Researchers have been driving collaboration, funding, and state-of-the-art research into the earth’s largest carbon sink – located in the high seas. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Jun 8 2023 (IPS)

Almost half of the world’s population lives in coastal zones. For islands in the Pacific and Caribbean islands such as Dominica, where up to 90 percent of the population lives on the coast, the ocean is fundamental to lives and livelihoods. From fisheries to tourism and shipping, this essential body which covers over 70 percent of the planet, is a lifeline.

But the ocean’s life-saving potential extends much further. The ocean regulates our climate and is critical to mitigating climate change. Researchers have long lamented that major international agreements have failed to adequately recognize the resource that produces half of the earth’s oxygen and whose power includes absorbing 90 percent of excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions.

And while its ability to capture and store carbon has been receiving increased attention as the world commits to keeping global warming below 1.5C, researchers say that coverage of that ability has concentrated on coastal ecosystems like mangroves, seagrass, and salt marshes. This is known as coastal blue carbon.

Protecting and conserving coastal blue carbon ecosystems is very important because of the many co-benefits they provide to biodiversity, water quality, and coastal erosion, and they store substantial amounts of legacy carbon in the sediments below.

Researchers welcome the exposure to topics on ocean solutions to climate change but say the conversation – along with data, investment, and public education – must extend much further than coastal blue carbon. Scientists at Dalhousie University have been driving collaboration, funding, and state-of-the-art research into the earth’s largest carbon sink – located in the high seas.

“It’s easy to imagine the ocean as what we can see standing on the edge of the shore as we look out, or to think about fisheries or seaweed that washes up on the beach – our economic and recreation spaces,” says Mike Smit, a professor in the Faculty of Management and the Deputy Scientific Director of the university’s Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI).

“Beyond that, what you might call the deep ocean, is less studied. It’s harder to get to, it’s not obviously within any national jurisdiction, and it’s expensive. The Institute is really interested in this part of the ocean. How carbon gets from the surface, and from coastal regions, to deep, long-term storage is an essential process that we need to better understand. We know that this deep storage is over 90 percent of the total carbon stored in the ocean, so the deep ocean is critical to the work that the ocean is doing to protect us from a rapidly changing climate.”

OFI’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Anya Waite, says the phrase ‘deep blue carbon’ needs to be a household one – and soon. She says the omission of earth’s largest repository of carbon from climate solutions has resulted in the issue becoming “really urgent.”

“If the ocean starts to release the carbon that it’s stored for millennia, it will swamp anything we do on land. It’s absolutely critical that we get to this as soon as possible because, in a way, it’s been left behind.”

Researchers at the Institute have been studying deep blue carbon and bringing researchers together to spur ocean carbon research, interest, investment, and policy.

Through the Transforming Climate Action research program, the Institute is putting the ocean at the forefront of efforts to combat climate change.

“The ocean needs to be in much better focus overall. We are so used to thinking of the ocean as a victim of sorts. There is ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and pollution, but in fact, the ocean is the main climate actor. It’s time to change that narrative, to understand that the ocean is doing critically important work for us, and we need to understand that work better in order to maintain the function that the ocean provides,” says Waite.

A lot of emphasis has been placed on coastal blue carbon – mangroves, seagrass, and salt marshes, but now the Ocean Frontier Institute intends to ensure deep blue carbon becomes part of the climate change conversation. Credit: Beau Pilgrim/Climate Visuals

Most Important, Yet Least Understood

The OFI is harnessing its ocean and marine ecosystems research to find strategic, safe, and sustainable means of slowing climate change, but time is not on the world’s side to achieve the “deep, rapid and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions” that the latest Synthesis Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states is needed to limit warming to 1.5C.

“We know that the ocean is changing, and how it absorbs carbon might change,” says Smit. “There are just too many open questions, too high uncertainty, and too little understanding of what will enhance natural ocean processes and what will impair their abilities to continue to work.”

According to Waite, the ocean’s storage capacity makes it a better place to remove carbon from the atmosphere than land options. In fact, it pulls out more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than all the earth’s rainforests combined. She concedes, however, that the ocean is more complex physically, making carbon capture and ensuring the durability of sinks more difficult.

“We really need to understand the full scope of the ocean’s carbon-absorbing function and bring that into conversation with policymakers, nations, the finance community, and insurance. There are all sorts of impacts when the heat and carbon budget of the ocean are not well observed. Then we don’t have a good prediction system for cyclones, heat waves, and other important phenomena that insurance companies, governments, and the military all need to understand to keep us safe. There are really strong societal reasons for us to do this work.”

The Economics

The OFI’s innovation and research are meant to inform policy and industry. The commercial side of deep blue carbon will be critical to converting ground-breaking research into in-use technology among climate mitigation companies.

Eric Siegel is the Institute’s Chief Innovation Officer. With a background in oceanography, he has spent the last 20 years at the interface of ocean science, technical innovation, and global business.

“We are trying to work more with industry to bring some of the innovations that our researchers are developing to support innovation in companies, but also trying to bring some of those companies into the research realm to help support our work at the Ocean Frontier Institute,” he told IPS.

“For example, carbon removal companies will need to monetize carbon credits as they will have to sequester the carbon. That takes innovation and investment. It’s a great example of companies that do well and generates revenue by doing good, which is mitigating climate. It’s also sort of a reverse of how, over the last couple of decades, companies have donated charitably because they have generally been successful in extractive technologies or non-environmentally friendly technologies. It’s a nice change from the old model.”

Siegel says presently, there just aren’t enough blue carbon credits that can be monetized.

“There are almost zero validated and durable carbon credits that are being created and are able to be sold now. Many people want to buy them, so there is a huge marketplace, but because the technology is so new and there are some policy, monitoring, reporting, and verification limits in place, there are not enough of them.”

Some companies have started buying advanced market credits – investing now in the few blue carbon credit projects available globally for returns in the next five to 20 years.

“I think that this is our decade to do the science, do the technical innovation, and set up the marketplaces so that at the end of this decade, we will be ready – all the companies will be ready to start actively safely removing carbon and therefore generating carbon credits to make a difference and to sell them into the market.”

The pressing need for solutions to the climate crisis means that work has to be carried out simultaneously at every link in the deep blue carbon chain.

“We don’t have the luxury of saying, okay, we have the science right now; let’s work on the technology. Okay, the technology is right; let’s work on the marketplace. The marketplace is right; now, let’s work on the investment. Okay, all that’s ready; let’s work on the policy. We have to do them all at the same time – safely and responsibly – but starting now. And that’s how we are trying to position Ocean Frontier Institute – different people leading on different initiatives to make it happen in parallel.”

A floating flipped iceberg in the Weddell Sea, off Argentina, with a block of green sea ice now showing above the water, joined to the whiter land ice. This picture was taken from the British research vessel RRS Discovery on a research cruise in the Southern Ocean in the Weddell Sea. The Ocean Frontier Institute says the ocean is the main climate actor and needs this acknowledgment. Credit: David Menzel/Climate Visuals

Global Collaboration – and the Future

The Ocean Frontier Institute is working closely with the Global Ocean Observing System. With Waite as Co-Chair, the system underscores that oceans are continuous. No one country understands or controls the ocean. It is based on the premise that collaboration between nations, researchers, and intergovernmental organizations is key to maximizing the ocean’s role in fighting climate change.

“Every nation that observes is welcome to join this network, and we then deliver recommendations to nation-states and the United Nations,” says Waite.

“The technical systems that observe the ocean are becoming fragile because nations have other things to put their money into. So, we need to get nations to step in and start to boost the level of the observing system to the point where we can understand ocean dynamics properly. This is in real contrast, for example, to our weather observation systems that are very sustained and have a mandate from the World Meteorological Organization that they must be sustained to a certain level.”

For OFI’s Deputy Director, data sharing will be critical to the collaboration’s success.

“The data that we collect from these observations can’t stop at the desks of scientists. We have to get them out of the lab and into the world so that people have some understanding of what is happening out there. It’s critically important, it’s also really cool, and we need to understand it better,” says Mike Smit.

The Institute’s Chief Innovation Officer wants the world to know that deep blue carbon is positioned for take-offs.

According to Siegel, “We need to start realizing that the ocean and the deep blue carbon is actually the big, big opportunity here.”

And as for residents of the Pacific Islands intrinsically linked to the ocean by proximity, tradition, or industry, Waite says their voices are needed for this urgent talk on deep blue carbon.

“Pacific island nations are uniquely vulnerable to climate change. Their economic zone, extending up from their land, is a critical resource that they can use to absorb carbon to maintain their biodiversity. Pacific island nations have a special role to play in this conversation that’s quite different from those who live on big continental nations.”

Deep blue carbon might not be a household term just yet, but the world needs to talk about it. Dalhousie University, through its Ocean Frontier Institute’s research and partnerships, is ensuring that conversation is heard across the globe.

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While Africa has made a negligible contribution to climate change and is responsible for two to three percent of global emissions, it’s highly vulnerable. The debate on how to compensate and support Africa continues. Now there is a suggestion that the Loss and Damage fund may not be the route to go to ensure Africa and other vulnerable nations are compensated. This photo shows the flooded offices of the Kenya Wildlife Services following the swelling of Lake Baringo. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
BONN, Jun 7 2023 (IPS)

The Climate Change envoy to the President of Kenya has asked Kenya’s and, by extension Africa’s negotiators at the ongoing climate conference in Bonn, Germany, not to put much emphasis on financing the Loss and Damage kitty but instead calls for fairness and equity.

“Loss and damage remain an important issue; we hope it will be operationalized in Dubai, but whatever amount that may go to the kitty will not take us anywhere as a global community,” Ali Mohamed, who advises the President on matters climate change told Kenya’s delegation in Bonn, shortly after President William Ruto demanded that COP28 be the last round of global negotiations on climate change.

The Loss and Damage funding is an agreement reached during the 27th round of climate negotiations in Egypt to support vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters that include cyclones, floods, severe droughts, landslides, and heat waves, among others.

During the opening ceremony of the UN Habitat Assembly in Nairobi, Ruto said that it is possible to stop the conversation and the negotiation between North and the South because “climate change is not a North/South problem, it is not about fossil fuel versus green energy problem, it is a problem that we could sort out all of us if we came together,” he said. Ruto is the current Chair of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC).

According to Ruto, it is possible (for African negotiators) to agree on a framework that will bring everybody on board for the continent to go to COP28 with a clear mind on what should be done and how Africa and the global South can work with the global North, not as adversaries, but as partners to resolve the climate crisis and present an opportunity to have a win-win outcome that has no finger pointing.

In Bonn, Mohamed, who is also the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, told Kenya’s negotiators that, as Africans, there is a need to raise voices and call for a new global architecture and a new way of doing things.

He gave an example of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) during the period of COVID-19, where Europe, which has a population of 500 million people, received over 40 percent, while the entire African continent, with a population of 1.2 billion people received a paltry five percent of the total funds.

“This kind of unfairness is what President Ruto wants to take forward and say it is no longer tenable in the new world order,” said Mohamed, who is vying to become the next Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) for the next three years.

The SDR is an interest-bearing international reserve asset that supplements other reserve assets of member countries. Rather than a currency, it is a claim on the freely useable currencies of International Monetary Fund (IMF) members.

He also gave an example of the Berlin Wall, which fell in 1989, and suddenly in just six months, a new financial architecture was formed for Europe.

He pointed out that since the ratification of the Paris Agreement, the world has been meeting every year to talk about the $100 billion which developed countries committed to collectively mobilize per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, but the funds have remained a mirage.

“What Africa is pushing for is investment through available, accessible, and adequate financing at affordable costs. We borrow at an interest of 15 percent on a currency that is not ours, while other countries in the North borrow at 2 percent,” said Mohamed.

The AGN Chair, Ephraim Mwepya Shitima, declined to comment on Kenya’s new position, saying that it was beyond his powers to do so. “I am not in a position to comment on whatever has been said by a member of the CAHOSCC,” he told IPS in Bonn.

However, during the opening plenary, Shitima called on developed countries to deliver to restore trust in the UNFCCC process. “The Green Climate Fund replenishment is in October, and this is an opportunity for developed countries to show the world that they are willing to do their part to address climate change and support climate action in developing countries,” he told global delegates in Bonn.

He also welcomed the work program on just transition pathways. “We are of the view that it will advance the implementation of climate action and strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change in the context of sustainable development. The Subsidiary conference here should agree on the work program’s elements, scope, and modalities to be adopted at COP28,” he said.

The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) conference, which is going down in Bonn, is the link between the scientific information provided by expert sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the one hand and the policy-oriented needs of the COP on the other hand. The outcome is therefore used to set the agenda for the subsequent COP based on scientific evidence.

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A picture of photovoltaic panels in the solar park in the small town of Armstrong, in the Pampa region, the heart of Argentina’s agricultural production. The park belongs to an electric cooperative, which until 2017 only bought energy to distribute, but now generates electricity as well. CREDIT: FARN

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, May 26 2023 (IPS)

When the residents of Armstrong, a town of 15,000 in western Argentina, began to meet to discuss a renewable energy project, they agreed that there could be many positive effects and that it was not just a question of doing their bit in the global effort to mitigate climate change.

“The proposal was to use the rooftops and yards of our houses to install solar panels. And I accepted the idea basically because I was excited by the prospect that one day we would become independent in generating our own electricity,” Adrián Marozzi, who today has six solar panels in the back of the house where he lives in Armstrong with his wife and two children, told IPS.“Community-based projects, which are feasible, have several advantages: they improve local autonomy in the generation of electricity, they allow money to be saved from the energy that is not purchased, which can be reinvested in the city, and they promote the decentralization of decision-making in the energy system.” -- Pablo Bertinat

His home is one of about 50 in Armstrong with solar panels generating power for the community, added to the 880-panel solar farm installed in the town’s industrial park. Together they have contributed part of the electricity consumed by the inhabitants of this town in the western province of Santa Fe since 2017.

This is a pioneering project in Argentina, built with public technical organizations and community participation through a cooperative where decisions are made democratically, which has since been replicated in various parts of the country.

With an extensive area of ​​almost 2.8 million square kilometers, Argentina is a country where most of the electricity generation has been concentrated geographically, which raises the need for large power transmission infrastructure and poses a hurdle for the development of the system.

In this context, and despite the financing obstacles in a country with a severe long-lasting economic crisis, renewable energies are increasingly seen as an alternative for clean electricity generation in power-consuming areas.

Marozzi is a biologist by profession, but is dedicated to agricultural production in Armstrong, almost 400 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires. The town is located in the pampas grasslands in the productive heart of Argentina, and is surrounded by fields of soybeans, corn and cattle.

How to bring electric power to widely scattered rural residents was the great challenge that the Armstrong Public Works and Services Provision Cooperative, made up of 5,000 members representing the town’s 5,000 households, grappled with for years.

The institution was born in 1958 and in 1966 it marked a milestone, when it created the first rural electrification system in this South American country, with a 70-kilometer medium voltage line that brought the service to numerous farms.

Once again, in 2016, the Armstrong cooperative pointed the way, when it began to discuss in assemblies with community participation the advantages and disadvantages of venturing into renewable energy production by means of solar energy panels.

“Those of us who accepted the installation of panels in our homes today receive no direct benefit, but we are betting on a future in which we can generate all of the electricity we consume. In addition, of course, we care about environmental issues,” Marozzi said in a conversation from his town.

The 880-panel solar park with 200 kW of installed power is currently being expanded to 275 kW thanks to the money that Armstrong saved from energy that was not purchased in recent years from the national grid. The local residents who make up the cooperative decided that the savings from what was generated with solar energy should be invested in the park.

Two workers carry out maintenance tasks at the solar park in Monte Caseros, a town in the Argentine province of Corrientes, in the northeast of the country. The park was inaugurated in 2021 by the local cooperative, which provides electricity to the residents and is also involved in agricultural activity. CREDIT: Monte Caseros Agricultural and Electricity Cooperative

A replicated model

In Argentina there are about 600 electrical cooperatives in small cities and towns in the interior of the country, which were born in the mid-20th century, when the national grid was still quite limited and access to electric power was a problem.

These cooperatives usually buy and distribute energy in towns. But the members of dozens of them realized that they too could generate clean electricity, after visiting Armstrong’s project, and launched their own renewable energy initiatives.

One of the cooperatives that also has a solar park is the Agricultural and Electricity Cooperative of Monte Caseros, a city of about 25,000 inhabitants in the northeastern province of Corrientes.

“The cooperative was born in 1977 out of the need to bring energy to rural residents,” engineer Germán Judiche, the association’s technical manager, told IPS. “Today we have a honey packaging plant and a cluster of silos for rice, the main crop in the area. Since 2018 we have also distributed internet service and in 2020 we partnered with the province’s public electricity company to venture into renewable energy.”

The Monte Caseros solar park has 400 kW of installed capacity thanks to 936 solar panels. It was inaugurated in September 2021 and has provided such good results that a second park, with similar characteristics, is about to begin to be built by the 650-member cooperative, because it supplies only rural residents of the municipality.

“We have done everything with the cooperative’s own labor and the design by engineers from the National University of the Northeast (UNNE), from our province,” said Judiche. “It is definitely a model that can be replicated. Renewable energy is our future,” he added from his town, some 700 kilometers north of Buenos Aires.

Solar panels can be seen in the backyard of Adrián Marozzi, a resident of the town of Armstrong. Neither he nor the other residents who agreed to give up part of their yards or rooftops receive direct advantages, since the energy savings are capitalized by the cooperative, which thus has to buy less electricity from the national grid. CREDIT: FARN

A slow and bumpy road

According to official figures, the distributed or decentralized generation of renewable energy for self-consumption, which allows the surplus to be injected into the grid, has 1,167 generators registered in 13 of Argentina’s 23 provinces, with more than 20 megawatts of installed power.

Electricity cooperatives that have their own renewable energy generation projects operate under this system.

In total, in this country of 44 million people, renewable energies covered almost 14 percent of the demand for electricity in 2022 and have more than 5,000 MW of installed capacity, although there are practically no major new projects to expand their proportion of the energy mix.

Most of the electricity demand is covered by thermal generation, which contributes more than 25,000 MW, mainly from oil but also from natural gas. Hydropower is the next largest source, with more than 10,000 MW from large dams greater than 50 MW, which are not considered renewable.

Pablo Bertinat, director of the Energy and Sustainability Observatory of the National Technological University (UTN) based in the city of Rosario, also in Santa Fe, explained that in a country like Argentina it is impossible to follow a model like Germany’s widespread residential generation of renewable energy, because it requires investments that are not viable.

“Community-based projects, which are feasible, have several advantages: they improve local autonomy in the generation of electricity, they allow money to be saved from the energy that is not purchased, which can be reinvested in the city, and they promote the decentralization of decision-making in the energy system,” added Bertinat, speaking from Rosario.

The UTN Observatory was in charge of the Armstrong project, in a public-private consortium, together with the cooperative and the National Institute of Industrial Technology (Inti).

The expert said that the cooperatives’ renewable energy projects are advancing slowly in Argentina, despite the fact that there is no credit nor favorable policies – an indication that they could have a very strong impact on the entire electrical system and even on the generation of employment, if there were tools to promote renewables.

“Our aim is to demonstrate that not only large companies can advance the agenda of promoting renewable energy and the replacement of fossil fuels. In Argentina, cooperatives are also an important actor on this path,” Bertinat said.

The case of Armstrong also sparked interest from the environmental movement, which is helping to drive the growth of renewable energy in the country.

Jazmín Rocco Predassi, head of Climate Policy at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), told IPS that this is “an illustration that the energy transition does not always come from top-down initiatives, but that communities can organize themselves, together with cooperatives, municipal governments or science and technology institutes, to generate the transformations that the energy system needs.”

Credit: Save the Children Vanuatu/Facebook

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 25 2023 (IPS)

As a matter of global justice, the climate crisis has rightfully made its way to the world’s highest court.

On 29 March 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of states on climate change. The initiative was led by the Pacific Island state of Vanuatu, one of several at risk of disappearing under rising sea levels. It was co-sponsored by 132 states and actively supported by networks of grassroots youth groups from the Pacific and around the world.

Civil society’s campaign

In 2019, a group of law students from the University of the South Pacific formed Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), a regional organisation with national chapters in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. PISFCC advocated with the Pacific Island Forum – the key regional body – to put the call for an ICJ opinion on its agenda. The government of Vanuatu announced it would seek this in September 2021, and Pacific civil society organisations (CSOs) formed an alliance – the Alliance for a Climate Justice Advisory Opinion – that has since grown to include CSOs and many others from around the world, including UN Special Rapporteurs and global experts.

The campaign made heavy use of social media, with people sharing their stories on the impacts of climate change and emphasising the importance of an ICJ opinion to help support calls for climate action, including climate litigation. It organised globally, sharing a toolkit used by activists around the world, and took to the streets locally. In Vanuatu, where it all started, children demonstrated in September 2022 to call attention to the impacts of climate change as their country’s single greatest development threat and express support for the call for an ICJ opinion.

In the run-up to the UNGA session that adopted the historic resolution, thousands of CSOs from around the world supported a letter calling for governments to back the vote.

The ICJ’s role

The ICJ is made up of 15 judges elected by the UNGA and UN Security Council. It settles legal disputes between states and provides advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by other parts of the UN system.

The questions posed to the ICJ aim to clarify the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate system and environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. They also ask about the legal responsibilities of states that have caused significant environmental harm towards other states, particularly small islands, and towards current and future generations.

To provide its advisory opinion, the ICJ will have to interpret states’ obligations as outlined in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Paris Agreement as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a variety of international covenants and treaties. It may consider previous UNGA resolutions on climate change, such as the recent one recognising access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right, and other resolutions by the UN Human Rights Council and reports by the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and its independent human rights experts. It may also take into account decisions by UN treaty bodies and its own jurisprudence on climate and environmental matters.

Next steps

According to its statute, the ICJ can seek written statements from states or international organisations likely to have relevant information on the issue at hand. On 20 April, it communicated its decision to treat the UN and all its member states as ‘likely to be able to furnish information on the questions submitted to the Court’ and gave them six months to submit written statements, after which they will have three months to make written comments on statements made by other states or organisations.

Civil society doesn’t have any right to submit formal statements, so climate activists are urging as many people as possible to advocate towards their governments to make strong submissions that will lead to a progressive ICJ opinion. After submissions close, the ICJ is likely to take several months to deliberate, so its opinion may be expected at some point in 2024, likely towards the end of the year.

Advisory opinions aren’t binding. They don’t impose obligations on states. But they shape the global understanding of states’ obligations under international law and can motivate states to show their compliance with rising standards. An ICJ opinion could positively influence climate negotiations, pushing forward long-delayed initiatives on funding for loss and damage. It could encourage states to make more ambitious pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It might also help raise awareness of the particular risks faced by small island states and provide arguments in favour of stronger climate action, helping climate advocates gain ground within governments.

A progressive advisory opinion could also help support domestic climate litigation: research shows that domestic courts are increasingly inclined to cite ICJ opinions and other sources of international law, including when it comes to determining climate issues.

The risk can’t be ruled out of a disappointing ICJ opinion merely reiterating the content of existing climate treaties without making any progress on states’ obligations. But climate activists find reasons to expect much more: many see this as a unique opportunity, brought about by their own persistent efforts, to advance climate justice and push for action that meets the scale of the crisis.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Joy of Marketing - Ethiopia. Credit: International Seed Federation

By Michael Keller
VAUD, Switzerland, May 16 2023 (IPS)

At long last, momentum is growing for an overdue rethink of climate finance and development assistance to support countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

But while investment, aid and compensation are all much needed, another form of currency is equally valuable for climate-vulnerable countries that are also highly dependent on small-scale agriculture: quality seeds.

The latest generation of seeds offers varieties adapted to specific climatic circumstances to provide more reliable food production, as well as improved incomes and livelihoods for farmers, having boosted productivity by 20 per cent for nine key crops in the European Union over 15 years.

Yet improved varieties of many of the world’s staple cereals, vegetables and pulses are too often inaccessible for farmers in Africa, despite having some of the greatest exposure to climate extremes.

For instance, in East Africa, certified quality seed potatoes – which produce higher yields and greater resilience to climatic changes, pests, and diseases – account for just one per cent of all those planted by farmers.

By leveraging the advances and resources of the commercial seed sector – supported and scaled by public and NGO partners – the global community can ensure African farmers receive the tangible, long-term support they need to cope with the impacts of climate change.

Michael Keller

For example, non-profit Fair Planet coached more than 2,300 lead farmers in 65 Ethiopian villages and trained their regional extension agents in improved farming practices. With this training, farmers were able to quickly adopt and maximize their crop yields using locally tested and improved varieties of vegetables.

