COP25 ended in Madrid without a clear deal on how to finance losses and damage associated with climate change impacts as proposed by the developing countries. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADRID, Dec 17 2019 (IPS)

Millions of people, particularly in Africa, who lose their property, homes, and even die due to climate-related disasters will have to wait at least another year for the international community to agree on a means of supporting them.

This became clear when the 25th round of negotiations on climate change came to an end in Madrid, Spain on Dec.15 without a clear deal on how to finance losses and damage associated with climate change impacts as proposed by the developing countries.

“We expected a review of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage for it to have a clear means of implementation, especially for emergency response in Africa,” Prof Seth Osafo, the Legal adviser of the President of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) told IPS.

The Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts was established in 2013 during the 19^th round of climate negotiations in Warsaw, Poland under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

“The common person in Africa is suffering and this is an urgent call for international support,” said Michael Arunga, the Emergency Communication Specialist for World Vision’s Mali Response office.

In Mali alone, says Arunga, 5.7 million people are in dire need of humanitarian support, among them 1.6 million children, given the climate crisis and political conflicts in the country.

Mali’s population mainly relies on agriculture as their main source of livelihood. But Arunga notes that the ever-expanding Sahara Desert, frequent droughts and floods have caused the displacement of thousands of families, especially in the northern parts of the West African nation.

Less than two months ago, 42 people died after they were buried alive by landslides in Western Cameroon following heavy rainfall in the Central African Nation.

• In East Africa, more than 130 people in Kenya lost their lives in the past two months as a result of flooding and landslides due to unexpected heavy rains pounding the region. Experts say that the heavy rains are caused by the warming up of the Indian Ocean.
• According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, 330,000 people are in need of humanitarian support in the country, while at least 17,000 have been displaced in the past two months.
• “Children’s lives have been interrupted by the ongoing rains and floods in Kenya, with many of them losing their homes, schools and access to health care,” Maniza Zaman, the UNICEF Kenya Representative said in a statement released on Dec. 4.
• In Tizert Village, in the Taroudant region, southern Morocco, people are yet to forget a flash flood that swept across a soccer field on Aug.18, killing at least seven people who were watching a local match.
• Earlier this year, Southern Africa suffered Cyclone Idai and Kenneth, which led to losses of property and lives. A few months later, some countries in the region are currently experiencing extreme droughts, which experts say are as a result of climate change.

“It is evident everywhere that millions of people have been forced to migrate from their homes due to unfavourable climatic conditions and related disasters, people have lost property worth trillions of dollars, and millions more have died across Africa as a result of climate related disasters,” said Robert Muthami, a climate change expert from Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung based in Kenya.

Scientists have already warned that the situation can only worsen in the coming years, and therefore, there is need for urgent climate action.

Ambassador Muhammed Nasr, the Chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) told journalists said progress was slow on getting developed nations to commit to scaling up finance for losses and damage associated with climate change impacts. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

According to the African negotiators, most negotiators from developed nations were non-committal on scaling up finance. “We have been discussing to very late hours, sometimes up to 3.00am in the morning, but the progress was very slow,” Ambassador Muhammed Nasr, the Chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) told journalists on Friday.

According to Ambassador Seyni Nafo, the former AGN Chair, the team was forced to push some of the most important issues to the next Conference of Parties (COP26), which will be held in Glasgow in 2020.

“It is better to leave Madrid without having decisions on some key issues [rather] than having bad decisions,” said Nafo.

The negotiators said they were avoiding what they referred to as the ‘Kyoto Disease,’ where there is an agreement with rules and procedures, but without any benefit to Africa.

“It is unfortunate that industrialised countries chose to follow the unproductive path, focusing on nitty-gritty and postponing firm commitments,” said Dr Mithika Mwenda, the Executive Secretary for the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). “It was disappointing that they consistently avoided or sidelined any discussion related to providing support, notably finance,” he told IPS.

Studies have shown that Africa emits only four percent of greenhouse gases, which are responsible for global warming, but the continent is the most impacted by climate change.

Haiti’s Environment Minister Joseph Jouthe says that “climate change is a very big terror in Haiti”, and without funds the Caribbean island nation is unable to adapt and mitigate against it. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
MADRID, Dec 13 2019 (IPS)

Haiti’s Environment Minister Joseph Jouthe has compared the climate emergency to a violent act and appealed to the international community for help to fight climate change.

“Climate change is a very big terror in Haiti. It’s very hard for us to deal with climate change,” Jouthe told IPS on the margins of the United Nations climate summit, the 25th Conference Of The Parties (COP25), in Madrid, Spain.

“Haiti is not responsible for what’s going on with climate change but we are suffering from it. We want better treatment from the international community.”

Jouthe said Haiti remains committed to strengthening its resilience to climate shocks and to contributing to the global effort to mitigate the phenomenon.

Haiti is pursuing a four-fold objective in relation to climate change:

• promoting, at the level of all sectors and other ministries, a climate-smart national development;
• creating a coherent response framework for country directions and actions to address the impacts of climate change;
• promoting education on the environment and climate change as a real strategic lever to promote the emergence of environmental and climatic citizenship; and
• putting in place a reliable measurement, reporting and verification system that can feed into the iterative planning processes of national climate change initiatives.

But Jouthe said the country simply cannot achieve these targets without financial help.

“In Haiti all the indicators are red. We have many projects but as you may know [The Caribbean Community] CARICOM doesn’t have enough funding to build projects,” he said.

Patrice Cineus, a young Haitian living in Quebec, said access to funding has been a perennial problem for Haiti.

But he believes Haiti is partly to blame for the seeming lack of inability to quickly receive financial help.

“Haiti, my country needs to build evidence-based policies, and this will make it easier to attract help from the international community,” Cineus told IPS.

“If we don’t have strong policies, it’s not possible. We need research within the country. We need innovative programmes within the country and then we can look for financial support and technical support.

“We cannot have access to funding because the projects we are submitting are not well done. We don’t use scientific data to build them. They are not done professionally,” Cineus added.

Cineus’ theory appears to be substantiated by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), which helps CARICOM member states address the issue of adaptation and climate change.

The centre’s Executive Director Dr. Kenrick Leslie said since 2016, under an Italian programme, it is required to develop projects that would help countries adapt to different areas of climate change.

“One of the areas that we have been considering, and we spoke with Haiti, is to build resilience in terms of schools and shelters that can be used in the case of a disaster.

“Funds have been approved but, unfortunately, unlike the other member states where we have already implemented at least one, and some cases two, projects, we have not been able to get the projects in Haiti off the ground,” Leslie told IPS.

“Each time they have identified an area, when we go there the site is not a suitable site and then we have to start the process again.”

