akaashmaharaj

[akaashmaharaj]

Goats of the Big Apple

When driving through Colborne, I almost always stop at the Big Apple to pick up an apple pie. Or three.

On my most recent trip, I discovered that it is now home to a tribe of goats.

I like to imagine that they run apple quality control.

🍎🐐 https://thebigapple.ca/

[akaashmaharaj]

Reddit's Public Content Policy and a New Subreddit for Researchers

There is nothing genuinely intelligent about artificial intelligence. Yet, its positive promise to extract meaning from information, and its negative risks to privacy and social cohesion, are all very real.

I volunteered on a Reddit effort to create platform policies to protect an open internet, while restraining the abuse of user information, especially by firms harvesting online data to glut the maw of AI beasts.

It may be a David versus Goliath struggle. But David slew Goliath.

🤖 http://via.maharaj.org/rd-cntnt

[akaashmaharaj]

Goodbye to Susannah Goshko

I was delighted to work with Susannah Goshko during her tenure as UK High Commissioner to Canada.

She was admirably active in supporting our countries' common aspirations towards pluralism, in nurturing relationships between environmental groups, and in drawing together Canadian alumni of British universities.

I wish her well in her new role as UK Ambassador to Mexico.

🇨🇦🇬🇧 http://via.maharaj.org/sgoshko

[akaashmaharaj]

Diplomatic Immunity and Criminal Accountability

Canada grants diplomatic immunity to foreign diplomats, not to place them above our laws, but as the price for us to obtain reciprocal immunity for our own diplomats, especially those representing us in states where false charges are common political weapons.

But what recourse does that leave us, if foreign diplomats commit crimes in Canada?

I spoke with Global News about Canada's options, amidst government allegations that Indian diplomats conspired to murder Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.

⚖️ http://via.maharaj.org/dipimm

[akaashmaharaj]

Voting by White Americans in Presidential Elections

The American presidential election continued a stark, generations-long pattern.

No Democratic presidential candidate has ever won the White vote, at least since exit polls began measuring votes by race in 1976.

It is unclear to me if the Democrats had, or have, any plan to try to break this pattern.

[akaashmaharaj]

Vote for new chancellor of the University of Oxford breaks with centuries of tradition

For the first time in 800 years, Oxford will select its new Chancellor in an election open to Oxonians living anywhere in the world.

It is easy to dismiss the role as a ceremonial artefact of a distant past. But when I was President of the University's Student Union, I saw the Chancellorship's capacity to project reason into the public sphere, and to defend the value of thoughtful scholarship in public discourse.

📰 Read the Globe and Mail article here.

[akaashmaharaj]

The End of COP 16

Well, that was exhausting: COP 16 has drawn to a close.

I only regret that my work as a member of Canada's state delegation left me too little time to support my Nature Canada colleagues, Ted Cheskey and Lillian Trapper. They represented us at civil society events with distinction.

Our negotiations ran late into the night. Physical exhaustion is an effective argument in driving diplomats to agreement.

We had victories on Indigenous representation and protection of genetic resources. We have work yet to do on the treaty's financial architecture.

I am looking forward to returning to the Ottawa Valley, and enjoying nature in its autumnal colours. I hope our work at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity means that many more generations will have that chance, too.

🌱 https://via.maharaj.org/cop16

[akaashmaharaj]

A Victory in Colombia

Our negotiations continued into the dying minutes of COP 16 in Colombia, until they were suspended.

But we did cross one finish line in time.

The world's Indigenous Peoples will now have their own permanent body at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, to speak for themselves and defend their own lands and waters.

This is a landmark moment in United Nations treaty-making.

It was a long night, but also a good day.

🌱 https://via.maharaj.org/cop16

[akaashmaharaj]

Final 24 Hours of Negotiations at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP 16

We are into the final twenty-four hours of negotiations at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP 16.

One critical issue is coming down to the wire: the creation of an "Article 8J" body, to enable Indigenous people to speak for themselves at the convention, in defence of their own lands, waters, and sovereignty.

My colleagues and I are committed to the creation of this body. Some states are opposed.

It is a fundamental test of character for international diplomacy.

🌱 https://via.maharaj.org/cop16

[akaashmaharaj]

“Canada’s Environment Minister didn’t make it to the UN nature summit. He blames the opposition.”

Because of the government's political fragility, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault decided not to travel to Colombia to join Canada's state delegation to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's COP16.

I spoke with The Narwhal about whether his absence is affecting our negotiations.

🌱 http://via.maharaj.org/cop16-nar

[akaashmaharaj]

Moving the UN from Prim Words to Urgent Deeds

Our world is enduring the sixth mass extinction in its history: the Anthropocene Extinction. Species are disappearing at a thousand times the natural rate.

Unlike the great dyings of past epochs, this one is driven not by natural planetary catastrophes, but by human activity.

My role as a member of Canada’s state delegation at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is to wield Nature Canada’s policy expertise, to press the treaty from prim words to urgent deeds.

🌱 http://via.maharaj.org/cop16

[akaashmaharaj]

Negotiations at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP 16

Negotiations at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity can, at times, descend into mind-numbing minutiae.

Yet, the stakes could hardly be higher.

We are the midst of a human-driven mass extinction: species are disappearing at a thousand times the natural rate, and nearly 30% of surviving species are at risk.

Our negotiations are a moment of decision in the story of our world, not only for the human race, but for life itself.

🌱 https://cbd.int/

[akaashmaharaj]

At the UN Convention on Biological Diversity

Like so many treaties, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity is covenant of high words, too often answered by low deeds.

In my role as a member of Canada’s COP 16 state delegation, I have a special interest in pursuing mechanisms to judge whether countries are meeting their responsibilities, and to enforce public accountability on those that do not.

It is not an easy case to press. But I think it is the single most important contribution I can make.

🌱 https://cbd.int/

[akaashmaharaj]

On My Way to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity

En route to Colombia, as a member of Canada's state delegation to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity's #COP16Colombia

I should have expected Shakira to greet us at Bogotá's airport.

Diplomats, scientists, and naturalists from across the world are gathering to negotiate measures to halt the collapse in global biodiversity.

🌱 https://cbd.int/

[akaashmaharaj]

The Green Budget Coalition 2024 AGM

The Green Budget Coalition held our AGM in a deconsecrated church.

Discussing the federal budget's impact on ecological stewardship in that setting seemed apt: a commingling of the sacred and the profane.

The Coalition is made up of Canada's twenty-two leading environmental organisations.

🌱 https://greenbudget.ca/

[akaashmaharaj]

Canadian Olympic Committee April 2024 Session

I attended the final Session of the Canadian Olympic Committee, before the Paris Olympics and Paralympics.

We covered a great deal of ground: a new strategic plan; implications of the recent federal budget; the coming "Future of Sport in Canada Commission".

The Paris Games will focus public attention on high performance sport.

This increases the opportunity for the Olympic movement to make the case for sport as a public good, worthy of public support; it also heightens the urgency for sport institutions to put their houses in order, in protecting athlete rights, fostering greater inclusion, and improving governance.

🍁🏅 https://olympic.ca/

[akaashmaharaj]

With the Privy Council at DemocracyXChange

Since the Privy Council Office's DemocracyXChange discussion on combatting foreign disinformation, one issue has continued to gnaw at my thoughts.

The vast majority of online disinformation are crude lies and vulgar slurs.

They proliferate not because of sophisticated deception, but because too many of us are too eager to thoughtlessly spread content that reinforces our own views or debases those who disagree with us.

The fight against disinformation is not only a fight against malign foreign governments; it is also a struggle with our own societies' worst impulses.