ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Citizens of Africa have been urged to take advantage of investment opportunities that accompany climate action to earn some money and lift their people from poverty.
Secretary-General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Mithika Mwenda, has noted that the renewable energy revolution currently being witnessed in the world provides affordable access to energy to people who would otherwise not have access.
He noted that renewable energy has also aided in the reduction of emissions, thus contributing to the attainment of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) ambitions of countries.
“We are witnessing renewable energy revolution and in Africa and the rest of the world, this is an explosive sector,” observed Mithika. “We need to take advantage of the investment opportunities coming with climate action; there are a lot of resources in this to help address poverty”.
At the COP21 climate talks which produced the Paris Agreement, the G7 committed to allocate US$10 billion into the African Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI).
Though there are concerns with delivering the promise, the Initiative, in its current design, will help cure chronic energy poverty by supporting decentralized, modern, off-grid and people-owned energy systems not only for lighting, but also cooking, driving smallholder agribusiness and charging mobile phones.
Mithika added that green energy has helped save lives by reducing indoor pollution.
Fossil fuel vs. renewable energy economies
Mithika Mwenda was addressing an event on low-carbon and climate-resilient development, held on the sidelines of the 2018 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Most African countries do not contribute any significant amount of greenhouse gases but there are commitments in their NDCs to ensure that their development pathways are carbon neutral.
In a climate-constrained world, investment in fossil fuel-based energy sources no longer makes sense.
But Africa faces the dilemma of whether to rapidly revert to renewable energy, have a mix of both fossil fuels and renewables, or ignore the global call and continue in the unsustainable model of development pursued by industrialized countries which brought the climate crisis.
What is evident, though, is the fact that the global community has shifted.
This shift should make African countries re-think their priority energy sources and investment in oil and in some instances coal, as it may not make economic sense in the long-run.
The Addis Ababa side-event, attended by climate actors from across the continent, is organized strategically to get African leaders to focus attention on climate change issues.
As the first Pan African convention after the COP23, the event offered an opportunity to exchange ideas and reflect on Africa’s victories during the Bonn Climate Change Conference, with a view of charting a collective path towards subsequent Global Dialogue processes on the subject.
“This gives us the platform to develop common African narratives that will have impact on the global stage,” said James Murombedzi, Officer-in-Charge of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
Moving along the development pathway
Climate change is no longer discussed as a limited environmental or scientific matter but as a development issue.
African civil society therefore looks forward to leaders moving from the rhetoric to taking real action on the ground.
“The momentum for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the NDCs is picking up, but the question is: are we moving with that pace in Africa?” queried Mithika.
Some countries on the continent have developed very effective policy and legal frameworks to facilitate the implementation in the areas of transparency, adaptation, loss and damage, among others.
But there are others stuck on bureaucracies to push the climate agenda forward.
“We need to think broader about what is the impact of climate change on development. What does it mean for agriculture? What does it mean for energy, for infrastructure? So we are really talking about development,” said Mithika.
He believes that the ClimDev-Africa programme can rally the African continent around in mobilizing action and “we need to ensure that critical centres that support the livelihoods of the African people and which are weather sensitive like agriculture are created”.
The Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) Programme is an initiative of the African Union Commission (AUC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), established to create a solid foundation for Africa’s response to climate change.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopian (PAMACC News) - African civil society organizations on climate change have been at the forefront in building momentum for vulnerable people on the continent and other developing economies to access climate justice.
The voices were high and loud going into the UN Conference of Parties (COP21) on Climate Change which produced the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015.
But these voices have gone down low after the talks.
Two years after Paris, most countries on the continent have slowed in climate action.
Sudanese scientist and climate activist, Dr. Shaddad Mauwa, has sat in meetings, shouted and held placards in demonstrations at the local, continental and global stages to clamour for climate justice.
He acknowledged that though African climate change actors – governments, parliamentarians, negotiators, civil society – are doing better than before, there seems to be a wall that has become difficult to break.
“There are many issues still not going in the line of what Africa will like to see,” he said.
For him, these issues include the commitment of developed economies to heed to the Paris Agreement in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, lack of access to climate funds by developing countries and poor implementation of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to be climate-resilient.
Pushing the African Climate Agenda
The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) has for almost a decade served as the largest advocacy platform for CSOs in Africa.
The activities of the Alliance resonates with the global call for action against climate change proclaimed by the United Nations, with a singular clarion call that no single individual, institution, country or region can single-handedly defeat the threats posed by the changing climate and the quest for achieving a sustainable development while leaving no one behind.