While Haiti waits for funding, Dr. Kénel Délusca, current head of mission of a technical assistance project, AP3C, of the Ministry of Environment and Environment and the European Union, said the country remains one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change.

Scientists say extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods and droughts will become worse as the planet warms, and Island nations like Haiti are expected to be among the hardest hit by those and other impacts of a changing climate, like shoreline erosion.

“The marine environment is extremely important to the Haitian people. There are more than 8 million people living in coastal communities in Haiti,” Délusca told IPS.

“There are more or less 50,000 families whose activities are based on these specific ecosystems. In other words, this is a very important ecosystem for Haiti and different levels – at the economic level, at the cultural level, at the social level.”

Haiti is divided into 10 départements, and Délusca said nine of them are coastal. Additionally, he said the big cities of Haiti are all located within the coastal zone.

“These ecosystems are very strategic to the development of Haiti. The Haitians have a lot of activities that are based on the marine resources. We also develop some cultural and social activities that are based on these environments,” Délusca said.

For poor island countries like Haiti, studies show, the economic costs, infrastructural damage and loss of human life as a result of climate change is already overwhelming. And scientists expect it will only get worse.

Though Haiti’s greenhouse gas emissions amount cumulatively to less than 0.03 per cent of global carbon emissions, it is a full participant in the 2015 Paris climate agreement and has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emission by five percent by 2030.

Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Patricia Scotland said there is urgent need for higher climate ambition to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 ° Celsius – or risk severe and irreversible impacts. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
MADRID, Dec 12 2019 (IPS)

Commonwealth countries, including those in the Caribbean, continue to push for more ambition, following reports that a few very influential parties have stymied efforts to respond to the climate emergency.

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) has expressed concern that if this persists, the majority’s efforts to create platforms to unleash climate action suitable for averting catastrophic warming will be thwarted.

• World Resources Institute explains that “in the climate negotiations, “ambition” refers to countries’ collective will—through both domestic action and international initiatives—to cut global greenhouse gas emissions enough to meet the 2°C goal”.

As the United Nations climate negotiations, the 25th Conference Of The Parties (COP25), is nearing an end, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Patricia Scotland said there is urgent need for higher climate ambition to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 ° Celsius – or risk severe and irreversible impacts.

“We’ve never seen disasters on this scale before – bigger than ever, seas are rising, there’s increased desertification, increase in drought,” Scotland told IPS.

“The fight is on. Nobody ever knows how a COP will go until the end, so there’s a lot of us who are advocating for greater ambition because we have no choice.”

• According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is imperative that global warming be held to 1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels. It also warns that global warming of 2 ° C would have devastating impacts on the planet, including more frequent extreme weather events, flooding and drought.
• A special report from the IPCC defines global warming as “an increase in combined surface air and sea surface temperatures averaged over the globe and over a 30-year period”.
• The report, entitled Global Warming of 1.5 ° C: An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels, uses comparisons to the 1850 to 1900 period as an approximation of pre-industrial temperatures.

Scotland said an ideal outcome from COP 25 would be recognition of the IPCC’s findings.

“A recognition that we have no time. A recognition that the IPCC reports are correct and that we now have an aggressive implementable, action-oriented plan, which every single country is going to be committed to delivering. That would be my dream,” Scotland said.

“If you look through everything the Commonwealth is doing, we too are tired of talk; we want to do. We are committed to doing.”

Scotland said commonwealth countries are living climate change.

• This September, the Bahamas was hit by Hurricane Dorian, resulting in initial damages already totalling $3.4 billion, equal to one-fourth of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• The catastrophic 2017 Atlantic hurricane season affected many Caribbean states, resulting in an estimated 3,300 deaths and damages estimated at $282 billion.
• In Dominica, Hurricane Maria resulted in total damages of $931 million or 236 perecent of their 2016 GDP.

“We are living with the sea rises, we are living with coastal erosion, we are living with the degradation of habitats, we are living with the reality of what climate change means, and we’re fighting,” Scotland said.

“It is not enough for us to talk. All of us need to do constructive things, which will make it incrementally better and more achievable for us to get where we can go. I think we can do it, but we haven’t got a lot of time.

“I’ve said before, human genius got us into this mess, and human genius is going to have to get us out. And I know that the people of the Caribbean and the people of the Commonwealth, we have a lot of genius, so we are going to have to utilise it very quickly,” she added.

Dr. Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary General at the CARICOM Secretariat, said the expectation coming into COP 25 was that it was all about ambition.

For the Caribbean, he said, ambition is about trying to have member states committing to keeping the global temperature rise to below 1.5 ° C.

“We know that is a big challenge, and the ambition we want is that there will be a recommitment of all, especially the big polluters, with their Nationally Determined Contributions,” Slater told IPS.

“In other words, what will they be doing to decrease greenhouse gasses and therefore keep temperatures down? Quite frankly, we are informed that there was supposed to be what you call a stock taking at this meeting, where we would have an idea of where we are. We’re told that that might now come out. If it doesn’t come out, we still hope that we will be on our way.”

Slater said Caribbean countries will continue to put moral pressure on big polluters as they were causing the problems and should commit to solving them.

“We’re seeing the horrible storms, but it is not just those. There are the slow onset events – that is, as the temperature rises and the level of the sea, we are losing land, we’re losing out mangroves, we are losing out coral reefs,” Slater said.

“We want that reality coming out of this COP, that we send a message strong enough so that the bigger players understand and to put some moral pressure on them to say ‘hey, we are part of the universe. We have a right to be here, and that right we have to be here depends on all of us working together.’”

From left to right: Augustine Njamnshi an environmental legal expert, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a negotiator from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mohammed Nasr, the the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) Chair. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADRID, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

As the 25th session of climate negotiations draw to an end this week, the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) have been calling on the world to consider the continent as a special case in terms of implementation of the Paris Agreement and climate finance.

• The Paris Agreement is an agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, France, where the world’s nations undertook a determined course to reduce climate change. Among the commitments was to reduce the increase in global temperatures.

“We have been pushing for Africa to be given special considerations given the climate-related calamities already bedevilling the continent vis-à-vis the negligible amount of greenhouse gases emitted,” Ambassador Mohamed Nasr, the AGN chair and the Head of Environmental Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, told journalists at COP25 in Madrid.

He said that that the Paris Agreement, which was passed in 2015, had little understanding or acknowledgement for Africa’s special circumstances.

• The argument is that the African continent emits a mere 4 percent of the total greenhouse gases emitted globally, yet climate-related impacts are enormous, and science has shown that the situation is only going to worsen in the near future.

“This discussion has taken some time from 2015 until last year when it became clear that the issue has to be taken forward in a more constructive approach,” said Nasr.

