Clarification of the European Commission’s Position on the Renewable Energy Directive
August 2010 – Green Papers: Issue V
The European Renewable Energy Directive has been subject to considerable
‘negotiation’ and gamesmanship. The controversies arise over the use and import of biofuels. What is becoming increasingly clear is the extent and depth of friction between competing interests upon which the Directive impacts. Earlier this year, Environmental NGOs protested that the European Commission was set to define oil palms as forests for the purposes of the Directive. Ultimately, the EC released a Communication which ‘excluded’ oil palms from the de?nition of forests. The reality is that this does not change things. The EC Communication is not binding and does not alter the de?nition of ‘forest’ in the Directive – under which oil palms could qualify. This is just one, and by no means the most important, of the problems being generated by the Directive. It has pitched the widely varying interest of environmental, farm, trade, consumer, renewable energy and transport groups, and the multitude of EC Committees which represent those interests, against each other.
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Protectionism: The New Tool Against Forestry in the Developing World
June 2010 – A World Growth Study
The World Growth report, "Protectionism: The New Tool Against Forestry in the Developing World" examines the way in which both Western governments and NGOs are using different types of trade controls to dictate forest policy in the developing world. The European Union in particular has launched a raft of policy measures that are aimed squarely at forest products such as paper and timber, while the US has amended the Lacey Act to control all imports of plant products. At the same time, both countries have used anti-dumping or countervailing procedures to impose tariffs on paper imports. Combined, these measures will impact upon economic growth in the developing world. This paper examines the proposed and existing green protections that are facing the forest industry in developing and emerging economies and their possible impacts. It also provides a basis for how the industry and governments in developing and emerging economies can respond.
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Caught Red Handed: The Myths, Exaggerations and Distortions of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Rainforest Action Network
May 2010 – Green Papers: Issue IV
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Rainforest Action Network are urging a boycott
of use of palm oil — supposedly to protect the environment. However, if they succeed, the environment will be at bigger risk, the livelihoods of millions in Indonesia and Malaysia will be threatened and the poor in Africa and South America will remain stuck in a poverty trap. Greenpeace, FoE, RAN and other environmental non-government organisations threaten to tar the reputation of those who purchase palm oil as against the environment. This is not true. The threat is baseless. They will however act in a way which directly harms the poor. That is a fact. Almost half of Indonesia’s population—over 100 million people —live on less than 2 dollars per day. Over thirty million live below the poverty line. Millions of people in Malaysia and Indonesia rely on income from palm oil to pay their bills, feed their families, put a roof over their heads and build savings.
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Greenmail
May 2010 – Green Papers: Issue III
In a carefully co-ordinated campaign, environmental groups in Europe
and North America are ‘greenmailing’ major companies in Europe and the US to suspend purchase of paper products and palm oil from Indonesian and Chinese producers. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth in Europe, and Rainforest Action Network (RAN) in the US, have threatened to blacken the standing of luxury goods companies, major retail chains and major producers of grocery products unless they submit to Greenpeace demands. The assertions that these companies endorse serious damage to the environment by purchasing from Indonesian suppliers are spurious. Yet some of the companies — Gucci, Nestle and Unilever — have bowed to threats to damage their brand names and leading branded products. They justify this by the belief that it will preserve their carefully developed reputations as leading practitioners of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In reality, what they have done is adopt the radical Green view of how business should behave. They have broken two golden rules shareholders expect CSR to deliver: protection of core business and high ethical standards.
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Collateral Damage: How the Bogus Campaign Against Palm Oil Harms the Poor
December 2009 – A study by World Growth
The world’s governments have convened in Copenhagen to determine a global
strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is every indication the issue is so thorny that no clear agreement can be reached at Copenhagen. It is likely the parties to the Copenhagen conference will try to identify the areas which can be the basis of a new global strategy and lay down a fresh mandate and program to meet it. Palm oil has been made the ‘poster child’ in this campaign to ensure that any global strategy to reduce greenhouse gases must also cease conversion of forest land to any other purpose. The campaign rests on contentions that it is detrimental to the environment. Some of which are new and rather extreme. The purpose of this report is to examine those contentions, and the leading propositions used to support them, in particular that palm oil is a major driver of change in land use, causes major emissions of greenhouse gases, and that it is the leading threat to the habitat of orang-utan.
