Iraqi Kurds Seek to Diversify Economy

An Iraqi worker operates a machine at Hend steel company in Erbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, on October 1, 2020. AFP / SAFIN HAMED
An Iraqi worker operates a machine at Hend steel company in Erbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, on October 1, 2020. AFP / SAFIN HAMED
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Iraqi Kurds Seek to Diversify Economy

An Iraqi worker operates a machine at Hend steel company in Erbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, on October 1, 2020. AFP / SAFIN HAMED
An Iraqi worker operates a machine at Hend steel company in Erbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region, on October 1, 2020. AFP / SAFIN HAMED

On a rugged hillside some 50 kilometers east of Erbil, the booming regional capital, vineyards are ripe for harvesting as a new source of income.

Iraq's Kurdish region has for decades lived off its oil wealth, but plummeting energy prices amid the pandemic and financial mismanagement are forcing locals to return to long abandoned farms.

Civil servants from the northern region's bloated public sector have gone without pay and many are now turning back to agriculture and other businesses to make ends meet.

Abdallah Hassan, 51, a civil servant from the nearby village of Mam Rostam, has returned to harvest the grapes, used to produce raisins and vine leaves, for the first time in almost 20 years.

"There is hardly any work left for us and there are no salaries," he said, complaining that the regional government now "only pays wages every couple of months".

"It's better for farmers to tend to their fields than wait for the payday or for charity," he added, AFP reported.

Hassan recounted how before the 2003, when Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, the Kurdish region had survived on farming during years of painful sanctions.

Since then, in its drive to secure lucrative oil revenues, the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had mostly abandoned agriculture.

Big investments from multinational energy companies have transformed the region, and Erbil has become an urban hub with skyscrapers and luxury hotels.

This year, however, the Covid-19 pandemic and tumbling oil prices have taken a heavy toll, worsened by budget disputes with the central government in Baghdad.

The Iraqi economy, one of the world's most oil-dependent according to the World Bank, saw its gross domestic product contract by about 10 percent this year.

Mohammed Shukri, chairman of the Kurdistan Board of Investment, said putting all of the regional economy's eggs into the energy basket had proven costly.

"We're rich when the oil price is high, and we're poor when the oil price is low," he told AFP.

Kurdish economist Bilal Saeed argues the region's leaders had made a strategic blunder by letting other sectors fall by the wayside.

"Instead of using that revenue to develop the agriculture, health and tourism sectors, the government of Kurdistan has focused mostly on developing its oil sector and ignored the rest," he said.

Over-reliance on energy has also had a corrosive effect on Iraq's state apparatus and fueled corruption.

A World Bank report this year pointed to Iraq's "failure to equitably share the benefits of oil wealth" and described a murky patronage system.

With its budget now bled dry and the KRG facing some $28 billion in debt, it decided in June to slash civil servants' salaries by 21 percent.

But despite this, it has been unable to pay all of their wages on time, with the outstanding pay, accumulated over years, estimated at $9 billion.



Japan Sets New 2035 Emissions Cut Goal 

A chimney is seen at the Keihin Industrial Zone as Mount Fuji (background L), Japan's highest mountain at 3,776 meters (12,388 feet), looms in the background as viewed from the observation deck of Kawasaki Marien in Kawasaki on January 24, 2022. (AFP)
A chimney is seen at the Keihin Industrial Zone as Mount Fuji (background L), Japan's highest mountain at 3,776 meters (12,388 feet), looms in the background as viewed from the observation deck of Kawasaki Marien in Kawasaki on January 24, 2022. (AFP)
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Japan Sets New 2035 Emissions Cut Goal 

A chimney is seen at the Keihin Industrial Zone as Mount Fuji (background L), Japan's highest mountain at 3,776 meters (12,388 feet), looms in the background as viewed from the observation deck of Kawasaki Marien in Kawasaki on January 24, 2022. (AFP)
A chimney is seen at the Keihin Industrial Zone as Mount Fuji (background L), Japan's highest mountain at 3,776 meters (12,388 feet), looms in the background as viewed from the observation deck of Kawasaki Marien in Kawasaki on January 24, 2022. (AFP)

Japan Tuesday pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent in the next decade from 2013 levels but climate campaigners said the target fell short of what was needed under the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

Under the Paris accord, each country is supposed to provide a headline figure to the United Nations for cutting heat-trapping emissions by 2035, and a detailed blueprint for how to achieve this.

Japan is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels as the world's fifth largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the United States, India and Russia.

On Tuesday Tokyo's environment ministry said the country would slash emissions 60 percent by the 2035 fiscal year.

The world's fourth-largest economy also aims to cut emissions by 73 percent by fiscal 2040 as part of its new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) -- a voluntary pledge to be submitted to the UN later on Tuesday.

Nearly 200 nations had been required to deliver their fresh climate plans by February 10 but just 10 did so on time, according to a UN database tracking the submissions.

The Japanese ministry said Tuesday that its "ambitious targets (are) aligned with the global 1.5 degree Celsius goal and on a straight pathway towards the achievement of net zero by 2050".

But Masayoshi Iyoda from international environmental group 350.org noted that scientists say an emissions cut of 81 percent by 2035 is needed for Japan to honor its commitments to the 1.5 degree objective.

"This is a major failure in Japan's attempt to transition to a future of renewable energy that is fair and just," he told AFP.

Kazue Suzuki of Greenpeace Japan also said the new target was "far too low", calling for a 78 percent reduction given "our responsibility as an industrially advanced country".

- Renewable future? -

UN climate chief Simon Stiell has called the latest round of national pledges "the most important policy documents of this century".

Yet just a handful of major polluters handed in upgraded targets on time, with China, India and the European Union the biggest names on a lengthy absentee list.

There is no penalty for submitting late targets, which are not legally binding but act as an accountability measure to ensure countries are taking climate change seriously and doing their fair share toward achieving the Paris goals.

In 2016, Japan committed to a 26 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. It strengthened this in 2021 to 46 percent by 2030 compared to 2013 levels.

The Japanese government also on Tuesday approved its latest Strategic Energy Plan -- which includes an intention to make renewables the country's top power source by 2040.

Nearly 14 years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan also sees a major role for nuclear power to help it meet growing energy demand from AI and microchip factories.

So a previous pledge to "reduce reliance on nuclear power as much as possible" was dropped from the new plan.

A draft plan released in December had said Japan would jointly promote renewable energy and hydrogen fuel with its ally the United States.

But after President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the Paris Agreement last month, mentions of a US-led clean economy framework were deleted.

"We've made certain tweaks" following Trump's announcements, an industry ministry official told reporters Monday.

But "it doesn't mean Japan's broader efforts towards a 'green transformation' will be changed significantly", he said.

Nearly 70 percent of Japan's power needs in 2023 were met by power plants burning coal, gas and oil -- a figure Tokyo wants to slash to 30-40 percent over the next 15 years.

Almost all these fossil fuels must be imported, at a cost of around $470 million per day according to Japanese customs.

Under the new plans, renewables such as solar and wind are expected to account for 40-50 percent of electricity generation by 2040.