Natural disasters

• In 2011, for example, the Horn of Africa region experienced a severe drought that claimed over 260,000 lives, making it one of the worst mass atrocities ever experienced in the region, according to the United Nations Dispatch.
• Another drought followed five years later in 2017, and in the first six months of 2019 there was another devastating drought in the region affecting more than 15.3 million people according to the United Nations.

Immediately after the drought, the Horn of Africa region expected a short rainy season, which usually begins in April. But this didn’t occur and instead the entire region is currently experiencing heavy downpours, which meteorological experts say is due to the warming of the Indian Ocean.

• So far, the region has had more than 300 percent above average rainfall, and this has resulted in floods, mudslides, and the collapse of buildings – which has caused the deaths to hundreds of people, while displacing thousands of households in the region.
• And when the floods eventually end, the region is expected to become a hotspot of waterborne diseases and other climate-related diseases such as malaria.
• At the same time the southern part of the continent is experiencing what farmers say is the worst drought they can remember.
• And earlier this year, Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, whose intensity and occurrence was attributed to  climate change, swept through Southern Africa affecting more than 2.2 million people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

According to Augustin Njamnshi, science has already warned that Africa was going to be the most impacted by climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

“Science has already warned that Africa was going to be the most impacted by climate change, and some of the disasters we are witnessing are just but a tip of the iceberg,” Augustine Njamnshi, a Cameroonian environmental legal expert, told IPS.

“We need funds to help our people develop resilience to these disasters, we need to give them appropriate technologies to enable them adapt, and we also need to consider that some of the problems they are experiencing are not their own making, and therefore it is injustice for them,” Njamnshi said.

A U.N. report indicates that African countries are paying between 2 to 9 percent of their GDP on adapting to climate change, a phenomenon caused by the developed world and Asian Tigers. And according to Dr James Murombedzi, a policy expert at the U.N., most of these expenditures are never budgeted for.

In 2017, there were no pastures in many parts of Kenya, leading to massive death of livestock. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Climate Science

According to Nasr, AGN recognises last year’s scientific report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned that on average Africa will be impacted at least 2° Celsius more than the rest of the world.

“This means that if the global temperatures rise by 1.5° Celsius, then Africa will experience 3.5, and this is a clear reason why the continent must never be treated the same way as the rest of the world,” said Nasr.

Africa Commitment to Paris Agreement

Nasr points out that despite the calamities, Africa has been at the forefront of combatting climate change, noting that African countries have submitted some of the most ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

• Under the Paris Agreement, all parties were supposed to submit their NDCs, which are a set of interventions prepared by countries to contribute to the reduction of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

“We need special financial and technical support and motivation so as to implement the NDCs in a more sustainable manner,” he said.

Africa’s Natural Resources dilemma

The experts noted that Africa is endowed with natural resources in relation to oil, gas, coal among other minerals.

“We know that the mining is one of the highly emitting industries. But at the same time we know that oil and gas are very important resources for wealth. Yet, there is a call from the international community that we should not invest in such resources,” said Nasr.

“This puts Africa in a huge dilemma because as much as we are ambitious, the socio economic indicator on the continent is very low, hence the need for special supports so as to develop in a sustainable manner,” he said.

According to Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a senior negotiator for the Democratic Republic of Congo, it becomes an emotional issue because the continent is suffering the impacts of climate change, which it has not contributed to, and yet it has natural resources which countries are being asked not to use.

“But it is important that we put our emotions aside and instead use objective tools, and those tools are what science says. All we need is to receive means of implementation such as financial resources, technology transfer and capacity building – which are contained in the convection,” said Mpanu Mpanu, the former AGN chair.

Recommendations from last week’s technical sessions are already being presented to high-level government decision makers. Once approved, they will form a basis for climate action for the continent.

One of the continuous protests staged at the Social Summit for Climate Action, meeting Dec. 7-13 parallel to the official 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) on climate change. The Summit, hosted by the Complutense University of Madrid, is tackling issues such as the controversial trading of carbon credits, human rights in the climate struggle and opposition to the growing production of hydrocarbons. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MADRID, Dec 9 2019 (IPS)

As the COP25 deliberations enter the decisive final week, representatives of environmental and social organisations gathered in a parallel summit are pressing the governments to adopt stronger commitments in the face of a worsening climate emergency.

In the debates in the week-long Social Summit for Climate Action, which began Dec. 7 parallel to the Dec. 2-13 United Nations 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) on climate change taking place in Madrid, skepticism has been expressed with respect to the results to come out of the official meeting.

“Nothing good is going to come out of it for Central America, only proposals that are going to make it more vulnerable. The damage is going to become more serious,” Carolina Amaya, representative of the Salvadoran Ecological Unit, told IPS, pointing out that the region is one of the most exposed to the climate crisis, facing persistent droughts, intense storms, rising sea levels and climate migrants.

The social summit is taking place at the public Complutense University, in the west of the Spanish capital, about 15 km from the IFEMA fairgrounds which are hosting COP25 after Chile pulled out on Oct. 30 from holding the event due to massive anti-government protests and social unrest.

The alternative activities, which also end on Friday Dec. 13, include a varied menu of issues, such as free trade and its socioenvironmental impacts, oil drilling in indigenous territories, the protection of forests, and opposition to trading reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which cause global warming.

They are also discussing the monetisation of environmental services, increased funding for the most vulnerable nations, climate justice and attacks against land rights activists.

The Madrid Social Summit is also holding sessions in Santiago de Chile, under the same slogan, “Beyond COP25: People for Climate”, although there are fewer representatives of organised civil society than at previous COPs because of the last minute change of venue.

Civil society groups are also organising activities at their green pavilion within the official COP25 compound of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where their participation is more formal and ceremonious.

The demands of civil society gained visibility thanks to the mass demonstration held in Madrid on Friday Dec. 6, with the participation of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, the reluctant star of the official conference and social summit.

COP25 is the third consecutive COP held in Europe, this time under the motto “Time to act”.

The deliberations, which enter the crucial phase of the adoption of agreements Tuesday Dec. 10, are focusing on financing national climate policies, rules for emission reduction markets, and the preparation of the update of emissions reductions and funding of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, designed to assist regions particularly affected by climate change.

COP25 is the climate summit that directly precedes the 2020 entrance into effect of the historic Paris Agreement on climate change, adopted in the French capital in 2015, which left key areas to be hashed out at the current conference, such as the controversial emissions market.

In their statement to the COP, the organisations criticise the economic model based on the extraction of natural resources and mass consumption, blaming it for the climate crisis, and complaining about the lack of results in the UNFCCC meetings.

“The scientific diagnosis is clear regarding the seriousness and urgency of the moment. Economic growth happens at the expense of the most vulnerable people,” says the statement, which defends climate justice “as the backbone of the social fights of our time” and “the broadest umbrella that exists to protect all the diversity of struggles for another possible world.”

