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Love or hate the idea, Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative, like other past first lady pet-projects, falls in the tradition of improving social good. Previous first ladies have advocated for issues including mental health awareness, drug abuse, literacy and, in Ms. Obama’s case, the improvement of public health through instilling better eating habits. Considering the struggles many Americans have with heart disease and obesity, the cause is a noble one. One result of Ms. Obama’s advocacy is the Partnership for a Healthier America, which espouses a variety of goals to make Americans more active and make better eating choices.

One of the aims of Partnership for a Healthier America was to open more supermarkets in America’s food deserts: areas that lack grocery stores and other options for fresh, healthy food. Like many initiatives that involve corporate responsibility, this idea attracted all kinds of attention. Many retailers promised to open stores that would expand options for fresh food in poorer neighborhoods. As as is the case with many big ideas (such as the activity around the current COP21 talks), the quest to expand better food options inspired a lot of “me too!” activity, as food companies pledged that they would take action so that 18 million or so Americans could have easier access to supermarkets and, most importantly, healthful food.

But as a recent Associated Press analysis explains, following the hype around this announcement in 2011, very little has happened. Of the 2,400-odd grocery stores that have opened the past four years, less than 10 percent of them are in these so-called food deserts.

One question, of course, is whether this is really a problem at all. Some evidence suggests that getting more fresh meats, dairy, fruits and vegetables into poor neighborhoods really does not cure the health problems associated with poverty. And some companies have tried to base themselves in neighborhoods lacking grocery stores, only to fail. Unfortunately, this problem has less to do with the neighborhoods than with the way in which supermarkets operate.

For example, take Tesco’s Fresh and Easy, which opened with much fanfare across central and southern California almost a decade ago. Neighborhoods such as Hollywood and Eagle Rock/Mount Washington in Los Angeles, as well as downtown Fresno, suddenly had a full-service grocery store. But the nicely laid-out, clean stores, with well-priced items, had several problems.

Many shoppers found the chain neither fresh nor easy. Never mind the fact that many shoppers found the automated check-out lines annoying and confusing, or that the sample corner often looked as if it were warehousing last week’s samples. Like many chains, including Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, Tesco standardized its product offerings across all of its stores. So, while that organic masala curry sauce may have been a hit in Eagle Rock with Occidental College students down the street, it was a miss in many other stores. Other customers, expecting fresh food, instead saw produce so over-packaged that even Trader Joe’s would blush, and simply moved on.

And while the corner store in that underserved neighborhood may be criticized for having higher prices and less of a selection, the chances run high that it knows what its customers buy — like the many corner stores serving the immigrant Armenian populations in Glendale, Little Armenia and a few hours north in Fresno. But the business model of many supermarkets do not take into account the demographics of individual neighborhoods. Sadly, your closest Costco will probably be more inclined to serve local products and understand the ethnic makeup of your community rather than its competing supermarket chains.

Unfortunately for these communities, the odds of a large grocery store opening up in these areas is becoming slimmer. The food retail industry is in flux, with more mergers underway and profit margins become thinner as the Krogers and Safeways of the world cope with consumers who increasingly buy their groceries at the likes of Target, and of course, Walmart or even Amazon.

Nevertheless, there is a chance at developing some creative ideas here. Depending on now 'food desert' is defined, that closest grocery store is still only one to three miles away. True, that is hardly convenient when you are grocery shopping for a family of four, but the sharing economy has an opening here. Why can’t Lyft and Uber partner with chains that claim to have a social mission, such as a Kroger’s or Publix? These companies can work together on making it affordable to get from these underserved neighborhoods to these food oases. Or, bring the store to these neighborhoods: Take a play from the food trucks’ playbook, and schedule drives to these neighborhoods with basic staples, as well as fresh produce. Will these ideas work? Who knows; they have not even been tried. But surely a compromise can be found, because considering the costs of opening a store, hiring staff and maintenance, no business will open in a location unless it can make that 1- to 3-percent profit margin and be profitable after eight to 10 years.

Food deserts and oases aside, these companies that made promises should be held accountable. The challenge, however, is that the Partnership for a Healthier America’s list of partners reads more like a who’s who of academia and food brands, with retailers lacking. And the organization’s news releases are more of a public relations love-fest than suggestions of real, workable solutions. As with many noble causes, the ideas are good, but the execution is lacking.

Image credit: The White House (Flickr)

Concerned American tuna consumers have something to rejoice about. Thai Union Group (TU), a company linked to human rights and environmental abuses within Thailand's tuna industry, recently announced it terminated its acquisition of American canned tuna company Bumble Bee Foods.

TU announced in December 2014 that it agreed to acquire Bumble Bee. TU and the Lion Capital “vigorously advocated the merits of the deal to the U.S. Department of Justice,” as stated in a press release, but it concluded that it was unlikely to receive clearance in the stipulated time in the share purchase agreement.