In total, some 75,000 smallholder farmers in the project’s regions subsequently tripled their vegetable production at a time when the Horn of Africa faced pressing food security challenges. As a result of an historic, ongoing drought, an estimated 22 million people are currently facing acute food insecurity across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

According to an external evaluation, more than 95 per cent of households involved in Fair Planet’s work in Ethiopia – or roughly 485,000 people – benefitted from improved nutrition after the increased yields raised household incomes in just one production season by more than 25 per cent. This extra income provided farmers with a greater buffer against climate shocks, and more money to spend on health services and education for their families.

Opening up access to improved varieties of staple crops plays an important role in safeguarding food and nutrition security in the face of climate change, which could reduce levels of protein, iron and zinc in cereals by up to 10 per cent.

This is why the International Seed Federation (ISF), together with Fair Planet, is embarking on a five-year project to increase farmer choice of and access to quality seeds in Rwanda.

The aim is to benefit 84,000 Rwandan farmers by offering increased access to improved, high-quality vegetable, pulses, cereal, and potato varieties alongside downstream value chain projects training to support higher yields and incomes, and climate adaptation.

The final piece of the puzzle is to establish the policies and regulations needed to develop resilient and sustainable seed systems that benefit farmers. This requires policymakers to build an efficient and effective regulatory framework that provides reassurance to farmers that they are receiving the highest quality seed year after year, while also providing the long-term certainty likely to incentivize additional private sector investment.

Quality seeds are clearly the bedrock upon which productive and resilient farming systems are built, yet these technologies up to now remain out of reach for many of Africa’s farmers – one of the many significant challenges they face today.

By investing and collaborating to build resilient seed systems, the private sector can share more broadly the fruits of progress in global crop science through partnerships that ensure farmers receive seeds that are not only fit for purpose but fit for the future.

Improved seeds can then pay dividends by unlocking better productivity, incomes, and climate resilience for those on the frontlines who have for too long been underserved.

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The sea wall was built to protect the Vasco da Gama pillar in Malindi. Historical sites along Kenya’s coastline are being threatened by climate-change-induced weather conditions. Credit: Diana Wanyonyi/IPS

By Diana Wanyonyi
MOMBASA, May 9 2023 (IPS)

Along coastal Kenya, historical sites and monuments are threatened due to the impacts of climate change—structures along the Indian Ocean are falling to ruin or collapsing into the ocean because of high tides.

One threatened historical site was the Portuguese-built Fort Jesus, located on Mombasa Island. In 2011, the fort was declared a World Heritage Site by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, as one of the most outstanding and well-preserved examples of Portuguese military fortifications. But unfortunately, the fort, which has been standing tall for more than 500 years, was threatened by high tides and strong winds from the Indian Ocean, which was eroding its massive rock foundation.

Lucky three years ago, Fort Jesus was secured from erosion caused by strong tides after the government, in collaboration with National Museums of Kenya, constructed a seawall on the eastern side of the Fort that faces the Indian Ocean.

Fatma Twahir, the principal curator of Fort Jesus, says that before the construction of the seawall, the coral base of Fort Jesus was badly eroded.

“The base of Fort Jesus was badly damaged, and there were worries that it would lose stability. We brought in engineers who investigated, and they confirmed our fears saying that if we did not act fast, the Fort might collapse into the Indian Ocean. We informed the national government, and it stepped in. The government gave us 497 million Kenyan shillings (about USD 3,6 million) for the contractor to build a sea wall; the construction commenced in June 2017 and ended in February 2019,” Twahir said.

One of the issues Kenya’s coastal region experiences is what’s known as the India Ocean Dipole, says Jennifer Fitchett, Associate Professor of Physical Geography, University of the Witwatersrand, in an article in The Conversation. This causes heavy rainfall. She notes that “under climate change, the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events is increasing. We can therefore expect to experience strong 2°C Indian Ocean Dipoles more often in the years and decades to come.”

US Aid notes too that “most of the country’s coast is low-lying, with coastal plains, islands, beaches, wetlands, and estuaries at risk from sea level rise. A sea level rise of 30 cm is estimated to threaten 17 percent (4,600 hectares) of Mombasa with inundation.”

Twenty kilometres from Mombasa, north of Mtwapa Creek in Kilifi County, are the Jumba la Mtwana ruins. Jumba la Mtwana is a Swahili word meaning the ‘large house of the slave’. Although there are no written historical records of the ruins, the ceramic evidence during excavations showed that the town had been built in the 14th century and became a significant slave port before it was abandoned in the early 15th century.

The ruins, near the Indian Ocean, include a tomb that is believed to be that of one of the sultans who ruled the area. Also, four mosques and four houses have survived the impact of climate change and are still in good condition. The inhabitants of the Jumba ruins were mainly Muslims, as evidenced by the number of ruined mosques.

The mosques are still used for prayers by fishers, locals, and visitors.

An Arabic inscription on the column adjacent to the tomb says, “Every Soul Shall Taste Death.”

Jumba Ruins are also affected by climate change as many of the building structures have been damaged by either strong winds or eroded by the encroaching ocean tides, impacting the ruins’ coral walls.

Chengo Kalume is a resident and a fisher who has been working in the area for more than 25 years. He says strong ocean tides have destroyed a large portion of the ruins. Thirty years ago, when he was young, the ruins were in good condition.

“While I was growing up, this ruin was not damaged, and the ocean tide was not reaching near it, but when the temperatures started changing, the ocean tides were becoming stronger and stronger ocean waves hit hard on the shoreline, the waters started rising, and it started reaching the structures of the ruins. That is when the walls started breaking and crumbling,” he lamented.

He worries that if urgent action isn’t taken, the ruins will be swept away and forgotten. “I am worried that if the ruin is not preserved early, then future generations will not be able to see them; they will only be reading about it through the books,” said Kalume.

For Kalume, unpredictable ocean storms and strong winds made him quit his fishing career, making him prone to accidents such as his boat capsizing in inclement weather. Also, a change in weather in the ocean contributed to the disappearance of some fish species.

He remembers, “On several occasions, while I was going fishing, the weather was calm and promising all of a sudden while in the deep sea, the ocean waves changed and became stronger and stronger, this weakened our fishing vessel, and also this made some fish disappear such as barracuda, tuna and parrot fish. I always came back to the shore with a small catch.”

However, building sea walls is not an option for this area.

Hashim Mzomba, the curator-in-charge of Jumba la Mtwana Ruins, says the shoreline provides a good nesting place for sea turtles.

“Because this shoreline is a sea turtle’s breeding nest, we prefer to plant trees that will be able to break the winds. This will also reduce the impact of strong ocean tides.”

The Vasco da Gama pillar in Malindi, some 120 kilometres northeast of Mombasa, was also in a state of disrepair following the weakening of its coral rock base caused by strong ocean tides. The pillar is one of the oldest remaining monuments in Africa and was built in 1498 by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama as a sign of appreciation for the welcome the Sultan of Malindi gave him.

“Climate change weakened the pillar for a long time; two years ago, the government stepped in and constructed a sea wall around the pillar,” said Omar Abdulrahim Abdallah, principal curator of Vasco Da Gama pillar.
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Palau’s Marine Spatial Plan will provide a framework for managing ocean and coastal resources. Credit: SPC

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Apr 28 2023 (IPS)

Growing up in Palau in the western Pacific Ocean, Surangel Whipps Jr. played on the reefs and spearfished on an island teeming with birds, giant clams, fish, and turtles.

Today that has all changed as a result of growing sea level rise. Half of the turtle eggs nesting on beaches are not surviving because they are laid in the tidal zone and swallowed by the sea.

During the United Nations Ocean Conference in Portugal in June 2022, Whipps Jr., the President of Palau, emphasized the interconnectedness of the fate of the turtles, their homes, culture, and people, drawing global attention to the dire impact of climate change on this island nation that relies heavily on the ocean for its livelihood.

Protecting Palau’s Marine Treasures

The Pacific Ocean is the lifeblood of Palau, supporting its social, cultural, and economic development. Palau is an archipelago of over 576 islands in the western tropical Pacific Ocean. Its rich marine biota includes approximately 400 species of hard corals, 300 species of soft corals, 1400 species of reef fishes, and the world’s most isolated colony of dugongs and Micronesia’s only saltwater crocodiles.

Worried that the island would have no future under the sea, Palau has launched an ambitious Marine Spatial Plan (MSP) initiative for its marine ecosystems that are vulnerable to climate change and impacted by human activities such as tourism, fishing, aquaculture, and shipping. It will provide a framework for managing ocean and coastal resources in a way that balances economic, social, and environmental objectives. It also aims to minimize conflicts between different users of the ocean and coastal areas and promotes their sustainable use.

Marino-O-Te-Au Wichman, a fisheries scientist with the Pacific Community (SPC) and a member of the Palau MSP Steering Committee, explains that the initiative is particularly important for Palau due to the country’s dependence on the marine ecosystem for food security, livelihoods, and cultural identity.

“We recognize the critical role that MSP plays in the development of maritime sectors with high potential for sustaining jobs and economic growth,” Wichman said, emphasizing that SPC was committed to supporting country-driven MSP processes with the best scientific advice and capacity development support.

“The MSP can help balance ecological and economic considerations in the management of marine resources, ensuring that these resources are used in a sustainable way.  Some of the key ecological considerations that MSP can help address include the conservation of biodiversity, restoration of habitats, and the management of invasive species. While on the economic front, MSP can help promote the sustainable use of marine resources: and promote low-impact economic activities such as ecotourism,” Wichman observed.

Climate Informed Decision Making

As climate change continues to impact ocean conditions, the redistribution of marine ecosystem services and benefits will affect maritime activities and societal value chains. Mainstreaming climate change into MSP can improve preparedness and response while also reducing the vulnerability of marine ecosystems.

Palau’s rich marine biota includes approximately 400 species of hard corals, 300 species of soft corals, 1400 species of reef fishes, and the world’s most isolated colony of dugongs and Micronesia’s only saltwater crocodiles. Credit: SPC

“MSP can inform policy making in Pacific Island countries in several ways to support sustainable development, particularly in the face of climate change impacts. The MSP initiative launched by Palau encompasses a Climate Resilient Marine Spatial Planning project that is grounded in the most reliable scientific data, including climate change scenarios and climate risk models,” said Wichman, noting that the plan can help identify areas that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, ocean acidification, movement of key tuna stocks and increased storm intensity.

Increasing the knowledge base on the impacts of a changing climate is necessary for policymakers to ensure the protection of ecologically important areas and the implementation of sustainable development strategies. This includes building strong evidence that takes into account the potential spatial relocation of uses in MSP, the knowledge of conservation priority species and keystone ecosystem components, and their inclusion in sectoral analyses to promote sustainability and resilience.

Although progress has been made in understanding the impacts of climate change and its effects on marine ecosystems, there is still a need for thorough scientific research to guide management decisions.

“At SPC, we are dedicated to supporting countries in advancing their knowledge of ocean science. Our joint efforts have paid off, as Palau has made significant strides in improving their understanding of the ocean and safeguarding its well-being. Through the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science (PCCOS), Palau and other Pacific countries are given support to continue promoting predictive and sustainable ocean practices in the region,” explained Pierre-Yves Charpentier, Project Management Advisor for the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science.

A Long-Term Commitment To Protect the Ocean  

In 2015, Palau voted to establish the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, with a planned five-year phase-in. On January 1, 2020, Palau fully protected 80% of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), prohibiting all forms of extractive activities, including mining and all types of fishing.

A Palauan legend is told of a fisherman from the village of Ngerchemai. One day the fisherman went out fishing in his canoe and came upon a large turtle and hastily jumped into the water after it. Surfacing for a breath, the fisherman realized his canoe wasn’t anchored and was drifting away. He then looked at the turtle, and it was swimming away. He could not decide which one he should pursue. In doing so, he lost both the canoe and the turtle.

Unlike the fisherman, Palau cannot afford to be indecisive about protecting its marine treasures, Whipps Jr. said: “Ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development is our collective responsibility.”

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The replanting of palm oil plants aimed at producing better trees through good agricultural practices. The UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership (GGP) in Indonesia included several projects under one umbrella. Credit: ILO/Fauzan Azhima

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

Smallholder farmers are critical to the success of Indonesia’s efforts to address deforestation and climate change. Creating an understanding and supporting this group, internally and abroad, is a crucial objective for those working towards reducing deforestation and promoting good farming practices, especially as smallholders often work hand-to-mouth and are vulnerable to perpetuating unsustainable farming practices.

Musim Mas, a large palm oil corporation involved in sustainable production, says smallholders “hold approximately 40 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations and are a significant group in the palm oil supply chain. This represents 4.2 million hectares in Indonesia, roughly the size of Denmark. According to the Palm Oil Agribusiness Strategic Policy Initiative (PASPI), smallholders are set to manage 60 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations by 2030.” 

Since last year a new World Bank-led programme, the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR), incorporates the United Nations Development Programme Good Growth Partnership (GGP). It will continue to be involved in the success of palm oil production and smallholders’ support—crucial, especially as a study showed that the “sector lifted around 2.6 million rural Indonesians from poverty this century,” with knock-on development successes including improved rural infrastructure.

Over the past five years, GGP conducted focused training with about 3,000 smallholder farmers, says UNDP’s GGP Global Project Manager, Pascale Bonzom:

“The idea was to pilot some public-private partnerships for training, new ways of getting the producers to adopt these agricultural practices so that we could learn from these pilots and scale them up through farmer support system strategies,” Bonzom says.

Farmer organizations speaking to IPS explained how they, too, support smallholder farmers.

Amanah, an independent smallholder association of about 500 independent smallholders in Ukui, Riau province, was the first group to receive Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification as part of a joint programme, right before the start of GGP, between the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, UNDP, and Asian Agri. This followed training in good agricultural practices, land mapping, high carbon stock (HCS), and high conservation value (HCV) methodologies to identify forest areas for protection.

“The majority of independent smallholders in Indonesia do not have the capacity to implement best practices in the palm oil field. Consequently, it is important to provide assistance and training on good agricultural practices in the field on a regular and ongoing basis,” Amanah commented, adding that the training included preparing land for planting sustainably and using certified seeds, fertilizer, and good harvesting practices.

A producer organization, SPKS, said it was working with farmers to implement sustainable practices. It established a smallholders’ database and assisted them with ISPO and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifications.

Jointly with High Conservation Value Resource Network (HCVRN), it created a toolkit for independent smallholders on zero deforestation. This has already been implemented in four villages in two districts.

“At this stage, SPKS and HCVRN are designing benefits and incentives for independent smallholders who already protect their forest area (along) with the indigenous people,” SPKS said, adding that it expected that these initiatives could be used and adopted by those facing EU regulations.

SPKS sees the new EU deforestation legislation as a concern and an opportunity, especially as the union has shown a commitment to supporting independent small farmers—including financial support to prepare for readiness to comply with the regulations, including geolocation, capacity building, and fair price mechanisms.

Amanah also pointed to the EU regulations, which incentivize independent smallholders to adhere to the certification process.

“As required by EU law, the EU is also tasked with implementing programs and assistance at the upstream level as well as serving as an incentive for independent smallholders who already adhere to the certification process. The independent smallholder will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices. Financing may be used as an incentive. The independent smallholders will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices,” the organization told IPS.

SPKS would like to see final EU regulations include a requirement for companies importing palm oil into the EU to guarantee a direct supply chain from at least 30 percent of independent smallholders based on a fair partnership.

“In the draft EU regulations, it is not yet clear whether the due diligence is based on deforestation-related risk-based analysis. Indonesia is often considered a country with a high deforestation rate, and palm oil is perceived to be a factor in deforestation. Considering this, we hope the EU will consider smallholder farmers by ensuring that EU regulations do not further burden them by issuing Technical Guidelines specifically designed for smallholder farmers.”

In April 2023, the European Parliament passed the law introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil. UNDP is looking into how it can tailor its support to producing countries with compliance of this and other similar current and future regulations.

Setara Jambi, an organization dedicated to education and capacity building for oil palm smallholders for sustainable agricultural management, says that while they are concerned about the EU regulations, small farmers have “many limitations, which are different from companies that already have adequate institutions.

“This concern will not arise if there is a strong commitment from both government and companies (buyers of smallholder fresh fruit bunches) to assist smallholders in preparing and implementing sustainable palm oil management.”

The next five years with FOLUR will face significant challenges. There is a need to ensure that the National Action Plan moves to the next level because it is going to expire at the end of 2024. It will require updating and expanding.

In Indonesia, there are 26 provinces and 225 districts that produce palm oil. And at the time of writing, eight provinces and nine districts have developed their own versions of the pilot Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plan and developed their own provincial or district-level Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plans.

There is a lot to do, including supporting the Indonesian government’s multi-stakeholder process, capacity building for the private sector, supporting an enabling environment for all, and working with financial institutions to make investment decisions aligned with deforestation commitments.

The biggest issue is to get the smallholder farmers on board. Because they live a life of survival, often they are vulnerable to “short-termism.”

On the positive side, the FOLUR initiative has the government’s backing. At the launch in Jakarta last year, Musdhalifah Machmud, Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, said that the implementation of the FOLUR Project was expected to be able to create a value chain sustainability model for rice, oil palm, coffee, and cocoa through sustainable land use and “comprehensively by paying attention to biodiversity conservation, climate change, restoration, and land degradation.”

At that launch workshop in Jakarta, the World Bank’s Christopher Brett, FOLUR co-leader, noted: “Healthy and sustainable value chains offer social benefits and generate profits without putting undue stress on the environment.”

Bonzom agrees: “At the end of the day, they (smallholders) will need to see the benefits—better market terms, better prices, better, more secure contracts—that’s what is attractive for them.”

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A harvester checks the ripeness of oil palm fresh fruit. The UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership has worked with all sectors of the palm oil supply chain to reduce deforestation. Credit: ILO/Fauzan Azhima

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

Indonesia finds itself in a delicate balancing act of uplifting people from poverty, managing climate change and biodiversity, and satisfying an increasingly demanding international market for sustainable farming practices—and at the pivot of this complexity is the management of its palm oil sector.

As the UNDP-led Good Growth Partnership (GGP) joins a new World Bank-led project with similar objectives—the Food Systems, Land Use, and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Programme, it acknowledges that the government of Indonesia has made considerable advancements in improving the sustainability of the industry and the value chain over the past five years with GGP support.

The GGP, using a multi-stakeholder approach, included several projects under one programmatic umbrella, linking production, demand, responsible sourcing, traceability, and transparency, with supporting financial institutions and investors in relation to reducing deforestation from land use change. The project aimed to connect all components of the supply chain—which, in the case of Indonesian palm oil, represents 4.5 percent of the country’s GDP and 60 percent of global exports.

Late in 2022, Trase, in its report From Risk Hotspots to Sustainability Sweet Spots, confirmed Indonesia had reversed its deforestation trends in 2018-2020; deforestation for palm oil was 45,285 hectares per year—only 18 percent of its peak in 2008-2012. The improvement is attributed to strengthened law enforcement, moratoria, certification of palm oil plantations, and implementation of corporate zero-deforestation commitments.

“Importantly, deforestation has fallen during a period of continued expansion of palm oil production. Although the decline in deforestation has been linked to a drop in the market value of crude palm oil, the recent spike in palm oil prices has not yet been accompanied by a boom in palm-driven deforestation—a cause for cautious optimism,” Robert Heilmayr and Jason Benedict commented on Trase’s website.

However, CDP Palm Oil Report 2022 notes that while companies are adopting a wider range of actions to end deforestation, these “actions are not yet robust enough to end commodity-driven deforestation in the palm oil value chain.”

CDP says while 86 percent of companies implemented no-deforestation policies, only 22 percent have public and comprehensive policies: “Traceability systems have been implemented by 87 percent of companies, but only 25 percent have the capacity to scale these to over 90 percent of their production/consumption back to at least the municipality or equivalent.”

One major challenge is the inclusion of smallholders in the supply chains—and while 44 percent of companies work with smallholders to reduce or remove forest degradation, less than a third support “good agricultural practices and provide financial or technical assistance to help them achieve this.”

It is precisely these challenges the GGP confronted in Indonesia.

“Systemic change in commodity supply chains is one of the essential transformations that must occur this decade to mitigate the combined threats of catastrophic climate change, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity and to achieve resilience for humanity globally,” GGP says in its assessment report, Reducing Deforestation from Commodity Supply Chains.

These deforestation commitments are not new and followed the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), adopted in 2014, which called for the end of forest loss and the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2030. Then came the Paris Climate Agreement, which in terms of its Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) agreements, was crucial for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries. More commitments flowed after the 2015/2016 fires, which were blamed on slash-and-burn agricultural practices, exacerbated by a dry El Niño; the fires raged for months, leading to deaths, respiratory tract infections, and cost, according to the World Bank, 16 billion US dollars.

The fires were also thought to cause a global rise in emissions and put wildlife, including the endangered orangutan population, at risk. Indonesia is a place where companies have been making commitments for some time, but implementing them with both direct and indirect suppliers is not easy.

Recognizing this challenge, the GGP supported the “improvement of sustainable production and land use policies and increased farmers’ capacities to shift to sustainable practices. At the same time, it has increased supply chain transparency and consumer demand for sustainable palm oil and built the awareness of financial institutions to invest sustainably and screen out deforesters in their portfolio.”

The GGP supported Indonesia’s National Action Plan—which is now being implemented at sub-national provincial, and district levels, too.

The action plan, along with Indonesia’s Enhanced Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), recognizes the country’s climate change vulnerabilities, especially in the low-lying areas throughout the archipelago and its position in the so-called ring of fires. The Enhanced NDC has set ambitious deforestation and rehabilitation targets, including peat land restoration of 2 million hectares and rehabilitation of degraded land of 12 million hectares by 2030.

Despite good results, stress ratcheted up for the industry as a new European Union policy now excludes sourcing palm oil or produce from areas deforested and degraded after December 31, 2020.

The new regulation will require companies to prove their bona fides through recognized traceability techniques. The sector is still working out its detailed response to the requirements, which some see as a unilateral EU move that does not respect the rights of the producing countries.

While the EU is a small market for Indonesia compared with the domestic, Chinese, and Indian markets, the regulations put additional pressure on an industry still strongly associated with small-scale farmers. It is also likely that other large markets will eventually align themselves with these regulations.

Even before the regulations became an issue, the GGP involved itself in communication campaigns to sensitize the public to sustainable certification, from the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO)to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards.

The communication campaigns worked to create awareness about sustainability issues among consumers, but also with large retailers (including one called Super Indo) to place RSPO-certified palm oil products on their shelves.

It’s critical to get all players in the supply chain on board, which is where multi-stakeholder tactics work effectively; the GGP believes that this multi-faceted approach is crucial to influencing companies.

“You influence companies through government policies, through the market, but you also influence them through the financial institutions,” says UNDP’s GGP Global Project Manager, Pascale Bonzom. “If the financial institutions that fund these downstream companies require them to show that they have no deforestation commitments, and they are implementing them with results, then they (the companies) are going to have to do something about it.”

Elaborating on the strategy, she said GGP and its partner World Wildlife Fund (WWF) worked at a regional level on building capacity in financial institutions to understand the impacts of their investments.

Now a scorecard is available—to equip and influence the investors to make better decisions and to use this kind of Environmental, Social, and Governance factors (ESG) screening for deforestation.

See Part 2: Smallholders Key to Indonesian Deforestation Successes

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Cocoa farmers in Padre Abad in Ucayali, Peru, benefitted from UNDP support to produce sustainable cocoa. Credit: UNDP

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Apr 26 2023 (IPS)

In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.

Membership would grow to over 500 partners covering 200 hectares of land today.

For almost four years, the cooperative’s small producers worked tirelessly on the transition of the area from traditional but environmentally taxing cocoa harvesting to growing premium cocoa that could meet export demand in the chocolate industry. This was no easy feat, as fine-flavor cocoa production demanded significant investment in technical training for members, initiatives to monitor deforestation, and data systems to ensure cocoa traceability, production, and sales. On the education side, it demanded a change from centuries-long cocoa farming practices to the principles of agroecology.

Then in April 2023, as the farmers worked to meet demanding international certifications, the European Parliament passed a new law introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef, and cocoa. Now the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is researching how it should step up its assistance to producers to meet the new criteria.

New EU Requirements

Colpa de Loros sells 100 percent of its cocoa to a European buyer, the French company Kaoka. When word of the new European regulations hit, the cooperative had already achieved organic production and fair-trade certification. It had also attained ‘fair for life’ certification, a Kaoka-led initiative.