At the social summit, the first “Latin American Climate Manifesto was presented on Monday Dec. 9, which lashes out at carbon credit trading, the role of corporations in climate change and the increase in production of hydrocarbons, while expressing support for the growth of agroecology, the defence of human rights and the demand for climate justice.

In addition, indigenous peoples are holding their own meeting, the “indigenous Minga“, with the message “Traditional knowledge at the service of humanity in the face of climate change.” They are demanding respect for their rights, participation in the negotiations and recognition of their role as guardians of ecosystems such as forests.

“We are here to raise our voices and offer our contribution to fight” against the climate emergency, Jozileia Kaingang, a chief of the Kaingang people and a representative of the non-governmental Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, told IPS.

Brazilian indigenous groups are in conflict with the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro because of its attempts to undermine their rights and encourage the commercial exploitation of their territories. In fact, the Brazilian government delegation does not include a single indigenous member – unprecedented in the recent history of the COPs.

Faced with this dispute and the critical situation of the Amazon jungle, Brazil’s indigenous people have sent representatives to Madrid to speak out and seek solidarity.

The murder of two leaders of the Guajajara people in northeastern Brazil on Saturday Dec. 7 shook the indigenous delegation. Two murders had already occurred in that native community in the last two months.

In 2017, the States Parties to the UNFCCC adopted at COP23 the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform for the exchange of experiences and best practices, thereby ensuring the participation of these groups in the negotiations of the convention.

The Platform’s facilitative working group, composed of delegates from seven States Parties and seven indigenous peoples, is currently developing its plan for the period 2020-2021.

Martín Vilela, a representative of the Bolivian Platform for Climate Change umbrella group of local organisations, questioned the effectiveness of the climate summits.

“The agreements are only paper. Emissions continue to rise and countries’ voluntary targets are insufficient. The countries have to be more ambitious if they really want to avoid major disasters,” he told IPS.

Social organizations fear that the Paris Agreement, when it replaces the Kyoto Protocol next year, will be stillborn, because countries are failing to keep their promises, even though scientists are warning that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is insufficient.

The Agreement sets mandatory emission reduction targets for industrialised countries and voluntary targets for developing countries in the South.

“The countries need to know that we’re monitoring them. We, the organisations, must prepare ourselves to demand better action,” said Amaya from El Salvador.

For her part, Brazil’s Kaingang argued that the climate struggle would only be effective if it includes indigenous peoples.

COP26 will be hosted by Glasgow, Scotland in November 2020, after pre-conference meetings in Germany and Italy.

This article was supported by the COP25 Latin American Journalistic Coverage Programme.

Dr Mithika Mwenda of PACJA (right) and Professor Seth Osafo (left), one of the negotiators at the climate talks currently being held in Spain. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADRID, Dec 6 2019 (IPS)

African legislators have been challenged to come up with legal frameworks for climate change to enable countries avoid catastrophes and reactionary emergencies that eat up their budgets.

“African countries are spending up to 3.9 percent of their GDPs on climate emergencies, which in many cases have not been budgeted for,” said Dr. James Murombedzi, the head of the Africa Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

During an event on the sidelines of the ongoing 25th Conference Of The Parties (COP25), the U.N. climate negotiations in Madrid, Spain, climate experts, civil society organisations and U.N. representatives observed that legislators in African countries should mainstream climate change in all their national development plans as a way of adapting to the phenomena.

This comes at a time when the East African region is experiencing unprecedented floods due to the 300 percent above average, heavy downpour that is occurring during what is supposed to be a short rainy season. Over the past two weeks, floods have killed more than 100 people in Kenya alone, displacing hundreds of households, breaking river banks, dams and even houses.

• According to meteorological scientists, this is due to the irregular oscillation or variation of Sea Surface Temperatures – a climate-related phenomenon known as Indian Ocean Dipole.
• The floods in East Africa are occurring just months after Cyclones Idai and Kenneth swept through the Southern Africa region affecting more than 2.2 million people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
• In general, analysis from Save the Children show that in 2019 alone, over 1,200 people died as the result of cyclones, floods and landslides in Mozambique, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan and Malawi, leaving at least 33 million people at emergency levels of food insecurity or worse. This has had a huge financial implication on countries, humanitarian agencies and individual families running into millions of dollars.

“What are we going to tell our people?” asked Roger Nkodo Dang, the President for the Pan Africa Parliament during an event at COP25. “As African legislators, we need to play our role, and then speak with one voice to call for funding so as to develop resilience,” he said.

In Africa, climate change has caused drought, change in distribution of rainfall, the drying-up of rivers. Intense flooding causes landslides and in Kenya, residents of West Pokot County are currently grappling with with the deaths of 50 people who were last week buried alive by landslides following heavy rainfall that continues to pound the East African region. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

According to Gareth Phillips, the manager for Climate and Environmental Finance at the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), African politicians can take advantage of low-hanging fruit in terms of climate action, but only if there are sound legislative frameworks in place.

“We can start by enacting legislation that; encourages renewable energy targets and non-fossil fuel obligations, the removal of fossil fuel subsidies, while at the same time providing subsidies for renewable energy, and observes the energy efficiency standards, building standards and performance,” said Philips.

He urged them to focus on adaptation instead of mitigation, and take advantage of the Adaptation Benefits Mechanism – a new mechanism being developed by the AfDB that is designed to facilitate payments to project developers for the delivery of certified adaptation benefits.

The delegates were reviewing the role of African parliamentarians in implementing the Paris Agreement, with focus on challenges and prospects.

• Under the agreement, all parties were supposed to submit their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are a set of interventions prepared by countries to contribute to the reduction of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

However, according to preliminary findings of an ongoing study commissioned by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in eight selected countries — Botswana, Ethiopia, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia — there is still a long way to go for African countries to implement their suggested NDCs.

“It is clear that many countries do not have legal frameworks on climate change, which should be the main vehicle for implementation of the Paris Agreement,” Dr Mithika Mwenda, the Executive Secretary at PACJA, told IPS.

Countries like Kenya, which has its National Climate Change Framework Policy in place, were seen to be progressing better than those without.

“With this policy, we have been able to mainstream climate change in all national development plans, and this makes it easy to allocate budgetary funds to specific activities directly related to climate change,” Dr Charles Mutai, the Director of Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in Kenya, told IPS.

Based on national legislation, county governments have followed suit, where six of them have already enacted county-specific climate change legislations, and this has enabled them to directly allocate funds to adaptation and related activities.

However, according to the new U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) report, unless GHG emissions fall by 7.6 percent each year between 2020 and 2030, the world will miss the opportunity to get on track towards the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, and this is a pointer to even more devastating climate related disasters that what is being experienced at the moment.

