Nosintu Mcimeli and Bonelwa Nogemane of the Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD) started with an agroecological project to improve food security in South Africa’s Eastern Cape (left). A soup kitchen feeds the village children (right). Credit: ADP

By Fawzia Moodley
JOHANNESBURG, May 11 2023 (IPS)

In the deep rural village of Jekezi in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, most young and able-bodied people have fled the area, leaving behind people with disabilities, the elderly, and children.

It’s in villages like this one that the stark statistics of one in five South Africans being so food insecure they beg to feed themselves and their families could be a reality.

The village instead supports its fragile community through an agroecological project, Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD), co-founded in 2020 by Nosintu Mcimeli as an example of food sovereignty in action.

Food security in South Africa, the second wealthiest country by GDP, is low. According to 2019 data, Statistics SA says at least 10 million people didn’t have enough food or money to buy food.

Impacts on Physical Development, Mental Health

The impacts of this are devastating; hunger not only impacts physical development but also people’s mental health. Siphiwe Dlamini, writing in The Conversation, recently reported on a study that found that those who could not afford proper nutrition resorted to eating less, borrowing, using credit, and begging for food on the streets, which was the most harmful coping strategy for mental health.

“We found that over 20% (1 in 5) of the South African households were food insecure. But the prevalence varied widely across the provinces. The Eastern Cape province was the most affected (32% of households there were food insecure). We also confirmed that food access in South Africa largely depends on socioeconomic status. People who are uneducated, the unemployed, and those receiving a low monthly income are the most severely affected by inadequate food access,” wrote Dlamini, a lecturer School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand.

The situation in the region is also dire, with a UN World Food Programme (WFP) report in 2020 revealing that 45 million people were severely food insecure in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

South Africa has long been afflicted with widespread hunger, but the onset of Covid, an ailing economy, climate change, fuel and food price increases, interest hikes, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war has deepened the food crisis.

However, Vishwas Satgar of the SA Food Sovereignty Campaign (SAFSC) says even before Covid, the number of hungry people was close to 14 million – and “women shoulder the burden of the high food prices, sharing limited food, skipping meals, and holding families together.”

The irony, Satgar says, is that the country can feed all its people.

“We produce enough food, but it’s essentially for export. The stark paradox in the commercial food system is that it is just another commodity; most people can’t feed themselves. The poor eat unhealthy (cheaper) food, and we have an obesity problem.”

Satgar says a change of strategies is needed to feed the poor.

“Despite overwhelming research proving that small-scale farmers feed the world, many people have the perception that large-scale industrial farms are the ultimate source of food. South Africa, with an expanded unemployment rate of 46.46 percent (start of 2022), cannot afford to lose more farm workers. Agroecological farming can transform the rural and urban economy with localised farming practices that absorb many unskilled and semi-skilled people,” he says.

The SAFSC, the Climate Justice Charter Movement, and the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC) are building a new food system to avert a catastrophe.

Food Sovereignty 

“We call this the food sovereignty system, which is democratically organised and controlled by small-scale farmers, gardeners, informal traders, small-scale fishers, communities, and consumers.

That’s where Mcimeli comes in. She tells IPS her activism journey began after she left a company that worked with people with disabilities in Cape Town. She contracted polio as a baby because her domestic worker mother could not take her for immunisation. “I have a disability in my right thigh and leg.”

She was working as an informal trader when she was given the opportunity from SADC, “which was releasing millions of rand to train SA women for activism in any kind of project.”

Mcimeli was one of 80 women trained in 2012 and 2013.

“In 2014, I was transferred to Copac for activist schooling. That’s when I met Vish (Satgar). I then decided to come to the Eastern Cape to plough back my activism skills.”

It was here that she co-founded the APD, and it has become an example of food sovereignty in action in Jekezi in the Eastern Cape.

Mcimeli says the ADP started an agriculture project.

“Because in rural areas there is communal land, it’s free, so we formed groups to start communal gardens. Then I realised that there are people who are bedridden, so I started enviro gardens in nearby villages. At the moment, we have 24 of these, and they are working.”

She works with four young women but wants to include more young people in the projects.

A donation of a water tank and a borehole brought a promise of fresh ‘forever’ water to the village of Jekezi. Credit: ADP

Forever Water—Free and Healthy

During the hard lockdown, the ADP got a big water tank from the local municipality and started a soup kitchen.