Attaining these credentials meant that members had been working on a blueprint for environmentally friendly agriculture systems. However, for Peru, the world’s third largest cocoa supplier to Europe, the new regulations triggered frenetic action to maintain contracts with buyers and protect the almost 100,000 small producers who depend on cocoa exports to sustain their households.

“The law affects not only Colpa de Loros, but all producers,’ said Ernesto Parra, Manager of Colpa de Loros Cooperative.

“We already have laws which require analysis of pesticides, which makes costs higher. To ensure compliance with this rule, they implement measures like regular audits. Every grain must be free of contamination. There are organizations bigger than Colpa that are experiencing difficulties to respond, and no actions have been taken by the government to support them,” he said.

The European Commission has now also introduced new forest conservation and restoration rules. The Commission said the deforestation regulation would promote EU consumption of deforestation-free supply chain products, encourage international cooperation to tackle forest degradation, reroute finance to aid sustainable land-use practices, and support the collection and availability of quality data on forests and commodity supply chains.

Parra says this commitment to the environment complements the cooperative’s core values.

“The cooperative aligns with this green pact signed by all actors in Europe to not buy chocolate from deforested areas or involving child or forced work. They not only promote the protection of the environment, but reforestation, land protection, recycling programmes, and biogas from cacao liquid. We agree that cocoa can’t come from deforested areas or make new plantations in protected areas.”

While the cooperative is firm in its environmental consciousness, Parra says the investment is needed in educational activities and technical support for rural farmers who are struggling to accept the realities of land degradation and climate change.

“Some of them are still burning forests. Organizations need to convince the base of producers and farmers to change. Not only their partners but all people in the communities. Incentives can help. For example, I can be carbon neutral, but I’m going to have a higher cost, and if the market does not recognize it, if I don’t have an incentive, the standard will be difficult to maintain. Our cooperative gives its own incentives: those who commit to the organic certification receive fertilizer produced by Colpa de Loros to increase production.

“It is a start, but this is not enough. The state or the market needs to offer incentives as well.”

UNDP Support – and Good Growth Partnership Scoping

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been working with the world’s commodity-producing countries to put sustainability at the center of supply chains.

For the past five years, its Good Growth Partnership (GGP), based on the tenets of the Sustainable Development Goals and funded by the Global Environment Facility, has struck a balance between livelihoods and environmental protection—prioritizing people and the planet.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the GGP has embraced an Integrated Approach, working with producers, traders, policymakers, financial institutions, and multinational corporations to build sustainability in soy, beef, and palm oil supply chains.

Peru has so far not been covered by GGP but is being scoped for possible assistance under a next phase of the programme.

In the meantime, the UN agency has been supporting Peru to achieve sustainable commodity production- a target that remains crucial in the face of the new EU regulation.

“The control and monitoring of all production processes had to be doubled, and UNDP is vital here. With its finance, the technical department was strengthened, agricultural technology was incorporated, and members received capacity building in sustainability and food security,” said Parra.

Each member of Colpa de Loros is responsible for 3-4 hectares of land. The GEF-financed Sustainable Productive Landscapes (SPL) in the Peruvian Amazon project, led by the Ministry of Environment with technical assistance from UNDP, has been supporting projects that enhance food production while protecting water and land resources.

“The organization’s cocoa is not conventional cocoa. It is a fine aroma cocoa. So, producers needed equipment for special analysis. Then all information needed to be organized in a digital platform. UNDP helped in these areas,’ he added.

“The GEF-financed SPL project provided US$150,000 to complement the work of the organization with maps, digital platforms, and traceability. As there is no global system of traceability, Colpa is using its own, which is expensive.”

Action Plans

The UN organization, working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, has also been assisting the Government and industry partners to develop and implement national action plans for the cocoa and coffee sectors. The Peruvian National Plan for Cocoa and Chocolate was unveiled in November 2022. It breaks down divisions between production, demand, and finance issues in agriculture. It also contains clear strategies to increase sustainability based on science, technology, and tradition.

The plan complements the values of UNDP and represents a win for both farmers and the environment.

“It is important to recognize that many Peruvian farmers’ cooperatives and companies, regardless of the EU regulation, are concerned about the potential impacts of their production systems on the environment, and they are increasingly conscious of the impacts that climate change is having on their production systems,” said James Leslie, Technical Advisor Ecosystems and Climate Change at UNDP Peru.

“Now, the concern is the feasibility of complying with the EU regulation and in the timeframe required. This concern is directly related to the fact that the EU markets are important for Peruvian agricultural products, particularly coffee, and cocoa. There is a concern that with the new EU regulation, there can be restricted or more challenging access to the market.”

The UNDP official says meeting stringent sustainable production requirements comes at a hefty cost to owners of small and medium-sized farms.

“There is not necessarily a price premium for their products due to certification,” he said. Incentives are a key factor in GGP’s work in encouraging farmers to adopt sustainable practices.

“It’s important also to recognize that there is a difference within the farmer population. Some farmers are organized and are part of cooperatives. For example, roughly 20 percent of cocoa and coffee farmers are organized in some way, which means that 80 per cent are not. Those unorganized farmers are less likely to be certified, and they are less likely to be accessing stable markets that provide some price guarantee.”

According to the UNDP, Peru ranks 9 in the world’s top ten cocoa producers and tops the world in organic cocoa production. The majority of farmers are small-scale and medium scale. Leslie says many of these farmers are either living in poverty or vulnerable to falling below the poverty line.

“Add to that additional restrictions and costs in order to access markets, and it poses a risk for these farmers—for their wellbeing and livelihoods,” he said.

The Future of Sustainable Agriculture

Looking ahead, Leslie says access to traceability systems is important. The farmers will need to prove that their production has met the EU requirements.

He says the Government will also need to expand technical assistance, increase investment in science and technology, including the purchase of climate change-resistant crop varieties, and ensure that farmers can receive finance aligned with the EU regulation’s sustainability criteria.

Clear land use policies will also be needed to delineate land that is appropriate for agriculture and particular types of crops. Areas that must be regenerated should be clearly marked, along with those that should be conserved, such as watersheds and zones of high biodiversity value.

For Colpa de Loros, Parra says the goal must be to strike a balance between sustainable land use and livelihoods.

“For deforestation, there is a big relation to poverty. The majority of the time a producer cuts down a tree, it’s because of need.”

He says the challenge is to create a supply chain that is sustainable, competitive, and inclusive – a goal that is attainable with adequate support and buy-in from every link in the value chain.

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Excerpt:

In Cuba, UNDP has supported the government in integrating ecosystem-based adaptation in coastal planning. Credit: UNDP Cuba

By Srilata Kammila
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 2023 (IPS)

Several years ago, on a visit to a village in rural Zimbabwe, I met a small group of women with a story to share.

Having participated in a UNDP-supported adaptation project – including drought-resistant seeds and education in climate-smart agricultural practices – the women had significantly increased the productiveness of their home gardens.

However, what really caught my attention was how the women, seeing an opportunity to help one another and scale up their returns, had set up a peer group to pool their savings and invest on a revolving basis in each other’s other livelihood ventures (some agricultural, some not).

In this way, they had essentially created an enterprising model to build on and sustain the investments of the project. Local innovations such as this are key to meeting the challenges of the climate crisis.

The innovations we need span technologies, practices, business models and behavioural changes. These innovations are to be found at all levels, from national research institutions in the world’s biggest cities to small villages, like the one I visited in Zimbabwe.

At UNDP, we are focused on scaling up and accelerating innovative adaptation approaches that have been proven to be effective. Many of the 220 projects we have implemented around the world since 2008 have broken, and are breaking, ground in numerous ways.

In Thailand, for instance, UNDP is supporting the government in transforming agricultural practices by harnessing the power of the Internet of Things. In Mongolia, we are collaborating with herders to track livestock products from source to end to ensure sustainability. In Cuba, we have supported the government in integrating ecosystem-based adaptation with inter-sector coastal planning.

Supported by the Adaptation Fund and European Union, and in partnership with the UN Environment Programme and the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), the Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA) aims to foster more innovation at the local level.

The AFCIA funding window, managed by UNDP, was launched in 2021 and supports communities that are already responding to climate stresses in innovative ways.

Through the learnings from AFCIA, we aim to share lessons learned and best practices through an open platform called the Adaptation Innovation Marketplace, in which the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Global Resilience Partnership, Climate-KIC, UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC) are also founding members and key partners.

At UNDP, we are focused on scaling up and accelerating innovative adaptation approaches that have been proven to be effective.

With the first round of US$2.2 million grant funding, the programme is supporting 22 organizations in 19 countries to foster and accelerate their adaptation ideas.

The programme aims to develop more than 10 scalable innovative adaptation solutions, benefiting more than 175,000 people (at least 30 percent women), and supporting 2,200 hectares of land with restoration or regenerative agriculture.

Based on the progress reports from local partners, we are already seeing some impressive and scalable adaptation innovations.

For example, in Brazil, we are supporting a local partner to improve food security and protect the local ecosystem for indigenous people by introducing and expanding the production of acai berries. 115 hectares of land are now certified under sustainable agroforestry management, with 27 tonnes of acai berries processed and sold.

In Cambodia, 40 women are growing and selling crickets as an alternative food source, earning $2,600 for the first tonne of cricket farmed, a more adaptive product due to existing and future climate trends and one with year-round availability.

In Uganda, we are supporting a local partner that is teaching communities aquaponics technology through an innovative lease-to-own model to promote aquaponics and horticulture-related production. 2,600 aquaponic kits have been leased, and this local partner is now targeting an expansion plan of reaching $21 million of the local vegetable and fish market.

A second cohort of grantees is about to be announced, and we hope to provide another $2.5 million to local organizations across the globe, including approximately 10 micro grants of $60,000 and 13 small grants of $125,000.

Working with partners such as ICCCAD and the Global Resilience Partnership has allowed us to showcase the work of these AFCIA grantees and replicate their innovations in a broader network of networks.

For instance, at last month’s Global Gobeshona Conference, we had the opportunity to learn from four local organizations – from the first cohort of grantees from the Innovation Small Grant Aggregator Platform (ISGAP) Programme – that are implementing solutions to build the resilience of women, youth, refugees and Indigenous communities in India, the Philippines, Uganda and in the Sahel (West Africa).

These examples are instructive. By identifying successful innovation solutions, and then scaling up and replicating them in other parts of a country or region, governments can save valuable time and money.

By establishing or accelerating pilot projects and carefully monitoring their results, insights and best practices can be fed into policy processes, helping to scale up successful approaches.

Working together with partners, I am confident we will empower local communities and stakeholders to innovate and adapt, finding more solutions for resilience building.

We look forward to working with our current partners, and new ones, to scale the impact.

Srilata Kammila is Head of Climate Change Adaptation, UNDP

Source: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

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José Luis Márquez, Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir stand around a table holding fruits harvested from their Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, in Martí, a municipality in northwestern Cuba. The family of farmers values ​​the final products of biogas technology, rich in nutrients suitable for fertilizing and restoring the soil. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
MARTÍ, Cuba , Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

The first five biomethane-fuelled buses in the Cuban municipality of Martí will not only be a milestone in the country but will also represent a solution to the serious problem of transportation, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and bolstering local development.

Yaisema Fabelo, a librarian at the local prep school, told IPS that “the buses will boost the quality of life of the residents” of the municipality located in the north of the western province of Matanzas, about 200 kilometers east of Havana.

Fabelo, who is also a farmer from the Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, stressed that using biogas on an industrial scale and on individual farms “to produce electricity, cook food and obtain biofertilizers for organic crops” will benefit the 22,000 inhabitants of the municipality and surrounding areas.

The Martí I and nearby Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation. They will connect through two separate gas pipelines with a biomethane plant where the fuel will be obtained for a group of buses. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The project

Turning pig manure and crop waste into biomethane and biogas is the focus of the project “Global Action for Climate Change in Cuba: Municipality of Martí, towards a carbon-neutral sustainable development model.”

The project, carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Economy and Planning with 5.5 million dollars in financing disbursed by the European Union, began to be implemented in 2020 and is to be completed in 2024.“[We want] to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy." -- Anober Aguilar

“The main problem that Martí has ​​in the case of greenhouse gases is waste, responsible for 57 percent of our emissions,” explained Sobeida Reyes, director of territorial development for the town.

In an interview with IPS, the official pointed out that with the project and as part of the local development strategy, the aim is to gradually contribute to decarbonization with the use of renewable energy sources and incorporate biogas to biomethane conversion technology.

Biogas is composed mainly of methane and carbon dioxide, obtained in biodigesters from the decomposition of organic residues such as agricultural or livestock waste by bacteria, through anaerobic digestion, without oxygen.

Biomethane, also known as a renewable gas, is derived from a treatment process that removes carbon dioxide, moisture, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, among other impurities from biogas, which brings its composition closer to that of fossil natural gas and favors its use to generate electricity and heat and to fuel vehicles.

The plan is to strengthen the public transport system through “16 buses powered by biomethane, the first five of which are to be tested in February 2024, after a bidding process outlined in the project that will facilitate their importation,” Reyes said.

“There is a commitment that these buses will be driven by women,” she added.

The future biomethane plant, which has already been awarded in tender, will provide, according to the plan, about 150 cubic meters per hour of gas suitable for bottling.

It will depend on the Martí I and Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters, which will be the largest in the country and will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation.

These, in turn, will each be fed by a pig breeding center belonging to the Matanzas Pork Company.

A third of the 14 kilometers of gas pipelines that will connect both biodigesters to the biomethane plant have already been put in place.

The generator is also being installed, while the lagoon is being filled with water to check its operation. The last thing needed is to put in place the membrane that will cover it.

This part is expected to be operational in February of next year, as well as the biomethane plant, so that the first five buses can then be tested, according to the established timeframe.

With the help of an electricity generator, the Martí I biodigester is to provide 100 kilowatts per hour, equivalent to the approximate consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The Martí II will provide even more.

A poster shows what the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester will look like. For Anober Aguilar, a specialist at the Indio Hatuey Pastures and Forages Experimental Station, responsible for the technological assembly, the construction of this type of biodigesters is economically feasible in Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Greater commitment to biogas

A potent greenhouse gas, methane has 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide, studies show.

Scientists argue that proper management of methane resulting from the decomposition of agricultural waste and livestock manure helps to mitigate water and soil pollution and to combat climate change.

Its extraction and energy use, especially in rural and semi-urban settings, can be a cost-effective solution to reduce the consumption of electricity based on fossil sources. In Cuba there are an estimated 5,000 small-scale (up to 24 cubic meters per day) biodigesters.

In this country of 11.1 million inhabitants, a significant percentage of the 3.9 million households use electricity as the main source of energy for cooking and heating water for bathing.

Renewable energy sources account for only five percent of the national energy mix.

In the case of biogas, “the main obstacle to its expansion is the availability of manure, as there is a low number of pigs and cattle, due to problems with feed and animal nutrition,” Anober Aguilar, an expert with the Indio Hatuey Pasture and Forage Experimental Station, located in Perico, another municipality of Matanzas, told IPS.

This scientific research center for technological management and innovation in the field of livestock production is in charge of the technological assembly of the biodigesters of the covered lagoon in Martí.

In the context of an economic crisis that has lasted for three decades, exacerbated by the tightening of the U.S, embargo, the COVID pandemic, and failed or delayed economic reforms, Cuba has limited imports of animal feed due to the shortage of foreign currency.

Furthermore, insufficient harvests do not guarantee abundant raw material to produce feed, while the scarcity of construction materials and their high cost make it impossible for many farmers to undertake the construction of a biodigester.

Conservative estimates by experts suggest that there is potential to expand the network of biodigesters on the island to up to 20,000 units, at least small-scale ones.

“If we look at the cost of the investment in the short term, it is more feasible to focus on wind or solar energy, because setting up a biodigester requires more financing, more time and specialized personnel,” explained Aguilar.

But seen at a distance of 10 to 15 years, “the investment evens out, because the potential of photovoltaic cells declines, repairs are made difficult by the rapid changes in technology, or the blades of the windmills deteriorate, in addition to the fact that both are more vulnerable to tropical cyclones,” the expert said.

“As long as they have raw material, biodigesters produce 24 hours a day,” he added.

He specified that one of the objectives of the project is “to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy.”

Ministerial Order 395 of April 2021, of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, stipulated that each of the 168 Cuban municipalities must have a development program and strategy regarding biogas, and coordinate their management and implementation with those of their respective province.

Electrical technician Reinaldo Álvarez shows the electric generator located in the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester, in northwestern Cuba, which will provide about 100 kilowatt hours, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The nearby Martí II biodigester will produce even more. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Promoting agroecology

Martí’s development strategy includes projects to prepare preserves, spices and dehydrated foods with the help of the sun, a biomass gasifier for drying rice and generating electricity, the production of cooking oil, thermal baths, exploiting natural asphalt deposits, and social works, among others.

Reyes reported that 28 farms in the municipality have biodigesters, and that in 12 of them, as part of the project, “a module was delivered that includes a refrigerator, a stove, a rice cooker and a lamp, which use biogas.”

Another urgent objective is to foment agroecology and move towards local self-sufficiency in food, including animal feed.

“In the current harvest we had a yield per hectare of 19 tons of organic potatoes. As with the other crops, we only used biological products, of which more than 80 percent were produced by us,” farmer José Luis Márquez explained to IPS.

The 13-hectare Los Tres Hermanos agroecological teaching farm, dedicated to growing a variety of crops and small livestock using sustainable techniques, was granted in usufruct by the government, forms part of the Ciro Redondo credit and services cooperative, and has been managed by Márquez since 2018, together with his wife Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir.

A nationally manufactured PVC (polyvinyl chloride) tubular biodigester is also installed on the farm, with a volume of forty cubic meters.

“Due to the pandemic and the shortage of manure, it is not producing. We want to once again encourage pig and rabbit farming, recycle solid waste and convert it into organic fertilizer for crops and household chores,” said Márquez.

Biogas technology provides biol and biosol, liquid effluent and sludge, respectively, rich in nutrients to fertilize and restore the soil.

The farm is visited by students from different levels of education, up to prep school, who through workshops given by Márquez and Fabelo, learn about good agroecological practices “and the positive impact on the economy, people’s health and the environment,” Fabelo said.

Pacific Community-led regional initiative aims to assist countries in the region with mitigating the impacts of climate change-induced tuna migration. Credit: Pacific Community/SPC

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)

Climate change and warming ocean waters are causing tuna fisheries to migrate to international waters, away from a country’s jurisdiction, thereby putting the food and economic security of many Pacific Island countries and territories at risk.

Now a Pacific Community (SPC) led regional initiative will help ensure that these countries are equipped to cope with climate change-induced tuna migration.

“All the climate change projections indicate that there will be a redistribution of tuna from the western and central Pacific to the more eastern and towards the polar regions, that is not Antarctica or the Arctic, but to regions outside of the equatorial zones where they primarily occur at the moment,” says SPC’s Principal Fisheries Scientist, Dr Simon Nicol.

“This has really important implications for the Pacific Island countries. Our projections suggest that about one-fifth or about USD 100 million of the income derived from the tuna industry directly is likely to be lost by 2050 by these countries,” Nicol tells IPS.

The total annual catch of tuna in the western and central Pacific Ocean represents around 55 percent of global tuna production. Approximately half of this catch is from the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Pacific Island countries.

The recent USD15.5 million [NZD25 million] funding by New Zealand for SPC’s ‘Climate Science for Ensuring Pacific Tuna Access’ programme will enable Pacific Island countries to prepare and adapt the region’s tuna fisheries to meet the challenges posed by climate change.

Nicol says that the investment that New Zealand has provided for the programme will allow for more rigorous and timely monitoring of the types of changes that are occurring, both due to the impacts of fishing and climate change, at a very fine resolution. Secondly, it will also provide the additional resources that are needed to increase the ocean monitoring capacity to remove the anomalies and biases to particular local conditions, which often occur in global climate models.

“We have noted, for example, that the boundary of the warm pool in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Nauru can have an element of bias associated with it. It’s an important oceanographic feature in the western Pacific equatorial zone, which moves in association with the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Sometimes its eastern boundary is right next to Papua New Guinea, and at other times, it extends all the way past Nauru. It is a key driver of recruitment for skipjack tuna, so we need to be quite precise where that boundary is for any prediction of skipjack recruitment that occurs in any given year,” he tells IPS.

Several Pacific Island countries and territories find their food and economic security at risk due to the climate-change-induced migration of tuna into international waters. Credit: Pacific Community (SPC)

The analysis at the ocean basin scale does not provide EEZ scale information for particular countries, and it is often not precise in predicting when the impact of climate change is going to manifest itself.

Under the programme, a Pacific-owned advanced warning system will be developed by SPC to help countries forecast, monitor and manage tuna migration, which is set to become more pronounced in the coming decades.

“The advanced warning system will allow us to zoom in on what the likely changes are in each particular country’s EEZ and also zoom in more accurately and precisely on when those changes are likely to occur, which is particularly important from a Pacific Island country perspective,” Nicol tells IPS.

Whilst Pacific Island countries manage the tuna resource collectively to ensure its biological sustainability, the income that they derive is very much a national-level enterprise. A recent study in Nature Sustainability estimates that the movement of tuna stocks could cause a fall of up to 17 percent in the annual government revenue of some of these countries.

The study notes that more than 95 percent of all tuna caught from the jurisdictions of the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories comes from the combined EEZs of 10 Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) – Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu. On average, they derive 37 percent (ranging from 4 percent for Papua New Guinea to 84 percent for Tokelau) of all government revenue from tuna-fishing access fees paid by foreign industrial fishing fleets.

“The advanced warning system would allow for more refined predictions of the changes in tuna stock, abundance, distribution and the fisheries around them. This is very important to what each country gets as access fees, which relates to how much tuna is typically caught in their EEZ,” says Dr Meryl Williams, Vice Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation.

“Access fees usually form part of the general consolidated revenue that the government has to spend on hospitals, education and infrastructure, and hence it is a very important source of revenue for people’s economic development in many of the Pacific Island countries,” she adds.

Currently, the program is focused only on the four dominant tuna species – Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), Yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), Bigeye (Thunnus obesus) and the South Pacific Albacore (Thunnus alalunga) – caught in the Pacific Island countries.

SPC’s Director of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, Coral Pasisi says, “Without successful global action to mitigate climate change, the latest ecosystem modelling predicts a significant decrease in the availability of tropical tuna species (tuna biomass) in the Western Pacific due to a shifting of their biomass to the east and some declines in overall biomass. Negative impacts on coastal fish stocks important for local food security are also predicted”.

Curbing greenhouse gas emissions in line with The Paris Agreement could help limit tuna migration away from the region. “We have to ensure sustainable fishing levels for the Pacific Islands. To reach this goal, developed countries should act quickly and increase their ambition to stay below 1.5 degrees centigrade, and Pacific countries should maintain sustainable management of their fisheries resources,” Pasisi tells IPS.

She says the future of the Pacific region’s marine resources will be secured through nearshore fish aggregating devices, sustainable coastal fisheries management plans, and aquaculture.

“We must also complete the work on delineating all Exclusive Economic Zone boundaries to ensure sovereignty over the resources. We need and seek international recognition for the permanency of these. We also must work with all fishing nations in the Pacific to ensure that sustainable management of tuna fisheries continues, even if there is a shift into international waters,” Pasisi adds.

The programme will work with Pacific Island countries and territories to develop and implement new technologies and innovative approaches to enable the long-term sustainability of the region’s tuna fisheries.

There is a need to also recognise the more direct fisheries benefits that people, including women, receive from their contributions to the tuna industry, says Williams, who is also the founder and immediate past Chair of the Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries section of the Asian Fisheries Society.

“Looking at the whole of employment in small-scale and industrial fisheries tuna value chains, not just fishing but also processing, trading, work in offices and in fisheries management etc., we estimate that women probably make up at least half, if not more than half, of the labour force in the tuna industry. Hence, their role is very important in sustainably managing the tuna stock in Pacific Island countries,” she tells IPS.

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The potential for indigenous crops and plant species to address hunger remains largely untapped even as extreme weather changes threaten to cripple food systems. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Mar 27 2023 (IPS)

Elizabeth Njoroge recounts her poverty-stricken upbringing in Ting’ang’a village in the Central part of Kenya, growing up on a diet heavy on Amaranth and pumpkin.

The 45-year-old speaks about the shame of neighbours finding out the frequency with which her family consumed foods associated with poor and extremely food-insecure households.

“Terere (Amaranth) grew just like weed. We often sneaked into other people’s farms to pick the vegetable because only poor people ate terere and only babies ate pumpkin. Eating pumpkin as a family was considered a sign of poverty,” she tells IPS.