By 2030, India would have 600 million vehicles on their roads, three times the current numbers leading to massive air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions unless it transitions rapidly to green vehicles. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
NEW DELHI, Dec 6 2019 (IPS)

Dogged by intractable air pollution debilitating large northern swathes from mainly urban vehicle emissions, India earlier this year announced targets for a 40 percent non-fossil component in its fuel-mix by 2030 as part of its Nationally Determined Commitments (NDC) to the Paris accord on climate change. It aims for full electrification of public transit systems and of one-third private vehicles by 2030.

• The G20 nations are the biggest polluters collectively responsible for 78 percent of total global emissions, with the top four emitters China, United States, European Union and India contributing more than 55 percent, states United Nations Emissions Gap Report 2019 released in November.
• As the climate conference in Madrid negotiates greenhouse gas reductions, if countries expect to achieve the 1.5°C and 2°C temperature targets of the Paris Agreement, the large 7.6 percent annual emissions reduction from 2020 to 2030 would be mainly determined by these large emitters, the report has stipulated.

While the Indian government’s intent is firm and EVs multi-dimensional benefits for India widely acknowledged, its ambitious transition to clean transportation is proving far from smooth.

Why India needs Electric Vehicles

By 2030, India would have 600 million on-road vehicles three times the current numbers, dominated by two-wheelers, fuelled mainly by 40 percent population in urban centres. Road transport accounts for around 11percent of total carbon emissions from fuel combustion.

Green private and shared public transportation can ensure clean air and better health for citizens, lower greenhouse gas emission, less road congestion and importantly reduced India’s dependence on imported crude oil, currently 80 percent of total use.

India EV transition priority is on public transport buses, four and three-wheelers for commercial use and as front-runners that can create public awareness and inclination to adopt clean and cheaper-in-the-long-run electric vehicles. 

EV sector that had seen its firstborn in 2010 and then sporadic new introductions without catching the buyers’ imagination or wallet, has been revived by this year’s national budget when the government heavily incentivised its demand by a slew of subsidies.

Hustled into activity by a government that means business this time and pressurised by the climate emergency, technical experts find there are serious infrastructural and policy gaps which need bridging before EVs can come on the roads to stay.

Where is the EV infrastructure?

The first of major hurdles is a near absence of battery charging infrastructure. India plans setting up at least one electric charging station every 3 square kilometres in earmarked metropolitan, one-milion-population and smart cities in the next three years till 2022.

The proposed 2,700 charging stations have been allocated $139,000, a good chunk of the total $1.4 billion budget, which also includes subsidies in the next 3 years under the government’s major EV scheme ‘Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric vehicles (FAME)’.

“But India is seeing the chicken and egg problem of which should come first – the charging facility or the EV,” said a study from Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, a Delhi-based clean energy policy non profit. “People will not buy an electric vehicle unless there are charging facilities. At the same time facilities do not make business sense unless there are vehicles to charge.”

EVs high acquisition price tag a deterrent

Notwithstanding government incentives, upfront costs of an EV four-wheeler is between 2-3 times higher compared to the same-segment internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.

A basic EV hatchback model – the usual ICE entry level car for Indian families comes in the price range of an ICE mid-range sedan at rupees 10-12 lakhs ($13,900 – $16,700) that most middle-class Indians may never buy in their lifetime.

While the Indian buyer remains hesitant, there is an undeniable forward movement in the EV sector. Several Indian EVs have entered the market since last year. Already more international big names are readying to introduce their EVs into India – today potentially one of the world biggest markets globally, owing to its large population particularly in the 25 – 35 working age group.

Electric three-wheelers have begun plying Delhi and Bengaluru roads targeting micro-mobility or short distance needs such as 3 to 5 kilometre. An example are Delhi metro rail users commuting between the station and their homes. These 3-wheelers’ fares are low because the cost to them is much lower than diesel-run cabs and tuk-tuks.

“Though upfront cost of EVs are high they have a lower operating cost as against fossil fuel whose price have been going up. Also, EVs have only 25 to 30 moving parts as opposed to over 2000 moving parts in an ICE vehicle, thereby being more reliable, with fewer breakdowns,” argue World Resource Institute-India (WRI) researcher team of the Shakti study.

Electric vehicle batteries let down buyers, must evolve fast

A single battery charge in EVs has limited a range of less than 200 kilometres. Accustomed to long distances on a full-tank, the fear of being stranded halfway can be stressful. To compound this drawback, single recharging can take as much as 5 to 8 hours. Though fast charging in an hour is possible with another charging technique, it needs refining in India’s high ambient temperature and power grid voltage limitations.

“Increasing distance range per charge would need bigger sized batteries and end up increasing the car load, compromising its performance. A battery itself is 50 percent of the car’s weight in current Indian EV models. The lithium-ion batteries now being used has low energy density, requiring material bulk,” explain Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras researchers for the Shakti study.

The good news is battery technology is globally evolving fast.

“Car batteries will get much cheaper in 3 to 4 years as technology advances,” said Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, India’s policy think tank for achieving the country’s sustainable development goals.

“This will bring the electric car’s cost at par with the combustion engine car,” he assured. Today a battery alone costs nearly half the price of an electric vehicle.

Currently Lithium-ion battery cost per kWh (kiloWatthour) is $276 (19,760 rupees) which within 4 years can fall to $76 (5440 rupees), according to Kant.

Sector experts are not as optimistic telling IPS that battery cost cuts would take no less than 5 to 7 years, before making financial sense for traditionally price-conscious Indians to buy them.

India imports Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese and Graphite, components needed for the car batteries. “Their prices will get pushed up as global manufacturing demands escalate in China, the U.S. and Europe,” they said.

However, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which originally used Lithium-ion batteries for its aero-space operations, is already working on making these affordable for car use and transferring manufacturing technology to eligible car makers.

Indian start-ups too are developing a scalable technology for recovering up to 90 percent of these materials from used batteries. Bulk retrieval can be successful only if disposal regulations of cell phones, laptops and vehicle batteries are strictly implemented.

EVs running on coal vs renewable power grid

If EVs run on predominantly coal powered grid, air pollution could be worse than petroleum-based transport, experts warned.

Unless renewable energy can be adequately utilised, fossil fuel only shifts the pollution from roads to coal plant regions.

Another big question being asked is, is India’s power grid ready for EVs to plug in?

With projections of EV increase, an impact assessment finds that high uptake of electricity during peak charging hours will cause a range of power network problems, including significant voltage drops or overload disruptions on distribution feeders.

The level of impact depends not only on EVs’ charging mode, but also on circuit-specific characteristics, researchers said. Location of especially the EV fast-charging stations should be carefully analysed before setting them up, they warned.

Cozumel, Mexico, protected area along the Caribbean coast. Credit: Devin H/Unsplash

By Carolina Herrera
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 5 2019 (IPS)

Protecting and restoring natural areas in Latin America, home to fifty percent of the planet’s biodiversity and over a quarter of its forests, is critical if the world is to avert a biodiversity and climate disaster.

