Questões

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Britain, Norway and the United States join forces with businesses to protect tropical forests.

    Britain, Norway and the United States said Thursday they would join forces with some of the world’s biggest companies in an effort to rally more than $1 billion for countries that can show they are lowering emissions by protecting tropical forests. The goal is to make intact forests more economically valuable than they would be if the land were cleared for timber and agriculture.

    The initiative comes as the world loses acre after acre of forests to feed global demand for soy, palm oil, timber and cattle. Those forests, from Brazil to Indonesia, are essential to limiting the linked crises of climate change and a global biodiversity collapse. They are also home to Indigenous and other forest communities. Amazon, Nestlé, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline and Salesforce are among the companies promising money for the new initiative, known as the LEAF Coalition.

    Last year, despite the global downturn triggered by the pandemic, tropical deforestation was up 12 percent from 2019, collectively wiping out an area about the size of Switzerland. That destruction released about twice as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as cars in the United States emit annually.

    “The LEAF Coalition is a groundbreaking example of the scale and type of collaboration that is needed to fight the climate crisis and achieve net-zero emissions globally by 2050,” John Kerry, President Biden’s senior climate envoy, said in a statement. “Bringing together government and privatesector resources is a necessary step in supporting the large-scale efforts that must be mobilized to halt deforestation and begin to restore tropical and subtropical forests.” 

    An existing global effort called REDD+ has struggled to attract sufficient investment and gotten mired in bureaucratic slowdowns. This initiative builds on it, bringing private capital to the table at the country or state level. Until now, companies have invested in forests more informally, sometimes supporting questionable projects that prompted accusations of corruption and “greenwashing,” when a company or brand portrays itself as an environmental steward but its true actions don’t support the claim.

    The new initiative will use satellite imagery to verify results across wide areas to guard against those problems. Monitoring entire jurisdictions would, in theory, prevent governments from saving forestland in one place only to let it be cut down elsewhere.

    Under the plan, countries, states or provinces with tropical forests would commit to reducing deforestation and degradation. Each year or two, they would submit their results, calculating the number of tons of carbon dioxide reduced by their efforts. An independent monitor would verify their claims using satellite images and other measures. Companies and governments would contribute to a pool of money that would pay the national or regional government at least $10 per ton of reduced carbon dioxide.

    Companies will not be allowed to participate unless they have a scientifically sound plan to reach net zero emissions, according to Nigel Purvis, the chief executive of Climate Advisers, a group affiliated with the initiative. “Their number one obligation to the world from a climate standpoint is to reduce their own emissions across their supply chains, across their products, everything,” Mr. Purvis said. He also emphasized that the coalition’s plans would respect the rights of Indigenous and forest communities.

From: www.nytimes.com/April 22, 2021

        The philosopher Jeremy Bentham was regarded as the founder of utilitarianism and a leading advocate of the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, and individual legal rights. Furthermore, the “panopticon” is a type of institutional building that has long dominated Bentham’s legacy. As a work of architecture, the panopticon allows a watchman in a central tower to observe occupants of surrounding cells without the occupants knowing whether or not they are being watched. As a metaphor, the panopticon was commandeered in the latter half of the 20th century as a way to trace the surveillance tendencies of disciplinarian societies. Is it still a useful way to think about surveillance today?

        The French philosopher Michel Foucault used the idea of the panopticon as a way to illustrate the proclivity of disciplinary societies to subjugate its citizens. He describes the prisoner of a panopticon as being at the receiving end of asymmetrical surveillance: “He is seen, but he does not see.” As a consequence, the inmate polices himself for fear of punishment.

        The parallels between the panopticon and surveillance cameras may be obvious, but what happens when you step into the world of digital surveillance and data capture? Unlike the panopticon, citizens don’t know they are being watched. Jake Goldenfein, from the University of Melbourne, tells me it’s important to remember the corrective purposes of Bentham’s panopticon when considering it as a metaphor for modern surveillance. “The relevance of the panopticon as a metaphor begins to wither when we start thinking about whether contemporary types of visuality are analogous to the central tower concept. For example, whether this type of visuality is as asymmetrical, and being co-opted for the same political exercise.” In the panopticon the occupants are constantly aware of the threat of being watched — this is the whole point — but state surveillance on the Internet is invisible; there is no looming tower, no dead-eye lens staring at you every time you enter a URL. There may not be a central tower, but there will be communicating sensors in our most intimate objects.

Internet: <theguardian.com> (adapted).

Text 2

Read text 2 and chose the best answer to questions 25 to 27 below:

                                                                                       The United Nations`s (UN`s) Third International

                                                                                 Conference on Financing for Development in Addis                                                                                                                                                         Ababa

      The Addis Ababa Conference brings together governments, businesses and civil society to mobilize the resources needed to implement the UN`s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs - the foundation of the post- 2015 development agenda) and a new global climate agreement, both of which are due later this year. The Addis Conference is an opportunity for policymakers to turn rhetoric into action, by agreeing on the funding and fi nancial tools that can put the SDGs within reach.

      The good news is that many of the solutions, technologies, and skills needed to achieve these global goals already exist. One important factor is the transition from cash to digital payments. There is growing evidence that digitizing payments boosts transactional effi ciency, reduces costs, improves transparency and accountability, unlocks domestic resources, and drives fi nancial inclusion in the places that need it most.

      In Mexico, the government trimmed its spending on wages, pensions, and social welfare by 3.3% annually, or nearly US$1.3bn, by centralizing and digitizing its payments;

      In India, a McKinsey study estimates savings for the government of over US$22bn annually through automated payments that help reduce transaction costs and fraud.

      Not only can digital payments deliver major cost savings in straightened fiscal times, they also offer governments a rare boost on the revenue side of national ledgers. By bringing more people and businesses into the formal economy, digital payments can vastly expand a country`s tax base, providing new funds to invest in the drivers of productivity and growth.

      The financial exclusion of so many people and businesses – all potential sources of economic growth – makes no sense, particularly at a time when growth is now slowing in much of the developing world. Figures like these also demonstrate why drafts on the Addis Accord prepared in advance of the conference repeatedly call for greater financial inclusion, including for women and SME (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises).

                                                                  The Economist (Source: http://www.economistinsights.com/

                                                                              technologyinnovation/opinion/cashing-out - adapted)