That was then; today, Zachary Aduda, who is an independent researcher in food security, says people’s understanding and appreciation of indigenous foods has grown.

“Native foods that were previously considered only fit for the very poor and vulnerable have been commercialized because of their documented high nutritional value. They include amaranth, which is also a neutralizer for vegetables that are considered bitter such as the black nightshade, locally known as osuga,” he says.

But as Kenya struggles to be free from the grips of the most severe drought in the last 40 years, he says indigenous foods have not been sufficiently utilized to halt the pace and spread of food insecurity and, more so, in the arid and semi-arid parts of the country.

The drought has resulted in the East African nation being considered seriously food insecure, with severe nutrition vulnerabilities leading to high malnutrition levels and poverty.

A UN food security outlook for October 2022 to January 2023 indicated that the number of people in Kenya facing hunger could reach 4.4 million and that 1.2 million people were projected to have entered the emergency phase and are in urgent need of food support.

The potential, Aduda tells IPS, for indigenous crops and plant species to address hunger remains largely untapped. Kenya, alongside a vast majority of the world, relies heavily on three crops – maize, wheat and rice.

Research by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that the three crop species meet an estimated 50 percent of the global requirements for proteins and calories.

Hellen Wanjugu, an agriculturalist based in Nyeri County, one of Kenya’s food baskets, says native crops and plant species are not only heavy in nutrition but can withstand ongoing extreme changes in weather patterns.

Take, for instance, amaranth: “It is easy to grow, matures fast and when cooked, very rich in nutrients such as calcium, manganese, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, folate, iron, zinc and potassium.”

Maize, wheat and rice production is buckling under the pressure from extreme climate change and pest infestation. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the size of farm acreage planted with maize has declined by approximately a quarter in recent years, an alarming development since maize is a staple food crop.

Aduda speaks of inadequate efforts to support resilience interventions around the production of indigenous foods. He says there is too much focus on fertilizers and little to no focus on the difficulties farmers face accessing and multiplying indigenous seeds.

“Every ethnic group in Kenya boasts of its own traditional crops and vegetables in line with the climate of their region. But there is a problem because our smallholder farmers, who are the backbone of our food system, cannot easily access the indigenous seeds they so urgently need,” he says.

Kenya’s smallholder farmers account for at least 70 percent of the country’s production, and their combined output meets an estimated 75 percent of domestic food needs in the country, according to government data.

“But, a vast majority of these farmers rely on informal seeds system. Traditionally, seed saving and sharing among farmers was a very normal and common practice. This way, farmers largely controlled the seeds system, and they were able to grow native species and promote our agricultural biodiversity until a prohibitive law came into place in 2012,” Wanjugu tells IPS.

The Seed and Plant Varieties Act 326 of 2012 was originally established to protect farmers from being duped into buying unregistered or uncertified seeds. Uncertified seeds are often low yielding and easily succumb to changes in weather and pest infestation.

But the 2012 Act also strongly prohibits the sale, exchange and sharing of indigenous seeds in Kenya. A violation of this law could lead to up to two years in jail, a fine of up to $10,000 or both.

A group of farmers are currently in court with a public interest litigation towards the amendment of the seeds law to allow the saving and sharing of indigenous seeds to boost the production of indigenous foods.

As it is now, farmers are required to buy seeds every planting season, which has placed the cost of farm input beyond the reach of many peasant farmers.

Wanjugu says the seeds law has removed the control of seeds from the hands of farmers and into the hands of multinational corporations, who are slowly dictating what farmers can grow because of the high seed prices.

Exotic vegetables such as cabbages and kale now account for about three-quarters of the total vegetables consumed in Kenya, she added.

She says this aligns with UN research that shows while more than 7,000 wild plants have been documented wild worldwide, either grown or collected, less than 150 of these species have been commercialised. Out of these wild plant species, the world’s food needs are met by only 30 plant species.

“Today, food recipes for indigenous species are available from reputable institutions and organizations such as FAO. Native species taste much better than exotic plants and are more nutritious, but farmers lack the capacity to fully lean on indigenous plant species to meet our food needs,” she emphasizes.

Aduda speaks of Kenya’s recent entry into the era of GMOs after the lifting of a 10-year ban, which he says has created debates that are moving the country further and further away from the critical issues facing farmers today.

He stresses that using indigenous knowledge and seeds, supporting farmers to overcome water stresses, deploying sufficient agricultural extension officers as it were many years ago, and improving connectivity between farm and market will produce the silver bullet to build a food-secure nation.

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Cyclone damage in Vanuatu. Credit: UNICEF/ReliefWeb

By Jotham Napat and Patricia Scotland
LONDON, Mar 23 2023 (IPS)

Human life is sacred and every individual deserves an equal chance in life. We have a common desire, we all want to lead a free, fulfilling existence, with dignity, where our basic needs are met, with opportunities to advance and equal treatment under the law. These are fundamental human rights, protected by international law, which we all have a shared responsibility to protect.

Out of the horrors and bloodshed of war, we created an international system for cooperation between nations under the United Nations, with our rights enshrined by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Today, our rights are threatened not only by weapons, but by the destruction of our environment, our earth, our only home.

Climate change is wreaking havoc on people’s basic human rights to life, food, water, housing, health and a decent standard of living. And as the IPCC stated just this week, we have a “rapidly closing window of opportunity” to prevent this destruction.

Hon Jotham Napat

This month, when formidable twin cyclones Judy and Kevin slammed into the small island nation of Vanuatu within days of each other, they laid waste to homes, infrastructure and crops, severely impacting more than 80% of the population.

And like many other climate-vulnerable Pacific Island countries, whose territories are 99 per cent ocean, Vanuatu could see more than a metre rise in sea levels by the end of the century, placing entire coastal communities further in jeopardy.

Elsewhere in the world, drawn-out droughts in East Africa – the worst seen in 40 years – are killing millions of livestock and placing 17 million people at risk of starvation.

In South Asia, tropical cyclones are becoming ever more destructive, with the likes of Cyclone Amphan (2020) displacing nearly five million people across India and Bangladesh.

These worsening conditions are not freaks of nature, they are a predictable – and predicted – process of intensifying environmental damage caused by human activity. The world’s scientific community is unanimous and unequivocal that human influence has driven up average global temperature, causing unprecedented changes across the entire climate system.

Rt Hon Patricia Scotland

It is one of the world’s deepest injustices and the root of growing inequality. While the most climate vulnerable countries have contributed the least greenhouse emissions that cause climate change, they are forced to endure the very worst of its impacts.

Small island developing states – two thirds of which are in the Commonwealth – contribute less than 1 percent of global emissions, while the world’s poorest nations contribute less than 4 percent. Yet it is their people who are frequently and directly in jeopardy, including their rights to development, self-determination and a healthy environment.

Addressing these injustices provides the foundation for an initiative led by Vanuatu, a Commonwealth member country, to obtain official advice from the world’s highest court.

On 29 March 2023, Vanuatu, along with more than 115 other co-sponsoring countries including a host of Commonwealth nations, will table a proposed resolution at the United Nations General Assembly requesting an advisory opinion on climate change from the International Court of Justice.

Such an opinion, though non-binding, would outline the obligations of states under international law to protect the environment and future generations from climate change. It would also clarify the legal consequences of harming the environment, taking into account the impacts on vulnerable communities and future generations.

This is not an attempt to blame or shame countries for the policies of the past, it is an attempt to clarify international climate obligations which can help all nations be more ambitious and effective. It has the potential to focus climate action not only on degrees of Celsius and tons of carbon, but on to preventing the most serious climate impacts on our people and our planet.

Disaster response efforts led by the National Disaster Management Office of Vanuatu to support affected communities after dual Cyclones Judy and Kevin. Credit: NDMO Vanuatu

This moment deserves our attention. All Commonwealth countries adhere to the Commonwealth Charter, which places the utmost importance on protecting the environment, and centralises the need for multilateral cooperation, sustained commitment and collective action on climate change. The International Court of Justice plays a vital role in multilateral cooperation as the main judicial organ of the United Nations – and the Commonwealth Charter emphasises the value of the rule of law at every turn.

There is no question that international law can be a vital tool in establishing and delivering climate justice. In the most vulnerable parts of the world, it is often all that stands between climate resilience and catastrophe, between prosperity and destitution.

When the resolution is tabled at the General Assembly, it will be worthy of careful consideration and support by all UN Member States. The breadth and diversity of countries at the heart of this effort underscores the grim reality that climate change does not, and will not, spare any of us. In this, we do not have a choice, only a responsibility, because it is a matter of life or death. We must therefore use every mechanism at our disposal to rise to the challenge of climate justice in a fair and effective way.

Hon Jotham Napat is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and External Trade of Vanuatu, a Pacific Island nation on the frontlines of climate change.

Rt Hon Patricia Scotland, KC is the sixth Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, and the first woman to hold the post. She leads an organisation of 56 countries working together to promote democracy, peace and sustainable development.

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Jehyson Guzmán, the governor of the state of Mérida, in the Venezuelan Andes, delivers a solar panel installation to the rural community of El Anís that will benefit dozens of families. Parliament is preparing, meanwhile, new legislation to try to promote these alternative energies in the country. CREDIT: Government of Mérida

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 21 2023 (IPS)

The installation of solar panels in a remote village in ​​the Andes highlands in late February marked a second incursion by the Venezuelan government into the field of solar energy, previously uncharted territory in this country that for a century was a leading global oil producer.

The governor of the Andean state of Mérida, Jehyson Guzmán, inaugurated the 135 solar panels that will initially serve 17 families in the El Anís village near the town of Lagunillas, 600 kilometers southwest of Caracas, and will later provide electricity to a total of 2,500 people, in neighboring communities as well.

“They’re presenting it as something new, but they probably brought materials from a facility they had in the area around PDVSA (the state-owned oil company), where an industrial-scale project failed and was abandoned,” alternative energy expert Alejandro López-González told IPS."Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars….and a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity." -- Luis Ramírez

López-González also pointed out that the government program “Sembrando Luz”, developed by Venezuelan and Cuban engineers, installed close to 2,300 small solar power systems, mainly in rural and indigenous communities, between 2005 and 2012.

Venezuela was then governed by the late Hugo Chávez (1999-2013). During his time in office the country went through a cycle of oil wealth, followed by the collapse of the oil industry and numerous infrastructure and service projects, such as alternative electricity, most of which were abandoned half-complete.

There are also wind farms on the peninsulas of Paraguaná and Guajira, in the northwest – where the trade winds are constant, strong and fast – and adding more than 100 wind turbines could contribute up to 150 Mwh to the local grid in one of the areas hardest-hit by blackouts so far this century.

Wind turbines began to be installed starting in 2006 in Paraguaná and 2011 in La Guajira, and more than 400 million dollars were invested, with the idea of ​​supplying numerous indigenous communities mainly of the Wayúu people.

But the installation of more wind turbines and equipment was delayed, the project fell by the wayside, many materials were stolen to be sold as scrap, and by 2018 the then minister of electric power, Luis Motta, gave it up for lost.

A similar fate befell hundreds of small solar energy projects – in some cases accompanied by wind power – in peasant and indigenous communities, which would have “benefited up to 200,000 people throughout the country but were put out of service due to lack of maintenance and attention,” lamented López-González.

Actually, before “Sembrando luz”, there were specific and especially rural initiatives for solar and wind energy – for example, to dig water wells in the plains of the Orinoco – organized by individuals, universities and some public entities.

The green roof of the postgraduate studies building at the Andrés Bello Catholic University blocks excess heat from some of the classrooms and serves as the basis for the installation of solar panels that provide electricity to various parts of campus. In the background can be seen the poor neighborhood of Antímano, in western Caracas. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The universities’ turn

Now the initiatives are reaching urban areas, among individuals in cities hard-hit by long power cuts, such as the hot city of Maracaibo in the northwest, the country’s oil capital, commercial establishments, health centers, and an exemplary installation in the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), in Caracas.

UCAB “decided to incorporate ecology and sustainability into programs, practices, the management of its 32-hectare campus where there are some 5,000 students in various disciplines, as an experiment and contribution to environmental science in the country,” Joaquín Benítez, director of Environmental Sustainability, told IPS.

Thus, since 2019, the roof of the postgraduate studies building has been transformed into a green roof, with an 800-square-meter garden of low-lying succulent plants that store water.

Several classrooms under that roof, where temperatures at 3:00 p.m. local time reached 31 degrees Celsius for most of the year in 2013, now have an average temperature of 25 degrees, Benítez said.

The garden was followed by the installation of 30 solar panels along the edge of the roof, plus a backup wind generator, to support research and study projects, provide energy to part of the building and feed the watering device for the plants.

Enough energy is generated to serve a house for five people, with three bedrooms on two floors, two bathrooms and a small garden, Benítez said.

Solar panels were installed at the private Andrés Bello Catholic University, in the capital of Venezuela. While waiting for large projects, installations like these are gaining ground in homes, farms and businesses, sometimes combined with the use of the national power grid or diesel-fueled plants. CREDIT: UCAB

Learning from failures

But a panel installation in a home, farm or small business, even if it is only complementary to the national electrical grid or used to power only a few appliances, costs from 4,000 dollars up to five times that amount. This is a huge sum in a country where the majority of the population is living in poverty and the monthly minimum wage is less than six dollars.

However, hundreds of private solar power installations have sprung up, often in combination with diesel-fired plants – and also small wind turbines – in areas of the west and the central and eastern plains, with a handful of companies dedicated to installation and maintenance.

The electricity crisis has been part of an economic depression and social and political crisis that has pushed more than seven million Venezuelans to leave the country in the last decade under President Nicolás Maduro, reducing the population to an estimated 28 million inhabitants.

The northwestern oil and ranching state of Zulia alone, covering 63,000 square kilometers and home to five million people, suffered 37,000 power failures last year, according to the Committee of People Affected by Blackouts.

Outages across the country totaled 233,000 last year and 196,000 in 2021. Four years ago, in March 2019, a blackout left almost all of Venezuela, including much of Caracas, without power for between 72 and 100 continuous hours.

The country is supplied by the Guri hydroelectric complex in the southeast, with an installed capacity of 12,000 Mwh in three dams, and which covers two thirds of the national demand. Another 30 percent comes from thermal plants, and the rest from small distributed generation plants.

In total, the country’s installed capacity, which should have reached 34,000 Mwh according to the investments made over decades, barely reaches 24,000 Mwh, since much of the infrastructure is rundown, as are the distribution networks.

The supply deficit would be even worse were it not for the collapse of the economy, as the country’s GDP plunged by up to 80 percent between 2013 and 2021, and demand, which stood at around 19,000 Mwh in 2013, had dropped to 11,000 Mwh in 2019.

The Cecosesola central cooperative health center in the western Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto installed solar panels to power some of its services and raise awareness about the importance of clean energy. Years ago solar installations were made in remote rural areas, but recently they are making their way into cities. CREDIT: Cecosesola

Paying little or nothing

Renewable energy expert Luis Ramírez reminded IPS that electricity in Venezuela, in the hands of the State, is subsidized up to 99 percent.

“Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars,” said Ramírez, who is also director of the graduate program in quality systems at UCAB.

However, since 2022 the rates for public services, such as water, electricity, cooking gas, gasoline, highway use and garbage collection have begun to rise in different regions of the country.

In addition, “a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity,” Ramírez explained.

The inhabitants of poor neighborhoods and shantytowns in Caracas and other cities connect themselves to the grid freely, and in small towns in the interior small business establishments often do the same.

This discourages investments in the sector and in particular in renewable energies, which often have higher installation and start-up costs than plants powered by fossil energy.

Pending policies, laws, initiatives and financing to establish solar or wind farms, hydroelectric power generated in the gigantic complex of Lake Guri, which feeds the Caroní River in the southeast of the country, remains the source that sustains two thirds of electricity consumption in Venezuela. CREDIT: Corpoelec

From law to potential

Publications from the Ministry of Electric Power indicate that an additional 500 Mwh are expected to be installed in the west of the country, mainly from renewable energies, but without specifying a timeframe, amounts to be invested or sources of financing.

In the legislature, controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the drafting of a renewable energy law was proposed since 2021, to stimulate and organize the sector, but the question has not been given priority by parliament or the government.

The experts consulted by IPS agree that the drafts of that law mainly repeat provisions already present in the current Organic Law on Electricity Service, without adding new aspects such as establishing a renewable energy research institute to help develop the industry, Ramírez said.

According to López-González, the fact that the electricity law enacted in 2010 still lacks regulations to specify policies in measures and technical and operational decisions shows the State’s disdain for ensuring compliance and promoting the development of the sector.

He said the new steps such as the small installation in the Andes and the announcements that a new law is being prepared are “an effort to publicize what is nothing more than a residual development, no more than zombies of abandoned projects.”

Venezuela’s solar potential is one of the highest in Latin America, with an average of 5.35 kilowatt hours per square meter per day (5.35 Kwh/m2), close to the highest in Chile (5.75) and Bolivia (5.42), according to studies by the Department of Sciences of the Universitiy de Los Andes, in the southwest of the country.

In the northern coastal region along the Caribbean Sea, the information collected in meteorological stations shows an even greater potential: between 5.8 and 7.3 Kwh/m2.

In the north, where the most populated and industrialized centers of the country are located, the potential of 12,000 Mwh awaits better times, López-González said. “We can have a wind Guri,” he said, making a comparison with the largest of the dams in the southeastern hydroelectric complex.

Venezuela, a leading oil producer for a century, which still has the largest reserves in the world (300 billion barrels, mostly unconventional), also has the potential to belong to the club of countries that are self-sufficient in renewable energy.

But this membership is still just a spot on the distant horizon.

Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency situation, the UN, along with Pacific member States have deployed personnel on the ground to coordinate humanitarian assistance and prepare post-disaster damage assessment.

Sitting in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Vanuatu experiences frequent volcanic and seismic activity. And along with the other Pacific small island developing States (SIDS), Vanuatu faces existential threats due to rising sea level, ocean acidification and the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters and is on the front line of climate crisis.

The twin cyclones and an earthquake in just 48 hours remind the world that seismic and climate risks are converging and intensifying – no community feels this stronger than those of the Blue Pacific Continent.

On macro-economic impact, in fact, Pacific SIDS face Average Annual Losses from multiple hazards totaling to US$ 1.1 billion in the current scenario. This figure is set to increase to US$ 1.3 billion under moderate and US$1.4 billion under worst-case climate warming scenarios. As a percentage of GDP, Vanuatu, Tonga and Palau are projected to face highest losses – Vanuatu is projected to lose a staggering 20 per cent GDP annually due to disasters.

Figure 1: Tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin track with wind speed zones (UNITAR-UNOSAT)


 

Intensifying and expanding climate crisis

In ESCAP’s recent report, the analysis shows that at 1.5 to 2.0 °C warming, there are likely intensifying annual wind speeds of tropical cyclones and that the risk of tropical cyclones is expected to expand and include newer areas beyond the historical tracks (Figure 2). Vanuatu in particular, will experience higher risk of tropical cyclone both in terms of the intensification as well as geographic expansion of the riskscape.

As cyclone hazards are intensifying and deviating from their traditional tracks, their greater complexity results in deeper uncertainties in the ability to predict. Our Blue Pacific Continent is not sufficiently prepared.

Figure 2: Intensifying and expanding cyclone risks under new climate change scenarios


 

Formulating transformative actions

As the climate changes, the riskscape is transforming. These disaster risks compound and cascade to amplify the great hardship experienced by the Pacific SIDS in terms of population and critical infrastructure exposure. The argument for transformative action to mitigate and adapt to intensifying and expanding disaster risks in the Blue Pacific Continent has never been more compelling.

First, early warning for all is an imperative, needs to capture compounding risks.

The UN Secretary-General highlighted that every person on the planet is to be covered by early warning systems by 2027. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction sets the increase in availability and access to of multi‑hazard early warning systems as a distinct target, Target G, to be achieved by 2030. As per the latest Sendai Framework reporting of Target G, large gaps remain for many countries in the Pacific SIDS (See Figure 3).

Relative to other countries in the subregion, Vanuatu’s Target G scores are high, reporting substantial to comprehensive coverage of multi-hazard early warning systems across all indicators. WMO’s Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre in Nadi, Fiji was providing early warnings in the face of power outages and surmounting uncertainties – as a result, there have been no reported fatalities.

Figure 3: Sendai Framework for DRR Target G scores for countries in the Pacific region


 

Second, transformative adaptation solutions are needed.

To minimize and prevent systemic and cascading risk, we need to make new infrastructure and water resource management more resilient. Improving dryland crop production and using nature-based solutions such as increasing mangroves protection are also priority adaptation solutions.

1.5 per cent of GDP for adaptation investment is estimated to be needed in Pacific SIDS – three times less than the average losses projected. These adaptation investments must be risk-informed and strategically directed towards policy actions that yield high cost-benefits. Where there are multi-hazard risk hotspots across the region, risk-informed policy and transformative actions should capitalize on inter-sectoral synergies and co-benefits.

Third, the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent provides a clear pathway

With the adoption of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent in July 2022, Pacific SIDS have developed a clear pathway to synergize regional priorities with accelerated implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the SAMOA Pathway.

Next generation risk analytics, advances in climate science, geo-spatial modeling, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning must be at the heart of people-centered and evidence-based decision-making. And, the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific is an ideal platform to take forward some of the policy decisions.

Strengthening subregional and regional cooperation platform

Tropical cyclones, often transboundary in nature, require an architecture of regional co-operation mechanisms to effectively manage the shared risks. In this instance, local capacities and regional support mechanisms should be commended. To further strengthen this work, the lesson from Vanuatu’s back-to-back cyclones and earthquake is to have effective, impact-based and risk informed early warning systems that can capture the complexity and dynamisms of a compounding risk.

The Asia-Pacific Risk and Resilience Portal was developed by ESCAP with the goal of creating a user-friendly one stop platform for policymakers to access a vast array of scientific information and decision support tools to promote risk informed policy decisions.

Furthermore, the Vanuatu incidents underscores the need for conducting a rapid post-disaster needs assessment that can support formulation of a long-term recovery strategy and plan for its reconstruction by applying a standardized approach with innovative methodology and framework.

The overlapping and transboundary nature of risks experienced by countries of the Blue Pacific Continent cannot be addressed without solidarity and collective action towards strengthening regional cooperation platform.

Sanjay Srivastava is Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP);
Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head, ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific

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Farmer using tablet to contact customer/ iStock

By Hsiao Chink Tang and Anne Cortez
BEIJING, The People’s Republic of China, Feb 21 2023 (IPS)

Digitalization is a key driver of competitiveness and development. As the world takes the path to unprecedented digital advancement, Asia continues to be a powerhouse of digital transformations in a wide range of areas from microchip manufacturing to electric vehicles, from digital currency to e-commerce.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has accelerated digital transformations, but not all countries have benefitted equally. For example, rural farmers in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were able to take advantage of existing digital mobile network, digital payment, and logistic services to find alternative markets and sell their produce online.

Many turned to established e-commerce platforms, such as, Pinduoduo, Taobao, and JD, and doing so innovatively via live-streaming.

In contrast, rural farmers in some other parts of Asia struggled to keep their livelihoods during the pandemic. Without access to face-to-face trades due to lockdowns, let alone selling online, many had to live with little or no income.

Businesses of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in many parts of Asia also suffered during the pandemic. Even in ordinary circumstances, persistent barriers such as poor and costly infrastructure, poor digital literacy, and limited government support hinder the growth of MSMEs in many developing economies.

Inevitably, during COVID, many MSMEs failed to capitalize on the pandemic-triggered digital transformation.

The above are some of the issues discussed in a dialogue organized by the ADB-PRC Regional Knowledge Sharing Initiatives (RKSI) and the Ministry of Finance, the PRC, on the topic of digital transformation and regional cooperation.

The forum acknowledged that despite the many opportunities presented by the digital economy in Asia, a great part of the region’s digital potential remains untapped, and key regulatory, infrastructural, financial, and capacity challenges remain.

There is also a widening digital divide among countries that are under-connected and those that are digitalized.

Prevailing digital infrastructure and non-infrastructure gaps, specifically in e-commerce across Central Asia, are highlighted in a Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC) Institute study. The study shows that e-commerce development among CAREC countries is highly varied and key gaps remain.

These gaps include those in basic digital infrastructure and regulatory policies resulting in a lack of economic opportunities, income inequality and weaknesses in the business environment. A solution to bridge this gap and drive an inclusive digital growth is regional cooperation.