Scientific reports have confirmed that urgent action is required to turn back the tide on these twin crises. The best available science also confirms that, coupled with drastically cutting green-house gas emissions from fossil fuels, changing how we use land and ecosystems can help avoid a biodiversity freefall and prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

Latin America’s biodiversity has plummeted in the last forty years and the region is already experiencing the impacts of climate change first hand. Failure to protect and restore the region’s natural resources is not a viable option—for the region nor the world.

Fortunately, countries in the region are making progress on both counts and could help forge a path that supports human wellbeing by protecting natural systems.

COP25 is an opportunity for Latin American countries to demonstrate their commitment and ambition in this area.

Countries in Latin America have already shown important leadership in establishing protected areas and other conservation strategies.

Scientists recommend that we protect 30 percent of the earth’s lands and 30 percent of its oceans by 2030 (30×30) to put the world on track toward a climate resilient future and restore critical ecosystem services.

This is an ambitious, yet realistic and necessary path where Latin America can demonstrate its leadership. According to World Bank data, Latin America and the Caribbean already has a greater percentage of land (23.4 percent) under protected status than the world average (14.7 percent).

Several countries, including Ecuador, Panama, and Peru, have already met or surpassed the Convention of Biological Diversity’s (CBD) target of protecting 17 percent of terrestrial areas by 2020. Others, like Costa Rica, are very close to meeting the 30 percent goal scientists are calling for, or indeed have already met it.

Source: The World Bank

The World Bank’s data also shows that marine protected areas represent 17.5 percent of the region’s territorial waters. Several countries including Chile, Colombia, and Mexico have met or surpassed the CBD’s target of protecting 10 percent of coastal and marine areas by 2020.

However, there is still work left to do  to meet the scientific recommendation of protecting 30 percent of global marine areas. Among other things, it will be key to ensure ocean protections focus on the right places and provide the right safeguards.

Source: The World Bank

Countries in the region that already protect significant portions of their territory, or are working to expand protections, are well placed to help drive forward high ambition internationally.

At the third regional congress on protected areas held in October in Lima, Peru, participants from local governments, indigenous communities and civil society representing 33 countries issued a declaration committing to “improving the management of protected areas and other conservation strategies…to conserve what we have, and to recover what we have lost, in order to guarantee development, enhance wellbeing, health, cultural expressions and life in cities.”

The event generated inputs and recommendations for global climate and biodiversity discussions. A key contribution from the region is the experience of Indigenous Peoples who have been shown to be the best custodians of the region’s forests and biodiversity treasures.

The region has also seen a number of innovative approaches to conservation including payments for ecosystem services, agroforestry, community forestry concessions, and privately led protected areas.

The potential for nature-based solutions in Latin America is vast. The Special Report on Climate Change and Land, released by the IPCC  last August made it abundantly clear that sustainable land management is vital to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Countries in the region can lead on identifying and implementing nature-based solutions that help combat climate change, preserve biodiversity stocks, and strengthen the resilience of communities. In turn, the international community should support these efforts by directing technical and financial resources toward these solutions.

Nature based solutions focus on protecting, managing and restoring natural areas to provide environmental and societal benefits. In Latin America, preventing the degradation, disturbance and deforestation of the region’s forests avoids climate-warming emissions from entering the atmosphere, while also protecting critical local water and species.

Similarly, protecting and restoring mangrove forests in northern South America, which harbor nearly as much “blue carbon” as mangroves in Asia, brings mitigation benefits while protecting communities from storms and flooding. And in places prone to drought and wildfire, well managed natural grasslands store carbon in their root mass while also replenishing water reserves.

Latin American cities can also apply nature-based solutions, for example green infrastructure like green roofs, bioswales and permeable pavements can help clean the air, reduce excessive heat, alleviate floods, and filter water.

Failing to act with urgency is not an option. The region has lost 89 percent of its vertebrate wildlife populations since 1970 (compared to the 60 percent for the entire planet). Conservative estimates from ECLAC put the economic cost of climate change for the region at between 1.5% and 5% of the region’s GDP by 2050.

Implementing nature-based climate solutions and equitably distributing their costs and benefits are one way that Latin American countries can ensure the well-being of citizens and build more just and equal societies.

An opportunity for renewed leadership at COP25. The nature and climate nexus is poised to be an important part of the conversations at COP25 in Madrid, Spain over the next two weeks.

The COP presents an ideal opportunity for countries from the region to establish themselves as leaders—or laggards—on nature-based climate solutions and the target of protecting 30 percent of nature that science recommends, and humanity’s well-being requires.

This story was originally published by NRDC

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa (fourth right) at an event organized by the WTTC at COP25. Credit: UNFCCC

By External Source
MADRID, Dec 4 2019 (IPS)

The travel and tourism sector, with its significant economic and social benefits, has no choice but to transform to survive and thrive in the face of climate change, said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa at COP25 to industry representatives.

In 2018, the industry generated 10.4 per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product—or more than USD 8.8 trillion—but climate change puts those  numbers, and more, at risk.

Whilst the travel and tourism industry generated 10.4% of global Gross Domestic Product in 2018, it also accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to climate change.

Whilst the travel and tourism industry generated 10.4% of global Gross Domestic Product in 2018, it also accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to climate change

“Thanks to this sector, millions of people have been able to explore new destinations, reunite with family and friends, and fulfill dreams of exploring the world,” said Ms. Espinosa at an event organized by the industry group World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). “As well, it has created jobs, most significantly in developing countries, offering people financial freedom. It is truly a global economic powerhouse.”

“With this sort of success, why should you change what you have been doing? Frankly, because you have no choice. None of us does,” said Ms. Espinosa.

“The ravages of climate change will soon require all of us, government and corporations especially, to do things differently,” said Ms. Espinosa, citing a recent open letter from heads of leading financial institutions: “If some companies and industries fail to adjust to this new world, they will fail to exist.”

In opening remarks at the event, WTTC President and Chief Executive Officer Gloria Guevara said the message is already clear to her organization’s members, and climate and environment are “top priority.”

WTTC has set as an ambition for the sector to be climate neutral by 2050, in collaboration with UN Climate Change, and many companies are already showing leadership in reducing their climate impact: “In order for us to grow, the growth has to be good for everyone; it has to be sustainable,” said Ms. Guevara.

The organization last year signed up to the United Nations Climate Neutral Now initiative with a pledge to measure its greenhouse gas emissions, reduce what it can and offset the rest, while promoting the same climate-friendly regimen to its 150 members worldwide.

And in New York in September of this year, WTTC launched a Sustainability Action Plan, meant to help the industry deliver on its climate ambition.

