BONN Germany (PAMACC News) Non-state actors following negotiations at the Bonn climate talks also known as COP 23 have deplored the resort to empty words on climate change by global leaders during the high-level segment of the two-week conference.
 
Fijian Prime Minister and COP 23 President Frank Bainimarama at the high-level segment called on the country representatives to remain focused to ensure a successful outcome to the conference. “Future generations are counting on us. Let us act now”, he said.
 
Sequel to Bainimarama’s speech, a young boy from Fiji recounted the story of how his home was destroyed in a recent natural disaster, asking government representatives in the room “What can you do?” to protect the climate. “Climate change is here to stay, unless you do something about it”, he told the delegates.
 
Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that recent extreme weather events have shown that time was pressing. “I have no doubt that this urgency warns us to make haste and act decisively”, he said.
 
The “historic climate agreement” reached in Paris in 2015 and “the path we have taken since” must remain irreversible. “Paris can only be called a breakthrough if we follow up on the agreement with actions”, said Steinmeier.
 
Hopes for a strong statement on Germany’s climate goals and the future role of coal were dashed as Chancellor Angela Merkel disappointed only called on the world to walk the talk on climate at the global conference in Bonn.
 
“This conference must send out the serious signal that the Paris Agreement was a starting point, but the work has only begun.” Today’s pledges in the nationally-determined contributions were not enough to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, she said. “Now it’s about walking the talk.”
 
Speaking after the chancellor, French President Emmanuel Macron, said that the summit should send the message that “we can all come together” to mobilise the necessary public and private funds to act on climate.
 
To guarantee quality science needed to make climate policy decisions, Macron proposed that the EU should fill the financing gap for the IPCC left open by the US administration’s decision to reduce funding.
 
“France will meet that challenge, and I would like to see the largest number of European countries by our side,” said Macron. “All together, we can compensate for the loss of US funding.”
 
Reacting almost immediately after the high-level segment, civil society groups from across the world described their statements as empty words with no concrete plan of action.
 
The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, (PACJA) accused the leaders of “playing hide and seek” with the lives of Africans who according to them are being cut short daily due to historic and ongoing actions of the developed world against the climate.
 
What we need, according to John Bideri, co-Chair of the Alliance, are “enhanced actions on the provision of $100 billion per year up to 2020 and a new finance goal which should reflect the scientific requirements and needs of African countries.”
 
“Advocacy-tainted speeches by leaders of polluter countries will not keep global temperatures from unprecedented levels, what is important now is a finance goal that will first and foremost help African countries to adapt, mitigate and cover loss and damage arising from climate change impacts,” Mithika Mwenda, PACJA’s Secretary General added
 
“This message from the host of a world climate conference must sound cruel to the poorest countries most strongly affected by climate change”, commented Oxfam Germany’s climate expert Jan Kowalzig.
 
Germany ran the risk of missing its climate goals, while in Berlin “three out of four parties to a potential Jamaica coalition’ block the measures needed to prevent such an embarrassing failure”.
 
Greenpeace Germany’s Managing Director Sweelin Heuss said that Merkel “avoided to give the only answer she had to give in Bonn: When will Germany fully exit coal?” Without a coal exit, Germany could not meet the pledge it made in Paris. “That's a disastrous signal coming out of this climate conference”, said Heuss.
 
Representatives from science, climate activists, and small island states appealed to Merkel to meet the country’s 2020 CO2 reduction target ahead of her much-anticipated speech.
 
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said Germany had the ability to quit coal use but instead there was the “perverse” situation where it generated power from coal, which then was exported.
 
“Angela Merkel has been a great climate champion but her credibility is hanging in the balance,” Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, said.
 
President Hilda Heine, of the Marshall Islands, added: “We are just two metres above sea level. For Germany to phase-out coal and follow a 1.5°C pathway would be a signal of hope to us and all other nations in danger from climate change.”

As the COP winds to a close Friday, speculations are rife that the conference will end without substantially addressing relevant concerns on temperature limits, finance and other means of implementation for the Paris Agreement.

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News): Rural and vulnerable populations in developing countries could miss out on multiple wide-ranging benefits if they are forced to wait years, or even decades, to get access to electricity through first-ever power from the grid instead of through quicker to deploy decentralized renewable energy solutions, according to a report announced by Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and Power for All today.

The “Why Wait? Seizing the Energy Access Dividend” report presents a first-of-its-kind approach to developing a framework for understanding and quantifying the financial, educational and environmental dividends for households through accelerated access to decentralized electricity, such as solar home systems and clean energy mini-grids.

The report indicates that households in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Kenya – which were used as report case studies – can save hundreds of dollars, equivalent to the average annual income of between 61,800 and 406,000 people depending on the country and timeframe to deliver universal access, by bringing electricity access forward through use of solar to power household services like lighting and mobile-phone charging instead of kerosene or costly external phone-charging services.

