Earl Green, project manager, discusses the Arundo donax bio-mass project with sugar cane farmers in Orange Walk, Belize. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Apr 19 2022 (IPS)

In September 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK-based Commonwealth Secretariat announced that it had dispatched highly skilled climate finance advisors to four member nations to help them navigate the often-complicated process of accessing climate funds. Belize, the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) only Central American member, was one of the recipients.

Since then, with the support of the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH), Belize has completed a climate finance landscape study, devised a five-year strategy to access international funds, and established a dedicated Climate Finance Unit in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment. The unit works collaboratively with the National Climate Change Office (NCCO), which sits under the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management.

With some 28 climate change-related projects in varying stages of development, Belize needed to find a way to speed up the project development process from concept to implementation if the country were to realise its commitments, said Leroy Martinez, an economist in the Climate Finance Unit. The often-cumbersome application process for the Green Climate Fund (GCF), among other schemes, can mean projects linger for years before implementation.

In January 2022, the government announced the launch of the new Climate Finance Unit. Director Carlos Pol explained that the aim was to “maximise access to climate finance, provide the technical and other support to access and fast track projects,” while helping the private sector identify funding to carry out much-needed programmes. He noted that Belize is also being supported to build human and institutional capacity.

On long-term placement with the NCCO, working under the guidance of Belize’s Chief Climate Change Officer, Dr Lennox Gladden, is Commonwealth national climate finance advisor Ranga Pallawala, a highly skilled finance expert deployed to help Belize make “successful applications and proposals to international funds”.

Climate change impacts from wind, flood and drought have been extensive, Pol said. The damage has led to annual losses of about 7 percent of the country’s GDP, or US$123 million, which, when added to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, elevated Belize’s debt-to-GDP rating to an unsustainable 130 percent.

Pallawala told IPS that his role includes helping to build and strengthen capacity in climate financing of Belize. He would also “strengthen their capacity to plan, access, deliver, monitor and report on climate finance in line with national priorities, and access to knowledge sharing through the commonwealth’s pool of experts”.

Pol told IPS that, as the Commonwealth’s assigned climate finance adviser, Pallawala assisted in developing a National Climate Finance Strategy to, among other things, identify likely projects and possible funding sources. Pallawala also worked with the National Climate Change Office to carry out a climate landscape study, which Pol said: “Identified the country’s needs, the funding available and that which was needed to achieve the recommendations coming out of the NDC [Nationally Determined Contribution or national climate plan]”.

The Commonwealth Climate Finance Hub work in Belize also aims to support the GCF accreditation process of local institutions, streamline climate finance and seek new opportunities to ensure that climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies are at the centre of the government’s development policies and plans.

The CCFAH will allow the country to streamline its NDC ambitions and help improve its ability to source additional funding from external sources. It will help to develop strong private/public partnership projects, benefit from the expertise within the Commonwealth’s pool of international advisers and fast track project proposals, among other things. In addition, a debt-for-climate swap initiative announced earlier this year will allow Belize to reduce its public debt by directing its debt service payments to fund some climate change projects.

In the current scenario, Pol explained Belize could use available funds to support the “early entry of projects” to minimise delays in implementation. The country has experienced challenges in this regard in the past, for example, with the start-up of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (5Cs) Arundo donax biomass project.

In 2016, the 5Cs began an ambitious project to reduce Belize’s fuel bill by using local wild grass as a substitute for the bagasse, a by-product of sugar production used to fuel the furnaces. A local wild cane with the scientific name of Arundo donax was identified as a potentially suitable renewable crop for augmenting the supply of bagasse year-round. But despite a partnership with the national electricity provider BelcoGen, the project experienced delays.

As project manager Earl Green told IPS, the absence of funds to do some requisite studies slowed implementation. In 2018, the GCF provided US$694,000 for a project preparation facility. Even with good results from the pilot phases, the GCF did not fund the studies to determine the growth rates of the wild cane.

With Pallawala on board, delays like those experienced with the Arundo donax project could be a thing of the past. Additional funding is now in place to establish cultivation plots with two species of wild cane have been planted.

Pallawala said his role is to support the CFU in building stronger projects and enhancing existing ones, “not to overlap what others are doing, but to look at all the available sources of funds and help the country develop projects that will capitalise on all the opportunities”.

This year Belize also announced a debt-for-nature-swap that effectively frees up funds that would otherwise be used to service debt to pay for its implementation of climate change projects.

So far, Belize has received just over US2.2 million in readiness funding; US600,000 in adaptation funding for water projects and US902,937 for fisheries and coastal projects; just under US 8 million to build resilience in rural areas and just under US2.2 million for project preparation funding.

To date, through its advisers, the Commonwealth Secretariat has helped member countries access more than US46 million to fund 36 climate projects through the Climate Finance Access Hub. An additional US762 million worth of projects are in the pipeline.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Women make up 75 percent of the agricultural labour force in Kenya. Women are increasingly exposed to the effects of climate change, and a Commonwealth report shows that without their inputs, climate action policies compound inequality. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Jan 12 2022 (IPS)

Judy Wangari is one of an estimated 800,000 smallholder potato farmers who, according to the National Potato Council of Kenya, contribute at least 83 percent of the total potato production.

In a good season, her two acres in Molo in Kenya’s Rift Valley region produce between 60 to 80 90kg bags of potato per acre. Due to drastic and erratic weather patterns, Wangari tells IPS that a good season is often not guaranteed.

“We have two potato planting seasons, and we plant before the rains begin. Sometimes we plant too early and other times too late because we are not able to properly read the weather.”

“The rains come too early or too late. Two years after I started potato farming back in 2018, I lost all my potatoes to heavy rainfall,” she says.

Women make up 75 percent of the agricultural labour force in this East African nation.

Overall, women also manage approximately 40 percent of the smallholder farms. As pillars of food production and largely lacking in financial and technical support, women are increasingly exposed to the effects of climate change and consequent land degradation.

“We may be in the same storm, but we are definitely not in the same boat. Nowhere is this truer than for women in the face of climate change,” says Patricia Scotland, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.

A Commonwealth report titled Gender Integration for Climate Action: A Review of Commonwealth Member Country Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), presented at the recent UN climate summit COP26, shows how underrepresentation of women in climate policies and plans, poor access to climate finance, technologies, and lack of capacity for effective decision-making compounds inequality.

The lack of representation also creates a barrier to women fully contributing to climate action, reinforcing the circle, and continuing vulnerability.

However, the report also showed that countries are increasingly acknowledging the vulnerability and inequality of women in climate action, taking concrete steps to address it.

At the heart of the review is a macro-level overview of the extent of gender integration in NDCs – the technical term for national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement – in Commonwealth member countries. The study covered both ‘intended’ NDCs, and new or revised NDCs submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) before 26 July 2021.

Overall, 65 percent of Commonwealth countries included gender as a cross-cutting or mainstreaming priority in new or updated NDCs.

“Without women, these commitments to limit global warming won’t be reached,” says Scotland, adding that the Commonwealth Secretariat has undertaken to strengthen gender engagement within the respective NDCs of its 54 member states.

Countries have also identified challenges, particularly in finance, where international support is urgently needed.

“The Kingdom of Eswatini recognises gender as a cross-cutting issue with the National Development Strategy and National Development Policy calling for the mainstreaming of gender equity,” says Duduzile Nhlengethwa-Masina, Director of the Eswatini Meteorological Service in the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs.

“In developing the NDC, we specifically engaged gender and women groups. This included having a session with Women in Parliament in October 2020 and another on Climate Change and Gender in November 2020.”

These activities encouraged women politicians to plant trees in the country’s capital. They also initiated the idea of a women’s group to increase women’s involvement in climate action and ensure it is gender sensitive.

Furthermore, Nhlengethwa-Masina tells IPS that a gender assessment of policies was undertaken and baselines and indicators for gender-sensitive mitigation and adaptation developed.

“A National Gender Policy was developed in 2021, and climate change was incorporated into this, through support from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub,” Nhlengethwa-Masina confirms.

Similarly, small island nations such as Saint Lucia recognise the crucial link between climate action, gender, and women’s empowerment.

Saint Lucia’s Chief Sustainable Development and Environment Officer, Annette Rattigan-Leo, says that “gender and women feature more prominently in climate action interventions and strategies.”

Country-wide policies, including the NDC, the National Adaptation Plan and sectoral strategies, clearly state the need to consider gender-related factors. At the same time, the Department of Gender has drafted a National Gender Equality Policy and Strategy to mainstream the issue across various sectors.

Saint Lucia is currently implementing a project to mainstream gender in disaster recovery and climate resilience while improving women’s economic autonomy, supported by Canada and the UK.

The role of women in smart agriculture practices, including agro-processing, is now embraced nationally. While not the main economic stay, agriculture contributes significantly to the country’s revenue.

“Noteworthy, women have assumed entrepreneurial roles over regular farming skills, in women-only farming groups. Consequently, as entrepreneurs, women can actively influence the strategic decision-making requirements necessary for the agriculture sector to become more climate-resilient,” says Rattigan-Leo.

In Namibia, the head of the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the Environmental Investment Fund, Aina-Maria Iteta, hopes to strengthen ongoing efforts to emphasise gender inclusivity in the country’s National Climate Change Policy and implementation strategy.

Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism has appointed a UNFCCC National Focal Point on Gender. However, “a lot still needs to be done from creating awareness, developing an action plan, and ensuring a budget to support such initiatives is in place,” she tells IPS.

Experts such as Iteta are quick to point out that even though the review finds considerable progress towards gender representation in policies, plans and strategies, additional financial and technical support is needed.

“There is a gap on the budgeting of climate action on gender, overall. Gender initiatives or actions are always planned and funded on an ad hoc basis making it difficult to ensure this goal of gender mainstreaming in climate action is achieved,” Iteta says. “The Commonwealth can facilitate access to financing gender climate-action initiatives.”

Rattigan-Leo adds that St Lucia is looking to adopt “gender budgeting” into the development of the annual national budget/estimates.

“Capacity building specific to strategic gender budget approaches is an area that can benefit from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub’s expertise. With the country’s existing financial constraints, especially in the face of COVID-19 related recovery efforts, it would help to determine the best entry points,” she says.

Nhlengethwa-Masina also welcomed more technical assistance in line with the specific needs of relevant agencies and women groups in Eswatini.