“We need to find a way to have climate-friendly travel [. . .] Saying simply ‘do not travel, it will help the environment’ would be very irresponsible” leading to increased poverty, increased unemployment and ultimately increased damage to the environment, said Ms. Guevara.

This story was originally published by UNFCCC

By External Source
MADRID, Dec 2 2019 (IPS)

A green economy is “not one to be feared but an opportunity to be embraced”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, in a keynote speech to delegates at the opening of the COP25 UN climate conference in Madrid on Monday.

The tasks are many, timelines are tight, every item is important

Mr. Guterres outlined the work programme for what will be a busy two-week event covering multiple aspects of the climate crisis, including capacity-building, deforestation, indigenous peoples, cities, finance, technology, and gender. “The tasks are many”, he said, “our timelines are tight, and every item is important”.

“Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

The conference must convey a firm determination to change course, demonstrate that the world is seriously committed to stopping the “war against nature”, and has the political will to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, he continued.

COP25 marks the beginning of a 12 month process to review countries’ “Nationally Determined Contributions” or NDCs (the commitments made under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement), and ensure that they are ambitious enough to defeat the climate emergency.

Overcome divisions, put a price on carbon

Encouraging signs of progress, noted Mr. Guterres, came out of the UN’s Climate Action Summit, held in September, which saw initiatives proposed by small island nations and least-developed countries, major cities and regional economies, as well as the private and financial sectors.

The stated intention of some 70 countries to submit enhanced NDCs in 2020 – with 65 countries and major economies committing to work for net zero emissions by 2050 – while governments and investors are backing away from fossil fuels, were also cited as positive signs.

The UN chief called for leaders to end division over climate change, and reach consensus on carbon pricing, a crucial tool for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Doing so, he said, will “get markets up and running, mobilize the private sector, and ensure that the rules are the same for everyone.”

Is this the generation that ‘fiddled while the planet burned?’

However, failing to decide on a price for carbon will, warned Mr. Guterres, risk fragmenting the carbon markets, sending a negative message that can undermine efforts to solve the climate crisis.

Throughout his speech, the Secretary-General was crystal clear about the urgent, existential level of the climate crisis. Failure to act, he said, will be the path of surrender: “Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

The signs of potential disaster are unmissable, he declared. For example, the current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is comparable to that seen between 3 and 5 million years ago, when the temperature was between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius warmer than now and sea levels were 10 to 20 metres higher than today.

Other indicators include the fact that the last five years have been the hottest on record, and have seen extreme weather events and associated disasters, from hurricanes to drought to floods to wildfires. Ice caps are melting at a rapid rate, sea levels are rising, and oceans are acidifying, threatening all marine life.

Meanwhile, coal plants continue to be planned and built, and large, important parts of the global economy – from agriculture to transportation, from urban planning and construction to cement, steel and other carbon-intensive industries – are still run in ways that are unsustainable.

“There is no time and no reason to delay”, concluded Mr. Guterres. “We have the tools, we have the science, we have the resources. Let us show we also have the political will that people demand from us. To do anything less will be a betrayal of our entire human family and all the generations to come”.

Time for politicians to lead, not follow

Speaking at a roundtable with Heads of State and government attending COP25, Mr. Guterres urged them to lead, and not follow, at a time when public opinion over the environment is evolving very quickly, and cities, regions and the business community are taking action to tackle the climate crisis.

The Secretary-General reminded them that at the recent G20 meeting of the world’s leading economies in Osaka, a group of asset management companies, representing some $34 trillion dollars had asked political leaders to enhance climate action, end subsidies to fossil fuels, and put a price on carbon.

The private sector, he added, is increasingly demonstrating a strong commitment to move forward, and complaining that it’s governments who are lagging behind: regulation is inadequate, fiscal systems are not favourable, subsidies are still going to fossil fuels, and companies face obstacles to climate action.

With a head of steam building for action, it is for political leaders to “to be able to take profit of this movement and to lead, for us to be able to defeat climate change”.

Climate crisis mostly affecting ‘those least responsible for it’

The Secretary-General also addressed a forum of “climate vulnerable” countries, where he pointed out the “great injustice” of climate change: its effects fall most on those least responsible for it.

He cited examples, including Mozambique and the Caribbean, ravaged by storms that cause devastation, in terms of lives lost, communities uprooted, and economies crippled; and drought in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

Nevertheless, some of the most vulnerable nations are in the forefront of climate action, showing leadership at September’s Climate Action Summit: Mr. Guterres expressed his hope that their example will be followed by the world’s big emitters.

This story was originally published by UN News

Family photo at the opening of the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) on climate change, taking place in Madrid Dec. 2 to 13. Credit: UNFCCC

By Emilio Godoy
MADRID, Dec 2 2019 (IPS)

Tens of thousands of delegates from state parties began working Monday Dec. 2 in the Spanish capital to pave the way to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change, while at a parallel summit, representatives of civil society demanded that the international community go further.

Calls to combat the climate emergency marked the opening of the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in light of the most recent scientific data showing the severity of the crisis, as reflected by more intense storms, rising temperatures and sea levels, and polar melting.

Pedro Sánchez, acting prime minister of Spain – selected as the emergency host country after the political crisis in Chile forced the relocation of the summit – called during the opening ceremony for Europe to lead the decarbonisation of the economy and move faster to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the greenhouse gas generated by human activities.

“Today, fortunately, only a handful of fanatics deny the evidence” about the climate emergency, Sánchez said at the opening of the COP, held under the motto “Time to act” at the Feria de Madrid Institute (IFEMA) fairgrounds.

COP25 is the third consecutive climate conference held in Europe. The agenda focuses on issues such as financing for national climate policies and the rules for emission reduction markets – outlined without specifics in the Paris Agreement, which was agreed four years ago and is to enter into force in 2020.

It will also address the preparation of the update of emissions reductions and funding of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, designed to assist regions particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

In the 1,000 square metres where COP25 is being held, 29,000 people – according to estimates by the organisers – including some 50 heads of state and government, representatives of the 196 official delegations and civil society organisations, as well as 1,500 accredited journalists, will gather until Dec. 13.

But the notable absence of U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not give cause for optimism.

These include the leaders of the countries that produce the most greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making their lack of interest in strengthening the Paris Agreement more serious.

On Nov. 4, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he submitted a formal notice to the United Nations to begin the process of pulling out of the climate accord.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said during the opening ceremony that “The latest, just-released data from the World Meteorological Organisation show that levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached another new record high.

“Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?”

In its Emissions Gap Report 2019, the U.N. Environment Programme warned on the eve of the opening of COP25 of the need to cut emissions by 7.6 percent a year between 2020 and 2030 in order to stay within the 1.5 degree Celsius cap on temperature rise proposed in the Paris Agreement.

