This spring The Economist wrote about the extension of maritime claims to continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from land. Huge areas of ocean are being claimed, with rights to oil, metal, and seabed methane hydrates.
While some issues are being worked out amicably, the move could intensify other disputes, such as those around the multiple claims to the South China Sea.
This could also make more important a concept noted by Professor James Lee earlier this year: will islands that cease to exist due to global warming still have sovereignty based on their former existence?
He wrote:
Some remote islands — particularly such Pacific islands as Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tonga, the Maldives and many others — may be partially or entirely submerged beneath rising ocean waters. Do they lose their sovereignty if their territory disappears? After all, governments in exile have maintained sovereign rights in the past over land they didn’t control (think of France and Poland in World War II). Nor are these new questions far away in the future. The first democratically elected president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, is already planning to use tourism revenue to buy land abroad — perhaps in India, Sri Lanka or Australia — to house his citizens.
Absolute sovereignty, territorial waters, and marine exclusive economic zones are all ultimately based on land in current international law. Will a strip of the northern Indian Ocean remain Maldivian even if the islands begin to vanish? Will the Maldivians and others fund their displaced lives with the mineral rights to the waters that swallow their homes?
(Image courtesy Rappensuncle — Creative Commons use via Flickr)
Australians are reexamining strategy as the world changes around them.
On National Public Radio this morning, a report suggested that Australia is considering its situation as the perceived balance between the US and China changes. Centuries of protection by the fleets of Britain and the United States may be coming to an end; an Australian analyst said he doubted that the US was likely to send two carrier groups to face down China over Taiwan by 2025 or 2030, as it did in 1995.
With that in mind, and with an eye on China, a new Defence White Paper published in May recommends that Australia increase its defense spending and double the size of its submarine fleet (from the current six).
At the same time, many Australians are worried about China’s rapidly growing economic influence in their country — in part based on the relationship many Chinese companies have with the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, looking east, Australians are also thinking about their role in the Indian Ocean. The Future Directions Institute has published a new study on the topic, Such a Full Sea: Australia’s Options in a Changing Indian Ocean Region, and its conclusions are summarized in the current issue of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (”Such a Full Sea,” Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, 4, 2009, pp. 8-10).
The study makes five principal recommendations, based in part of an assumption of waning American influence:
- Australia should lead the creation of an Indian Ocean forum, based in Perth.
- Australia should “engage more decisively in the region,” including leading the stabilization of the Horn of Africa.
- Australia “must take charge of the future of Antarctica,” as the Antarctic Treaty is fraying.
- Australia should “focus on ‘pre-emptive peacekeeping,’” meaning aid programs directed at agriculture.
- Australia should develop its Indian Ocean Territories as integral parts of the nation.
(Image courtesy JPL — NASA)
The website Treehugger suggests eight places — low-lying islands, more specifically — that will “soon” be uninhabitable due to climate change.
They are:
- the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean
- Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Carteret Islands (off PNG), and Majuro Atoll (Marshall Islands) in the Pacific
- Lamu and Pate, Kenyan coastal islands
- Bhola, in southern Bangladesh
- Key West, off southern Florida
“Soon” is a relative term here–many of these places would still be inhabitable for decades, under current sea-level rise forecasts.
The Pacific islands involve relatively small numbers of people; they could actually be moved, though this would involve irreparable cultural destruction.
Bangladesh illustrates another level of impact: millions of people live on these low-lying islands, and tens of millions in vulnerable coastal areas. Significant sea-level rise could dislocate so many people that the stability of countries like Bangladesh, and their neighbors, could be undermined.
(Thanks to Stu Gagnon for the tip.)
Image: Maldives from space, courtesy NASA
The Economist Intelligence Unit released its 2006 e-readiness rankings yesterday. The index is a measure of a country’s readiness for e-business, judged by Internet access, broadband penetration, innovation, information security, and other factors. More telling than the ranking is the country’s distance from a score of 10.
The ratings are a good indicator of general abilities in IT, and thus an important component of present and future competitiveness.
