Podcasts about Framework convention

A review of the week's major US international tax-related news. In this edition:  US Congress to move on budget reconciliation after recess – IRS withdraws regulations on certain partnership related-party basis-shifting transactions – OECD/G20 IF on BEPS issues statement following meeting, OECD official comments on discussions – UN negotiating committee of Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation releases roadmap and guidelines – US launches investigation into pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) might not make headlines today, but it was the first treaty negotiated under the World Health Organization—and it changed the global public health landscape forever.In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Garry Aslanyan returns to unpack the story behind this groundbreaking treaty. We explore how the FCTC was negotiated in an era before Zoom calls and WhatsApp, the political and economic tensions that shaped its development, and how it continues to influence tobacco control policies worldwide—despite evolving challenges like vaping, flavored products, and social media marketing.From legal battles with Big Tobacco to global policy coordination, we break down why this treaty still matters for local public health professionals.References for Our Discussion◼️TDR◼️Global Health Matters PodcastGuest◼️Dr Garry AslanyanHost(s) & Producer(s)◼️ Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®Production Notes◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music RoomSubscribe to the NewsletterSubscribe to The Insight newsletter so you don't miss out on the latest podcast episodes, live events, job skills, learning opportunities, and other engaging professional development content here.Leave Us Some FeedbackIf you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We'd love to hear what you think.Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

国連気候変動枠組み条約第２９回締約国会議の会場、２３日、バクー【バクー時事】アゼルバイジャンで開催中の国連気候変動枠組み条約第２９回締約国会議は２３日、会期を延長して大詰めの交渉に入った。 The 29th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP29, was extended after participants failed to conclude talks by Friday's initial deadline on how much to increase financial aid for climate action in developing nations.

The 29th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP29, was extended after participants failed to conclude talks by Friday's initial deadline on how much to increase financial aid for climate action in developing nations.

When regulating artificial intelligence, we want to make sure that the policies in place are conducive to innovation and don't become a straightjacket. But as AI becomes a part of our daily lives, the worries that it will infringe on human rights are ever more present. In the fourth episode of the special series on AI & Democracy brought to you by Debating Europe, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with Hanne Juncher, Director of Security, Integrity and Rule of Law at the Council of Europe, who was involved in the negotiations of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and human rights, democracy and the rule of law – hailed as the first-ever international legal binding treaty in the field of artificial intelligence and democracy – and Justin Reynolds, Director for Tech Policy at the US Department of State.

The Council of Europe Framework Convention on artificial intelligence and human rights, democracy, and the rule of law (CETS No. 225) was opened for signature today during a conference of Council of Europe Ministers of Justice in Vilnius. It is the first-ever international legally binding treaty aimed at ensuring that the use of AI systems is fully consistent with human rights, democracy and the rule of law. European global treaty on AI The Framework Convention was signed by Andorra, Georgia, Iceland, Norway, the Republic of Moldova, San Marino, the United Kingdom as well as Israel, the United States of America and the European Union. Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pej?inovi? Buri? said: "We must ensure that the rise of AI upholds our standards, rather than undermining them. The Framework Convention is designed to ensure just that. It is a strong and balanced text - the result of the open and inclusive approach by which it was drafted and which ensured that it benefits from multiple and expert perspectives. The Framework Convention is an open treaty with a potentially global reach. I hope that these will be the first of many signatures and that they will be followed quickly by ratifications, so that the treaty can enter into force as soon as possible." The treaty provides a legal framework covering the entire lifecycle of AI systems. It promotes AI progress and innovation, while managing the risks it may pose to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. To stand the test of time, it is technology-neutral. The Framework Convention was adopted by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers on 17 May 2024. The 46 Council of Europe member states, the European Union and 11 non-member states (Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, the Holy See, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Peru, the United States of America and Uruguay) negotiated the treaty. Representatives of the private sector, civil society and academia contributed as observers. The treaty will enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of three months after the date on which five signatories, including at least three Council of Europe member states, have ratified it. Countries from all over the world will be eligible to join it and commit to complying with its provisions. Additional information Council of Europe and Artificial Intelligence See more breaking stories here.

生成式AI的出現，無論是使用介面或是雲端使用架構，大幅度的縮短人們與AI間的距離，也同時為人們的生活帶來前所未有的新的感受。根據日本NHK於今年4月份的調查顯示，在受訪的3196位民眾中，有高達61%的人認為，應該為生成式AI所產生的假訊息風險制定法規規範，而其中有48%的受訪民眾，主因在於假訊息有高度傷害人權的風險。歐洲議會（Council of Europe）於今年5月份更通過全球首個具法律約束力的「人工智慧架構公約（The Framework Convention on AI）」的國際條約，希望確保AI的運用能夠尊重人權、法治與民主。面對AI時代，台灣如何建立可信賴的AI規範的新思維？請鎖定本集《導航AI新未來》。 主持人：天下雜誌行銷部會員商務中心總監 胡明顗Mini（寶太太的人工智慧） 來賓：財團法人人工智慧科技基金會董事長 詹婷怡 製作團隊：天下實驗室、天下整合傳播部 以上廣告由 數位發展部數位產業署 提供 -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

As the world struggles to co-operate on the energy transition, international trade rules can be a foundation for the new low-carbon economy. Ed Crooks is joined by regular guest Amy Myers-Jaffe, Director of New York University's Energy, Climate Justice, and Sustainability Lab, and new guest on The Energy Gang: Dan Esty, who is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. Dan goes a long way back in clean energy: he was on the US delegation that negotiated the original Framework Convention on Climate Change back in 1992. And he has recently been working for Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, to develop a sustainability strategy for the global trading system.Dan argues that the trade system may be the best way to get everyone in the world, and businesses in particular, to “lock arms and move together” to decarbonize the global economy. The goal is to make sure that “no one's competitively disadvantaged by stepping out in front of the pack when it comes to this movement to a clean energy future."Ed, Amy and Dan explore this concept in this week's show. The trade system provides a structured framework of rules that can enforce environmental standards globally. By integrating these standards into trade policies, countries can be encouraged to adopt low-carbon technologies without fearing competitive disadvantages. Businesses and countries are reluctant to switch to clean energy if they think their competitors won't do the same. Trade rules can make sure everyone plays fair. What's more, a reformed trade system that promotes clean energy technologies can also create economic opportunities around the world. The gang discuss how new rules could help developing countries.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we share our first impressions on the ‘Zero Draft' Terms of Reference (ToR) for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation released by the United Nations (UN) on 7 June 2024. Furthermore, we provide a brief overview of other important international and European tax developments. Tune in to get our first take on the released material, and don't forget to register for our upcoming International Tax Webinar Series - Summer 2024 Insights taking place 26 and 27 June if you want to know more! 

Day 5 of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance's “Good Cop / Bad Cop” counter-conference to COP10 the World Health Organization's Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control happening Feb 5 to Feb 10 in Panama City, Panama. Guests: Dr. Riccardo Polosa (Italy), Maria Papaioannoy (Canada) and David Williams, Martin Cullip (TPA) Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com Live Streamed: Feb 9, 2024 Produced by Brent Stafford https://youtu.be/wNU4be6EpsA This episode is supported by DEMAND VAPE Make RegWatch happen, go to https://support.regulatorwatch.com #RegWatch #VapeNews

Day 4 of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance's “Good Cop / Bad Cop” counter-conference to COP10 the World Health Organization's Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control happening Feb 5 to Feb 10 in Panama City, Panama. Guests: Will Godfrey (USA) and David Williams, Martin Cullip (TPA) Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com Live Streamed: Feb 8, 2024 Produced by Brent Stafford https://youtu.be/lIp08egTEqs This episode is supported by DEMAND VAPE Make RegWatch happen, go to https://support.regulatorwatch.com #RegWatch #VapeNews

Day 3 of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance's “Good Cop / Bad Cop” counter-conference to COP10 the World Health Organization's Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control happening Feb 5 to Feb 10 in Panama City, Panama. Guests: Jeannie Cameron (Uk), Roberto Sussman (Mexico) and David Williams, Martin Cullip (TPA) Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com Live Streamed: Feb 7, 2024 Produced by Brent Stafford This episode is supported by DEMAND VAPE https://youtu.be/_rzMTHvIIng   Make RegWatch happen, go to https://support.regulatorwatch.com #RegWatch #VapeNews  

Day 2 of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance's “Good Cop / Bad Cop” counter-conference to COP10 the World Health Organization's Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control happening Feb 5 to Feb 10 in Panama City, Panama. Guests: Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos (Greece), Mark Oates (Uk) and David Williams, Martin Cullip (TPA) Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com Live Streamed: Feb 6, 2024 Produced by Brent Stafford  https://youtu.be/3U8Tcwq2hMM This episode is supported by DEMAND VAPE Make RegWatch happen, go to support(dot)regulatorwatch(dot)com #RegWatch #VapeNews

Good afternoon, I'm _____ with today's episode of EZ News. Stock Investors Earned NT$850,000 on Average in the Year of Rabbit Investors in the local stock market pocketed an average of 850,000 N-T in the Year of the Rabbit after the Tai-Ex ended the final trading day of the Lunar year up by 0.2-per cent. Trading in the Year of the Rabbit began on January 30 of last year. Since then the weighted index soared 3,163-points, or 21.18-per cent, to close the year at 18,096-points - boosting market capitalization by 10.76-trillion N-T for a total of 57.52-trillion N-T. This was a marked improvement from the Year of the Tiger - when the main board tumbled by over 2,700-points, or 15.51-per cent. The stock market will resume trading on February 15. Passenger Faces Fine Over Emergency Train Stop in Taitung The Railway Police Bureau says a passenger who deliberately pulled an emergency brake valve that brought an EMU3000 express train to a stop in Taitung County last week could face a fine of up to 1-million N-T. The fine is based on Article 68-1 of the Railway Act. According to the bureau's Hualien Precinct, the passenger has been identified as (確定為) a 28-year-old Taitung resident. He was questioning by police on Monday and law enforcement authorities say the Ministry of Transport will now review the case. The train came to an unplanned stop in Taitung's Jinlun Station when the emergency brake valve in the train's ninth car was pulled. Police say the man has told them he fell asleep on the train and pulled the brake because he had missed his stop. Tobacco Warning to Big Enlarged The Health Promotion Administration says health warnings must have to cover at least 50-per cent of cigarette packaging from next month. According to the administration, the new packaging policy will come into affect on March 22. The warnings are currently required to cover at least 35-per cent of packaging (包裝). The administration says the move is in line with the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That convention states that all tobacco product packaging carries health warnings and such warnings should cover 50-per cent or more of the packaging area. Chinese Court Sentences Australian Writer to Death A Chinese court has handed Australian writer Yang Hengjun and pro-democracy blogger a suspended death sentence for spying. Human rights advocates say it's an unusually harsh verdict (判決) and it could hurt ties between Beijing and Canberra. Patrick Fok reports. Tokyo Heavy Snow Disrupts Travel Heavy snow in the Tokyo area has knocked out power to homes and disrupted travel. Officials cautioned drivers to avoid nonessential travel. The Japan Meteorological Agency forecast more than 55 centimeters in mountainous areas north of the capital. Central Tokyo had much smaller amounts. More than 100 domestic and several international flights in and out of Tokyo's Haneda airport were canceled Monday. Some highways were partially (部分地) closed, and more than 14,000 homes were without electricity. That was the I.C.R.T. news, Check in again tomorrow for our simplified version of the news, uploaded every day in the afternoon. Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm _____. －－－－以下訊息由 SoundOn 動態廣告贊助商提供－－－－ 學英文你還在背單字？ 全母語的英文學習環境 你應該要試試！ 歌倫比亞美語給你一個跟嬰兒學中文一樣的環境 讓你自然而然說出一口流利英語 點我領取免費試聽課→ https://bit.ly/485qgiC 2/19前報名還有機會拿最高6千元獎學金！

GOOD COP / BAD COP | Day 1 | RegWatch (Live) Day 1 of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance's “Good Cop / Bad Cop” counter-conference to COP10 the World Health Organization's Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control happening Feb 5 to Feb 10 in Panama City, Panama. Guests: Christopher Snowdon, Kurt Yeo, David Williams and Martin Cullip. Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com Live Streamed: Feb 5, 2024 Produced by Brent Stafford https://youtu.be/4lvAoTbWDRY   This episode is supported by DEMAND VAPE Make RegWatch happen, go to https://support.regulatorwatch.com #RegWatch #VapeNews

Biang kerok kemiskinan Indonesia dibintangi oleh komoditas primadona di Indonesia, yaitu rokok. Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) pada tahun 2021 melaporkan bahwa rokok adalah komoditas yang turut ambil andil dalam garis kemiskinan di Indonesia. Di tengah berbagai dampak kesehatan yang mungkin timbul, rata-rata rumah tangga miskin rela mengonsumsi 11 bungkus rokok setiap bulan. Tingginya konsumsi rokok ini menjadi penghambat dalam memutus rantai kemiskinan. Persoalan ini kemudian mendorong pemerintah untuk turun tangan dalam pengendalian rokok dengan wacana penerapan FCTC atau Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, kerangka yang mengatur beberapa hal krusial seperti iklan promosi dan sponsor, kemasan dan pelabelan, serta harga dan cukai rokok. Walaupun FCTC telah gencar diterapkan oleh negara-negara Asia, perkembangan kebijakan ini mengalami stagnasi di Indonesia – menjadi sebuah kerangka yang tak kunjung ditandatangani atau diratifikasi. Beberapa pihak terutama dari penggiat industri rokok beranggapan bahwa pengimplementasian FCTC di Indonesia dapat memberikan dampak buruk bagi perekonomian Indonesia. Pertanyaannya adalah apakah benar pengesahan FCTC dapat berdampak buruk terhadap perekonomian Indonesia? Dalam episode pertama Paper Dialogue di tahun 2023, KANOPI FEB UI berkesempatan mengundang Bapak Abdillah Ahsan, selaku kepala Lembaga Demografi FEB UI, untuk berdialog mengenai paper “FCTC Ratification, Smoking Prevalence, and GDP per capita: lessons for Indonesia and the rest of the world,” yang beliau tulis bersama dengan beberapa peneliti lainnya. Hasil diskusi ini akan mengungkapkan bahwa persepsi terkait rokok yang selama ini beredar tidak sepenuhnya akurat.

