Austeren Leader in Hirematia

[Hirematia]

"I'm doing fine, thank you," replies. Taankatawa. "How are the negotiations going so far?"

"They're going well," Sivasaa replies. "So far, we've established that we will have to more closely monitor imports of whale products and large fish products to ensure that they are not Valian bottlenose whales being poached from Austerain. And we're considering a ban on whaling entirely."

"So, what would the Austeren delegation like to order?" the waiter asks again.

[Austerain]

"I'll have the ceunawaana, Secretary Daniels and Secretary Taylor will have the billibada skewer, and General Brockwell will have the lamb shank," Versace says to the waiter, "Thank you."

She says to Taankatawa, "We suspect that poachers could be hunting for the Valian bottlenose whales along the migration path from the south Austeren martime borders to the northwestern Hirematian maritime borders if not being officially imported."

[Hirematia]

The waiter notes down the orders, smiles, and walks back to the kitchen.

Taankatawa replies, "I have a recommended course of operation for this. What we need to do is ban the sale of all whale products. It shouldn't take too much of a toll on either the market or the earnings of port officials, so this shouldn't be a problem. Then, we need to find the perpetrators of the poaching. I'll need all the details at the government's disposal."

"We don't have many details, but we have some," Mechhai replies, opening a spreadsheet on his laptop. "We know that, approximately one month ago, the price of products derived from Valian bottlenose whale fell by approximately 12.3% in markets nationwide. The greatest reduction in price was in the fish markets of the northern islands, where prices fell by a remarkable 19.4%. The main fishmongers selling these whales are supplied by Rakihauari Hirematia Alvadihimonaniea Co, and Tohoraniea Hirematia to a lesser extent."

"What details does the Austeren government know about the poaching?" Taankatwa asks.

[Austerain]

Versace looks at her notes, "Since placing the Valian bottlenose whale on the endangered list years ago, the underground market prices have increased significantly (as expected when the supply goes down while demand is up). However, poaching of these whales is a problem mainly concentrated around the southwestern island provinces of Austerain, where natives poach them for their oil and their meat. Among the natives, the meat and oil from this type of whale is believed to have medicinal properties when consumed or burned. The Nationalist Islanders', for that reason, have been adamant against federal efforts to education programs and enforcement of protecting the species down there. So the rate of poaching has been much higher in the area, and the prices have been lower than the increased average. It's possible that there are underground sea routes, so to speak, between Springvale and Hirematia. I'm unsure how willing the Nationalist Islanders' would be to allow Thorne to impose a crackdown on poaching and the sea routes."

[Hirematia]

"Hm, that's strange," Mechhai replies. "I thought that the Nationalist Islanders had an environmentalist platform."

"I say Thorne should push through legislation anyway," Taankatawa replies. "We need to take an aggressive stance on poaching, and as long as you can get the LP and the some of the PCP to support the legislation, the NIP can be dismissed. I say that education programs should be pushed through as well as stricter anti-poaching safeguards. Are there any specific companies you suspect are behind the poaching in Austerain? If so, we could send extra patrols after these companies."

[Austerain]

"Somewhat," Versace says, "They're very pro-environment, yet if the cultural traditions of the islands are jeopardized by say, restricting whale hunting, they're reluctant to actually push for such policies. Rather hypocritical, I'd say."

Versace looks over her glasses, "I'm sure he could, although it wouldn't make his coalition happy. PDP with the Liberal Party alone could get the legislation through, so he could get the poaching legislation through if he's willing to use that political capital. The Department of Education is working with the Department of Agriculture to draw up new standards and to force them through categorical grants for the updated textbooks and workbooks. As for suspected companies, we suspect Gaul Marine Co. and RoseuCorp, though we've been assigning officers from the Department of Agriculture to monitor some of their seacraft."

[Hirematia]

"A compromise would be good here," Mechhai replies. Set up a small area of the ocean where whale hunting is allowed with lighter restrictions, and subject the rest of the waters to either severe restrictions or a complete ban. And in conjunction with this, we can work on increasing patrols and harsher sentencing for these crimes."

"Very hypocritical if you ask me," Taankatawa replies. "I hope they realize that if they keep hunting these whales, that aspect of their culture will be gone forever. I do agree with a compromise, however. If the Nationalist Islanders are his coalition partner I don't see how they would be able to get that legislation through without seriously compromising his agenda. Just make sure that the free hunting area is not too large and doesn't receive a very high volume of Valian bottlenose whales."

"Here's a diagram of Valian bottlenose whale migration patterns. Each dot represents their approximate position at the beginning of a month, and the dot representing January is labelled. This could be very useful in saving money on patrols, as we can determine during which parts of the year to use them. Looks like for us, the most important times to increase patrols are late February to early June."

