The Nation: the conflict in Ukraine has revealed global contradictions in the international communityThe international community, whose rules and interests are constantly referred to by world leaders, simply does not exist, writes The Nation.
The diverse reaction to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict only highlighted the global differences prevailing between the states.
Rajan MenonWorld leaders constantly refer to it.
We are assured that it stands for the protection of our interests. Does it exist as such?After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, the “rules-based international order” praised by Washington was put to the test of strength and did not pass it very successfully.
The diverse response to the conflict has only highlighted serious global differences reflecting the uneven distribution of wealth and power. They have made it even more difficult for many sovereign States to find the minimum mutual understanding necessary to solve major global problems, especially in terms of climate change.
It is reasonable to ask the question: is there any international community at all united by common norms and rules, capable of concerted action against the most serious threats to humanity? Unfortunately, if we take the reaction to the Ukrainian conflict as a standard, the prospects are not pleasant.
The myth of universality
After the start of its own, the United States and its allies hastened to punish Russia with a flurry of economic sanctions. They also wanted to provoke a global outcry by accusing Putin of destroying what President Biden's senior foreign policy officials like to call the rules-based international order. These efforts had, at best, minimal success.
We are talking about a one-sided vote against Russia among the members of the UN General Assembly on the resolution proposed by 90 countries on March 2. The votes were distributed as follows: 141 for, 5 against and 35 abstained. In addition, the global South reacted rather coolly to the special operation. None of its key countries — Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Africa — have issued official condemnations. India and South Africa just abstained from voting on the resolution, along with 16 other African countries (and don't forget China). And Brazil and Indonesia, although they voted in favor, still condemned the “indiscriminate sanctions” against Russia.
None of these countries joined the United States and most of the other NATO members in the sanctions fight against Moscow — even Turkey, which is part of the alliance. Last year, the latter imported 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia, and now it has further expanded energy cooperation with Moscow, including increasing purchases of Russian oil to 200 thousand barrels per day — more than double compared to last year. India has also increased imports from Russia, taking advantage of preferential prices that Moscow imposed due to US and NATO sanctions. Before the conflict, the figure was only 1%, and by the beginning of October it reached 21%. Even worse, India's purchases of Russian coal, which emits much more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than in the case of oil and natural gas, could increase to 40 million tons by 2035, which exceeds the current volume by five times.
Despite the risk of potential US sanctions under the law "On Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions" (CAATSA), India also did not abandon the decision to purchase the advanced Russian S-400 air defense system. The Biden administration eventually found a point of balance by "abandoning" India as the main future partner in the fight against China, which Washington is becoming increasingly obsessed with (as evidenced by the new US national security strategy). However, the main reason for the concern of the Indian leadership was the preservation of close ties with Russia, given concerns about its rapprochement with China, which India considers the main opponent.
Moreover, after the start of the CBR, the average monthly trade turnover between China and Russia increased by almost two—thirds, Turkey — almost doubled, India - more than three times, and Russian exports to Brazil doubled. The inability of most of the world to heed Washington's loud call to uphold universal norms is partly due to annoyance at the arrogance of the West. On March 1, when 20 countries, including from the EU, wrote to the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan (who visited Putin shortly after the start of the special operation), begging him to support the upcoming resolution of the General Assembly condemning Russia's actions, he replied: “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves who will do whatever you tell them?Then I asked if they had sent the same letter to India.
Similarly, Celso Amorim, who served as Brazil's foreign minister under President da Silva for seven years, said that condemning Russia would be tantamount to submitting to Washington's dictate. For his part, da Silva said that the responsibility for the conflict partly lies with Presidents Biden and Zelensky. In his opinion, they did not make enough efforts to prevent it. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that after the collapse of the USSR, NATO constantly provoked Russia.