In 2021, ministers from Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) member countries endorsed the Digital Strategy 2030, which identifies areas that can catalyze collaboration and digitalization in the region. Similarly, Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries are considering a proposal to promote and enhance cooperation in the digital economy, leveraging on the GMS cross-border e-commerce cooperation platform.

Region-wide cooperation allows governments and stakeholders to coordinate policies, share costs of building and maintaining infrastructure, and expand markets to advance the digital economy. Regional cooperation mechanisms also help build trust and harmonization that are crucial for digital development among countries.

In turn, digital advancement promotes regional cooperation in trade, finance, transport, energy, and other sectors. To make inclusive digital transformation a reality, cooperation must extend beyond the public sector and encourage collaboration with partners from international organizations, private businesses, MSMEs, civil society, and other stakeholders.

Regional cooperation offers great potential to level the field and ensure that no one is left behind in the digital economy. Regional cooperation also means sharing and learning from country experiences across the region.

There are rich lessons and inspirational stories from not just digital-focused firms, but also individuals with digital skills, who have transformed their lives and that of their families and communities waiting to be heard and shared.

Regional focused platforms such as CAREC, GMS, and RKSI, play a crucial role on this front in facilitating such cross-border knowledge exchanges and partnerships to ensure inclusive and sustainable development, and improve people’s wellbeing.

Hsiao Chink Tang is a Senior Economist and Anne Cortez is a Communication Specialist at the Asian Development Bank-PRC RKSI, a south-south development knowledge sharing platform that draws on the PRC’s experience and facilitates knowledge exchange among ADB’s developing member countries.

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From climate change to child marriage, education is seen as the solution. ECW Director Yasmine Sherif protests early marriage with young delegates at the Education Cannot Wait Conference held in Geneva. Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
GENEVA & NAIROBI, Feb 17 2023 (IPS)

From southern Ethiopia to northern Kenya and Somalia, the most severe drought in the last 40 years is unfolding. It is simply too hot to go to school on an empty stomach, and close to 3 million children are out of school, with an additional 4 million at risk of dropping out entirely across the Horn of Africa.

Further afield, months after unprecedented floods and landslides ravaged Pakistan, villages remain underwater, and millions of children still need lifesaving support. More recently, while children were sleeping, a most devastating earthquake intruded, and an estimated 2.5 million children in Syria and 4.6 million children in Turkey were affected.

Today, child delegates from Nigeria and Colombia told the world that climate change is ruining their childhood and the world must act now, for 222 million dreams are at stake. They were speaking at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference held in Geneva.

Nafisa from Nigeria reminded delegates at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference held in Geneva that the climate emergency is a child’s rights issue. Credit: ECW

“I am a girl champion with Save the Children and a member of the children’s parliament in Nigeria. Children are least responsible for the climate crisis, yet we bear the heaviest burden of its impact, now and in the future. Climate emergency is a child’s rights crisis, and suffering wears the face of a child,” said Nafisa.

In the spirit of listening to the most affected, most at risk, Pedro further spoke about Colombia’s vulnerability to climate change and the impact on children, and more so those in indigenous communities and those living with a disability, such as his 13-year-old cousin.

Pedro and Nafisa stressed that children must play a central role in responding to the climate crisis in every corner of the world. They said climate change affects education, and in turn, education has an important role.

This particular session was organized in partnership with the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies, Save the Children, and Plan International, in the backdrop of the first-ever High-Level Financing Conference organized in close collaboration with the Governments of Colombia, Germany, Niger, Norway, and South Sudan, ECW and Switzerland.

Birgitte Lange, CEO of Save the Children Norway, stressed that climate change is not only a threat to the future, “for the world’s 2.4 billion children, the climate crisis is a global emergency crisis today that is disrupting children and their education. Climate change contributes to, increases, and deepens the existing crisis of which children are carrying the burden.

“Last year, Save the Children held our biggest-ever dialogue, where we heard from at least 54,000 children in 41 countries around the world. They shared their thoughts on climate change and its consequences for them. Keeping children in school amidst a climate crisis is critical to the children’s well-being and their learning. Education plays a lifesaving role.”

Rana Tanveer Hussain, Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training in Pakistan, spoke of the severe impact of the floods on the country’s education system, “more than 34,000 public education institutions have been damaged or destroyed. At least 2.6 million students are affected. As many as 1 million children are at risk of dropping out of school altogether.

“During this crisis, ECW quickly came forward with great support, extending a grant of USD 5 million through the First Emergency Response Program in the floods-affected districts in September and October 2022, targeting 19,000 children thus far. In addition, ECW multiyear resilience program has also been leveraged to contribute to these great efforts. But the need is still great.”

Gregorius Yoris, a young leader representing Youth for Education in Emergencies in Indonesia, said despite children being at the forefront of the climate crisis, they have been furthest left behind in finding solutions to climate change.

Folly Bah Thibault, broadcast journalist, Al Jazeera, and Founder and President, Elle Ira A L’Ecole Foundation Kesso Bah moderated the session on climate change in which child delegates told how children are being left furthest behind in the climate crisis. Credit: ECW

With one billion children, or nearly half of the world’s children living in countries at extremely high risk of climate change and environmental hazards, Dr Heike Kuhn, Head of Division, Education at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in Germany, told participants it is time to raise climate resilient children.

“Weather-related disasters are growing, and young people are the most affected; we need three things in place: climate resilient schools, climate resilient teachers, and climate resilient students. We need climate-smart schools to stay safe when disaster strikes,” she explained.

“We must never forget about the teachers, for they must be agents of change, and teach children to use resources such as water and energy in a sustainable way. Children must also be taught how to behave during extreme weather changes such as earthquakes without leaving behind the most vulnerable children.”

As curtains fell on the landmark two-day conference, Yasmine Sherif, the Director of Education Cannot Wait, told participants, “The greatest feeling comes from the fact that all ECW’s stakeholders are here and we have raised these resources together, governments, civil society, UN agencies, private sector, Foundations.

“When I watched the panels and the engagements, I felt that everyone has that sense of ownership. Education Cannot Wait is yours. The success of this conference is a historic milestone for education in emergencies and protracted crises.”

In all, 17 donors announced pledges to ECW, including five contributions from new donors – a historic milestone for education in emergencies and protracted crises and ECW. Just over one month into the multilateral Fund’s new 2023-2026 Strategic Plan, these landmark commitments already amount to more than half of the USD 1.5 billion required to deliver on the Fund’s four-year Strategic Plan.

On the way forward, Sherif said ECW is already up and running, but with the additional USD 826 million, the Fund was getting a big leap forward toward the 20 million children and adolescents that will be supported with holistic child-centered education. This is in line with the new Strategic Plan, whose top priorities include localization, working with local organizations at grassroots levels, youths, and getting the children involved as well.

“We can no longer look at climate-induced disasters and education in silos. Conflict creates disruptions in education, so does climate-induced disasters and then the destiny of children and adolescents having to flee their home countries as refugees or forcefully displaced in-country,” she emphasized.

“Most of all, as we have seen in Afghanistan and across the globe, the right for every girl to access a quality education. And we are moving already, and that is where we are going from here. Thanks to the great contribution in the capital of humanitarian settings, we are bringing the development sector of education to those left furthest behind. Thank you, Switzerland, for hosting us.”

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A family take shelter on the roof of their small house. Due to climate change, incessant rainfall has flooded nearby houses. The photo was taken from Jatrapur Union in Kurigram District. Credit: Muhammad Amdad Hossain/Climate Visuals

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Feb 15 2023 (IPS)

As the effects of climate change escalate and natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and droughts become more frequent and severe, threatening lives and livelihoods, humanity is losing the climate battle.

A sharp decline in the variety and the number of both wild animals and species, severe food insecurities, high levels of malnutrition, disappearing streams, springs, and rivers in some areas, and dangerous rises in sea levels that threaten island nations are alerting the world to a climate-driven catastrophe.

Yet even as the world stares at unprecedented climate disasters, experts such as Hafez Ghanem caution that existing international institutions are not delivering on climate change mitigation and finance and are now calling for renewed efforts through the establishment of a Green Bank.

Hafez Ghanem says the creation of a Green Bank to solely address climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts is long overdue.

Ghanem, former regional Vice President of the World Bank Group and a current nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, and Distinguished Fellow at the Paris School of Economics tells IPS that “the creation of a Green Bank as a new international institution to solely address climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts is long overdue.”

“Everybody is looking at how to finance investments in climate change. The estimate is that USD 2 trillion is needed every year for countries in the global South alone to address climate change.”

Today’s development assistance, he says, is about USD 200 billion per year, “so we need to multiply that figure 10-fold and only use the funds for climate change and forget about critical social sectors such as health and education.”

Choosing the climate agenda over critical social sectors or vice-versa is a lose-lose situation because they are both matters of life and death. This has led world leaders to a critical crossroads.

To meet the climate financing gaps, Ghanem says many of the developed countries are asking existing multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, to reform and invest more in climate change.

Ghanem says reforms within existing institutions will not work and recommends a different approach: the establishment of a singular international institution that concerns itself solely with climate-related matters. An institution that would be a repository for global knowledge on climate change and advice governments on climate policies.

He says a Green Bank would also develop green projects across the Global South and support their financing and implementation. As currently constituted, multilateral development banks are yet to open up space for Global South to be heard at the same level as those in the North.

At the World Bank, for instance, he says, the voting power is such that the G7 countries control 39.8 percent of the World Bank while other donors control another 14.9 percent.

“Despite the World Bank conducting most of its business in Africa, the largest ten African countries control only about 3.5 percent of its voting power. A development bank that is controlled by its borrowers is not a good idea; neither is a development bank where beneficiaries feel that they don’t have enough voice,” he expounds.

A waterfall is on the verge of drying out. High temperatures and prolonged droughts are blamed on the devastating impact of climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Ghanem further emphasizes that the absence of the private sector will continue to curtail efforts to raise much-needed funds. “I believe that the Green Bank should be a public-private partnership where private corporations, foundations, and civil society organizations are invited to participate in its capital together with sovereign states.   I am calling for a tripartite approach where countries of the Global South have the same voice, same voting rights as those in the Global North and the private sector.”

The need to attract much-needed funds from the private sector cannot be over-emphasized, he says as it is now, “there is no voice from the private sector because the owners of, say, the World Bank and the African Development Bank are all sovereign states.”

The Green Bank would, therefore, primarily support private green investments through equity contributions, loans, and guarantees at the national, regional, or global level. The new institution would also free existing multilateral banks to direct scarce resources to social and development assistance.

This would significantly boost progress toward the delivery of critical social sectors services such as health and education, particularly in poorer, more vulnerable nations such as those classified as Least Developed Countries.

As such, the proposed Green Bank will not be in competition or opposition to existing multilateral banks but an instrument to partner with other institutions and complement their projects.

“Climate change is an external threat facing all of humanity, and all of humanity needs to unite to face it. But a major share of humanity and particularly the Global South lacks the necessary resources,” he says.

“There are many international meetings and summits at which resources are pledged, but the pledges are for much less than what is needed to deal with climate change. Moreover, not all pledges materialize as actual commitments and disbursements.”

As governments in the Global North face tighter budget constraints and competing interests, limiting their ability to provide much-needed finance for climate projects in the South even as climate catastrophes increase, Ghanem says a new approach in the form of a Green Bank that is a private, public partnership would be an important contribution to the solution.  You can read his full policy brief on the subject here.

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Credit: United Nations

By David Ferrari, Sudip Ranjan Basu and Kimberly Roseberry
BANGKOK, Thailand, Feb 9 2023 (IPS)

The last three years have seen the Pacific impacted negatively due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tourism industry, a key source of national revenue and jobs creation, received a severe blow due to closure of borders and reduced travel.

In April 2020, a major cyclone caused widespread destruction in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga. In early 2022, a volcanic eruption in Tonga further caused significant damage to domestic physical infrastructure.

Adding to these existing pressures, the food, fuel and finance crises have had a crippling impact on national economies throughout the Pacific. The vulnerabilities to both manmade and natural disasters are all but obvious. There is a need for an acceleration of transformative energy policy actions and ambitions.

Growing costs of fuel imports

A glance at the data shows that most Pacific countries – particularly the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) – remain highly dependent on imported petroleum fuels and are expected to do so for many years.

Outside of Australia and New Zealand, oil makes up about 80 per cent of the Pacific’s total energy supply, of which 52 per cent is used for transport, 37 per cent for electricity generation and 12 per cent for other applications such as process heating. Renewable energy accounts for only 17 per cent of the total energy supply.

Fuel imports cost the region US$6 billion annually, or around 5 to 15 per cent of GDP for each economy. This is an enormous economic burden. With its vast natural resources, a history and culture of independence and subsistence together with its low energy intensity, the Pacific subregion offers great advantages for energy transition leadership. So, there are solutions to alleviate this cost.

ESCAP’s new report – Pacific Perspectives 2022: Accelerating Climate Action – makes the case for a rapid transition of the Pacific’s energy sector away from fossil fuel imports and to increase access to modern energy services to deliver Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) in harmony with global climate goals.

This strengthens the case for alleviating reliance on imported fossil fuels. A move to locally generated renewable energy sources is supported by both the economic gains and the energy security benefits.

Advancing the implementation of SDG 7

It is widely recognized that the Pacific is not on track to deliver universal access to clean cooking fuels and technology by 2030. In fact, this target may present one of the largest hurdles to achieving SDG 7.

However, experts have recognized that energy access is best achieved through utilization of solar energy, and for many of those who remain without electricity across the Pacific, the best access solution will be the installation of stand-alone solar home systems.

Experts now suggest moving beyond minimum levels of electricity access and employing metrics such as multi-tier frameworks or the “modern energy minimum” of consumption of at least 1,000 kWh per year as a better indicator of access.

On the other hand, the rates of access to clean cooking fuels and technologies are amongst the lowest in the world as depicted in the chart below. In 2020, almost 10 million people across the Pacific lacked access to clean cooking, the bulk of whom (8.1 million people) were in Papua New Guinea. Furthermore, the rate of access to clean cooking in many countries is stagnating and, in some cases, even declining.

Figure 1: Proportion of population with access to clean cooking fuels and technologies (Data source: World Health Organization, via the Asia Pacific Energy Portal. Data was unavailable for New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Is., American Samoa, French Polynesia and Guam.)

Focusing on solution-oriented energy transition policies

A wide range of policy interventions and intergovernmental mechanisms are available to support policymakers to address the issues of over-reliance on fossil fuels and the lack of access to modern energy.

Firstly, renewable energy offers some very low hanging fruit. As imported petroleum accounts for about 72 per cent of the electricity supply and almost 100 per cent of transport energy; renewable sources can in many situations deliver clean energy at a lower cost. Developing infrastructure to support the shift to electric vehicles offers an opportunity to channel renewable energy into the transport sector.

Secondly, the business case for energy efficiency is strong and brings with it the potential[1] to reduce energy demand across multiple sectors. However, a large proportion of these opportunities remain unfulfilled.

Finally, policymakers should collaborate through existing Pacific regional initiatives to support the scaling-up of local capability and capacity through coordinated training and knowledge transfer in the area of energy transition.

Readers will find further details and policy recommendations in the report which is now available on the ESCAP website.

By putting people at the center of policymaking, the ESCAP Commission remains the most agile and vibrant anchor to accelerate energy transition and promote regional solidarity.

[1] While it raises some complex questions, researchers have analysed the relationship between energy efficiency and demand response in various situations and determined that a high degree of complementarity is possible.

David Ferrari is ESCAP Consultant, Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head and Senior Economic Affairs Officer and Kimberly Roseberry is Economic Affairs Officer

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Energy-efficient solar systems in the UN Compound in Timor-Leste are helping cut down costs and reduce CO2 emissions. Credit: UN

By Ahmed Saleem
DILI, Timor-Leste, Feb 8 2023 (IPS)

Access to energy remains a concerning challenge for many in Timor-Leste. The centralised nature of the local electricity supply chain has traditionally kept consumers reliant on the national grid to overcome chronic energy shortages.

While more than 200,000 households have access to electricity, the distribution network is in poor condition, with excessive voltage drops and persistent service outages. The cost of electricity is also higher than in neighbouring countries, and Timor-Leste has been slow to transition from expensive diesel generation to renewables.

With the new UN reforms, the United Nations in Timor-Leste, under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator (RCO) has now started lighting the way with its solar-powered grid which has begun to give maximum dividends.

A powerful 300 kWp photovoltaic system is producing 400,000 kWh of clean electricity annually, filling critical gaps in energy supply. “It covers 75 per cent of the daytime electricity consumption of the entire UN House, which hosts 14 UN agencies in Dili and has reduced reliance on fossil fuels and generators, leading to 286.000 kg of CO2 emission saved every year,” said Project Coordinator Ulderico Ze Machado.

It took almost a year – from feasibility to completion – to see the solar panel installed at the UN Timor-Leste compound. Credit: RCO Timor-Leste

This move comes with the UN’s revised Business Operations Strategy (BOS) that guides strategic planning, management, monitoring, and reporting of the UN Country Team’s joint support.

The Operations Management Team started weighing the feasibility and working on a cost-efficient alternative energy solution in 2016-2017 when Timor-Leste was facing high electricity costs and increased CO2 emissions.

“In Timor-Leste, our road to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development starts at home. Our solar energy system can be a model for other UN Country Offices to show how we can jointly, sustainably and effectively tackle greenhouse emissions while reducing operational costs, and scale up support across the United Nations System”.

“Greening our business operations can help maximise efficiency, improve productivity, and in turn support the transition of the country to a more sustainable energy future,” noted UN Timor-Leste Resident Coordinator Funmi Balogun.

The project has already substantially reduced electricity costs, which were 40% of the entire Common Premises budget. “We now save USD 90,000 annually on electricity bills and diesel costs with the hope that a 100 per cent return on the investment will be materialised within six to seven years,” added Ulderico Ze Machado.

In line with the UN’s commitment to the ‘Smart UN Facilities and the Sustainable Development Goals’, this solar project shows how a UN Common premises can work in action, and how the the United Nations Sustainable Development Coordination Framework can be coherently implemented in countries.

The infographic outlines the impact of the solar panel operations in the UN Timor-Leste compound. Credit: RCO Timor-Leste

“A project like this goes beyond providing energy. It showcases a value addition to the Government, partners, and stakeholders as to how such initiatives can help create other socio-economic benefits, including employment, greener environment, cheaper energy, and sustainable lifestyles.

So, the more we implement such projects, the more we empower our communities and bring impact.

The project also evidences the skillset and expertise to support the country to transition to a more sustainable energy future and supporting the deployment of renewable energy technologies,” said UNDP Resident Representative Munkhtuya Altangerel, who is also chair of the UN Operations Management Team.

Based on this successful experience, the UN Operations Management Team is now working on upscaling the project and making the UN House, a 100 per cent solar-energy-run compound.

Ahmed Saleem is Communications Officer, Resident Coordinator’s Office, Timor-Leste. Editorial support by UNDCO.

For more information on the UN’s work in Timor-Leste, please visit  Timorleste.un.org

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A photo of a field with parched grass in the province of Buenos Aires, an agricultural area par excellence in Argentina. The countryside is the source of more than half of the exports of this South American country, which is in dire need of foreign exchange to ease its economic crisis. CREDIT: Argentine Rural Confederations

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 30 2023 (IPS)

Martín Rapetti, a fourth generation farmer in the province of Corrientes in northeastern Argentina, has already lost more than 30 cows due to lack of food and water, as a result of the long drought that is plaguing a large part of the country. “There is no grass; the animals have to sink their teeth into the dry earth,” he says with resignation.

This extreme climatic phenomenon, which according to experts will become increasingly common, is much more than a threat of an uncertain future and already represents concrete damage: it will make Argentina, a global agricultural powerhouse, lose billions of dollars in exports this year, aggravating its economic crisis.

“The accumulation of three years with little rain makes the situation worse and worse. The streams and rivers are running dry and now the groundwater is also drying up,” Rapetti told IPS from the town of Curuzú Cuatía.“We also have to move forward with actions that go beyond the immediacy and that incorporate a climate perspective. In addition, we need political responses that strengthen our capacities, promote innovation and, ultimately, promote sustainable development.” -- Cecilia Nicolini

“The cows are in very poor body condition. And the production of grains, citrus fruits and vegetables is suffering…Of the 300 hectares that we have for growing rice, we were able to plant only 35 due to lack of water,” added Rapetti, who has a medium-sized farm.

The consequences go far beyond rural areas because this South American country, which faces a delicate economic situation with inflation soaring to almost 100 percent per year and 40 percent of the population living in poverty, depends heavily on the countryside to bring in foreign exchange and sustain the value of its devalued currency.

During the first half of 2022, according to the latest official data, 57.6 percent of national exports came from the production of soy and the main grains (corn, wheat, sunflower and barley) and from beef and by-products like leather and dairy products.

The drought will reduce exports in 2023 by nearly eight billion dollars and this will have a heavy direct impact on the state coffers, which will receive more than one billion dollars less in taxes on exports of soy, corn and wheat, the three crops that cover the largest agricultural area in the country.

These figures were released on Jan. 17 by the Rosario Stock Exchange, a reference point in Argentina’s agricultural economy.

This South American country of 46.2 million inhabitants depends to a great extent on the countryside to sustain its economy. Argentina is the third world producer of soy, behind the United States and Brazil, and the second producer of beef, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Soy alone, which is the current star of Argentine exports, generated sales of 12.1 billion dollars (27.3 percent of total exports), according to the official statistics agency. This includes soybeans, soybean oil and meal and soy flour.

A plant in a vineyard suffering from the lack of water, in the province of Mendoza in western Argentina. That area of ​​the country, where crops depend on irrigation, is suffering the consequences of low levels in the reservoirs. CREDIT: Coninagro

How to prepare for the future?

Due to climate change, extreme events such as droughts or floods will occur with increasing frequency and intensity, the national secretary for Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Innovation, Cecilia Nicolini, told IPS.

“But these problems are not scenarios that we have to get used to or resign ourselves to. We need to adapt to their effects and transform our productive sectors to make them more resilient, while reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” she added.

Argentina presented its National Plan for Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change in November.

The over 400-page document proposes managing agroforestry climate risks (from investments in infrastructure or promoting insurance for small farmers), bolstering water efficiency in industries and strengthening the meteorological monitoring network.

“We also have to move forward with actions that go beyond the immediacy and that incorporate a climate perspective. In addition, we need political responses that strengthen our capacities, promote innovation and, ultimately, promote sustainable development,” the official acknowledged.

Perhaps the most delicate aspect is that Nicolini herself estimated that the country needs 185 billion dollars in financing up to 2030 to implement the plan.

That is four times more than the record loan that the International Monetary Fund granted Argentina in 2018, a debt that since then has strangled economic growth. Nobody knows where this financing would come from, which Argentina demanded from developed countries at the last Conference of the Parties (COP27) on Climate Change, held in November in Egypt.

Cows and calves gather in search of food in the department of Curuzú Cuatiá, in the Argentine province of Corrientes. The drought has dragged on for three years now and in 2022 it was the main cause of forest fires, which affected more than 800,000 hectares in that northeastern province. CREDIT: CR

Financial assistance

On Jan. 20 Economy Minister Sergio Massa met with with the Liaison Board, which brings together the main agricultural business chambers, and promised to study a package of economic relief measures to be announced on Feb. 1.

In any case, he warned about the limits that the government faces in providing answers: “Perhaps there are solutions that are out of our hands. Argentina is not a country with a great capacity for State intervention, for reasons that we already know: indebtedness and difficulties in accessing markets.”

Beyond the difficult current situation, today agricultural producers themselves know that fundamental strategies will be needed to face extreme phenomena that are here to stay.

Mario Raiteri, a medium-sized producer of potatoes, beef, wheat, corn, soy and sunflowers in the town of Mechongué, 460 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, tells IPS that he grew up listening to his grandfather talk about the big floods in the 1940s and withering droughts in the 1950s, but that he had never experienced a phenomenon like the one seen in the last three years.

“My biggest worry is if this is just an occasional occurrence or if there really is starting to be a more frequent repetition of these events,” he said.

“In the second case, we need scientific organizations to give us new technologies designed to help us adapt. Knowledge is going to play a very important role, beyond other necessary issues, such as comprehensive agricultural insurance for family farms, because small producers will suffer the most,” he said.

In Argentina, 54.48 percent of the land area has been affected by water stress, according to the Drought Information System for Southern South America (SISSA), an institution created by governments and organizations to provide information and reduce vulnerability to this type of phenomena.

However, hydrologist Juan Borus, deputy manager of Information Systems of the National Water Institute (INA), said that in the last three years “there is not a single square centimeter of the territory that has not faced scarcity.”