English follows Ce podcast a été enregistré en anglais lors d'une retraite que j'ai guidé il y a quelques années. Le contenu reste incroyablement pertinent et touchant. En le réécoutant j'ai été abasourdi par la pronfondeur de Sherri Mitchell  et son propos. Elle nous partage sur l'empathie, la décoloniation et la guérison profonde des traumas nécessaires. Elle nous transmet des instructions sacrées longtemps oubliées, et résurgentes à travers les savoirs autochtones pour les prochaines étapes de l'humanité. Sherri Mitchell -Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset, est une avocate, militante et auteure autochtone de la nation Penobscot (Wabanaki). Elle est spécialisée dans le droit et la politique des peuples autochtones. Sherri est l'auteure du livre primé, Sacred Instructions; Sagesse autochtone pour vivre un changement basé sur la sagesse spirituelle. Sherri est également l'organisatrice de la cérémonie de guérison mondiale, Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island, un rassemblement qui a réuni plus de cinquante mille personnes de six continents pour se concentrer sur la guérison de nos relations les unes avec les autres et avec le monde naturel. Elle parle et enseigne dans le monde entier sur les questions de droits autochtones, de droits de la Terre et de changement socio-spirituel transformationnel. Sherri est la directrice fondatrice de la Land Peace Foundation, une organisation vouée à la préservation des droits autochtones et à la protection du mode de vie autochtone.  Sherri a également été membre de l'équipe de développement de la Convention-cadre des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques (CCNUCC). ----- This podcast was recorded during a retreat I guided a few years ago. The content remains incredibly relevant and touching. Listening to it again, I was stunned by the depth Sherri Mitchell and her words. She shares with us on empathy, decolonization and the deep healing of necessary traumas in humans. She transmits to us Sacred Instructions long forgotten, and resurgent through indigenous knowledge for the next steps of humanity. Sherri Mitchell -Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset, is an Indigenous attorney, activist, and author from the Penobscot Nation. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona's Roger's College of Law, specializing in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy. Sherri is the author of the award-winning book, Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change. Sherri is also the convener of the global healing ceremony, Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island, a gathering that has brought more than fifty-thousand people together from six continents to focus on healing our relationships with one another and with the natural world. She speaks and teaches around the world on issues of Indigenous rights, Earth rights, and transformational socio-spiritual change.  Sherri is the founding Director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Indigenous rights and the protection of the Indigenous way of life. Sherri was also a member of the development team for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

There's a rush from many countries to regulate AI. Murielle Popa-Fabre is an NLP and ML expert currently working for the Council of Europe, building an international Framework Convention on AI that will touch a wider number of countries (46) than the EU AI Act (only for EU countries). We chat about her path from academia to working in regulation, and the upcoming EU, the Council of Europe, and G7 regulations on AI. These regulations will have a historical impact on what happens next with AI, and it will be very interesting to see where things go from here. Murielle's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murielle-popa-fabre-b563187b/ ----------------------- If you like this show, give it a 5-star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Purchase Fundamentals of Data Engineering at your favorite bookseller. Subscribe to my Substack: https://joereis.substack.com/

“Things that we used to think were 20 or 30 years into the future are in fact happening today…  Climate change is noticeably changing the extent, the severity, and the frequency of these kinds of events.” This stark assessment from Jonathan Pershing, Program Director of Environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is at the center of a discussion of progress made and needed for international climate commitments, the role of critical minerals in the green energy transition, and climate-related migration trends with ECSP Senior Fellow Sherri Goodman and ECSP Program Associate Amanda King in this week's episode of New Security Broadcast. Pershing brings a wealth of perspective to the conversation, drawing on his roles formally supporting Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, and serving both as a Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State and lead U.S. negotiator to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.   As the world is currently tuning in to the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Pershing noted that the year since COP 26 occurred in Glasgow “really feels like a bit of a tipping point in the scale.” One notable yardstick can be found in a comparison of the scales of global security dimensions and refugee crises occurring over the past year. While about 5 million people have been displaced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and under 10 million compelled to move because of the ongoing conflict in Syria, he continued, climate catastrophe has displaced nearly 30 million people in Pakistan alone.  “One event, short term,” Pershing said. Against this backdrop, Pershing observed that a key problem facing COP27 attendees is that “people have not been able to make as much progress as we'd like to have made.” Implementation is going to be hard, he said. “We know we've got the money now at the table, but how do you carry it forward?” A central point of contention at this year's conference is the long-standing commitment that the developed world would help the developing world transition to renewables. Pershing identified China as a major player in the global transition to renewable energy. “If we look at the total global development of renewable energy,” he said, “and divide up the world into two parts—one part is China.” Indeed, China's slice of that pie “is as big if not bigger than the rest of the world combined in terms of its installation of new renewable capacity.”  Pershing considered that the world is not up to the scale needed for the coming decades in terms of obtaining the materials necessary for this energy transition. In examining the U.S. role in the renewable energy transition, for example, he noted that the U.S. has been historically reluctant to create the new facilities required for the essential minerals to make such a transition. Pershing also said that while the U.S. has a share in global mines, it is only a piece of the total amount. If the U.S. wants to build out its capacity for these resources, it will take a global network.  While the energy transition and mining for critical minerals can be a point of conflict, Pershing added that it may also be a possible point of cooperation between the U.S. and China. But what would such partnership look like? “It could occur in places where it doesn't conflict with the underlying security tensions between the countries,” Pershing said, “but yet offers a real opportunity to transition to the future that we must have.” This common ground might include places where policy is central, and where information could be exchanged about creating more efficient and environmentally-sound mining operations. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one place suggested by Pershing as a nation offering the U.S. and China a chance to work together to minimize deforestation as global networks seek growing access to minerals.  Pershing concluded by offering the Global Methane Pledge as an example of the significant movement on climate change that might be realized via international climate commitments. Of the many flavors of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change, the dominant challenge is carbon dioxide, but the second most prominent contributor is methane. Yet for much of the history of climate negotiations, the dynamics of methane were underplayed. Pershing pointed to the hope offered by the growing number of countries joining the Global Methane Pledge, and pushing to realize the many near-term preventative measures that can be accomplished if the world works on reducing methane emissions. The pledge itself, he said, “could be the kind of model that helps shape some of the answers, not just to methane, but to carbon dioxide, and the other greenhouse gases.”  Sources: Global Methane Pledge 

SPECIAL EVENT Accelerated Action for Food Systems Resilience: Egypt's plans for COP27 and the role of CGIAR CGIAR Borlaug Dialogue Side Event organized by IFPRI, ICARDA, and the CGIAR Research Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS) This event is part of the Egypt NPS Seminar Series OCT 20, 2022 - 8:15 TO 9:45AM EDT Unprecedented extreme weather events linked to climate change are contributing to the current global food and energy price crisis and severely impacting livelihoods and food and nutrition security. In this context, expectations are high for the 27th Conference of the Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) taking place under the Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt. As a major agricultural producer in a highly climate-stressed region, Egypt brings a unique perspective to food system resilience. This presentation will highlight the Egyptian Presidency's strategic objectives on climate change and food systems for COP27 and the climate challenges facing Egypt's food system. CGIAR's team will showcase its new global research portfolio on climate change and outline its objectives for COP27. A panel of distinguished speakers will comment on Egypt's priorities for COP27, actions specific to Egypt's agrifood sector, and CGIAR's research portfolio and plans for COP27. Opening Remarks Michael Baum, Deputy Director General, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) Egyptian Presidency COP27: Vision and Key Planned Outcomes from COP27 in the Agriculture and Food Systems space H.E. Ambassador Ayman Tharwat, Minister Plenipotentiary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt Climate Change Challenges Facing Egypt's Food System Claudia Ringler, Deputy Director of Environment and Production Technology Division, IFPRI CGIAR SLT Rep on CGIAR's COP27 objectives and Food Pavilion Juan Lucas Restrepo, Director General, Alliance Bioversity-CIAT The CGIAR Climate Change Research Portfolio Andy Jarvis, Head of Research at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT Panel Discussion Aditi Mukherjee, Principal Researcher, IWMI-IPCC Reem Abdel Meguid, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees: The association for sustainable quality of living (Estidama) & Lead of the Africa Grows Green Initiative – COP27 Kathleen Kirsch, Climate Integration Lead, Office of Economic Growth, USAID/Egypt Closing Remarks Michael Baum, Deputy Director General, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) Moderator Roula Majdalani, Climate Change Advisor, ICARDA LINKS: More on the seminar: https://www.ifpri.org/event/accelerated-action-food-systems-resilience-egypts-plans-cop27-and-role-cgiar Subscribe IFPRI Insights newsletter and event announcements at www.ifpri.org/content/newsletter-subscription

Listen Now Coincident to the United Nations' 1992 creation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreement that governs...

Research has shown how destructive Porn is on our society as the human race. This fact is deduced from peer-reviewed research by world renowned scientists. Therefore this petition's goal is to: 1. Enforce porn industries to put a boldly written caveat on all porn related material warning the users of its detrimental effects. An example being "The federal ministry of health warns that smokers are liable to die young" 2. WHO to produce a Framework Convention on Porn control introducing tough sanctions on the Porn Industry. Here are some of the many effects porn has on the society: 1. Leading cause of Sex trafficking. 2. Porn glorifies sexual abuse. 3. Porn can fuel sexually violent behaviour. 4. Teen and Child porn promotes child sexual exploitation. 5. Porn causes the watchers to view the opposite sex as sex objects. 6. Porn promotes toxic narratives like incest, racism, sexism, underaged teens being taken advantage of, rape, manipulation, etc. 7. Porn romanticises unhealthy relationships. If it goes unchecked, porn WILL tear down the very fabric of our society. Click the link below to sign the Porn Hurts petition! https://chng.it/H5fqCMz6bG