“We got donations of masks and sanitisers and food from Shoprite. Then a colleague of mine organised radio interviews for me, and a company that provides boreholes heard me asking for more water tanks. They said they had a lifetime solution and sponsored a community borehole. It was installed free of charge in a local schoolyard. It’s forever water—free and healthy and available for everyone, not just our projects”.

One of ADP’s beneficiaries, Bonelwa Nogemane, says: “I have a family of seven including a disabled four-year-old; we are often hungry because the food is too expensive. I joined the ADP to help my family and community to grow our own food.”

While the ADP is making a small dent, the problem is much bigger, and activists warn that unless a solution is found to the hunger crisis, South Africa is in danger of producing a lost generation of intellectually and physically stunted future leaders.

A study published in BMC Public Health on the link between food insecurity and mental health in the US during Covid found that: “Food insecurity is associated with a 257% higher risk of anxiety and a 253% higher risk of depression. Losing a job during the pandemic is associated with a 32% increase in risk for anxiety and a 27% increase in risk for depression.”

Campaign to Save Children from ‘Slow Violence of Malnutrition’

Marcus Solomon of the Children’s Resource Centre, which has launched a campaign to save SA’s children from the “slow violence of malnutrition”, says: “The consequences of this are dire for the affected children, with an estimated four million children in SA having stunted growth because of malnutrition and another 10 million going hungry every day.”

Activist Shanaaz Viljoen from Cape Town says: “My personal experience on a grassroots level is rather heartbreaking. The children we work with are always hungry due to the situation in their homes.”

In addition to an alternate food system, Trade Union Federation Cosatu, the SASFC, Copac, and others believe introducing a Basic Income Grant will go a long way towards addressing the hunger crisis in the country.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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A waste collection bin awaiting the city council's collection. Markets are one of the places the SADC hygiene strategy is targeting. The picture was taken around 5 am as people gathered for the market day. It is a stone’s throw away from the health centre featured in the story. ​Credit: Charles Mpaka​/IPS​​

By Charles Mpaka
Blantyre, Malawi, Jan 10 2022 (IPS)

The toilets in the maternity wing of Namatapa Health Centre in the populous Bangwe Township in Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial city, fell into disrepair a few years ago. So, pregnant women who come to deliver their babies and their guardians use two pit latrines.

The faulty facilities also serve as bathrooms.

Visiting the bathrooms and toilets is an act of courage, says Thokozani Paulo, who spent four days at the centre in November 2021, during the birth of her first child.

“When you want to bath or relieve yourself, the image is dreadful because half the time, there is a mess, and the stench is terrible,” she tells IPS.

At night, there is no light, and the rooms are swarming with mosquitoes.

In addition, there is not much dignity and privacy for users either. There are no doors, so women improvise using their wraps for privacy.

“So, you are bathing, and someone comes in looking to relieve themselves,” says the 23-year-old in an interview with IPS at her home. Her month-old baby girl is sleeping peacefully on her lap.

Workers at the facility clean the two toilets – but without detergent and only once every day in the morning. One day, the women in the ward and their guardians pleaded with the workers to clean the toilets at least twice a day.
“They shouted at us saying we were not the ones paying their salaries and that we should just focus on what we had gone to the health centre for,” Paulo says.

The only basin for handwashing in the ward was never supplied with soap in the four days she was at the health centre.

In November, this experience, and the experiences of many others like Paulo were top of the agenda at a meeting of health ministers from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.
At that meeting, among other things, the ministers endorsed the SADC Hygiene Strategy (2021-2025).

According to the strategy developed by the SADC Secretariat, analysis of national blueprints in the region on health, water, sanitation, environmental health, and nutrition indicates there is “an enabling environment” for implementation of hygiene practices.

However, there are still considerable gaps in most of the 16 member states.

“There is still need to mainstream and integrate hygiene in most of the national policies in order to broaden the enabling environment base for effective and sustainable promotion of hygiene practices,” it reads.

The framework, therefore, challenges SADC governments to increase hygiene coverage and behaviour change across all settings. These settings include health care facilities, schools and day-care centres, workplaces and commercial buildings, prisons, markets and food establishments, transport centres and places of worship.

The key hygiene behaviours include handwashing with soap, safe drinking water management, faecal disposal, food hygiene, menstrual hygiene, and waste management.

In the case of health care centres, these need to have a safe and accessible water supply, clean and safe sanitation conveniences, hand hygiene amenities at points of care and toilets, appropriate waste disposal systems and environmental cleaning.