“We have put a lot of efforts to get this deal approved. However, we also recognize that the clearance is now unlikely due to a higher level of complexity in the process,” said Thiraphong Chansiri, president and CEO of TU. “We have decided to focus our energy on our existing business. Thai Union remains committed to the North American seafood market.”

Greenpeace launched a campaign to improve the tuna industry, targeting TU because the company is the world’s third largest seafood company. It produces nearly a fifth of the global tuna supply, and about 40 percent of all Thai tuna is sold by TU. As a recent Greenpeace report puts it, “Every second, the company exports the equivalent of about 157 cans of tuna from Thailand.”

TU's decision to back away from the acquisition of Bumble Bee tuna is “good news for consumers globally,” said Greenpeace USA oceans campaigner, Kate Melges, in a statement. “Thai Union has been linked to far too many serious labor abuses and destructive fishing practices to be taking on new brands without sorting out its existing problems."

Thailand's tuna industry is rife with human rights abuses and environmental destruction

The Greenpeace report reveals just how bad the conditions are in Thailand’s tuna sector. The report links the Thai industry to human trafficking, debt bondage, child labor and forced labor. Tuna workers also regularly suffer from a slew of human rights abuses and labor violations. There are human rights abuses perpetrated against those who help catch the tuna and those who process it. “Research indicates that egregious human rights and labor abuses are also present in tuna supply chains,” the report states.

Thai Union owns the popular American canned tuna brand Chicken of the Sea. Earlier this year, reports by the Associated Press and New York Times revealed the human rights abuses that are part of the Thai tuna industry. The AP investigation revealed that slave labor is part of the industry, tracking 40 Burmese slaves who worked on tuna vessels. The New York Times investigation discovered that labor abuse at sea “can be so severe that the boys and men who are its victims might as well be captives from a bygone era.”

A 2014 U.S. State Department report ranked Thailand as a country that is a “source, destination and transit country for men, women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.” The report found that many are exploited in the Thai fishing industry.

Environmental destruction is also tied to the Thai tuna industry, according to the Greenpeace report. There is evidence that Thailand’s fish stocks have greatly declined over the last 50 years. There is a link between the dwindling fish stocks and the human rights abuses in the tuna industry. Since the yields are “increasingly poor” in Thai territorial waters, as the report points out, there is pressure put on the operators of fishing vessels: They are forced to go further out for longer periods of time “using unsustainable methods.” So, vessel operators have turned to human trafficking networks to supply their crews and decrease labor expenditure.

Image credit: Flickr/Rusty Clark

Pharma company Novartis has supplied 300m antimalarial treatments without profit to treat children suffering from malaria.

The Swiss drugs giant has been delivering treatments since 2009, helping to reduce the disease burden for children in more than 30 malaria-endemic countries, using Coartem Dispersible which was developed by Novartis in collaboration with Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) specifically to meet the needs of children (weighing 5kg and above). 

“This milestone underscores our long-standing commitment to the fight against malaria and to the children who are most at risk from the disease,” said Joseph Jimenez, CEO of Novartis. “We are proud of the part we have played in helping to reduce childhood deaths from malaria. And we continue to provide medicine at no profit to people who need it, contributing to the goal of a world free from the disease.”

Dr David Reddy, CEO of MMV, added: “The WHO World Malaria Report 2015 shows that we are making significant strides in reducing child mortality from malaria, and this is largely thanks to sustained international commitment and the availability of a range of innovative tools and solutions, including quality child-friendly medicines like Coartem® Dispersible.”

On Tuesday morning in Paris, Oxfam Australia’s executive director, Helen Szok, issued the following statement about the ongoing COP21 negotiations: "Developing countries are at risk of being squeezed out of critical negotiations as the pace of talks intensifies. The small delegations of the poorest countries are being stretched, and it is vital that ministers ensure their voices are heard on critical issues like climate funding as the deadline for the Paris deal looms."

TriplePundit sat down with Heather Coleman, who manages Oxfam America’s climate policy work, to find out more about the unique challenges facing delegations from small, low-income countries, and what that means for their ability to engage effectively with the negotiations in Paris.

"Some of [these countries] only have 100,000 people living in them. And even if they're not that small, certainly they're not very well-resourced," Coleman explained. "So, when they come here, they're coming with a few delegates. Many of them will badge folks from civil society to help them on their country teams."

This presents a huge roadblock as the pace and complexity of the talks heated up at the start of this week. Multiple bilateral and small group meetings are being held in parallel, making it increasingly difficult to ensure that the voices of the poorest and most vulnerable country delegations are raised. Last week, 3p correspondent Nithin Coca pointed out that the complexity of the talks can make it challenging for the average person to grasp what's going on. And, as it turns out, the same is true for some of the most vulnerable nations at the conference.

"They don't have the capacity to cover it all," Coleman continued. "For them, they need to try to figure out a way to streamline and simplify. So, that's the real issue.