The top countries
Rank. Country — score out of 10 (2005 rank)
1. Denmark — 9.00 (1)
2. US — 8.88 (2)
3. Switzerland — 8.81 (4)
4. Sweden — 8.74 (3)
5. UK — 8.64 (5)
6. Netherlands — 8.60 (8)
7. Finland — 8.55 (6)
8. Australia — 8.50 (10)
9. Canada — 8.37 (12)
10. Hong Kong — 8.36 (6)
11. Norway — 8.35 (9)
12. Germany — 8.34 (12)
13. Singapore — 8.24 (11)
14. New Zealand — 8.19 (16)
14. Austria — 8.19 (14)
16. Ireland — 8.09 (15)
17. Belgium — 7.99 (17)
18. South Korea — 7.90 (18)
19. France — 7.86 (19)
Other countries of interest
Rank. Country — score out of 10 (2005 rank)
21. Japan — 7.77 (21)
22. Israel — 7.59 (20)
23. Taiwan — 7.51 (22)
25. Italy — 7.14 (24)
30. United Arab Emirates — 6.32 (X)
31. Chile — 6.19 (31)
35. South Africa — 5.74 (32)
37. Malaysia — 5.60 (35)
39. Mexico — 5.30 (36)
41. Brazil — 5.29 (38)
42. Argentina — 5.27 (39)
45. Turkey — 4.77 (43)
46. Saudi Arabia — 4.67 (46)
48. Venezuela — 4.47 (45)
49. Romania — 4.44 (47)
51. Colombia — 4.41 (48)
52. Russia — 4.30 (52)
53. India — 4.25 (49)
55. Egypt — 4.14 (53)
56. Philippines — 4.04 (51)
57. China — 4.02 (54)
60. Nigeria — 3.69 (58)
61. Ukraine — 3.62 (57)
62. Indonesia — 3.39 (60)
64. Kazakhstan — 3.22 (62)
65. Iran — 3.15 (59)
67. Pakistan — 3.03 (64)
Regional standouts in the developing world are Chile, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. The low scores of some countries, notably India, China, and Russia, disguise significant specialized capabilities in infotech.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers has released a study of potential growth in the world’s 17 largest economies out to the year 2050.
The study forecasts the eclipse of the current developed economies. The E7, largest emerging market economies (China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey), were only 20% of the size of the G7 economies at market exchange rates in 2005, but would be 25% larger than the G7 by 2050. By purchasing power, the E7 economies were only 75% as large as the G7 in 2005, but would be 75% larger by 2050.
In purchasing power terms, the shifts in relative GDP would be stark:
COUNTRY — relative econ size 2005 / 2050
US — 100 / 100
Japan — 32 / 23
Germany — 20 / 15
China — 76 / 143
UK — 16 / 15
France — 15 / 13
Italy — 14 / 10
Spain — 9 / 8
Canada — 9 / 9
India — 30 / 100
South Korea — 9 / 8
Mexico — 9 / 17
Australia — 5 / 6
Brazil — 13 / 25
Russia — 12 / 14
Turkey — 5 / 10
Indonesia — 7 / 19
Note that the values are relative within their respective years, but not across them; all economies are projected to be larger in 2050 than at present.
Purchasing power suggests, among other things, the military power the economy can afford to buy, suggesting that the realignment of power toward Asia will have substantially occurred. It will no longer be possible for the US to massively outspend all potential rivals.
The study also offers some startling numbers for per capita income. The figures suggest that the developed countries could have universal prosperity, and the emerging markets could achieve levels of wealth like those of developed countries today, eliminating dire poverty.
COUNTRY — 2005 / 2050 purchasing power GDP per capita (constant 2004 dollars)
US — $40,339 / $88,443
Japan — $30,081 / $70,646
Germany — $28,770 / $68,261
China — $6,949 / $35,851
UK — $31,489 / $75,855
France — $29,674 / $74,685
Italy — $28,576 / $66,165
Spain — $25,283 / $66,552
Canada — $31,874 / $75,425
India — $3,224 / $21,872
South Korea — $21,434 / $66,489
Mexico — $9,939 / $42,879
Australia — $31,109 / $74,000
Brazil — $8,311 / $34,448
Russia — $10,358 / $43,586
Turkey — $7,920 / $35,861
Indonesia — $3,702 / $23,686
These numbers suggest massive value shifts: countries reaching these wealth levels have shifted toward democracy, social freedom, and humane governance.
There is an underlying problem in these hopeful figures: sustainability will be strained with far more of the planet living at developed levels of wealth.