Eligible Countries: Students from African and developing countries
To be taken in: Belgium
About the Belgium ARESScholarship: Each year, the Academy of Research and Higher Education (ARES) grants an average of 150 fellowships in the framework of the Masters and 70 fellowships in the framework of the internships to the nationals of the countries of the South.
Eligible Countries: Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia (only for courses in English ), Haiti, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Peru, Philippines, DR Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Vietnam.
Accepted Subject Areas (Masters):
Master of Specialization in Development, Environment and Societies
Specialization Master in Human Rights
Master of Specialization in Aquatic Resource Management and Aquaculture
Master of Specialization in Risk and Disaster Management
Specialized Master in Integrated Management of Health Risks in the Global South (IManHR)
Specialized Master in International Development
Master of Specialization in Transfusion Medicine
Specialized Master in Microfinance
Master of specialization in integrated production and preservation of natural resources in urban and peri-urban areas
Specialized Master in Public Health Methodology
Master of Science in Public Health – Methods of Research Applied to Global Health
Master of Science and Environmental Management in Developing Countries
Specialized Master in Transport and Logistics
Accepted Subject Areas (Training):
Internship in control and quality assurance of medicines and health products
Research Initiation to Strengthen Health Systems
Internship in Geographic Information System
Internship in secondary resource development for sustainable construction
Methodological internship in support of innovation in family farming
Type: Masters, Training
About the Belgium ARES Scholarship: Within the framework of the Belgian policy for development cooperation, the Minister for Development Cooperation and the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation entrust the Belgian Higher Education Institutions with the preparation of Postgraduate Programmes (Advanced Masters) and Training Programmes that are specifically oriented towards young professionals from developing countries.
International Courses and Training Programmes are part of the global study programmes of the Higher Education Institutions. They are open to all students who satisfy the conditions of qualification but aim at proposing training units that distinguish themselves by their openness towards specific development issues.
Eligibility: The following will apply for the selection of holders of scholarships:
Originally from a developing country. To be eligible, applicants must reside and work in their own country at the time of filing;
Only nationals of the following countries are eligible to apply for scholarships ARES: Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia ( only for courses in English ), Haiti, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Peru, Philippines, DR Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Vietnam ;
Either under the age of 40 for courses and under 45 for training periods at the start of training;
Either holds a diploma comparable to a diploma of the second cycle of Belgian university education. However, for certain types of training, different requirements may be set out, which will be specified below;
Demonstrates a professional occupation in a developing country of at least two years after completing his / her second cycle or three years after the end of his / her studies when the candidate holds a post-graduate diploma from a university in an industrialized country;
Good knowledge of written and spoken French. For courses organized in another language, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the language of the course, written and spoken. The candidate will also be asked to commit to learning French to participate in everyday life in Belgium;
Apply for a single training
Selection Criteria:
The academic curriculum
For courses, priority will be given to candidates who are already holders of a diploma third cycle, save in exceptional circumstances duly justified in the application.
Priority will be given to candidates who have not already received a grant in Belgium.
Professional experience
Belonging to a partner institution: The commitment of the candidate in development activities
Nationality requirements
Gender equality
The future reintegration prospects
Number of Scholarships: Belgium ARES grants 150 scholarships for participation into the masters and 70 scholarships for participation into the training programmes.
Value of Belgium ARESScholarship: Travel (internal and external), Monthly living allowance, Indirect mission costs, Installation costs, Tuition fees, Registration fee, Insurance costs, Housing allowance, Allowances for dependents, Return fees, In 1st session completion bonus (June).
Duration of Scholarship: For the duration of the program
How to Apply: Would you like to submit an application form and receive a grant? Are you unsure about your eligibility?
Important: Applying for a Belgium ARES Masters and Training scholarship is free of charge. ARES does not charge any fee at any stage of the application or selection process. You may raise any question or concern about persons or companies claiming to be acting on behalf of ARES and requesting the payment of a fee by emailing ARES at maryvonne.aubry[at]ares-ac.be. Any application containing cash will be automatically rejected.
Eligible Countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Republic, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands the, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Ukraine, UK, USA, Vietnam.