For local farmers such as Wangari, the help cannot come soon enough because they continue to struggle to survive and provide for their families on the front lines of climate change.

“If we do not tackle climate change with sufficient urgency and success, those on the wrong end of inequalities, especially women, will bear the hardest burden,” Secretary-General Scotland concluded.

“Climate action is, therefore, incomplete without the contribution of women.”

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Nature-based solutions for climate change was a major outcome of the COP26 summit. These include people working with nature to manage forests, mangroves and farm sustainably. Credit: Yoel Kahssay - Unsplash

By Ruth Kattumuri
London, Dec 17 2021 (IPS)

A key outcome of COP26 climate summit is the enhanced focus on “nature-based solutions” – the plans for people to work closely alongside nature to avert a planetary catastrophe.

While there is emerging consensus around nature-based solutions (NbS), the overarching concept encompasses a wide range of approaches and actions that involve the ecosystem, which address societal and biodiversity challenges while also benefitting human well-being and nature.

In terms of climate change, it implies working with nature’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases that cause global warming. This includes sustainable land-use practices and management of forests that can remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it for millions of years. It can also entail transformations in major sectors such as agriculture, livestock, land, water and waste management to ensure the protection of our planet.

Nature-based solutions not only help to mitigate climate change by expanding natural carbon sinks, they enhance biodiversity, provide food and water, help clean the air and sustain other resources, as well as provide job opportunities, whilst also protecting communities against flooding and landslides. Some estimates state that NbS have the potential to supply up to 37 percent of our climate change mitigation needs.

Dr Ruth Kattumuri is Senior Director, Economic, Youth and Sustainable Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Across the 54 countries of the Commonwealth, governments, communities and the private sector are keenly adopting NbS approaches, with most countries incorporating NbS actions in their national climate plans. Some examples of NbS include Pakistan’s Ten Billion Tree Tsunami programme, which aims to restore about 600,000 hectares of forest and create thousands of jobs; Sri Lanka’s response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami by rehabilitating vast areas of mangrove swamps; and the “We Plantin’” campaign of Barbados to plant one million trees.

To make natural climate solutions truly effective, there are several issues that we must address. One key challenge is the lack so far of an agreed framework or standard as to what constitutes an effective NbS. As IUCN points out, “misunderstanding and misuse of NbS have led to applications that cause harm to biodiversity and communities and threaten to erode stakeholders’ trust in the approach.” Examples include mass reforestation of single-species or non-native species, land grabbing for reforestation, and curtailing of rights of Indigenous peoples through conservation projects.

Further, NbS should not support or encourage carbon offsetting by polluting industries, as a way to justify their continued or growing emissions. A strong framework and standards have to be developed to guard against the misuse of “nature-based” to ensure effective climate action.

There is also a need to enhance awareness and knowledge about the different ways to include NbS in national climate plans. A recent study suggests that though large-scale tree planting and reforestation have become the most popular route for many governments, other solutions such as sustainable farming and animal-rearing practices, sustainable land and water conservation and management, reducing food waste and engaging indigenous communities in NbS would be more beneficial. The conservation of high-carbon ecosystems – such as peatlands, wetlands, rangelands, mangroves and forests – also deliver the largest and most timely climate benefits.

Finally, there is a massive financing gap to be filled, for, despite our significant dependence on nature, the sector receives very little investment. Estimates by UN environment shows that if our world is to meet targets for climate change, biodiversity and land degradation, it needs to close a US$4.1 trillion financing gap, requiring tripling investments in NbS over the next 10 years and quadrupling them by 2050. This amounts to an estimated US$536 billion worth of funding required every year.

There were some promising announcements at COP26, including a US$12 billion pledge in public financing for ending deforestation, however, we are far short of the required target. At the moment, the total falls significantly short, and private sector funding, in particular, needs to be scaled up.

Former CYEN Special Envoy for Climate Change Jevanic Henry with fellow delegates at the Youth4Climate Summit 2021. Involving people in finding solutions for climate change is at the heart of Nature-based Solutions adopted during COP26 climate summit. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

Of the estimated US$133 billion per year directed towards NbS globally, only 14 percent is private sector finance, compared to 86 percent from public funds and subsidies. Lack of private sector funding is partly related to the complex nature of NbS projects and financial instruments and the long-time frame for returns on investments. The public sector thus has a crucial role to play in leveraging increased private sector funding by de-risking investments in NbS.

Innovative financing mechanisms such as green bonds, credit swaps for climate, debt-for-nature swaps, and carbon markets are also being actively explored in Commonwealth countries.

The Commonwealth through its ‘Call to Action on Living Lands’ is leading on tackling the climate change challenges. Addressing the issues in the context of meeting the targets of the three Rio conventions, leaders from member countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific expressed their support during the COP26 summit for a proposed Commonwealth Living Lands Charter.

The proposed Charter is a progression of the on-going programme on land, biodiversity and climate change of the Secretariat since 2017. The Charter will be discussed at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda in 2022, with a potential to spur cooperation among all 54 Commonwealth nations to manage land use sustainably, protect the natural world and fight climate change. Focus areas being explored include climate resilient agriculture, soil and water conservation and management, sustainable green cover and biodiversity, low carbon livestock management and active engagement of indigenous people.

Nature-based solutions for acceleration of action around land, climate change and biodiversity need judicial attention and support, not least in terms of finance. NbS do not offer a silver bullet to resolve the climate crisis, but they are extremely vital to drastically curtail greenhouse gas emissions and meet the Nationally Determined Contributions to 2030.

Dr Ruth Kattumuri is Senior Director, Economic, Youth and Sustainable Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

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Gladys Habu on the beach in the Solomon Islands. She has filed a deeply personal story about how climate-change-induced sea-level rises have submerged her grandparents’ island home. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Dec 15 2021 (IPS)

On Gladys Habu’s birthday, she filmed a message to world leaders while standing waist-deep in the sea next to a dead tree stump – the only remnant of Kale Island now submerged underwater due to climate-change-induced sea-level rise.

Climate change impacts have deeply personal meaning for this young climate activist from the Solomon Islands – Kale Island was her grandparents’ home.

“I strongly believe an investment in youth is a direct investment into the climate workforce. An active force that will enable the marked difference we all hope to see in the fight for a climate-safe future,” Habu says.

Habu is a Commonwealth Points of Light award winner, the Queen’s Award for activism for her climate change work in the Pacific. She is one of 1.5 billion young people in Commonwealth countries under the age of 30 who are among the most vulnerable to climate change, but least involved in decision-making.

“Climate change is a multifaceted, cross-cutting issue that affects all aspects of life, and therefore is one of the most challenging to face. Despite increased scientific knowledge and evidence of climate change on the ground, there is still a trending rise in investments into profit-oriented industries that contribute critically to the problem,” she tells IPS.

Habu says youths have the numbers to be effective agents of positive change in climate action. But beyond their role as advocates, they must act from the forefront of climate action, taking part in policymaking and implementation.

However, she says, there needs to be a large-scale investment in young people.

Addressing climate change is crucial and urgent. The UN’s State of Food Security and Nutrition says that as many as 161 million more people faced hunger in 2020 than in 2019, driven by increased climate variability and extremes, conflicts and economic slowdowns, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN says that an estimated 21 percent of the population in Africa, 9.0 percent in Asia, and 9.1 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean are affected by hunger. As Commonwealth youth leaders recently highlighted, these regions are also the most affected by climate change.

As the debilitating effects of climate change unravel, the report shows that compared to 2019, an estimated 46 million more people in Africa, 57 million in Asia and approximately 14 million more in Latin America and the Caribbean were affected by hunger in 2020.

Young climate activist Lucky Abeng speaking at the Commonwealth Pavilion at COP26. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

Youth can play a crucial role in halting the fast pace of climate change and reversing its devastating effects – such as accelerated world hunger and malnutrition, Nigerian youth leader Lucky Abeng says.

However, this will need increased youth participation in all levels of climate action.

Abeng was excited to see the level of youth engagement at the recently concluded COP26.

“I was personally impressed to see the interest shown by youth in Glasgow. Joining voices to call for climate justice and bridging the gap on intergenerational equity.”

As the Commonwealth Climate Change Network (CYCN) Chair for Grassroots Engagement and Participation, Abeng is hopeful that position papers submitted by youth activists to various governments will be mainstreamed in plans and programs for implementation post-COP26.

The Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network has over 2000 climate, sustainability, and environment youth leaders and youth-led organisations focused on climate adaptation and mitigation and sustainable development.

Abeng’s hope could well be realised through the Commonwealth Secretariat’s mandate to include young people in national development policies and plans at all levels of decision making.

Former CYEN Special Envoy for Climate Change Jevanic Henry with fellow delegates at the Youth4Climate Summit 2021. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

Jevanic Henry, an Assistant Research Officer at the Commonwealth Secretariat, tells IPS that through the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, all the Commonwealth Regional and National Climate Finance advisers seek to consider gender and youth concerns in all climate finance initiatives.

Henry, who served as a Special Envoy on Climate Change for the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN),  says the Commonwealth Secretariat is “uniquely placed to further advance this mainstreaming, building on the political will by the Commonwealth Heads (of State), technical expertise available within the Secretariat to support member countries and its convening power to work with other development partners at all levels.”

On the sidelines of COP26, Abeng witnessed various events on the nexus between youth, marginalised people, and climate change.

Beyond these events and progressive discussions, Abeng hopes to see realistic and sincere youth-focused implementation plans embedded into countries’ national plans, including their Nationally Determined Contributions to limit global warming.

He says genuine commitment to youth participation in climate action should be demonstrated through funded capacity-building and empowerment opportunities for young people.

Henry believes it can be done. First, “we need a good policy environment that recognises the needs and potential role of young people.”

While there is progress, it is crucial that in Commonwealth funded projects, youth and women are equal in decision-making and beneficiaries of climate action.

“We are aware that youth are change-makers in many ways and need practical support to advance those ideas,” Henry says, and proper funding is crucial.

Commonwealth Assistant Research Officer Jevanic Henry joins a Beach Cleanup with community youth council in St Lucia. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

“There is a need for improvement in the design of new and existing climate and disaster risk reduction international financing pools to ensure they are made more accessible for young people,” Henry says.

Within the Commonwealth Secretariat, there are efforts to put youth in the forefront to independently drive national climate action and advance towards integrating and adopting youth-sensitive budgeting.

