April, 22 2009, 11:03am EDT

Maude Barlow Addresses UN General Assembly
Food & Water Watch Board Chair Maude Barlow addressed the United Nations General Assembly today to support the Bolivian call for an annual "International Mother Earth Day" celebration. Her speech was a call to action to implement the human right to water and abandon the "hard path" of large-scale technology - dams, diversion and desalination - in favor of the "soft path" of conservation, rainwater and storm water harvesting, recycling, alternative energy use, municipal infrastructure investment and local, sustainable food production.
UNITED NATIONS
Food & Water Watch Board Chair Maude Barlow addressed the United Nations General Assembly today to support the Bolivian call for an annual "International Mother Earth Day" celebration. Her speech was a call to action to implement the human right to water and abandon the "hard path" of large-scale technology - dams, diversion and desalination - in favor of the "soft path" of conservation, rainwater and storm water harvesting, recycling, alternative energy use, municipal infrastructure investment and local, sustainable food production.
Barlow's speech comes at a time when the quest for a formal right to water instrument is gathering strength both at the United Nations and within countries. She is hopeful that it is only a matter of time before the "blue covenant" she called for in her speech will be a reality.
"The problem is that we humans have seen the Earth and its water resources as something that exists for our benefit and economic advancement rather than as a living ecological system that needs to be safeguarded if it is to survive," Barlow said. "The human water footprint surpasses all others and endangers life on Earth itself."
Barlow, who was appointed last year as senior advisor on water to the president of the United Nations General Assembly, also participated in an afternoon program with Bolivian President Evo Morales, Brazilian writer-theologian Leonardo Boff, and United Nations President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. Barlow also briefed more than 35 countries and met with key United Nations agencies on this visit as part of her ongoing commitment to the human right to water.
"Water must be seen as a commons that belongs to the Earth and all species alike. It must be declared a public trust that belongs to the people, the ecosystem and the future and preserved for all time and practice in law," Barlow said. "Clean water must be delivered as a public service, not a profitable commodity. We need to assert once and for all that access to clean, affordable water is a fundamental human right that must be codified in nation-state law and as a full covenant at the United Nations."
"Watersheds must be protected from plunder and we must revitalize wounded water systems with widespread watershed restoration programs," Barlow urged.
Simply put, we must leave enough water in aquifers, rivers and lakes for their ecological health. This must be the priority: the precautionary principle of ecosystem protection must take precedence over commercial demands on these waters."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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US Among 18 Countries to Reach Deal on Keeping AI 'Secure by Design'
The agreement "is a step in the right direction for security," said one observer, "but that's not the only area where AI can cause harm."
Nov 27, 2023
Like an executive order introduced by U.S. President Joe Biden last month, a global agreement on artificial intelligence released Sunday was seen by experts as a positive step forward—but one that would require more action from policymakers to ensure AI isn't harmful to workers, democratic systems, and the privacy of people around the world.
The 20-page agreement, first reported Monday, was reached by 18 countries including the U.S., U.K., Germany, Israel, and Nigeria, and was billed as a deal that would push companies to keep AI systems "secure by design."
The agreement is nonbinding and deals with four main areas: secure design, development, deployment, and operation and maintenance.
Policymakers including the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, forged the agreement with a heavy focus on keeping AI technology safe from hackers and security breaches.
The document includes recommendations such as implementing standard cybersecurity best practices, monitoring the security of an AI supply chain across the system's life cycle, and releasing models "only after subjecting them to appropriate and effective security evaluation."
"This is the first time that we have seen an affirmation that these capabilities should not just be about cool features and how quickly we can get them to market or how we can compete to drive down costs," Easterly toldReuters. The document, she said, represents an "agreement that the most important thing that needs to be done at the design phase is security."
Norm Eisen, senior fellow at the think tank Brookings Institution, said the deal "is a step in the right direction for security" in a field that U.K. experts recently warned is vulnerable to hackers who could launch "prompt injection" attacks, causing an AI model to behave in a way that the designer didn't intend or reveal private information.