"And I think that any ways that the [COP presidency] can work to ensure that the process is happening in a way that's not only overly transparent, but also that allows for these counties to be able to engage, is really important."

The G77 raises concerns

G77 and China raised some concerns about the process for drafting language for Wednesday’s new text -- namely that the text might emerge out of small group or bilateral meetings instead of a larger setting where any country can participate.

While Coleman understands these concerns, she warns that an undue focus on process issues could muddy and slow down the negotiations -- hurting the chances of a robust deal that works for everyone.

"I think it's legitimate that they're raising concerns about the ability of vulnerable countries to engage effectively, but I also think that we need to continue to be moving forward at a fairly quick pace," Coleman told us. "We have a situation where we're trying to get a legal agreement done by Thursday … to be then adopted officially here at this COP."

"Process issues can get us hung up," she said simply, "and we don't have the time to get hung up."

Finance language removed from the Paris text

While many were disappointed with the outcome of COP15 in Copenhagen, at least one good thing came out of it: The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) committed to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 in public and private resources to support climate action in developing countries. But the “sources, instruments and channels that should count toward this goal remain ambiguous,” the World Resources Institute reports (PDF).

Now, things appear to be getting even more complicated: “One casualty of this race for the new text is the deletion of language referring to interim finance targets toward the $100 billion goal by 2020, and to a separate goal for adaptation within the $100 billion,” Oxfam said on Tuesday. “This language was on the table in a COP decision on long-term finance in a text that will feed into the final agreement but was sacrificed last night in favor of a much reduced text with little or no new agreements.”

So, what gives? Coleman explains:

"The numbers that were pulled out last night I think were pulled out because the G77 has to focus on some of the top issues that are most critical to them moving forward," she explained. "Those numbers were in reference to money that was already on the table for the next five years. They weren't in reference to what's going to happen once we hit 2020 hand beyond. So, I think what it signals is that [the G77] really want to focus on 2020 and beyond."

A consensus appears to be reached on language recognizing that the $100 billion goal will be a floor for the post-2020 period, Oxfam said. But Coleman added that negotiations on finance for the pre-2020 period are by no means off the table.

"It's very much still on the table, and I think that it may come back in the form of another text," she told us. "There's still an important issue to be addressed regarding adaptation finance for developing countries even before 2020, and that's the piece that did get pulled out. So, we can't loosen pressure on that issue ... Even though [the G77] hasn't prioritized it as a top ask, it still remains one of the issues to be addressed here."

Although the pre-2020 finance landscape remains murky, the fact that developing countries are more clearly communicating their needs for 2020 and beyond -- essentially new versions of the $100 billion goal -- is not without significance, Oxfam noted.

"Bolivia for the G77/China made this call, supported by countries like Argentina, Peru and Colombia, alongside Mexico," Oxfam reported. "The U.S. has indicated an openness to agree to embedding a process of setting such funding targets in the post-2020 agreement, provided an agreement can be reached that encourages complementary finance contributions on a voluntary basis from developing countries."

These issues will continue to be discussed at ministerial level on Tuesday, facilitated by the ministers of Germany and Gabon, Oxfam said.

"The U.S. needs vulnerable countries"

Although it's still unclear how adaptation in the most vulnerable nations will be financed, Coleman remains optimistic that an effective deal can be reached by Friday. She credited U.S. President Barack Obama for creating a constructive environment from the get-go.

"The president, when he came here at the beginning of the week, he gave a lot of credibility to small island nations and vulnerable countries," she told 3p. "He had a direct meeting with leaders of small island states and really addressed them directly as an island boy and said: 'I understand your issues. I understand the vulnerabilities you face, and we're not going to put them aside in this deal.' And I think that was the most important signal we've gotten that this deal is going to be a deal that works for vulnerable countries."

While it may seem, on the surface, as if developing countries need rich nations like the U.S. to help them pay for climate change adaptation strategies, Coleman pointed out that -- politically speaking -- U.S. delegates are just as reliant on the G77.

"The U.S. needs vulnerable countries and they need countries in Africa on their side, if we're going to get a deal that the U.S. wants to see," she said in conclusion. "So, politically, they have to be on it."

Image credit: Mary Mazzoni

Last August, when three Congressional Black Caucus members paid a visit to some of Silicon Valley's largest tech employers to investigate the lack of diversity in computer science-trained professionals, the media listened.  The fact that only 2 percent of Google's workers in 2014 were African American, and 1 percent or less of the leadership in the tech industry's most powerful companies were women, made headline news.

For weeks, many of us were riveted about the question of how and when Silicon Valley's tech industry would take the challenge and transform its diversity numbers to reflect the census at large. The employment numbers coming out of companies like Twitter, Apple, Facebook and Google, said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), "showed a shameful lack of diversity" and had to change.

