PAMACC Announcement: Climate Home News is seeking a hungry, tenacious reporter to join our team in London.

Working from our office in Covent Garden, you will bolster CHN’s coverage of the global politics and impacts of climate change. This is a full-time role, reporting to the editor-in-chief.

Climate Home News is an award-winning specialist news site with a mission to bring important climate stories to as large an audience as possible. We are fiercely independent and seek to hold powerful actors to account, while also tracking the politics and actions that will decide the future of our climate. Our coverage of UN climate negotiations is unrivalled.

As a small news website, we prize original reporting above all, constantly looking to break news and cover stories others miss. We are seeking a versatile journalist with the ability to write news, features and analysis and source scoops.

As well as keeping our small newsroom ticking with regular, punchy news articles, you will be expected to help break more detailed stories of political intrigue – like our recent exposé of the story behind the removal of a leading Fijian diplomat – or corporate activity – like the documents we sourced on BP’s plan to drill for oil in Australia.

You should be able to demonstrate a flair for enterprise reporting and building investigations into stories. Data skills and experience using FOI are also advantageous.

Other desirable attributes:

• Knowledge of climate change, international climate politics and diplomacy
• Strong contacts in government, industry or finance in the climate space
• Experience reporting at UN climate conferences
• Languages other than English
• Ability to think creatively about story delivery, visualisation and use of social media to reach our audience

We specialise in reporting climate diplomacy, particularly the UN process. But we do much more than that. Our outlook is internationalist and the successful reporter will demonstrate an ability to source stories from around the world, for a global audience. The job will involve travel to report from climate summits and the frontlines of climate change.

Salary: DOE

All applications are to be completed and submitted by 5pm GMT, Monday, August 6, 2018.

All candidates interested in applying should send a resume, clips and cover letter as one document to CHN’s editor Karl Mathiesen (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). You cover letter should be no longer than two pages. All candidates must have the right to work and live in the UK. You should be located, or prepared to relocate to London, although we are prepared to consider special cases.

Climate Home News is owned and operated by Climate Change News Ltd. We are an equal employment opportunity employer, and do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, age, disability, national origin or citizenship.

KISUMU, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Maurince Otieno has been a fisherman for over 15 years. He inherited this outstanding skill of fishing from his late grandfather George Omollo Otieno who was a renowned fisherman in his time.

For the past several months, Otieno who does his fishing along the shores of Dunga beach in Lake Victoria has been experiencing difficulties in his fishing expedition despite his bloodline skills.

Otieno, currently in his late 40s says he no longer harvests sufficient fish to meet the needs of his immediate and extended family that depends on him.

This has made him a very scared man. He is afraid of what the future holds for him and his family as his only source of income continues to diminish very fast.

“We are doomed. I don’t know how I will support my family now that I hardly have any catch. I am a worried man,” he says as we set out for a fish expedition along the shores of Lake Victoria in Dunga beach.

Ever since the passing on of his father more than 10 years ago, Otieno notes he has been eking out a living out of the turbulence waters of Lake Victoria.

He observes that his father and grandfathers, were all fishermen and they passed the skills of fishing on to their siblings.

But Otieno notes that the tradition that has always been passed down from one generation to another was bound to come to an end in his life time as fishing spots continue to diminish along the shores of Lake Victoria.

“I am certain that my generation will have nothing to pass down to coming generation as it has been our norm and tradition,” stresses Otieno in a low tone with a sense of disappointment.

He notes that his family has been forced to find alternative ways to make a living besides fishing which has been their bloodline.

“I don’t know what is happening to our God given lake, we hardly catch any fish,” narrates Otieno as he jumps into his dilapidated boat.

“You see all these,” he says as he hands me a life jacket and shows me a fleet of abandon boats that were on the verge of rotting, “the owners abandon them here due to declining fish in the lake.”

With disillusionment evident in his hoarse voice, he engages the forward gear to his boat and the engine roars as we begin to drift and gain momentum as the boat accelerates.

I engage a handful of fishermen that we find and their sentiments were similar.

After three hours of fishing with no success, we docked the boat at the shores of Dunga beach.

It was at this beach that I was lucky to bump into a researcher and scientist who according to Otieno has been doing “serious research “of the lake.

Dickson Wallace, the scientist and researcher says she has been conducting research on the lake for over three years.

Wallance notes that the lake was adversely being impacted negatively by the climate change that is common with extreme weather patterns over a period of time.

He attributes extreme weather changes to climate change, which he says was also being experienced not only in Nyanza region of Kenya but also across other neighbouring towns.

To this end, he observes that the rampant variation particularly in temperatures, may have been the cause of declining marine life at Africa’s Largest Lake - Lake Victoria.

“It is no doubt that a significant number of aquatic marine are usually affected by extreme weather conditions caused by climate changes,” he says.

A report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) this year which assessed the extinction risk of 651 freshwater species in Lake Victoria  including fish and aquatic plants found that up to 24 percent of these species are being threatened with extinction.

The world nature watchdog cautioned that, "three-quarters (76 percent) of these endemics are at risk of extinction."