For these reasons, Henry explains, the Commonwealth Secretariat is advancing a training programme on enhancing access to sustainable financing for green entrepreneurship, focusing on youth.

“For example, ahead of COP26, in conjunction with the Government of Saint Lucia, we run a youth entrepreneurship training,”  he says, giving them the information to take advantage of the opportunities that come with a green economy and accessing financing for projects and ideas.

Habu says youth have made great strides in climate advocacy and influencing policy change.

“Imagine how much more can be achieved by youths from the forefront of climate action.”

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By External Source
Nov 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has appealed to world leaders attending the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to close the gap in ongoing negotiations this week in Glasgow, with millions of lives and livelihoods on the line in climate-vulnerable countries.

Secretary-General Scotland delivered her statement today to the resumed high-level segment of the conference, hours after a draft outcome document was released by the United Kingdom, as chair of the summit.

She said: “If we lose vulnerable nations who have battled with courage and resilience, we lose the fight against climate change.”

“If the gaps on emissions are not closed, if improved access to climate finance does not materialise, we risk the most vulnerable nations amongst us being subsumed by sea level rises and being engulfed by debt, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“Do not grow weary and lose heart. Dig deeper, come together, and close the gap in these negotiations.”

More than 2.5 billion people live in the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries, 60 percent of whom are under age 30. That includes 32 small states and 14 of the least developed countries of the world which are facing the brunt of the climate change impacts.

The Secretary-General added: “Millions are already losing lives and livelihoods from the impacts of climate change, but they are fighting. We must too.

“They know that, without action, the force and frequency of violent weather, fire, shortages of food, water and the threat of rising seas will continue to intensify until it overwhelms them. They require inclusive, just and equitable actions.”

Climate-related disasters in the Commonwealth doubled in number from the period 1980-1990 (431) to the period 2010-2020 (815), with economic damages increasing from US$39 billion to $189 billion over the same time frames.

In earlier discussions at COP26, the Secretary-General reiterated the call for developed countries to deliver the promised US$100 billion in annual climate finance to support developing nations, both for adaptation as well as mitigation purposes.

She added that funds also need to be accessible to the smallest and most vulnerable countries, who currently have difficulties tapping into finance due to lack of capacity and data.

She highlighted key Commonwealth initiatives responding to the climate crisis, including the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, the Commonwealth Blue Charter, the Call for Action on Living Lands and the Disaster Risk Finance Portal.

Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By External Source
Nov 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

A new toolkit launched in the margins of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 aims to unlock clean energy investments for small island nations, many of whom rely heavily on imported fossil fuels for power generation.

Small island developing states (SIDS) made a collective commitment in 2019 to achieve 100 percent renewable energy targets by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. However, they lack sufficient funding to achieve this transition, with private and public funders yet to step up investments in the clean energy sector.

The SIDS Clean Energy Toolkit, developed under a joint project by the Commonwealth Secretariat and Sustainable Energy For All (SEforAll), helps countries translate clean energy transition plans into investable business opportunities.

It supports analysis to help tackle hurdles such as the small size of projects and lack of interest from key international investors, the lack of adequate capital in local financial institutions and restrictive legal conditions for foreign investment. It enables users to carry out cost-benefit analyses and build robust business cases for energy investment in their countries.

Launching the toolkit, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said:

“Of the 38 countries classified by the UN as Small Island Developing States, 25 are Commonwealth countries. Despite significant clean energy resource potential, SIDS have a heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels that result in some of the highest electricity costs in the world, along with significant supply chain challenges that put pressure on already-strained economies.

“This toolkit can assist SIDS develop business cases and strategies to facilitate investment in clean energy projects, particularly in the power sector.”

The toolkit is being trialled in Seychelles. Using the toolkit, a country business case has been developed for Seychelles that identifies the scale of investment required to transition to clean energy. It also provides an objective basis for credible strategies to attract and maximise the investment required to achieve its clean energy goals.

Welcoming the opportunity, Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Trade, Naadir Hassan, said: “I cannot stressed enough that there is an urgent need for us to prepare for the future and unless we invest in developing and exploiting renewable energy sources today, we might face a situation where we become victims of severe energy shortages. The cost of transitioning at that point may be beyond our means. The Call for Action is now.”

The launch event also included a roundtable for investors and financial institutions such as the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), who discussed the business case for investing in clean, affordable reliable electricity in Seychelles.

Accelerate climate finance for nature-based solutions in step with the pace of climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss, experts. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Glasgow, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)

Climate change experts and leaders from the Commonwealth member states rallied behind calls to accelerate climate finance for nature-based solutions to arrest the pace of climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.

Featuring prominently at the global COP26 climate talks during a high-level event hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat, in conjunction with the government of Zambia and Namibia, speakers emphasised at the heart of the nature-based solutions approach is human survival and well-being.

Titled ‘Accelerating Climate Finance for Nature-based Solutions-Climate, Land and Biodiversity Targets’, participants heard that nature-based solutions play an essential role in stopping and reversing the unprecedented loss of ecosystems while building resilience against climate change.

Patricia Scotland, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, lauded nature-based solutions as an effective and immediate remedy to pressing societal and development challenges.

“Many societal changes and challenges are now presenting to us, and we are currently facing them boldly and bravely. They touch on human health, climate change, biodiversity loss, food and water security, and environmental degradation not just on our land but in our ocean,” Scotland said.

“They are all tied to state and functioning of the natural environment. So multi-impact scenarios, like those that the world has experienced over the last two years, have unfortunately shown us what happens when this in-extricable link is broken.”

The high-level panel included representatives from the Governments of Zambia, Namibia, Seychelles and Australia. It was followed by a second-panel discussion with partner organisations, including the Green Climate Fund, World Wide Fund for Nature, the Development Bank of Rwanda and the Department of Climate Change of Mauritius.

Nature-based solutions, panellists said, involve actions that protect, sustainably manage, and restore all ecosystems, including oceans and forests. In this regard, sustainable land management, for instance, is prioritised to tackle land degradation and promote climate-resilient land use.

Within this context, discussions centred on identifying gaps, challenges, and solutions for advancing sustainable financing mechanisms around nature-based solutions for climate action.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland in The Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian. Scotland expressed concerns about the impact of climate change on exacerbating superstorms, like this 2019 event which took a massive human toll. Credit: Commonwealth

Australia was the first country to contribute to the Commonwealth’s Climate Finance Access Hub. In a statement, Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, reiterated the country’s unwavering commitment to advancing nature-based solutions.

Morrison said that Australians understood the need to act against climate change and get to net-zero by 2050, and the country had a plan to do it, and nature-based solutions were an essential part of this plan.

He stressed the significant benefits of adopting nature-based solutions such as reaching net-zero within a set timeline, boosting agricultural productivity, protecting biodiversity, and supporting communities and job opportunities.

Pohamba Penomwenyo Shifeta, Namibia’s Minister of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, said Namibia was not far behind because the Southern Africa nation was implementing an interconnected approach to land management, climate change and biodiversity conservation.

“Namibia has so far accumulated significant knowledge and experience from ongoing projects and initiatives that can be scaled up to build resilience at the community level and ecosystems,” he said.

Scotland said the time to act was now – especially in light of the recent Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1 contribution to the sixth assessment report, which “provides further irrefutable evidence of the immense threat confronting us all.”

She also spoke of the 2021 Emissions Gap report “released just last week and is yet another thundering reminder of the need to act urgently to curb emissions.”

In this regard, the high-level panel emphasised the urgent need to deploy an array of sustainable solutions to benefit people and the planet.

One approach, Scotland said, is through nature-based solutions, which offer a cost-effective way to simultaneously tackle the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crisis.

Scotland said that is especially critical in the COVID-19 pandemic as the world strives to adopt blue and green recovery strategies.

Speakers called for coordinated and urgent action to boost biodiversity conservation, reduce land degradation, and enhance land-based climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts through sustainable development.

Participants heard that climate change amplifies biodiversity loss and land degradation. Despite nature-based solutions gaining visibility and traction across Commonwealth countries, there is still not enough up-take and, specifically, not enough financing to quiet nature’s wrath.

According to experts in a recent UN report titled ‘State of Finance for Nature’, $133 billion per year is directed towards nature-based solutions, representing 86 percent public financing and 14 per cent private sector finance.

This falls significantly short of the annual investment required to meet cross-cutting targets under the three Rio Conventions targets on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification.

To meet these targets, estimates show that up to $8.1 trillion worth of investment in nature-based solutions was required, representing $536 billion worth of funding every year.

The UN experts say reaching an annual funding target of $536 billion translates to tripling investments by 2030 and quadrupling by 2050.

Climate financing experts this is possible and that these estimates are cost-effective. Benefits include nations being able to meet human needs such as food and water security and accelerate long-term social and economic development.

For instance, nature-based solutions can positively contribute 37 per cent of the mitigation effort required up to 2030 to limit temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius. This is mainly within the agriculture, forestry, and land-use sectors as per 2019 estimates by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Nevertheless, there are critical steps in the right direction. In addition to Australia, the UK and current Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Chair-in-Office has committed to spending at least £3 billion worth of its international climate finance on nature-based solutions.

Under the Commonwealth Finance Access Hub, the Commonwealth Secretariat has already supported its member states to mobilise more than $44 million of climate financing, including for nature-based financing. More than $762 million worth of projects are in the pipeline.

Scotland said that there would be significant progress if every single member state who would wish to have a climate finance advisor were able to.

When curtains fall on COP26 Summit, experts say that protecting communities and natural habitats through concerted efforts towards the protection and restoration of ecosystems will be one of the critical goals.

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A wind farm in Port Victoria on the main island of Mahe in the Seychelles is contributing to the renewable energy transition of the small island state located east of the African continent. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia , Nov 3 2021 (IPS)

Breaking the world’s reliance on fossil fuels and accelerating the global uptake of renewable energy will play a decisive role in diminishing the threat of global warming to the survival of life on earth, according to experts. But turning the vision into reality will demand unwavering political will and, critically, massive investment, which can no longer be shouldered solely by aid and development partners.

It is a challenge that the Commonwealth Secretariat, the inter-governmental organisation representing 54 Commonwealth nations, has taken on. Now it is launching an initiative at the United Nations COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow to propel the ability of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to attract major investors with sound compelling business cases.

