Mongolia's Baasankhuu, Netherlands' Stegehuis win titles at 2019 Yunnan Granfondo cycling www.xinhuanet.com

KUNMING, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's Myagmarsuren Baasankhuu and the Netherlands' Annemiek Stegehuis won the titles out of men's and women's categories respectively at 2019 Colourful Yunnan International Granfondo in Lijiang, Yunnan province on Saturday.

Cost of Ivanhoe’s giant copper project in Congo hits $1.3 billion www.mining.com

Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) said Friday that initial capital costs for its Kakula copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is now estimated at $1.3 billion, and 18% increase over planned costs.

Russia scraps plans to set climate-change goals for businesses www.mining.com

Russia has ditched plans to set greenhouse-gas emissions targets for companies as a sign of its commitment to fighting climate change, following lobbying from big businesses that risked fines if they didn’t comply.

The measure was part of a bill intended to accompany Russia’s ratification of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change in September. Instead, the world’s fourth-largest carbon polluter scrapped the proposal after the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) warned it would raise costs for companies and delay investment.

“After consultations with the government, it was decided to abandon the specific regulatory requirements,” the press department of the Economy Ministry, which is drafting the bill, said by email. “The government will have the right to decide after Jan. 1, 2024 what measures to introduce if Russia is forecast to miss its emissions targets.”

Economy Ministry
Rising global temperatures pose potentially devastating risks for Russia, where thawing of the vast permafrost area covering more than half the country threatens damage to buildings, energy pipelines and other infrastructure. With the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, Russian government estimates put economic losses at $2.3 billion a year.

While President Vladimir Putin has questioned whether human activity is solely responsible for climate change, he finally agreed to ratify the Paris accord this year and declared that Russia must do whatever it can to mitigate the effects of global warming. It’s a particular challenge for Russia’s economy, which is heavily dependent on oil and gas production and mining. The permafrost zone contains 15% of Russia’s oil and 80% of its gas operations.

Fining companies
Companies would have been fined for exceeding their emissions targets under the abandoned legislation. The measure wasn’t a requirement of the Paris accord, since Russia has a low goal for greenhouse gas reductions. But advocates argued it would demonstrate the Kremlin’s commitment to confronting climate change, and also bring Russia into line with international practice as part of efforts to shift the economy away from carbon-heavy industries.

The RSPP attacked the draft proposals at a meeting in parliament in March, warning they would lead to increased energy prices and inflation that would “negatively affect the well-being of ordinary people” and force companies to abandon investment plans. An RSPP spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment.

Critics also argued the measure was unnecessary because Russia can increase its emissions over the next decade and still meet its self-imposed target under the Paris accord. That’s because it uses 1990 as the baseline reference year for reducing greenhouse gases, the year before the collapse of the Soviet Union triggered one of the most devastating economic contractions in modern history.

Russia is pledging to limit emissions to 70% to 75% of baseline levels by 2030. It has until the end of 2020 to present its new long-term strategy for reducing carbon emissions, according to Ruslan Edelgeriev, Putin’s senior adviser on climate change.

“Russia is choosing to delay the process of establishing a system for reducing carbon emissions,” said Georgy Safonov, head of the Center for Environmental and Natural Resource Economics at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “The 2030 goals have already been met, so there’s a feeling that we don’t need to do anything to cut emissions before then.”

Even so, Russia is rated among the countries whose efforts are “critically insufficient” to help meet the Paris accord’s overall goal of limiting worldwide warming to well below 2 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels this century, according to the Climate Action Tracker research group. The London-based Carbon Tracker think tank calculates that the world’s major oil and gas companies need to cut combined production by 35% by 2040 to keep emissions within the Paris targets.

Unlike most developed countries, Russia has no state system for monitoring and regulating companies’ greenhouse gas emissions. Some publicly-listed companies in Russia collect data and set targets voluntarily, following pressure from international investors. In many countries, fines and taxes collected from carbon emitters are invested in renewable-energy projects.

