BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) 2018 will herald the launching of a new platform that will harmonise and coordinate multiple programmes and actors in Africa’s environment sector.
                                                                                                      
Estherine Fotabong, Programmes director of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) disclosed this today on the side-lines of the ongoing UN climate talks in Bonn also known as COP 23.
 
The new platform is a response to the call for the creation of an African Environment Partnership Platform (AEPP) to “coordinate, mobilize resources, foster knowledge and align support for the implementation of the Environment Action Plan” made at the 14th Session of African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN).
 
The African Union Commission and NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, in close collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, RECs and other relevant partners have been mandated to develop modalities for the operationalization of this environment partnership platform.
Ms Fotabong says 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.
 
“The platform will engender the prerequisite political support, needed institutional structures and adequate human capacity at national and regional levels to ensure integrated environmental management” she added.
 
Multiple environmental schemes
 
Concerns, however, have been raised by experts over the multiplicity of interventionist schemes and the attendant lack of coordination in the management of Africa’s environment.
 
Is this platform coming up because there is shortage of interventions in the field of environmental management in Africa? What about the lack of coordination and partnership between the various players at regional, sub-regional and national levels?
 
NEPAD believes the new platform is an accurate response to these concerns.
 
It is of the view that the cross-border nature of natural resources and transboundary effects of climate change, land degradation and other natural disasters make it imperative for the mainstreaming of national and regional planning process which this platform will spearhead.
 
The environment, Ms Fotabong says, though a cross cutting sector, 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 will be carried out in priority regions and sectors.
 
The Africa Environmental Partnership Platform is expected to draw lessons from the success and challenges of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme Partnership Platform (CAADP PP) which provided a framework for developing African agriculture and rallying support for agricultural transformation.

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) African groups participating in the 23rd conference of parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have expressed their frustrations over the seemingly endless trail of negotiations.

Speaking at a press conference on the side-lines of the ongoing climate talks, leaders of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) expressed dismay over the slow progress of negotiations and inertia on the part of developed country parties.

“Time is up for negotiations,” Roger Nkodo Dang (MP), President of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) said.

“For 21 years we have negotiated, and now we have the Paris Agreement. There is nothing more to negotiate, its time to implement the Paris Agreement,” Nkodo Dang added. According to the Chair of the Pan African Parliament committee on Rural Economy and Agriculture, Hon. Jacqueline Amogine, “climate change in Africa has a gender imperative as women are the most affected when there is no food on the table and no water to drink.”

“If the COP must remain relevant, it has to move from talk to action especially on the implementation of the key aspects of the Paris Agreement,” Hon Amogine says. Evaluating the progress after one week of negotiations, the coalition of African civil society groups under the aegis of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) expressed their concern over the little progress which brackets many issues regarding the means of implementation of the Paris Agreement.

“We are worried that the aspect of differentiation relating to climate finance is vanishing in the negotiations so far, PACJA’s Mithika Mwenda said.

“We are concerned about the fulfilment of the pre-2020 finance commitment on the provision of $100 billion per year up to 2020 and we urge the COP Presidency to initiate talks of the new finance goal here in Bonn to show urgency of the matter,” the PACJA Secretary General added.

African groups also expressed their strong support for adaptation to serve the Paris Agreement and they warned that the current discussions on the agenda should not be dragged to next year.

“The agreement should be concluded here at the COP23 and parties should maintain the current governance structure as well as ensure sustainability of funding sources,” the groups added.

Meanwhile, frustrated NGOs are again thinking of suing the governments of rich nations over their inaction in combatting climate change-induced loss and damage.

An abiding nightmare of many developed country governments, the thirdpole.net says, is a slew of lawsuits seeking compensation in the International Court of Justice, as these countries have been responsible for most of the build up of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere.

This is why developed country delegations pushed for legal liability to be removed from the Paris Agreement at the UN climate talks two years ago. The trade-off was that rich nations would “enable action and provide support to developing countries” to deal with the loss and damage.

Harjeet Singh, the global lead on climate change at ActionAid, says “there has been hardly any work on this”. An international mechanism to work on the issue of loss and damage – called the Warsaw International Mechanism – was set up at the 2013 climate summit in Poland.