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Conversion – The Immutable Link between Forestry and Development
December 2009 – A Study by World Growth
Leading European Union (EU) members are pressing either for agreement to a
‘No Conversion’ principle, or for endorsement of the idea that no financial assistance should be provided to developing countries unless they apply a ‘No Conversion’ policy. These are policies that would increase, not reduce, poverty (nor have a meaningful environmental impact – most developing countries have already reserved large areas of forest to protect biodiversity). Furthermore, based on the same erroneous assumption about what drives deforestation, the EU is introducing trade measures to enable it to coerce large exporters of forest products to adopt ‘No Conversion’ policies and to restrict large scale and commercial forestry. These policies, advanced as measures to protect the environment, will have only one certain effect: they will increase poverty. This report aims to explain why.
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The New Face of European Environmental Protectionism: Forestry and Climate Change
December 2009 – A World Growth Briefing
The European Union (EU) is seeking to impose environmental trade restrictions on
food and forestry products which serve to protect European producers and harm viable sources of growth in developing countries. This action is not new. It is reflective of a longer term trend in the rise environmental trade protectionism. The last few years have seen the growth of regulation in the EU to address environmental concerns affecting trade in food and agriculture as governments have sought to manage the impacts of climate change and ensure environmental sustainability. This approach is being extended to international trade agreements and negotiations. In the agricultural sphere, the EU has made clear (including in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round negotiations) that it intends to seek new trade restrictions which ostensibly ensure environmental considerations are recognized in any new agreements to liberalize trade in agriculture.
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Forestry and Biodiversity: A Healthy Report
December 2009 – A Study by World Growth
A great deal of criticism has been leveled at the global forest industry for its apparent
contribution to biodiversity loss. Those undertaking forestry in natural forests are accused of wholesale forest destruction, leading to signi?cant biodiversity loss. At the same time, those in the private sector that are establishing forest plantations are accused of propagating “sterile monocultures” that harbor little or no biodiversity. Consequently, the perception of forestry in the global environmental debate is that it is the enemy of ?ora and fauna. This perception rests on two assumptions. First, that forestry – plantation or natural – is a major cause of deforestation and therefore biodiversity loss. Second, that forest plantations harbor no biodiversity. NGOs need to decide if they are simply going to campaign against economic development in poor countries – which appears to be their current strategy – or if they actually want to give both the poor and the environment a stronger chance for survival
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Green Poverty
November 2009 – Green Papers: Issue II
Greenpeace has been active in the global climate change negotiations. Its public
message is “Stop Deforestation — save the Climate.” But this is not the Greenpeace forestry strategy. It is, as it was long before climate change became a global issue, to “halt commercial forestry” everywhere. Greenpeace has developed technical proposals to support the negotiations and has been active in discussions with donors on strategies for developing countries. Yet its research advances its political goals and its record demonstrates that it will pursue its objectives at any cost, including to the poor. Greenpeace mounts publicity stunts which it coaxes foundations to fund and celebrities to endorse. The latest is a “climate defenders” camp in Sumatra. Greenpeace claims the support of local communities, but local communities have protested its presence. Greenpeace also neglects to show the 70,000 or more people dependent upon forest industries for their livelihoods.
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Conflicts of Interest, Low-Quality Ratings, and Meaningful Reform of Credit and Corporate Governance Ratings
October 2009 - A report by Professors Charles W. Calomiris and Joseph R. Mason
Policymakers and academic critics have identified “conflicts of interest” in the rating industry that have led to poor ratings quality, harming investors who purchase over- or mis-rated investments. In this report the authors address the question of whether conflicts of interest can arise in the ratings industry without the monopoly benefit conferred by regulatory licenses like those given credit rating agencies that operate as Nationally Recognized Statistical Ratings Organizations (NRSRO). The authors show that incentive conflicts are apparent in the corporate governance rating industry, despite the lack of a formal regulatory role for the agencies.