Another benefit from decentralized services is more time for studying—equivalent to the time spent in school each year of between 142,000 and 2 million students depending on the country and timeframe to deliver universal access.

Announced at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, the data also shows significant black carbon emission reductions across the three countries – as much as 330 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions, or roughly the emissions from 60 million passenger vehicles driven for one year– due to reduced kerosene use. Why Wait? uses a framework for estimating the dividends of electricity access that is designed to help government leaders and other decision-makers assess the comparative advantages of different electrification options and services – ranging from more limited Tier 1 electricity service (a few hours of power a day) to more robust and costly Tiers 4 and 5 - to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 of universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030.

In an apparent response to the report, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in collaboration with the Big Shift Campaign organised a protest against the financing of fossil fuels on the sidelines of the COP 23 climate talks in Bonn, Germany.

Campaigners at the event offered delegates the chance to put chocolate coins into either a green piggy bank representing green energy, or a brown piggy bank representing fossil fuels. PACJA's Augustine Njamshi decried the state of energy poverty in Africa but vowed that civil society groups will frustrate attempts at pushing dirty energy solutions in Africa.

"For us in Africa, there are only two solutions to energy deficit, reneweable energy and renewable energy, nothing more," Njamshi added.

Speaking on the report, Rachel Kyte, Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General and CEO, Sustainable Energy for All, said: “Decision makers are faced with competing priorities against finite resources. “Why Wait” provides powerful evidence on the development gains that can be achieved by focusing on integrated energy strategies that advance energy access. Household savings and hours of study time that are won because of access to energy. Denying those gains by not prioritizing solutions to energy access risks holding back whole generation decentralized renewable energy as an attractive option for closing the energy access gap quickly, especially for remote rural areas. This work shows it can bring prosperity and education outcomes as well as other services energy provides.”

"Default approaches to electrification that rely on slow, expensive, fossil-fuel-powered centralized generation are out of date and out of time," said Kristina Skierka, CEO of Power for All. "The Energy Access Dividend challenges business-as-usual by valuing 'time to access'—for the first time specifying the opportunity cost of large-scale projects that may never reach the 1 billion people around the world who still have to live without the benefits of electricity. Properly supported, decentralized renewable energy can deliver socio-economic dividends faster and at a lower cost."

The report, produced in partnership with the Overseas Development Institute, comes just 12 years ahead of global energy goal deadlines, as many countries remain behind schedule in getting there. Just over one billion people are still living without electricity, according to the latest Global Tracking Framework report issued in May. Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Kenya were chosen as case studies in the report due to their wide-ranging differences in terms of income levels, demographics and electrification rates. The countries also have significant energy access gaps, accounting for more than 180 million of the one billion people still living without power.

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) In an innovative push to better drive its development projects in the continent, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is looking forward to launching the Africa Environment Partnership Platform in May 2018.

The Platform NEPAD officials say will serve as a coordinating organ to help galvanize resource mobilization efforts and for pursuing resource mobilization strategies, approaches to support the implementation of environmental initiatives, particularly those identified in the Environment Action Plan.

“We have great initiatives on land degradation, like the great green wall, Grow Africa Programme, Africa Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), so we hope this platform will be able to help us better coordinate these different activities,” Estherine Fotabong NEPAD Director of Programmes implementation and coordination said in an interview with PAMACC at COP23 in Bonn,Germany.

The Environment Partnership Platform according to a concept note from NEPAD is in responds to a request from the African Union Summit which mandated African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) to conduct a substantive analysis of the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) Summit and develop a roadmap for the effective implementation of the outcomes in Africa.

“The platform will coordinate, mobilize resources, foster knowledge and align support for the implementation of the Environment Action Plan,” the concept note stated. Additionally, the 14th Session of AMCEN of September 2012, decided to develop and implement Regional Flagship Programmes (RFPs) as a means to ensure the effective implementation of the outcomes of the Rio +20 Summit.

The platform will seek to deliver a paradigm shift in addressing environmental degradation in Africa, in both public and private sectors and to develop innovative models. It will also engender the prerequisite political support, needed institutional structures and adequate human capacity at national and regional levels to ensure integrated environmental management.

The environment, though a cross cutting, will remain distinct and adequately harmonized with other sectors and priorities like agriculture, infrastructure and energy. Climate related risks will increasingly be mainstreamed into development and adaptation actions that will be carried out in priority regions and sectors to meet the need of especially vulnerable rural populations in Africa, according to NEPAD.

The rural populations of Africa are heavily dependent on natural resources for livelihoods with the ecosystem providing food, medicine, energy and construction materials, thus the need to better coordinate project activities geared at guaranteeing food security.