But what the news didn't highlight at the time was the bigger picture: According to a Gallup poll released in 2014, 90 percent of elementary and high schools throughout the U.S. didn't teach computer science (CS), and while parents overwhelmingly supported tech education for their kids, only 1 in 4 schools surveyed offered computer programming.

Moreover, many states are still way behind in ensuring that CS education is an accepted criteria for high school graduation. In 2013, only nine states allowed CS to count toward science or math credits. Today, that number is up to 27 states plus Washington, D.C. The 41 percent of states that don't give science and math credits for CS eduction include tech-wannabes like Colorado and Nevada. And in California, while CS can count toward graduation requirements, it's still an elective.

Some tech companies have been trying to change these statistics. Google offers the Rise Award to enterprising students under the age of 18. It also offers the Bay Area Impact Challenge Grant to nonprofits whose programs show promise in social change. In some cases these funds have the opportunity to trickle down to CS engineers-to-be.

But it's fair to say that much of the transformation in the technical education frontier these days is coming from enterprising small organizations and for-profit coding companies that see a dire need to redesign Silicon Valley's employment culture

Reshma Saujani's decision to launch Girls Who Code didn't start in Silicon Valley, but rather in New York. She realized in 2010 that, even though the Bureau of Labor Statistics says there will be more than 1 million computing jobs on the market by 2020, "women educated in the U.S. are currently on pace to hold just 3 percent of them. [There’s] just no way our country can be competitive in the 21st century without diversifying the tech sector," Saujani told 3p. Girls Who Code offers summer immersion classes and more comprehensive training to middle-school an high-school students.

"We provide girls-only classes, which makes our students comfortable and builds a community," Saujani said. "We also recently unveiled our Alumni Network, which will be a great resource for connecting [Girls Who Code] graduates to career opportunities in the field."

Moreover, she notes, even though statistics show that girls who try out CS in high school are 10 times more likely to choose the topic as their university major, girls aren't encouraged sufficiently at home and in school to follow their dreams. "Our society simply has not provided enough female role models in this field – kids today have just been socialized, especially through movies and TV, to believe that coding is a male activity."

"You cannot be what you cannot see."

To jumpstart that exposure at the youngest age possible, the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula sponsors summer classes for Bay Area youth in elementary, middle and high school. This summer, its Google CS First program was launched at six BGCP sites with the help of Americorps volunteers.

"Our elementary-school students take basic game design classes, our middle-school students are learning robotics programing, and our high-school students take video editing electives," said David Cruz, a development associate for BGCP. "STEM (science technology engineering and math) is at the heart of Silicon Valley and key to successful careers in our area; we want our youth to be able to grasp STEM-related career opportunities."

Ensuring that STEM training is accessible to low-income students is crucial, Cruz continued.

"The more our education system incorporates STEM and tech education to disadvantaged students, the more balanced the tech career playing-field will become."

Like Saujani, he commends tech companies that are willing to step outside the bounds of conventional recruiting practices and create new avenues for aspiring coders.

"A successful model is for companies to take the extra step and partner with youth organizations to develop and inspire the next generation," Cruz told 3p. "Low-income youth need scholarships and internship opportunities" in order to succeed.

Approximately 20 percent of Oakland, California's population reported being below the poverty level in 2009-2013. With almost a third of the city's population under the age of 18 in 2010, East Bay companies like Pandora, Uber and Kaiser Permanente have a growing employment resource at their fingertips, led by educational organizations and companies like Hack the Hood, Telegraph Academy and YesWeCode, all of which offer coding courses in and around the Bay Area.

But as Code.org points out, the tech boom faces another growing challenge: Many of today's jobs require a comprehensive computer science engineering education, and oftentimes an education that goes beyond coding.

Sixty-seven percent of STEM jobs require knowledge in computing. And only 8 percent of STEM graduates major in computer science. Furthermore, as Saujani pointed out, providing the incentive for students to choose CS as a college major is key: According to ExploringCS.org, the number of students that take CS advanced placement exams for qualification in college has actually declined in recent years, and significantly fewer women take the AP test compared to men; the same is true with African Americans and Latinos when compared to white students.

So, recognizing the importance and incentive of CS education, Code.org points out, is the first step to ensuring there will be enough trained applicants to fill those 1 million jobs in 2020: "Every 21st-century child should have the ability to learn about algorithms, how to make an app, or how the Internet works ... just like they learn about photosynthesis, the digestive system or electricity."

It's a vision that today's coding education networks like Girls Who Code and the BGCP's Google Code First program see as an educational must for Bay Area's youth.

Image credit: Woodleywonderworks

"The purpose of our company is sustainability," said Claus Stig Pedersen, head of corporate sustainability at Novozymes. That's why the organization has decided to use the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals as a test to determine if new business development projects are a good fit.

The Danish enzyme manufacturer was looking for a new way to measure social and environmental wellbeing last year. When the Sustainable Development Goals were published in September, Stig Pedersen suggested that his company use them as metrics, "because what’s better than a shared commitment from 193 countries?"