[Austerain]

Versace chuckles, "Right, they're focusing on the short term restrictions rather than the potential damage in the long term. I think they would be open to that compromise, say, a few hundred cubic kilometers just north of the western-most island province. Open to the Hirematian companies as well, but we certainly wouldn't want them concentrating too much within the area. Very cost-efficient plan, Mr. Taankatawa.

[Hirematia]

Sivasaa grabs a paper copy of the map and draws two blobs on it. "I think these areas would be best to limit hunting to. Valian bottlenose whales are hunted by Hirematians too. It's not as much of a cultural factor as in the Southern Islands of Austerain, but many would protest at banning their hunting altogether."

[Austerain]

Versace nods, "Of course. A little leeway might prevent public outrage and could satisfy the southern Austerens' NIP as a compromise. Good thinking." She writes down a few notes in your black leatherbound notebook, "So to recap: establish two limited hunting zones, increasing patrols on certain times of the year, setting harsher sentences for poaching, increased monitoring of fishing companies, establishing new standards to educate the public, and have each Port Authority increase monitoring of shipments. Am I missing anything or is there something else we're missing?"

[Hirematia]

"That would be all," Taankatawa replies. Mechhai and Sivasaa nod their heads in agreement.

Everyone finishes eating.

"Alright, now let's talk about increasing renewable usage," Sivasaa says. "We only have 4 and a half hours left before Versace must return, and we need the last 30 minutes for a short press conference."

"Right," Mechhai replies. "About that, the press conference has been moved to the lawn of the Soudhi idh Kharnyaangh to save us time."

Sivasaa pulls up a graph on her laptop. "This is the composition of our energy supply for last fiscal year," she says. "If you have one for Austerain, we can work on increasing our progress towards becoming carbon-neutral."

[Austerain]

Versace pulls a sheet of paper with a chart from her black book and passes it to Sivasaa.



"As you can see," she says, "There is a significant portion in which we use oil as a source. From what I'm aware, the President-Elect, his party, and NIP oppose big oil companies and will be making significant changes towards transitioning from oil to renewable sources of energy, starting with gradually phasing out oil plants. The use of geothermal energy is primarily concentrated in the Andorian Mountains of western Austerain in the province of Worcester, as well as the mountainous areas of the southern islands. We've constructed large wind and solar farms, including a couple offshore ones within the maritime borders of the province of Hyacinth."

[Hirematia]

"Do you have an estimated year for the full phasing out of fossil fuels?" Sivasaa asks. "Ours is 2039. We're working on phasing out coal first by replacing coal mines in the Kappinartha Mountains in Southern Hirematia, the only region where coal is still mined, with wind turbines. We expect to be able to employ 100% of former coal workers in the short term and 83% in the long term. The other 17% will have to move to other sectors, such as farming, so the government of the Kappiballa Republic is offering the grape growers in the region small subsidies so they can afford to expand and employ more people. We haven't pursued geothermal energy because of the enormous cost, but 50 years ago, there was a large rush in the construction of hydroelectric power plants. There are a few large dams, but most facilities are run-of-the-river due to little seasonal variability in river flows. There are also plenty of tidal facilities. We are looking at dismantling the Hanidaarankokara Dam and replacing it with a run-of-the-river facility to reduce the negative environmental impact it has had on the region."

"As for oil and natural gas," Mechhai adds, "Most of our oil comes from abroad, but most of our natural gas comes from fields in the north of Hirematia. Many natural gas companies have refused to be bought out by the government, and they seem to have no intention of transitioning towards green power. Their argument is that they employ 5,000 people in total, but transforming the natural gas fields into solar energy farms would easily create 5,800 jobs. And that's a conservative estimate. I don't think seizing their natural gas fields by force would be a constitutional move, and a federal subsidy in exchange for moving towards clean power may not sit well with voters. As for eliminating oil, we're slowly starting to freeze imports. As for the solution to decreasing natural gas, the only viable solution I see is regulating them out of existence, or at least to the point where they agree to be bought out. Keep in mind, government ownership of power production is a temporary move: we plan to fully reprivatize the energy sector by 2050."

[Austerain]

"For petroleum vehicles, we hope to phase those out by somewhere between 2025-2030 as the demand continues to decrease," Versace says, "As for full phasing out of fossil fuels, the Department of Energy hasn't established a set date yet, but I believe that it will be possible as early as 2036 if the Thorne Administration will commit to it. The trick with phasing out these industries is that there will be many workers who lose their jobs because their skills are no longer needed. To avoid this form of structural unemployment, I agree that we have to step up our re-employment program to re-train these workers for the clean energy industries. We actually have a shortage of workers for solar, wind, and geothermal plants, so transitioning the structurally unemployed will make up that shortage. That was a part of Thorne's economic policy when he ran for office, so I'm sure that this is what he will be doing as oil plants in the Province of Auradon, the few coal plants left in Worcester, and hydraulic fracking facilities in the Province of Ericsson continue to close down. Nuclear is also in the process of being phased out, as many Austerens don't see nuclear as totally renewable or 'clean' due to the environmental negative externalities to mining thorium and uranium, and the expensive costs."

