Jomo Kwame Sundaram’s Blog

No inflation consensus International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva doubts the world faces a runaway inflation threat. She urges policymakers to carefully calibrate fiscal and monetary policies, with more “specificity”, as not ‘one size fits all’. Widespread reversal of COVID-19 spending and low interest rates threaten recovery. Similarly, Bank of England chief economist Huw Pill stressed the central bank was not going all out to tighten monetary policy. Instead, like Georgieva, he advocates a more nuanced approach, reasoning, “As the pandemic recedes and the level and composition of global demand and supply normalise, these inflationary pressures should subside”. US inflation phobia…

Many factors frustrate the international cooperation needed to address the looming global warming catastrophe. As most rich nations have largely abdicated responsibility, developing countries need to think and act innovatively and cooperatively to better advance the South. Climate action The world is woefully offtrack to achieving the current international consensus that it is necessary to keep the global temperature rise by the end of the 21st century to no more than 1.5°C (degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels two centuries ago. The last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns that temperatures are then likely to exceed 2.2°C. Many climate…

Governments must innovatively develop progressive means to finance the large-scale social spending needed to improve lives and livelihoods, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. More egalitarian tax reforms should enable governments to equitably mobilize desperately needed revenue to advance sustainable development for all. Fiscal policy challenges To respond to the pandemic and its economic fallout, massive resource mobilization has been necessary to protect people’s health and livelihoods, stem economic decline and stagnation, and ensure sustainable progress. Fiscal policy involves governments harnessing and deploying resources. But modes of state financing and spending impact economic inequalities. Monetary policy measures can be supportive, but they cannot…

Failure to vaccinate most in poor countries sustains the COVID-19 pandemic. Rich country greed and patent monopolies block developing countries from affordably making the means to protect themselves. Mutant menace The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been mutating as it replicates. Numerous replications in hundreds of millions of hosts have generated many variants. Some mutations are more resilient than others, and better able to overcome human defences. Early data suggest the B.1.1.529 Omicron variant is more transmissible than others, including Delta, and possibly more resistant to existing treatments and vaccines. Health authorities the world over are concerned WHO’s latest ‘variant of concern’ may trigger a new wave of preventable infections and deaths. South…

Funding for developing countries to address global warming is grossly inadequate. Very little finance is for adaptation to climate change, the urgent need of countries most adversely affected. Also, adaptation needs to be forward-looking rather than only addressing accumulated problems. Suicide pact? Climate change poses an existential threat, especially to poor countries with little means to adapt. Rich countries’ failure to deliver promised financial support has only made things worse. COVID-19 has dealt another knock-out blow, worsened by rich countries’ “health apartheid”. The COP26 deal was undoubtedly a “historically shameful dereliction of duty” and “nowhere near enough to avoid climate disaster”. Glasgow’s failure shows up lack…

Carbon offset markets allow the rich to emit as financial intermediaries profit. By fostering the fiction that others can be paid to cut greenhouse gases (GHGs) instead, it undermines efforts to do so. Committing to achieve ‘net-zero’ carbon emissions has become a major climate change policy goal. But most climate scientists agree the target is dangerously misleading. Ostensibly promoting decarbonization, it actually allows carbon emissions to continue rising. Breakthrough? On 28 January 2021, two High-Level Climate Action Champions, the COP25 and COP26 Presidents, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary launched the Davos’ World Economic…

The planet is already 1.1°C warmer than in pre-industrial times. July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded in 142 years. Despite the pandemic slowdown, 2020 was the hottest year so far, ending the warmest decade (2011-2020) ever. Betrayal in Glasgow Summing up widespread views of the recently concluded Glasgow climate summit, former Irish President Mary Robinson observed, “People will see this as a historically shameful dereliction of duty,… nowhere near enough to avoid climate disaster”. A hundred civil society groups lambasted the Glasgow outcome: “Instead of a multilateral agreement that puts forward a clear path to address the climate…

Quickly enabling greater and more affordable production of and access to COVID-19 medical needs is urgently needed in the South. Such progress will also foster much needed goodwill for international cooperation, multilateralism and sustainable development. The World Trade Organization (WTO) will soon decide on a conditional temporary waiver of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The waiver was proposed by South Africa and India on 2 October 2020. Two-thirds of the 164 WTO members – mainly developing countries – support it. But sustained European efforts – of Switzerland, the UK and the EU, led by Germany – have blocked progress ahead…

Addressing global warming requires cutting carbon emissions by almost half by 2030! For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, emissions must fall by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C, instead of the 2.7°C now expected. Instead, countries are mainly under pressure to commit to ‘net-zero’ carbon (dioxide, CO2) emissions by 2050 under that deal. Meanwhile, global carbon emissions – now already close to pre-pandemic levels – are rising rapidly despite higher fossil fuel prices. Emissions from burning coal and gas are already greater now than in 2019. Global oil use is expected to rise as…

Current climate mitigation plans will result in a catastrophic 2.7°C world temperature rise. US$1.6–3.8 trillion is needed annually to avoid global warming exceeding 1.5°C. Creative accounting Rich countries have long broken their 2009 Copenhagen COP16 pledge to mobilize “US$100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries”. The pandemic has worsened the situation, reducing available finance. Poor countries – many already caught in debt traps – struggle to cope. While minuscule compared to the finance needed to adequately address climate change, it was considered a good start. The number includes both public and private finance, with sources – public/private, grants/loans, etc. – unspecified. Such…