According to the strategy, infrastructure that supports hygiene and healthcare waste management practices helps prevent the spread of diseases within the health service facilities and in the surrounding community.
The strategy was developed with the support of UNICEF and WaterAid Southern Africa.

Maureen Nkandu, Regional Communications Manager for WaterAid Southern Africa, says the policy underlines the need for leadership, commitment, and accountability “to create a culture of hygienic behaviour and practices across all levels of society and to enable hygiene services, behaviour change and promote basic sanitation”.

“For these objectives to be effective, there will be a requirement for strong planning, financial resourcing, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation systems in each of the SADC countries,” Nkandu tells IPS.

She says WaterAid has rallied key partners, including WASH-oriented civil society and development agencies, to demand adequate resources to implement the strategy effectively.

Further, achieving sustainable hygiene behaviour across generations needs innovative behaviour change programmes of scale. This can be realised through adequate financing, coordination of relevant sectors and political leadership, Nkandu says.

For Malawi, the strategy presents an opportunity for the country to push harder towards attaining Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) targets related to hygiene, says Maziko Matemba, a community health ambassador appointed by the Ministry of Health.

Matemba corroborates Paulo’s experience, observing that many healthcare facilities in Malawi are a source of infection for patients, guardians, and visitors because of poor hygiene.

“Sanitation and hygiene in most of our public health facilities is a serious concern. People go to hospitals to get treated, but we have cases where patients and guardians have returned home with new health conditions contracted due to poor hygiene,” he says, citing washrooms as hotspots.

Matemba argues that healthcare facilities could promote good hygiene in Malawi and SADC.

“People gather in these facilities to seek services. That’s a huge advantage to drive home awareness messages and demonstrate by own standards how people can promote good hygiene in their homes,” says Matemba, who is also Executive Director for Health and Rights Education Programme (HREP), a local organisation.

But in all this, funding is a major factor, he observes.

“Hospital administrators tell us that if they have no money for a primary commodity like drugs, hence these perennial drug shortages we see, how can mops, handwashing materials and chemicals to clean toilets with become a priority?”

Matemba tells IPS that although civil society organisations have been campaigning for ages for the government to address the critical shortage of funding to hospitals, not much has changed.

“Development budget is always inadequate. Recurrent expenditures, already less than required, are further cut, and the little that remains hardly goes to the facilities in time. Treasury always says the resource envelope is limited,” says Matemba.

He says the strategy challenges Malawi as SADC Chair to lead the way for member states to improve the hygiene situation in the region by fixing their own.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Adrian Chikumbe, tells IPS that the SADC strategy is an important approach in minimising transmission of infection in health facilities and communities.

According to Chikumbe, a recent assessment by the ministry reveals that almost a third of Malawi’s health care facilities lack running water and 80 percent of patient latrines had no associated hand washing facility.

The assessment also found that environmental cleanliness was generally below average, characterised by poor waste management practices.

He says most of the lower-level facilities in the country lack resources to maintain functional WASH infrastructure.

“The Government recognises that it cannot do everything alone. It, therefore, has plans to mobilise partner support led by district authorities to plan and prioritise water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure in all health facilities,” he says.

The Southern African region is particularly vulnerable to climate change while only being responsible for a fraction of emissions. It is hoped that COP26 will deliver tangible benefits to the area which has already suffered severe impacts of climate change like the effects of Cyclone Idai, Mozambique, in March 2019. Credit: Denis Onyodi: IFRC/DRK/Climate Centre

By Kevin Humphrey
Johannesburg, Oct 26 2021 (IPS)

COP26 is almost upon us, and dire warnings abound that it’s boom or bust for a greener future. Meanwhile, everybody boasts about what they will do to cool down our planet, but there is a disjuncture between talk and action. Even Queen Elizabeth II of the host country, the United Kingdom, has grumbled publicly that not enough action is taking place on climate change.

In the Southern Africa region, the SADC’s member countries are clear that the developed countries must stump up the money to help them deliver their promises to reduce carbon emissions and carry out a raft of measures to combat global warming. All the SADC countries are signatories to the Paris Agreement.

The region has joined the cry of other African countries that the continent suffers most from climate change but hardly contributes to the causes of the phenomenon – emitting less than 4% of the world’s greenhouse gasses.
According to research undertaken on behalf of the UN, climate change adaptation needs for Africa were estimated to be $715 billion ($0.715 trillion) between 2020 and 2030.

