Africa

Climate talks should not focus on China and India at Africa’s expense

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has already failed Africa, some observers believe, so why bother post-2012 when the existing CDM framework established under the Kyoto Protocol expires? But as the international community prepares to negotiate a new climate pact, we should care about extending the CDM, and care a great deal. After all, the CDM […]

The Unsettling Case of Shell Nigeria

After thirteen years and countless hours by lawyers, community members, and activists around the world, Royal Dutch Shell finally settled the Wiwa v Shell case in a New York court for $15.5 million. Plaintiffs in the case, which included Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., and the families of other Ogoni men hanged in November 1995, charged that […]

While the West will have to eat less meat, Africa might have to eat more

Jim Motavalli of E/Environmental Magazine has a piece in Foreign Policy (!) on the difficulties we face in lowering meat consumption on any significant scale: …Giving up meat is tough, and arguing people into it is probably a losing proposition. Even with all the statistics out there about the dangers of meat, there are fewer […]

Reports highlight need to support clean water projects in poor countries

The failure of governments in both rich and poor countries to prioritize basic sanitation is killing thousands of children every day, according to two reports released today by WaterAid and PATH. And a third report released yesterday suggests that the global economic crisis may increase the death rate, at least in Africa. All three reports […]

African ethanol producers accepting employment applications

Wanted: Young cane cutters for part time seasonal work. Must be willing to work ten hours a day swinging a machete in tropical sun while wearing gloves, long sleeved shirt, and hat — no retirement benefits (because you won’t live that long). Apply within. The comment below ElMarto’s photo on Flickr titled “Truck Shadow Escape” […]

Chad fights charcoal in battle against creeping desert

NDJAMENA — Authorities in Chad are cracking down on the use of charcoal to save forests and keep the desert from advancing in the Saharan nation, but discontent is mounting over the tough measures. Sanctions that began coming into effect in December include torching vehicles carrying charcoal and arresting people transporting the product, law-and-order officials […]

Big Ethanol descends on Africa for land, water, and sympathetic governments

A few weeks ago I was in Mozambique for a conference that brought together NGOs, small-scale farmers, agricultural associations, and local media to discuss the impact of biofuel production in southern Africa. While the United States and other Western countries mandate ethanol quotas to supposedly reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, many farmers in Africa […]

David Rieff on the Gates Foundation’s ‘Green Revolution in Africa’

No development project in the sustainable-ag world generates more controversy than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations’ efforts around agriculture in Africa. On the one hand, Gates officials say they have learned the hard lessons of the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s — the one that, funded by U.S. foundation cash, brought the […]

Oil and the status of women in the Middle East

I'm not sure this falls under my "campus news" beat for Grist, but I heard it at a seminar at a college campus, and it's compelling enough that I'm going to say that because it falls within academia, it counts. Michael Ross is a political scientist at UCLA who was published in the February 2008 American Political Science Review with the assertion (PDF) that much of the gender inequality in the Middle East relative to the rest of the world can be explained not by traditional Islam, but by the presence of oil.

The quick version is that Ross makes a strong case that women are hurt by a previously unappreciated effect of the infamous "resource curse" that imperils democracy in countries with abundant fossil fuels.