Russia also needs to redirect money into the green economy if it wants to stay competitive abroad, according to Mikhail Yulkin, general director for the Center for Environmental Investments, a consultancy based in Arkhangelsk. In particular, a European Commission proposal for a carbon border tax could have a big impact on Russia’s economy, Yulkin said in comments first published in Kommersant newspaper.

“The model on which the Russian economy has survived for the past 20 years is dying,” Yulkin said. “We just need to find a convenient method of transferring funds to sectors that promote the development of low-carbon industries.”

(By Natasha Doff — with assistance from Anya Andrianova and Andrey Biryukov.)

Bold: 30 percent of net profit will be distributed to shareholders as dividends www.zgm.mn

Tumen Shuvuut JSC, listen on the Mongolian Stock Exchange (MSE), has recently presented its quarterly financial performance. Since its establishment in 2004, Tumen Shuvuut has been con-stantly expanding its operations in egg production and poultry farm-ing. The company launched its IPO on January 16. The Official Gazette sat down with Bold.J, Executive Director of Tumen Shuvuut JSC, to discuss about the IPO and the company’s financial performance.

Great Expectations: Ovoot mine project EBITDA forecasts www.news.mn

ASX-listed and Mongolia-focussed metallurgical coal developer, Aspire Mining, says its Ovoot Early Development Project, will pump out a stunning annual EBITDA of AUD$279 million from the production of 4 million tonnes a year of sought-after “fat” coking coal for delivery into China.

Russia’s plans for the Tavan Tolgoi – Zuunbayan railway www.news.mn

Sergey Pavlov, General Director of RZD International, has presented a business proposal from Russian Railways to participate in the construction of a line from Tavan Tolgoi-Zuunbayan. The Russian proposal involves bridge and pipeline crossing design works as well as implementing the senior management development strategy in cooperation with the Ulaanbaatar Railways Mongolian-Russian joint stock company. Mr Pavlov presented the proposal to B.Enkh-Amgalan, Minister of Road and Transport Development of Mongolia earlier this week.

Training on waste management of chemicals used in mining kicks off www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. In the framework of the Environmental Governance Programme implemented by the UNDP with the financial support of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, a three-day training kicked off under the theme, ‘Waste management of hazardous and toxic chemicals used in mining operations, and land rehabilitation’, on November 6.

In Mongolia, proposed legislation endangers civil society www.washingtonpost.com

The Mongolian parliament’s fall legislative agenda includes debate of a proposed draft law on nonprofit legal entities. The draft law shares provisions used in recent laws to restrict civil society in Russia, Poland and Hungary.

The proposed legislation calls for the creation of the Civil Society Development Council, an institution that will have vast power over nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Mongolia, including foreign-funded institutions, and require NGOs to submit annual reports detailing all of their financial contributions and activities for approval. Exactly how the council will use this information to determine the legitimacy of NGO activities remains unclear. This uncertainty could potentially leave Mongolia’s civil society open to arbitrary and restrictive provisions.

A landlocked country surrounded by China and Russia, Mongolia surprised scholars with its rapid transition to democracy after 1990. Political scientists M. Steven Fish and Michael Seeberg credit the “secret supports” of Mongolia’s civil society — the country has a strong culture of NGOs that advocate for human rights, check government corruption, and promote transparency and oversight of the country’s vast natural resources.

Across the globe, governments are cracking down on civic organizations. This is why.

Will the new law mean new threats to Mongolia’s democracy? Here’s what you need to know.

1. The broad focus on “national unity” could threaten civil society

Article 14.2 of the draft law prohibits any “organization or person that is conducting activities against national unity or that promotes money laundering or extremism.” Article 14.3 makes provisions for police and intelligence officers to investigate an NGO’s donors to determine their suitability.

These types of restrictions could become a justification for the government to curtail funding or revoke an NGO’s license to operate. For instance, human rights groups advocating for the equality of Mongolia’s LGBTQ population, women and minority ethnic groups might find their activities barred under such a law. Russia has used a similar law to repeatedly deny registration status for LGBTQ rights groups, saying that their work amounts to “extremist activities” that “undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation by decreasing its population.”