In southern Africa, each country has its own Nationally Developed Contribution plan for dealing with climate change, including costs. Of course, funding will be needed to achieve these goals. Developing countries have pledged a $100bn annual target to help the developing world tackle climate change. All the Southern African countries will need a slice of this funding. The Green Climate Fund was established under the Cancun Agreements in 2010 as a dedicated financing vehicle for developing countries.

In the lead up to COP26, the fund is under scrutiny. Tanguy Gahouma, chair of the African Group of Negotiators at COP26, has said: “African countries want a new system to track funding from wealthy nations that are failing to meet the $100bn annual target.”

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates this funding stood at $79.6bn in 2019. OECD data reveals that from 2016-19 Africa only got 26 percent of the funding.

Gahouma said a more detailed shared system was needed that would keep tabs on each country’s contribution and where it went on the ground.

“They say they achieved maybe 70 percent of the target, but we cannot see that,” Gahouma said.
“We need to have a clear road map how they will put on the table the $100bn per year, how we can track (it),” he said. “We don’t have time to lose, and Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions of the world.”

Amar Bhattacharya, from the Brookings Institution, says about the fund, “Some progress has been made – but a lot more needs to be done.”

Denmark’s development coordination minister Flemming Møller Mortensen has warned that only a quarter of international climate finance for developing countries goes to adaptation.

COP26 may turn into a squabble over money and perhaps an attack on developed countries as they are blamed for creating the problems of climate change in the first place by using fossil fuels for the last two centuries. G20 countries account for almost 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Again, it is all about the money. Many developed countries do not want to change; their economies (and their rich elites) are wedded to fossil fuels. There are also problems with paying for adaptation. Will the rich countries fund the developing countries to green themselves up?

Southern Africa will need to deal pragmatically with the outcomes of COP26 as it becomes crucial to deal with climate change impacts – like the vulnerability to intense storms like Cyclone Idai, which hit Mozambique in March 2019. Credit: Denis Onyodi: IFRC/DRK/Climate Centre

Professor Bruce Hewitson, the SARCHI Research Chair in Climate Change Climate System Analysis Group, Dept Environmental & Geographical Sciences at the University of Cape Town, told IPS: “The well-cited meme that Africa is the continent most vulnerable to climate change impacts is true, as is the common response that Africa needs external aid to implement adaptation and development pathways compatible to climate mitigation. However, such messages hide a myriad of political realities about the difference between what is ideal and what is likely.”

Hewitson argues that what emerges from COP26 is an exercise in hope and belief.

“It’s a tightrope walk trying to balance competing demands and self-interests. At the end of the day, Africa will need to pragmatically deal with a compromised outcome and face the climate challenges as best possible under limited resources,” he says.

If Africa goes to COP26 with a begging bowl attitude, it could face the risk of dancing to the strings of the powerful and rich nations.

“Climate change impacts Africa in a multiplicity of ways, but at the root is when the local climate change exceeds the viability threshold of our infrastructural and ecological systems. Hence, arguably the largest challenge to responding to climate change is to expand and enable the regional capacity of the science and decision-makers to responsibly steer our actions in an informed and cohesive way; Africa needs to lead the design of Africa’s solutions,” says Hewitson.

While he argues that some of the best innovation is happening in Africa, it requires resources, and the COVID-19 pandemic has decreased international funding.

“Each community has unique needs and unique challenges, needing unique local solutions that are context-sensitive and context-relevant, and this will inevitably include the pain of some socio-economic and political compromise.”
The southern African region’s climate woes chime with the problems faced by a legion of developing countries. We have Mauritius’s threatened Indian Ocean islands, Seychelles, Madagascar, Comoros and those offshore of Tanzania and Mozambique, plus many thousands of miles of coastline. We have inland waterways. We have jungles, forests, vast plains and deserts. All prey to the viciousness of global warming.

The SADC’s climate change report quotes an academic paper by Rahab and Proudhomme that from 2002 “there has been a rise in temperatures at twice the global average.”

According to the SADC, a Climate Change Strategy is in place to guide the implementation of the Climate Change Programme over a Fifteen-year period (2015 – 2030). The plan is innovative in terms of food security, preserving and expanding carbon sinks (which play a major role in stabilising the global climate) and tackling problems in urban areas that cause global warming like high energy consumption, poor waste management systems and inefficient transport networks.