The summit will be a key setting to leverage “the toolkit into different partner working platforms, such as the Climate Investment Platform, increase collaboration among partners and drive joint action with SIDS on energy transition ahead of other key milestones in 2022 and beyond, including the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) Forum in Rwanda and Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in 2022 and COP27 to be held in Africa,” Alache Fisho, the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Legal Adviser on Natural Resources in London told IPS.

The SIDS Toolkit, a digital tool for governments, developed by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the international development organisation, SEforALL, is currently being trialled in the Seychelles, an archipelago nation of 99,000 people, located in the Somali Sea east of the African continent.

Converting the country’s energy system to renewables is imperative for future stability and prosperity, as climate change threatens development gains. “The livelihood of the islanders is being threatened here with sea-level rise. What we are seeing is greater coastal erosion, increased temperature rises and coral bleaching. We are also getting an increasing frequency of cyclones in the region,” Tony Imaduwa, CEO of the Seychelles Energy Commission in the capital, Victoria, told IPS.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC, made an official visit to the Seychelles in June 2018. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

In Caribbean and Pacific Island nations, as well, air temperatures are becoming hotter, weather patterns more unpredictable, while sea-level rise is eroding finite land, destroying crops and contaminating freshwater resources.

Last year, an overwhelming 80 percent of the global energy supply was still generated by fossil fuels and only 12 percent by renewables. This puts the world on track toward a devastating temperature increase of 2.6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, claims the International Energy Agency (IEA).

And the bill for importing oil, which comprises 95 percent of primary energy in the Seychelles, is an enormous fiscal burden on the government and its development goals. “It is a drain on our foreign exchange reserves, our earnings, and there is the whole volatile nature of the price. When the price goes up, you get the costs going up, the cost of food goes up, services go up, the electricity cost goes up, transportation goes up. There is the risk associated with the supply, too,” Imaduwa told IPS.

The Seychelles has a human development ranking of 67 out of 189 countries, the second-highest in the African region, and all citizens have access to electricity. But many other SIDS bear much higher levels of energy poverty. In the Pacific Islands, about 70 percent of households lack access to power.

It is, therefore, no surprise that clean energy, which will be more affordable to islanders, is a national priority. The majority of SIDS are committed to achieving 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

Renewables, ideal for standalone systems, are a good fit for island nations where populations are often scattered across numerous islands separated by vast areas of the ocean. And weather conditions are a great advantage, especially for wind and solar energy. Despite clean energy only comprising 5 percent of the energy mix in the Seychelles, the momentum has begun. The first wind farm was established near the nation’s capital, Victoria, in 2013, and increasingly homes and businesses are installing rooftop solar panels.

But there are challenges to securing the large capital investment needed for complete conversion. In many cases, the lack of strong institutions, enabling regulatory frameworks and small energy markets limit the appeal of the energy sector in SIDS to the private sector and international financiers.

The Seychelles is developing its clean energy sector and blue economy with the support of the Commonwealth and other partners. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

“The Seychelles is no longer considered a Least Developed Country; it is an emerging economy now. So, there is a slight concern from the government that it will not be able to access concessionary loans anymore from multilateral development banks and also that there will be fewer countries that are providing overseas development assistance to the country,” Dr Kai Kim Chiang, the Commonwealth Secretariat’s National Climate Finance Adviser in the Seychelles, told IPS. “The Seychelles is a small country, so they do have challenges in attracting investors because it is a really small market here, and so then the potential for the return of investment is potentially quite small.”

Yet, about US$4 trillion will have to be injected into clean energy growth by 2030, if the global temperature rise is to be restricted to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, reports the IEA. And 70 percent of this will need to be spent in developing and emerging countries.

To this end, the SIDS Toolkit empowers governments to draft investment-grade business cases. First, key data about the economic and energy status of the Seychelles, for example, about employment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), utility electricity cost and carbon emissions, is entered into the digital application. The toolkit then analyses the data to provide a detailed cost-benefit analysis of development and transition scenarios and identifies the state’s key investment strengths. It also pinpoints where reforms are needed to boost investor confidence, such as deficiencies in legal and institutional capacity.

“It will assist in terms of formulating strategies to unlocking investment in the energy sector in the Seychelles, and that is something that is missing for us. We are focussing on a lot of plans and policies and implementation, but sometimes we struggle on how to bring these together and create a platform that allows us to say, OK, we have a plan, yes, we want to invest in this area, but how do we do it,” Imaduwa said.

The SIDS Toolkit is designed with a broad range of potential investors in mind, including multilateral and private sector financial institutions. However, Fisho emphasised that private sector involvement is “very important”, especially as many renewable energy technologies entail large capital expenditure. “Moreover, the renewable energy technologies are fast evolving. The private sector can bring the required finance and expertise in the deployment of modern technologies,” she said.

Despite the detrimental economic impact of the pandemic worldwide over the past two years, Fisho makes a strong case for the priority of spending on the energy transition. “The pandemic has highlighted the need to transition towards clean energy in SIDS to increase energy security and economic resilience. Investment in renewable energy is consistent with supporting recover better and more resilient economic development, thereby creating more sustainable green jobs and decent income opportunities for current and future generations,” she declared.

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Patricia Scotland

By External Source
Oct 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has called for all countries to deliver an ambitious and transformative outcome at the imminent UN Climate Change Conference COP26, while appealing for increased support for the smallest and most vulnerable nations.

The Secretary-General will lead a delegation to the summit, to advocate for the interests of the 54 member countries, including 32 small states, and raise awareness about key Commonwealth actions to address the climate crisis.

Days ahead of the summit, the Secretary-General said:

“I urge leaders to come to the table with the highest possible ambition and a reinvigorated determination to do all we can to keep a 1.5 degree cap on global warming. The science is clear – failing on this mission will cost us a viable, sustainable future for our children and grandchildren. We must not squander this opportunity to build back on a more sustainable path.

“I call on governments to align their COVID-19 recovery planning to the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The developed world needs to keep its promise to deliver US$100 billion every year through to 2025 to support developing countries as they try to cope with the damaging impacts of this climate crisis. Additional financial support is also needed to address loss and damage, particularly for the most vulnerable.”

The Commonwealth Secretariat will be hosting a pavilion at the COP26 venue for the first time, with a wide range of in-person and hybrid events planned over two weeks from 1 – 12 November. An online hub containing event information, live online broadcasts and other resources is now available.

The Secretariat will also be launching a number of key initiatives at COP26, in the area of climate finance, sustainable land management, energy transition, natural resource management and ocean action.

• The Commonwealth Secretary-General and relevant spokespeople will be available for media interviews around COP26 and climate change. For media requests, please see contact information below.

• View the Commonwealth Pavilion event schedule

• Visit https://climate.thecommonwealth.org to watch events live and find more information about Commonwealth Secretariat activities at COP26

Sibonisiwe Hlanze is one of 600 women who are allowed to harvest reeds from the Lawuba Wetland in Lawuba, Eswatini. Hlanze’s income and security is dependent on reliable weather patterns. The Commonwealth has deployed top climate finance advisors to Eswatini, Belize, Seychelles and Zambia assist with the NDCs. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Samuel Ogallah
Eswatini, Oct 22 2021 (IPS)

There is no country today that has not experienced the effects of climate change, from changing weather patterns to extreme, devastating weather events.

The Kingdom of Eswatini is no exception.

Climate change is already affecting the country and key sectors of its economy. It is already having to adapt to pronounced climate change impacts, including significant variations in precipitation patterns, higher temperatures, and increasing frequency and intensity of severe weather events such as droughts, floods, and cyclones.

In 2015, at the United Nation’s annual global climate summit COP 21, the Paris Agreement was hammered. In 2016 Eswatini joined many other countries in signing up to the Paris Agreement, a landmark agreement committing nations to a global effort to tackle climate change.

Article 4 of that agreement commits national governments to provide a National Determined Contribution (NDC) every five years.

The Government of Eswatini submitted its first NDC to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015. But since then, technology, policies, partnerships, data, and stakeholder engagement for climate action have all advanced.

In preparing its second NDC, the government looked to take these advances into account. It went back and reviewed what it had done in 2015 and sought to this time provide an NDC with even greater ambition.

Over a period of 18 months, an inclusive process of assessment, analysis, and modelling of climate change, informed by data and science, was implemented to revise the NDC.

Climate change will affect everyone, and as such, the government put stakeholder participation at the heart of the revision process.

Adopting ‘a whole of government and society approach’ it held over twenty stakeholders’ consultations including virtual and physical workshops. A review of national gender policy to integrate climate change was also carried out.

The process was not always smooth though. There were significant hurdles, not least the Covid-19 pandemic which not only delayed the expected submission of NDCs at the end of 2020 but impacted Eswatini’s technical capacity to undertake such a nationwide participatory stakeholder’s consultative process.

However, these challenges were overcome, and the revised NDC, submitted to the UNFCCC just days ago ahead of COP26, represents an ambitious step-up from its 2015 predecessor.

It adopts an economy-wide GHG emissions reduction target of 5% by 2030 compared to the baseline scenario[1] to help achieve low carbon and climate-resilient economic development. It also includes a provision to raise this target to 14% with external financing, technology, and technical support. This translates to 1.04 million tonnes fewer GHG emissions by 2030 compared to a baseline scenario.

Meanwhile, the revised NDC sets out clear mitigation and adaptation targets along with a comprehensive roadmap, and incorporates new sectors for mitigation and adaptation action.

Alone, however, the ambition of this NDC will not be enough.

The opportunity created by the Paris Agreement comes with an important challenge – to transform the NDC into tangible actions that lead to long term zero-carbon and climate-resilient development.

The effective implementation of the revised NDC is contingent on several factors, key among these being the availability of external support in terms of the provision of means of implementation (finance, technology development, and transfer and capacity building) and domestic resources.

Climate finance must be mobilised at scale to address the adaptation and mitigation component of the NDC.

The revision process delivered a number of key lessons, one of which was that wide-ranging support and partnership – a long list of external groups including the Commonwealth Secretariat, United Nations’ bodies (UNEP, UNDP, FAO), and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) among others, provided help during the process – is crucial to achieving goals.

And it will only be with similarly broad co-operation with, and support from, international and domestic sources that Eswatini will be able to fully achieve the ambitious potential of its NDC.

The total estimated cost of NDC action for Eswatini is between $950 million and $1.5 billion by 2030.

The support of developed country governments, development partners, international organisations, the private sector, and civil society organisations will be critical to help deliver on Eswatini’s revised NDC targets.