[Hirematia]

"Right," Mechhai comments. "We're not looking to expand our nuclear industry any farther either. The main industries we are looking to expand are wind and solar. The only drawback for us on solar over reliance is that large parts of Central Hirematia experience a 6-week long monsoon season each year. It would have to mainly power the northern and southern regions of the country. Right now nuclear energy, mainly because most thorium is coming from closed-down coal mines. However, in the future, when energy becomes reprivatized, thorium reserves are expected to run dry near the surface, requiring companies to spend vast sums of money on mining. We predict that nuclear energy will be phased out by the free market because of this. The government is already paying for retraining programs for workers, and most workers who transition are taking 90-110% of their previous pay. So in other words, our transition is going well. From our discussion, I have an idea: we can work on a joint initiative to freeze all fossil fuel imports to our countries by 2020. That would be a step in the right direction."

[Austerain]

Versace writes down a couple notes and nods, "That's a realistic deadline, I'm sure the President-Elect would agree to this initiative. We don't really import a large quantity of fossil fuels other than oil and diesel to meet the demand of petroleum-fueled trucks, but some vehicle companies are in the process of mass producing an 18-wheeled truck that runs on electric. As those become more available, demand for oil and diesel will go down enough to finally be able to place a freeze on fossil fuel imports."

[Hirematia]

"We would like to import these electric 18-wheelers," Mechhai replies. "A majority of passenger vehicles are now electric, but we've been struggling to come up with large electric-powered vehicles. Speaking of which, we should start an initiative to develop electric airplanes and barges. These methods of transportation produce an astronomical amount of pollution, and most solutions to climate change seem to leave them out. Perhaps we should provide funding towards research on creating electric planes and barges?"

[Austerain]

"Once there is a sufficient supply, to efficiently meet the demands of Austerain and Hirematia, we'll be happy to begin exporting these electric 18-wheelers to Hirematia," Versace responds, "We're not in a position to negotiate exporting these vehicles so early in mass production and retail as of yet, the Departments of Energy and Transportation would have to discuss it with the company first."

Secretary Taylor says, "Yes, I'll have a memo for my successor to talk to the appropriate officers of the company to begin the process of allowing the exporting of their vehicles. The idea for electric airplanes and barges is interesting, we could certainly set up an initiative to partner with tech companies, shipbuilding companies, and aircraft manufacturers to achieve such an innovation. Funding of course would also be in order for research and development, and perhaps innovating military and government aircraft as well to be more environmentally friendly and less dependent on oil and petroleum for our planes."

[Hirematia]

"I have some contacts who are working on this research already," Sivasaa replies. "There are some researchers from Vikraamaditya Barge Transportation Co. working on electric barges, and scientists from Sivamunia Institute of Technology and Design are working on an electric commercial airliner. Both groups have had little success so far, but with research grants they could accomplish more."

"If we're going to offer research grants to private companies, we need to offer grants to more than just one," Mechhai replies. "Any other companies working on electric barges?"

"Well, I do know of some, but I don't have contacts there," Sivasaa replies. "The Reima Barge Co. of Austerain is working on one, and the Andamanavipa Open Sea Transport Co. is working on one as well. We can offer them research grants as well."

[Austerain]

"I do know that AeroAus Co. has been working on aircraft that were hybrids between biofuel and electric, but my Department never signaled any support for it," Secretary Taylor says, "And the Strasguard Heavy Shipbuilding Inc. partnered with Auradon University's Technology Department to work on seacraft that were hybrid solar and petroleum, I believe the Department of Commerce and Labor offered grants to them. Both of our governments could certainly offer research and development grants to all mentioned companies. The first prototypes for total electric could likely be developed as early as 2021."

[Hirematia]

"That's wonderful," Mechhai replies. "Part of our initiative should include offering grants to these groups. And Sivasaa, I thought you told me that Vikraamaditya Barge Transportation Co. had a blueprint that works in theory."

"Right, but they need the money to build a prototype," Sivasaa replies. "My contacts have told me that a prototype could cost as much as 30 million rupiahs. Their company's research department only has a budget of 20 million, so I say that we offer them a grant of 15 million. If it works, then their total electric barge could be developed around 2021 as well. SITD's research department has recently started cooperating with HirematiaAir, if we could facilitate cooperation between SITD and Auradon University, that would be an admirable goal as well. Not only would research be faster, better, and more collaborative, we can build ties between the professionals of our nations, even if only a small group of them."