Out of the region’s fifteen member countries, South Africa is the biggest culprit when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently said, “We need to act with urgency and ambition to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and undertake a transition to a low-carbon economy.”

This is a big ask for the region’s economic powerhouse with entrenched mining interests, an abundance of coal and a huge fleet of coal-fired power stations.

Recently, Mining and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said South Africa must systematically manage its transition away from coal-fired power generation and not rush a switch to renewable energy sources.

“I am not saying coal forever… I am saying let’s manage our transition step by step rather than being emotional. We are not a developed economy, we don’t have all alternative sources.”

Angola has some of the most ambitious targets for transition to low-carbon development in Africa. The country committed to reducing up to 14% of its greenhouse gas emissions – commentators have met this with scepticism.
Mozambique, not – as yet – a significant carbon emitter, has potential, through its vast natural gas resources, to provide the wherewithal to heat the planet in a big way.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo – a least-developed country, has committed to a 17% reduction by 2030 in emissions. The DRC has the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest – a major carbon sink.

Other SADC countries that suffer from climate change but do very little to cause it are Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Madagascar, which is currently suffering from a climate-induced famine; Malawi, Tanzania, Namibia and Zambia.

While talking up the need to cut emissions, Zambia’s neighbour Zimbabwe said it would increase electricity and coal supply to the iron and steel sectors, thus adding to emissions.

Mauritius, Seychelles and Comoros are all vulnerable Island economies and have a lot in common with the many other island states throughout the world and are very low carbon emitters but extremely vulnerable to climate change especially rising sea levels.

Despite all the problems emerging in the lead up to COP 26, we need to take to heart the fact that scientists and commentators worldwide are warning that COP26 must deliver a way forward that works for our planet and our people. Southern Africa and the African continent as a whole can contribute with innovation and enthusiasm by tapping into the vast potential of our youthful population.

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Africa is not trading enough with Africa to boost economic development, but a new free trade area could change all that. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 9 2016 (IPS)

Getting just a sliver of the global trade in goods and services worth more than 70 trillion dollars, Africans have every excuse to decide to trade among themselves.

Many argue that it is the only way to leverage trade to secure a better life for the continent’s more than a billion people who need food and jobs.The prospects of a single market are appetizing: 54 countries, over a billion people and a combined GDP in excess of 3.4 trillion dollars, nearly double the current annual value of traded goods and services in Africa.

The Africa rising narrative might be getting the much needed validation to tackle widening inequality, joblessness, generalized poverty, food and nutritional insecurity that eclipse successes in meeting some of the development targets included in the newly agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A rich but poor Africa

The narrative of a poor Africa is about to change. That is, if Africa stands together as much as it did in fighting for its political independence. This time the fight is for a place on the global trade stage. After years of negotiations and the establishment of several free trade blocs, the signing of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) agreement targeted for December 2017 could set Africa on a new development path.

Africa has more to gain than lose in creating the CFTA, which will rival trade agreements like the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Africa already has the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) signed in June 2015 combining three largest trading blocs: The East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).

The three regional economic communities have a combined GDP in excess of 1.3 trillion dollars and a population of 565 million. However, the TFTA, which has been signed by 16 of the 26 member countries, is yet to be ratified to come into force, a blow for the journey to the CFTA.

In their paper on the adoption of the TFTA, Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at  Harvard University, and Francis Mangeni, COMESA Director of Trade, Customs and Monetary Affairs, view regional trade as part of a broader strategy for long-term economic transformation.

They argue that African trade integration measures combine the facilitation of free movement of goods and services, investment in infrastructure, and promotion of industrial development as part of the long-term political vision to unleash the continent’s entrepreneurial potential through regional trade culminating in the African Economic Community by 2028.

Market in Kivu, DRC. A Continental Free Trade Area could transform Africa’s economic fortunes. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Global trade is an undisputed source of economic development and a decider between the rich and the poor as it facilitates wealth creation and spurs innovation in every sector.

According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, global trade is on the rise but developing countries, many in Africa, account for a small share of this global commerce. Foreign direct investment has gone up in Africa from 9 billion dollars in 2000 to 55 billion in 2014, but rich countries have benefitted more, a situation the first target of the expired Millennium Development Goal 8 sought to address through the development of an open, rule based, predictable and nondiscriminatory trading and financial system.