Eswatini’s NDC process has shown that with partnership and help, ambitious plans can be laid.

The country calls on partners, fellow governments, and all those with a similar commitment to a zero-carbon, climate-resilient future, to help Eswatini turn its NDC plans into tangible achievements – for the good of the whole planet.

Support from the Commonwealth Secretariat: The Commonwealth Secretariat partnered with the NDC Partnership under its Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP) Programme to support four Commonwealth member countries – Belize, Eswatini, Jamaica and Zambia – through in-country technical expertise, capacity building and targeted support on climate finance for expediting the implementation of each country’s NDCs.

Technical and institutional support was provided through the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH).

The CCFAH and the Commonwealth National Climate Finance Advisers supported these countries through different and complementary interventions, by developing and deploying different climate finance tools and strategies tailored to the strategic priorities of the member countries.

These have included climate finance landscapes and mapping, the Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review (CPEIR), developing strategies such as Climate Finance Strategy and Private Sector engagement strategy, mapping of climate finance for NDC implementation, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of climate finance, developing climate-sensitive gender policy, as well as climate change project concepts and proposals.

These interventions provided a vital experience for future NDC processes.

• The baseline scenario was developed based on historic GHG emissions between 2010 and 2017 and an updated scenario showing the change in GHG emissions between 2018 and 2030
• The author is the Commonwealth National Climate Finance Adviser to Eswatini.

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Unable to support her family with the earnings from her farm due to land degradation, Jennifer Kamba (on the right), a smallholder farmer in Machakos county of Kenya, now works as a part-time cook and caterer. Credit: IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 14 2021 (IPS)

Jenifer Kamba, 33, has always loved farming – a love passed on to her by her late husband after they married 14 years ago. The young farmer duo grew maise, pepper and vegetables on their two-acre farm in Kivandini of Kenya’s Machakos county. Even after her husband died five years ago, Kamba didn’t stop farming.  However, of late, the soil looks dry, and her production has declined considerably.

“The land is not what it used to be,” she says, “Even a few years ago, my vegetables were beautiful. The pumpkins were big, juicy and my husband sometimes sold some into the local market. But now, they are small and crooked in shape. It feels as if something has sucked the life out of my land.”

Unable to feed herself and her two school-going children from the earnings of her farm, Kamba now takes up seasonal work such as cooking in her wealthier neighbours’ homes.

The ailing factor of Kamba’s land – increasing degradation due to extreme weather events such as droughts and below-average rainfall – is a challenge that farmers worldwide face today, linked to climate change.

According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), more than 2 billion hectares worldwide are currently affected by the decline in the quality or arability of land. In Africa, where the livelihood of 70% of the population depends on agriculture, 22 million hectares are degraded. This directly affects the yield, pushing farmers, especially those like Kamba who have small landholdings, into poverty.

Machakos, which lies 56 km east of the country’s capital Nairobi, has been identified by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) as one of the most drought-prone counties. In the past ten years, the county has witnessed at least four severe droughts that have caused significant damage to soil health.

“This is something we are taking very seriously,” says Dr Ruth Kattumuri, Senior Director for Economic, Youth and Sustainable Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat. “Land degradation is a two-sided challenge as it is both caused by climate change and contributes to it. Supporting our member countries with sustainable land management efforts is of utmost importance for us.”

Jenifer Kamba’s farm. The farm used to yield enough to support her family, but now she has had to turn to part-time employment to make ends meet. Credit: IPS

While climate change is worsening droughts and erratic rainfall, leading to desertification and soil erosion, Kattumuri adds that deforestation and unsustainable agricultural practices are also driving up emissions at the same time.

“Rural communities, smallholder farmers, and the poor are adversely affected,” she says.
According to a 2016 study by Kenya Livestock and Research Institute, 22 % of Kenyan land area has degraded between 1982 and 2006, including 31 % of croplands.
The Kenyan government has adopted various measures to fight land degradation and promote sustainable land management.

In September 2016, the government announced that it would restore 5.1 million hectares of degraded land. According to an estimate by the World Resource Institute, 65 million acres across the country were restorable for future use. In its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), submitted first in 2015, the government committed to creating a tree cover for at least 10% of its total land area to mitigate climate change. Together, the moves are expected to improve livelihoods, curb climate change, safeguard biodiversity and more.

But the problem, say some, is that implementation of these measures has been sporadic, and very few of the most severely affected people, especially women, are aware of them.

The story of subsistence farmers Ruth Mutinda, 41, and her sister Beth, 37, in Mwala village of Machakos is an example: the sisters who jointly own a small farm have seen a sharp decline in their yield of maise, beans and pigeon peas in the past six to seven years.

The village is near Kitui – another county affected by successive droughts, including one in the current year. According to the NDMA, the prevailing drought situation is mainly attributed to the delayed onset of the March to May long rains.

Mutinda sisters say that insufficient rain has increased the heat, which, in turn, has ‘stolen the moisture’ off the farm. In addition, the water level in their village river has also decreased due to the drought and random sand-mining activities, leaving them without an alternative means to water their land.

“There is a small river at the edge of our village. Earlier, we fetched water from there for our farms. But now we can only fetch few buckets for washing and cooking. So, if there is no water, how can the land be good again?” asks Beth.

Though the NDMA has mentioned several measures to support the drought-affected farmers across the nation, including Machakos and Kitui, the sister duo seems unaware of those. They have also not heard of any land restoration initiatives and think that regular irrigation is the only way to increase soil fertility.

The only external support Beth and Ruth ever received was a few fruiting tree saplings from the Rural Resource Center – a local NGO. But the dry soil of the farm couldn’t sustain their growth.

Landscape view of Mwala village in Machakos county. The Commonwealth Living Land’s Charter, which aims to get member countries to integrate sustainable land use management into their national climate action plans, focusing on nature-based solutions, could assist areas affected by climate change. Credit: IPS

The apparent “disconnect” between the policy and its intended beneficiaries is evident in degraded land restoration and climate action in general, says Leonida Odongo, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based NGO Haki Nawiri Afrika. Her organisation fights for marginalised communities’ rights to climate justice and food justice.

She maintains that climate change solutions often fail to envisage how many ways women on the frontline are affected.

“In Africa, the climate crisis means women are travelling longer distances in search of water; it means Gender-Based Violence in the household; it means conflict as communities fight over pasture and water; it means the emergence of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. It means the death of people and animals and forced relocation. It’s time to act and avert his crisis,” says Odongo.

Ceciele Ndjebet, President of African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF) in Cameroon, feels that women do not enjoy the benefits of climate action, including sustainable land management, because they do not have access to finance.
This especially applies to NGOs and community-based organisations that directly know women’s climate challenges and can bridge the gap between policies and communities but cannot provide solutions because of the uphill battle to access finance.

“I heard a lot about Green Climate Fund (GCF) and others, that there is funding available. But is that funding available to civil society organisations? I doubt. All the accreditation processes are complicated; we think we need political will for all those who want to recognise what the civil society has to say or the role to play. We need that political will from our government to recognise that we should be part of the solution,” says Ndjebet.

The Commonwealth Living Lands Charter could help address these concerns. The charter is a proposed initiative of the Commonwealth that aims to get its member countries to integrate sustainable land use management into their national climate action plans, focusing on nature-based solutions.

Under the proposed Commonwealth Call to Action on Living Lands, the Commonwealth Secretariat will support member states to access funding to scale up nature-based solutions in implementing their NDCs that address land degradation.

“We are conducting consultations with our member countries and regions. The aim is to bridge the gaps between climate change, nature and land degradation policies. We want to ensure that what we eventually propose to our heads of government for adoption can be a basis for inclusive, sustainable land management,” says Unnikrishnan Nair, Head of Climate Change at the Commonwealth Secretariat. “That includes women, rural communities and other vulnerable populations – we should not leave anyone behind.”

The Living Lands Charter, if adopted by Commonwealth leaders, will serve as an agreement among the 54 member countries to work towards climate-resilient and sustainable land management by integrating the targets of the three Rio Conventions — the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (UNCBD), the Land Degradation Neutrality targets (UNCCD), and the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC).

Focus areas to be explored include climate-resilient agriculture, soil and water conservation and management, sustainable green cover and biodiversity, and the active engagement of indigenous people.

The combined action is expected to propel the progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 15 – Life on Lands.

Could this new initiative help the much needed financial and technological support trickle down to women in the climate change frontline communities, including Kamba and Mutinda sisters?

Time will tell.

Meantime, Jennifer Kamba isn’t giving up hope yet on her land: “I just hope when my children grow up, this land will still produce food for them,” she says, with a flicker of dreams for the future in her eyes.

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By External Source
Oct 7 2021 (IPS-Partners)

After an unprecedented pan-Commonwealth search for innovative satellite-driven solutions to tackle the challenges of the climate emergency and ocean sustainability, the Satellite Applications Catapult and the Commonwealth Secretariat are delighted to announce the inaugural finalists of the Hack the Planet competition 2021.

The six finalists include inspiring leaders with game-changing solutions that leverage the power of satellites to make a real difference in the Commonwealth and the world.

They will now enter the final stage of the competition for a live pitch event, where they will pitch their concepts to a panel of expert judges.

There is a prize-pool of £20,000 plus over £85,000 worth of satellite data and cloud computing services for the winners of the competition.

The finalists are:

• CAPELLA (The Gambia) – an idea which combines machine learning and satellite imagery to provide data on illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing in Africa and to address the challenge of ocean plastic pollution.
• Loop Recyclers Tech (Nigeria) – this concept uses the power of geospatial data and the Internet of Things to monitor and improve recycling rates for plastics and prevent plastics reaching rivers and the ocean. The solution aims to reduce pollution levels, prevent illegal waste disposal and address public health issues.
• Marine Wildlife Tracking with Snapper GPS (UK) – an impressive and novel solution which will change the way conservationists monitor marine animals. The idea focusses on animals which only spend short periods at the surface of the ocean and are therefore normally difficult to track.
• Plastic-i: Mapping Ocean Plastics from Space (UK) – a solution which will combine data from multiple high-resolution Earth-observing satellite constellations, combined with machine learning to create a highly specific map of floating ocean plastic, to be offered open-source and updated daily.
• Project 30 (Trinidad and Tobago) – a project looking to streamline the Marine Protected Area (MPA) selection and evaluation process, using high-resolution satellite imagery, analysed via machine learning. Ultimately the team plan for their tool to be used by Governments, NGOs and conservation professionals to manage and designate MPAs.
• Terangi Team (Malaysia) – a wide-reaching idea that aims to deliver a toolbox of important environmental monitoring capabilities in a single technology platform. The toolbox includes modules for marine conservation areas, climate change monitoring, water quality, and the analysis of potential environmental threats.