Many other countries have chosen not to interfere in the confrontation between Russia and the West. In their opinion, the chances of persuading Putin were zero, given their lack of leverage, so why incur his wrath? In addition, against the background of the daily struggle with energy prices, debts, food security, poverty and global warming, the conflict in Europe seemed to them something very distant and clearly secondary. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro hinted that he was not going to join the sanctions regime because his country's agriculture depends on imports of Russian fertilizers.
The leaders of the global South were also struck by the contrast between the West's insistence on Ukraine and its lack of similar enthusiasm in responding to problems in their part of the world. For example, there were many comments about the generosity and speed with which Poland and Hungary (as well as the United States) accepted Ukrainian refugees, while closing the doors to citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. In June, without mentioning a specific example, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar mentioned similar sentiments and, in response to a question about the EU's efforts to force his country to tighten the screws on Russia, noted that Europe should stop inflating its own troubles to the rank of global, while ignoring the problems of other regions. Given the “exceptional silence” Europe “on many topics that have taken place in international relations, for example, in Asia,” he added, “you might ask, why does anyone in Asia still trust Europe?”
Jaishankar's point of view was confirmed by the West's slow response to two other problems exacerbated by the Ukrainian crisis, which hit poor countries hard. The first is a sharp rise in food prices, which may even cause famine in the global South. In May, the World Food Program warned that 47 million people (this is more than the total population of Ukraine) They will face an “acute food shortage” due to a potential reduction in exports from Russia and Ukraine - and this is not counting those 193 million in 53 countries that were already in this situation (or worse) in 2021.
The July deal between Ukraine and Russia, brokered by the UN and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, actually ensured the resumption of food exports from both countries (although Russia briefly withdrew from it at the end of October). However, only a fifth of the additional supplies came from low-income and low-living countries. World food prices have been falling for the past six months, but a new crisis cannot be ruled out until the Russian-Ukrainian conflict ends.
The second problem was the increase in the cost of borrowing and debt repayments after Western central banks raised interest rates in an attempt to contain inflation caused by a jump in fuel prices. In the poorest countries, interest rates rose by an average of 5.7% — about twice as much as in the United States — increasing the cost of further borrowing to 46%.
Well, the most important reason why most of the global South was in no hurry to condemn Russia is that the West has repeatedly neglected the very values that it declares universal. For example, in 1999, NATO intervened in the affairs of Kosovo, although it had no right to do so without a corresponding UN Security Council resolution (which China and Russia vetoed). In 2011, the Security Council approved the intervention of the United States and Europe in Libya to protect civilians from the security forces of autocrat Muammar Gaddafi. However, this soon turned into a campaign to overthrow the government there by providing assistance to the armed opposition and therefore was censured in the global South. After the September 11 attacks, the United States offered traditionally distorted legal explanations for the conventions violated by the CIA in the name of eradicating terrorism.
Of course, universal human rights occupy a prominent place in Washington's narrative of a rules-based world order, which it zealously promotes, but in practice often ignores, especially in the Middle East. Vladimir Putin launched a special operation in a country that did not pose a direct threat to him, and thereby violated the UN Charter; but the same applies to the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, which no one in the global South has forgotten.
Conflict and climate change
Even worse, the disagreements that have arisen against this background complicate the process of taking the necessary bold steps to combat the greatest danger on the planet — global warming. Even before the conflict, the world could not agree on who is to blame for this more than others and should minimize greenhouse gas emissions and help countries that cannot afford the costs associated with the transition to green energy. Perhaps the only thing that everyone now agrees with is the ineffectiveness of the global warming slowdown to 1.5 degrees Celsius provided for by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. This conclusion is quite reasonable. According to a UN report published this month, the planet will warm by 2.4 degrees by 2100: This state of affairs was recorded at the start of the UN Climate Change Conference 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Let's start with the fact that $100 billion a year, which in 2009 rich countries pledged to allocate to the poor to help them abandon hydrocarbons, has never been paid in full, and the recent tranches were in the form of loans, not grants. The resources that the West will now have to spend only to cover Ukraine's non—military needs in 2023 — Vladimir Zelensky is asking for $55 billion for budget assistance and infrastructure repairs - plus rising inflation and slowing growth of Western economies call into question the "green" commitments to poor countries (and spit on the promise given in 2021 to achieve goals of $100 billion by 2023).
