(Two-minute read) 

We all know that when a war breaks out it does not take much time for it to escalate. 

The continued presence of US and Russian nonstrategic weapons on the European continent already poses a serious risk of “accidental use, miscalculation, and inadvertent escalation.

With Europe reduced to sanction spectator status in the face of a heightened possibility of a nuclear detonation on its doorstep. Even a cooperative European defense could do little to prevent a retaliatory nuclear response. 

Imagine a scenario – as in the past – in which Moscow misinterprets a conventional missile flight as nuclear.

Nuclear risk reduction is a common security interest of all states – one that transcends alliances and umbrellas, and even the geopolitical circumstances that have stagnated arms control and disarmament.

Putin knows that a nuclear war would not only be the end it would also ensure the destruction of Russia.

At a time when the nuclear risk on the continent is acute, European states have every reason to take the lead.

The prospects for the possibility of nuclear weapons use in Europe, whether intentionally or inadvertently must be avoided at all costs.   

So perhaps if Europe were to place all of its nonstrategic warheads in storage, this would allay the possibility that Moscow might misinterpret conventional missions in the first place.

Such a move by Europe would not send a message of weakness to Russia, rather it would give Putin a choice. Destroy Russia or not.   

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

(Five-minute read) 

1.5 apparently has not yet been reached and to many experts, the 1.5°C target appears to be out of reach. 

Words, Pledges, Agreements, Strong Statements, and inductive thinking, will do nothing to stop Climate Change.

So as the planet perhaps inevitably closes in on and goes beyond that 1.5°C target, it’s reasonable to wonder how a world with “just” that degree of warming would compare with a world where global temperatures rise by 2°C or more above preindustrial levels.

(Keep in mind that there’s no science suggesting that the warming of the planet’s atmosphere will magically stop at that 2°C limits; indeed, just the opposite).

Every bit of warming matters.

About 14% of the world’s population would be exposed to extreme heat waves once every five years if global temperature increases are held to 1.5°C; that percentage jumps to 37% with a rise of 2°C.

• With a 1.5°C increase, extremely hot days in the mid-latitudes will be 3°C hotter (5.4°F) than pre-industrial levels.
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• With a 2°C increase, extremely hot days in the mid-latitudes will be about 4°C hotter (7.2°F) than pre-industrial levels.
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• With a 1.5°C increase, sea levels are projected to rise by 2100 by 0.26 to 0.77 meters (0.85-2.52 feet) relative to 1986-2005.
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• With a 2°C increase, sea levels are projected to rise by 2100 by 0.36 to 0.87 meters (1.18-2.85 feet) relative to 1986-2005.
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• With a 1.5°C increase, 6 percent of insects, 8 percent of plants, and 4 percent of vertebrates are projected by 2100 to lose more than half of their climatically determining geographic range.
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• With a 2°C increase, those percentages double or triple: 18 percent of insects, 16 percent of plants, and 8 percent of vertebrates are projected by 2100 to lose more than half of their climatically determining geographic range.
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• With a 1.5°C increase, scientists project that the Arctic Ocean will become ice-free in the summer about once every 100 years.
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• With a 2°C increase, the Arctic Ocean could become ice-free in the summer once every 10 years.
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• With a 1.5°C increase, coral reefs around the world are projected to decline further by 70-90 percent.
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• With a 2°C increase, coral reefs are projected to decline by more than 99 percent — an irreversible loss in many marine and coastal ecosystems.
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• With a 1.5°C increase, one global model cited by the U.N. report projects a decrease in the global annual catch for marine fisheries of about 1.5 million metric tonnes.
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• With a 2°C increase, the same model projects a decrease of more than 3 million metric tonnes.

Compared with a rise of 2°C, limiting warming to 1.5°C could reduce the number of people worldwide exposed to climate-related risks and resulting poverty by hundreds of millions fewer people.

The notion that humans could override nature is absurd.   

To limit warming to 1.5°C, global net greenhouse gas emissions from human activity must decline by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050. To limit warming to 2°C, emissions must decline by about 25 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by about 2070.

The money is only about one-third of the amount the IEA says is needed to put the world on track to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

It has been being clear that since 1978, global warming has become even more apparent.  

Almost everything these days are presented to us in a way that’s supposed to get us to consume something.