To Be Taken At (Country): Austria
About the Award: The science communication fellow will gain experience in communicating complex systems science for a general audience, through a variety of platforms including blogs, website content, and articles forour magazine, Options. The science communication fellow will work as part of the IIASA Communications Department, assisting with a variety of tasks including editorial work, website maintenance, media relations, event coverage, social media, and other communication activities.
The Science Communication Fellow will also work closely with participants in the IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP), producing several pieces of work covering research from the program.
Type: Fellowship
Eligibility:
A Bachelor’s or equivalent degree in science or journalism, and/or current student or graduate of a science journalism program
Applicants from all countries are welcome, but IIASA gives priority to citizens or residents of countries in which IIASA has a Member Organization. We encourage applications from developing countries.
QUALIFICATIONS:
First experience in writing about science for the general public via blogs, newspapers, university web sites, or other outlets.
Written and oral fluency in English and proven ability to understand complex scientific research.
Experience with or interest in social media, video, photography, or other multimedia.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: A monthly salary based on an annual gross salary of EUR 18,800.00, which is exempt from income tax in Austria.
The advertised salary is:
Non-negotiable
Subject to deductions for health insurance and/or social security.
Duration of Program: The fellowship starts on 22 May and ends on 1 September.
How to Apply: To apply for this opportunity, you will need to provide the following documents in English:
Cover Letter outlining your motivation for applying
CV/Resume
One writing sample of no more than 800 words about a scientific topic and aimed at a general audience (e.g., article for a newspaper or magazine, blog post, or op-ed)
A letter of recommendation. Incomplete applications and/or applications containing written samples longer than 800 words will not be considered.
Search and rescue operations are ongoing following a 5.6 magnitude earthquake on the Indonesian island of Java on Monday at 1:21 p.m. It is the deadliest earthquake since 2018 in the disaster-prone country. The death toll is more than 270 with 40 still missing and over 2,000 people injured.
Local youth navigate their way through the remains of village hit by Monday's earthquake, in Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022 [AP Photo/Rangga Firmansyah]
The epicenter was in Cianjur District 75km south-east of the highly populated capital, Jakarta. While the latter felt tremors prompting evacuation from high rise buildings, it suffered little damage. Despite being relatively moderate, the earthquake struck close to the earth’s surface (at a depth of 10km as opposed to typically hundreds) and directly under rural areas prone to landslides where buildings are poorly constructed.
Almost the entire village of Cijedil was swallowed up by one such landslide with dozens of people engulfed. Residents took to clearing the earth with picks and shovels, but the houses were buried too deeply and excavators were in short supply.
Road blockages and driving rain are complicating rescue operations with many villages yet to receive logistical support. The National Search and Rescue Agency have deployed several helicopters to provide supplies to remote areas and 6,000 rescuers have been dispatched.
Millions of people have been affected by the tremors with 56,000 houses damaged. At least 61,000 people have been displaced, many sleeping in makeshift tents. Officials said that 171 public facilities were destroyed including 31 schools.
Power has been lost in many areas, cell phone services are down, and hospitals overwhelmed. Herman Suherman, a government official from Cianjur town, said typically injuries were bone fractures sustained by those trapped by building debris. Due to the danger of aftershocks, many patients were being treated outside under tents. At night staff have relied on torchlights.
Due to the tremor striking at midday, many children were trapped and crushed inside school buildings. In a media release, the charity Save the Children reports that about 100 children have been confirmed dead, with 80 schools damaged.
A teacher, Ayu, told the organization: “I was standing at the front of the class and then I heard a lot of people screaming. Everyone said run, leave the room. I thought all of the children had left the classroom but it turned out there was still one child who was left behind, he was sick, so I picked him and ran.
“Only a few seconds later, our school walls collapsed in front of us. We were so shocked everyone screamed and cried. As teachers we tried to calm the children down but they were really shocked. They need psychological support as soon as possible, they were really scared. The worst is some of them may also have to face the loss of their parents.”
Widjojo Prakoso, a professor of engineering at the University of Indonesia, pointed to the failure of many schools to survive the impact. “School buildings should get special attention because they are not only supposed to withstand earthquakes, but they should also act as a temporary shelter during disasters,” he said.
There have been over 170 aftershocks recorded since Monday, one of them triggering a landslide according to police. There are also fears that typical waterways have been blocked creating the danger for flash flooding in the region as Indonesia enters its monsoonal season.