Novozymes' board quickly approved the proposal. As a first step, they've refined the 169 targets in the 17 SDG goals into 15 "material" impact categories that are relevant to the business: poverty, health, gender, sanitation, food supply, water supply, energy supply, land use, acidification, climate change, nutrification, forest, resources, chemicals and waste.

These impact areas will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of future projects. "If it’s good enough for the world, it’s also good enough for us," Stig Pedersen explained. Now, technology impacts will also include a measure of the impact on people -- ideally, the number of people impacted. For example, if an enzyme product can improve agriculture yields, there will likely be a boost in human health. If a product can reduce industrial use of formaldehyde, this will also have a positive impact on human health.

This methodology will not only be used to measure the impact of the organization, but also to determine the return on investment for a particular project and, in turn, to determine whether the company should move forward with a given project or not.

When asked what would happen if a project showed a high social or environmental return but not big profit, Stig Pedersen laughed. “This is going to be very exciting, isn't it? We don’t have a plan to handle it yet; we are going to have to see how it goes."

This isn't entirely new ground for the biotech company; environmental and social issues have long been a consideration. However, up until this point, they were something of a negative screen -- negative environmental and social consequences could derail a project. Now, these SDG impacts will help Novozymes determine which projects can have a positive impact on the society and the planet, and this positive benefit can be the nudge that moves a borderline project forward.

When asked if this new plan would have any impact on Novozymes' exceptional sustainability reporting, Stig Pedersen explained that, while it might have some impact on how the company reports its impacts, "this is much more about business development."

Image credit: Global Festival of Ideas for Sustainable Development/Flickr

When American businessman and author Seth Siegel went looking for a country whose water-management plan could help solve the planet's advancing water woes, he settled on a country with an unusual profile: a tiny nation with only one major fresh-water lake to its name and excruciatingly small amounts of rainfall to count on each year; a nation whose pioneers have been transforming vast deserts for centuries and now provides water for its neighbors as well. And most importantly, a country that had already faced a life-threatening drought, that knew the humanitarian price of losing its water independence, and had the moxie to search for truly unorthodox answers: Israel.

Siegel's New York Times best-seller, "Let There Be Water: Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World" (St. Martin's Press, 2015), explores the steps that led to Israel's gradual success as a water-resilient nation. He says that his interest in Israel's water technology came about as a result of his concern over the planet's increasing water shortage.

"I learned of the coming global water problems about four years ago," Siegel told TriplePundit, and he began looking for answers. "I started looking for models that worked well in solving water problems. And in case after case, I found Israel was probably the most sophisticated example. Then, I started looking at it in a holistic way: that Israel would be an extraordinary model for the world at large, with countries rich or poor, large or small."

Israel's steady success in building a self-sufficient water system, Siegel continued, lies in its diversity of approaches, what Siegel refers to as its "all of the above" principle: the idea that a resilient economy and a dependable water program thrives because of its creative approaches.

"What they have done phenomenally well is develop many different technologies and governing structures with legislation, pricing market mechanisms; they radically rethought agriculture." Innovative technologies to cut down on water loss, like the transformative introduction of drip irrigation in the 1950s and the development of distant meter reading (DMR) technology to eradicate unchecked leaks, have dovetailed with the government's efforts to ensure that all water use is protected, priced and paid for equitably.

But as Siegel pointed out, it may be the social mindset that truly sets apart Israel's success in creating a comprehensive water management program.

"No decision made by the Zionist pioneers and the young state of Israel has had a greater impact on Israel's water culture than the decision to make water the common property of all," he explains in the book.  Israel's shifting focus from a socialist to more capitalist-centered economy hasn't undermined the country's success when it comes to ensuring that its water serves every single resident equally and without prejudice or price discrimination.

"Israel's water system may be the most successful example of socialism in practice anywhere in the world today."

There have been many studies of Israel's innovative water programs, but few books or articles have been as successful or as eloquent in tying together the multiple facets that have bolstered Israel's success as a water-independent country. Its comparison to places like California -- which we covered earlier this year -- only scratches the surface when it comes to what it takes to guarantee global (or national) water stewardship.

It isn't just developing a broadly-adaptable wastewater distribution program for agriculture and other uses, or boosting desalination plant production, or taking advantage of water management technology that will improve our water independence, Siegel explains, but changing the mindset when it comes to the relationship with water as a whole. And that means setting standards for how water is drilled, how seeds are developed and how crops are irrigated.

It also means changing the way water is regulated: creating a water culture that is governed not by politicians and lawmakers (who often must balance their attention between citizens, lobbyists and companies with commercial interests), but by regional nonpolitical water utilities. Although Israel's water has been nationalized since the 1950s, it has been the local water utility boards, Siegel pointed out, that have served as "local labs for innovation." Both the drip irrigation system and the DMR concept were created by engineers that had the latitude to look for answers, and were unencumbered by corporate profit margins when it came to implementing water-saving mechanisms.