Will Darwall, the co-author of the report who heads IUCN's freshwater biodiversity unit said in the report that although "the Lake Victoria Basin is incredibly rich in unique species found nowhere else on Earth, its biodiversity is being decimated."

Apart from climate change, the report attributed this to Industrial and agricultural pollution, invasion of the deadly water hyacinth, over-harvesting of fish and wetland degradation among others.

One of the worst affected fish species is the African Lungfish, according to this report.

As discovered by this report, Kibet Chemiron, a marine expert and fellow at the University of Port Elizabeth in South Africa, confirms the negative effects of climate change on freshwater species in Lake Victoria.

According to Kibet, most aquatic animal species that are used for human consumption are poikilothermic (animals whose internal body temperatures change with the temperature around them) and are usually affected by extreme weather brought by climate change.  

Chemiron explains that any changes in habitat temperatures usually influence fish metabolism, growth rate, productivity, seasonal reproduction, and susceptibility to diseases and toxins.

“Fish population may be reducing drastically as a result of these factors emanating from climate change,” he says.

Rose Anyango, a resident who has a mini food joint at the beach says they no longer have access to clean water.

“The dams where we used to access clean water are now filled with mad caused by flooding water,” she states.

This article was made possible thanks to support from InfoNile and Code for Africa.

Heat waves and droughts in the tropics would make life unbearable for people living near felled forests in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa; Climate agreements only tackle half the climate threat to forests

OSLO, Norway (PAMACC News) — An emerging body of research on the non-carbon impacts of deforestation reveals that destroying tropical forests significantly alters the Earth’s delicate energy balance, rainfall, and wind systems, leading to warmer and drier conditions near cleared forests and out-of-whack weather patterns across the globe, according to a new report by leading forest experts to be released at a major global forest gathering on June 27, 2018.

The research suggests these “new” impacts of deforestation, rooted in the flow of solar energy through forests across the upper atmosphere, disruptions to the atmosphere’s chemical cocktail, and dramatic declines in water cycling are just as damaging to the climate as the carbon released into the atmosphere when trees are cut down.

“We’ve known for a long time that chopping down tropical forests spews dangerous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere,” said Nancy Harris, Research Manager of the Forests program at the World Resources Institute and working paper co-author.. “Now we are learning that removing trees from the earth’s surface also throws off the energy, water and chemical balances that make it possible for us to grow food and live our lives in predictable and productive ways. If we continue to cut down trees, we’ll have to rewrite what we know about the weather—and we can forget about global goals to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

The working paper, “Tropical Forests and Climate Change: The Latest Science,” is one of nine studies released today at the opening of the two-day Oslo Tropical Forest Forum, an event hosted by the Norwegian government to celebrate results and identify remaining challenges 10 years after reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) was included in the climate change negotiations, and to advance strategies for mobilizing forests to help achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The working paper synthesizes findings from a slew of recent studies that, when they come together, conclude that large-scale forest loss in any of the three major tropical forest zones— Latin America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa—would lead to a rise in local temperatures, and disruptions to the water cycle locally and half a world away. These studies use sophisticated modeling to determine the physical, chemical and reflective impacts of removing forests from the surface of the earth en masse, and satellites to measure the changes that have already happened.   “When you add up these impacts of forest loss, one thing is clear: people living closest to deforested areas face a hotter, drier reality,” said Harris. “These changes won’t hit Brazilians, Indonesians, or Congolese sometime in the future—they are hitting them now, and they’ll only get worse as more forests disappear.”

Areas in the tropics that experienced deforestation in the last decade have seen significant and long-lasting increases in local air surface temperatures. “Observed local temperature impacts of deforestation are in one direction: hotter,” said Michael Wolosin, Forest Climate Analytics’ President and working paper co-author. “Daily average temperatures went up by a degree, and maximum temperatures by 2 degrees C, in just a decade. Over the same period, the global carbon and GHG impact was less than one fifth as much – 0.2 degrees C. Deforestation is wreaking havoc on local climates across the tropics.”

The Amazon region of South America, home of the world’s largest rainforest, would feel the most heat and drought from forest loss. Complete deforestation would lead to regional warming of about two degrees Celsius and a roughly 15 percent drop in annual rainfall. Researchers have already linked the 2015 drought that hit Brazil, impacting people, crops and industry, to forest loss in the Amazon.

“In its focus on ending greenhouse gas emissions, the Paris Agreement only takes the first step in addressing the drastic consequences of deforestation on the climate,” saidWolosin. “If global and national policymakers fail to come up with an action plan for staving off the immediate and debilitating impact of deforestation on local and global weather patterns, they could put the lives of millions in peril. The question is, what’s more important – the short-term income generated from fields after fields of soy or palm oil, or a stable, predictable weather patterns for generations to come?”  

Tropical forests drive the global movement of air, water, and heat in diverse ways, leading to profound impacts on the climate. Through the process of evapotranspiration, trees pump water from their roots through their leaves as water vapor, humidifying the air and causing surface cooling. Because forests have more leaf surface area and deeper roots than grasslands or croplands, they cycle more water. The water pumped through a single tree can cause local surface cooling equivalent to 70 kWh for every 100 liters, enough energy to power two household central air-conditioners per day. Removing these trees can lead to local flooding, soil erosion and droughts.

