the USA, with no more than 6 per cent of the planet’s population, was emitting a quarter of all the greenhouse gases, and would continue to do so, whatever the consequences for the rest of the world. In 2003 the effects of global warming were increasingly worrying. The UN calculated that at least 150 000 people had died during the year as a direct result of climate change – prolonged drought and violent storms. During that summer, 25 000 people died in Europe because of the unusually high temperatures. The increased warmth and the storms provided ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes, which were spreading into mountainous areas where it had been too cold for them. Consequently the death rate from malaria increased sharply, especially in Africa. Droughts caused famine and malnutrition, so that people were more prone to catch life-threatening diseases.
(c) What happens next?
It was clear to climatologists that drastic measures were needed if dire consequences were to be avoided. Sir John Houghton, the former head of the British Meteorological Office, compared climate change to a weapon of mass destruction: ‘like terrorism, this weapon knows no boundaries. It can strike anywhere, in any form – a heatwave in one place, a drought or a flood or a storm surge in another.’ It was also being suggested that the Kyoto agreement, designed when climate change was thought to be less destructive, would be insufficient to make much difference to the problem, even if it were fully implemented. The tragedy is that the world’s poorest countries, which have contributed hardly anything to the build-up of greenhouse gases, are likely to be the ones most seriously affected. Recently published statistics suggested that in 2004 some 420 million people were living in countries which no longer had enough crop land to grow their own food; half a billion people lived in areas prone to chronic drought. The threats are exacerbated by the pressure of the growing world population (see Sections 28.1–3). A number of measures have been suggested:
Professor John Schnellnhuber, director of the UK-based Tyndall Centre, which researches climate change, believes that an adaptation fund should be set up under the auspices of the UN and financed by wealthy polluters through levies based on the amount of emissions they make. The fund would be used to help poorer countries to improve their infrastructures, water industries and food production, and to cope with changes such as higher temperatures, rising river and sea levels, and tidal surges.
A World Environment Court should be set up to enforce global agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. States must face fines large enough to deter them from breaking the rules.
At national level, companies should be fined heavily for polluting rivers and dumping hazardous waste.
An all-out effort should be made to develop new technologies so that ‘green’ power – solar, wind, tide and wave – will replace fossil fuels. Some people have suggested expanding nuclear power, an option which the French have chosen to take.
The main objections to all these alternatives are that they require fundamental changes in the way people live, and organize their countries’ economies, and they will cost a lot of money to secure returns that will only become apparent in the future. A few scientists have suggested that the best thing is to do nothing at all at present, and hope that future scientists will find new and cheap methods of reducing greenhouse gases. However, in the words of Murray Sayle, ‘long before that happy day, Miss Liberty may well be up to her bodice in New York harbour’. There were further worrying developments: in 2007 and 2008 a series of Gallup polls were held in 127 countries. These showed that over a third of the world’s population were unaware of global warming. A survey in the USA in October 2009 showed that only 35 per cent of Republicans thought there was any reliable evidence that global warming was actually taking place. More Gallup polls in 111 countries in 2010 showed a disturbing fall in the USA and Europe in the percentage of people who thought that global warming was a serious threat. However, in Latin America the opposite was happening: an increasing number of people were worried about the effect that global warming was going to have on their families.
It was fitting that Latin America hosted the next two important conferences: the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico at the end of 2010, and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012. There was little to show from the Cancun Conference. There was simply an agreement, not a binding treaty, that member states would aim, as a matter of urgency, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases sufficiently to limit global warming to 2° C. Delegates from 190 nations attended the 2012 Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff told the conference that Brazil had made significant progress in reducing emissions, and was now providing 45 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, mainly hydropower. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon pointed out that the world had not yet risen to the challenge of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by concentrating on sustainable development. The outcome of the conference was disappointing: no specific reduction targets were set and a proposed fund of $30 billion to help the transition to a green economy was dropped from the final agreement. Koomi Naidoo, the international director of Greenpeace, described the conference as an epic failure. ‘It has failed on equity, failed on ecology and failed on economy.’ Ban Ki-moon summed up the situation well. He pointed out that 20 years ago there were 50 billion people in the
world; today there are 75 billion. By 2030 we shall need 50 per cent more food and 45 per cent more energy than we need today. ‘Let us not forget the scarcest resource of all – time. We are running out of time.’ As if to underline his concern, it was announced in September 2012 that sea ice in the Arctic had shrunk to its smallest extent ever recorded. Scientists were predicting that within 20 years the Arctic Ocean would be completely ice-free in the summer months. John Sauven, the head of Greenpeace UK, warned that ‘we are on the edge of one of the most significant moments in environmental history as sea ice heads towards a new record low. The loss of sea ice will be devastating, raising global temperatures that will impact on our ability to grow food, and causing extreme weather around the world.’
27.6 THE WORLD ECONOMY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM
Since the USA was unquestionably the most powerful state economically during the last decade of the twentieth century, it was natural that the US economic system should come under close scrutiny. The EU, which some people saw as a rival power bloc to the USA, had a rather different view of how a market economy and society should be organized, in terms of international trade, care of the environment, aid and debt relief. According to British analyst Will Hutton, in his book The World We’re In (2003): ‘the relationship between the two power blocs is the fulcrum on which the world order turns. Managed skilfully, this could be a great force for good; managed badly, it could give rise to incalculable harm.’