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Don’t Bag Indonesia’s Poor
October 2009 – Green Papers: Issue I
Wangan Maathai — the world’s first female African Nobel Prize winner and originator.JPG)
of the forest conservation Green Belt movement in Kenya — was recently asked on CNN what was the best way to stop deforestation. Her answer? ”Address poverty.” Forestry experts know it is the hunger of the poor for land for food, not commercial forestry, which drives deforestation. Frances Seymour, noted US environmentalist and international forest researcher told the United Nations recently that more than a decade research has found “most drivers of forest loss originate outside the forestry sector.” Nearly half of Indonesia’s 245 million people live on less than two dollars a day. 35 million live in poverty. The Indonesian paper industry employs 400,000 workers and contributes US$5billion a year to the Indonesian economy, mostly from exports. That reduces poverty. World Growth has previously warned that these types of strategies make victims of the world’s poorest children and families. Luxury goods businesses that join the campaign will make them victims too. What would luxury good consumers in fast-growing emerging markets think?
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Palm Oil – The Sustainable Oil
September 2009 – A study by World Growth
There are all the signs that a global campaign 
exists to discredit Palm Oil. This has happened before. Demand for, and consequently production of, palm oil has increased dramatically over the past decade. Palm Oil has a number of advantages over competitor products. When new products have impact on markets, there is a natural process of adjustment. The anti-palm oil campaign has now taken on a new dimension and has been wrapped into part of a broader campaign to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) by environmental groups and Governments in Europe. Palm oil now is accused of deforestation, reduction of biodiversity, endangering wildlife and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. All of these claims are questionable or at best severely exaggerated. In the process, the vital role palm oil is and can plays in reducing poverty and raising living standards in poor countries is being pushed into the background. The aim of this report is to review the accusations against palm oil and make a reasoned assessment of its impact on sustainability and economic development.
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Back to Basics: Restoring Economic Growth to the Aid Agenda
September 2009 – A briefing by World Growth
The impact of the global financial crisis on developing economies is anticipated to be severe. Private inflows to developing countries are projected to fall significantly, while development assistance is expected to remain steady. World Growth produced a report, Back to Basics: Restoring Economic Growth to the Aid Agenda, which demonstrated that all of these actions underline the essentiality of supporting economic growth. Yet there is no evidence that development agencies have reviewed their strategies that inform their development expenditures. The report showed a clear decline in support for programs that promote basic economic growth. It revealed that the share of development assistance which directly supports economic growth – specifically, spending on economic infrastructure and services – had fallen by more than half in the past decade.
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Forestry And The Poor: How Forestry Reduces Poverty
August 2009 - A study by World Growth.
World Growth’s previous two reports on 
forestry and sustainable development examined the win-win outcome posed by forestry for both the economy and the environment and the measures needed to implement sustainable forestry in the developing world. The third report, “How Forestry Reduces Poverty,” demonstrates the economic benefits of expanding forestry in the developing world. It also highlights the potential development risks of attempting to curb the uses of forests solely for conservation purposes and tracks the historical link between using forest lands for other purposes and economic growth. The report makes a comparative analysis of the financial returns from using forest plantations for timber and for carbon sequestration; it demonstrates that returns from forestry are four times higher than from carbon sequestration on conservative estimates. For other crops and land uses the returns are potentially much higher, leading to conclusions that efforts to restrict forest use in the developing world through aid programs that encourage so-called “traditional use” are strategies to maintain poverty.
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An Analysis of Concerns about the Draft Agreement to Undertake the Oyu Tolgoi Mining Project
April 2009 — A study by Dr. Robert Shapiro and Sonecon, LLC, Commissioned by World Growth Mongolia.