The draft law also could inhibit the work of any organization critical of the Mongolian government, which could affect anti-corruption measures. Mongolia, with a wealth of mineral resources, has seen large influxes of foreign capital — and high levels of corruption. This year, civil society fought to hold the government accountable after journalists revealed that 14 members of parliament, two ministers, one vice minister and 33 other high-level officials had embezzled millions of dollars from a fund intended to finance the development of the country’s small businesses.

A 2016 report by the Independent Research Institute of Mongolia reveals that NGOs focused on democracy, good governance and human rights make up 20.3 percent of the country’s registered NGOs. The draft law would incorporate tax benefits and government support for organizations that it deems act in “support the public good.” This could steer NGOs to alter their activities to receive government benefits — and suggests there will be greater government involvement in NGO activities.

Although civil society groups generally see the draft law as problematic, they acknowledge the need to upgrade Mongolia’s civil society framework. The country has 21,040 registered NGOs for a population of only 3 million — but only about 8,500 are active. Craig Castagna, the resident program director for the International Republican Institute, an international democracy-promotion NGO active in Mongolia since 1992, told me: “There is widespread agreement amongst stakeholders that Mongolia’s laws and regulations concerning NGOs need to be updated and streamlined, but not at the expense of restricting fundamental freedoms of assembly, association and expression.”

2. The law could halt critical foreign funding

The draft law also calls into question to what extent Mongolian NGOs will be able to receive support from foreign funders. Mongolian civil society is robust, but a struggling economy and a fledgling culture of philanthropy leaves many NGOs dependent on international donors to finance their operations. For example, the Gender Equality Center, an organization that does critical work in repatriating and rehabilitating Mongolian survivors of human trafficking, receives approximately 90 percent of its funding from foreign donors.

At the July 2018 Democracy in the 21st Century conference, held in Ulaanbaatar, Deputy Minister of Justice B. Enkhbayar laid out the justification for the new law, alleging that foreign funding of NGOs can lead to terrorism. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, an international coalition of human rights NGOs, found that governments often use fear of terrorism and money laundering — two terms that appear frequently in the Mongolian draft law — to target and silence NGOs engaged in the promotion and protection of civil and political rights.

3. Mongolia’s government also clamped down on the judiciary

In March, President Khaltmaagiin Battulga, in cooperation with Mongolia’s parliament, began to limit the independence of the judiciary and anti-corruption authority, citing the institutions’ use of torture to obtain confessions. A Bloomberg News profile called Battulga a “Genghis Khan-Idolizing Trump of the Steppe,” describing his successful effort to fast-track legislation that gave him the power to fire judges. The move sparked outrage among civil society groups, but they have been unable to reverse the government’s decision.

This fall, Mongolia’s Democracy Education Center has hosted public discussions to broaden awareness of how the draft law may damage the country’s democracy. These efforts may prove futile, given the strong government support for the measure. The Mongolian parliament may also be powerless to stop the pending legislation: The 14 parliamentarians implicated in this year’s embezzlement scandal remain in office, clinging to their parliamentary immunity from prosecution to avoid jail time.

With the president in control of Mongolia’s judiciary and anti-corruption authority, the threat of selective enforcement seems likely to encourage implicated parliamentarians to vote in line with the president’s preference. The big question now for many in Mongolia is whether civil society groups can delay a vote on the draft law until after the election of a new 76-member parliament, which is scheduled for June 2020.

Aubrey Menarndt (@AubreyMenarndt) is a Smith College and University of Oxford graduate who consults on democracy and governance issues throughout the world. She is the author of “Young Mongols: Forging Democracy in the Wild, Wild East” (Penguin Random House SEA, forthcoming 2020).

Asian youth boxers to compete in Mongolia www.xinhuanet.com

The Asian Youth Boxing Championships for female and male boxers will take place in Mongolia's capital Ulan Bator this month, the Mongolian Boxing Federation (MBF) said on Thursday.

Forum held on tea road that spans China, Mongolia and Russia www.chinadaily.com.cn

Culture and tourism experts from China, Mongolia and Russia recently gathered in Nanping city, Fujian province, for an international forum on the Tea Road of Ten Thousand Miles.