Secretary-General of the Organization, Mithika Mwenda, however, says the major concern is how to make the Paris Climate Agreement relevant to the vulnerable farmer who needs to irrigate his farm all year round to produce food and the community that gets displaced by flood anytime it rains.
“Having the Agreement is one thing and getting it implemented is another thing,” he said. “One of the things we’ve been trying to do is to push the governments to focus more on implementation because now we have a framework which is supposed to go on the ground”.
It is a shared opinion that Africa is not deficit in policy formulation. But getting the thoughts off paper to achieve set goals on the ground becomes problematic. Lack of finance for implementation is often cited as hindrance.
PACJA has been pushing the international community to provide sufficient funds for the implementation of provisions in the Paris Agreement, which includes each country’s NDCs, to ensure integration of climate change into the new paradigms of low-carbon development and climate resilience pathways.
“We are very optimistic, though it is not an easy thing to do. Africans and the global community have no choice; we have to act on climate change. We have frameworks in countries that if we build on, we can have very transformative economies,” said Mithika.
Building a stronger CSO Alliance
The adoption of the Paris Agreement left many stakeholders and countries unable to shift from the negotiation mode to implementation, including many civil society groups.
PACJA envisions a global environment free from the threat of climate change with sustainable development, equity and justice for all.
The Alliance acknowledges there is still more ground to cover around low-carbon, climate-resilient, green economy discourses.
At its Second Extra-Ordinary General Assembly meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on January 23, 2018, The Alliance elected the Continental Executive Board as the implementing organ of decisions and policies of the organization.
Newly elected Chairperson of the Board, John Bonds Bideri, says building capacities of local CSOs remains crucial to PACJA to support grassroots initiatives to deal with climate vagaries.
“The most important thing is that the vulnerable people should have that protection at the global, continental and community levels in terms of responding to issues or challenges that affect them,” he stated.
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has welcomed the British government’s plan to close - with some limited exemptions - its domestic ivory markets.
Ivory (whether raw or worked) continues to be traded legally within UK and the other European Union (EU) Member States, in auction houses, markets, shops and online – and that antique items can even be traded without permits or certificates.
Paul Gathitu, KWS spokesman said the existence of legal ivory markets and exports provide opportunities for laundering illegal ivory.
“The existence of these markets and exports also fuel demand for ivory within the UK and abroad and thus contribute to poaching,” Gathitu said.
He noted that KWS and Government welcome the plan by UK to close its ivory markets as this will obliterate any chances for opportunists, who may have in the past used the existing market in antique ivory as a cover for trade in illegal ivory.
The UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson at the end of last year said that his aim is to make 2018 the year of British leadership in defeating the ivory trade.
“Ivory poaching is an abhorrent crime and it is shocking that in the 21 century we are still witnessing the slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants every year for their tusks. It is mankind’s privilege to share the planet with these wonderful creatures but their treatment is heartbreaking,” Johnson said.
He added, “We are committed to tackling this problem and are playing a key role in building global consensus to stamp out the illegal wildlife trade. Our plans to ban the sale of all ivory products in the UK will remove opportunities for criminals to trade illegally-poached ivory, helping to protect this majestic and endangered species.”
Speaking last week, UK’s Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the decline in the elephant population fuelled by poaching for ivory shames the current generation.
“The need for radical and robust action to protect one of the world’s most iconic and treasured species is beyond dispute. Ivory should never be seen as a commodity for financial gain or a status symbol – so we want to ban its sale. These plans will put the UK front and centre of global efforts to end the insidious trade in ivory,” Gove said.
Effective January 1, 2018, China banned the mainland domestic sale of elephant ivory and related products, a significant move toward slowing the annual slaughter of the largest land animals on Earth. The UK’s plan to follow suit could not have come at a better time.
Consequently, Gathitu noted that KWS and Kenya recognizes this bold step as important in the war against elephant poaching and illegal ivory trade, pulling especially the African elephant further away from the precipice of extinction.
“The significance of support from such an influential quarter can be measured in the multiple effects seen in the results on the ground. An example is the global effort focusing on elephant conservation between 2014 to date, targeting ivory source countries, transit and consumer countries, which has led to remarkable reduction in elephant poaching in the source countries and ivory demand in the consumer countries,” he said.
Gathitu also pointed out that the measures agreed to by States on implementation of National Ivory Action Plan process under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to combat elephant poaching and illegal ivory trade are yielding positive results.
“KWS and Kenya stand ready to partner closely with the British government, as well as other conservation partners, in all further endeavours to fight elephant poaching , ivory trade and wildlife crime,” Gathitu said.
The most recent census results for elephants and other large land mammals were released by Prof. Judi Wakhungu, Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources at a press conference held at KWS headquarters on December 22, last year.