The impact of the earthquake has been most severe on the poor. The subordination of all aspects of society to the demands of corporate profit hamstrings rational and scientific approaches to mitigating and dealing with natural disasters. According to an Oxfam report earlier this year, just four men in Indonesia hold wealth than the most impoverished 100 million.
Population growth coupled with the high costs of living has forced to people living outside the most developed urban areas and into more precarious areas, where companies, agencies and property developers often overlook building codes and standards. Yet Indonesia is situated near the ‘Ring of Fire’, the most seismically active region in the world.
President Joko Widodo visited affected areas in Cianjur on Tuesday and subsequently authorized 12,000 soldiers and 2,000 police to help in the ongoing searches for dead and missing.
Widodo also issued toothless calls for earthquake-proof housing to be included in reconstruction efforts, a systematic problem that has persisted for decades in the country. He has promised to rebuild infrastructure and provide a pittance of up to 50 million rupiah ($US3,180) to each resident whose house was damaged.
Widodo’s policies may well have contributed to the disaster by undermining of previous environment and safety regulations. Certainly his government has funneled money into tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy as well as into the military while essential services including emergency services are starved of funds.
The devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2018 in central Sulawesi is estimated to have killed more than 4,000 people and injured many more. In the city of Palu, thousands of poorly constructed houses were destroyed in the disaster.
The earthquake raised all the issues that needed to be addressed: earthquake resistant building standards, properly funded emergency services and assistance to those affected. Yet little or nothing was done in the wake of that tragedy.
The fact that top-class sport including world football is dominated by big money and power interests is no surprise to anyone. But with the World Cup in Qatar, this has reached a new stage.
The awarding of the World Cup to the Gulf state by FIFA in 2010 was a scandal at the time. Qatar is a country which has no football tradition. It has 3 million residents, but only one in ten of these is a Qatari citizen. The country’s unbearable heat made the usual summer schedule for the tournament impossible. Moreover, it is ruled by a despot who does not even allow rudimentary forms of democracy.
A fireworks display is seen outside Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, during a ceremony prior to a World Cup, group A soccer match between Qatar and Ecuador, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
It was clear that huge sums of money changed hands and massive political pressure was exerted behind the scenes to bring about the decision. But Qatar was not exceptional in this regard. The awarding of the World Cup to Germany (2006), South Africa (2010) and Russia (2018) were also overshadowed by bribery and corruption.
Since the World Cup was awarded to Qatar, huge commercial deals have been concluded. FIFA alone expects revenues of $7.5 billion, $1 billion more than at the last World Cup in Russia. Qatar has invested over 200 billion dollars in the World Cup and infrastructure: $8 billion in eight modern, air conditioned stadiums, $16.5 billion in 140 hotels with 155,000 beds, $36 billion in a new metro and $20 billion in airports, ports and motorways.
These projects were built by a huge army of workers from Asia under slave-like conditions of exploitation. Twelve-hour shifts and a seven-day work week in sweltering heat, indescribable accommodations, starvation wages, often withheld for months, confiscated passports and a ban on changing jobs were common. According to a report by the British Guardian, 6,750 workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have died in Qatar in the ten years since the World Cup was awarded. Amnesty International calculated that more than 15,000 foreign citizens of all ages died between 2010 and 2019. In 70 percent of these cases, the cause of death was unknown.
Meanwhile, according to a local representative of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), whose salary is paid by the Qatari government, conditions have improved somewhat. A statutory minimum wage of 1,000 Riyal (€230) per month is now in force—in one of the richest and most expensive countries in the world!
Western companies have benefited greatly from the construction boom. The German planning office Albert Speer und Partner drew up the masterplan for the World Cup and the drafts for the eight football stadiums. Albert Speer, who died in 2017, is the son of Hitler's architect and arms minister.
Since the imposition of sanctions against Russian gas and oil, Qatar has also become a leading liquefied gas exporter. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck and other international politicians made a pilgrimage to Doha this year to secure LNG deals.
Geopolitical objectives
Even more important than commercial interests for the imperialist powers are the geopolitical goals they are pursuing in Qatar. The small state in the middle of the disputed, energy-rich Gulf region is an important political and military base for them.
The US maintains its largest Middle East airbase in Al Udeid, which played a vital role in the war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and is located in the immediate vicinity of Iran. Qatar participated in the Libyan war against Muammar al-Qaddafi with its own fighter and transport aircraft. It supported Islamist terrorist groups that fueled the civil war in Libya and were later used in Syria against the Assad regime.