With COP21 just winding up, the debate over how to adapt to the world's rising seas is still intensive.The Coastal Visualization Environment (CLIVE), designed at the University of Prince Edward Island Climate Change Lab in Canada and announced this week at COP21, is one of several tools that have been developed to give people a bird's-eye view of just how and where sea-level rise will affect them. What it doesn't do as succinctly as some may wish, perhaps, is offer an answer as to how to stop sea-level rise.

That, Siegel said, can only be accomplished through introspective discussion about our agricultural water management approaches and culture. Current research, he said, shows that the "each to his own" approach when it comes to agricultural practices like flood irrigation has a bearing not just on our local water access, but on sea level rise. And the alternative, he says, may not be easy for Americans to swallow. Just like how we price, monitor and regulate water, irrigating agriculture must have standards that ensure the preservation of that resource.

"[We] must have a reformation of agriculture, so that whether it is federal or state dollars, you have to incentivize farmers to stop flood irrigating and, whether by mandate or by tax dollars, encourage the use of drip irrigation," Siegel said. By implementing controlled irrigation practices and refined wastewater distribution, "we can have a good shot at getting over the rest of this crisis."

Siegel is best known as the founder and co-founder of several trend-setting companies including the tech company Vringo, financial services firm Sixpoint Partners, and the trademark licensing company Beanstalk Group whose success in the 1990s led to its eventual purchase by the Ford Motor Co.

He is well positioned to understand the American debate over private versus public control of resources like water, and why this issue speaks to the heart of America's own self-definition. "Let There Be Water" is as much a treatise about the optimism and benefits of reaching water independence and security, as it is about the current struggle that lays ahead for our water-challenged planet.

Images: 1) Betty Nudler; 2) Neil Ward; 3) Eran Finkle; 4) Jessica Reeder; 5) USDA.

By Dr. Maximilian Martin

“By 2050 global business must be carbon neutral.” —Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group founder, at the 2015 World Climate Summit / Sustainia Awards Ceremony, a companion event to COP21

Held on Sunday at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the World Climate Summit — the private-sector companion to COP21 — and the subsequent award ceremony held by Sustainia, a Danish think-tank focused on identifying leading green economy solutions — offered a fascinating counterpoint to the official negotiations at Le Bourget. Organized with the support of R20 Regions of Climate Action, the event provided a window on a number of promising corporate and public-sector commitments. It offered one overarching insight: We are now hitting the change of tides in sustainability.

Just as the amplitude of tides and their timing are a function of multiple factors—including the alignment of the sun and moon, deep ocean tide patterns and the shape of the coastline—four variables will co-determine how the current change of tides in sustainability will play out.

First, there is compounding evidence of the fundamental viability (if not always cost effectiveness) of renewables. Wind and solar have vastly overshot predictions of capacity added, and become serious business. Sustainia founder Erik Rasmussen called this “the rise of the solution revolution,” and asked participants “to change the world in 15 years.” This by modeling their expectations and actions on the disruptive changes we have seen in the world of digital with the fast adoption of tools such as the Google search engine or the iPhone and the associated implications for the way we work, interact, and allocate resources. For sure, the quality and speed of rollout of green economy solutions will condition the ultimate outcome.

Second, across town at the main COP21 meeting, it is becoming evident that introducing countries’ self-reporting of national adaptation plans and carbon emissions reduction goals was a productive move. When 185 countries hand in so-called “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDCs), these plans may only reflect forward-looking intentions. Notwithstanding, they have the inevitable side effect of injecting more concreteness into climate negotiations. This is comparable to the experience of the Carbon Disclosure Project, which had nearly 2,000 large businesses report carbon data in 2014—a very respectable result in just a bit over a decade after starting data collection in 2003. Add to this the changed stance on climate by the world’s two largest polluters, China and the US, and we can get much closer to a clear carbon reduction signal. This is precisely what many business leaders are asking politicians to provide. The strength of the demand signal and the stability of the policy outlook will condition the amount of private and public investment flowing into decarbonizing the economy.

Third, in the private sector, more and more companies are working on the introduction of carbon shadow pricing, thus anticipating tightening climate regulation. One thing we know from the world of management is that when things start to get measured consistently, they start to be managed.

This is also playing out in the financial industry, where investor attitudes are changing. Think tanks such as CarbonTracker and front-running professional investors have successfully injected the notion of a carbon bubble waiting to burst into the debate.

They have been lobbying for fossil fuel divestment for several years, and the argument is now gathering steam. As a result, institutional investors are compelled to take a view whether they still consider fossil fuels the same solid investment as in the past. If not, the decision question is if and when they should take steps to reduce exposure to potentially over-valued “stranded assets,” which will become uneconomical due to tightening climate regulation. Sir Richard Branson and his B Team colleagues even called for global business to go carbon neutral by 2050. This aiming to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as opposed to the generally agreed-upon goal of 2 degrees Celsius.