"But that's not the only area where AI can cause harm," Eisen said on social media.
Eisen pointed to a recent Brrokings analysis about how AI could "weaken" democracy in the U.S. and other countries, worsening the "flood of misinformation" with deepfakes and other AI-generated images.
"Advocacy groups or individuals looking to misrepresent public opinion may find an ally in AI," wrote Eisen, along with Nicol Turner Lee, Colby Galliher, and Jonathan Katz last week. "AI-fueled programs, like ChatGPT, can fabricate letters to elected officials, public comments, and other written endorsements of specific bills or positions that are often difficult to distinguish from those written by actual constituents... Much worse, voice and image replicas harnessed from generative AI tools can also mimic candidates and elected officials. These tactics could give rise to voter confusion and degrade confidence in the electoral process if voters become aware of such scams."
At AppleInsider, tech writer Malcolm Owen denounced Sunday's agreement as "toothless and weak," considering it does not require policymakers or companies to adhere to the guidelines.
Owen noted that tech firms including Google, Amazon, and Palantir consulted with global government agencies in developing the guidelines.
"These are all guidelines, not rules that must be obeyed," wrote Owen. "There are no penalties for not following what is outlined, and no introduction of laws. The document is just a wish list of things that governments want AI makers to really think about... And, it's not clear when or if legislation will arrive mandating what's in the document."
European Union member countries passed a draft of what the European Parliament called "the world's first comprehensive AI law" earlier this year with the AI Act. The law would require AI systems makers to publish summaries of the training material they use and prove that they will not generate illegal content. It would also bar companies from scraping biometric data from social media, which a U.S. AI company was found to be doing last year.
"AI tools are evolving rapidly," said Eisen on Monday, "and policymakers need to keep up."
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Top EU Official Slams Settlement Expansion Funds in Israeli Budget
"This is not self-defense and will not make Israel safer," wrote Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign affairs chief.
Nov 27, 2023
The European Union's foreign affairs chief on Monday said he was "appalled to learn" that Israel's wartime government is preparing to vote on a budget plan that includes money for illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, where settler violence against Palestinians has grown in recent weeks amid Israel's assault on Gaza.
"In the middle of a war, the Israeli gov is poised to commit new funds to build more illegal settlements," Josep Borrell, the E.U.'s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, wrote on social media. "This is not self-defense and will not make Israel safer. The settlements are a grave [international humanitarian law] breach, and they are Israel's greatest security liability."
Borrell was referring to settlement funding included in an end-of-year budget proposal that Israel's war cabinet is expected to approve on Monday. Under the proposed budget, funding would be allocated to West Bank settlement construction as well as to arming "civilian guard squads," according to a summary highlighted by Itay Epshtain of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
"Funds allocated to settlement local and regional councils allow for the purchase of off-road vehicles, body armor, camera-quipped UAVs, and other electronic surveillance equipment, and the employment of 'reconnaissance personnel,'" Epshtain wrote. "This is a militia of Israeli settlers mandated to obstruct humanitarian aid to Palestinians made vulnerable by the establishment and expansions of these very settlements."
BREAKING: these are the special budget allocation #Israel's government will vote on at 1800 hrs, confirming the following (for 2023 alone, with 5 weeks left to implement):
* 94.3 million ILS for settlement construction
* 39 million ILS for "search and destroy" of @eu_echo… pic.twitter.com/468VbR7eaE
— Itay Epshtain (@EpshtainItay) November 27, 2023
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right supporter of settlement expansion, defended the budget proposal and denied that any of the money would go toward constructing new settlements.
"There is funding for security needs" in the West Bank, Smotrich toldThe Times of Israel, describing Palestinians in the territory as "Nazis."
The budget proposal sparked backlash from inside the Israeli government, with Knesset member and former opposition leader Benny Gantz demanding the removal of all "political payouts," including settlement funding, Reutersreported Monday.