If Western politicians, media and football officials now deplore the human rights situation in Qatar and call for equal rights for women and gay people, this is pure hypocrisy. The US and its European allies have killed one million people in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria and have forced millions more to flee. In comparison, the authoritarian rulers of the Gulf monarchies are petty criminals.
As far as the imperialist powers are concerned, the tournament in Qatar was never in question. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, who moved to Doha a year ago and declared at the beginning of the World Cup in a bizarre press conference that he now feels himself to be a Qatari, an Arab, an African, a homosexual, a disabled person and a migrant worker, only expresses this cynical attitude most bluntly.
The situation is different with the abhorrence of many football fans, who are honestly outraged that the World Cup is being played on the bones of their fellow workers from poorer countries. The brutal exploitation of the construction workers has also hit a nerve with them because they too are confronted with rising workloads and falling wages. In Germany, a representative survey in May 2021 found that 65 percent of respondents reject the participation of the German national team in the World Cup.
How FIFA auctioned the World Cup to Qatar
Many details are now known about how FIFA sold the World Cup to Qatar in 2010. Twenty-two of the twenty-four officials who voted at the time in favour of the decision have since been forced to leave due to corruption, with some ending up in prison. Politicians and prosecutors were ousted, and even Sepp Blatter, who dominated FIFA like a mafia don from 1998 to 2016, had to vacate his chair—only to make way for another schemer, Infantino.
The fact that these intrigues came to light at all was the result of imperialist power struggles and intrigues.
On the eve of the 2015 FIFA Congress in Zurich, the Swiss authorities arrested seven officials of the Football Association in a spectacular action at the luxury hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich on charges of corruption. They acted on behalf of the US judiciary, which had opened an investigation into FIFA for the 2010 World Cup award.
The focus was not so much on the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but on the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which was decided on at the same 2010 meeting. After the US brought an anti-Russian regime to power in Ukraine in 2014 and Russia annexed Crimea, the US was determined to prevent the tournament from taking place in Russia. They failed, but the investigations set in motion an avalanche that was difficult to bring under control.
The US still had scores to settle in the case of Qatar. After all, they had applied for the 2022 World Cup themselves and sent a high-ranking delegation—led by ex-President Bill Clinton and actor Morgan Freeman – to Zurich. According to eyewitnesses, Clinton threw ashtrays around when he heard the result of the vote.
The decisive factor favouring Qatar was—in addition to the purchase of the votes of three South American delegates—the Frenchman Michel Platini and two other delegates, whom Platini influenced. The former football star was, at that time, president of the European football association UEFA and viewed as a possible successor to Blatter at FIFA. A few days before the FIFA vote, Platini met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Al Thani, who apparently 'convinced' him to vote for Qatar.
Blatter allegedly represented the interests of the US at the time. But that didn't save him, because he continued to support staging the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Infantino is said to have maintained close contacts with the US justice system and to have testified five months after the raid in Zurich as a witness before a grand jury in New York that investigated FIFA. He also had personal contacts with Federal prosecutor Michael Lauber, Switzerland’s top prosecutor.
Two days after the raid in Zurich, Blatter was elected head of FIFA for another term, but had to resign three days later due to pressure from the US. In the eight months leading up to the election of his successor, the Swiss judiciary also removed his most promising successor, Platini.
While it dropped most of the 25 criminal investigations, the federal prosecutor's office charged Blatter with paying $2 million in “consultant fees” to Platini. Although later acquitted by a court, the FIFA ethics committee subsequently imposed a perennial ban on Blatter and Platini, paving the way for Infantino, who was elected with the support of the US Association. Swiss Prosecutor Lauber later also lost his job because he met Infantino secretly several times after his election while still investigating him.
Once in office, Infantino blocked the investigation within FIFA and shut down its ethics committee. He took things even further than his predecessor Blatter, including an attempt to outsource all FIFA rights to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia.
The investigative zeal of the US judiciary also weakened after the World Cup in Russia could no longer be prevented and FIFA awarded the 2026 World Cup to North America.
Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General in the Obama administration, who in 2015 initiated the investigation against FIFA , is now in the pay of FIFA and sings hymns of praise to Infantino. In 2019, she joined the law firm Paul Weiss, which took over the representation of the football association in the FIFA Gate scandal from the law firm Quinn Emanuel.
Imperialist Alliances
Nothing now stood in the way of the World Cup taking place in Qatar. Not only does it promise fantastic business, but it also serves as a platform for the US and the European powers to forge new alliances against Russia and China. In doing so, they are courting not only Qatar, but all the Gulf monarchies and in particular Saudi Arabia, which have so far been reluctant to compensate for the failure of Russian gas and oil through higher production volumes and to embrace a course of confrontation with China.
In July, President Joe Biden was the first Western head of state to visit Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman since the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. At the opening game of the World Cup, Salman sat next to Infantino and the Emir of Qatar as a guest of honor. Between 2017 and 2021, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were on the verge of war.
The outrage over the murderous exploitation of Asian workers is now being deliberately downplayed. The media has instead turned its attention almost exclusively to the rights of women and gay people. “Critical” reporting is limited to the question of whether the team captains will be allowed to wear a “One Love” armband or various rainbow insignia to express opposition to homophobia. Even this purely symbolic gesture has proven too much, with the national football associations bowing to the ban imposed by FIFA, which does not want to allow its lucrative commercial and political relations with the despots of the Gulf region to be hampered.
The double standard is unmistakable. “Human rights” are invoked whenever it comes to justifying brutal imperialist wars—against Iraq, Libya, Iran, Russia, China, etc. They are ignored when it comes to their own human rights violations or those of allied dictators.
Wind turbine, Columbia Gorge. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Despite all the renewable energy investments and installations, actual global greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing. That’s largely due to economic growth: While renewable energy supplies have expanded in recent years, world energy usage has ballooned even more—with the difference being supplied by fossil fuels. The more the world economy grows, the harder it is for additions of renewable energy to turn the tide by actually replacing energy from fossil fuels, rather than just adding to it.
The notion of voluntarily reining in economic growth in order to minimize climate change and make it easier to replace fossil fuels is political anathema not just in the rich countries, whose people have gotten used to consuming at extraordinarily high rates, but even more so in poorer countries, which have been promised the opportunity to “develop.”
After all, it is the rich countries that have been responsible for the great majority of past emissions (which are driving climate change presently); indeed, these countries got rich largely by the industrial activity of which carbon emissions were a byproduct. Now it is the world’s poorest nations that are experiencing the brunt of the impacts of climate change caused by the world’s richest. It’s neither sustainable nor just to perpetuate the exploitation of land, resources, and labor in the less industrialized countries, as well as historically exploited communities in the rich countries, to maintain both the lifestyles and expectations of further growth of the wealthy minority.
From the perspective of people in less-industrialized nations, it’s natural to want to consume more, which only seems fair. But that translates to more global economic growth, and a harder time replacing fossil fuels with renewables globally. China is the exemplar of this conundrum: Over the past three decades, the world’s most populous nation lifted hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty, but in the process became the world’s biggest producer and consumer of coal.
The Materials Dilemma
Also posing an enormous difficulty for a societal switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is our increasing need for minerals and metals. The World Bank, the IEA, the IMF, and McKinsey and Company have all issued reports in the last couple of years warning of this growing problem. Vast quantities of minerals and metals will be required not just for making solar panels and wind turbines, but also for batteries, electric vehicles, and new industrial equipment that runs on electricity rather than carbon-based fuels.
Some of these materials are already showing signs of increasing scarcity: According to the World Economic Forum, the average cost of producing copper has risen by over 300 percent in recent years, while copper ore grade has dropped by 30 percent.
Optimistic assessments of the materials challenge suggest there are enough global reserves for a one-time build-out of all the new devices and infrastructure needed (assuming some substitutions, with, for example, lithium for batteries eventually being replaced by more abundant elements like iron). But what is society to do as that first generation of devices and infrastructure ages and requires replacement?
Circular Economy: A Mirage?
Hence the rather sudden and widespread interest in the creation of a circular economyin which everything is recycled endlessly. Unfortunately, as economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen discovered in his pioneering work on entropy, recycling is always incomplete and always costs energy. Materials typically degrade during each cycle of use, and some material is wasted in the recycling process.