The ideas and commitment demonstrated by all six finalists to delivering real-world change greatly impressed the judges, who offered them their congratulations on reaching the final stage of the competition.

Earlier in the competition, 30 shortlisted teams were invited to participate in a rigorous, knowledge exchange programme where they learnt about satellite technologies and elements of design thinking that could support their ideas, and hone these into robust, compelling pitches.

The final event will be livestreamed on 14th October from 12:00 BST. To find out more and register to attend click here.

About the Hack the Planet competition

Hack the Planet is an entirely virtual international ideas competition that brings together concepts from diverse communities living on the front-line in facing the challenges of the climate emergency and ocean sustainability across the Commonwealth, together with the technical resources to support the innovation of new solutions. It is run by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Satellite Applications Catapult and supported by Amazon Web Services, Deloitte, Maxar and Planet Labs.

To find out more, visit http://hacktheplanetcompetition.com/

Excerpt:

Mangroves could be the silver bullet needed to mitigate climate change, however, approximately 75 percent of mangrove forests globally remain unprotected and overexploited. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Oct 7 2021 (IPS)

Smelly, boggy, and full of bugs, mangroves’ superpowers are well hidden. However, there is rising confidence that mangroves are the silver bullet to combat the effects of climate change.

“Mangrove ecosystems are a habitat and nursery grounds for various plants and animals and can absorb three to four times more carbon than tropical upland forests, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change,” Dr Sevvandi Jayakody, a senior lecturer at Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, tells IPS.

Mangrove forests also act as a natural defence against storm surges, including mitigating the effects of cyclones and tsunamis, says Dr Nicholas Hardman‑Mountford, Head of Oceans and Natural Resources at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Within this context, he says, Commonwealth countries are working together under the Commonwealth Blue Charter, an agreement made by all 54 member states, to actively work together to tackle ocean-related challenges and meet global commitments on sustainable ocean development.

The Blue Charter works through voluntary action groups led by ‘champion countries’, who rally around marine pollution and the sustainable blue economy.

The Mangrove Ecosystems and Livelihoods Action Group consists of 13 countries, including Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Maldives, Nigeria, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago Vanuatu, and the United Kingdom, is championed by Sri Lanka.

Mangrove blue carbon could bolster climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience efforts, experts say. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Hardman‑Mountford tells IPS that countries exchange knowledge centred on mangrove protection, management, and sustainability within the action group. Shared knowledge includes a wide range of topics, including policy, legislation, and regulatory frameworks.

Leveraging on the protective power of mangroves, Jayakody says that Sri Lanka is actively building its second line of defence. The country’s first line of defence, the reefs, were heavily compromised by the deadly 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami – one of the worst disasters in modern history, killing nearly 230 000 people across dozens of countries.

Such was the devastation that the government of Sri Lanka estimated losses of over $1 billion in assets and $330 million in potential output.

Worse still, approximately 35 000 people died or went missing. In Sri Lanka alone, property damage included 110 000 houses, of which 70 000 were destroyed. In all, at least 250 000 families lost their means of support.

Experts say that mangroves have immense capacity to prevent such catastrophes and combat other devastating effects of climate change.

Bolstered by growing scientific evidence, Trinidad and Tobago, the dual-island Caribbean nation, has made significant strides in building its defence using mangroves.

Dr Rahanna Juman, Acting Director at the Institute of Marine Affairs, a government-funded research institute, tells IPS that in 2014, the government of Trinidad and Tobago commissioned an aerial survey of the country. Using this data, an estimate of carbon in mangrove forests across the country was ascertained.

“This information illustrated how mangrove and other hardwood forests could offset emissions and was incorporated into the Greenhouse Gas inventory of Trinidad and Tobago. Importantly, the survey conclusively demonstrated that mangrove forests store more carbon per hectare than other hardwood forests,” Juman expounds.

In 2020, the Institute of Marine Affairs received funding from the British High Commission to fund a mangrove soil carbon assessment project involving Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

Dr Juman indicates that the assessment found that “the amount of carbon in the mangrove soil was many times larger than the amount of carbon above the ground. This is an assessment that could be replicated in other Commonwealth countries because we have developed a low-cost technique of undertaking this important assessment.”

Adding that Mangroves are starting to be incorporated into the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme, which means countries could potentially earn money from protecting and restoring mangroves.

Meanwhile, Hardman‑Mountford cites various challenges in exploring blue carbon because it is still an evolving area of science and policy.

Sri Lanka understands this challenge all too well. After the Tsunami, Jayakody says that the government launched vast mangrove restoration projects covering over 2 000 hectares in partnership with other agencies.

Due to limited information on mangroves, she tells IPS that a majority of these projects failed. Undeterred and leveraging on scientific research over the years, Sri Lanka is today a success story in restoring and conserving mangrove cover estimated at 19 600 hectares.

Other challenges facing countries keen on mangrove blue carbon include a lack of protection for mangroves because approximately 75 percent of mangrove forests globally remain unprotected and overexploited.

Over the years, Jayakody indicates that mangroves have been at a very high risk of destruction because their power to prevent coastal erosion, protect shorelines, and provide livelihoods for coastal communities through fisheries was not fully understood.

Hardman‑Mountford agrees, adding that mangrove forests have declined globally with a loss of between 30 to 50 percent over the past 50 years from over-harvesting, pollution, agriculture, aquaculture, and coastal development.

The Commonwealth has a huge role to play in reversing this decline.

Overall, there are 47 Commonwealth countries with a coastline.

“Nearly 90 percent of Commonwealth countries with a coast have mangroves, and at least 38 of these countries with mangroves have provided some level of protection to their mangroves. In all, 16 countries have protected about half or more of their mangroves,” he says.

This is a challenge that Sri Lanka is successfully overcoming. With an estimated 40 percent of the population in Sri Lanka living along the coastline, Jayakody says that there was an urgent need to protect both livelihoods and coastlines from further degradation.

“In 2015, Sri Lanka established the National Mangrove Expert Committee, and through that, all mangroves were mapped. More so, several new areas were brought under protection, and there have been relentless efforts to improve the communities’ understanding of the importance of mangrove ecosystem,” she says.

Further, Sri Lanka recently validated the Best Practice Guidelines on the Restoration of Mangroves in Sri Lanka and the national mangrove action plan, in line with the mangrove policy adopted in 2020.

Other countries making strides in the right direction include the Australian government’s involvement with blue carbon and especially ongoing efforts to build capacity in blue carbon science, policy and economics through multi-sectoral partnerships.

“To support its efforts in blue carbon advocacy and outreach, the Australian government launched the International Partnership for Blue Carbon (IPBC) at the UNFCCC CoP in Paris in 2015,” says Ms Heidi Prislan, a Blue Charter Adviser at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Australia is also one of the 28 countries that refer specifically to the mitigation benefits of carbon sequestration associated with coastal wetlands in its National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. In comparison, 59 other countries mention coastal ecosystems as part of their adaptation strategies.

To increase opportunities for blue carbon to participate in the national emissions reduction scheme, the Emissions Reduction Fund, the Australian government has supported research into potential mitigation methodologies that could be implemented to generate carbon credits from domestic projects.

Equally important, she says that Commonwealth member countries have collectively made 44 national commitments to protect or restore mangroves.

As the world stares at a catastrophe from the devastating effects of climate change, the massive potential of blue carbon and, more so, mangrove blue carbon to bolster climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience efforts can no longer be ignored.

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By External Source
Sep 29 2021 (IPS-Partners)

More than 2,000 young leaders and youth-led organisations from across the Commonwealth are urging governments to respect the needs and contributions of the world’s most vulnerable groups, in the lead up to global climate talks in Glasgow in November.

The Commonwealth Youth Statement on Climate Change, released today, appeals to governments to include youth, women, the elderly and people with disabilities in decision-making on climate change-related policies.

Noting that 1.5 billion people in the Commonwealth are under the age of 30, young people call on leaders to ensure additional, predictable finance for youth-led climate action, as well as adequate social protections for vulnerable groups to cope with the climate crisis.

“We demand an end to climate inaction. Our generation will have to deal with more frequent and severe climate impacts than ever, making us one of the groups most vulnerable to its impacts,” said the statement.

Seven key recommendations are put forward to feed into global discussions at the Youth4Climate Summit this week in Milan from 28 to 30 September.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland welcomed the proposals, saying: “Young people are the true heroes in the fight against climate change. They have demonstrated a tremendous capacity to grasp the reality of the climate crisis and mobilise crucial support for climate action across groups, sectors and nations.

“Without the contributions and innovations of young people from all Commonwealth regions, the world would not have achieved the progress it has today on climate action. We need them at the table so that their voices can be heard as discussions continue on the development of effective climate policies and strategies.”

Pan-Commonwealth coordinator of the Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network (CYCN), Leneka Rhoden said: “Never in history have young people been empowered with the social and technological tools to effect change, as we are today. We are equipped with the platform to launch projects that can help to secure our environment, our people, and our future.

“The CYCN is proud to support the efforts of Youth4Climate as we prepare for COP26 by uniting youth to tackle climate change. Collectively, our voices and actions are amplified to achieve the equitable, sustainable and resilient future we seek.”

Commonwealth youth also propose capacity-building programmes to enhance youth-led ‘green’ and ‘blue’ enterprises, focusing on climate and ocean action, particularly in post-pandemic recovery efforts.

Highlighting the economic opportunities the ‘blue economy’ and renewable energy sector can offer local communities and youth, the statement calls for further commitments to ocean protection and an inclusive and equitable transition to clean energy.

Sepesa Curuki and his daughter Lupe. The family is heartbroken about leaving their ancestral lands but their home is no longer safe after being battered by intense and frequent cyclones, flooding and erosion. Credit: Sepesa Curuki

By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, Australia, Sep 23 2021 (IPS)

Sepesa Curuki and his community are coming to terms with the prospect of relocation from Cogea village on Fiji’s second-largest island of Vanua Levu. Their village, which lies between two rivers that flow into the Pacific Ocean only 2km away, has been battered by intense and frequent cyclones, flooding and erosion, threatening their very existence.