The results covered census conducted in 2016 and 2017 in five key ecosystems which are elephant distribution areas and revealed thriving elephant populations and decreased poaching trends.
The censuses; aerial total survey of elephants, buffaloes and giraffe in the Laikipia-Samburu-Meru-Marsabit ecosystem in November 2017 showed a 12 per cent increase over the past five years.
A total of 7,347 elephants were counted compared to 6,454 elephants counted in 2012, which translated to an annual increase of 2.4 per cent over the period.
In February last year, Gathitu said the dry-season aerial census for the Tsavo-Mkomazi was conducted.
"The triennial cross-border survey covered Tsavo East, Tsavo West and, Chyulu National Parks as well as South Kitui National Reserve in Kenya and Mkomazi National Park in Tanzania,. The census showed a growth of 14.7 per cent in the elephant population over the last three years," he said.
Dr Evans Kituyi is a research scientist and a Senior Programme Specialist at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)’s Climate Change Programme, charged with overseeing the successful implementation of the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA)programme jointly funded by Canada’s IDRC and UK’s DFID. The Pathways to Resilience in Semi-arid Economies (PRISE) consortium partners led by the UK based Overseas Development Institute (ODI)is one of the four consortia implementing CARIAA.
In Kenya, the PRISE consortium researchers have been working closely with vulnerable pastoral communities in Laikipia to understand how such communities can enhance the value chains of their livestock so as to avoid huge losses especially during extreme droughts.
In essence, the project is looking at how pastoralist communities may convert the climate change threat to the sector into opportunities for resilience.
Dr Kituyi spoke to PAMACC News reporter ISAIAH ESIPISU about the ongoing research in Kenya.
Q. What is Pathways to Resilience in Semi-arid Economies (PRISE) project all about?
This is a 5-year multi-country research project covering Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kenya, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. The consortium is working in collaboration with a team of country partners who have extensive expertise in research and policy on climate change and semi-arid regions to generate new knowledge about how economic development in semi-arid regions can be made more equitable and resilient to climate change.
The project supports decision-makers in local and national governments, civil society and businesses to strengthen their commitment to influencing policy interventions and investments that create more equitable and resilient economic development.
This is achieved by transforming the way key policy-makers make decisions through deepening their understanding of how climate change presents both threats and opportunities for economies in semi-arid areas.
Q. How has climate change and climate variations affected pastoral communities in Kenya?
Extreme climatic conditions have always lowered value of livestock animals and their products. When this happens, it reduces incomes from the markets, and in extreme conditions, it leads to death of the animals. This leads to poverty. As a result, desperate communities will always opt to raid neighbouring communities so as to replenish their lost stocks. More often than not, the stock theft leads to people slaying each other, and houses being torched, which further accelerates poverty.
Q. Following lessons learned from the project so far, how can pastoralist communities enhance value chain of their animals and develop resilience to climate change and climate variations?
The first one is commercialization of livestock production. This can be done in collaboration with the private sector and the government. If the animals are sold way before they are emaciated, they will fetch good income for the owner, which can help them restock once the dry season is over.
There is therefore need for pastoral communities to be given adequate access to market information for easy commercialization of their animals.
The second one is the need for improved financial services for pastoralist communities. This will help them manage their finances well after selling their stocks, hence buy more stock once the climatic conditions are conducive.
Third, there is need for increased investment in early warning systems. County governments should take this as priority number one. It is only through information from these systems that pastoralists can know the opportune time for selling their stocks.
Others include upgrading animal health services, increasing market access, development of policy frameworks to support the pastoralist economy; and increased tenure security, particularly around land.
Q. How does the PRISE project on ‘Enhancing Resilience for Livestock Value Chain’ fit in Kenya’s context?
Kenya is in the processes of implementing its Climate Change Action Plan—and the PRISE strategy of enhancing resilience of livestock value chains is consistent with this Plan. Similarly, the AU through the 2016 Livestock Development Strategy (LiDeSA) emphasized the critical role of value chains in enhancing resilience in the sector.
Q. What do you think should be done to ensure lessons are brought to the national agenda?
That will only happen through increased communication of research findings to diverse audiences using different media channels.
There is also need for political goodwill so that parliament in particular can highlight and debate the subject in relation to research findings —considering it is a major issue during drought. Already, a parliamentary group on pastoral areas exists and needs to be more proactive on engaging stakeholders to adopt innovations emerging from participatory research.
GAZI BAY, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Putting on gumboots and armed with clubs and machetes, Hassam Bakari, 44, a forest guard in Makongeni mangrove fishing village at Gazi Bay along Kenya’s coastline slashes through a thick canopy, making his way along a trail of mixed shrub trees in swamps.