Knowing what we know about capitalism’s ability to over deliver, this may be less farfetched then it seems. As an example, take the 10,500 of 2.8 million members of the Dutch €345 billion civil-service pension scheme Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP. This spring, they presented a petition to divest the pension fund’s stakes in coal, tar sands and shale gas within two years. One might tend to discount the influence of this mere 0.38 percent of members.

Notwithstanding, in October 2015, ABP announced that, with its new socially responsible investment (SRI) policy, it would divest more than 1,500 holdings as a measure to help reduce the carbon footprint of its entire portfolio by 25 percent by 2020. Put simply, with beer giant Carlsberg yesterday presenting its initiative “cheers to green ideas,” which aims to increase resource efficiency and decarbonize beer packaging and distribution, it was obvious that sustainability has now arrived.

Notwithstanding, a fourth variable will condition how high the sustainability tide will ultimately rise: reaching the advances in fundamental science and their deployment in commercial products that are needed to render renewables fully cost competitive. Not only do we need to make fossil fuels comparatively more expensive by internalizing the price of carbon, we also need to make renewable energy cheaper. When asked to give up its expansion plans for coal to power national development, a country such as India will otherwise consider decarbonization to be “carbon imperialism” as recently argued by Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government’s chief economic adviser. Redistribution schemes where the countries that industrialized first foot the bill to decarbonize those economies that are industrializing now are morally legitimate. We live in a second-best world however. In real terms, such policies suffer from a budget constraint and are alone insufficient to unblock the road to staying within two degrees Celsius.

If we cannot significantly boost the supply side of clean energy in terms of lower prices and higher quantities, this is bound to have an adverse impact on the transition path to the 80-100 percent renewable economy in our lifetime. There is lots of work to do on this front. An international climate agreement would surely reduce free-riding, as former European Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard pointed out at the summit. Yet if Paris really is to mark the time to take fresh economic thinking from the periphery to core of the global economy, we need to step up our solutions. To divest on a major scale, we need corresponding quality investment content to invest in much greater resource efficiency and cost-competitive clean energy generation and storage. Bill Gates & friends’ Breakthrough Energy Coalition and Mission Innovation can provide an important boost. This is a promising start—let’s now cross our fingers the R&D support idea will grow really big by the end of COP21, and then be replicated on a massive scale.

Image credit: Flickr/Cris

Maximilian Martin is the Founder and CEO of Impact Economy. Dr. Martin created Europe’s first global philanthropic services and impact investing department for UBS and the UBS Philanthropy Forum. In 2013, he wrote the primer on impact investing “Status of the Social Impact Investing Market” for the UK G8 social impact investment summit. His new book “Building the Impact Economy” shows how to reconcile responsibility with opportunity to seize the multitrillion-dollar opportunity of building a sustainable economy. Among other things, the book synthesizes insights from a review of over 9,000 cleantech startups and technologies.

By Eban Goodstein

In the three years leading to the ongoing Paris climate negotiations, the world has witnessed a truly big pivot. Back in 2012, business-as-usual global warming pollution was set to heat the world up 8 degrees Fahrenheit by century’s end. Neither of the two biggest polluters, the U.S. or China, had put serious policies in place to address the crisis. But now, if the commitments being made here in Paris are carried through, that 8-degree number will be cut to 6 degrees Fahrenheit.

What changed?

First, the U.S. came to the table. President Barack Obama issued EPA-mandated cuts from two big sectors, vehicles in 2012 and electric power in August of this year. With the U.S. commitments made, China’s leaders stepped up, motivated by a rising middle class demanding an end to the worst urban air pollution in the world. China pledged to cap coal use by 2020, and cap global warming pollution starting in 2030.

In China, domestic politics focused on cleaning up the air drove the big pivot. In the U.S., by contrast, increasingly fierce partisan division over action on climate change has produced nothing but legislative gridlock on climate. Blocked in Congress, Obama had to turn to a 45-year-old law, the Clean Air Act (CAA), as a basis for action.

Progress in Paris can thus be traced back to Republican President Richard Nixon. In 1970, Nixon signed the CAA, and also the legislation creating the EPA. The original CAA had nothing to do with global warming. Back then, no one besides a few scientists had even heard of it. Instead, like in China today, the focus was on urban smog and toxic air pollution. The CAA gave the newly created EPA the authority and the responsibility to ensure that industry was not putting dangerous materials into the air. The EPA went to work, and over the next two decades, air quality in U.S. cities improved dramatically.