"Under the coalition agreement Netanyahu struck with Smotrich and the heads of other religious and far-right parties after last year's election," the outlet noted, "billions of dollars are due to be set aside for ultra-Orthodox and far-right-wing pro-settler parties."
Middle East Eyereported Monday that leaked details of the budget "revealed an increase in funding for yeshivas by $133 million, as well as allocating $107 million to the National Missions Ministry, which is run by Smotrich's far-right party."
The budget fight comes amid growing alarm over deadly settler violence in the West Bank. Since last month, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 130 Palestinians in the West Bank.
"During the first eight months of 2023, settler violence soared to its highest level since the U.N. began recording this data in 2006; three incidents per day on average, up from two in 2022 and one in 2021," Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, wrote last week. "That rate has almost doubled since October 7."
"These abuses are a part of Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, as documented by Human Rights Watch and other Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights organizations," wrote Shakir. "The roots of the violence in Israel-Palestine are multiple and run deep; ending the violence requires dismantling the systems of oppression that feed it, including in the West Bank."
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, echoed that message on Monday in response to the Israeli government's budget proposal.
"The settlements in the West Bank," she wrote on social media, "are part and parcel of the system of apartheid against Palestinian people, along with unlawful detention, torture, arbitrary killings, forced displacement, etc."
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Biden-Approved Oil and Gas Projects Undermine IRA Emission Cuts
"Approving more fossil fuels not only torches our climate future, but it also harms people's health, degrades ecosystems, and threatens wildlife," said the lead author of a new report.
Nov 27, 2023
As the United States is set to break its all-time fossil fuel production record in a year that's likely to be the hottest ever recorded, an analysis published Monday by the Center for Biological Diversity warns that planet-heating oil and gas projects approved by the Biden administration "threaten to erase the climate emissions progress from the Inflation Reduction Act."
According to the CBD report, "The potential carbon emissions from 17 massive fossil fuel projects approved by the Biden administration are larger than the projected emissions reductions from the IRA and other climate policies."
Those 17 projects have the potential to release emissions totaling 1,642 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, or the same as the annual emissions of 440 coal-fired power plants.
The IRA—which was signed by U.S. President Joe Biden in August 2022—"lowers economy-wide CO2 emissions, which includes electricity generation and use, by 35% to 43% below 2005 levels in 2030," according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
(Image: Center for Biological Diversity)
As CBD noted:
Under the Biden administration, the United States is the world's largest oil and gas producer. Last year it became the world's biggest exporter of liquefied gas, with exports set to nearly double by 2035. The United States is also leading the world's largest planned expansion of oil and gas through 2050, at the exact moment we need to be moving in the opposite direction.
"The report shows in stark detail how the Biden administration is canceling out its own climate progress by greenlighting major oil and gas projects," CBD climate science director Shaye Wolf, the report's lead author, said in a statement. "This report also shows how President Biden can truly build on the IRA's progress. He can save lives and wildlife by halting the approval of new fossil fuel projects and phasing out drilling on our public lands and waters."
The analysis lists "essential actions" the Biden administration can take:
- Stop approvals of new fossil fuel projects like the massive CP2 liquefied natural gas export terminal slated for the Gulf Coast;
- Revoke permits for the Willow oil drilling project, Mountain Valley Pipeline, and other projects;
- Revise the offshore oil leasing five-year plan to include no new leases;
- Phase out oil and gas production on public lands and waters by instituting a managed phase-down policy; and
- Declare a national climate emergency.
Climate campaigners have pressed Biden to declare a climate emergency, a move the president has resisted even as he claims that he's "practically" declared one. Activists have also expressed anger and disappointment that Biden approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands during his first two years in office than the Trump administration did in 2017 and 2018.
"Approving more fossil fuels not only torches our climate future, but it also harms people's health, degrades ecosystems, and threatens wildlife," said Wolf. "Many of these projects concentrate more on polluting fossil fuel infrastructure in overburdened communities of color and low-income communities, worsening environmental injustice."
The new CBD analysis comes ahead of Thursday's start of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, in Dubai. Biden is reportedly not attending the conference.
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