Many delegations admitted that the world is off track to achieving the proposed 45 percent reduction in GHG by 2030 and to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

In fact, delegates pointed out on Monday, emissions reached an alarming 55.3 billion tons in 2018, including deforestation.

One of the hopes is that more countries, cities, companies and investment funds will join the Climate Ambition Alliance, launched by Chile, the country that still holds the presidency of the COP, and endorsed by at least 66 nations, 10 regions, 102 cities, 93 corporations and 12 large private investors.

More than 70 countries and 100 cities so far have committed to reaching zero net emissions by 2050.

Social summit

Parallel to the official meeting, organisations from around the world are gathered at the Social Summit for Climate under the slogan “Beyond COP25: People for Climate”, which in its statement to the conference criticises the economic model based on the extraction of natural resources and mass consumption, blaming it for the climate crisis, and complaining about the lack of results in the UNFCCC meetings.

“The scientific diagnosis is clear regarding the seriousness and urgency of the moment. Economic growth happens at the expense of the most vulnerable people,” says the statement, which defends climate justice “as the backbone of the social fights of our time” and “the broadest umbrella that exists to protect all the diversity of struggles for another possible world.”

The first week of the COP is expected to see the arrival of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who has unleashed youth mobilisation against the climate crisis around the world.

In terms of how well countries are complying, only Gabon and Nepal have met their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the mitigation and adaptation measures voluntarily adopted, within the Paris Agreement, to keep the temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

But these two countries have practically no responsibility for the climate emergency.

The plans of Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia and the Philippines involve an increase of up to 2.0 degrees, while the measures of the rest of the countries range from “insufficient” to “critically insufficient”.

Latin America “has to be more ambitious: although progress has been made, the measures are insufficient. We need a multilateral response to the emergency. We have only 11 years to correct the course and thus reach carbon neutrality in 2050 and meet the goal of keeping the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, global head of Climate and Energy at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The Marshall Islands already submitted their NDCs 2020, while 41 nations have declared their intention to update their voluntary measures and 68 nations – including those of the European Union – have stated that they plan to further cut emissions.

In its position regarding the COP25, consulted by IPS, Mexico outlined 10 priorities, including voluntary cooperation, adaptation, climate financing, gender and climate change, local communities and indigenous peoples.

Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2019 (IPS)

Climate change is happening—the world is already 1.1°C warmer than it was at the onset of the industrial revolution, and it is already having a significant impact on the world, and on people’s lives. And if current trends persist, then global temperatures can be expected to rise by 3.4 to 3.9°C this century, which would bring wide-ranging and destructive climate impacts.

That’s the stark warning from the international community ahead of the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference, known as COP25, which gets underway in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on 2 December. So, just two months after the Secretary-General convened a major Climate Action Summit at UN Headquarters in New York, what can be expected from COP25?

1. We just had the Climate Action Summit in New York. How is COP25 different?

The Climate Action Summit in September was the initiative of the UN Secretary-General to focus the attention of the international community on the climate emergency and to accelerate actions to reverse climate change. The Climate Conference (held in Madrid after the meeting was moved from Chile due to unrest there), COP25, is the actual Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, which is tasked with making sure that the Convention, (and now the 2015 Paris Agreement, which strengthens the Convention), are being implemented.

2. But why all the UN attention on the climate?

There is more evidence of the impacts of climate change, especially in extreme weather events, and these impacts are taking a greater toll.  The science shows that emissions are still going up, not down.

According to the 2019 WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached another new record high. This continuing long-term trend means that future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures, more extreme weather, water stress, sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystems.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned, in its 2019 Emissions Gap Report, that greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 7.6 per cent per year from 2020 to 2030 are needed to meet the internationally agreed goal of a 1.5°C increase in temperatures over pre-industrial levels. Scientists agree that’s a tall order, and that the window of opportunity is growing smaller.

3. So what did the September Climate Action Summit achieve?

The summit served as a springboard ahead of crucial 2020 deadlines established by the Paris Agreement, focusing global attention on the climate emergency and the urgent need to significantly scale up action. And leaders, from many countries and sectors, stepped up.

COP25 is the final COP before we enter the defining year of 2020, when many nations must submit new climate action plans. Among the many elements that need to be ironed out is the financing of climate action worldwide

More than seventy countries committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, even if major emitters have not yet done so.  More than 100 cities did the same, including several of the world’s largest.

Small island states together committed to achieve carbon neutrality and to move to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.  And countries from Pakistan to Guatemala, Colombia to Nigeria, New Zealand to Barbados vowed to plant more than 11 billion trees.

More than 100 leaders in the private sector committed to accelerating the green economy. A group of the world’s largest asset-owners, controlling $2 trillion, pledged to move to carbon-neutral investment portfolios by 2050. This is in addition to a recent call by asset managers representing nearly half the world’s invested capital, some $34 trillion, for global leaders to put a meaningful price on carbon and phase out fossil fuel subsidies and thermal coal power worldwide.

4. Hang on: UNEP, WMO, IPCC, UNFCCC, COP…why all the acronyms?

It’s true that the UN is a very acronym-heavy place. These ones all represent international tools and agencies that, under the leadership of the UN, were created to help advance climate action globally. Here’s how they fit together.

UNEP is the UN Environment Programme, the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment. WMO stands for World Meteorological Office, the UN agency for international cooperation in areas such as weather forecasting, observing changes in the climate, and studying water resources.

In 1988 the UN General Assembly asked UNEP and the WMO to establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is made of hundreds of experts, in order to assess data, and providing reliable scientific evidence for climate action negotiations.

All three UN bodies publish reports that, in recent years, have frequently made international headlines, as concerns about the climate crisis have grown.

As for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), this document was signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the treaty, nations agreed to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere” to prevent dangerous interference from human activity on the climate system.

Today, 197 countries are parties to the treaty. Every year since the treaty entered into force in 1994, a “conference of the parties”, or COP, has been held to discuss how to move forward. Madrid will hold the 25th COP, therefore COP25.

5. And what’s important about this COP?

Because the UNFCCC had non-binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries, and no enforcement mechanism, various extensions to this treaty were negotiated during recent COPs, including most recently the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, in which all countries agreed to step up efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures and boost climate action financing.

COP25 is the final COP before we enter the defining year of 2020, when many nations must submit new climate action plans. Among the many elements that need to be ironed out is the financing of climate action worldwide.

Currently, not enough is being done to meet the three climate goals: reducing emissions 45 per cent by 2030; achieving climate neutrality by 2050 (which means a net zero carbon footprint), and stabilizing global temperature rise at 1.5°C by the end of the century.

Because the clock is ticking on climate change, the world cannot afford to waste more time, and a bold, decisive, ambitious way forward needs to be agreed.

This story was originally published by UN News