While an equitable trade system is a global ideal, Africa has the potential to turn the trade tide in its favour by transforming political will into action. Africa has a wide range of natural and mineral resources making beneficiation industries a viable investment option that will help cut unemployment and eliminate poverty which dog many countries in Africa.

Prospects and problems

The prospects of a single market are appetizing: 54 countries, over a billion people and a combined GDP in excess of 3.4 trillion dollars, nearly double the current annual value of traded goods and services in Africa.

“The proposed Continental Free Trade Area will expand the continent’s regional investment to West Africa which is currently not covered by the tripartite consolidation of COMESA, EAC and SADC,” Juma told IPS. “This will enlarge investment opportunities for Africans to invest across the continent. A larger continental market will also make African more attractive to foreign investors.”

Juma, who is writing a book on the CFTA to be published to coincide with signing of the agreement in 2017, believes that a larger single market will enable African factories to operate at full capacity, which will in turn stimulate greater technological innovation.

“The impact on innovation will include greater movement of skills to the continent from outside and across the continent between countries. Africans will be able to learn new skills from their foreign counterparts which will help to strengthen the continent’s technological base,” he said.

Africa has as many trade opportunities as it has obstacles to realizing the free movement of goods, services and people. One of the major obstacles to the CFTA identified by Juma is adjusting national laws and practices to enable countries to implement the agreement. Resistance will come from firms that have been previously protected from external competition. A solution, Juma is convinced, lies in balancing corrective measures with incentives.

“The agreement needs to include remedies and incentives that help countries to adjust to the new regime,” he said. “In this regard, the agreement should not be about free trade but it should also have provisions for infrastructure and industrialisation. It should be an economic development agreement, not just a free trade arrangement.”

Africans not trading with Africans

Statistics from COMESA indicate that inter-Africa trade is a paltry 12 percent compared to trade with Europe and Asia, at nearly 60 percent. At the heart of the poor intra-African trade are prohibitive national trade measures. It is easier to buy products from Europe than for African countries to sell to each other.

Trade policy harmonisation and reducing export/import duties are critical to freeing the movement of goods and people. Last month, the African Union launched the electronic Pan African passport, paving the way for free movement across borders and an important step towards a free trade zone. The passport, initially for African heads of state, foreign ministers and diplomats, will be available to African citizens by 2018.

African governments under the African Union have established the Continental Free Trade Agreement Negotiating Forum which has met several times to hammer out modalities of the continent wide free trade zone mooted in 2012. African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry, Fatima Haram Acyl, told the first meeting of the negotiating forum in February 2016 that the Continental Free Trade Area will integrate Africa’s markets in line with the objectives and principles of the Abuja Treaty.

It remains for Africa to up investments in road, rail and air infrastructure, communications and seamless service delivery and agriculture which are disproportionate among the 54 member states creating unease as to what a single market will mean for both poor and rich economies.

Economic disparities present a hurdle Africa must overcome as many of Africa’s 54 countries are small, with populations of less than 20 million and economies under 10 billion dollars. National markets would be insufficient to justify investments as adequate supply of inputs and sufficient demand would be too expensive or out of reach that a bigger market will achieve.

The consulting firm McKinsey predicts consumer spending in Africa will rise from 860 billion dollars to 1.4 trillion by 2020, potentially lifting millions out of poverty should a single market be inaugurated.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has calculated that the CFTA could increase intra-African trade by as much as 35 billion dollars per year over the next six years.

Concluding CFTA negotiations this year in good time for the 2017 deadline could open a new chapter in African trade and chart a new path towards economic independence and growth. The only question that remains is, will it happen?

This story is part of special IPS coverage of the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, observed on September 12.

The Victoria Falls (pictured) is a strong selling point of tourism in southern Africa. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

By John Fraser
JOHANNESBURG , Jun 3 2013 (IPS)

Competing players in the tourism industry in southern Africa are putting aside their rivalry in pursuit of a common goal – a big boost in tourist numbers to the region.

Mmatsatsi Marobe, the chief executive officer of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa, told IPS that South African tourism players “are well aware of the regional Africa dimension and have been active in this market for years, although restricted within the confines of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.

“In recent years, we have seen a growing interest in markets beyond the SADC region – as shown by the increasing number of operators in the hotel and tour operating businesses expanding beyond South Africa’s borders,” she said.

