United Nations Former senior Indian diplomat Preeti Saran has been elected unopposed to an Asia Pacific seat on the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) of the UN.

The UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) elected the recently-retired External Affairs Ministry Secretary (East) by acclamation on Wednesday to the 18-member committee of experts that monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR).

Saran will begin her four-year term on January 1, after another former Indian diplomat, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, completes his third term on the CESCR at the end of this year.

After Saran’s election, India’s Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin tweeted: “Thanks to all our friends for electing by acclamation India’s candidate Amb. Preeti Saran…”

Members of the CESCR serve in their personal capacities as experts and do not represent their countries even though they may have been nominated by their own nation.

India was elected in October to the UN Human Rights Council, where the representation is by countries and not individuals.

It received 188 votes in the 193-member General Assembly, the highest number polled by any of the contestants.

When the rotating elections for the nine members to start their terms next year on the CESCR was held in April, Heisoo Shin of South Korea was re-elected but the Asia Pacific region did not have a nominee for the second seat leading to the postponement of the election for it.

While any country from the Asian Pacific group was free to put up a candidate for that seat, none did deferring to India, according to diplomatic sources.

In November, India nominated Saran, who had retired from the foreign service in September, and her nomination was circulated to UN members by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on November 23, paving the the way for Wednesday’s delayed election.

Saran’s election will add a woman to the CESCR, which has been criticised for having only five women on the 18-member panel.

An international NGO, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which monitors the CESCR, commented earlier in 2018, “Unfortunately the gender balance on the Committee remains poor.”

“States should be very concerned by this gender imbalance on a UN human rights treaty body, particularly given the Committee’s mandate to monitor implementation of States obligations to ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights,” it said.

CESCR was set up in 1985 by the ECOSOC to monitor on its behalf the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which has been ratified by 169 countries.

Countries that are parties to the covenant are required to submit reports to the CESCR every five years on how they protect those rights.

The CECSR meets in Geneva for four weeks every year. The other Asian member is Shiqiu Chen of China, whose term ends in 2022.

During her 36-year diplomatic career, Saran had also served as the ambassador to Vietnam and was a minister and a counsellor at India’s mission to the UN in Geneva.

(IANS)

Kabul Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Thursday met visiting US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, discussing the latest efforts for a political solution to the conflict in the country.

During the meeting, Khalilzad briefed Ghani on his tours to the countries in the region, focusing on peace and reconciliation of Afghanistan, the palace said in a statement cited by Xinhua news agency.

According to the statement, Ghani said that joint peace efforts would help Afghans to achieve a lasting peace and put an end to the long war and crisis.

The meeting was attended by government Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Khalilzad, leading a delegation, arrived in Afghanistan after visiting Pakistan where he met the country’s top leadership.

Khalilzad held three-day talks with the Taliban political representatives in Qatar last month. He will travel to Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar during his 18-day tour till December 20.

(IANS)

Is humanity in peril due to climate change? The much-publicised underwater meeting of the Maldavian cabinet 2009, just about two months before the 15th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP 15), was deemed to have already responded to that question, albeit symbolically.

Maldavian ministers, led by then President Mohamed Nasheed, literally went down in the shallow waters off the island of Girifushi, one of the nearly 1,000 that make the Maldives most vulnerable to climate change. They then got down to the business of governance by communicating through hand gestures.

Some critics dismissed that meeting as a publicity stunt. Many in the diplomatic world, however, judged it a remarkable and bold gesture. It was considered a clarion call to global consciousness on issues that must be hammered out at the COP 15 in Copenhagen.

The most intense climate campaigner among the then Heads of State, Nasheed wanted to create awareness about not just the plight of the small-island countries in the wake of the rise in sea levels but also the extinction of life on Earth as hinted in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that went on to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Come 2018 — and three years after Paris Climate Agreement — COP 24 is now being held, literally, on top of one of Poland’s deep coal mines. It is yet not clear if it is another bold experiment by Poland’s young President, Andrzej Duda, to draw the attention of the international community to the darker side of the long and fatally flawed international efforts in addressing one of the deadly sources of climate change.

The conference is underway (December 2-14) in the region called the Upper Silesian Basin, known for the deep mines of lignite, hard and dirty coal. These are not just Poland’s largest operating coal mines, but the mine workers there are the key deciding factors in Polish politics.

The conference venue, Katowice, not far from Krakow where President Duda comes from, is in a busy mining area with strong political clout. The region is the home to the European Union’s largest coal producers. Needless to emphasise, ownership of these coal mines is not just Polish but other European countries as well. So, the roots of the mining are not only deep but, in a globalised world, have spread far and wide.

As if to broadcast the “reality-show” and to make the green movement extremely anxious, many of the events on the margins of COP 24 are financed by the coal-mining companies.

Until the affordable access to alternate fuel that provides similar employment and prosperity to Polish workers, sticking with coal is the only option for the Polish government. To hammer home the point, the government recently announced it is planning to invest in the construction of a new coal mine in Silesia.

By selecting it as venue for COP 24, Poland is making audacious efforts to raise global consciousness and awareness on the stark ground reality of the global war to tackle one of the greatest challenges of our times. A positive message from Katowice and the Upper Silesian basin is that the world needs to eliminate coal through techno-political-social solutions and not just through “clean coal”-like soft technological options.

What is the stark and dark reality? Nearly 80 per cent of the electricity in Poland is derived from coal. Globally, coal is the single-largest contributor to the Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, in this case carbon dioxide. On a weight-by-weight basis, coal produces 30 per cent more GHGs than oil and 50 per cent more than natural gas. It is also the major contributor to air pollution that is now a life-threatening menace in the urbanised world.

Coal mining is also a significant source of emission of methane, which has even more global-warming potential than carbon dioxide. Widespread use of lower quality coal to heat homes, especially in the colder months, has led to smog and respiratory illnesses in Poland’s southern cities, as in many emerging economies like India and China.

So, this black gold is now called dirty and anti-environmental in all its characters. But historically, coal has been serving humanity for ages for heating, cooking, steaming, lighting, manufacturing and electrifying. It was instrumental in triggering and spreading the industrial revolution that started with steam engines in the mid-18th century and has provided direct and indirect employment to billions.

To be fair, Poland is not the only country that uses coal to meet a major part of its energy needs. Globally, 40 per cent of the energy is produced by burning coal. China, India, the US are the three largest emitters of GHGs, most of which come from coal. In the US, the fracking revolution has in recent years reduced the use of coal for electricity to 30 per cent.

So, will delegates from all over the world to COP 24 get the symbolic message of President Duda in hosting the Climate Conference of world leaders on top of a coal mine?

[IANS]