Borus warns IPS that the country is currently plagued by dry rivers and lagoons that have shrunk and disappeared, and that the situation is not likely to improve for the remainder of the southern hemisphere summer and the fall.

The expert also warns about the impact on issues that have received less attention than agricultural production. One is the generation of electrical energy due to lack of water in the reservoirs, in a country that has committed to increasing hydropower generation as part of its climate change mitigation objectives.

Another issue is drinking water.

“Large cities on the banks of rivers should invest more money in pumping and purifying the water, because with lower levels of water in the rivers, the amount of pollutants and sediment is greater. And small towns that take water from drilling wells must deal with the decline of groundwater tables,” Borus said.

The crisis, he said, presents a great opportunity: “It is time for those who live in the humid part of the country to become aware of the need to take care of drinking water.”

Solar panels with a capacity to generate 30 kilowatts no longer work in the Darora Community of the Macuxi people, an indigenous group from Roraima, a state in the far north of Brazil. The batteries only worked for a month before they were damaged because they could not withstand the charge. CREDIT: Boa Vista City Hall

By Mario Osava
BOA VISTA, Brazil, Jan 25 2023 (IPS)

“Our electric power is of bad quality, it ruins electrical appliances,” complained Jesus Mota, 63. “In other places it works well, not here. Just because we are indigenous,” protested his wife, Adélia Augusto da Silva, of the same age.

“The solar panels were left here, useless. We want to reactivate them, it would be really good. We need more powerful batteries, like the ones they put in the bus terminal in Boa Vista.” -- Lindomar da Silva Homero
The Darora Community of the Macuxi indigenous people illustrates the struggle for electricity by towns and isolated villages in the Amazon rainforest. Most get it from generators that run on diesel, a fuel that is polluting and expensive since it is transported from far away, by boats that travel on rivers for days.

Located 88 kilometers from the city of Boa Vista, capital of the state of Roraima, in the far north of Brazil, Darora celebrated the inauguration of its solar power plant, installed by the municipal government, in March 2017. It represented modernity in the form of a clean, stable source of energy.

A 600-meter network of poles and cables made it possible to light up the “center” of the community and to distribute electricity to its 48 families.

But “it only lasted a month, the batteries broke down,” Tuxaua (chief) Lindomar da Silva Homero, 43, a school bus driver, told IPS during a visit to the community. The village had to go back to the noisy and unreliable diesel generator, which only supplies a few hours of electricity a day.

Fortunately, about four months later, the Boa Vista electricity distribution company laid its cables to Darora, making it part of its grid.

“The solar panels were left here, useless. We want to reactivate them, it would be really good. We need more powerful batteries, like the ones they put in the bus terminal in Boa Vista,” said Homero, referring to one of the many solar plants that the city government installed in the capital.

Tuxaua (chief) Lindomar Homero of the Darora Community is calling for new adequate batteries to reactivate the solar power plant, because the electricity they receive from the national grid is too expensive for the local indigenous people. Behind him stands his predecessor, former tuxaua Jesus Mota. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Expensive energy

But indigenous people can’t afford the electricity from the distributor Roraima Energía, he said. On average, each family pays between 100 and 150 reais (20 to 30 dollars) a month, he estimated.

Besides, there are unpleasant surprises. “My November bill climbed to 649 reais” (130 dollars), without any explanation,” Homero complained. The solar energy was free.

“If you don’t pay, they cut off your power,” said Mota, who was tuxaua from 1990 to 2020.”In addition, the electricity from the grid fails a lot,” which is why the equipment is damaged.

Apart from the unreliable supply and frequent blackouts, there is not enough energy for the irrigation of agriculture, the community’s main source of income. “We can do it with diesel pumps, but it’s expensive; selling watermelons at the current price does not cover the cost,” he said.

“In 2022, it rained a lot, but there are dry summers that require irrigation for our corn, bean, squash, potato, and cassava crops. The energy we receive is not enough to operate the pump,” said Mota.

A photo of the three water tanks in the village of Darora, one of which holds water that is made potable by chemical treatment. The largest and longest building is the secondary school that serves the Macuxi indigenous community that lives in Roraima, in northern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Achilles’ heel

Batteries still apparently limit the efficiency of solar energy in isolated or autonomous off-grid systems, with which the government and various private initiatives are attempting to make the supply of electricity universal and replace diesel generators.

Homero said that some of the Darora families who live outside the “center” of the village and have solar panels also had problems with the batteries.

Besides the 48 families in the village “center” there are 18 rural families, bringing the community’s total population to 265.

A solar plant was also installed in another community made up of 22 indigenous families of the Warao people, immigrants from Venezuela, called Warao a Janoko, 30 kilometers from Boa Vista.

But of the plant’s eight batteries, two have already stopped working after only a few months of use. And electricity is only guaranteed until 8:00 p.m.

“Batteries have gotten a lot better in the last decade, but they are still the weak link in solar power,” Aurelio Souza, a consultant who specializes in this question, told IPS from the city of São Paulo. “Poor sizing and the low quality of electronic charging control equipment aggravate this situation and reduce the useful life of the batteries.”

The low quality of the electricity supplied to Darora is due to the discrimination suffered by indigenous people, according to Adélia Augusto da Silva. The water they used to drink was also dirty and caused illnesses, especially in children, until the indigenous health service began to chemically treat their drinking water. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In Brazil’s Amazon jungle, close to a million people live without electricity, according to the Institute of Energy and the Environment, a non-governmental organization based in São Paulo. More precisely, its 2019 study identified 990,103 people in that situation.

Another three million inhabitants of the region, including the 650,000 people in Roraima, are outside the National Interconnected Electricity System. Their energy therefore depends mostly on diesel fuel transported from other regions, at a cost that affects all Brazilians.

The government decided to subsidize this fossil fuel so that the cost of electricity is not prohibitive in the Amazon region.

This subsidy is paid by other consumers, which contributes to making Brazilian electricity one of the most expensive in the world, despite the low cost of its main source, hydropower, which accounts for about 60 of the country’s electricity.

Solar energy became a viable alternative as the parts became cheaper. Initiatives to bring electricity to remote communities and reduce diesel consumption mushroomed.

But in remote plants outside the reach of the grid, good batteries are needed to store energy for the nighttime hours.

Part of the so-called “downtown” in Darora, which has lamp posts, houses, a soccer field and a shed where the community meets. A larger community center is needed, says
the leader of the Macuxi village located near Boa Vista, the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

A unique case

Darora is not a typical case. It is part of the municipality of Boa Vista, which has a population of 437,000 inhabitants and good resources, it is close to a paved road and is within a savannah ecosystem called “lavrado”.

It is at the southern end of the São Marcos indigenous territory, where many Macuxi indigenous people live but fewer than in Raposa Serra do Sol, Roraima’s other large native reserve. According to the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai), there were 33,603 Macuxi Indians living in Roraima in 2014.

The Macuxi people also live in the neighboring country of Guyana, where there are a similar number to that of Roraima. Their language is part of the Karib family.

Although there are no large forests in the surrounding area, Darora takes its name from a tree, which offers “very resistant wood that is good for building houses,” Homero explained.

The community emerged in 1944, founded by a patriarch who lived to be 93 years old and attracted other Macuxi people to the area.

The progress they have made especially stands out in the secondary school in the village “center”, which currently has 89 students and 32 employees, “all from Darora, except for three teachers from outside,” Homero said proudly.

A new, larger elementary and middle school for students in the first to ninth grades was built a few years ago about 500 meters from the community.

Water used to be a serious problem. “We drank dirty, red water, children died of diarrhea. But now we have good, treated water,” said Adélia da Silva.

“We dug three artesian wells, but the water was useless, it was salty. The solution was brought by a Sesai technician, who used a chemical substance to make the water from the lagoon drinkable,” Homero said.

The community has three elevated water tanks, two for water used for bathing and cleaning and one for drinking water. There are no more health problems caused by water, the tuxaua said.

His current concern is to find new sources of income for the community. Tourism is one alternative. “We have the Tacutu river beach 300 meters away, great fruit production, handicrafts and typical local gastronomy based on corn and cassava,” he said, listing attractions for visitors.

Farmers inthe southern state of Karnataka, India, during training sessions for multi-cropfarming. The techniques have meant survival in the face of uncertain weather caused by climate change. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
KARNATAKA, INDIA , Jan 19 2023 (IPS)

The South Indian State of Karnataka has been reeling for the past three years—the late arrival of monsoons, the surging temperatures, and drastic changes in the weather patterns are putting the state’s farmers in dire straits.

Sugarcane and rice crops have died, causing considerable losses to the already perturbed farming community.

As per the government reports, climate change is affecting Karnataka’s water cycle and rainfall patterns, resulting in heavy rainfall and flooding in some areas and drought in others. Extreme weather events have been more frequent and intense in Karnataka over the past few years. The average annual rainfall in the state is 1,153 mm, with 74 percent falling during the Southwest monsoon, 16 percent during the Northeast monsoon, and 10 percent during the pre-monsoon.

Between 2001 and 2020, the state was hit by a 15-year drought of variable intensity. Some areas have been drought-stricken for more than five years in a row. In addition to 2005, 2009, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, Karnataka witnessed severe floods in 2005, 2009, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Flooding and landslides have been a problem for the fourth year since 2018. Flooding and landslides have become the new normal during the monsoon seasons in the southwest and northeast, which were previously the most vulnerable to drought, reflecting the impact of shifting climatological circumstances.

Farmers are concerned about the looming climate change menace.

A year ago, Kondaji Reddy from Kogilger in deemed farming an “absolutely unfit” profession for survival.

“For months together, I toiled hard in the field growing sugar cane and rice. However, the late arrival of monsoons devastated everything. The hard work didn’t yield any outcome, and my family was on the verge of starvation,” Kondaji told IPS.

He added that for months together, his family survived on the little savings it had made over the years.

“Then I thought I should quit farming forever and go to the city and work as a laborer. At least my family wouldn’t starve,” lamented the farmer.

Another farmer, M. Rachappa, shared a similar predicament. He says he extensively used chemical fertilizers, hoping to improve his harvest.

“However, things didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. The land turned barren… The crops I had sowed for months were destroyed. All I could stare at was the dead leaves and the barren soil,” says Rachappa.

The farmer adds that he was on the brink of selling his ancestral land—spread across three acres—and buying some grocery stores in the town. “I had lost all hope in farming. I had cultivated a firm belief in my mind that farming would no longer provide me with a decent living. But at the same time, I was ridiculing myself for planning to sell the land where my forefathers have toiled for decades together.”

To end the crisis, the farmers of this small hamlet recently developed a unique strategy. They are adopting techniques that could help them deal with the climate change crises.

Multi-cropping is one method that these otherwise crisis-stricken farmers are now relying upon. It is a common land management method that aims to increase agricultural production while diversifying the crop mix for economic and environmental reasons. It lowers the cost of inputs, irrigation, and labor, among other things.

Umesh Kalolli, a farmer leading the practice and imparting the training of this technique to other farmers in the village, says he got to know about this farming method from a research institute.

“I was uncertain about my future due to frequent losses. I was about to shun farming forever, but a friend of mine encouraged me to seek help from the experts. He took me to an agricultural university, where I shared my predicament with the researchers. For about three weeks, I was trained for multi-crop farming. Upon my return to my village, I began encouraging other farmers to use this farming method,” Kalolli said.

He adds that besides multi-cropping, the farmers were encouraged to do away with using chemical fertilizers. Instead, they are asked to adopt an organic farming method that not only makes the produce profitable but also of high quality.

“There is a dire need to revolutionize farming practices with a natural system. This is going to be the greatest service for humankind. We need to focus on marginal and downtrodden farmers so that they can be empowered, and this way, we are going to build a prosperous world for ourselves and our future generations,” Kalolli added.

Rachappa, the farmer, says that soon after acquiring the training, he began adopting the multi-crop method on his land. He began cultivating various vegetables, fruits, sugarcane, and rice paddies at the same time. This, he says, not only saved him time, but it also didn’t need extensive irrigation facilities.

“I then subtly moved to the organic method of farming. I stopped the use of chemical fertilizers in the field. I got the cow dung from the livestock I had in my home. Today, I earn more than fifty thousand rupees (700 US dollars) every month. I did not even think once about selling off my land. I am content with the profit it is producing for me now,” M. Rachappa said.

Kondaji was also trained to grow organic vegetables and produce manure.

“My fellow farmers even helped me dig the pit in the backyard for the manure to decompose. It is a natural fertilizer. The vegetables I produce now require the least amount of water, so the late arrival of monsoons no longer bothers me. My produce is sold at higher prices because it is organic,” Reddy says with a smile.

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Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. However, negotiating a solution has been challenging due to several factors. One of the main reasons that recent COP Climate summits and other international climate talks have not been able to resolve climate change is that there is a lack of consensus among countries on how to address the issue. Developed countries, which have historically been the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, are often unwilling to take on significant emissions reductions or to provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to the effects of climate change.

The Gabura union, a small island adjacent to the Sundarbans forest, is expected to be submerged in seawater by 2050. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Another significant barrier to progress on climate change is the need for more political will among leaders of countries. In some cases, leaders may not see climate change as a priority or may be reluctant to take on the economic and political costs of reducing emissions or investing in clean energy due to political reasons. Some countries may be influenced by powerful fossil fuel lobbies that push against climate action. Developed countries must be willing to take on more significant emissions reductions and provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to the effects of climate change. Developing countries, in turn, need to be willing to take on emissions reduction measures and invest in clean energy and other climate mitigation measures.This can happen through more effective multilateral negotiations such as United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where all countries agree to set emissions reduction targets and support developing countries.

Bangladesh is located in the low-lying delta region of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers, making the country particularly susceptible to flooding and rising sea levels. Bangladesh is also prone to cyclones and other extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. The country has a long coastline, much of which is low-lying and vulnerable to flooding. As sea levels continue to rise, the risk of coastal flooding is increasing, devastatingly impacting the lives and livelihoods of the people in these areas. These events are causing widespread damage to homes and infrastructure and affecting the country’s agricultural sector, a significant source of income for many people in Bangladesh. Many people in the coastal areas have lost their homes and livelihoods due to sea level rise and coastal flooding. They face food and water insecurity due to increased soil and water salinity.

Globally, rich countries can assist Bangladesh cope with climate change in several ways. One crucial way is by providing financial assistance to help the country adapt to the impacts of climate change. This may include funding for building sea walls and other flood protection infrastructure and programs to help people in coastal areas relocate to higher ground. Another way rich countries can help is by providing technical assistance to Bangladesh to develop and implement clean energy and other climate mitigation measures. This could include funding and expertise to help the country develop renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, as well as to improve energy efficiency and to reduce emissions from the industrial and transportation sectors.

The Sundarbans forests, located in the coastal belt of Bangladesh, is one of the most vulnerable areas in the country to the impacts of climate change. The forests span over 10,000 square kilometres and is home to various plant and animal species, including the Royal Bengal tiger. Sea level rise is one of the most significant threats to the Sundarbans forest making it particularly susceptible to flooding and rising sea levels. According to a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels in the Bay of Bengal are projected to increase by up to 1 meter by the end of the century. This would devastate the Sundarban forests, as seawater would submerge large areas.

The impacts of climate change on the Sundarban forests are also likely to have knock-on effects on the people living in the surrounding areas. The forests are a significant source of livelihood for many people in the region, who rely on it for fishing, agriculture, and other activities. As the forests are damaged by sea level rise and extreme weather events, these people will also be affected by food and water insecurity and the loss of their homes and livelihoods. Many people who lost their homes and land to flooding, were forced to relocate to higher grounds.

The health impacts of climate change on people living around the Sundarban are also significant. As a result of sea level rise and increased flooding, many are at risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea. Extreme weather events are accelerating salinity across the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Women are experiencing uterus cancers, infertility, and skin diseases, and men, too, are experiencing fertility problems and other health issues. Due to the loss of livelihoods and displacement, many people face food insecurity and malnutrition. In addition to these immediate impacts, climate change exacerbates the region’s existing social and economic inequalities. People living in poverty and marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by climate change, as they have fewer resources to cope with the impacts and less access to services and support.

Climate change has led to a growing number of people migrating from these areas, searching for better opportunities and escaping the impacts of climate change. Most climate migrants from coastal belt areas of Bangladesh are moving to urban areas, such as the capital city of Dhaka and other major cities. These migrants often seek better job opportunities and access to services and support. However, many migrants face challenges in their new locations, such as a lack of affordable housing, discrimination, and limited access to services and support. The future is uncertain for those still living in coastal areas of Bangladesh and fighting the climate crisis. Many of the people living in these areas are among the country’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities, making them particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Climate conversations worldwide by world leaders and major organizations have been occurring every year. But they must see the severity of the situation for the people suffering and take concrete actions beyond being in a room to converse about the effects of climate change.

Climate conversations by world leaders are occurring worldwide but how much is changing ? Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Many indigenous communities across the Sundarbans forest have been experiencing extreme weather conditions. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Fishing communities face extreme poverty due to the lack of fish available in the rivers. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Women around coastline areas of Bangladesh face increased salinity, a major cause of uterus cancer. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Due to climate change, extreme heat and salinity are declining birth rates across the coastal belt in Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Climate change is accelerating the displacement of inhabitants across the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Four families are sitting with what remains in their food storage. Due to high salinity, agricultural products cannot grow well anymore. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

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Environment reporting is expenseiv; it needs a lot of traveling and risk-taking. Journalists reporting at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, last year. Credit: Africa Renewal

By Kingsley Ighobor
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 16 2023 (IPS)

At the end of a five-minute newscast from a makeshift studio in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the venue of COP27, Cotonou-based journalist Ghyslaine Florida Zossoungbo was able to provide real-time information to her compatriots back home in the Republic of Benin.

Zossoungbo reports for Benin ODD Television, an online platform dedicated to promoting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in her country.

On this day, she had found a small corner in one of the pavilions at COP27 sat on a high stool behind a laptop while a camera perched on a tripod a few feet away.

At the conference, Zossoungbo and other journalists, even those from big established media institutions such as CNN or bloggers clutching an iPhone but with a large social media following, ran briskly after celebrities and world leaders or just about anyone who had anything significant to say about climate change.

And at the end of each day, they immediately churned out climate change content to audiences globally.

Kingsley Ighobor

“We are the only media institution that regularly reports on the climate crisis because we are focused on SDGs,” Zossoungbo says. “Other media concentrate on politics and other issues.”

She adds: “People can see that there is something happening to the weather because of the floods and drought, but they don’t yet understand what it is in its full context. So we keep talking and talking about it.”

In Cameroon, explains Killian Chimton Ngala, a journalist with multiple accreditations, “Climate change doesn’t often make the front pages of newspapers or lead in television or radio news.”

Reporting context

Ngala’s experience is that “Climate reporting often lacks context. When journalists report on flooding, for example, they don’t necessarily link it to climate change. They usually focus on the event and the impact.”

Without a perspective, climate change reporting becomes a complex concept for many, particularly the grassroots population.

Ngala provides an example of such reporting: “Not long ago, fighting broke out in communities in Cameroon’s far North Region, between Choa-Arab cattle herders and Mousgoum farmers, over dwindling water resources.

Many people died in the conflict, and a top government official decided to visit the area.

“Do you know how journalists reported the story?” Ngala asks rhetorically. “They all reported that the minister had admonished the communities and asked them to be peaceful.

“Yet, when you look at it, why were the communities fighting? It’s because the village stream was drying up, and community dwellers and cattle herders had to fight for the limited water, a consequence of changing weather patterns.

“If you ask many people in Africa why their lake is drying up or why they are experiencing frequent droughts, some will not even know, let alone advocate for solutions.

“Take the drying up of Lake Chad, which is forcing herders in northern Nigeria and Cameroon to migrate down south. The farmers in the south believe the herders are coming to take over their lands. The resulting fight has claimed many lives,” he laments.

Why then is the media not robustly telling the climate story as it should be?

Need for training

Ngala blames it on lack of resources and training.

“Environment reporting is expensive; it needs a lot of traveling and risk-taking. It does not come cheap. Many media organisations in Africa find it unaffordable. For instance, they cannot afford to spend thousands of dollars to sponsor reporters to cover COP27,” says Ngala.

There are very few trained environment reporters in newsrooms, he says. As a result, climate change reporting does not yet receive the attention it deserves.

“Media managers would rather send reporters to cover politics, which drive sales, than to report on issues related to the environment, unless it is a major disaster. They would rather send reporters to cover our President’s trip to Addis Ababa than to COP27,” she says.

External sponsors

Ngala was one of several African journalists sponsored to cover COP27 by climate-focused organisations particularly in Europe and North America.

For example, the Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) fellowship programme, an Earth Journalism Network (EJN) project managed by Internews and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security, brought Ngala and five other African journalists to Sharm El Sheikh to cover COP27.

They were among 20 journalists (out of over 500 who applied) from low and middle-income countries sponsored under the fellowship.

The fellowship package comes with training on “quality reporting on developments at COP27,” according to an EJN announcement, adding that Africa accounts for 2-3 per cent of global emissions but bears the brunt of the climate crisis. Therefore, African journalists must continue to report on the impact of the crisis and hold governments accountable.

“It was a rigorous application process,” says Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh of the Liberia-based Power FM and Television, also a fellow.

“But for the fellowship, I would not be here [COP27]. I applied for the fellowship because coming here for two weeks would have cost thousands of dollars, which my organization may not afford.”

Climate content

The symbiotic relationship between media content producers and content consumers is complex.

The perceived interest of the audience may influence content production even as the agenda-setting role of the media involves guiding audiences to focus on particular issues.

It leads to the point that African journalists have not yet effectively linked climate change issues to citizens’ socioeconomic well-being.

“That’s the point,” retorts Ngala. “Journalists report on the environment in isolation of other economic development sectors. You can see why, in many countries, the economic affairs ministries do not consider the climate crisis a part of their portfolio. It is often the preserve of underfunded environment ministries.”

“There is a lack of appreciation of the seriousness of the climate crisis,” explains Mwika Bennet Simbeye, acting Managing Editor of the Times of Zambia.

“Journalists tend to instinctively focus on day-to-day problems—all the political drama and bread and butter issues,” says Simbeye.

Agreeing that training and increased financing resources will boost climate reporting, Paul Omorogbe, the Chief Correspondent of the Tribune of Nigeria, is optimistic.

“I believe the situation is gradually changing. In Nigeria, climate crisis reporting is slowly but steadily gaining prominence in the media. We are getting there.”

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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Conflicts and drought in the Sahel are impacting the development of Africa's ambitious Great Green Wall. Credit: UN Chad

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jan 6 2023 (IPS)

Escalating conflict and climate change threaten the implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI), an ambitious land restoration project across Africa.

Promoters of the Great Green Wall have called for strong political will in engendering peace and increasing investment in environmental preservation, which the project launched 16 years ago seeks to enhance.

Competition over natural resources that are affected by climate change is fueling interstate conflicts, especially in West Africa, a region in the path of the Great Green Wall. The Wall is an Africa-led project to stop the march of desertification across Africa through the restoration of more than 100 million hectares of degraded land.

These trees will grow money

The project was initially aimed at planting trees in the Sahel region from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, but its scope has been expanded to cover the restoration of degraded land in more than 20 countries with a view to sequestering 250 million tonnes of carbon and creating 10 million green jobs by 2030, the promoters of the project say.

To date, the project has covered more than 4 percent of the target 100 million hectares, but it is making good progress to make the deadline, says Paul Elvis Tangem, coordinator for the Great Green Wall Initiative at the African Union Commission.

According to a United Nations status report, the Great Green Wall needs to cover 8 million hectares of land a year at a cost of up to $4.3 billion if it is to meet the implementation deadline.

Tangem says the project, which has received multiple funding from governments, donors, and multilateral development banks, would need more than 50 billion US Dollars to be realized by 2030. Currently, about 27 billion US dollars has been pledged, a seemingly huge amount which Tangem says is not much if the return on investment at 1:7 US dollars in nature-based solutions is considered.

Tangem notes that the escalating impacts of climate change across Africa justify the speedy implementation of the project, which is now more than just planting millions of trees across Africa but a holistic approach to unlocking economic and ecological benefits for many countries.

Launched in 2007, the Great Green Wall is envisaged that the land restoration initiative will boost economic prosperity in the participating countries, create employment, reduce hunger and reduce conflict, which has been linked to a fight over access to and use of natural resources across the width of Africa.