On February 18, 2009, the Mongolian Government Cabinet and two international mining companies, Ivanhoe Mines, Ltd. and Rio Tinto International Holdings, Limited, finalized a new draft agreement to develop the Oyu Tolgoi mine. The report, An Analysis of Concerns about the Draft Agreement to Undertake the Oyu Tolgoi Mining Project examines the agreement and the concerns of Mongolian analysts, policymakers and civic society NGOs, and concludes that the concerns are largely misplaced or substantially outweighed by the very substantial benefits which this agreement offers Mongolia’s economy and people.
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The Oyu Tolgoi Investment Agreement: Why It Works for Mongolia
April 2009 — A study by World Growth.
For the past five years the Mongolian Government has been negotiating an Investment Agreement with Ivanhoe Mines and its partner Rio Tinto to develop the mineral deposit at Oyu Tolgoi in the Southern Gobi. The deposit is huge and will require an investment of more than US$7 billion to bring it to fruition. As the Mongolian economy is also slowing rapidly, the economic benefits of the proposed Agreement now assume an even greater significance for the country. Even before the downturn, Mongolia was facing serious challenges in terms of inflation and its deteriorating fiscal position. The report argues that the proposed Agreement would help to ensure that Oyu Tolgoi proceeds, thereby making a major contribution to stabilizing the country’s public finances.
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Forestry and Development: Building the Foundations for Sustainability
April 2009 - A study by World Growth.
The first World Growth Forestry and Poverty Project report, “Winners All: How Forestry Can Reduce Both Climate Change Emissions and Poverty”, warned that sustainable forest management was being ignored by climate change policymakers as a cost-effective way of reducing emissions – that would also assist the world’s poor. The trends that have since followed in multilateral and intergovernmental aid-for-climate strategies have continued to ignore the economic and environmental benefits that sustainable forestry can bring. Worse, developed countries are attempting to introduce trade measures that will restrict exports from developing countries on environmental grounds with no real basis in fact. This approach must change. Aid agencies and intergovernmental agencies must begin to appreciate that the drivers of deforestation are economic. Increasing economic growth increases the resources available for sustainable approaches to the environment. Aid agencies and developed countries must focus upon building the foundations of sustainability – not curtail it with restrictions on growth.
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Economic Modernization in Mongolia: The Impact of Tax and Regulatory Policies on the Mining Sector
January 2009 – A study by Dr. Robert Shapiro and Sonecon, LLC, Commissioned by World Growth Mongolia
This detailed report, “Economic Modernization in Mongolia: The Impact of Tax and Regulatory Policies on the Mining Sector,” examines the potential impact of recent government policies on the prospects for six, new major mining projects. The study is authored by Dr. Robert Shapiro, Chairman of Sonecon, LLC, an international economic advisory firm, and commissioned by World Growth Mongolia. Dr. Shapiro finds that if these projects go forward, they should produce enormous, long-term economic benefits for the Mongolian economy. However, all of these future gains are at risk, because recent amendments to the 1997 Minerals Law and other legal changes have created major concerns for large foreign investors in Mongolian mining. This study specifically discusses the impact of the mineral royalty rate, the windfall profits tax, and public ownership or equity on these mining projects.
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Taxation and Mining in Mongolia
December 2008 - A study by World Growth.
"Taxation and Mining in Mongolia" reviews international best practices, examining the case of Chile in particular. After making major taxation reforms nearly 15 years ago, Chile quickly captured over 50 percent of the world’s investment in copper and gold. Chile’s tax model is based on the principle that lowering the tax rate will expand the tax base and provide greater revenue to the Government. This is the same principle upon which Mongolia’s general taxation system, regarded as best practice, rests. "Taxation and Mining in Mongolia" also carefully examines Mongolia’s current taxation policies and determines conclusively that the Windfall Profits Tax on gold and copper has severely damaged Mongolia’s economy and recommends that this tax be immediately repealed and replaced with a sensible alternative.
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Winners All: How Forestry Can Reduce Both Climate Change Emissions and Poverty — A Pro-Development Program
December 2008 - A study by World Growth.