“We are heartbroken to be having to leave our ancestral land, but to survive, we must relocate to a safe place,” the 36-year-old school teacher tells IPS on a scratchy phone line, reverberating with the background sound of pelting rain.

“Our close-knit community of 72 people has experienced three severe tropical cyclones in one year. TC Harold in April 2020 and TC Ana in January 2021 caused extreme flooding, and TC Yasa in December 2020 completely consumed 23 of the 37 houses in the village. Not even a single post was left standing. The remaining homes, including ours, experienced widespread destruction,” says Curuki, who now lives with his wife, mother, two brothers and four children in a two-bedroom concrete home and a tent.

Fiji accounts for 0.006 percent of global carbon emissions, and it became the first country to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement. But it, along with its other low-lying Pacific Island neighbours, is experiencing the catastrophic effects of climate change unfolding in a fast forward mode.

“Heavy rainfall has been triggering landslides and causing the riverbank to burst, flooding and severely damaging the crops – our only source of livelihood. In my life span, I have never seen anything like the destruction caused by TC Yasa. Most of the villagers are now living in tents scattered around the silt-covered remnants of what was once a thriving village with farms green with root crops,” says Curuki’s 63-year-old mother, Timaima, on the speakerphone as she chops cassava (tavioka) and dalo (taro) for lunch.

A quarter of Pacific Islands people live within 1 km of the coast. With the next cyclone season looming, the people of Cogea are awaiting relocation as a matter of urgency.

Sepesa Curuki’s mother Timaima and his daughter Lupe prepare dinner. Credit: Sepesa Curuki

Fiji had released its relocation guidelines in 2019, which stated that “planned relocation represents an option of last resort”. Human mobility is established as a priority human security and national security issue in the country’s National Climate Change Policy 2018-2030. The government has established the Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund (CRCTF) to relocate communities forced to move to safe areas by climate change-induced rising seas and extreme weather.

To improve evidence-based decision making in disaster preparedness and response and access to climate change adaptation and mitigation finance, the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP) CommonSensing supports Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to use satellite remote sensing-based earth observation (EO) data.

The project is being implemented by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) through its UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) with a consortium of partners, including the Commonwealth Secretariat, which is spearheading the access to climate finance component of the project.

“We provide technical assistance to Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, through the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH), working towards using the geospatial-based CommonSensing platform to make better, more robust proposals for accessing climate finance, and support long-term decision-making,” says UnniKrishnan Nair, Head of Climate Change Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

“CommonSensing uses satellite data for calculating baseline conditions and for measuring the climate-related changes over time in aspects, such as deforestation, sea-level rise, flooding, land degradation, fisheries, coastal protection and food security. This concrete evidence-based data, which shows the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities and what can make them more resilient, makes the rationale for funding much stronger,” Nair tells IPS.

Of the international climate finance available, only three percent went to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in 2017-18. A report compiled by the Fijian Government and the World Bank said Fiji would need to spend $4.5 billion over the next ten years on measures to adapt to climate change.

To support the development of climate change project proposals, capacity-building and project implementation, the CCFAH embeds Commonwealth National Climate Finance Advisers (CNCFA) in government departments of these countries.

Sepesa Curuki at his home in Cogea Village in Fiji. The impact of climate change has meant the village is no longer safe for this teacher and his family.

“The EO tools can help SIDS to develop and implement green stimulus measures and also in the process of revising and implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as the ability to access climate finance effectively becomes increasingly relevant,” Katherine Cooke, CNCFA for Fiji, tells IPS.

“We have recently conducted Climate Finance ‘Writeshop’ training for government officials and stakeholders in Fiji in the use of CommonSensing data to meet the complex requirements of climate finance applications. It focused on three project proposals: Fiji Rural Electrification Fund – Mitigation; Climate Change Relocation – Adaptation; and Decarbonization of public bus transport in Fiji – Mitigation,” Cooke adds.

EO technologies and data in enabling better access to climate finance is still in its early stages. It is currently being trialled for Disaster Risk Reduction and Response and Adaptation.

As UNITAR-UNOSAT Geographic Information Systems (GIS) expert, Leba Gaunavinaka, who is embedded with Fiji’s Ministry of Economy, tells IPS: “In the event of natural disasters and the three recent Tropical Cyclones that hit Fiji, the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) activates their National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) and divisional EOCs coordinating response. We join them with other governmental representatives as part of the joint task force UNOSAT provides satellite imageries and GIS support to the team engaged with planning and deployment for distribution of relief in the immediate aftermath.”

These activities include tracking the cyclone path with the latest updates from the Fiji Meteorological Service and mapping impacted communities (potential population and households affected) with the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, mapping post-disaster assessments with UNOSAT rapid mapping support, and producing on-demand GIS maps for routes taken by deployed teams.

Gaunavinaka says, “NDMO’s GIS team provides updates to the daily situational reports (SITREPs). For TC Ana, there was widespread flooding due to the intense and prolonged rainfall that followed. UNOSAT supported with a flood susceptibility map (using height above nearest drainage method), and this was also shared with government stakeholders”.

“There is a trend to use offline apps for capturing data by actors on the ground and later sync when there is internet connection. Now there is an active OpenStreetMap (OSM) Fiji community supported by the HOT’s Community Impact Microgrant running monthly mapathons to crowd-source information updating Fiji’s building outlines coverage of OSM. One can also find areas where there are data gaps in building outlines and where OSM mappers aim to focus on, from UNOSAT’s Data Quality Assessment Tool available from the DSS tool on the CommonSensing Platform,” she adds.

Based on the available data, users can benefit from understanding the overall risks their communities are prone to and what priority interventions can be deployed to reduce vulnerabilities and improve coping capacities.

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Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland tours the Coral Vita coral restoration facility in Freeport, Grand Bahama, with co-founder Sam Teicher.

By External Source
Sep 13 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland called for urgent action to ensure improved climate resilience of small states and promised to amplify the concerns of small and other vulnerable states around climate change at the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow this November.

During visit to The Bahamas this week, the Secretary-General said: “Without a doubt, we are living through a global climate crisis which is unfolding with disturbing speed and intensity across the Commonwealth, and the world. The unequivocal evidence contained in the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has only reinforced what small island nations on the frontlines of climate change have been experiencing and advocating for a long time.

“Urgent, decisive and sustained climate action is needed, and the international community must not miss the window to make a real difference at the upcoming COP26 summit. This includes mobilising the financial support needed for vulnerable nations to cope with the impacts of climate change and build long-lasting resilience.

“The Commonwealth Secretariat has dedicated a number of programmes to support member countries to access finance, such as the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, the Disaster Risk Finance Portal and the Commonwealth Blue Charter Ocean Funders Database, but more must be done multilaterally to target the needs of small states, which face an existential threat from climate change.”

The Secretary-General last visited The Bahamas in 2019, in a show of solidarity with the country and region after it was devastated by Category 5 Hurricane Dorian.

On a tour of the Coral Vita coral restoration facility in Freeport, Grand Bahama, yesterday she added: “While they have contributed the least to the climate crisis, small states are most affected by it. But they are also leading the charge in advocating for transformative climate action on a global scale, in addition to developing local solutions, including new innovations as well those drawn from indigenous knowledge.”

The Secretary-General will lead a delegation to the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to advocate the interests of Commonwealth countries, exchange knowledge and best practices around climate action, strengthen partnerships and mobilise resources to support Commonwealth programmes.

Thirty-two Commonwealth countries – more than half of the membership – are classified as ‘small states’, including 25 small island developing nations.

Vineil Narayan on Vio Island in Lautoka. Narayan is climate finance expert who talks about how the CommonSensing project is assisting small island states with finance and tools to mitigate climate change and its devastating effects.

By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, Australia, Sep 10 2021 (IPS)

The UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP) CommonSensing is led by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) through the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), which is working with selected partners including the Commonwealth Secretariat, to improve resilience to the effects of climate change in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Vineil Narayan, Climate Finance Specialist and Head of Climate Change and International Cooperation Division, Ministry of Economy, Fiji, talks about the use of CommonSensing data in climate change adaptation and mitigation; and its potential in accessing the much-needed climate finance.

Neena Bhandari: How easy or difficult has it been for Fiji to access climate finance?

Vineil Narayan: Climate finance is a broad term, which includes public and private sectors. For Small Island Developing States (SIDS), particularly in the Pacific, one of the key issues is to be able to attract appropriate financing for climate-centric projects and development programmes.

There’s a massive mismatch between climate finance mobilised and climate finance needs of the region. In the public sector space, it has been relatively less difficult for us to attract climate finance that’s coming through bilateral support from countries or the Green Climate Fund (GCF). But we have been struggling to attract climate finance at an appropriate scale from the private sector. It is because we’re competing against larger economies with greater returns and potential for investors.

CommonSensing tracks Cyclone Harold through the Pacific Islands using data from satellites. The severe tropical cyclone caused widespread destruction in the Solomon Islands, Vanautu, Fiji and Tonga in 2020. Credit: CommonSensing

NB: Why time is of the essence for accessing climate finance for Fiji and other Pacific Island countries, which are facing immediate impacts of climate change and are more vulnerable to its consequences?

VN: In countries such as the United States and Australia, the impacts of climate change, for example, frequency and intensity of bushfires, are only being felt now and people are recognising that climate change is actually happening. But for us in the Pacific, climate change has been a fundamental development challenge for decades. It has already stifled our development progress over a long period of time. The urgency for climate action is not new for us in the region. ‘Time is of the essence’ is something that we’ve been saying to the world for so many years.

When The Paris Agreement was being discussed, the Pacific countries particularly demanded limiting temperature target to 1.5 degrees Celsius to reduce climate impacts. We have villages blown off the map due to storms. We have communities that are disappearing due to sea-level rise. It is posing a significant threat to our low-lying atoll neighbours like Kiribati and Tuvalu. They will disappear within the next few decades if we are not able to curtail rising sea levels expedited by climate change.

Climate change is an immediate existential threat for us. It underscores the need for immediate action and for that we need to increase and expedite the mobilisation of climate finance at a significant amount for adaptation and mitigation.

CommonSensing uses satellite remote sensing capabilities to support the Governments of Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu in their efforts to build resilience to the devastating impacts of climate change and improve access to climate finance. Credit: CommonSensing

NB: How are you using the CommonSensing tools for climate change relocation and disaster risk reduction and response?