This is "The Leading Voices in Food" podcast but today we're speaking with a leading voice in tobacco control. "How come," you might ask, "why?" So I believe for many years that the parallels between the tobacco industry and food industry practices are nothing short of stunning, and that our field would do very well to learn lessons learned from the pioneers in the tobacco wars. Our guest today is Dr. Kenneth Warner, Distinguished Emeritus Professor and former Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. Ken's research focuses on the economic and policy aspects of tobacco and health. Interview Summary   So Ken, you and I have a long history, and I thought it might be instructive to mention just a little bit of it because you really helped shape some of the ways I think about addressing food policy. So I first became familiar with your work long before I met you in person, when I was teaching classes at Yale. I was assigning papers you wrote on tobacco control and I was especially interested in work that you'd done on tobacco taxes. It really gave me the idea of pushing ahead with food-related taxes. Then finally I got a chance to meet you in person at a meeting that was hosted by the first President George Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, on cancer control. You and I got to talking about similarities between the tobacco industry behavior and the way the food industry was behaving. We were both struck by the similarities. That led us to write a paper together that was published in 2009 in "The Milbank Quarterly." And I have to say, of all the papers I've published over my career, this was one of my favorites because I really enjoyed working with you. I learned a ton from it, and it really, I thought, made some very important points. And I'd just like to mention the title of that paper because it pretty much summarizes what it found. So the title was, "The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big Food?" In my mind, the playbooks are still very similar, and that's why it's really interesting to talk to you today, get a little sense of what's happening more recently, and importantly, think about what lessons are learned from tobacco control. I wanted to bring up one thing from that paper that I always found fascinating, which was the discussion about something called "The Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers." Could you describe what that was and what role you think it played in history?   Sure. Just to give you some context for it, the first two major papers that implicated smoking in lung cancer were published in major medical journals in 1950. In December of 1952 there was an article in the "Reader's Digest," which incidentally was the only major magazine that did not accept cigarette advertising, that was entitled, "Cancer by the Carton." And this was the American public's first real exposure to the risks associated with smoking, and it led to a two-year decline in cigarette smoking, a very sharp decline, something that was unprecedented in the history of the cigarette. Following that there was some research published on mice and cancer. And needless to say, the tobacco industry was getting pretty nervous about this. So the executives of all the major tobacco firms met in New York City in December of 1953, and they collaborated on what became a public relations strategy, which drove their behavior for many years thereafter. The first thing they did was to publish "A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers" in January of 1954. This "Frank Statement" was published in over 400 magazines and newspapers, and it reached an estimated audience of some 80 million Americans, which would be a very good percentage of all Americans in those years. And they talked about the fact that there was this evidence out there, but they said, "We feel it is in the public interest," this is a quote, "to call attention to the fact that eminent doctors and research scientists have publicly questioned the claimed significance of this research." Then they went on to say, and I quote again, "We accept an interest in people's health as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business. We believe the products we make are not injurious to health and," and this is the kicker, "we always have and always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public health," end quote. They went on to say that they would support research on smoking and health, and, of course, that they would always be the good guys in this story. This was designed as part of a strategy to obfuscate, to deceive the public, basically, to lie about what they already knew about the health hazards associated with smoking. And it was essentially a first very public step in a campaign that, one could argue, in many ways has persisted ever since, although, obviously, now the tobacco companies admit that they're killing their customers and they admit that smoking causes cancer and heart disease and lung disease and so on. But that was kind of the beginning of the strategy that drove their behavior for decades.   You know, that was one of the issues we raised in our paper. How similar were the big food companies in talking about concern for the health of their customers, planting doubt with the science, pledging to make changes that were in the interest of public health, agreeing to collaborate with public health officials? All those things played out in the food arena as well. And that's just one of many places where the food industry behave very, very similar to what the tobacco industry has done. But boy, is it interesting to hear that particular anecdote and to learn of the cynical behavior of the industry. So fast forward from there, and you think about the tobacco industry executives testifying before Congress that nicotine wasn't addictive, and you have that same process playing out many years later. These similarities are really remarkable.   So let's talk about your work and some of the issues that I think apply to the food area, and let's talk about taxes at the beginning. So I worked for years on the issue of soda taxes, and these taxes now exist in more than 50 countries around the world and in a number of major cities in the US, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Oakland. And these taxes have been shown to have really positive effects, and they seem to be growing around the world. And I'd like to understand what you see as the overall findings from the work on tobacco taxes. But before we do that, you have a very interesting story to tell about how the tobacco control community responded when you first began speaking about taxes. It turns out to be taxes on tobacco have had whopping effects. But what was the initial reaction to people in that field?   Yeah, it is kind of an interesting story. So around 1980, when I first started writing and talking about tobacco taxation as a method of reducing smoking, I used to have public health audiences booing me. If they had rotten tomatoes with them, they would have been throwing them.   You know, Ken, it's hard to imagine because now these taxes are completely routine and accepted.   Yes, they're not only routine and accepted, they are a first principle of tobacco control. They are enshrined in the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. So they really are kind of the first thing we turn to because we know that they work. We know that they reduce smoking.   But let me give you a story about how I learned that this is not only a phenomenon with people smoking. It's a phenomenon with people using all other drugs, and it turns out it's a trans-species law, the Law of Demand. And that law says, basically, that if you increase price, the demand for the commodity will decrease. Well, in the beginning, the public health audiences believed two things. They believed that smokers were so addicted that they would not be affected by price, so it was ridiculous to even think about it. And they said, you have to have intrinsic motivators to get people to quit smoking. They have to care about their kids. They want to see their kids grow up, their spouses, and so on, and not extrinsic forces like a tax. So those were their two objections. So the story that I think is really kind of fun. I was on a plane flying to a small conference in Kansas City. This is sometime in the early '80s. And I happened to be seated next to Jack Henningfield, who is probably the preeminent psychopharmacologist dealing with nicotine, maybe in the world. And we were talking about price response, the fact that cigarette taxes work. And he said, "You know, I've got something I want to show you here." And he pulled out some what are called response cost curves from the psychology literature. And this is where you take a laboratory animal, in this instance addicted to narcotics or other addictive substances, and you give them a challenge to get their drugs. So first, I should note that these animals are so addicted that if they're given the choice between food and their drug, they will choose their drug, and they will in fact end up dying because they place a preference for the drug over food. But it turns out that when you increase the price of the drug to them, they decrease the amount that they consume. So what do I mean by that? If they have to push a lever, a bar, a certain number of times to get a dose of their drug, and you raise the number of bar pushes per dose, they will dose themselves with fewer doses. I took a look at these curves, and basically, a response cost curve for these lab animals is essentially a demand curve as we economists see it. And I calculated the price elasticity of demand, which is our standard measure of the responsiveness to price. And it turns out that addicted laboratory rats have essentially the same price elasticity of demand, the same price responsiveness that human beings do to cigarettes.   That's an absolutely fascinating story. And, you know, I know Jack, and have admired his work, as you have, and it's amazing to think about that conversation on a plane, and what sort of scientific work it led to, and how that, in turn, found its way into policies that exist around the world. So tell us then about tobacco taxes, and how high do they have to be in order to affect consumption in an appreciable way, and have they worked in reducing tobacco use, and what's your overall take on that?   So we have, quite literally, hundreds of studies in countries around the world, and we know a lot but we don't know everything. So we don't know, for example, if there's a particular price above which, you know, nobody will use the product. We don't have even really good data suggesting of, you know, what's the minimum increase in price that you have to have to have a noticeable impact. Overall, the literature suggests that if you increase the price of cigarettes by 10%, you will decrease the quantity demanded by 3 to 4%. Now, what this means is that roughly half of that decreased demand reflects decreases in the number of cigarettes that continuing smokers use, while the other half represents decreases in smoking, people quitting or kids not starting. So the demand is what we call price inelastic. The price change itself is larger, proportionately, than the decrease in consumption. But that decrease in consumption is still substantial and it's enough to have a large impact.   Now, cigarette prices vary all over the world, and cigarette prices vary primarily because of taxation differences. So if you go to the Scandinavian countries, you'll find that a pack of cigarettes will run $15 or more. If you go to Australia, you're looking at $30 or more a pack. In the US, currently, we're looking at an average price in the range of about 7 to $8. In some jurisdictions, like New York City, it's $10 or more. But the prices in the US are actually relatively low among the more developed nations in the world. Any tax increase will have an impact but obviously the larger tax increases will have larger impacts. And there's some good and bad news in tobacco taxation, particularly in a country like ours, and this is, again, true for most of the developed world. Smoking is now concentrated in marginalized populations. I'm talking about low socioeconomic groups, the LGBTQ community, and racial minorities, in particular. If you think of this as an economic phenomenon, when you raise the price on cigarettes, you're going to hit the worst-off economically segments of the population hard. That's the bad news. The good news is that those people, precisely because they are poor, tend to be much more price responsive than high-income smokers, and more of them will quit. So we have this problem that the tax is regressive, it imposes a larger burden on the poor, but the health effect is progressive. It will reduce the gap between the rich and poor in terms of smoking rates. And of great importance, there's an enormous gap between the rich and poor in this country in life expectancy, and as much as half of that may be differences in smoking rates.   Ken, there's a hundred follow-up questions I could ask, and I find this discussion absolutely fascinating. One thing that came into my mind was that some years ago I looked at the relationship of taxes, state by state in the US, and rates of disease like lung cancer and heart disease. And there was plenty of data because there was a huge range in tobacco taxes. Places like New York and Rhode Island had very high taxes, and the tobacco Southern states, like North Carolina, had very low taxes. But what's the sort of recent take on that, and the relationship between taxes and actual disease?   Well, it's still true. And there are, in fact, what you suggest, the southeastern block of tobacco states have unusually low rates of taxation. And I haven't seen any recent data but one presumes that they are suffering more from smoking-related diseases because their smoking rates are higher. I mean, that has to be true. So I don't know that we have any particularly good data recently, but there have been studies that clearly relate tobacco or cigarette prices to health outcomes associated with smoking.   I'm assuming US scientists have played a prominent role in producing the literature showing the negative health consequences of using cigarettes, and yet you said the United States has relatively low taxes compared to other developed countries. Why, do you think?   I think we're going to get into a very philosophical discussion about the US right here. It has to do with individual responsibility. We know for sure that the initial reason the taxes were so low was that the tobacco block was so influential in the Senate, particularly in the days when Jesse Helms, the senator from North Carolina, was in the Senate. He was the most feared senator by the other senators, and if you wanted to get anything done for your cause, you had to go along with his cause, which was keeping cigarette prices low and doing everything they could to support smoking. So there's clearly been a built-in bias in the Senate, and basically in the Congress as a whole, against tobacco policy. You see a huge variation from state to state in tobacco policies, and it's reflective of basically their political leanings in general.   You brought up this issue of personal responsibility, and boy, does that apply in the food area. You know, the food companies are saying: if you have one sugar beverage every once in a while, it's not going to be harmful. And it's not use of the products but it is overuse of the products. Thereby saying, it's not corporate responsibility we're talking about here, it's personal responsibility. That same argument was made by the tobacco industry, wasn't it?   It was. They would be less inclined to do that today, for a couple of reasons. One is that we know that even low levels of smoking are harmful and indeed cause many of the diseases that we were referring to earlier. And I think all the companies have now admitted publicly that smoking does cause all of these diseases that we've long known it causes. And all of them are claiming that they would like to move away from a society with smoking to one that has alternative products that would give people choices and ways to get their nicotine without exposing themselves to so much risk. I mean, we have to remember, the fact that cigarettes kill their consumers is a real drawback as far as the industry is concerned because they're losing a lot of their consumers, you know, 10, 20 years before they normally would, and they have to deal with all these lawsuits. So it's unfortunate for them. Having said that, cigarettes are the goose that lays the golden egg. They cost very little to manufacture. The industry is sufficiently oligopolistic that the profits are enormous, and their profitability has continued even while smoking has dropped rather precipitously ever since the mid-1960s.   Is that because the markets outside the US have been growing?   They certainly have helped. Although now, and this is only true within the last few years, the aggregate cigarette sales in the world are declining. They've actually started dropping. So we were seeing a relatively stable situation as smoking decreased in the developed world and was rising in the developing world. The only place now where we're seeing increases in smoking are areas in Africa, which, by the way, is the one place in the world where we might be able to forego the tobacco epidemic because smoking rates are still quite low in most of the countries, not all of them, and also parts of the Middle East. But elsewhere we've been seeing smoking declining all over the world. That doesn't mean the profits have to drop because one thing that the companies can do, is, they can raise their prices. Now, if prices go up because of taxes that hurts the companies. But if they raise their own prices because demand is inelastic, what that means is that the percentage increase in the price is larger than the percentage decline in the demand for cigarettes. So they're actually adding to their profitability by doing that. They've always played this very interesting game for years of keeping price below what we would think to be the profit-maximizing price. And I think the reason for that has to do with addiction because they know that they have to have what are called replacement smokers, kids coming in to take the place of the smokers who are dying or quitting. And for years, I think, they kept their prices down because they didn't want to discourage young people from smoking. Now, I think they see the writing on the wall. Smoking is declining very rapidly. Smoking prevalence, which was 45% in the mid, early-1960s, is now a little over 12% in the US, and I think they're raising their prices with the understanding that they want to take as much advantage of the opportunity with the addicted smokers, the adults, as they possibly can, even though smoking among kids is becoming vanishingly small.   I think of so many parallels with the soda taxes that now exists in a number of places, and the companies have responded somewhat differently. And perhaps it's the level of addiction issue that kicks in here, and the need to have replacement customers. Maybe that's another key difference. But with the soda taxes, the companies have not increased prices beyond the level of the tax. You know, to delight of public health experts, the companies have tended to pass along the entire tax so the companies are not eating that difference in order to keep prices the same. Higher tax gets reflected in the ultimate price that they charge, but they're not increasing prices beyond that. Do you think it might be the addiction issue that's different here?   I don't know. I mean, that certainly could be an element of it. The other thing is that they're manufacturing other drinks that are being used in place of some of the sodas. So they've got waters, they've got juices. I mean, obviously these sugary juices are no better, but they do make other products. They make the diet drinks. And to the extent that they can find substitutes for those products within their own companies, it may be that they're content to allow people to make those substitutions.   Interesting comment. The results so far on the soda tax suggest that the most common substitution as people drink less soda, is water, which is of course better than a lot of the alternatives that people might be consuming, so that's a bit of really good news. Even though the companies do sell water, Coke and Pepsi have Aquafina and Dasani, for example, they face a basic problem. Number one is that these companies are the biggest sellers of sugary beverages but not bottled water. That happens to be Nestle. So if people migrate to bottled water, they're likely to migrate from the big companies, like Coke and Pepsi, to Nestle. Also, people tend not to be very brand-loyal to water. They tend to buy whatever is on sale or whatever they find available to them, and that creates a problem for these companies like Coke and Pepsi that do rely on brand loyalty for their marketing. So it's very interesting. And also, I wonder, based on the research on food and addiction, if the companies don't take a hit if people switch from full sugar beverages even to diet beverages that they might sell because there wouldn't be as much addictive potential, and therefore the customers wouldn't have to have as much just to keep the habit going. So it's really interesting to think this through.   That's certainly very plausible. The whole thing would also depend on the price elasticity of demand for sodas, and specifically for the brands that they're concerned about. If there is greater elasticity there than what we observe for cigarettes, then raising those prices aren't necessarily going to help them all that much.   You mentioned that the elasticity estimates for tobacco suggested that a 10% increase in price led to a 3 to 4% reduction in consumption, and the numbers are even more positive in the case of the sugar beverages, where if you get a 10%, 15% increase in price, you end up with 10, 15% reduction in consumption. So that's good news in the food arena.   That's good news but it also means that they can't do as easily what the tobacco industry can do, which is to raise their prices and expect to see profits rise. Because if they're losing as much in sales as they're gaining in price, it's no win.   So Ken, let's talk about product formulation because you mentioned that earlier, and this is a really interesting issue that, again, connects tobacco and food products. So you think about the tobacco companies mainly selling cigarettes, but now there's vaping, there's cigarettes with things like menthol and other flavors, or low-fat foods, or artificial sweeteners. The list of product reformulations in order to attract customers goes on and on and on. So I know a controversial topic in your field has been e-cigarettes. Can you explain what these are?   E-cigarettes have been around now for about a decade, let's say. Basically, they're devices that allow people to inhale nicotine and other substances, but the purpose is to give them their nicotine without combustion. And we know that the major problem associated with smoking is the products of combustion. There's 7,000 chemical compounds in cigarette smoke. 70 of them are known human carcinogens, causes of cancer in humans. Many of them are cardiotoxic. They cause lung disease and so on. The e-cigarettes have about two orders of magnitude fewer toxins in their emissions than do cigarettes. And it turns out that the amount of the comparable toxins, when they are in fact comparable, that you find in the e-cigarette emissions is much lower, usually a 10th to a 400th, of what you find in cigarette smoke.   So logically, and based on a fair body of evidence at this point, vaping, use of e-cigarettes to get nicotine, is substantially less dangerous than is cigarette smoking. However, the controversy here is incredible. This is the most divisive issue that I have witnessed in my 45 years of working in the tobacco control field. It has torn the field asunder. The mainstream of public health, and by that I'm including governmental agencies, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Truth Initiative, the American Cancer Society, heart and lung associations, all of mainstream public health is strongly opposed to e-cigarettes, and for one reason. They're concerned about kids' uptake of e-cigarettes, which has been substantial. It's been decreasing the last couple of years, but it has been substantial. And there are a number of things they're concerned about in that regard, and they're completely ignoring the fact that there's pretty good evidence that e-cigarettes are increasing smoking cessation for a subset of smokers. And a number of us on the science side of this, believe that the net effect of e-cigarettes is beneficial, that it's actually, possibly, a tool to add to the armamentarium of things like cigarette taxation, like smoke-free workplaces, like restrictions on advertising, and that it will help a group of inveterate smokers, those who either can't quit nicotine or don't want to, to move to a less dangerous alternative to smoking. I am not saying that e-cigarettes have no risk associated with them. They almost certainly do. But it is substantially lower.   Now, historically, this is divisive within the field in part because all of the earlier attempts at, quote-unquote, tobacco harm reduction have been produced by the major cigarette companies, and they've been fraudulent. So cigarette filters were manufactured and sold, starting in the 1950s, in response to the scare that I referred to earlier about cancer. And they were sold with a message that the filters block the dangerous stuff but let the flavor through. And people bought this. That decrease in smoking in the early 1950s reversed, smoking went up sharply, as sales of filtered cigarettes went up. By the way, the first successful filtered cigarette was Kent, and it used what it referred to as the miracle Micronite filter. Well, that miracle Micronite filter turns out to have been made of asbestos. And there are lawsuits continuing to the present day by workers in the factories that made the filter tips for Kent cigarettes, who themselves ended up with lung cancer or other diseases due to the asbestos. Then came low-tar and nicotine cigarettes, and we actually have ample evidence from the documents that had been revealed by lawsuits, that the industry knew that this was a public relations device. It was not a harm reduction device. And in fact, because people believed that low-tar and nicotine cigarettes were less dangerous, it's likely that it actually increased the toll of smoking because people who would have quit, switched to low-tar and nicotine cigarettes instead. So there's some pretty awful history here that makes people legitimately concerned about alternative products. A critical element of this story is that the alternative products, in this case, the e-cigarettes were introduced by non-cigarette, non-tobacco companies, and their goal was to replace smoking. Now the major companies are all making their own e-cigarettes as well because they have to do it from a defensive point of view, but basically they don't have any great interest in slowing up the sale of cigarettes. They want to benefit from that as long as they can.   So I should know the answer to this but I don't, but are e-cigarettes taxed? And wouldn't it be optimal to tax e-cigarettes but less than regular cigarettes so you discourage use of both but discourage the use of regular cigarettes more?   That is very insightful. Two colleagues and I actually published a paper saying that in 2015 in "The New England Journal of Medicine," that we should be taxing e-cigarettes modestly, the reason being that we want to discourage kids from using them, and kids are far more price-sensitive than our adults. Kids have a very elastic response to cigarette prices. Adults do not, and in particular, older adults have even lower price responsiveness. So yes, there should be some taxation of e-cigarettes to discourage youth use of it but that taxation should be dramatically lower than the taxation of cigarettes. Some states are now taxing e-cigarettes. Not all of them. The federal government is actually looking into a proposal to double the tax, the federal tax, on cigarettes, which would take it up to $2.01 a pack, and at the same time, to establish an equivalent tax, similar to the $2 tax, on all vaping products. This would be a disaster because it would definitely discourage kids from vaping, but it would also discourage adults from using e-cigarettes as an alternative to smoking, and the most addicted, the inveterate smokers, those are the ones that need these alternatives. So that's a bad policy proposal. A much better one would be to increase the cigarette tax by more than a dollar, raise it to 3 or $4 or something, and impose a modest tax on e-cigarettes. This would discourage people from smoking, both adults and kids, but especially kids. It would discourage kids from using e-cigarettes but it would create a price differential that would encourage the inveterate smokers to switch to e-cigarettes. Now, part of the problem, and this has gotten worse over time, is that the American public believes that e-cigarettes, that vaping, is as dangerous and even maybe more dangerous than cigarette smoking. Nothing could be further from the truth but so far the mainstream of public health has sold that message to the public, and the public, including smokers, believe it.   That's a fascinating story about how the public health field might be getting in its own way with this.   And maybe doing damage to public health.   So let's loop back a little bit to the behavior of the tobacco industry. So in 2017, the Phillip Morris Company funded and launched an organization called Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. So I think, hmm, a tobacco company saying they want less smoking, and one could view this with pretty high cynicism but what do you think about it?   I've always shared your sense of cynicism about it. There's an interesting anecdote related to this. The individual who negotiated the deal by which Phillip Morris offered $1 billion over a 12-year period to establish this foundation, that individual was the main actor in the World Health Organization during the development of the global treaty on tobacco control, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He also became director of the organization and served in that capacity until just the other day. He has stepped down from being director. But let me give you a little context for it. Philip Morris International that needs to be distinguished from Altria and Philip Morris Domestic, but Philip Morris International sells the leading brand of what is known as heated tobacco products, HTPs. These are products that actually have tobacco in them. E-cigarettes have no tobacco in them but these products actually have tobacco in them. But instead of burning the tobacco, they heat it. They volatilize it, and the nicotine is inhaled. Like e-cigarettes, they appear to be substantially less dangerous than smoking, although it's not clear that they're as less dangerous as, than, e-cigarettes. But they're produced only by the major cigarette companies. Philip Morris is now selling these products successfully in many countries, many cities around the world. While they actually have the authorization to sell an older version of the product in the US, it's not very popular at this point. But in Japan, over the last four years there's been a drop in cigarettes sold of about a third at the same time that there's been this great increase in the use of these heated tobacco products manufactured by Philip Morris International and by Japan Tobacco. They have a product called Ploom. Philip Morris' product is called IQOS, I-Q-O-S, which, I was told, originally stood for I Quit Ordinary Smoking. So they are the leader of the theme song that the industry is singing these days about how they want a smoke-free world and they want to move toward one. But the only way they're ever going to do that, willingly, is if they can sell other products like these heated tobacco products and make large sums of money on them. Philip Morris has a good start at that. They claim that about a third of their revenue now is coming from IQOS, this heated tobacco product.   So whether that foundation ultimately has beneficial effects or not, forget corporate beneficial effects but on the public good, would pretty much depend on who's choosing to use these e-cigarettes, I'm imagining. That if it's people switching from normal cigarettes to them, or using them instead of normal cigarettes, it's one thing. But if they're recruiting new people who otherwise wouldn't smoke, then it would be a bad thing. So how do you think that'll all play out?   That's actually a critically important question, Kelly. And one of the great concerns that the opposition to e-cigarettes has, is that they're addicting lots of kids to nicotine, and that many of them will go on to smoke, and that that will reverse the progress that we made on smoking. Now, it turns out that there is no evidence to support the latter contention. And in fact, there's evidence to the contrary. I think it's entirely possible that some kids who would not have touched a cigarette otherwise are vaping and then trying cigarettes in the future. Whether they become regular smokers, remains to be seen. But I think there certainly are some kids like that. But what we do know is that the rate of smoking among kids, what we call current smoking, and smoking among kids means that they've had at least one puff on a cigarette in the last 30 days, that number has plummeted over the last quarter century, and, and this is the interesting thing, it has gone down at its fastest rate precisely during the period in which vaping has been popular among kids.   So one theory is that vaping is displacing smoking to some extent. That kids who would've smoked are vaping instead. It's a very complicated area and we don't know the answer. Among adults who vape, and they are relatively few in number except for very young adults, we observe mostly dual use, but the question is how much of this is a transition to vaping only, and then, maybe, a transition to nothing after that. In the UK, where vaping has been advertised by the health organizations as a way to quit smoking, and they have encouraged its use, and they use it in their smoking cessation clinics, and you'll even find it in hospitals, in the UK we have seen that more than half of the people who have quit smoking by using e-cigarettes have also quit vaping. So it is no longer the case in the UK that a majority of the people who vape are also currently smoking.   In the US, the data have been moving in that direction but it's still a majority who are dual users rather than vaping only. But we have evidence of four or five completely different kinds of studies, commercial data, other products in other countries, that all lead to the conclusion that vaping is already increasing the rate of smoking cessation in the US and in the UK by probably 10 to 15%. That's a hard thing to see in the data but it is something that, if you dig into the data, you will see it, and as I say, we see it all over the place. Let me give you one example of the tobacco harm reduction story that's fabulous. 40 to 50 years ago, large numbers of Swedish males started using a smokeless tobacco product called snus, S-N-U-S. It's a relatively low nitrosamine product, nitrosamine being a carcinogenic element, and they substituted it for cigarettes largely because cigarette taxes were going way up and there weren't any significant taxes on snus. So what you observe today, some three, four decades or more later, is that Swedish males have the lowest male smoking rate of any country in Europe, and maybe in the world. They do not have a low tobacco use rate. Their tobacco use rate is pretty typical but it consists mostly of snus. And they also have by far the lowest rate of tobacco-related diseases, like lung cancer, of men in all of the European Union countries, and the second lowest is typically a rate twice or more that of what you see in the Swedish males. Swedish females, who did not quit smoking in large numbers and did not take up snus until fairly recently, have rates of lung cancer and other diseases that are average or above-average for the European Union. So that's a great example of tobacco harm reduction in action, and it's one that's been around now, as I say, for decades.   Ken, this is a remarkable history and you're just bringing it alive beautifully. But let me ask you one final question. So given that you've been working in this field for more than four decades now, and have really been a pioneer, a leader, a warrior, and a hero, all those things could be applied to you and your work, if I asked you to sum up what's been learned from all these decades of work on tobacco, what would you say?   There are a lot of lesson. Certainly, we have learned specific kinds of interventions that really matter. You and I spoke about tax at some length. That's the preeminent one. Smoke-free workplaces, including smoke-free restaurants and bars, have not only themselves had a direct impact on health but have also set the tone for a more smoke-free society. So we have seen quite dramatic changes. I mentioned we're going from a 45% rate of smoking for the nation as a whole down to a little over 12%. That, however, has taken us six to seven decades. So it's kind of a good news, bad news story. It's a very complicated area. Tobacco control was ranked by CDC as one of the 10 most important public health measures of the 20th century, and also the first decade of the 21st century. And I think that's completely legitimate, and it is something about which all of us who care about public health can feel very proud about. The problem still remains. It is an enormous problem, as you alluded earlier, in many parts of the developing world, the low- and middle-income countries, and it's a growing problem in some of those countries, and it's just not going to disappear real fast. The lesson that I've taken most recently has been a discouraging one, and that's how divisive our field has become. We really have a chasm between the people who are opposed to tobacco harm reduction and those who are supportive of it. They're good people on both sides, they believe what they're saying, but they can't talk to each other civilly at this point. I hope that that will not become the case for those of you who are fighting the good fight in dealing with unhealthy foods.   Bio   Kenneth E. Warner is the Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Public Health and Dean Emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. A member of the faculty from 1972-2017, he served as Dean from 2005-2010. Presented in over 275 professional publications, Dr. Warner's research has focused on economic and policy aspects of tobacco and health. Dr. Warner served as the World Bank's representative to negotiations on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, WHO's first global health treaty. He also served as the Senior Scientific Editor of the 25th anniversary Surgeon General's report on smoking and health. From 2004-2005 he was President of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT). He currently serves on the FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee. In 1996 Dr. Warner was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. He is a recipient of the Surgeon General's Medallion, the Luther Terry Award for Exemplary Achievement in Tobacco Control, and the Doll-Wynder Award from SRNT. Dr. Warner earned his AB from Dartmouth College and MPhil and PhD in economics from Yale University.  