The central message from the Tourism Indaba, a tourism conference held in May in Durban, was that neighbouring countries must work more closely together in marketing and promotion to sell southern Africa – and not just its individual nations – as a destination.

Marobe argued that the benefits of greater regional cooperation would extend far beyond the business of tourism to conservation as well.

“Moving from a perspective that Africa’s unique offering to the world is the variety and integrity of our biodiversity, then as a continent, we need to all do what we can to protect this heritage – because in this lies our global competitive advantage,” she said.

She added that the private and public sector needed to join hands to address the ongoing scourge facing South Africa’s rhino species. Last year, poachers killed 668 rhinos in South Africa.

“There is also the power that lies in packaging our natural and cultural heritage and offering it to the world – that combination is hard to be rivalled anywhere in the world, adding the warmth and welcoming of the people of Africa,” Marobe said.

Glenn Stutchbury, the president of the Zimbabwe Council for Tourism, argued that many visitors do not distinguish between the different countries in southern Africa.

“Southern Africa is long-haul travel for most of its visitors. No one really travels that kind of distance for a single destination, so packaging various options is essential – and cross border, given the various options, makes for a more attractive offer to the visitor,” he told IPS.

He said that the private sector must lead the process in marketing the region as a whole.

“And it is already happening, where like-minded owners work together with operators to promote their products alongside others with whom they share common service and product values. It is about integrity for the client.

“The rivalry exists and is healthy, but there is a need for sharing if one is to compete with other area destinations, such as East Africa.”

Stutchbury said that Cape Town in South Africa, the Chobe National Park in Botswana and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Zambia packaged together, for example, could outsell Kenya’s Maasai Mara and coastal town of Mombasa.

Robin Brown, a partner in the tourism news site victoriafalls24.com, agreed that multi-destination tourism is on the rise.

“More and more itineraries suggested by tour operators, and others being booked direct by tourists, are including multiple-country destinations, with camps and lodges, hotels and resorts, in nearby countries,” he told IPS.

“We need to portray an image to the market that the entire region – Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and others – is a good, safe and reliable option for 14-day and longer itineraries – with good access options, safe travel options and a world- class product that links together seamlessly across borders,” he said.

Brown said that in reality, the combination of these countries was an “absolute dream” for potential tourists.

“By selling a region we reduce the risks of having countries pinpointed for safety issues, which are often misconceived – and also the impact of marketing a region seems to have more depth than a lone country,” he explained.

He emphasised the need for key players to work more closely together. “I am already involved in a regional news awareness campaign, and I am finding that there is interest, but there are also hang-ups.

“We need to educate one another to the fact that our real opposition is other regions around the world, not our next-door neighbour country. Engagement is required.”

Noel De Villiers from Open Africa, an NGO that encourages conservation of natural resources and aims to promote job creation, said that he believes there are huge potential benefits if the countries in Africa work more closely together

“First of all, regional tourism is burgeoning and ripe to grow more, so neighbouring states have great potential to feed off each other,” he told IPS.

“Secondly, the strongest brand for overseas travel to Africa is Africa itself. It is the birthplace of humankind, there is the mystique of the place, it is the custodian of most of the world’s animal and plant species, and it is magnificently diverse and spellbinding.

“Thirdly, with the cost of long-haul travel, most people look to numerous stops.”

Lastly, he said, the dollar spends by regional states on advertising would go much further, be more effective, and offer a more attractive product, if they were to be combined.

Stutchbury suggested that there is an important role for the tourism authorities and politicians in the different countries of the region to work together to make it easier for visitors to enjoy multi-destination holidays.

Michael Tatalias, the chief executive officer of the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association, told IPS that cooperation between neighbouring countries on tourism “is often on an issue by issue basis.”

He explained that cooperation was usually on issues such as common problems with border posts, such as not getting busses and passengers through in time.

“An example is the Chirundu border post between Zimbabwe and Zambia.  They redesigned the border post to separate trucks from passenger vehicles, so they have only one search of the (tourist) vehicle – with officials from both countries doing the one search side-by-side.

“This saves huge amounts of time. There is a similar effort on the crossing through Komatipoort between South Africa and Mozambique.”

He suggested that air access was a major issue where more action and cooperation was needed, and if more licences were to be issued for flights between destinations within Africa “that could do wonders for tourism growth.”