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - A special initiative to protect people living in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) from the heath impacts of climate change was today launched at the ongoing Bonn climate talks.

The initiative is an effort by World Health Organization, in collaboration with the UN Climate Change secretariat and in partnership with the Fijian Presidency of the twenty-third Conference of the Parties (COP23).

By 2030, the initiate wants all Small Island Developing States to have climate-resilient health systems.  

It also envisions drastic global reduction of carbon emissions both to protect the most vulnerable from climate risks and deliver large health benefits in carbon-emitting countries.
 
With four main goals, the initiative seeks to amplify the voices of health leaders in Small Island Developing States, so they have more impact at home and internationally; and  to gather the evidence to support the business case for investment in climate change and health.
 
It further seeks to promote policies that improve preparedness and prevention, including "climate proof" health systems and the multiplication of international financial support levels to climate and health in small island developing states.
 
"People living in Small Island Developing States are on the frontline of extreme weather events, rising sea levels and increased risk of infectious disease," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO. "We owe it to these people to do everything we can to help them prepare for the future that is already washing up on their shores."
 
"We in Fiji know all too well that climate change poses a serious threat to the health of our people. I'm delighted that we are launching this initiative - in partnership with the WHO and UNFCCC - to better equip small island states like ours with the knowledge, resources and technology to increase the resilience of their health systems, as part of larger efforts to adapt to climate change," said Fijian Prime Minister and COP23 President Frank Bainimarama.
 
Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change believes “climate change will increasingly impact the health and well-being of people everywhere unless nations fully implement the Paris Agreement”.
 
“Small islands are in the frontline from extreme weather events that can contaminate drinking water to health-hazardous heatwaves and the spread of infectious diseases. This initiative can strengthen the response of small islands to the rising risks as the world works to ensure that together we keep a global temperature rise well below 2 degrees C and better, no higher than 1.5 degrees, “ she said.

Secretary General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Mithika Mwenda described the initiative as symbolic coming at a time island states have suffered serious health challenges enormously due to climate-related hurricanes and tornadoes.

"As this initiative comes under the Fijian Presidency of the COP, we believe Fiji knows where the shoe pinches most, and we urge them to lead the COP23 into concrete outcomes that will shine light on the increasingly gloomy picture we are witnessing on the path towards the 2018 global stock-take," Mithika added.

SIDS and climate change
 
Small Island Developing States have long been recognized as especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Their situation is highlighted in the UNFCCC, by Ministers of Health at the 2008 World Health Assembly, and in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
 
They have also pioneered innovative approaches to improve the resilience of their health systems to climate change. As well as emitting a small proportion of the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change, many are further reducing their already low carbon emissions.
 
"Small Island Developing States are ready to take leadership towards green, resilient and health-promoting national development – but the support of the international community is essential,” said Dr Joy St John, recently appointed Assistant Director-General for Climate and Other Determinants of Health at WHO.
 
"Less than 1.5% of international finance for climate change adaptation is allocated to projects which ensure that the health of all people is preserved, and only a fraction of this supports small island developing states. The recent severe weather events in the Caribbean demonstrate that targeted interventions are important. We need to do much more and we need to act very quickly."
 
Country ownership is a central principle of this initiative. Ministers of health from some of the most affected countries have already started to provide input through consultation with WHO's Director-General and at WHO Regional Committee meetings, and this process will continue.
 
Since 2015, WHO has been working with the UNFCCC secretariat to develop detailed country profiles to assess risks, and provide tailored advice on how these countries can adapt to, and mitigate, the health effects of climate change.  More than 45 country profiles have already been completed and, as part of this initiative, WHO commits to publishing a country profile for all small island developing states by the end of 2018.
 
Many national health actors, development and United Nations agencies are already making important contributions to protect health in small island developing states. WHO’s initiative aims to bring together existing and new efforts and scale them up so they achieve maximum impact.
 
“The vision is that, by 2030, all health systems in small island developing states will be able to withstand climate variability and change,” adds Dr St John. “And, of course, that countries around the world will have substantially reduced carbon emissions.”