Hassam is among over 400 community members of the Mikoko Pamoja (in Swahili meaning Mangroves Together) project driving the expansion of Kenya’s first blue carbon credit scheme, providing multiple income generating activities and fighting climate change in the region.
“We now protect this area day and night because the livelihood and future of our children depends on these mangroves,” Hassam said during a visit of researchers and environment experts to the mangrove restoration project in the run up to the UN Environment General Assembly on December 2, 2017.
Like Hassam, the people of this coastal community say they are giving their all to make the mangrove restoration project a global reference, but for lack of financial means the impetus for expansion and protection is coming from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), via the United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP.
According to Anne Wanjoru, Social impact officer of Mikoko Pamoja, the expansion of the mangrove restoration project had become necessary following increasing acceptance of the population to engage fully in the project.
“The population are now willing to voluntarily participate and this is driving the expansion and protection scheme of the project, “Anne said.
The expansion phase of the project that started in 2015 with funding of 100.000 dollars from GEF via
UNEP has seen the acres of the mangrove forest of Mikoko Pamoja increase by 117 bringing the total size of mangroves in Makonzeni, Gazi and Chale to 615 acres.
For the local population this means more income not only from a surging carbon credit sales, but also a multiplication of income generating activities.
“We are getting more and more tourists, scientists, researchers visiting and this means big markets for our fish, handicraft, restaurant business and improved income for the population,” says Jesphat Mmtwan the project coordinator.
The new community plan of action is not only limited to expansion. Efforts at protection have more than double. Every household in the community sends representatives to act as forest guards.
“We are one family here and need to protect what we have toiled to put together,” said Mohamed Ardi, another fisher man and trader in Gazi bay.
A tower of over 40 meters high has been constructed to permit community forest guards have an overview of the area against invaders while a 450 meters broad walk also set up not only to permit tourists and other visitors get a better appreciation of the rich mangrove forest but also to reinforce security, the project officials say.
The expansion of Gazi bay mangrove has made the project the biggest in Africa according to UNEP programme management officer, Gabriel Grimsditch.
On a global scale, the restoration expansion will serve as a push to ongoing drive towards including mangroves in the national Redd+ action plan and strategies.
Mangroves, scientists say has a higher capacity of capturing carbon than biomass (terrestrial rianforest trees).
According James Kairo, chief scientist with the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, KMFRI , pitlands in mangroves store three times more carbon than terrestrial rainforest.
The biggest storage on carbon is in the soil and in mangrove areas, tidal movement make sediments get trapped by mangroves and there is build up of carbon storage, he explains.
“Mangroves are unique tropical forest with an exceptional ability to capture and store carbon,” Kairo says.
The Gazi Mangrove project for example stores over 3000 tonnes of carbon per year which is sold at over 12,000 US dollars annually according to statistics from KMFRI. The carbons are bought mostly by Earth Watch and the money obtained is ploughed back into development projects in the community, the villagers benefiting from the projects admit.
Money obtained from sale of carbon credits is used to buy books for children and equip schools, making it easier and encouraging for parents to send their children to school, a complete break from a long standing tradition where children were initiated into fishing and many abandoned school because their parents could not afford.
“Schools in Gazi and Makongeni have been reconstructed with more classrooms, textbooks distributed to pupils for free and this has encouraged many more parents to send their children to school,” says Anne Wanjiru.
The Mangrove forest in the area had in the past suffered from serious degradation by activities of, commercial loggers, and industries dealing with wood from mangroves as well as local fishing community members smoking fish. The community members say illegal and abusive mangrove cutting use to scare fish away making life perilous for the fishing communities of Makongeni, Chale and Gazi villages.
“We could hardly get fish even to eat, talk less of selling to earn income to support our families and send our children to school,” says Josephat Mnwarima, fisherman and coordinator of the Mikoko Pamoja mangroves restoration and protection project.
But now things have changed for the better according to members of the fishing community.
“I now catch three times more fish than I used to before 2010,” says Wanga Ahmed a fisherman from Wasini Island one of the villages in the area.
He expresses hope that with the ongoing expansion scheme, their community will in the future by a haven for varied species of fish bringing more income and better living condition to the population
UNEP says the mangrove forest expansion scheme is a global project also happening in other countries in the continent like Madagascar, Mozambique.
“UNEP is supporting similar initiatives in other countries in the continent,” Gabriel says.
However the scheme is not without challenges.
“We have had a series of challenges driving the expansion scheme,” he admits.
These include difficulties in carrying out scientific assessment of carbon stocks, getting the mostly illiterate village communities understand the importance of the project and also getting more buyers of carbon stocks.