Every result that shows up in Cop26 has been caused by certain actions that were taken in the past.  That means that we’re constantly living in the residue caused by our thoughts and actions in the past.

After 25 Cop summits have achieved zero as we have not yet discovered the laws that control any given circumstance to stop climate change. 

The bottom line is that if you don’t like the effect of the actions that you’ve taken in the past, then alter your actions to create a better future.

Poverty and prosperity are opposite poles of the same thing. 1.5 and 2.4 are not. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

( Four-minute read) 

To grasp the nettle Cop26 has to realize that there can be no compromises with the Climate. 

This is not a negotiation with each other.  There is another unspoken negotiation going on too – called compromises which are fundamentally unambitious when it comes to Climate Change. 

Reducing carbon emissions, improving the food supply and demand imbalance, and reducing water shortages: are the three biggest challenges that the world is currently facing.

At the current temperature rate, we have just 12 years to make a difference. 

Public government finances are not enough to fund efforts to keep a global temperature rise below two degrees. 

By 2030, by 2070, and by, by do not grasp that it is now we need to ensure your money is tied up ethically, sustainably, and responsibly so it will go a long way to alleviate the increasing effects of climate change, and the subsequent challenges it brings.

To meet growing demand, we need more food, resources, water, and energy and this increase in the use of resources presents global challenges that can not be met by public finances. 

So the onus is on the financial sector to make strides for climate change, but most of the fund offerings within the sustainability or environmental space are mainly equity-only strategies.

This poses a significant challenge only in cost but in investment. 

It is now that we need to invest in a green economic world that is brimming with prosperity – something that is only expected to rise in the future as the world moves towards a necessarily sustainable society.  

Growth is the key reason for general investor interest in sustainability and environmental themes.

One only has to look at sovereign wealth funds investing more and more in the green economy. 

Most end-markets in the sustainability space are expected to grow annually at double-digit rates over the next three to five years compared to low single-digit in most developed economies.

So why not now invest sustainably by issuing Green bonds with remuneration in order to provide a clear incentive to drive this change. 

They will not just provide financial rewards, but environmental ones, too.

COP26 MIGHT BE THE MOST COMPLEX NEGOTIATION EVER ATTEMPTED. 

Why? 

Because humans are helplessly reciprocal creatures and without realizing it we mirror each other in what we say and how we say it.

Negotiations are rarely about the issue we’re talking about.

Try compromising with this lot.  

The temperature rise has not been, and will not be, uniform or smooth across the country or over time. 

Increased heavy precipitation events will continue.

Heat waves (periods of abnormally hot weather lasting days to weeks) everywhere are projected to become more intense.

Hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm.

Sea level rise will continue past 2100 because the oceans take a very long time to respond to warmer conditions at the Earth’s surface.

The Arctic Ocean is expected to become essentially ice-free in summer before mid-century.

Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond.

The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come.

So we must figure out new ways of working together to create a sustainable world.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

( Fifteen-minute read) 

The 1998 Belfast Agreement was supposed to bring peace to the province.  In reality, it institutionalized sectarianism by setting up a consociational regime, which, like Lebanon, rewards the hardest communal politicians.

UK-EU trade deal came into force on 1 January 2021.

The deal prevented any tariffs and quotas from being introduced – which would have made it more expensive to trade, but as the UK no longer has to follow EU rules on product standards, new checks were introduced.

However, this deal called the Northern Ireland protocol doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility of tariffs in the future.

If either the UK or the EU shifts their rules too far, the other side could introduce tariffs.

The Northern Ireland protocol keeps Northern Ireland in the EU single market for goods and means EU customs rules are enforced at its ports – but it is strongly opposed among unionists, who see it as separating Northern Ireland from the UK.

The DUP backed Brexit for two reasons.

Firstly, it thought that a clean break with the EU would put an end to any drift towards a 32 county Ireland because the two parts of the country would be governed by different economic arrangements.

Secondly, it supported the Tory fantasy that a fully sovereign Britain would be better able to restore both its “greatness” and its imperial tradition.

                                                     ———–

So far, the UK has signed trade deals and agreements in principle with 68 countries and one with the EU.

The majority are “rollover” deals – copying the terms of deals the UK already had when it was an EU member, rather than creating new benefits.