Our live webcasts will be streamed at www.eesi.org/livecast What Congress Needs to Know in the Lead Up to COP26: Briefing Series on the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow Find out more about the briefings in this series below: Oct 08 Creating Policies, Coalitions, and Actions for Global Sustainable Development Oct 15 Momentum on Climate Adaptation Oct 20 The Role of International Climate Finance Oct 22 The Negotiations: What's on the Table Nov 18 Recap of COP26: Key Outcomes and What Comes Next The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to join us for a briefing to explore cross-cutting challenges—climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution—facing the United States and countries around the world, and how policymakers are finding and implementing solutions to these challenges. This briefing kicks off EESI's Congressional briefing series, What Congress Needs to Know in the Lead Up to COP26. To sign up for the briefings in the series, visit www.eesi.org/1021cop26. Distinguished Speakers: Sir Robert Watson, lead author of the U.N. Environment Programme's report Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity, and pollution emergencies, will discuss the current and projected changes in climate and biodiversity and share the range of solutions that emerge when these issues are considered together in policy design and implementation. He is the former chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Former U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres will discuss the opportunity presented by the upcoming U.N. climate change conference (COP26) and will dive into ways governments and leaders can take meaningful action on climate change globally—an urgent need underscored by the findings of the Making Peace with Nature report. Ms. Figueres is a Founding Partner of Global Optimism, co-presenter of climate podcast Outrage + Optimism, and co-author of The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis. Co-moderated by Daniel Bresette, Executive Director, Environmental and Energy Study Institute, and Rosina Bierbaum, Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan; School of Public Policy, University of Maryland. This briefing is part of a series made possible by our partnership with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.

Our live webcasts will be streamed at www.eesi.org/livecast What Congress Needs to Know in the Lead Up to COP26: Briefing Series on the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow Find out more about the briefings in this series below: Oct 08 Creating Policies, Coalitions, and Actions for Global Sustainable Development Oct 15 Momentum on Climate Adaptation Oct 20 The Role of International Climate Finance Oct 22 The Negotiations: What’s on the Table Nov 18 Recap of COP26: Key Outcomes and What Comes Next The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to join us for a briefing to explore cross-cutting challenges—climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution—facing the United States and countries around the world, and how policymakers are finding and implementing solutions to these challenges. This briefing kicks off EESI’s Congressional briefing series, What Congress Needs to Know in the Lead Up to COP26. To sign up for the briefings in the series, visit www.eesi.org/1021cop26. Distinguished Speakers: Sir Robert Watson, lead author of the U.N. Environment Programme’s report Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity, and pollution emergencies, will discuss the current and projected changes in climate and biodiversity and share the range of solutions that emerge when these issues are considered together in policy design and implementation. He is the former chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Former U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres will discuss the opportunity presented by the upcoming U.N. climate change conference (COP26) and will dive into ways governments and leaders can take meaningful action on climate change globally—an urgent need underscored by the findings of the Making Peace with Nature report. Ms. Figueres is a Founding Partner of Global Optimism, co-presenter of climate podcast Outrage + Optimism, and co-author of The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis. Co-moderated by Daniel Bresette, Executive Director, Environmental and Energy Study Institute, and Rosina Bierbaum, Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan; School of Public Policy, University of Maryland. This briefing is part of a series made possible by our partnership with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.