VN: Information is power. When adaptation projects and programmes from SIDS go to the GCF, we are asked: What’s the adaptation rationale? It baffles me because the impacts of climate change and the need for adaptation is clearly reflected in the national development priorities, particularly those of the Pacific Island countries. So, for us to be asked to rationalise it is like a slap on the face.

To develop that climate rationale, one of the key things is to have appropriate access to data and information, which are crucial for mobilising finance. The CommonSensing Project helps us to provide that evidence-based rationale to access greater climate finance.

The CommonSensing team, working with United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), has been instrumental in helping to map out both disaster response measures and needs. For example, mapping out what would be the level of disaster impact based on the trajectory of a cyclone – number of households in that area, population, number of bridges, water facilities and other infrastructure information, as well as identifying what’s the level of damage and coverage that would be needed for disaster risk reduction and response. This is something that the CommonSensing Project has actually helped the National Disaster Management Office with, doing post-disaster mapping of areas impacted by three major cyclones that have hit Fiji over the past 14 months.

With regards to relocation, it is important that when you relocate a community from point A to B, you are able to take into account the geospatial dynamics and hazards. In the past, a relocation happened where a coastal community was moved, but torrential rainfall and limited geospatial knowledge of that area resulted in landslides.

The CommonSensing Project helps us to better understand, for example, the safe elevation level of a particular area where we want to relocate a community; how far away it is from the school, the electricity grid, the road? This geospatial information and hazard mapping is very powerful for us to be able to make informed policy decisions on whether and how to relocate a community.

In addition to that, the Fijian Government has developed the Planned Relocation Guidelines, which helps government agencies better understand what roles and responsibilities they have when it comes to relocating a community. We need to consider not only the infrastructure movement but also socio-economic livelihood transition and customary obligations to ensure that the community being relocated is accepted by the community, where they are being relocated.

We are also developing a standard operating procedure – a step-by-step process of how a community will be relocated. As part of the standard operating procedures, one of the fundamental things is to do a Climate Vulnerability Assessment of a particular community. And within that risk assessment, one of the key steps is to use CommonSensing data to be able to ascertain whether that community or that area in which the community is from, is actually facing geospatial hazards.

The geospatial CommonSensing data helps to identify whether sea-level rise would be an issue; what would be the appropriate vegetation around a particular area so we are able to better understand what would be the livelihoods of that community. For example, if we move a coastal community, which is dependent on fishing, inland then there will be a need for capacity building and livelihood assistance for them to transition from being a fishing community to an agricultural community.

This robust CommonSensing data helps in informed decision making when it comes to relocation work and post-disaster needs assessments.

NB: What is the potential of this satellite-based Earth Observation data for accessing climate finance?

VN: Currently, we are not using this data to access climate finance, but that is our ultimate aim. We would like to weave this information into our future climate finance applications to make them bankable. We’re not only working on doing that, but as part of the CommonSensing Project, we are also receiving support from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub.

For four weeks, we’re currently getting together 19 teams of stakeholders in workshops to develop project proposals by using CommonSensing data. These project proposals will feed into the project pipeline for the Fijian Government that we want to submit to the GCF for funding

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Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland in The Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian. Scotland expressed concerns about the impact of climate change on exacerbating superstorms, like this 2019 event which took a massive human toll. Credit: Commonwealth

By Alison Kentish
London, Sep 8 2021 (IPS)

This November, five years after signing the Paris Agreement and pledging to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a further target of below 1.5 degrees Celsius, world leaders will meet in Glasgow, UK amid COVID-19 pandemic shocks, rising hunger and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that warns of more extreme temperature, droughts, forest fires and ice sheet loss due to human activity.

The leaders are expected to submit more ambitious targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Out of the 197 countries which signed the Paris Agreement, 54 are members of the Commonwealth. That association has been helping its members to craft their national climate targets and follow through with implementation.

IPS spoke to Commonwealth Secretary-General the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC about the Association’s climate initiatives, the unique challenges faced by small states, its focus on gender mainstreaming and access to financing for critical adaptation and mitigation projects.

Scotland is the sixth Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and the first woman to hold the post. The Commonwealth is an association of 54 countries that work together to advance shared values enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter, including democracy, human rights and sustainable development.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

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Inter Press Service (IPS): Secretary-General, it is a pleasure to be able to interview you from a small community in Dominica. Dominica continues to be proud of not just being a member of the Commonwealth but the land of your birth and the home of the Baroness Patricia Scotland Primary School.

In Dominica, we know that the Commonwealth is invested in climate change, and I’m happy to be speaking to you about one of the most pressing issues of our time.

The IPCC report has been dominating the climate change headlines in the lead-up to COP26. It is a sobering report that calls for urgent, increasingly ambitious action by world leaders to tackle the climate crisis. What does the report mean for the 54 member countries of the Commonwealth?

The Rt Hon. Patricia Scotland QC (PS): The latest IPCC report is a stark warning for humanity. One cannot argue with the definitive scientific evidence in the report, which shows how climate change is intensifying on a global scale, with widespread impacts. Some of these impacts are unravelling on our television screens and even right before our eyes, including increasingly destructive extreme weather events – from monstrous super storms in the Pacific and Caribbean to deadly floods in Africa and raging wildfires in Europe.

In many ways, the report reaffirms many of the concerns the Commonwealth has been advocating for over the past 30 years, particularly in relation to small and other vulnerable states. It also challenges us, as an international community, to respond – urgently!

We no longer have any excuse not to act. We already have a blueprint for international cooperation in the form of the Paris Agreement. What’s more, emerging from the Covid pandemic, we have a critical window to set a new development path and build back better. What the world needs now is urgent, decisive and sustained climate action. As I’ve always said: if not now, then when; if not us, then who?

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland at COP 25. She was speaking to IPS ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) to be held in Glasgow in October and November 2021. Credit: Commonwealth

(IPS): We know that Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are important to gauge how each country intends to do its part to reduce global warming. We also know that new NDCs should be submitted every five years, but some countries have not met the deadlines. How is the Commonwealth assisting member countries with articulating and submitting their NDCs?

(PS): The Nationally Determined Contributions – or national climate plans – are at the heart of the Paris Agreement. I cannot overstate their importance. It is through the NDCs that we translate this global agreement into reality on the country level.

This is why the Commonwealth Secretariat is working with the NDC Partnership to support governments in enhancing and delivering their national climate plans under the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP).

Through this initiative, we embed highly skilled Commonwealth National Climate Finance Advisers in countries to fast-track the process. In Jamaica and Eswatini, our experts help create frameworks to include climate-related spending in national budget planning. In Belize and Zambia, our advisers assist in developing national climate finance strategies.

Our flagship Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub has also deployed advisers in nine other countries across Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific to help governments develop strong climate finance proposals for NDC implementation and wider climate action.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland pictured in Seychelles. She is particularly concerned about the financing and support of small island developing nations with their climate change challenges. Credit: Commonwealth

(IPS): How can Commonwealth countries help each other with their NDCs submission and implementation?

(PS): The Commonwealth is a family of 54 equal and independent nations, spanning five geographical regions with a combined population of 2.4 billion people, 60 percent of whom are under age 30. Thirty-two members are considered ‘small states’, while we also have some of the world’s biggest economies along with emerging countries in our group.

One of the most valuable aspects of the Commonwealth is, therefore, its diversity and incredible capacity to be a platform for countries to share experiences on a wide range of global issues, examining what works and what does not work and cross-fertilising ideas. Building on this, the Secretariat organises regular virtual events, convening a range of actors from different regions and sectors to exchange knowledge and best practices for climate action.

We also welcome the generous financial and in-kind support from member countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and Mauritius, which enables the work of key programmes like the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub and the CommonSensing Project (funded by the UK). The CCFAH ‘hub and spokes’ model ensures a dynamic network of expertise and a useful mechanism for cross-regional dialogue and international cooperation around NDCs.

(IPS): Access to finance for climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives continues to be an issue of concern, particularly for small island developing states. What mechanisms have the Commonwealth Secretariat established to assist countries in financing their climate commitments?

(PS): Funding for climate action is absolutely critical for the survival of our small and vulnerable member states. However, a concerning paradox is that countries most vulnerable to climate change are often the ones that find it most challenging to access climate finance.

This is mainly because they have constrained resources or capacity. For example, a small island developing nation may have just a small ministry or unit dedicated to climate change, and a single officer, if any, focused on mobilising finance. When you look at the complex requirements, application processes and varying criteria set by different international climate funds, it is clear there is a gap.

Consequently, many countries can spend months and even years working through the process to access finance, delaying climate action whilst impacts are ongoing.

This is why the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH) was initiated in 2015, whereby long-term Commonwealth national climate finance advisers are embedded in government departments to help them develop successful funding proposals, and who then pass on the knowledge and skills to local officials and actors. As of June 2021, CCFAH has helped raise US$ 43.8 million of climate finance, including US$ 3 million of country co-financing for 31 approved projects. More than US$762 million worth of projects are in the pipeline.

We are also looking at innovative ways to fill the data gap in project proposals. Under the CommonSensing Project, we work with UNITAR-UNOSAT, the UK Space Agency and others, to use earth observation technology and satellite data to build more robust, evidence-based cases for climate finance in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

(IPS): According to agencies like UNICEF, women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate change – a reflection of patterns of gender inequality seen in other areas. Are you satisfied with the work of the Commonwealth in ensuring gender integration across climate change initiatives?

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland planting mangroves in Sri Lanka. Scotland believes that the diversity of the Commonwealth is its strength in tackling climate issues. Credit: Commonwealth

(PS): To tackle climate change, we simply cannot ignore the role of half the world’s people who are women. In fact, the most recent Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting in 2019 reiterated gender and climate change as one of four priority areas on gender equality. It is absolutely a top concern for the Secretariat, which is committed to mainstreaming gender across its work programmes.

All our regional/national climate finance advisers are expected to mainstream gender and youth considerations in their operations. All their projects must be responsive to the needs of women, men, girls and boys, as equal participants in decision-making and beneficiaries of climate action.

For instance, the Commonwealth National Climate Finance Adviser in Jamaica helped the government secure a grant of US$270,000 from the Green Climate Fund for the project ‘Facilitating a Gender Responsive Approach to Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation’.

The Secretariat recently launched a gender analysis of member country climate commitments. This research will help us better understand the current situation and inform future activities and programmes.

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