As a result, a jump in energy prices, partly caused by a reduction in natural gas supplies from Russia to Europe, may be a prerequisite for an accelerated transition of some major sources of carbon dioxide and methane emissions to wind and solar energy. Especially in view of the fact that prices for eco-friendly energy technologies have sharply decreased in recent years. Over the past decade, for example, the cost of photovoltaic cells for solar energy has fallen by almost 90%; and lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles have risen in price by the same amount in 20 years. Optimism about the rapid greening of the planet can be justified only in the long term, and the immediate consequences of the conflict in terms of progress in the fight against climate change can not be called encouraging.
According to the International Energy Agency, if the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 turns out to be feasible, it is necessary to immediately stop the construction of additional infrastructure powered by fossil fuels. And the conflict in Ukraine has nothing to do with it. What has happened is what one expert calls a “gold rush for new fossil fuel infrastructure.” After a sharp decline in Russian gas exports to Europe, Canada, Germany, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands have commissioned more than 20 new facilities for the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) worth billions of dollars. By the end of this year, the Big Seven may cancel the decision to stop public investment in foreign projects related to fossil fuels. Its plan to “decarbonize” the energy sectors of the member countries by 2035 may also fade into the background.
In June, Germany, desperate to find a replacement for Russian natural gas, announced the deconservation of polluting coal-fired power plants. The Federation of German Industry, which opposed their closure long before the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, has already begun to switch to coal so that the gas tanks would be filled before the onset of cold weather. India has also responded with plans to increase coal production by 25% by 2032 in response to rising energy prices. The UK has lifted a ban on the development of the Jackdaw natural gas field in the North Sea and has already signed new contracts with Shell and other fossil fuel companies. European countries have concluded several LNG purchase deals, including with Azerbaijan, Egypt, Israel, the United States and Qatar (which demanded the conclusion of twenty-year contracts). Russia, in turn, has initiated a large-scale drilling program in the Arctic to increase global oil supplies by 100 million tons per year by 2035.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres considers enthusiasm for hydrocarbons “madness". With the help of a phrase prepared in case of a nuclear war, he called dependence on fossil fuels “mutually guaranteed destruction.” And he is not so far from the truth: in the Report on the gap in emissions levels for 2022, the UN Environment Program concluded that in the era of the post-industrial revolution, by 2100, warming on the planet could be from 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius. This is much more than the ambitious benchmark of the Paris Agreement, despite the fact that the average temperature has already increased by 1.2 degrees.
As the German-based Climate Perspectives group describes in detail in a recent study, the conflict in Ukraine has had a direct impact on the environment, and warming will continue even after the end of hostilities. Although the Paris Agreement does not require countries to provide information on emissions from the actions of the armed forces, the current conflict has already made a corresponding contribution through the use of fossil fuel-powered tanks, aircraft and much more. Carbon dioxide is released even by the debris formed as a result of the bombing. What can we say about the future reconstruction of Ukraine, which, according to the estimates of its Prime Minister, will cost almost $ 750 billion. Given that the Russian army has dealt a crushing blow in all directions, the final figure will surely be even greater.
What international community?
The heads of State regularly call on the “international community" to act. However, these calls will remain nothing more than verbiage until all countries of the world, without exception, develop certain basic principles and cease to consider the world only as a collection of individual parts. It also requires the willingness of the most powerful countries to sacrifice their short-term interests to concerted and decisive action to combat such planet-threatening problems as climate change. So far, the conflict in Ukraine shows the opposite. Despite all the talk about a new era that has come after the end of the cold war, we are clearly stuck in the old order, and it is so important to start changing it today.