World Growth’s August 2007 report “Building a pro-development strategy on climate change”, warns about the risk of ignoring the interests of the world’s poor by acting too precipitately to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. The trends on discussion of forestry in the Bali process also carry the risk of disregarding the interest of the poor. It is time to avoid that risk and adopt a strategy in which everyone wins. Measures can be implemented which effectively reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and at the same time enable developing countries to foster productive forest industries where environmental values are protected and living standards increase. This new study, “Winners All: How Forestry Can Reduce Both Climate Change Emissions and Poverty — A Pro-Development Program,” examines this argument.
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A Path Forward for Mining in Mongolia
November 2008 - A study by World Growth.
This report addresses the key policy issues that confront the Mongolian Government and the State Great Hural in deciding the nature of the taxation and regulatory regimes which are to apply to commercial mining in Mongolia. During this process, it will be important for the Government and the State Great Hural to consider the roles that the public and private sectors are best suited to play in the exploitation of Mongolia’s mineral wealth. Only the public sector can establish the legislative framework that supports and enforces a system of transparent, secure and transferable property rights in mineral exploration, mining and processing. With that in place, the private sector is ideally placed to organise the extraction of economically useful minerals and metals.
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Averting the Resource Curse
April 2008 — A study by World Growth.
Mongolia is in the process of transforming itself into a nation that is based on secure property rights, economic freedom and democratic government – and even though it has lost its way in that regard over the past several years it is believed that it can and will get itself back on course. A major test of the progress it has made, as well as its resolve to continue with that process, will be how it handles the challenge represented by Oyu Tolgoi, a massive, world class mineral deposit located in the remote South Gobi region of Mongolia, near the China border. The study canvasses the requirements of a mining policy framework for Mongolia that would deliver international best practices in terms of investment attraction.
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The Real Climate Threat to Developing Countries — Early, Deep Cuts in Emissions
December 2007 — A study by World Growth.
Parties to the UNFCCC will meet in Bali in December 2007 to craft a fresh, g
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Technologies for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions — Strategic Outlook
November 2007 – A study by World Growth.
This strategic review outlines the considerable scope that exists to accelerate the rate of technological progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The review of outlook and prospects encompass the technologies involved in increasing energy efficiency, capturing and storing emissions, reducing the carbon-intensity of the energy mix, and reducing emissions from productive processes other than energy consumption. The study also explores the wide range of voluntary initiatives by both government and the private sector. These initiatives are directed at the development and commercialization of technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions world-wide.
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Building a Pro-Development Global Strategy on Climate Change
August 2007 – A study by Alan Oxley, Chairman of World Growth and former Chairman of the GATT.
The study proposes a “Multi-Track” process that would allow countries to develop
The “Multi-Track” strategy would allow for each nation to develop a strategy to tackle climate change that best suits it, giving nations more flexibility to reach emission reductions through a variety of strategies. This could include Kyoto-styled mandatory cuts, adopting new technologies, improving efficient energy consumption, or any combination of approaches.
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Economic Effects of Intellectual Property-Intensive Manufacuring in the United States
July 2007 – A study by Dr. Robert Shapiro, former Undersecretary of Commerce to President Clinton.
The study finds that which finds that two-thirds of the value of America’s large businesses springs from intellectual property (IP), especially patents and trademarks.
In addition, Dr. Shapiro and co-author Nam Pham calculate the concrete economic benefits of IP to the U.S. economy and find that IP-intensive jobs produce greater value added per employee, pay higher average wages, and have stronger records in job creation than those that are less IP-intensive.
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MAKE TRADE FREE
How the Doha Round can reduce poverty
November 2005 – A study by Alan Oxley, Chairman of World Growth and former Chairman of the GATT.
"It is fashionable to discredit “free” trade because it is not “fair”. Grave issues are obscured with word play like this. Open markets are the only tool that been have been effective at dramatically reducing poverty. Free trade created them.
The suggestion this is not ‘”fair” is callous. It sneers at governments which have labored to provide prosperity for its citizens. It seeks to deny one of greatest contributions of the twentieth century to human history: to cut by half the share of the world’s people living in poverty.
Poverty persists because not enough economies are open. Mistaken or misguided, “fair” trade would close them further and keep more people poor. That is why trade should be made free, not “fair”.
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