[Austerain]

"Indeed," Versace smiles, "Joint efforts for technological information is the best form of diplomacy and mutual economic interest. Such a project between Hirematian and Austeren educational institutions and companies would better strengthen the relationship between our people as an example for the rest of the region. Auradon University has a laboratory with section of dry docks in partnership with Strasguard Heavy Shipbuilding Inc. in the port of Strasguard."

"Right," Taylor adds, "Austerain could commit as much as $40-85 million in research grants for electric aircraft and barges from my Department, the Department of Energy, and Department of Commerce and Labor if the Thorne Administration agrees. With experts from both countries working on this with adequate funding, we could achieve this in the near future."

[Hirematia]

"Alright, we will match your commitment," Sivasaa replies. And we should facilitate cooperation between all of our nations' top universities so that in the future, we can work on research cooperatively to arrive at solutions faster."

A waiter comes out pulling a cart with food on it. Everyone is served their lunch and begins eating.

"I hope that you'll work some sort of trade deal out," Taankatawa says. "Port owners in Andamanavipa will lose quite a bit of money when the freeze on fossil fuel imports goes into effect, and the port owners in Andamanavipa were part of my winning coalition. Without them I may not be re-elected."

[Austerain]

"An international research program between our top universities would be excellent," Versace nods, "Perhaps a student exchange program as well. Further education talks can be made with the next Administration, education has been a big priority for them."

Versace and the other Austerens begin eating.

"You all should be able to work out a good deal with Thorne and his people," Versace reassures Taankatawa, "After seeing everything that we've discussed today, I'm sure he'll be very keen to working with you all on trade to make up for the losses on fossil fuel imports."

[Hirematia]

"That sounds excellent," Taankatawa replies.

"So, are there any policy proposals that the Austeren delegation had in mind," Sivasaa asks.

Mechhai checks his watch. "We have 3 hours until the press conference starts," he says.

[Austerain]

"Until further economic and trade proposals by the next Administration, we have no further proposals in mind," Versace says, "We've made monumental deliberations today."

[Hirematia]

"We still have time before the press conference starts," Mechhai replies. "I'm currently drafting the accords, and once I finish, we can move to press conference to an earlier time."

He finishes drafting the bills, and shows them to everyone at the table. The Hirematian delegation approves, as they neatly encapsulate the goals that the leaders wished to recognize. Mechhai then makes a phone call to the Ministry of Public Relations to reschedule the press conference from 5 PM to 3 PM. It is currently 2 PM.

"Alright, we need to start preparing answers for potential questions," Mechhai says. "I've thought of a few for the defense accord: Will our taxpayers be expected to fund the accommodations of foreign soldiers? The answer would be no, because jointly operated bases would be jointly funded as well. Another would be - What do you expect this to accomplish? How much additional security would this provide in a time of war? The answer of course, would be a lot, as our nations would have double the power when working together. For the bridge pact, they may ask whether proper immigration protocol will be enforced. The answer will be that there will be border checkpoints at either end of the bridge and that we will work with the Thorne administration to decrease border security between our nations. Any possible questions that you can think of Versace?"

[Austerain]

President Versace, General Brockwell, and the two Secretaries review the draft for a few minutes and discuss amongst themselves. The Austeren delegation gives their nod of approval with the Hirematians.

Versace responds, "Austeren media will likely ask us about the timelines and costs; bring about questions for the more partisan audience with regards to possible 'corporate welfare' from the partnerships, as well as concerns regarding the military bases and joint control. Questions will also be asked about your expectations to working with Thorne to achieve the goals of the accords so far and the future negotiations with economics and trade."

[Hirematia]

"Ah yes, the partisan questions," Mechhai replies. "I usually don't have to worry about those too much, but with elections coming up it'll be a big problem. I'll probably have to answer partisan questions accusing me of taking a slippery slope to completely open borders from the far right, and from people on the far left accusing me of placing too much emphasis on the military. And of course, the libertarians accusing us of corporate welfare. Just tell them that we're paying them for a service: what markets are all about. We contacted multiple firms and chose the offer we liked best. If things get confrontational, we'll just tell them that under their system, the companies would collect 100% of the toll. That should hopefully shut them up. And their concerns on Thorne can be answered by saying 'Thorne and I have much in common, and I have confidence that we can work to together to further both of our nations.'"

[Austerain]

"Well said," Versace says, "One would think that the libertarians would be very much in favor of paying the companies for their service as part of the market and government contribution to GDP rather than the government taking on such projects by itself."

Versace begins gathering her papers.

"The partisan media might ask whether or not I endorse you for your election. Austeren law prevents me from making any endorsements, but you should know that I will be silently supporting your bid for re-election. Even if I was permitted to do so, I don't think you'd want my endorsement anyway," Versace chuckles, "The partisan media might ask about your views on Thorne's comments over the past few months over foreign policy and maybe some of his domestic policies regarding economics and such."

Versace places her papers in her briefcase.