A French preliminary analysis of the energy transition that assumed maximum possible recycling found that a materials supply crisis could be delayed by up to three centuries. But will the circular economy (itself an enormous undertaking and a distant goal) arrive in time to buy industrial civilization those extra 300 years? Or will we run out of critical materials in just the next few decades in our frantic effort to build as many renewable energy devices as we can in as short a time as possible?
The latter outcome seems more likely if pessimistic resource estimates turn out to be accurate. Simon Michaux of the Finnish Geological Survey finds that “[g]lobal reserves are not large enough to supply enough metals to build the renewable non-fossil fuels industrial system … Mineral deposit discovery has been declining for many metals. The grade of processed ore for many of the industrial metals has been decreasing over time, resulting in declining mineral processing yield. This has the implication of the increase in mining energy consumption per unit of metal.”
Steel prices are already trending higher, and lithium supplies may prove to be a bottleneck to rapidly increasing battery production. Even sand is getting scarce: Only certain grades of the stuff are useful in making concrete (which anchors wind turbines) or silicon (which is essential for solar panels). More sand is consumed yearly than any other material besides water, and some climate scientists have identified it as a key sustainability challenge this century. Predictably, as deposits are depleted, sand is becoming more of a geopolitical flashpoint, with China recently embargoing sand shipments to Taiwan with the intention of crippling Taiwan’s ability to manufacture semiconductor devices such as cell phones.
To Reduce Risk, Reduce Scale
During the fossil fuel era, the global economy depended on ever-increasing rates of extracting and burning coal, oil, and natural gas. The renewables era (if it indeed comes into being) will be founded upon the large-scale extraction of minerals and metals for panels, turbines, batteries, and other infrastructure, which will require periodic replacement.
These two economic eras imply different risks: The fossil fuel regime risked depletion and pollution (notably atmospheric carbon pollution leading to climate change); the renewables regime will likewise risk depletion (from mining minerals and metals) and pollution (from dumping old panels, turbines, and batteries, and from various manufacturing processes), but with diminished vulnerability to climate change. The only way to lessen risk altogether would be to reduce substantially society’s scale of energy and materials usage—but very few policymakers or climate advocacy organizations are exploring that possibility.
Climate Change Hobbles Efforts to Combat Climate Change
As daunting as they are, the financial, political, and material challenges to the energy transition don’t exhaust the list of potential barriers. Climate change itself is also hampering the energy transition—which, of course, is being undertaken to avert climate change.
During the summer of 2022, China experienced its most intense heat wave in six decades. It impacted a wide region, from central Sichuan Province to coastal Jiangsu, with temperatures often topping 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and reaching a record 113 degrees in Chongqing on August 18. At the same time, a drought-induced power crisis forced Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., the world’s top battery maker, to close manufacturing plants in China’s Sichuan province. Supplies of crucial parts to Tesla and Toyota were temporarily cut off.
Meanwhile, a similarly grim story unfolded in Germany, as a record drought reduced the water flow in the Rhine River to levels that crippled European trade, halting shipments of diesel and coal, and threatening the operations of both hydroelectric and nuclear power plants.
A study published in February 2022 in the journal Waterfound that droughts (which are becoming more frequent and severe with climate change) could create challenges for U.S. hydropower in Montana, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, California, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
Heavy rain and flooding can also pose risks for both hydro and nuclear power—which together currently provide roughly four times as much low-carbon electricity globally as wind and solar combined. In March 2019, severe flooding in southern and western Africa, following Cyclone Idai, damaged two major hydro plants in Malawi, cutting off power to parts of the country for several days.
Wind turbines and solar panels also rely on the weather and are therefore also vulnerable to extremes. Cold, cloudy days with virtually no wind spell trouble for regions heavily reliant on renewable energy. Freak storms can damage solar panels, and high temperatures reduce panels’ efficiency. Hurricanes and storm surges can cripple offshore wind farms.
The transition from fossil fuel to renewables faces an uphill battle. Still, this switch is an essential stopgap strategy to keep electricity grids up and running, at least on a minimal scale, as civilization inevitably turns away from a depleting store of oil and gas. The world has become so dependent on grid power for communications, finance, and the preservation of technical, scientific, and cultural knowledge that, if the grids were to go down permanently and soon, it is likely that billions of people would die, and the survivors would be culturally destitute. In essence, we need renewables for a controlled soft landing. But the harsh reality is that, for now, and in the foreseeable future, the energy transition is not going well and has poor overall prospects.