The 174-year-old tobacco company spent much of its life blowing a cloud of deceit around the deadly effects of its signature product. Now eager for a do-over, PMI's highly advertised “Unsmoke the World” initiative seems strangely noble, until you start asking questions.* FULL TRANSCRIPT *TEDDY ROOSEVELT: Surely there never was a fight better worth making than the one which we are in.BOB GARFIELD: Welcome to Bully Pulpit. That was Teddy Roosevelt, I'm Bob Garfield. This is episode five: Where There's No Smoke, There's Fire.It's been a hot and violent and infectious and altogether unsettling summer, in the midst of which — in the New York Times and all over the internet — emerged this: Philip-Morris International CEO Yatzick Olczak in an ad campaign speaking about the dangers of cigarettes.OLCZAK: The science exists today and there is no time to spare to solve the problem of smoking.The problem of smoking? From the maker of Marlboro's? There's an attention getter. A bona fide Merchant of Death vowing to phase out cigarettes in favor of so-called smoke-free products, like his company's non-combustible IQOS.TUTORIAL: Say hello to new IQOS heat control technology. Using it couldn't be easier. Remove the IQOS holder from the pocket charger, insert the tobacco stick tobacco side down in the holder and up to the silver line. Turn on, and when the LED turns solid green you can start to experience the true taste of real tobacco by heating, not burning it.The goal, Philip Morris says, is for smoke-free products to represent half of the company's revenue within four years. “Unsmoke the world,” is the slogan.OLCZAK: The prime cause of harm generated by the smoking is an outcome of the combustion. Okay? When you burn the cigarette, when you burn the tobacco you release the thousands of the chemicals. Many of those chemicals, they are very bad for the human body.Olczak says this as if it's a fresh revelation, but it's still jarring to hear Phillip Morris, of all institutions, speak of smoking as a scourge. And to bet the corporate future on a gizmo that aims to obsolete its core product. Listen to the man's frustration that there are skeptics who are not immediately accepting IQOS as a triumph of science and technology.OLCZAK: I do recognize that there is still a group of people who don't believe us. That's fine. So, it's perfectly okay to disagree with us, but it is not perfectly okay to deprive yourself from the ability to have a dialogue with us, to listen, to have a conversation, to read our science. We know that our vision is right, because of the impact PMI has on the society to solve the problem of smoking and the faster we recognize this whole thing and start working on a strategy, the better we all together will be.Oh, OK, now he's playing more to type — informing us that it is unacceptable to ignore Big Tobacco on the question of reducing tobacco's harm. Oh, is it now? Those of us of a certain age can vaguely remember — whaddayacallit? —  the 20th century, during the entirety of which Big Tobacco denied, for example, any link to cancer.REP. WAXMAN: In a deposition last year, you were asked whether cigarette smoking causes cancer. Your answer was, quote, “I don't believe so.” Do you stand by that answer today?TISCH: I do, sir.REP. WAXMAN: Do you understand how isolated you are in that belief from the entire scientific community?TISCH: I do, sir.That was from a 1994 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, in which Congressman Henry Waxman famously confronted Lorillard CEO Andrew Tisch and six other tobacco bosses. But “isolated” wasn't the half of it. For decades, the industry denied links to heart and lung disease, denied the addictiveness of nicotine, denied chemically augmenting nicotine's effects, denied marketing to children — all the while actively undercutting scientific findings, actively producing junk science, falsely claiming filtered and so-called “light” cigarettes were safer and propping up a variety of sciency-sounding front groups — such as the Council for Tobacco Research — that seemed all distinguished and s**t but existed only to obscure the deadly truth about smoking. Which is why, by the way, when Philip Morris noisily pledged $80 million to help underwrite The Foundation for a Smoke Free World, both the World Health Organization and the UN General Assembly cited conflict of interest in telling Big Tobacco to butt out.Nonetheless, the promise of getting the deadly smoke out of smoking has captured many an imagination, including Wall Street's, which has rewarded Phillip Morris and other tobacco makers with bigger share prices and rosy outlooks from stock pickers. Because, the thinking goes, while it's counterintuitive to steer into a skid, that's the way to regain traction.PUNDIT: This is all kind of part of Philip Morris's general rebranding away from smoking products and cigarettes. And they're really seeing the writing on the wall here as cigarette sales in higher income countries continue to dwindle and they're coming under increasing pressure from many governments to curtail their cigarette sales. It's really become in their best interest to kind of make this general shift away from cigarettes and nicotine.That's from Britain's I24 business news. Lo and behold, analysts from Chase, Stiffel Nicklaus, UBS, JP Morgan, Morningstar Research and stock-predictor engine Trefis, have rated Philip Morris International a buy. At about 100 bucks a share, it's price has grown more than 40% in the past 10 months.Of course, while stock prices are historically a highly reliable measure of public sentiment, one thing the free market is notoriously free of is conscience. As a universe, investors are concerned with ongoing earnings growth and nothing else, which is why, as the planet burns to a cinder, Exxon Mobil's share price has doubled in the past year. What's surprising about the smoke-free strategy is that it also has been embraced by a significant cohort of the public health community. This is an excerpt of a video from Public Health England, in which doctors Lion Shahab and Rosemary Leonard show a dramatic experiment comparing the output of burning tobacco versus the nearly pristine vapor from smokeless cigarettes.SHAHAB: My research shows that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful than cigarettes. A big reason why is the tar, which you can see here, which is not produced by e-cigarettes but produced by cigarettes. The impact of using e-cigarettes in the long-term is very similar to using licensed nicotine products such as nicotine patches or nicotine gum, as you can see here when you compare the control jar with the vapor jar.LEONARD: So, this experiment shows that every cigarette you smoke causes tar to enter your body and it's the tar that contains the poisonous chemicals that spread through the bloodstream.SHAHAB: Which are linked to diseases such as heart disease, stroke and cancer.That's one view. There is also an opposite one, as voiced by Dr. Vinayak Prasad, head of the World Health Organization's tobacco control division.PRASAD: Switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes is not quitting, number one. Number two, we don't see the smokers switch to e-cigarettes 100 percent. The dual use is again very harmful. What we are also seeing is that more and more younger people are taking to e-cigarettes and then later progressing to tobacco.As for Philip Morris, he told the UK's Bureau of Investigative Journalism, quote:If they really want to be a part of the solution, they should go tobacco-free, not smoke-free. If they are genuine about a tobacco-free society, they will readily embrace anything to reduce the demand for all forms of tobacco products.Anything else, he says, is a “criminal act and a human rights violation.”In other words, within the tobacco-control universe, a schism — a polarizing debate hinging on the lesser of two evils. Ruth E. Malone is a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and editor of the journal Tobacco Control.MALONE: We are adding all these new additional products and we are still sorting out what the overall public health impact of that is going to be. So is the impact going to be that, as some people say, it definitely is helpful for them in getting off cigarettes, but others revert back to smoking cigarettes and you just have a larger market of people using tobacco and nicotine products rather than actually reducing the damage from those products.The Public Health England tar experiment would seem to be a vivid and maybe even mic-drop argument for society gratefully accepting smoke-free technology. But to Malone, the whole schism-framing may itself be problematic. She worries that viewing the debate on stark, binary terms obscures a less obvious and highly dangerous element of Big Tobacco's strategy — namely, as Philip Morris's Olzcak insisted — claiming that its expertise has earned the industry a role in governmental decisions about tobacco regulations, treaties and laws. She posed a rhetorical question if ever there was one.MALONE: Should an industry that produces the single most deadly consumer product in history be involved in regulatory decisions about what to do about it and other products that are potentially supplanting or replacing or adding on to the damages caused by cigarettes?So, never mind “lesser of two evils.” How about “the fox guarding the henhouse.”MALONE: Part of the problem now is that, as they do periodically with some frequency, some tobacco companies are engaged in a big makeover, a part of which is aimed at undermining the tobacco control movement on a global level. We have to think not just about the United States, but also what's happening globally, where countries are trying to implement the world's first public health treaty, which is the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the WHO  treaty. And one of the provisions of that treaty is Article 5.3, and this is getting a little into the weeds, but basically it says don't let the tobacco companies interfere with your public health policies. They should not have a seat at the table because they have a conflict of interest. That seems pretty fundamental. And that is a real motivation right now for the tobacco companies, is to get back to the table where they can influence policies and prevent policies that might hurt their bottom line.Clearly, til now, the industry has engineered near impunity throughout the developing world. In 2020, the aforementioned Bureau of Investigative Journalism published an expose titled The ‘Unsmoke' screen: the truth behind PMI's cigarette-free future, a piece that looked beyond Phililp Morris's do-gooder narrative for evidence of the same old same old. For example, quote:Since it announced its aim to stop selling cigarettes, it has acquired a new cigarette company, launched a new brand, and added enticing new flavours such as Splash Mega Purple and Fusion Summer. It has also launched legal action against anti-smoking policies in countries like the Philippines, and has carried on advertising cigarettes in countries that permit it.COMMERCIAL: Wanna stand tall? Be true, be bold, be strong, be brave, be daring, be free, be heard, be inspired? You can say yes, or say no. Just never say maybe. Never say maybe. Be Marlboro.That's a Marlboro commercial aired in Indonesia, a country of 271 million people.  Furthermore, according to the BIJ story, quote: “Some pupils in Indonesia can see PMI's cigarette advertising mere steps from their schools' gates. Young people attending festivals in Buenos Aires are offered PMI cigarettes in promotions with beer. Children visiting corner shops in Mexico can see Marlboro's ‘fusion' cigarettes next to sweets.”BRANDT: We need to be very skeptical of these companies that claim that they've crossed over to legitimate health oriented products because they've made these claims, you know, since the 1950s.Allan M. Brandt is a professor of the history of science at Harvard and author of The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America. In 2012, for the American Journal of Public Health, he wrote Inventing Conflicts of Interest: A History of Tobacco Industry Tactics.BRANDT: They told Americans, you know, if you're worried about smoking, smoke filter cigarettes and that was the beginning of Marlboro. You know, you had a cowboy smoking a safe cigarette, which turned out not to be the case. So I'm very skeptical and worried about the current situation with vaping, e-cigarettes, other nicotine related products, and the idea that we're just a responsible company trying to mitigate the harms that our principal product has produced for over a century.And as you probably know, just in the last month, it was reported that the American Journal of Health and Behavior published a entire issue on harm reduction and Juul vaping. And it turns out we're not quite as naive as we used to be. It became clear and it was widely reported in the press that the issue of this journal was completely paid for by Juul and the work was done in Juul labs. They return to this strategy of: we can produce the science. And it has muddied the waters and diluted the authority that science really needs to have positive public health impacts. And we really need science. And science has to speak with expertise and authority and validity and clear and aggressive peer review. And we need to know the difference between something that is a fact and something that obscures facts.GILCHRIST: There's no doubt that misinformation and conflicting information is confusing adults who smoke.That was Moira Gilchrist, who holds a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences, back in June. She was not speaking of Big Tobacco's century of disinformation and its toll. In a video about Philip Morris's smoke-free initiative, she was addressing current conflict about smoke-free.GILCHRIST: One day they hear good things about smoke-free alternatives and the next they hear scare stories, and as a scientist I find that really, really upsetting. Because the science is very clear.It's a corporate video. Gilchrist is PMI's Vice President for Strategic & Scientific Communications, whom I spoke to this week. I asked her if she was struck at all by the irony of her complaint, what with Philip Morris's own sorry history of obfuscation and all.GILCHRIST: Well, look, I think I'm not going to speak to, you know, the past history of any company or an industry. What I'm focused on is today and what we know today, and we've made a real deliberate effort to make all of the science publicly available so that people don't have to trust us. They don't have to take our word for it. They can look at what the data says. And we've gone really, really strongly to ensure that we're using open science principles, sharing not just our own conclusions, but also the source data on which we've based those conclusions, so people can feel cynical and feel skeptical. That's fine, but they cannot ignore the data. And that's all I ask, is that independent scientists look at what we've done and look at it with an open mind in order that we can get the facts straight and make sure that adult smokers have the right information to make the right decisions.GARFIELD: We've heard from scientists who do embrace the benefits of a smoke free world, and we have heard a great deal of skepticism about Philip Morris's motives. We've heard both those things. One accusation, though, is that you are creating, excuse the expression, a smokescreen for influencing governmental tobacco control authorities around the world. Indeed, Olczak said that very thing, that authorities cannot not listen to your science.GILCHRIST: So that, again, we've made the science openly available. We've submitted it to regulatory authorities like the US FDA, who spent three and a half years poring through more than a million pages of evidence in order to make a decision to authorize our product. And so this is what we're asking governments to do, because governments can play a really important role in ensuring that adults who smoke have the right information, ensuring that they have access to these products that are a better choice than continuing to smoke. So I think that's what we're asking governments to do. And many of them are doing so. And I think that's really encouraging for the more than a billion smokers all around the world.GARFIELD: I just want to make sure that we agree on some basic facts. Philip Morris does now buy by legal agreement and in its public statements acknowledge that, that smoking burning tobacco does cause cancer, does cause heart disease, does cause emphysema and and so on.GILCHRIST: We have been clear about that for many, many years, and in fact, before I joined the company. We've been very clear that cigarette smoking is extremely unwise because of the diseases that it causes and premature death that it causes. And that's why we set on this path of creating alternatives so that people who don't quit can have another choice that they can go to. The best thing they can do is to quit because these products are not risk free. But if they're not going to quit, they should really consider switching to a smoke-free alternative.GARFIELD: So I believe the follow up question, and this is not a question you've not heard before, is why the f**k is Philip Morris still selling combustible cigarettes anywhere? Something like 800 billion coffin nails a year are being sold and consumed worldwide. Why not just shut that part of the business down today?GILCHRIST: So Bob the key word is transformation. This cannot happen overnight. By 2025, we want to be a majority smoke-free company. So I think we're making tremendous progress. We still have a long way to go. And that's why we're calling on governments to help, because regulation can really help to encourage adults who don't quit to switch to better alternatives.GARFIELD: Who says that the solution is transformation and not cessation? Along this path that you've described, there are, according to the World Health Organization, eight million people a year around the world who will die of smoking related illnesses. Why transform instead of just stop?GILCHRIST: So here's the thing. If we, Philip Morris International, chose to stop selling cigarettes altogether, that would not solve the problem of smoking because most adult smokers would simply switch to our competitors' product and there would be absolutely no impact on public health. So the approach that we've taken is to encourage those people who don't quit to instead switch. And in this way, we can reduce the number of people who are smoking combustible cigarettes and at the same time still make a profit for us as a business. So I think transformation is the way that we can have not just a long term future for the company, but also make a positive impact on public health.GARFIELD: Til now, we've been speaking of science and technology and business. I want to ask you about just fundamental morality. If I, for example, choose not to go into a Walmart with an AR-15 and shoot up the place, gun violence in America will not disappear. But I myself won't be a murderer. I will have not contributed to gun deaths. Isn't that reason enough for me to stand down?GILCHRIST: Look, again, we made a very deliberate decision that the best and quickest way we can get to a smoke free future is by developing, scientifically assessing and commercializing products that are a better choice than continuing to smoke. And if we were to stop selling cigarettes tomorrow, unilaterally, it would not have an impact on public health.GARFIELD: Perhaps I'm naive, but what I'm actually asking about now is a better outcome for the corporate conscience. Is it not better if you are not participating in what has been called the Golden Holocaust?GILCHRIST: So, look, I joined the company to do exactly what we're doing, and that's to provide better outcomes for each individual adult smoker and also better outcomes for our company as well. And I think that's what we're doing.Gilchrist chose not to address the question of conscience further, but rather just reiterated the smoke-free strategy. So I asked Tobacco Control's Ruth Malone approximately the same question.MALONE: I'm old enough to remember one time when a juice company had some salmonella — some contamination of their products — they pulled all their products off the market until they could be, in fact, made safe and they instituted new procedures to make them that way. The tobacco companies have repeatedly said they would do that if it was ever found that their products were unsafe. But in fact, they have never done that. I just think it's time to call their bluff on all this and say, you know, don't just talk about this. If you're really serious about this, then change the nature of your corporation. Become a B corporation. Be working on behalf of the public good. Get rid of the combustibles altogether. Quit selling them.GARFIELD: Yeah, yeah, when pigs fly.MALONE: Yeah, I'm afraid so.GARFIELD: I just wonder if you were in a lake and you were drowning, and the chairman of Philip Morris came running to you and threw you a rope. What would you do?MALONE: I don't know if there's anything at the other end of that rope, so I'd look and see if anybody else had a life preserver. And I'd probably swim. I'd try to swim.All right, we're done here. Next week, Part 2: Crime Against Humanity.Before I sign off though, let me repeat what I said a week ago. If you enjoy a Booksmart Studios show, please please please share it with your world. That's what those little buttons are for, and we depend on our listeners to get the word out. Also, if you become a paying subscriber to Booksmart Studios you'll get extended interviews, additional content, access to the hosts and — in my case — continued access to my weekly column, which is for the moment free to sample. At last count, there were 94 fucktillion podcasts out there, but nothing quite like what Booksmart is up to. Please help us make an impact.Now then, Bully Pulpit is produced by Mike Vuolo and Matthew Schwartz. Our theme was composed by Julie Miller and the team at Harvest Creative Services in Lansing, Michigan. Bully Pulpit is a production of Booksmart Studios. I'm Bob Garfield. Get full access to Bully Pulpit at bullypulpit.substack.com/subscribe

The Institute of Economic Affairs hosted a discussion on the Impact of COP9 on Vapers. For the first time since leaving the European Union, in November 2021, the UK will send a delegation to the World Health Organisations Conference of Parties (COP) to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is an international treaty under the auspices of the WHO dedicated solely to tobacco control. COP is the supreme decision-making body of the FCTC, where all parties to the FCTC meet biennially to review the implementation of the convention and adopt the new guidance. The discussion centred on who represents the UK at COP, how decisions are reached (and whether we should listen to them), the impact of these decisions on the United Kingdom's harm reduction progress, and the 2030 smoke-free target. Plus much more. Our panel of expert speakers included IEA Director General Mark Littlewood (chair), Matt Ridley (Vice-Chair of the APPG on Vaping), Christopher Snowdon ( IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics), and Louis Houlbrooke (NZ Taxpayers Union).