“The various COPs from UNFCCC COP 15, the UNFCCC-COP27, and the CBDCOP15 have recognized the Great Green wall as an important project giving more impetus to mainstream it in all development plans and giving more visibility to it,” Tangem said, noting that the current climate change impacts and conflicts arising from natural resource use were challenges that the project was seeking to solve.

Restoring land, restoring peace

Conflicts and climate are the greatest threats to the full realization of the Great Green Wall currently, Tangem explained, adding that the impact of drought across Africa has justified the importance of the GGWI, which has garnered global attention as a solution to land degradation, drought, and desertification.

“The main challenges we have now, especially for farmers, is the issue of grazelands which is the biggest push of conflict in the drylands of Africa,” Tangem told IPS in an interview, highlighting that there was high competition for rangelands between countries and within countries, especially in West Africa where part of the Great Green Wall runs. He cited the conflict in the Tigray region as less political and more environmental.

“It is the competition for land, the politics of it is what we see, but the underlying causes are natural resources,” said Tangem. “People do not want to speak the truth, but many conflicts in Africa are basically in the drylands, which are the areas most vulnerable to climate change and where the GGWI is focusing on. So we have a challenge.”

Remarking that it was now impossible to work in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Eritrea as a result of conflict, Tangem underscored the need to restore peace by restoring the environment.

The biggest challenge we are having today is security,” Tangem observed. “Conflicts are a big, big challenge. Most of the challenges that are happening now are because of competition for natural resources, the use of benefit sharing of the scarce resources from water, fertile land, fishing, and pastoral lands.”

When the Great Green Wall Initiative started, there was skepticism that it was a ‘white elephant’, Tangem said, but now it was the project to support.

Droughts are a growing threat to global food production, particularly in Africa. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

In November 2022, global leaders launched the International Drought Resilience Alliance to give political impetus to making land’s resilience to drought and climate change a reality by 2030. The Alliance is a boost to the Great Green Wall Initiative.

Droughts are hitting more often and harder than before, up nearly by a third since 2000. Climate change is expected to cause more severe droughts in the future. Recent droughts in Australia, Europe, the western United States, Chile, the Horn, and Southern Africa show that no country or region is immune to their impacts, which run into billions of dollars each year, not to mention human suffering, says Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

The United Nations has recognized the Great Green Wall Initiative as one of 10 pioneering efforts to revive the natural world, designating it as one of its inaugural World Restoration Flagships.

Tangem said this recognition of the Great Green Wall Initiative as a key programme for land restoration had elevated it beyond being an African project.

“When people were still talking about the reality of climate change, Africa saw the need to respond to this challenge through this programme. The project has taken desertification and drought to the global agenda,” Tangem said.

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), warns that the world cannot turn a blind eye to the impacts and effects of degraded lands in places like the Sahel, where millions face multiple vulnerabilities, including climate shocks and conflict. Action to tackle the drought is of utmost urgency, Andersen stressed.

Noting that desertification was becoming a massive crisis, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, which is part of the International Drought Resilience Alliance, said the alliance is focusing on finding nature-based solutions and the right technology and societal approaches to prevent further land degradation.

Presidents Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón of Spain and Macky Sall of Senegal rallied world leaders to create the Alliance as “a specific solution for the United Nations” to the impacts of climate change. In a joint communication, they declared that building resilience to drought disasters was the way to secure the gains made on sustainable development goals, particularly for the most vulnerable people.
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Aerial view of the 5000 square meter roof full of solar panels, in one of the pavilions of La Rural, the busiest fair and exhibition center in Buenos Aires. It is the largest private solar park in the capital of Argentina and required an investment of almost one million dollars. CREDIT: Courtesy of La Rural

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 23 2022 (IPS)

With large projects held back by the economic crisis and lack of infrastructure, Argentina seems to be looking at an alternative path towards a more sustainable energy mix involving small renewable energy projects, promoted by environmentally aware industries, businesses and private users.

The initiatives are aimed at covering their own consumption, sometimes with the addition of so-called distributed generation, in which user-generators who have a surplus of electricity can inject it into the national power grid and thus generate a tariff credit.

Distributed generation initiatives have just surpassed 1,000 projects already in operation, according to the latest official data.

At the same time, this month saw the inauguration of the largest private solar energy park in the city of Buenos Aires, an initiative of the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), the traditional business chamber of agricultural producers.

The park was installed in the exhibition center the SRA owns in the capital of this South American country, to supply part of its consumption with an investment of almost one million dollars and more than 1,000 solar panels.

“Small private renewable energy projects and distributed generation will be the ones to increase installed capacity in the coming years, because the electricity transmission and distribution system sets strong limits on large projects,” Mariela Beljansky, a specialist in energy and climate change issues, told IPS.

Beljansky, who was national director of Electricity Generation until early 2022, added: “Otherwise there will be no way to meet the growth targets for renewable sources set by Argentina, as part of its climate change mitigation commitments under the Paris Agreement.”

Argentina presented its National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan, which includes 250 measures to be implemented by 2030, at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) on climate change held by the United Nations in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh in November.

The National Secretariat for Climate Change estimated the total value of the plan’s implementation at 185.5 billion dollars, four times more than the debt Argentina incurred in 2018 with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has generated a sharp deterioration of the economy since then.

According to the data included in the plan, the energy sector is the largest generator of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the country, generating 51 percent of emissions.

Although renewable sources (with wind projects in first place and solar in second place) reached a record in October, supplying 17.8 percent of total electricity demand, the energy mix continues to be sustained basically by oil, natural gas and large hydroelectric projects.

Furthermore, the country has not decided to slow down the development of fossil fuels. The main reason is that it has large reserves of shale natural gas in the Vaca Muerta field in the south of the country, which has been attracting the interest of international investors for years. The climate change plan sets the goal of using natural gas as a transition fuel to replace oil as much as possible.

The plan also includes the objectives of developing a variety of renewable energy sources (wind, solar, small hydro, biogas and biomass) and also distributed generation, “directly at the points of consumption” and connected to the public power grid, at the residential and commercial levels.

Large renewable projects experienced strong growth between 2016 and 2019, on the back of an official plan that guaranteed the purchase of electricity at attractive prices for investors, but since then there have been virtually no new initiatives.

This truck functions as a mobile health center, travelling through towns in Patagonia, in southern Argentina. The roof of the vehicle is covered with solar panels that provide electricity to the four mobile consulting rooms and diagnostic imaging equipment. CREDIT: Courtesy of Utorak

Consumption subsidies

“In Argentina’s current situation, where there is practically no financing, and there are restrictions on importing equipment, high inflation and economic uncertainty, it is difficult to think about large renewable energy parks, and small projects become more attractive,” Marcelo Alvarez, a member of the board of the Argentine Renewable Energy Chamber (Cader), told IPS.

Alvarez pointed out that what conspires against small private and distributed generation projects are the subsidies that the Argentine government has been providing for years to energy consumption, including those families with high purchasing power that do not need them.

“Artificially cheap electricity rates and the scarcity of credit discourage the growth of renewables,” Alvarez said.

“The proof of this is that more than half of the distributed generation projects in operation are in the province of Cordoba (in the center of the country), where electricity prices are three times more expensive than in Buenos Aires and there is a special line of credit from the local bank (Bancor, which grants ‘eco-sustainable loans’) for renewable equipment,” he said.

Indeed, according to data from the Energy Secretariat, there are 1,051 user undertakings that generate their own electricity and inject their surplus into the grid and 573 of them are in the province of Cordoba.

Argentine state energy subsidies totaled 11 billion dollars in 2021 and this year, up to October, they already exceeded seven billion dollars, according to data from the Argentine Association of Budget and Public Financial Administration (Asap).

As for sources of financing, there is a line of credit endowed with 160 million dollars from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Banco de Inversión y Comercio Exterior (Bice), financed in part by the Green Climate Fund, which is aimed at renewable sources and energy efficiency projects for small and medium-sized businesses. However, most companies are unaware of its existence.

View of photovoltaic panels in a private neighborhood in Pilar, some 50 kilometers from Buenos Aires. Solar panels have become part of the landscape in the suburbs of Argentina’s capital city. CREDIT: Courtesy of Utorak

Private ventures

On Dec. 15, the Rural Society inaugurated the largest private solar park in Buenos Aires, in the 42,000 square meter covered area where the country’s most important fairs and exhibitions are held. The investment reportedly amounted to almost one million dollars.

“We have 42,000 square meters of roofs in our pavilions. It is a very important flat surface for the placement of solar panels, so we had been thinking about it for several years. We had done a pilot project in 2019, but then everything was delayed by the pandemic, which forced us to close the venue,” Claudio Dowdall, general manager of La Rural, told IPS.

“At this stage we used 5,000 square meters of roofs, on which we placed 1,136 photovoltaic panels, with a total power of 619 kW. This is equivalent to the average consumption of 210 family homes and, for us, it is between 30 and 40 percent of the electricity we use,” he added.

Andrés Badino, founder of Utorak, a company that has been dedicated to renewable energy for families and companies for more than five years, confirms that consultations and demand are growing in the sector.

“People’s interest has been growing because of increased environmental awareness and, also, because of what can be saved on electricity bills for residential users and for educational institutions and healthcare centers as well,” Badino said.

“Argentina has a national industry for the production of solar thermal tanks, but not for the manufacture of panels, inverters or batteries, despite the fact that the country has one of the largest reserves in the world, the main component. But we are confident that international prices will go down and drive demand,” he said.

A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis — 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

Farhana Haque Rahman

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbers given by the UN and involved parties vary enormously) have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched war on February 24. More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Billions of dollars have been spent on armaments.

But the impact of the war has been felt worldwide, driving up prices of basic commodities such as oil, gas, grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers. Somalia, now in the grip of the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years, used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

Commodities have been weaponised. Countries slipped back into recession, just as they were slowly recovering from the economic distress of Covid-19 lockdowns. A deepening relationship between sanctioned Russia and an energy- hungry China exacerbated existing tensions with the US over Taiwan. The result? China broke off climate cooperation efforts with the US in the run-up to the COP27 climate conference hosted by Egypt in November with 200 countries and 35,000 people attending.

Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Pakistan and West Africa, and with 2022 on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record, agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda. Talks ran into extra time, as they tend to, and countries of the global South emerged with the landmark creation of a special fund paid by wealthier countries to address the Loss and Damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

“After 30 contentious years, delayed tactics by wealthy countries, a renewed spirit of solidarity, empathy and cooperation prevailed, resulting in the historic establishment of a dedicated fund,” said Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations, reflecting a sense of hard fought victory among developing countries.

Still unresolved however is which countries will give money and to whom. China in particular seems uneasy over which category it belongs to. However COP27 joined its 26 forerunners since 1995 in not reaching a binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning which has continued to rise globally, except for a brief pandemic dip. For this, many branded it a failure. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening plenary session. By the end, many felt the conference had concluded with the latter. Rather than falling, the latest estimates from the Global Carbon Project show that total worldwide CO2 emissions in 2022 have reached near-record levels.

Victims of devastating floods, heatwaves and forest fires, and severe drought in Central Sahel and East Africa surely needed no confirmation from the final decision text of COP27 which recognises “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and the vulnerability of food production to climate change.

In this respect, COP27 recognised the importance of nature-based solutions – a theme driven by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in ringing alarm bells on the degraded soil, water sources and eco-systems caused by intensive agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and pesticides. According to FAO, more than 25 percent of arable soils worldwide are degraded, and the equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds. The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result. As highlighted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in stressing the vital connections between Nature and people, a landmark report in July found that 50,000 wild species provide food, cosmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration. Many face extinction. As international agencies and NGOs (and media outlets) jostled and competed for funding to deal with the fallout from wars and climate emergencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which is active in the Sahel cautioned that only 1.7 per cent of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries and as little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality. Women’s empowerment has been made a major focus of ASAP+, IFAD’s new climate change financing mechanism.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among communities hit by severe drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). It launched a $113.7 million appeal to scale-up life-saving reproductive health and protection services, including establishment of mobile and static clinics in displacement sites.

Also overshadowed by wars and pandemics in 2022 were marginalised communities lacking a voice, suffering diseases such as leprosy or exploited in the form of child labour.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society has the knowledge and means to stop and cure leprosy, he says in the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.

“When people are still being discriminated against even after being cured, society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making,” he told IPS.

A similar message was delivered by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who told the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that a mere $53 billion per annum – equivalent to 10 days of military spending – would ensure all children in all countries benefit from social protection. International Labour Organisation and UNICEF statistics from 2020 show at least 160 million children are involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in four years. Children denied education became a burning issue in Afghanistan in March when the Taliban declared that girls would be banned from secondary education. The UN said 1.1 million girls were affected. The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school was met with outrage and distress, inside and outside Afghanistan. Denial of human rights to girls and women has fuelled the desire of many to get out of Afghanistan and seek a better life elsewhere, adding to the millions around the world forced to flee their homes because of conflict, repression or disaster. The Ukraine conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, about a third of the population.

A UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on trafficking warns that refugees from Ukraine are at risk of including sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and surrogacy, forced begging and forced criminality.

As they come over border crossings into Poland, refugees – including victims of rape – are greeted with posters and flyers carrying warnings about jail terms for breaking local abortion laws, images of miscarried foetuses, and a quote from Mother Theresa saying: “Abortion is the greatest threat to peace”.

UNDP, which is assisting the Ukraine government in getting access to public services for IDPs, says in its 2022 report, Turning the tide on internal displacement, that earlier and increased support to development is an essential condition for emerging from crisis in a sustainable way.

“More efforts are needed to end the marginalization of internally displaced people, who must be able to exercise their full rights as citizens including through access to vital services such as health care, education, social protection and job opportunities” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

Nearly one million Rohingya refugees languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh after being driven out of Myanmar in waves since 2016 would surely agree.

Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, said to be the world’s largest NGO and founded by Sir Fazle after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, says work needs to “shift towards a development-like approach from a very short-term humanitarian crisis-focused approach”. But the only solution for the Rohingya refugees is their sustainable and voluntary repatriation to Myanmar. As 2022 closes, that unfortunately looks highly unlikely as the military junta that seized power in 2021 fights ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts.

There was one seismic milestone event that happened in late 2022 although no one is quite sure exactly where and when. The few people to witness it were not aware either – not that it prevented the UN from declaring it a special day. The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15. The world’s population has doubled from 4 billion in 1974 and UN projections suggest we will be supporting about 9.7 billion people in 2050. Global population is forecast to peak at about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, sent a message to the baby, and the rest of the world, as countries meet in Montreal for the COP15 biodiversity conference this month.

“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,” she said.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

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Government delegations celebrate the close of the historic negotiation at COP15 of the New Global Framework on Biodiversity in the early hours of the morning on Monday Dec. 19, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, Canada. CREDIT: Mike Muzurakis/IISD

By Emilio Godoy
MONTREAL, Dec 19 2022 (IPS)

The pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), which takes its name from its shape, is found throughout the Caribbean Sea, but its population has declined by more than 80 percent since 1990. As a result, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed it as “critically endangered” due to the effects of the human-induced climate crisis.

Its fate now depends on the new Kunming-Montreal Global Framework on Biodiversity, which was agreed by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on Monday Dec. 19, at the end of the summit held since Dec. 7 at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal.

Now, the world’s countries must translate the results into national biodiversity strategies, to comply with the new accord. In this regard, David Ainsworth, spokesman for the CBD, in force since 1993 and based in Montreal, announced the creation of a global accelerator for the drafting of national plans, with the support of U.N. agencies.

COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a new program to protect the world’s natural heritage for the next 10 years during the summit held in the Canadian city of Montreal. The picture shows a statue of a polar bear, whose species is threatened by melting ice and habitat loss, on a street in Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The menu of agreements

COP15, whose theme was “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”, approved four objectives on improving the status of biodiversity, reducing species extinction, fair and appropriate sharing of benefits from access to and use of genetic resources, and means of implementation of the agreement.

In addition, the plenary of the summit, which brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies, agreed on 23 goals within the Global Framework, for the conservation and management of 30 percent of terrestrial areas and 30 percent of marine areas by 2030, in what is known in U.N. jargon as the 30×30.

This includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.

Likewise, the agreement reached by the 196 States Parties at COP15 includes the halving of food waste, the elimination or reform of at least 500 billion dollars a year in subsidies harmful to biodiversity, and at least 200 billion dollars in funding for biodiversity by 2030 from public and private sources.

It also endorsed increasing financial transfers from countries of the industrialized North to nations of the developing South by at least 20 billion dollars by 2025 and 30 billion dollars by 2030, and the voluntary publication by companies for monitoring, evaluation and disclosure of the impact of their activities on biodiversity.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will manage a new fund, whose operation will be defined by the countries over the next two years.

With regard to digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, the Global Framework stipulates the establishment of a multilateral fund for benefit-sharing between providers and users of genetic resources and states that governments will define the final figure at COP16 in Turkey in 2024.

The Global Framework also contains gender and youth perspectives, two strong demands of the process that was initially scheduled to end in the city of Kunming, China, in 2020. But because that country was unable to host mass meetings due to its zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19, a first virtual chapter was held there and another later in person, and the final one now took place in Montreal.

The states parties are required to report at least every five years on their national compliance with the Global Framework. The CBD will include national information submitted in February 2026 and June 2029 in its status and trend reports.

With some differences, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples gave a nod to the Global Framework, but issued warnings. Viviana Figueroa, representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and Simone Lovera, policy director of the Global Forest Coalition, applauded the agreement in conversations with IPS, while pointing out its risks.

“It’s a good step forward, because it recognizes the role of indigenous peoples, the use of biodiversity and the role of traditional knowledge,” said Figueroa, an Omaguaca indigenous lawyer from Argentina whose organization brings together indigenous groups from around the world to present their positions at international environmental meetings.

“It has been a long process, to which native peoples have contributed and have made proposals. The most important aspects that we proposed have been recognized and we hope to work together with the countries,” she added.

But, she remarked, “the most important thing will be the implementation.”

Goal C and targets one, three, five, nine, 13, 21 and 22 of the Global Framework relate to respect for the rights of native and local communities.

Lovera, whose organization brings together NGOs and indigenous groups, said the accord “recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and of women. It also includes a recommendation to withdraw subsidies and reduce public and private investments in destructive activities, such as large-scale cattle ranching and oil palm monoculture.”

But indigenous and human rights organizations have questioned the 30×30 approach on the grounds that it undermines ancestral rights, blocks access to aboriginal territories, and requires consultation and unpressured, informed consent for protected areas prior to any decision on the future of those areas.

Discussions at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit intensified in the last few days of COP15 and ran late into the night, as in this session on health and biodiversity. But in the end, agreement was reached on a new Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will be binding on the 196 states parties. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Major challenge

While the Global Framework has indicators and monitoring mechanisms and is legally binding, it has no actual teeth, and the precedent of the failed Aichi Targets casts a shadow over its future, especially with the world’s poor track record on international agreements.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD’s COP10 and which its 196 states parties failed to meet in 2020, included the creation of terrestrial and marine protected areas; the fight against pollution and invasive species; respect for indigenous knowledge; and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.

Several estimates put the amount needed to protect biological heritage at 700 billion dollars, which means there is still an enormous gap to be closed.

In more than 30 years, the GEF has disbursed over 22 billion dollars and helped transfer another 120 billion dollars to more than 5,000 regional and national projects. For the new period starting in 2023, the fund is counting on some five billion dollars in financing.

In addition, the Small Grants Program has supported around 27,000 community initiatives in developing countries.

“There is little public funding, more is needed,” Lovera said. “It’s sad that they say the private sector must fund biodiversity. In indigenous territories money is needed. They can do much more than governments with less money. Direct support can be more effective and they will meet the commitments.”

The activist also criticized the use of offsets, a mechanism whereby one area can be destroyed and another can be restored elsewhere – already used in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

“This system allows us to destroy 70 percent of the planet while preserving the other 30 percent,” Lovera said. “It is madness. For indigenous peoples and local communities, it is very negative, because they lose their own biodiversity and the compensation is of no use to them, because it happens somewhere else.”

Figueroa said institutions that already manage funds could create direct mechanisms for indigenous peoples, as is the case with the Small Grants Program.

Of the 609 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, 303 are aimed at the conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 188 at alliances, and 159 at adaptation to climate change and reduction of polluting emissions.

The summit also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from their Utilization, both components of the CBD.

Images of the planet’s sixth mass extinction reflect the size of the challenge. More than a quarter of some 150,000 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction.

The “Living Planet Report 2022: Building a nature-positive society”, prepared by the WWF and the Institute of Zoology in London, shows that Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the largest decline in monitored wildlife populations worldwide, with an average decline of 94 percent between 1970 and 2018.

With a decade to act, each passing day represents more biological wealth lost.

IPS produced this article with support from Internews‘ Earth Journalism Network.

Credit: United Nations
 
ESSENTIAL FUTURE STEPS FORWARD FOR COPs PROCESS

By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)

As COP27 was coming to a close, the leader of the Youth Constayituency of UNFCCC declared in an emotion-choked voice that “Incredible young people from the global North and the global South are standing together in solidarity asking for action. We need to look for more than hope. We need those in power to actually listen and implement the solutions”.

Action for implementation is the clarion call of the younger generation to tod’s decision-makers. It would be prudent to listen to the future decision-makers in the best interest our people and planet.

SDGs, G20 & GOAL 5 ON GENDER EQUALITY:

First, G20 Declaration last month in Bali, Indonesia resolved, “We will demonstrate leadership and take collective actions to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs by 2030 and address developmental challenges by reinvigorating a more inclusive multilateralism and reform aimed at implementing the 2030 Agenda.”

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

Without gender equality, there is no climate justice. Gender equality is the crucial missing link in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 5. Let us always be deliberate and consistent in ensuring space for young women and girls who have been leading global and national climate movements.

Only an estimated 0.01 per cent of global official development assistance addresses both climate change and women’s rights. The necessary structural measures require intentional, meaningful global investments that respond to the climate crisis and support women’s organizations and programmes. Astonishingly, less than 1 percent of international philanthropy goes to women’s environmental initiatives. That must change.

IGNORANCE OF WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTION:

Second, activists express frustration saying that “Gender is still largely seen as an isolated issue that is discussed in a room away from the main debates about mitigation, financing, and technology. Thus, it does not appear to be an issue integrated within the intersecting policies of different ministries.

This reinforces the ignorant notion that women in all their diversity are neither key actors nor agents of change but merely victims of the climate crisis.” That mindset should go as it results in the continuation of patriarchal hegemony.

Women’s and girl’s full and equal participation in decision-making processes is a top priority in the fight against climate change. Without gender equality today, a sustainable, more equal future remains beyond our reach. Give power and platforms to the next generation of Earth champions. As has been said recently, “Our best counter-measure to the threat multiplier of climate change is the benefit multiplier of gender equality.”

COPs ARE NOT FOR FOSSIL FUEL LOBBY:

Third, the current process continues to fail to meet the urgency and clarity of purpose that science and experience are calling for—a full-scale, just, equitable and gender-just transition away from a fossil fuel based extractive economy to a care and social protection centered regenerative economy.

Globally, for every $1 spent to support renewable energy, another $6 are spent on fossil fuel subsidies. These subsidies are intended to protect companies and consumers from fluctuating fuel prices, but what they actually do is keep dirty energy companies very profitable. We are subsidizing the very behavior that is destroying our planet.

The UN should not allow future COPs to be an open platform for the presence of the fossil fuel lobby. Concrete action is needed to stop the toxic practices of the fossil fuel industry that is causing more damage to the climate than any other industry.

CHILDREN & YOUTH ‘RECOGNISED’ AS AGENTS OF CHANGE:

Fourth, the full impact of climate change on kids is becoming clearer and more alarming. Children’s developing brains and growing bodies make them particularly vulnerable. The very experience of childhood is at risk. Research reports concluded that with the increasing frequency and severity of climate crisis, young children are at risk of severe trauma during the period of life when neural connections in the brain are forming and susceptible to disruption. Reports found that “This trauma can have lifelong impacts on learning, health, and the ability to form meaningful relationships.”

Bearing this in mind, a much-needed step was taken at COP27 by recognizing “the role of children and youth as agents of change in addressing and responding to climate change”. It also encouraged “Parties to include children and youth in their processes for designing and implementing climate policy and action, and, as appropriate, to consider including young representatives and negotiators into their national delegations, recognizing the importance of intergenerational equity and maintaining the stability of the climate system for future generations.”