We need a realistic plan for energy descent, instead of foolish dreams of eternal consumer abundance by means other than fossil fuels. Currently, politically rooted insistence on continued economic growth is discouraging truth-telling and serious planning for how to live well with less.
Teachers in Scotland are to stage a 24-hour walkout on November 24. The initial strike day will be taken by Scotland’s largest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS).
Tens of thousands of teachers are striking after rejecting a 5 percent pay increase, calling for 10 percent. There was overwhelming support for action in the ballot, with 96 percent saying yes to a strike, on an overall turnout of 71 percent of the membership.
This is the first day of national strike action by the EIS over pay for almost 40 years. The last action on teacher pay was part of a long-running programme of industrial action in the 1980s.
The EIS and the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) were involved in a pay dispute which lasted for two years against the Conservative government of the time. National strikes took place alongside a rolling programme of action targeted at secondary schools in the constituencies of government ministers.
EIS members at some schools went on strike regularly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays which ended in 1987 with a Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act. No action on this scale would be considered today by the union bureaucracy.
The EIS represents eight out of 10 Scottish teachers and is the first of the teacher unions to take industrial action. The dispute emerged after a number of paltry pay offers from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Scottish National Party (SNP) government.
The union rejected a 2.2 percent pay offer in June, with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers submitting a 10 percent pay claim on behalf of the profession. A revised 3.5 percent pay offer was seen as an insult by teachers. The government then offered a 5 percent pay rise, which was overwhelmingly rejected by union members, with 94 percent opting to refuse the deal.
On November 22, COSLA made a fresh proposal for rises of up to 6.85 percent, but only for teachers new to the profession, on a sliding scale, with experienced teachers still receiving just 5 percent. All these offers represent a substantial real-terms pay cut, well below inflation now at 14.2 percent RPI.
The EIS said that members “have had enough of waiting” for an acceptable offer, with General Secretary Andrea Bradley complaining of “months of unjustifiable dither and delay” from the two bodies, leading teachers to become “increasingly angry over their treatment by their employers”.
In truth the “dither and delay” has come from the EIS and other unions stringing along their own members with negotiations when no serious offer was being made.
Bradley stated that teachers “are again being offered a deep real-terms pay cut by their employers,” and “as essential public sector workers” are expected “to bear the brunt” of austerity.
The union bureaucracy has overseen this situation over many years. Teachers having not received any pay increase has led to educators struggling to meet the cost of food, fuel, energy and housing. Some are now using food banks.
John Swinney, finance secretary in the Scottish National Party devolved government, announced £615 million of spending cuts in his emergency budget review earlier this month. It followed £560 million cuts to public services in September. SNP education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville told the Scottish parliament the 10 percent pay demand was “unaffordable” in this context, adding cynically that the cost-of-living crisis is “the priority”.
EIS members could be joined later by members of the Association of Headteachers and Deputies in Scotland (AHDS) and the SSTA in taking strike action. AHDS members voted by 92 percent to reject the current 5 percent pay offer and 80 percent are willing to take strike action. SSTA members have voted by 90 percent to strike with a ballot turnout of 62 percent with the union leadership considering action in the week beginning December 5. The NASUWT teaching union is also balloting its members, closing on November 21.
Educators are clear they want to fight, but even with this significant mandate the unions are trying to reduce the impact by not taking coordinated strike action. This also plays workers off against each other, as one union going out puts pressure on other educators.
The EIS did everything in its power to avert Thursday’s strike. Bradley said the union was “hopeful” of a new offer and was prepared to bury the action in talks. “We are ready to consider a new offer as soon as it comes to us,” she said.
With the government refusing any concessions, Bradley said on Wednesday, 'The EIS has announced two days of strike action in January and it is now inevitable that further days will be announced tomorrow [Thursday], so we will looking at strikes throughout the months of January and February...” If the government intervened with an offer the EIS could sell to their membership all action could be prevented, so “it really depends what happens at the negotiating table as to whether they can be averted,” she pleaded.
Educators should draw the lessons of the unions’ role in allowing teachers’ pay to stagnate over decades. There is no basis for confidence in their ability to achieve what workers are fighting for and every reason to expect as sellout.