Chris Bostic is ASH’s Policy Director and has been working in global tobacco control since 2001 when he attended the negotiations for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as a civil society international law expert.ASH --- https://ash.org/VIEW --- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5JKJC9prqNuvrcR844cLjwLISTEN --- https://www.thestrongandfreepodcast.com/episodes/FOLLOW --- https://twitter.com/StrongnFreePodREAD --- https://thestrongandfreepodcast.medium.com/PODCAST SETUPMicrophone - https://amzn.to/3dezxubAmplifier - https://amzn.to/3rv0mQ6Light - https://amzn.to/3tY6u4XRATE THIS PODCAST --- https://www.thestrongandfreepodcast.com/reviews/new/CONTACT ME --- https://www.thestrongandfreepodcast.com/contact/

Prof Beaglehole is the former Director of Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at WHO in Geneva, during the years of the development of the Framework Convention of Tobacco Control. He is currently the Board Chair of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in New Zealand. Prof Beaglehole is supportive of vaping and its potential to help adults switch off of combustible tobacco.

Dr. Derek Yach, has been a global health expert and anti-smoking advocate for more than 30 years, is the Founder, President, and Board Member of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW - https://www.smokefreeworld.org/​), and is also a passionate advocate for health promotion and disease prevention. Dr. Yach is a former World Health Organization (WHO) cabinet director and executive director for noncommunicable diseases and mental health where he was deeply involved with the development of the world's treaty on tobacco control, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). He is also the former chief health officer of the Vitality Group, executive director of the Vitality Institute, Senior Vice President, global health and agriculture policy at PepsiCo, director of global health at the Rockefeller Foundation, and a professor of global health at Yale University. Dr. Yach has authored or co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles on global health and has served on several advisory boards, including the World Economic Forum, Cornerstone Capital, and the Wellcome Trust. From 2007 to 2016, he served on the program advisory committee of the Clinton Global Initiative. Dr. Yach is a dual citizen of the United States and South Africa. He has an honorary DSc from Georgetown University, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Cape Town, BSc (Epidemiology), University of Stellenbosch, and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) is an independent, nonprofit organization that funds research, promotes innovation, and supports collaborative initiatives committed to reducing deaths and diseases caused by smoking, and ending smoking in this generation. They strive to identify and address the unique needs of the developing world as they relate to tobacco cessation and harm reduction, and serves as a convener of global research supporting the reduction of tobacco use, while helping to address the impact of decreased smoking rates on agriculture and economies. The Foundation's work focuses on three core areas: Health, Science, and Technology (HST); Agriculture and Livelihoods; and Industry Transformation. Disclaimer - How is the FSFW Funded? At its inception, the FSFW entered into a Pledge Agreement in which it agreed to accept charitable gifts from Philip Morris International (PMI) each year for the period 2018 through 2029 to fund their mission of solving the global health crisis and ending smoking in this generation. Recently, that agreement was revised, and PMI's annual charitable gifts have been reduced. While FSFW is aware that there are challenges associated with accepting any funding from the tobacco industry, given the urgency of the problem – 1.1 billion smokers, more than 8 million dying each year, and a trajectory toward a billion deaths this century, the FSFW was compelled to help save lives, and took the bold step of accepting funding from PMI. The FSFW operates with integrity, as they abide all legal requirements, and holds itself to the highest ethical and scientific standards. Independence and transparency are core principles of the Foundation. To that end, FSFW adheres to the criteria laid forth by Cohen et al., particularly those relevant to transparency and independence, and has established an independent research agenda.

Understanding The COP 21 What is the ‘conference of parties', and why you will hear more about it as the year-end approaches? Understanding The COP 21 It was COP-3, in Kyoto, Japan, that gave rise to the Kyoto Protocol, that placed international obligations on the set of rich and industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by assigned amounts. The twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and the eleventh session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) takes place from 30 November to 11 December 2015, in Paris, France. The COP is an annual meeting, this year it is expected to deliver a major agreement on the action plan for saving the planet from the disastrous consequences of rising average global temperatures. The term ‘COP' stands for Conference of Parties. ‘Parties' is a reference to the (now) 196 signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, as it is called. The Framework Convention came into force in 1994, two years after its text was finalised at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Every year since 1994, the ‘parties' to the UNFCCC have met at different venues at the end of the year to discuss a global agreement to cut emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the main reason why average global temperatures have been rising. Understanding The COP 21 in context. The Paris meeting is the 21st in that series, hence the name ‘COP-21'. The Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect only in 2005, has since run into trouble, with some countries, which were obliged to take emission cuts, having walked out of it. Though the Protocol continues on paper for the time being, the current negotiations at the COPs are about bringing in an agreement that will demand some kind of action from all countries, not just the rich and industrialised. The actions expected from the countries are supposed to be in accordance with their capabilities. An earlier attempt to forge such an agreement was made at COP-15 in Copenhagen in Denmark in 2009, but it failed spectacularly. After two years of further negotiations, the countries had decided that a global agreement on climate change must be delivered at the COP-21 in Paris in 2015. However, with fewer than 200 days to go for the Paris conference, deep differences persist on several issues, and the frantic pursuit of a compromise continues. Visit the COP21 Website.

In this episode of Beyond the Buzz, Corinne Bendersky talks with Christiana Figueres about the diplomatic history of climate change negotiations and how COVID-19 may affect climate action going forward. Ms. Figueres was the executive secretary for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016, during which the historic Paris Agreement  was signed. She reveals how collaborative--not confrontational--diplomacy was used to find common ground among stakeholders and help advance a shared agenda among 197 countries. Afterward, Corinne and  Mike Ferguson discuss how the climate and COVID-19 crises intertwine--are there opportunities in the massive COVID recovery spending packages to not only accelerate the economy, but make progress toward climate goals?    

Daniel Malan is an assistant professor in business ethics at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. Daniel recently released a report titled, "Contradictions and Conflicts" (https://bit.ly/32xP9oD) where he analyzes the fundamental conflicts among 17 governments that claim a commitment to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, while also owning major stakes in tobacco companies. This report was made possible by a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. He is a former associate professor in ethics and governance and director of the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa at the University of Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa, as well as a former visiting scholar at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His focus areas are business ethics, corporate governance and corporate responsibility. He is the co-chair of the B20 Task Force on Integrity and Compliance (2020), a member of the Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption of the World Economic Forum, a member of the International Corporate Governance Network's Disclosure and Transparency Committee and the regional partner for Africa at the International Center for Corporate Governance in St Gallen, Switzerland. He has consulted to the World Economic Forum, United Nations, International Finance Corporation as well as various large corporations and has worked in 41 countries. Previously he was an associate director with KPMG Forensic, where he was responsible for ethics and integrity services. His qualifications include a PhD in Business Administration, a Masters degree in Philosophy as well as a Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA), all from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.

*Guest: Dr. Derek Yach, President of Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Not long ago, tobacco control researchers and public health officials openly discussed a possible worldwide “endgame” to combustible tobacco use, thus preventing the death of up to one billion smokers by end of this century. But today, the focus on endgame is forgotten as the tobacco control movement intensifies efforts to eradicate vaping, the only technology proven both scalable and appealing to smokers as a viable alternative to smoking. Tobacco control fixates on preventing up-take of smoking and complete cessation of nicotine use. While technologies like vaping, represent the principles of reduced risk and harm reduction. Joining us today on RegWatch is Dr. Derek Yach, President of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) and former World Health Organization (WHO) cabinet director and executive director for noncommunicable diseases and mental health where he was deeply involved with the development of the world's treaty on tobacco control, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). At the forefront of global debate, hear Dr. Yach discuss the promise of tobacco harm reduction; why the WHO appears so vehemently opposed to harm reduction strategies; and whether increasing attacks on vaping (science and policy) and the reaction to crisis (youth epidemic, EVALI, and COVID19) have increased harm due to tobacco-related disease. Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com Live Streamed: June 17, 2020 Sr. Producer: Cindy Schmidt Exec. Producer: Brent Stafford Make RegWatch happen, go to: support(dot)regulatorwatch(dot)com https://youtu.be/3Vo9D6CUjpE

Today on The Negotiation, we speak with Barbara Finamore, Senior Strategic Director for Asia at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the author of Will China Save the Planet (2018). She started her career with the NRDC as an environmental litigator, a position she left after getting married to a U.S. diplomat in the 1980s. Her husband took her to China in 1990, when the country was considering its earliest initiatives for sustainable development.Barbara was there to witness first-hand the country's signing of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as the drafting of the world's first sustainable development blueprint for the 21st century, known as Agenda 21. Since the mid-1990s, Barbara has been heading the NRDC's energy program in China.Says Barbara: “I got hooked on the challenges that China faced and getting to know the people who were working to address those challenges, many of whom became leaders in China's energy and climate policy.”China's environmental problems took off alongside its rapid economic growth in 2001 when the country joined the WTO. Its performance during that decade would earn China the moniker of being the world's “economic miracle”.China's most valuable commodity during this period? Coal: the world's dirtiest fossil fuel and the leading source of CO2 emissions in the world, as well as the source of China's devastating air pollution. Coal was the cause of 2013's “airpocalypse”, during which time the Chinese citizens were breathing in an equivalent of one-and-a-half cigarettes per hour every day. In 2018, China launched its Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan which intends to cut down coal use.COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on China's energy and environmental sectors. Chinese citizens have become less willing to take public transit due to crowding. There is a greater interest in private vehicles (which will have negative effects on climate change in the long run). The government has increased its focus on electric vehicles as essential to its long-term industrial transformation—a major element in its “new infrastructure” initiative (other elements include 5G and artificial intelligence).In the short-term, the Chinese government is taking steps to ease its environmental controls on gasoline-powered engines since the automotive industry as a whole is a pillar industry in China, being responsible for some 10% of jobs and nearly 10% of all retail sales.

Program Director of Environment, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Special Envoy for Climate Change, U.S. Department of State. Lead U.S. negotiator to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador and founder of Bioquark, interviews Dr. Derek Yach, founder, president, and board member of The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, and passionate advocate for health promotion and disease prevention. Dr Yach's objective is to end smoking in this generation. We investigated to see how that might be achieved. Ira Pastor Comments: The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that we currently have over 1.1 billion smokers on earth, and that tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) say that cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day. Smoking leads to disease and disability and harms nearly every organ of the body. More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking including cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis, as well as increasing risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, auto- immune disorders including rheumatoid arthritis, and erectile dysfunction in males. Total economic cost of smoking in the U.S. alone is more than $300 billion a year, including nearly $170 billion in direct medical care for adults and more than $156 billion in lost productivity due to premature death and exposure to secondhand smoke. Ending Smoking for Good The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) is an independent, nonprofit organization that funds research, promotes innovation, and supports collaborative initiatives committed to reducing deaths and diseases caused by smoking, and ending smoking in this generation. They strive to identify and address the unique needs of the developing world as they relate to tobacco cessation and harm reduction, and serve as a convener of global research supporting the reduction of tobacco use, while helping to address the impact of decreased smoking rates on agriculture and economies. The Foundation’s work focuses on three core areas: Health, Science, and Technology (HST); Agriculture and Livelihoods; and Industry Transformation. Dr. Derek Yach Has Forged a Career Around Anti-Smoking Advocacy Dr. Derek Yach has been a global health expert and anti-smoking advocate for more than 30 years, and is also a passionate advocate for health promotion and disease prevention. Dr. Yach is a former World Health Organization (WHO) cabinet director and executive director for noncommunicable diseases and mental health where he was deeply involved with the development of the world’s treaty on tobacco control, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). He is also the former chief health officer of the Vitality Group, executive director of the Vitality Institute, Senior Vice President, global health and agriculture policy at PepsiCo, director of global health at the Rockefeller Foundation, and a professor of global health at Yale University. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles on global health and has served on several advisory boards, including the World Economic Forum, Cornerstone Capital, and the Wellcome Trust. Dr. Yach is a dual citizen of the United States and South Africa. He has an honorary DSc from Georgetown University, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Cape Town, BSc (Epidemiology), University of Stellenbosch, and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Disclosure: The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World has received its initial funding pledge of $80 million USD annually for 12 years, beginning in 2018 from Philip Morris International (PMI) - The Foundation has a nonprofit status as a US 501c3 organization, and by law and policy must operate completely independently from PMI, and cannot engage in activities designed to support PMI’s interests. Further, PMI can have no involvement or say in their work. On this episode we will talk to Dr. Yach about: His Background and how he developed an interest in medicine, public health, and smoking cessation. The Philip Morris International's funding of FSFW. About FSFWs Global State of Smoking Poll, Health, Science, and Technology programs, Agricultural Transformation Initiative and Industry Transformation efforts. Finally, we’ll hear about Dr. Yach's views on the dangers/health issues related to marijuana smoking. ideaXme is a global podcast, creator series and mentor programme. Mission: Move the human story forward!™ ideaXme Ltd.