Impacts from these tropical forest cover changes on water and heat cycling extend well beyond the tropical regions themselves through “teleconnections”, associated with the mass movement of air and conditions in the upper atmosphere. An increase in temperature in the tropics due to deforestation generates large upward-moving air masses. When these hit the upper atmosphere they cause ripples, or teleconnections, that flow outward in various directions, similar to the way an underwater earthquake can create a tsunami.  

According to one landmark study about this phenomenon, complete deforestation could put the climate in some of the world’s most important agriculture regions off kilter. These variations in rainfall and spikes in temperature could occur across the world. For example, complete deforestation of the Amazon Basin would likely reduce rainfall in the US Midwest, Northwest and parts of the south during the agricultural season. The complete deforestation of Central Africa would likely cause declines in rainfall in the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the US Midwest and Northwest and increase it on the Arabian Peninsula. There could also be precipitation declines in Ukraine and Southern Europe.  

“Halting deforestation, allowing damaged forests to grow back, and keeping undisturbed forests intact, are necessary to ensure the stability of the climate” said Frances Seymour, Program Chair of the Oslo Tropical Forests Forum and lead author of Why Forests? Why Now?. “Fortunately, we know a lot about ways to stop deforestation, but developing countries can’t do this alone. Donor countries should ramp up funding of efforts by tropical forest nations to halt deforestation, and address the global consumption, trade and investment patterns that drive forest loss.”  

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) – It is a rainy season in Kenya, and the environment in many parts of the country including dryland areas is generally green. But two months ago in Kyenire village, Mbeere Sub-county of Embu in Eastern Kenya, it was Venanzio Njiru’s two acre farm that stood out as the only green spot surrounded by environment with dry grass and shrubs with brown leaves running into the horizon.

However, rainfall is for a short season in this part of the country because after it subsides towards the end of May as predicted by the Kenya Meteorological Department, residents may soon be subjected to another dry spell that may last between one and three years without the precious drops.

“This is how it has always been, hence a reason why I had adopt a smart way of surviving,” said Njiru, who has now invested in Climate Smart Agriculture through permaculture.

Using water piped from Thosi River some 10 kilometres away, the former street hawker in Mombasa has a mosaic of different types of crops that include cover crops, leguminous plants, fruit trees, among others intercropped with maize planted in zai-pits and even sugarcane. He also keeps cattle, indigenous chicken, goats, and despite of it being a dryland area, he keeps fish in his water storage ponds.

“Using very simple techniques, Njiru is one of the very few residents in this area who have sufficient food to feed their families, and have more for the market despite the tough climatic conditions,” said Wanjiku Wanjohi of Ishiara Parish, a Catholic church in Embu County.

The Parish is one of the faith based organisations on the ground, which have been interacting with residents especially smallholder farmers to identify best practices that could help in formulating a county climate change policy document that is responsive to the prevailing conditions.

The first ever climate change policy drafting initiative at the county level in Kenya is driven by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in collaboration with Trocaire, and with support from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) where faith based organisations have been collaborating with community based groups and individuals to identify best practices at the grass roots level.

“Clearly, Njiru together with a few others have demonstrated that with access to water for irrigation, residents can easily adapt to climate change, an idea that we thought was an important factor to be included in the county climate change policy,” said Wanjohi.

Development of such policies dominated the annual summit on Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) in Nairobi, where experts said that that was the only way of scaling up CSA, by moving from pilots to the implementation.

 “We already have enough ideas and innovations. What we lack in many African countries is the implementation framework,” said Dr Richard Mungang, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Africa Regional Climate Change Programme Coordinator.

“We need policies to govern Climate Smart Agriculture, because without policies, there cannot be development,” he said.

His sentiments were echoed by Richard Kamau the Executive Director at the Centre for Agriculture Networking and Information Sharing at the University of Nairobi, who said that data to guide formulation of such policies should be collected from farmers on the ground. “We also need involvement of the academia, the public sector and all other interested groups,” he said.

According to Edith Ofwona, a Senior Programme Specialist at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), there is evidence to show that CSA can reduce poverty and eradicate hunger, and so, there is need for countries to develop implementation frameworks as the way forward.

So far, following the Kenya’s example, Njiru’s practice has already been anchored in the draft climate change policy document, which urges the county government of Embu to support establishment of water harvesting infrastructure and mobilize community members to undertake household level water harvesting initiatives and interventions.

According to Obed Koringo of PACJA, the document has already been internalized by the county government, and it will soon be taken out for public scrutiny before it is converted into a legal instrument.

“We can only allocate funds for such climate change interventions only if they are anchored in some kind of law,” said Nicholas Ngece, the Chief Officer in charge of Environment at the County Government of Embu.

“Through policies, we will easily have the private sector working together with the public sector and the banking sector so as to stabilize markets and increase financing,” Dr Munang told delegates at the Nairobi CSA summit.

The other two counties that are leading the way in development of community based climate change policy in Kenya are Kitui and Tharaka Nithi Counties, where both are also using faith based organisations to access communities at the grassroots level.