“We also have problems of leakages. In the course of protecting one area we sometimes discover the mangrove cutters have relocated to other areas,” Gabriel says.
As solution, he says UNEP is supporting the planting of casuarina trees, a specie that grows quickly for wood used by locals thus preventing the cutting of mangroves.
African authorities have saluted the support by development stakeholders to the Kenyan local community mangrove conservation initiative to fight climate change, calling on the project to be replicated in other coastal regions in the continent.
“We have to be proud of our continent and support good practices that serves as world model like the local community-led mangrove conservation efforts in Kenya. In the next African environment ministers meeting in South Africa 2018 efforts at replicating such initiative will be put on the table,” announced Pacome Moubelet Boubeya, President of African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, at the ongoing UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya.
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PAMACC News (NAIROBI, Kenya)
The world today committed to a pollution-free planet at the close of the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, with resolutions and pledges promising to improve the lives of billions across the globe by cleaning up our air, land and water.
If every promise made in and around the summit is met, 1.49 billion more people will breathe clean air, 480,000 km (or around 30 per cent) of the world’s coastlines will be clean, and USD 18.6 billion for research and development and innovative programmes to combat pollution will come online.
“The science we have seen at this assembly shows we have been so bad at looking after our planet that we have very little room to make more mistakes,” said Dr. Edgar Gutiérrez, Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica and the President of the 2017 UN Environment Assembly.
“With the promises made here, we are sending a powerful message that we will listen to the science, change the way we consume and produce, and tackle pollution in all its forms across the globe.”
Over 4,000 heads of state, ministers, business leaders, UN officials, civil society representatives, activists and celebrities gathered at the summit in Nairobi, which ran for three days.
For the first time at a UN Environment Assembly, environment ministers issued a declaration. This declaration said nations would honour efforts to prevent, mitigate and manage the pollution of air, land and soil, freshwater, and oceans – which harms our health, societies, ecosystems, economies, and security.
The declaration committed to increasing research and development, targeting pollution through tailored actions, moving societies towards sustainable lifestyles based on a circular economy, promoting fiscal incentives to move markets and promote positive change, strengthening and enforcing laws on pollution, and much more.
The assembly also passed 13 non-binding resolutions and three decisions. Among them were moves to address marine litter and microplastics, prevent and reduce air pollution, cut out lead poisoning from paint and batteries, protect water-based ecosystems from pollution, deal with soil pollution, and manage pollution in areas hit by conflict and terrorism.
“Today we have put the fight against pollution high on the global political agenda,” said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment. “We have a long struggle ahead of us, but the summit showed there is a real appetite for significant positive change.
“It isn’t just about the UN and governments, though. The massive support we have seen from civil society, businesses and individuals – with millions of pledges to end pollution – show that this is a global challenge with a global desire to win this battle together.”
A large part of the impact from the assembly comes from global support. UN Environment’s #BeatPollution campaign hit almost 2.5 million pledges during the event, with 88,000 personal commitments to act.
Chile, Oman, South Africa and Sri Lanka all joined the #CleanSeas campaign during the Nairobi summit, with Sri Lanka promising to implement a ban on single-use plastic products from 1 January 2018, step up the separation and recycling of waste, and set the goal of freeing its ocean and coasts of pollution by 2030. There are now 39 countries in the campaign.
Colombia, Singapore, Bulgaria, Hungary and Mongolia joined 100 cities who were already in the #BreatheLife campaign, which aims to tackle air pollution. Every signatory has committed to reduce air pollution to safe levels by 2030, with Singapore promising to tighten fuel and emissions standards for vehicles, and emissions standards for industry.
The global momentum comes not a moment too soon, as the UN Environment report, The Executive Director’s Report: Towards a Pollution-Free Planet, lays out.
Overall, environmental degradation causes nearly one in four of all deaths worldwide, or 12.6 million people a year, and the widespread destruction of key ecosystems. Air pollution is the single biggest environmental killer, claiming 6.5 million lives each year.
Exposure to lead in paint causes brain damage to 600,000 children annually. Our seas already contain 500 “dead zones” with too little oxygen to support marine life. Over 80 per cent of the world’s wastewater is released into the environment without treatment, poisoning the fields where we grow our food and the lakes and rivers that provide drinking water to 300 million people.
There is also a huge economic cost. A recent report by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health says that welfare losses due to pollution are estimated at over USD 4.6 trillion each year, equivalent to 6.2 per cent of global economic output.
“We had two missions at this assembly,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, UN Environment’s deputy head. “One [agreeing on action] is accomplished. The second we must start tomorrow.”