*Guest: Dr. Kenneth Warner, Dean Emeritus, Prof. Emeritus, School of Public Health, University of Michigan | Member of FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee and Health Canada's Science Advisory Board on Vaping Products It's a turbulent time for vaping. Over the past 24-months the industry struggled to manage one crisis after another: panic over the so-called teen vaping epidemic; hysteria over the so-called vaping-related lung illness; a mad rush to ban vaping products; and vicious attacks by anti-vaping activists exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic for ideological gain. All the while, fending off an endless stream of suspect science and a rowdy regulatory process. Essentially, the turbulence is fueled by a battle within public health over tobacco harm reduction; the divide is continental, both in space and mind. Joining us today to talk these issues and more is Dr. Kenneth Warner. Over his 45-year career, he's presented in over 250 professional publications, served as the World Bank's representative to negotiations on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (the world's first global health treaty,) served as Senior Scientific Editor of the 25th anniversary Surgeon General's report on smoking and health and was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Truth Initiative. What insights will he share about the issues and challenges facing vaping? Find out, only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com Live Streamed: March 26, 2020 Produced by: Brent Stafford Make RegWatch happen, go to: support(dot)regulatorwatch(dot)com https://youtu.be/HNebkaQDaHI

Listen NowThe 2019 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change (subtitled, Ensuring That the Health of a Child Born Today is not Defined by a Changing Climate), released in mid-November, identifies 41 indicators in five domains: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaption, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and, public and political engagement.  Since this interview focuses on the first three domains, concerning the latter two, a few take-aways: in 2018 investment in fossil fuels increased slightly while investment in low-carbon energy slightly decreased; fossil fuel subsidies increased to $427 billion in 2018 or were 50% higher than in 2016; carbon pricing instruments in 2018 covered just 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions; in the US carbon prices averaged just $1/ton of CO2; regarding fossil fuel divestment, since 2008 investment funds committed to divestment equaled nearly $8 trillion with health institutions accounting for only $42 billion.  Concerning public engagement, in 2018 only 12% of health care companies referenced health in context of the climate crisis – however this was consistent with media and government communication that also does not typically connect the climate crisis with health.  Listeners may know I interviewed Dr. Jeremy Hess a year ago this week regarding 2018 Lancet Countdown report.   During this 28-minute conversation Dr. Salas discusses moreover the Countdown's 2019 findings moreover regarding health impacts, exposures and vulnerabilities including heat-related illnesses, those related to greenhouse gas emissions/ambient air pollution, vector borne diseases and the disproportionate effects they have on children and the elderly.  Dr. Salas also discusses adverse effects the climate crisis is having on food security and nutrition, what, or what more, health care providers can do to respond to the crisis (including relevant changes in clinical training) and efforts during the just-concluded UN COP 25 (Conference of the Parties related to the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change) meetings just held in Madrid - that Dr. Salas attended.Dr. Renee N. Salas is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Emergency Medicine Physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She received her Doctor of Medicine from the innovative five-year medical school program to train physician-investigators at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. She concurrently obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Research from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.  Subsequently, she received a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with a concentration in environmental health while completing a Fellowship in Wilderness Medicine at MGH.  She now has a sole academic concentration on climate change and health. As a 2018 Burke Fellow, she is addressing the current research gaps in this field.  She served as the lead for the 2019 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change US Brief and is a nationally recognized leader on this subject.The 2019 Lancet Countdown report is at: http://www.lancetcountdown.org/2019-report/.  The Lancet Countdown US Policy Brief is at: https://www.lancetcountdownus.org/2019-lancet-countdown-us-brief. Information on Juliana v the US, noted in the podcast introduction, is at: https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/juliana-v-us. Information on Naomi Klein's work, On Fire, The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, mentioned during this podcast, is at: https://naomiklein.org/on-fire/.   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros recently said “Since it came into force 13 years ago, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control remains one of the world's most powerful tools for promoting public health,”. But is it? That's what a to studies just published on bmj.com try and investigate - one of which pulls together all the data we have on smoking rates, from 1970 to 2015, and then a quasi-experimental study which tries to model what the effect of the FCTC has had. Steven Hoffman, and Matthieu Poirier from the Global Strategy Lab at York University join us to explain what their research means, and why it's time to double down on our attempts to reduce smoking. Read the open access research: https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2287 https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2231

TH Lam (University of Hong Kong) discusses a proposal for an international framework convention for alcohol control, given the totality of recent evidence that there is no safe limit for alcohol consumption.

How do we make sense of the recent climate change news? And what can we do? On Saturday, January 26 at 10am at Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, the Climate & Energy Forum will host a discussion about the latest climate science and policy developments. Then, on February 7 at 7pm, the movie, The Venus Theory, will be shown at the Library.. Listen here as returning guests Michael Cox and Lara Hansen share information about these two upcoming events and talk about what individuals and the City of Bainbridge can do to mitigate and adapt to climate change. At the Forum, Michael and Lara will join with fellow presenters, James Rufo-Hill and Dr. Gary Lagerloef, to discuss highlights from various reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the United Nations’ Environment Program and Framework Convention on Climate Change. For more information on the Climate and Energy Forum visit: www.bainbridgeislandforum.org. The Venus Theory is being shown at the Library on February 7th as part of the Movies That Matter film series, a free monthly film series on environmental topics offered on the first Thursday of every month. This particular film explains the science behind global warming, and whether the Earth's temperature may one day equal that of Venus. For a full list of upcoming Movies that Matter screenings, visit http://www.sustainablebainbridge.org/pdfs/Movies%20that%20Matter%202018%20Flyer.pdf Credits: BCB host: Christina Hulet; audio editor and publisher: Diane Walker; social media: Jen St. Louis.

The recent passing of President George H.W. Bush has spurred an interest in his energy and environmental policy and its legacy. In the latest Columbia Energy Exchange podcast, host Jason Bordoff sat down with William Reilly, who was the EPA Administrator during President George H.W. Bush’s Administration.   Bill recounts the significance of the environment in Bush’s presidential campaign, which led to landmark environmental policies, and discusses the challenges, opportunities, and significance of the Clean Air Act of 1990. He describes what it was like working for the Administration, including internal divisions on the environment. Jason and Bill discuss other notable milestones like the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Global Change Research Act of 1990, and the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Jason and Bill also cover carbon pricing, climate policy, and what needs to happen to encourage both sides of the aisle to work together in solving these pressing issues. In addition to his time with the Bush administration, Bill served as a senior staff member at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, under President Nixon. President Clinton appointed him as a founding Trustee of the Presidio Trust of San Francisco.  President Obama appointed him co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and the Future of Offshore Drilling. Bill served as president of World Wildlife Fund and later chairman of the board. He has also served in the U.S. Army. He’s currently on a number of private sector and non-profit boards. Bill holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Yale University, a Law Degree from Harvard, and a Master’s Degree from Columbia University.  

In this episode, Thomas and Andrew break down the Trump Administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement regarding climate change. First, however, we celebrate Thomas being prescient in taking an in-depth look at the Ninth Circuit's rather surprising decision regarding Trump's EO 13780, the so-called "Muslim Ban." In the main segment, Andrew and Thomas answer some questions and bust some myths regarding the U.S.'s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.  Can Trump do that?  Can the states pick up the slack?  Is there one weird trick that will solve climate change?  The answers may surprise you. After that, Andrew tackles a fun question from patron Myk Dowling about disclaimers. Finally, we end with the answer to Thomas Takes the Bar Exam Question #28, which involved a pizza joint defaming a nearby burger hut.  Can Thomas start a new, 2-game winning streak?  Listen and find out!  And, as always, we'll release a new #TTTBE question this Friday and answer that question the following Tuesday.  Don't forget to play along by following our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and/or our Facebook Page and quoting the Tweet or Facebook Post that announces this episode along with your guess and reason(s), and don't forget that patrons who support us at any level get early access to the answers (and usually a fun post analyzing the question in more detail). Recent Appearances Andrew was just a guest on Episode 390 of This Week in Law, throwin' down the devil horns.  Give it a listen! Show Notes & Links You can read the Ninth Circuit's recent opinion here. This is the text of Executive Order 13780. This is the text of Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996 (1979), the odd case on whether a President can unilaterally withdraw from a treaty. This is a link to NASA's data regarding climate change. And this is the text of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, to which the U.S. was a signatory in 1992. Support us on Patreon at:  patreon.com/law Follow us on Twitter:  @Openargs Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/openargs/ And email us at openarguments@gmail.com  

2017-06-20 Special EnglishThis is Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. Here is the news.A Chinese envoy to the United Nations has called on the international community to adapt to the new trends and features of terrorist groups and enhance cooperation in fighting terrorism.Recently, multiple terrorist attacks occurred in Egypt, Afghanistan, Britain, France, Iran and other places, causing severe casualties and property losses. Chinese's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations made the remarks at a Security Council meeting which focused on the threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.He stressed that terrorism is the common enemy of mankind and its impact goes beyond borders; and no country can address terrorism by itself or keep itself from terrorism.The Chinese envoy called for measures to reach international consensus, deal with the root causes of terrorism, stem the transnational movement of terrorists, cut off their financing channels and fight against their propaganda.He said the international community should put solving regional hot-spot issues as a top priority, and work to promote political dialogues to address regional conflicts and maintain regional peace, stability and development, so as to eradicate the root cause of terrorism.This is Special English.China is working on reusable launch vehicles and has achieved progress in some key areas.A carrier rocket official says the processes under development include parachute-landing and propulsion-landing. Reusable lift-body launchers will be developed in three stages, namely, rocket-engine partial reusable vehicle, rocket-engine full reusable vehicle and combined cycle-engine reusable vehicle.The official said the Long March carrier rockets still have room for improvement, adding that China is developing a heavy-lift launch vehicle with a payload of 140 tonnes to low Earth orbit and 50 tonnes to lunar transfer orbit.The heavy-lift carrier rocket is currently called the Long March-9, and it should be sent into space by 2030.A low-cost commercial medium launch vehicle, the Long March-8, is under development, and based on the Long March-8, a new high-orbit medium launch vehicle should be designed to improve the Long March series and enhance competitiveness.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. China's Food and Drug Administration has approved a new-generation of heart valve replacement product, which greatly reduces surgery time and increases survival rate.The developers announced recently that the J-Valve has passed clinical tests and will be put into use across China.Traditional solutions require doctors to make a big incision on the patients' chests and open their hearts to put the prosthetic valve inside manually. The process takes about four hours and poses risks of wrong positioning of the valve and loss of blood.The J-Valve system features minimally invasive surgery. It is easier to implant and provides automatic positioning of the valve. Doctors only watch an electronic screen and operate outside the patients' bodies. The whole procedure lasts about 10 minutes.This is Special English.The World Health Organization has started a "smoke-free generation" media campaign in Beijing targeting young people in China.A World Health Organization representative says China is in the grip of a national tobacco epidemic, and children are most susceptible with cigarettes portrayed as fashionable and alluring in popular culture.According to World Health Organization, over half of Chinese adult men smoke, two thirds of whom started as young adults. By 2014, 73 percent Chinese students had been exposed to secondhand smoke.The official says there is nothing cool about smoking, but there is something empowering about choosing to live a healthy, smoke-free life.Since China ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, the country has made a number of tobacco control efforts, including banning tobacco advertisements, increasing tobacco taxes and putting forward regional smoking bans.As of 2016, 18 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, had implemented regional smoking bans.China has set a target to reduce the smoking rate among people aged 15 and older to 20 percent by 2030 from the current 28 percent. That's according to the "Healthy China 2030" blueprint issued by the central authorities last October. You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. One in 20 pregnant women in the U.S. territories with confirmed Zika virus infection had a baby or fetus with Zika virus-associated birth defects. Among the women with confirmed Zika infection during the first trimester, eight percent, or nearly one in 12, had a baby or fetus with Zika virus-associated birth defects.A government report, the first from the U.S. territories, represents the largest number of completed pregnancies with laboratory confirmation of Zika virus infection to date.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says as these latest findings illustrate, Zika virus poses a serious threat to pregnant women and their babies, regardless of when the infection occurs during the pregnancy.It says women in the U.S. territories and elsewhere who have continued exposure to mosquitoes carrying Zika are at risk of infection. The government must remain vigilant and committed to preventing new Zika infections.The new analysis reviewed the cases of 2,550 women with possible Zika virus infections who completed their pregnancies, of which 1,508 had confirmed Zika virus infections.In this report, more than 120 pregnancies resulted in Zika-associated birth defects.This is Special English.Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco have found that older people with persistent pain show quicker declines in memory as they age and are more likely to have dementia years later.Findings from their study, which appears to be the first to make this association, indicate that chronic pain could somehow be related to changes in the brain that contribute to dementia.The researchers analyzed data from 10,000 participants aged 60 and up over a 12-year period.The participants who said they were persistently troubled by moderate or severe pain in both years 1998 and 2000 declined 9 percent faster in tests of memory function over the next 10 years than those who said they were not troubled by pain.Those who complained about persistent pain also had a small but significantly increased likelihood of developing dementia overall.Researchers say the findings point toward new ways of thinking about how to protect older people from the cognitive insults of aging.Elderly people need to maintain their cognition to stay independent. Up to one in three older people suffer from chronic pain, so understanding the relationship between pain and cognitive decline is an important first step toward finding ways to help this population.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to crienglish.com. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. Now the news continues.U.S. researchers studying autism say they were now able to use brain scans to detect functional changes in high-risk babies as young as six months of age and then predict who would be diagnosed with the condition at age two.Autism affects roughly one out of every 68 children in the United States. Siblings of children diagnosed with autism are at higher risk of developing the disorder.Although early diagnosis and intervention can help improve outcomes for children with autism, there currently is no method to diagnose the disease before children show symptoms.The current study is conducted by a research team led by investigators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study focused on the brain's functional connectivity, or how regions of the brain work together during different tasks and during rest.Using an imaging technique called functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers have scanned 59 high-risk, six-month-old infants while they slept naturally.The children were deemed high-risk because they have older siblings with autism. At the age of two, 11 of the 59 infants in this group were diagnosed with autism, and nine of the 11 infants would go on to have autism.This is Special English.The Australian State of New South Wales' health department has announced that it will ban sugary soft drinks in all hospitals and care facilities by the end of this year, in order to combat the growing problem of obesity.The move comes as part of its "Make Healthy Normal" campaign, which aims to achieve a five percent reduction in overweight and obesity rates in adults by 2020.Chief health officer Kerry Chant said there's no better way to start than right here on our own doorstep. He said it is important that NSW Health provides healthy food and drink choices for all the staff and visitors.Chant said that by establishing this model, they hope it shows how a workable strategy can be successfully implemented across any organization to assist healthier choices in any staffing environment.According to the NSW Heart Foundation, a health advocacy and charity group, "one in two adults and more than one in five children in NSW are overweight or obese. It dramatically heightens the risk of a wide range of chronic health conditions including "type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and some cancers.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. A new study by University of Washington transportation engineers indicates that delivering packages with drones can reduce carbon dioxide emissions in certain circumstances as compared to truck deliveries.The study suggests that drones tend to have carbon dioxide emissions advantages over trucks when the drones don't have to fly very far to their destinations or when a delivery route has few recipients; and they compete especially well for small, light packages, such as a bottle of medicine or a kid's bathing suit.However, the carbon benefits erode as the weight of a package increases, since unmanned aerial vehicles have to use additional energy to stay aloft with a heavy load.The study compares carbon dioxide emissions and vehicle miles traveled from drone and truck deliveries in 10 different, real-world scenarios in Los Angeles, Southern California. The study noted that it's unlikely that drones will be used for all delivery applications but that there are some contexts in which they appear to make sense, such as shorter trips in less densely developed communities, or in controlled places like a military base or campus.This is Special English."Wonder Woman" of Warner Bros. topped the box office in North America with an estimated 100 million U.S. dollars on its debut weekend, making the Patty Jenkins-directed superhero film the biggest ever opening weekend for a female director.The latest DC Comics superhero movie is the first big-budget superhero movie with a female lead to be directed by a woman. The previous record-holder for top opening for a female director was Sam Taylor-Johnson's "Fifty Shades of Grey" which debuted with an 85 million U.S. dollars on its debut weekend in 2015.And overseas, "Wonder Woman" also won the weekend with 122.5 million U.S. dollars from 55 markets for a global sum of 223 million U.S. dollars.Film analysts say the movie helps to get a lackluster summer so far heading in the right direction. A perfectly cast Gal Gadot in the lead role coupled with a great release date, killer marketing campaign and above all a great movie that has both critics and audiences buzzing on social media, contributed to this better than expected result.（全文见周日微信。）