“Food security for Africa is not only derived from agriculture but also from natural resources and the ecosystems,” Fotabong points out. The platform is in response to a strong imperative to adopt a multi-sectoral approach to programme designing and implementation and strengthen the necessary synergies and improve coordination at various levels.

To achieve this, a country-driven and regionally-integrated Initiative that will provide the tools for action and platform for partnerships that will deliver results has become imperative.

Coordinated by NEPAD, the initiative will be fully aligned with and be an integral part of the CAADP framework, as well as cultivating the necessary multi-sectoral engagements, including the environment, natural resources and climate change policies and programmes.

“To support countries, a virtual and physical African Alliance was established where knowledge is exchanged to identify best practice and partnerships across stakeholder groups are catalysed,” she said.

Accordingly,the platform will also foster a coherent African development Agenda as well as sustaining the collective power and urge for action. It will also facilitate assessment of individual (country, region, sector, etc.) performance against continental and even global benchmarks. Fotabong says they hope to get many development partners align in support of the new programme that will also serve as a collaborative platform to identify innovative sources of financing.

“We are also looking forward to the alignment of development partners to support these programmes” Building partnerships is a critical success factor for the sustenance of the platform given the multiplicity of actors and its ability to deliver on the mandate assigned to it by AMCEN. The platform will therefore create an avenue for constructive dialogue, especially as Africa could benefit from the experience of countries across the world that have achieved considerable environmental sustainability.

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) In an innovative push to better drive its development projects in the continent, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is looking forward to launching the Africa Environment Partnership Platform in May 2018.

The Platform NEPAD officials say will serve as a coordinating organ to help galvanize resource mobilization efforts and for pursuing resource mobilization strategies, approaches to support the implementation of environmental initiatives, particularly those identified in the Environment Action Plan.

“We have great initiatives on land degradation, like the great green wall, Grow Africa Programme, Africa Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), so we hope this platform will be able to help us better coordinate these different activities,” Estherine Fotabong NEPAD Director of Programmes implementation and coordination said in an interview with PAMACC at COP23 in Bonn,Germany.

The Environment Partnership Platform according to a concept note from NEPAD is in responds to a request from the African Union Summit which mandated African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) to conduct a substantive analysis of the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) Summit and develop a roadmap for the effective implementation of the outcomes in Africa.

“The platform will coordinate, mobilize resources, foster knowledge and align support for the implementation of the Environment Action Plan,” the concept note stated. Additionally, the 14th Session of AMCEN of September 2012, decided to develop and implement Regional Flagship Programmes (RFPs) as a means to ensure the effective implementation of the outcomes of the Rio +20 Summit.

The platform will seek to deliver a paradigm shift in addressing environmental degradation in Africa, in both public and private sectors and to develop innovative models. It will also engender the prerequisite political support, needed institutional structures and adequate human capacity at national and regional levels to ensure integrated environmental management.

The environment, though a cross cutting, will remain distinct and adequately harmonized with other sectors and priorities like agriculture, infrastructure and energy. Climate related risks will increasingly be mainstreamed into development and adaptation actions that will be carried out in priority regions and sectors to meet the need of especially vulnerable rural populations in Africa, according to NEPAD.

The rural populations of Africa are heavily dependent on natural resources for livelihoods with the ecosystem providing food, medicine, energy and construction materials, thus the need to better coordinate project activities geared at guaranteeing food security.

“Food security for Africa is not only derived from agriculture but also from natural resources and the ecosystems,” Fotabong points out. The platform is in response to a strong imperative to adopt a multi-sectoral approach to programme designing and implementation and strengthen the necessary synergies and improve coordination at various levels.

To achieve this, a country-driven and regionally-integrated Initiative that will provide the tools for action and platform for partnerships that will deliver results has become imperative.

Coordinated by NEPAD, the initiative will be fully aligned with and be an integral part of the CAADP framework, as well as cultivating the necessary multi-sectoral engagements, including the environment, natural resources and climate change policies and programmes.

“To support countries, a virtual and physical African Alliance was established where knowledge is exchanged to identify best practice and partnerships across stakeholder groups are catalysed,” she said.

Accordingly,the platform will also foster a coherent African development Agenda as well as sustaining the collective power and urge for action. It will also facilitate assessment of individual (country, region, sector, etc.) performance against continental and even global benchmarks. Fotabong says they hope to get many development partners align in support of the new programme that will also serve as a collaborative platform to identify innovative sources of financing.

“We are also looking forward to the alignment of development partners to support these programmes” Building partnerships is a critical success factor for the sustenance of the platform given the multiplicity of actors and its ability to deliver on the mandate assigned to it by AMCEN. The platform will therefore create an avenue for constructive dialogue, especially as Africa could benefit from the experience of countries across the world that have achieved considerable environmental sustainability.