Fast forward to 2007. Climate change had been a global issue for two decades, and yet the U.S. had passed no laws to regulate global warming pollution. Frustrated by the U.S. failure to lead on climate, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, joined by other states, sued the EPA. The suit argued that carbon dioxide and other global warming gasses were “dangerous pollutants," and therefore, under the 1970 CAA, the EPA was obligated to start regulating global warming emissions. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in a 5-4 decision, the Court agreed: Global warming gasses were indeed dangerous pollutants, and the EPA was ordered to regulate. As in many recent cases, Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, was the swing vote.

This decision, leveled against the Bush EPA, led eventually to the 2012 Obama EPA regulation requiring a doubling of the fuel efficiency of U.S. cars, to 55 miles per gallon by 2025. And in 2015, the EPA finalized regulations requiring the electric power sector to reduce emissions by 32 percent below 2005 level by 2030. Together, these two U.S. commitments brought China to the table, and have led in turn to the international agreement now being ratified in Paris that can shave 2 degrees off of the planetary warming our grandkids will experience.

A big kiss then goes out from Paris to President Nixon and Judge Kennedy. These Republican politicians represent a historic, deep bipartisan American tradition supporting environmental protection and resource conservation. Lost as we have become in the bitter partisanship of the Tea-Party era, it is hard to imagine that, as recently as 2008, both major contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain and Mitt Romney, at one point expressed support for climate regulation. Pragmatic bipartisan cooperation on environmental protection was a proud hallmark of U.S. politics throughout the 20th century.

In the face of the civilizational challenge of a destabilized climate, can we recapture this tradition of American support across party lines for stewardship of the earth? To sustain momentum, we have to. In the short term, Obama’s Paris pledge can be undone as early as November 2016, depending on the outcome of U.S. elections. Congress could exempt global warming pollution from the Clean Air Act, or a president opposed to climate action could slow-walk implementation of the EPA global warming regulations. If the U.S. backs down from Paris, so too will China, India and the rest of the world.

Over the medium term, we need to get 6 degrees Fahrenheit down to 4 degrees. The Clean Air Act, while a good start, cannot provide deep enough cuts from the U.S. to get us there. Post 2020, clean energy votes from both parties, in both houses of Congress, will be needed to avert the catastrophic consequences of a planet headed to 6 degrees Fahrenheit and beyond.

Why 2020? And how do we get from a deeply partisan here to a bipartisan there? More on that in my next post.

Image credit: Flickr/Bernd Schüttke

Eban Goodstein is an economist and is Director of the MBA in Sustainability and the Center for Environmental Policy at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

By Aidan Carrie Ganzert

While agriculture-based carbon emissions were being discussed at the Paris COP21 panels, a Chinese biotechnology company, Boyalife, announced the opening of the world’s largest cloning facility to serve China’s ever-growing beef demand. While the announcement clearly indicates China’s aspirations to lead in global biotech ventures, it also raises a whole host of consumer questions on the moral and ethical issues regarding food supply.

Instead of investing millions in a venture-risky cloning facility, why not invest in sustainable and ethics-friendly ventures to encourage greater beef production in China?

Cloning as a practice is fairly new. It wasn’t until the '90s that Dolly the sheep made headlines as the first successful clone. Nevertheless, cloning as a biotechnology venture has developed greatly in the past decade. Now it seems that cloning is ready to take on large-scale agriculture.

While cloned beef is deemed safe for consumption by the FDA, it is largely opposed by humane groups for a variety of ethical issues. As of now, the FDA has limited the amount of cloning productions permitted in the United States, the number being substantially smaller than that being produced by the Chinese facility. Since 2010, the EU has long proposed a ban on cloned farm animal meat. While the official legislation has stalled, the combined higher costs of production and general consumer disapproval has left cloned meat unmarketable in the Europe. However, it is apparent China has found a way to market it to its beef-hungry consumers.

The proposed facility will be located in Tianjin, approximately 100 miles outside of Beijing. The facility cost, including the gene bank and labs, is 200 million Yuan ($31.3 million). Initially, the company plans to produce 100,000 cattle to meet market demand. However, the company plans to eventually scale down the venture over time to as little as a 5% beef production rate. The remaining production, the company claims, will be met by producing cloned endangered species. The company also announced plans to reproduce racehorses and search-and-rescue dogs at the facility.

The CEO of the biotechnology company stated to the Guardian, “We are building something that has not existed in the past.”

Indeed, the company faces great challenges in treading a path never walked before. There are many questions that still remain regarding the environmental footprint of the facility, the long-term health concerns of cloned meat and cloned meat by-products, the labeling of cloned meat – and of course a whole host of moral and ethical issues regarding food supply. While China does not plan to set limits on the venture, the ultimate success of the operation weighs with consumers. The consumer response to cloned meat will undoubtedly determine the company’s success, and perhaps ultimately the future of similar biotechnology ventures.

Image credit: Flickr/Chris Marchant

Aidan Carrie Ganzert is a former international climate change researcher, currently developing innovative solutions for environmental issues in the intersections of economy and society. She will graduate with a MA in Sustainability in 2016.