Watch Video | Listen to the AudioJUDY WOODRUFF: Turning a corner, after decades of health warnings, cigarette sales have fallen sharply in the United States and Europe, but multinational tobacco corporations are targeting huge new markets in the developing world, including countries in Asia. In a report produced with Global Health Frontiers, Hari Sreenivasan explains that in the Philippines, anti-smoking activists are now pushing back. ACTIVISTS: We want the pictures now! Pictures save lives! HARI SREENIVASAN: On the streets in Manila, demonstrators march against tobacco. ACTIVIST: We want to make our voices heard. HARI SREENIVASAN: Their cause is supported by the medical profession here. DR. TONY LEACHON, Philippine College of Physicians: Smoking’s the number one killer in the Philippines. HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tony Leachon is the president of the Philippine College of Physicians. DR. TONY LEACHON: For the young Filipinos, smoking is considered a macho image for men. SMOKER: I know it’s bad — it’s bad for our health, but this is to relax myself out from work. RACHEL ROSARIO, Philippine Cancer Society: Culturally, smoking seems to be an accepted mode of socialization, an accepted mode of relaxation. HARI SREENIVASAN: Rachel Rosario is with the Philippine Cancer Society. RACHEL ROSARIO: There is that vision of holding a cigarette and smoking with makeup — it seems to be something that we have to fight against. SMOKER: It’s really hard to kick the habit. I try to lessen it down, cut it, but then you always have that urge. HARI SREENIVASAN: The fight against smoking here won a major victory four years ago when the Philippine Congress passed what is called the “Sin Tax Law”, imposing a tax that effectively doubled the price of cigarettes. MAN (through translator): It's expensive. It's five pesos a stick. SMOKER (through translator): The effect on me is I'm smoking less. It's more expensive. SMOKER: I used to be a pack a day, now I'm like half. HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Maria Encarnita Limpin leads the framework convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines. DR. ENCARNITA BLANCO-LIMPIN, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance: From 1990 to 2008, the rate of smoking in the country has never really gone below 30 percent. The latest survey that we did in the country showed dramatic drop in the prevalence rate of smoking. This time, it is going down from above 31 percent to 25 percent. That’s a big deduction. HARI SREENIVASAN: Private held leaders say a major reason why the sin tax law was passed was the grassroots campaign organized by cancer survivor Emer Roxas. EMER ROJAS, Cancer Survivor: I started smoke can at the age of 17. And at the age of 44, I got stage 4 throat cancer, and that was 12 years ago. They removed my vocal cords so that the cancer would go away. HARI SREENIVASAN: Before cancer, Rojas was a successful engineer, businessman and radio broadcaster. ERIKA ROJAS, Emer’s Daughter: I still remember that voice when he was singing. Before, he used to sing a lot whenever there was a birthday party. EMER’S WIFE: He loves to sing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” EMER ROJAS: That’s my favorite song. EMER’S WIFE: Yes, I know. HARI SREENIVASAN: Rojas says he felt he was given a second life, and he decided he would commit his life to making people aware of what happened to him because of smoking, and his family has joined him. ACTIVIST: All of us in the family, we’re volunteers. ACTIVIST: I want to save lives of other people. I don't want for them to experience what we experience with Emer. HARI SREENIVASAN: With rallies, speeches, and messaging on radio and television, Rojas developed the new voice association as a powerful advocate against smoking, especially to protect children. DR. ENCARNITA BLANCO-LIMPIN: All of the strategies of the tobacco companies, particularly their advertising strategy. They're all geared to hook the young children into starting smoking at an earlier age. And since of the adults would actually grow old and eventually die. And therefore, they need new market. ACTIVIST: The children agree that cigarette smoking is really bad, right, kids? Cigarette smoking is bad. STUDENTS: Cigarette smoking is bad. HARI SREENIVASAN: Another new law, following examples in other countries, requires health warnings and graphic pictures on cigarette packaging. DR. TONY LEACHON: The graphic health warnings have been helpful in other countries, and basically we’re going to use this for the young population, of course, to women as well. SMOKER: I've been to some airports and they do sell those packs with pictures of throat cancer, your lungs are all wrecked up, I guess it made you think a bit, but at the end of the day, I'm, like, where’s my pack of cigarettes? ACTIVIST: Pictures save lives! HARI SREENIVASAN: After months of delay, and rallies like this, the law requiring graphic health warnings is now in effect. But public health advocates say they’ve not yet won the war against tobacco. Millions of Filipinos still face lifelong addiction, and the benefits from the sin tax and graphic warnings won’t be clearly evident for decades. ACTIVIST: One, two, three — STUDENTS: Do not smoke! ACTIVIST: Very good! HARI SREENIVASAN: For the “PBS NewsHour”, I'm Hari Sreenivasan. The post This cancer survivor wants to stop kids in the Philippines from lighting up appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Watch Video | Listen to the AudioJUDY WOODRUFF: Turning a corner, after decades of health warnings, cigarette sales have fallen sharply in the United States and Europe, but multinational tobacco corporations are targeting huge new markets in the developing world, including countries in Asia. In a report produced with Global Health Frontiers, Hari Sreenivasan explains that in the Philippines, anti-smoking activists are now pushing back. ACTIVISTS: We want the pictures now! Pictures save lives! HARI SREENIVASAN: On the streets in Manila, demonstrators march against tobacco. ACTIVIST: We want to make our voices heard. HARI SREENIVASAN: Their cause is supported by the medical profession here. DR. TONY LEACHON, Philippine College of Physicians: Smoking’s the number one killer in the Philippines. HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tony Leachon is the president of the Philippine College of Physicians. DR. TONY LEACHON: For the young Filipinos, smoking is considered a macho image for men. SMOKER: I know it’s bad — it’s bad for our health, but this is to relax myself out from work. RACHEL ROSARIO, Philippine Cancer Society: Culturally, smoking seems to be an accepted mode of socialization, an accepted mode of relaxation. HARI SREENIVASAN: Rachel Rosario is with the Philippine Cancer Society. RACHEL ROSARIO: There is that vision of holding a cigarette and smoking with makeup — it seems to be something that we have to fight against. SMOKER: It’s really hard to kick the habit. I try to lessen it down, cut it, but then you always have that urge. HARI SREENIVASAN: The fight against smoking here won a major victory four years ago when the Philippine Congress passed what is called the “Sin Tax Law”, imposing a tax that effectively doubled the price of cigarettes. MAN (through translator): It’s expensive. It’s five pesos a stick. SMOKER (through translator): The effect on me is I’m smoking less. It’s more expensive. SMOKER: I used to be a pack a day, now I’m like half. HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Maria Encarnita Limpin leads the framework convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines. DR. ENCARNITA BLANCO-LIMPIN, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance: From 1990 to 2008, the rate of smoking in the country has never really gone below 30 percent. The latest survey that we did in the country showed dramatic drop in the prevalence rate of smoking. This time, it is going down from above 31 percent to 25 percent. That’s a big deduction. HARI SREENIVASAN: Private held leaders say a major reason why the sin tax law was passed was the grassroots campaign organized by cancer survivor Emer Roxas. EMER ROJAS, Cancer Survivor: I started smoke can at the age of 17. And at the age of 44, I got stage 4 throat cancer, and that was 12 years ago. They removed my vocal cords so that the cancer would go away. HARI SREENIVASAN: Before cancer, Rojas was a successful engineer, businessman and radio broadcaster. ERIKA ROJAS, Emer’s Daughter: I still remember that voice when he was singing. Before, he used to sing a lot whenever there was a birthday party. EMER’S WIFE: He loves to sing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” EMER ROJAS: That’s my favorite song. EMER’S WIFE: Yes, I know. HARI SREENIVASAN: Rojas says he felt he was given a second life, and he decided he would commit his life to making people aware of what happened to him because of smoking, and his family has joined him. ACTIVIST: All of us in the family, we’re volunteers. ACTIVIST: I want to save lives of other people. I don’t want for them to experience what we experience with Emer. HARI SREENIVASAN: With rallies, speeches, and messaging on radio and television, Rojas developed the new voice association as a powerful advocate against smoking, especially to protect children. DR. ENCARNITA BLANCO-LIMPIN: All of the strategies of the tobacco companies, particularly their advertising strategy. They’re all geared to hook the young children into starting smoking at an earlier age. And since of the adults would actually grow old and eventually die. And therefore, they need new market. ACTIVIST: The children agree that cigarette smoking is really bad, right, kids? Cigarette smoking is bad. STUDENTS: Cigarette smoking is bad. HARI SREENIVASAN: Another new law, following examples in other countries, requires health warnings and graphic pictures on cigarette packaging. DR. TONY LEACHON: The graphic health warnings have been helpful in other countries, and basically we’re going to use this for the young population, of course, to women as well. SMOKER: I’ve been to some airports and they do sell those packs with pictures of throat cancer, your lungs are all wrecked up, I guess it made you think a bit, but at the end of the day, I’m, like, where’s my pack of cigarettes? ACTIVIST: Pictures save lives! HARI SREENIVASAN: After months of delay, and rallies like this, the law requiring graphic health warnings is now in effect. But public health advocates say they’ve not yet won the war against tobacco. Millions of Filipinos still face lifelong addiction, and the benefits from the sin tax and graphic warnings won’t be clearly evident for decades. ACTIVIST: One, two, three — STUDENTS: Do not smoke! ACTIVIST: Very good! HARI SREENIVASAN: For the “PBS NewsHour”, I’m Hari Sreenivasan. The post This cancer survivor wants to stop kids in the Philippines from lighting up appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

As the dust settles on the newly minted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris climate agreement, countries have begun tackling operational questions aimed at limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius and ensuring peaceful, sustainable development. “Paris and the SDGs really do define the landscape for better or for worse,” says Ken Conca, director of the Global Environmental Politics Program at American University, in this week’s podcast. In addition to operational questions at the country level, it remains to be seen how international institutions, like the United Nations, will adjust to the commitments and principles laid out in these agreements. Conca said the existing United Nations mandate articulates a clear four-part mission: to promote peace, development, human rights, and international law. But “if you look at the history of environmental initiatives in the UN,” he says, “the UN really only stands on two of its four legs.” According to Conca, there is a lot of work on development and international law, but “until recently, there's been very little on peace and conflict and the environmental linkages.” “If you really want to be able to do risk assessment in a whole of governance and strategic and forward-looking way, it requires a combination of institutional reform and political leadership,” Conca explains. The few open, high profile conversations about climate change and security by the UN Security Council over the last decade were led by Britain (2007) and Germany (2011) as they rotated into the chairmanship. But those conversations, according to Conca have been highly contentious as well as rife with institutional jockeying and confusion. There is ongoing debate whether the responsibility for addressing climate-related security issues lies with the Framework Convention on Climate Change, a forum for climate negotiations, or the Security Council, which authorizes military actions and sanctions. Regardless of which UN organization ultimately has primary responsibility, “it's going to be really important to have a capable and functional Security Council on the questions of climate change and international conflict,” Conca says. Focusing on the ends rather than the means may help. Establishing and protecting rights could be a catalyst for effective implementation where institutional reform falls short. “To me, it's people as rights holders in the context of these challenges that really ultimately provides us with the political energy as opposed to the desired foresight of governments,” Conca says. “I think rights-based approaches really help us establish priorities.” Ken Conca spoke at the Wilson Center on May 6, 2016.

Cigarette pricing is an important aspect of the tobacco industry because price is an effective way to reduce global smoking prevalence, according to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Don Hedley, research analyst at Euromonitor International, explains that there is an ongoing argument between tobacco companies and the FCTC regarding cigarette pricing. While the FCTC says that lower prices will reduce smokers worldwide, tobacco companies say that higher prices will increase illicit trade in the global tobacco industry. Governments can also weigh in on the issue, as taxes on tobacco products generally benefit governments. Governments can also insist that manufacturers raise prices to generate more revenue.

A variety of political and legal institutions have been established over time to manage the issue of climate change at the global level, mostly centered on the UN. These institutions have varied in terms of the nature and depth of obligations they impose on states. The shallow and nonbinding Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) was followed by the more legalized Kyoto Protocol, which in turn is being replaced by a more decentralized and flexible approach. Professor Thompson will describe these changes and offer an explanation for the design and evolution of climate institutions from the perspective of political and environmental effectiveness. He will also offer policy recommendations based on current problems in the regime and the political realities exposed by ongoing negotiations.

--{ Dictatorship of Science Tolerates No Defiance: "The Charade of Sovereignty by Those Who Lead, Into Brave New World, On Route We Bleed, All Rights and Freedoms and All Wealth Goes To 'Money Heaven,' to He Who Knows, Present Generation to be Pushed to the Max, Punished by Energy, Food and Carbon Tax, Make No Mistake, They Will Not Swerve, These Tyrants We'll be Made to Serve, 'Change is Good -- Yes We Can,' The Chant in Accordance with Ancient Plan, Their March, Methodical, Never Hurried, To Mass Graves, They Want Us Buried" © Alan Watt }-- Historians, Authorized Versions of History - Front of Democracy - Parallel Government - Centralization of Power - Fortress America (Amalgamation) - Super-Parliaments, Empire - European Union, "Closer Ties", Rule by Unelected Council, New Upgraded Soviet. Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty, 95% Emissions Cut by 2050, Energy Consumption Penalties and Fees - Signing of Kyoto Treaty 1992 - Population Reduction Targets. Club of Rome, "The First Global Revolution" book, Finding a New Enemy (Man): Water Shortage, Famine, Pollution - Aerial Spraying, HAARP - Enviro-Cons, "Eco-Friendly" Cremation Shrouds. Everyone is Potential Terrorist and Criminal - Fish and Wildlife Dept. SWAT Team Home Search for "Illegal" Orchids - Laws added Daily - Men in Black Gear, Uniformed Brotherhood, Gang Mentality. Elimination of Leather and Meat-Eating - Parroted Fashions, Walking Billboards, Marketer's Dream - Cocaine the Norm for TV Personalities - New Scientific Priesthood, Political Correctness - Finding Enemies Within - One International Agenda. (Articles: ["Europe offers to cut emissions 95% by 2050 if deal reached at Copenhagen" by Ian Traynor (guardian.co.uk) - Oct. 21, 2009.] ["Statement on Signing the Framework Convention on Climate Change - 1992-06-12" [Bush Senior signed US into Climate-Sustainable-Development Treaty] (bushlibrary.tamu.edu).] ["Criminalizing everyone" by Brian W. Walsh (washingtontimes.com) - Oct. 5, 2009.] ["World Agenda: no role for democracy in search for Europe president" by David Charter (timesonline.co.uk) - Oct. 21, 2009.] ["Senior broadcasters on cocaine 'praised for creative genius' " by Adam Sherwin (timesonline.co.uk) - Oct. 21, 2009.]) *Title/Poem and Dialogue Copyrighted Alan Watt - Oct. 23, 2009 (Exempting Music, Literary Quotes, and Callers' Comments)