The decision expressed appreciation to COP27 Presidency “for its leadership in promoting the full, meaningful and equal participation of children and youth, including by co-organizing the first youth-led climate forum (the Sharm el-Sheikh youth climate dialogue), hosting the first children and youth pavilion and appointing the first youth envoy of a Presidency of the Conference of the Parties and encourages future incoming Presidencies of the Conference of the Parties to consider doing the same.” It would be more meaningful if the hard-headed negotiators and fossil-fuel lobby were exposed to the children and youth events at the main conference hall at COP27. Hopefully COP28 would arrange for that to happen.

HUMAN RIGHT TO A CLEAN, HEALTHY, AND SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT:

Fifth, another positive outcome at COP27 is the first multilateral environmental agreement to include an explicit reference to the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This should open a path for this right to be recognized across all environmental governance and also codified by the United Nations.

STRONG CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION NEEDED:

Sixth, key civil society leaders were critical of their exclusion complaining that “Observers were consistently locked out of the negotiation rooms for a repeated ‘lack of sitting space’ excuse … We have also witnessed painful orchestration of last-minute decisions with few Parties.” They alerted the organizers and hosts of future COPs by saying that “This needs to be called out and ended.”

Strong civil society organizations are a critical counterbalance to powerful state and corporate actors. They help to keep governments accountable to the people they are meant to serve –– both key to climate action that prioritizes the wellbeing of people and planet.

ECOFEMINISM IS THE WAY AHEAD:

Seventh, bringing together feminism and environmentalism, ecofeminism argues that the domination of women and the degradation of the environment are consequences of patriarchy and capitalism. Ecofeminism uses an intersectional feminist approach when striving to abolish structural obstacles that prevent women and girls from enjoying equal and livable planet. This is a smart and inclusive policy not only for women, but for the humankind as a whole.

Vandana Shiva, one of the world’s most prominent ecofeminist, propounds, “We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.” Any strategy to address one must take into account its impact on the other so that women’s equality should not be achieved at the expense of worsening the environment, and neither should environmental improvements be gained at the expense of women. Indeed, ecofeminism proposes that only by reversing current values, thereby privileging care and cooperation over more aggressive and dominating behaviors, can both society and environment benefit.

FOOD FOR RETHINKING: ELITIST MULTILATERISM CANNOT DELIVER:

Civil society representatives at COP27 verbalized their anger by announcing that “Even as we call out the hypocrisy, inaction and injustice of this space, as civil society and movements connected in the fight for climate justice, we refuse to cede the space of multilateralism to short-sighted politicians and fossil-fuel driven corporate interests.”

Patricia Wattimena of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development pushes the point further to say, “We can’t keep on negotiating people’s rights at global climate talks. The rich must stop commodifying our rights especially women’s human rights and start paying for their ecological debt.”

With the 2030 deadline for SDGs knocking at the door, the call in the Bali G-20 Summit declaration for “inclusive multilateralism” is a timely alert to realise that current form of multilateralism dominated by rich and powerful countries and well-organized vested interests, on most occasions working with co-aligned objectives, cannot deliver the world we want for all. That elitist multilateralism has failed.

Minimalistic, divisive, dismissive, and arrogant multilateralism that we are experiencing now gives honest multilateralism a bad name. Multilateralism has become a sneaky slogan under which each country is hiding their narrow self-interest to the detriment of global humanity’s best interest. It is a sad reality that these days negotiators play “politicking and wordsmithing” at the cost of substance and action.

Multilateralism – as we are experiencing now – clearly shows it has lost its soul and objectivity. There is no genuine engagement, no honest desire to mutually accommodate and no willingness to rise above narrow self-interest-triggered agenda. It has become a one-way street, a mono-directional pathway for the rich and powerful. Today’s multilateralism needs redefining!

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Aerial view of the Municipal Theater of Boa Vista and its parking lot covered by solar panels, near the center of a city of wide avenues, empty spaces, abundant solar energy and high quality of life compared to other cities in Brazil’s Amazon region. In the background is seen the Branco River, which could be dammed 120 kilometers downstream for the construction of a hydroelectric plant that would flood part of the capital of the state of Roraima. CREDIT: Boa Vista city government

By Mario Osava
BOA VISTA, Brazil , Dec 13 2022 (IPS)

Solar energy is booming in Roraima, a state in the far north of Brazil, to the benefit of indigenous people and children in its capital, Boa Vista, and helping to provide a stable energy supply to the entire populace, who suffer frequent electricity shortages and blackouts.

The local government of Boa Vista, a city of 437,000 people, installed seven solar power plants that bring annual savings of around 960,000 dollars.

“We have used these savings to invest in health, education and social action, which is the priority of the city government because we are ‘the capital of early childhood’,” said Thiago Amorim, municipal secretary of Public Services and Environment.

Solar panels have mushroomed on the roofs of public buildings and parking lots around the city. The largest unit was built on the outskirts of Boa Vista – a 15,000-panel power plant with an installed capacity of 5,000 kilowatts.

In the city, the parking lot of the Municipal Theater, a bus terminal, a market and the mayor’s office itself stand out, covered with panels. There are also 74 bus stops with a few panels, but many were damaged when parts were stolen, Amorim told IPS in an interview in his office.

In total, the city had a solar power generation capacity of 6700 KW at the end of 2020, equivalent to the consumption of 9000 local households. It also promotes energy efficiency in the areas under municipal management.

“Eighty percent of the city is now lit up by LED bulbs, which are more efficient. The goal is to reach 100 percent in 2023,” said the municipal secretary.

The solar energy park about 10 kilometers from downtown Boa Vista has 15,000 panels with an output of 5,000 KW. It is one of the seven electricity generation units built by the city government to save some 960,000 dollars a year in energy and thus increase the social spending that makes Boa Vista “the capital of early childhood”. The plant is located on the plains of northeastern Roraima, an extensive savannah of 42,706 square kilometers, which stands in contrast with the image of the Amazon jungle. CREDIT: Boa Vista city government

The mayor’s office, during the administration of Teresa Surita (2013-2020), was a pioneer in the installation of solar power plants and also in comprehensive care for children from pregnancy to adolescence, for youngsters in the public educational system.

The city’s Welcoming Family program provides coordinated health, education, social assistance and communication services for mothers and children, from pregnancy through the first six years of the children’s lives. The day-care centers are called Mother Houses.

In recent years, students in the local municipal elementary schools have performed above the national average, coming in fifth place in student testing among Brazil’s 27 state capitals.

This was an especially outstanding achievement because the influx of Venezuelan migrants more than doubled the number of students in Boa Vista schools in the last decade.

Despite this, the quality of teaching was not affected, according to the indicators of the Education Ministry’s Basic Education Evaluation System.

A “little Amazon jungle” in the center of the city of Boa Vista with giant animal sculptures is the main children’s park of the three dozen in the city, with animal playground toys and structures. The playgrounds in the capital of Roraima, a state in the extreme north of Brazil, aim to educate children about the Amazon rainforest. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The results of the local early childhood policy have been recognized by several national and international specialized entities, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, which awarded it the Unicef Seal of Approval in 2016 and 2020.

More visible than the solar panels are the 30 playgrounds of varying sizes scattered around the city, in some cases featuring large playground equipment and structures in the shape of national wild animals, such as crocodiles and jaguars. They are called “selvinhas” (little jungles).

The use of solar power has spread to other sectors of life in Roraima, a state with only 650,000 inhabitants, despite its large area of 223,644 square kilometers, twice the size of Honduras, for example.

In May, there were 705 solar plants in homes, businesses and private companies, in addition to public buildings, in the state, with a total installed capacity of 15,955 KW (just under one percent of the region’s total).

In Roraima there are solar plants in the courthouses in four cities, in an aim to cut energy costs through a program called Lumen.

The secretary of Public Services and Environment of Boa Vista, Thiago Amorim, stands next to a map of the city which shows the areas already illuminated by energy-efficient LED bulbs. They now light up 80 percent of the city, which stands out for its solar energy generation and for programs that prioritize children, coordinating and combining educational, health and social action policies. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The Federal University of Roraima (UFRR) is also building a 908-panel plant, to be inaugurated by March 2023, with the capacity to generate 20 percent of the electricity consumed on its three campuses.

“The main objective is to save energy costs, and the goal is to expand to cover 100 percent of consumption. But it will also be useful for electrical engineering studies,” Emanuel Tishcer, UFRR’s head of infrastructure, told IPS.

The training of specialists in renewable sources, research into more efficient and cheaper panels, the comparison of technologies and innovations all become more accessible with the availability of an operating solar power plant, which serves the university’s electrical energy laboratory.

Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), the largest organization of native peoples in the state, said “the great objective (of solar energy) is to prove that Roraima and Brazil do not need new hydroelectric plants.”

The Bem Querer (Portuguese for “good will”) plant on the Branco River, Roraima’s main river, “will have direct impacts on nine indigenous territories” and will also affect other nearby indigenous areas if it is built, as the central government intends, he told IPS.

That is why the CIR is involved in three projects – two solar energy and a wind energy study – in territories assigned to different indigenous ethnic groups, he said.

A view of the Branco River, some five kilometers upstream of the point where the Brazilian government plans to build the Bem Querer hydroelectric power plant. Because the river has little gradient on the central plains of the northern state of Roraima, the reservoir would flood an extensive area, including part of the capital Boa Vista, which has 436,000 inhabitants. This has triggered heavy opposition to the project, by the local indigenous population as well. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The government’s hydroelectric plans, which currently prioritize Bem Querer, but include other uses of local rivers, have sparked a renewed debate on energy alternatives in Roraima, which has an installed electricity capacity of only 300 megawatts, since it has almost no industry.

From 2001 to 2019, Roraima relied on electricity from neighboring Venezuela, generated by the Guri hydroelectric plant in eastern Venezuela, the deterioration of which caused a growing shortage over the last decade, until the supply completely ran out in 2019, two years before the end of the contract.

Diesel thermoelectric plants had to be reactivated and new plants had to be built, including one using natural gas transported by truck from the Amazon jungle municipality of Silves, some 1,000 kilometers away, in order to guarantee a steady supply of electricity that the people of Roraima did not have until then.

It is costly electricity, but its subsidized price is one of the lowest in Brazil. The subsidy drives up the cost of electric power in the rest of the country. That is why there is nationwide pressure for the construction of a 715-kilometer transmission line between Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, also in the north, and Boa Vista.

With this transmission line, Roraima will cease to be the only Brazilian state outside the national grid, and local advocates believe it will be indispensable for a secure supply of electricity, a long-desired goal.

The three members of the board of the Roraima Renewable Energy Forum, Conceição Escobar (L), Ciro Campos and Rosilene Maia (R), which discusses with the local society the energy alternatives that would make it possible to avoid the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant and the environmental and social impacts of the reservoir. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

To discuss this and other alternatives, a group of stakeholders created the Roraima Alternative Energies Forum in September 2019, to promote dialogue between all sectors, in search of “the strategic construction of solutions to make the use of renewable energies viable in the state.”

“Our focus is energy security. The Forum is focused on photovoltaic sources and distributed generation. But it seeks a variety of renewable energies, including biomass,” said Conceição Escobar, one of the Forum’s coordinators and president of the Brazilian Association of Electrical Engineers in Roraima.

“There is an opportunity for everyone to be involved in the discussion. The construction of transmission lines and hydroelectric plants takes a long time, we have perhaps ten years to develop alternatives,” she told IPS.

“I am against Bem Querer, but the government of Roraima supports it. The Forum listens to all parties, it does not want to impose solutions. We want to study the feasibility of combined sources, with solar, biomass and wind, and encourage the use of garbage,” said biologist Rosilene Maia, who also forms part of the three-member board of the Forum.

Female workers sort out plastic bottles for recycling in a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. New initiatives were launched at the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF) to reduce plastic pollution. Credit: Abir Abdullah/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Aimable Twahirwa
Kigali, Dec 13 2022 (IPS)

Experts agree that African economies need to develop innovative approaches to deal with plastic production, which is set to double in 20 years – adversely impacting rural communities.

They were speaking in Kigali, Rwanda, on the sidelines of the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF).

As a result of current global efforts to spur Africa’s transition to a Circular Economy at the country, regional and continental levels, official estimates show that the transition to a fully circular economy could generate $4.5 trillion in economic benefits globally by 2030.

Government representatives, researchers, civil society activists, and strategic partners launched an initiative, the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, on the sidelines of WCEF to end plastic pollution by 2040.

“The issue of plastic pollution has reached crisis levels, and it is time polluters to be held to account,” Zaynab Sadan, the Regional Plastics Policy Coordinator for Africa at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told IPS.

According to experts, the key to a circular economy in Africa is to eliminate open dumping and burning of waste on the continent and promote the use of waste as a resource for value and job creation.

The latest estimates by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) show that approximately 7 billion of the 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic produced from 1950-2017 globally has become plastic waste, ending in landfills or dumped.

Environmental experts argue that this pollution has altered habitats and natural processes and reduced ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities, and social well-being, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Experts unanimously agree that plastic consumption and production have reached unsustainable levels over the past 30 years, reaching 460 million tonnes between 2000 to 2019.

The 2022 Global Plastics Outlook report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that much of this growth is mostly driven by massive increases in the production of single-use plastics for packaging and consumer goods, which accounts for half of the plastic waste generation.

To address this growing phenomenon, Sadan insists on the need for African countries to integrate the informal sector into recycling and waste management.

“There is a pressing need to improvement in waste collection services and management at landfills,” the fierce conservation activist told delegates at the launching of the new High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution.

Official projections indicate that by 2060, the use of plastics could almost triple globally, driven by economic and population growth.

It said that plastic leakage to the environment is projected to double to 44 million tonnes (Mt) a year, while the build-up of plastics in aquatic environments will more than triple, where the largest costs are projected for Sub-Saharan Africa, whose GDP would be reduced by 2.8% below the baseline.

Kristin Hughes, the director of the resource circularity pillar and a member of the World Economic Forum’s executive committee, told delegates that if current trends continue, billion metric tons of plastic waste will be in landfills or the natural environment by 2050.

“Embedding science and evidence-based approach are key to end plastic pollution in Africa,” Hughes said.

From plastic waste to paving stones. This was a project highlighted at the World Circular Economy Forum in Kigali. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

During various sessions on the forum’s sidelines, Rwanda has been hailed as a role model in Africa toward managing waste from banning plastic bags in 2008, has made great steps forward, and has established the e-waste recycling facility in 2018.

Reacting to this achievement, Rwandan Minister of Environment Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya stressed the need for the country to strengthen existing mechanisms to have a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.

“Despite these achievements, there are still shortcomings that are exposing the country to severe impacts of improper waste management, including hazardous wastes,” Mujawamariya told delegates.

Terhi Lehtonen, Finnish Vice Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, is convinced that eradicating plastic pollution requires a systemic approach since plastic pollution is not simply a consumer issue.

“The plastic pollution is increasing at an alarming rate […] African countries need to adopt a holistic control strategy at both production and consumer level,” she told delegates.

The newly-established global mechanism, the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, is committed to developing ambitious international and legally binding instruments based on a comprehensive and circular approach that ensures urgent action and effective action interventions along the full lifecycle of plastics.

Erlend Haugen, Norway’s coordinator of the Global Initiative, said the new treaty must establish provisions for plastic waste minimization and environmentally sound collection, sorting, and preparation for reuse and recycling of plastic waste to re-enter recycled plastics into the economy and avoid leakage to the environment.

But activists are convinced that communities also have vital knowledge and experience that can help combat the scourge of plastic pollution.

“Countries should also adopt a gender-sensitive approach to tackle plastic pollution,” said Sadan.

According to her, the youth could also play a very influential role in plastic waste control by raising awareness about its negative impact.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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IPS – UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF), Rwanda

COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. Credit: United Nations
 
AFRICA COP DENIES AFRICAN WOMEN & GIRLS’ DEMANDS

By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Dec 13 2022 (IPS)

The African women and Girls were deeply concerned about the lack of commitment by UNFCCC Parties as climate change continues to impact negatively on the continent victimizing more women and girls.

The WGC has uplifted the voices of African feminists at COP27, asserting their power to demand climate-justice articulated in the powerful set of proposals presented as the African Women and Girls’ Demands. [ Link: WGC_COP27-African-Feminists-Demands_EN_final.pdf (womengenderclimate.org) ] The demands stress in particular the need for more Inclusion of women and young people in decision-making processes;

Imali Ngusale, FEMNET Communication Officer, Kenya was clear in her pronouncement on this dimension saying that “Remarks about women and youth engagement have been regurgitated in well-crafted speeches. Promises have been made year in year out, but the reality check keeps us guessing whether the implementation of the GAP is a promise that may never be achieved. A gender responsive climate change negotiation is what we need. The time for action is yesterday.”

“… We are saddened by the outcomes of the implementation for the GAP. The GAP remains the beacon of hope for women and girls who are at the frontline of the climate crises,” lamented Queen Nwanyinnaya Chikwendu, a Climate Change and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Activist of Nigeria.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

This powerful one-page statement has been posted on the reliable and prestigious Women’s UN Regional Network (WUNRN) website and worth reading by all activists and supporters for the rights of women and girls. It would be worthwhile for the UN to look into the issues raised by in the WGC statement at COP27 and publicly share its findings. UN Women and UN DESA which oversee NGO participation throughout the UN system should be the lead entities to pursue this matter from the UN Headquarters.

Expressing a total dismay with the lack of substance in the outcome, politicization and non-participatory process, Zainab Yunusa, Climate Change and Development Activist of Nigeria pondered, “As a young African climate justice feminist, I came to COP27 excited to see concrete decisions to follow the intermediate review of the Gender Action Plan (GAP)…. Rather, I witnessed restrictive negotiation processes that undermined my contributions.”

“I observed the cunning political power play of ‘who pays for what,’ at the expense of the sufferings of women and girls of intersecting diversities. I saw a weak, intangible, eleventh-hour GAP decision that merely sought to tick the box of arriving at an outcome. COP27 side-lined the gender agenda in climate action. It failed women human rights defenders, indigenous women, young women, National Gender Climate Change Focal Points, and gender climate justice advocates clamoring for gender equality in climate action.”

Gender-Climate Change activists are wondering whether these frustrations would reappear at COP28. Their limited expectation, however, relates to the skillful, transparent, and impartial handling of the negotiations at the final stages at COP27 by the facilitator Hana Al-Hashimi of the delegation of UAE, the next host.

WIKIGENDER’S ROLE DOUBTED:

In the context of gender and climate advocacy, a number of civil society activists have expressed doubts about the role of the Wikigender, which claims to be “ a global online collaborative platform linking policymakers, civil society and experts from both developed and developing countries to find solutions to advance gender equality.” It reportedly provides a “centralized space for knowledge exchange on key emerging issues, with a strong focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in particular on SDG 5”.

The Wikigender University Programme engages with students working on gender equality issues. As an OECD Development Centre-supervised online community, activists wondered about the platform’s bias, more so as it deals with gender equality issues.

WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION MARGINALISED:

Another major concern widely shared by most activists was that too few women participated in COP27 climate negotiations. Women are historically underrepresented at the United Nations’ global conferences on climate change, and COP27 was no exception. A BBC analysis has found that women made up less than 34% of country negotiating teams at Sharm El-Sheikh. Some delegations were more than 90% male.

ActionAid UK emphasizes that “there is no getting around when women are in the room, they create solutions that are proven to be more sustainable.” To make the matter worse, the UN has estimated that 80% of people displaced by climate change are women. ActionAid said that climate change is exacerbating gender inequalities. Decisions at COP27 were not focused on the specific issues as well the perspectives which are of particular concern to women.

At COP27, the inaugural ‘family photo’ showed a dismal reality featuring 110 leaders present, but just seven of them were women. This was one of the lowest concentrations of women seen at the COPs, according to the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), which tracks female participation at such events. Twelve years ago in 2011, countries pledged to increase female participation at these talks, but the share this year has fallen since a peak of 40% in 2018, according to WEDO.

According to the UN, young women are currently leading the charge on taking climate change action. Some of the most famous legal cases brought against governments for inaction on climate change, have been brought by women. It is obvious that the outcomes of the climate change negotiations will be affected by the lack of women participating. They must have a seat at the table.

As in other years, women, and especially women of color and from countries in the global South had been demanding, that their voices be heard and amplified in climate negotiations. Their demands fell into deaf ears. “When we talk about representation it is about more than numbers; it is meaningful representation and inclusion,” said Nada Elbohi, an Egyptian feminist and youth advocate, in a press release. “It is bringing the priorities of African women and girls to the table.”

CIVIL SOCIETY IGNORED IN A BIG WAY:

UNFCCC website claims that “Civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are welcomed to these (annual COP and related) conferences as observers to offer opinions and expertise, and to further represent the people of the world.” There are 1400 such observer organizations grouped into nine constituencies namely, 1.Businesses and industry organizations; 2. Environmental organizations; 3. Local and municipal governments; 4. Trade unions; 5. Research and independent organizations; and organizations that work for 6. the rights of Indigenous people; 7. for Young people; 8. for Agricultural workers; and 9. for Women and gender rights.

Though these constituencies provide focal points for easier interaction with the UNFCCC Secretariat, based in Bonn, and individual governments, at COP27, such interactions did not happen. Complaining the lack of effective civil society space, Gina Cortes Valderrama, WGC Co-Focal Point, Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF) focused bluntly on the reality speaking on record that “Negotiations at COP27 have taken place amid deepened injustices in terms of access and inclusion, with participants facing discrimination, harassment and surveillance, and concerns for their safety as well as the safety of activists and human rights defender.”

She further added that “Instead of this being the space for guaranteeing human rights to all, it is being utilized as an Expo where capitalism, false solutions and colonial development models are greeted with red carpets while women and girls fade away in the memories of their lost land, of their damaged fields, of the ashes of their murdered.”

A WGC representative verbalized their anger by announcing that “Even as we call out the hypocrisy, inaction and injustice of this space, as civil society and movements connected in the fight for climate justice, we refuse to cede the space of multilateralism to short-sighted politicians and fossil-fuel driven corporate interests.”

Key civil society leaders were critical of their exclusion complaining that “Observers were consistently locked out of the negotiation rooms for a repeated ‘lack of sitting space’ excuse … We have also witnessed painful orchestration of last-minute decisions with few parties.”

They alerted the organizers and hosts of future COPs by saying that “This needs to be called out and ended.”

COP27 PEOPLES’ DECLARATION:

In the final days of COP27, becoming increasingly frustrated, the Women and Gender Constituency together with different civil society movements across the world endorsed a joint COP27 Peoples’ Declaration for Climate Justice. The Declaration called for: (1) the decolonisation of the economy and our societies; (2) The repaying of climate debt and delivery of climate finance; (3) The defense of 1.5c with real zero goals by 2030 and rejection of false solutions; (4) Global solidarity, peace, and justice. Full text is available at COP27 Peoples’ Declaration (womengenderclimate.org).

This substantive and forward-looking Declaration should strengthen civil society solidarity and provide a blueprint for their activism in upcoming COPs and other UNFCCC platforms.

Given the ill-treatment and huge disappointment of the civil society observers being denied access during COP27, it would be beneficial for the COP process and the next COP Presidencies to allow one representative from each of these nine constituencies to be present at all the meetings of the Parties from COP28 onwards.

FOSSIL FUEL LOBBY COMES OUT OF THE SHADOW:

On one point there was a near-unanimous opinion at COP27 that the fossil fuel industry has finally come out of the shadows. One key takeaway from Sharm El-Sheikh was the presence and power of fossil fuel – be they delegates or countries.

Attendees connected to the oil and gas industry were everywhere. Some 636 were part of country delegations and trade teams, reflecting an increase of over 25% from COP26. The crammed pavilions felt at times like a fossil fuel trade fair. This influence was clearly reflected in the final text.

Sanne Van de Voort of Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF), commented, “… although it is long overdue, only a handful of countries presented their revised national plans in Sharm El-Sheikh; in contrast more than 600 fossil fuel and nuclear lobbyists flooded the COP premises, selling their false climate solutions”. According to the Spiegel, the COP27 became a marketplace where 20 major oil and gas deals were signed by climate-killers such as Shell and Equinor.”

Tzeporah Berman, international program director at grassroots environmental organization “Stand.Earth” lamented that “To be sure, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, is the chief driver of the climate crisis. Our failure to recognize this in 27 COPs is a result of the power of the fossil fuel incumbents, especially the big oil and gas companies out in force at this COP who have made their products invisible in the negotiations”

Climate-campaigners described the UN’s flagship climate conference as a “twisted joke” and said COP27 appeared to be a “festival of fossil fuels and their polluting friends, buoyed by recent bumper profits …The extraordinary presence of this industry’s lobbyists at these talks is therefore a twisted joke at the expense of both people and planet.”

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations, former Ambassador of Bangladesh to the UN and former President of the Security Council.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

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Part Two of Three