Namibia’s Omaruru River runs dry for much of the year, but along with the aquifers it feeds is a vital source of water for a wide area. Credit:Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

By Absalom Shigwedha
WINDHOEK, Jun 7 2012 (IPS)

A transboundary initiative aimed at providing clean drinking water and proper sanitation between Angola and Namibia is making steady progress.

The Kunene Transboundary Water Supply Project is a good model of trans-boundary cooperation in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The KTWSP will improve the water supply for around 700,000 residents of southern Angola and northern Namibia, providing for domestic consumption, irrigation, and industry.

The project includes the rehabilitation of the Calueqe Dam in southern Angola, which suffered extensive damage during the country’s 27 years of civil war. So far, some 35 million dollars have been invested in the project, which is being funded by the Namibian and Angola governments and contributions from the UK, the German Development Bank and Australia.

Dr Kuiri Tjipangandjara, an engineer at the Namibia Water Corporation (NamWater) and co-Chair of the KTWSP, told IPS that construction of a new pipeline between the southern Angola towns of Xangongo and Ondjiva has already begun. This link will supply treated water to various towns and villages along its route, such as Namacunde, Santa-Clara and Chiedi.

Designs for the network to distribute water within and around Ondjiva are in progress, as are plans for another bulk water pipeline linking Santa Clara to the Namibian town of Oshakati.

Tjipangandjara said Angola has also begun setting up a water utility for the Kunene region.

“There was nothing in place before, and it takes time to set up such a utility and other facilities of the project,” he said.

Numerous design and feasibility studies must be conducted and approved by all involved parties: Angola, Namibia, SADC and the German Development Bank.

“Of course it will be a state-owned utility,” he said, but he did not venture to predict if it would eventually operate on a cost-recovery basis like NamWater, explaining that each country designs its own policies – dictated by the reality on the ground and by history.

The next phase of the project will look at replacing the open canal that runs for 150 kilometres between Calueqe and the Namibian town of Oshakati with a pipeline.

The open canal currently faces a number of challenges. During the rainy season, it is frequently damaged by floods and Tjipangandjara said people living along the canal not only freely draw water without permission – the occasional drowning has been reported – but some locals have also vandalised it. He explained that repairing this damage costs NamWater dearly in terms of maintenance.

He said replacing the canal with a pipeline will also eliminate losses through evaporation. “Seventy-six percent of the water that we pump from Calueqe into the canal is lost to evaporation,” Tjipangandjara told IPS.

Modestus Amutse is the councillor for Oshikuku constituency in the Omusati region through which the canal runs.

He told IPS that the KTWSP is a good initiative, but warned that replacing the open waterway with a pipeline could deny villagers access to water for irrigation and for their livestock. “This project will only be good if it is responsive to the needs of the people,” he said.

While he agreed that the canal lost water through evaporation, he stressed that many of his constituents were unemployed and could not afford to pay for water at communal access points. But, he said, they needed access to water for their gardens and livestock.

Tjipangandjara disagreed. “The current off-take of water from the canal is not approved by NamWater and is not managed.”

He suggested water should only be drawn at designated points. “It should be regulated and properly managed. The current practice is not correct.”

Tjipangandjara said that undertaking the KTWSP has improved understanding of the water supply in Namibia and Angola, and strengthened management of the Kunene River basin, including providing access to badly needed funds for infrastructure.

(END)

A large number of people in Malawi rely on charcoal as a source of energy. / Travis Lupick/IPS

By Claire Ngozo
LILONGWE, Jun 6 2012 (IPS)

On-again, off-again… it’s the story of both Malawi’s power supply and the interconnection project that could end blackouts with power imported from neighbouring Mozambique.

Malawi’s total demand for power currently stands at 300 megawatts, but the country’s generation capacity is only 266 MW. The shortfall is projected to grow rapidly in a country where the World Bank says only eight percent of the population of 14 million has access to electricity. The Ministry of Energy estimates that the country will need 603 MW by 2015 and 829 MW by 2020.

Malawi’s hydro-electric station on the Shire, the country’s largest river, is hampered by siltation and outdated equipment, making the power supply in this Southern Africa country erratic.

Daily power cuts can last up to six hours and small and large companies alike struggle in the face of an uncertain power supply.

“I can’t wait to see the situation improve. I am putting my hope in this new deal with Mozambique,” said Judith Chilika, who runs a hair salon and a restaurant in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.

She told IPS her businesses have suffered greatly from frequent blackouts.

“I have had to close down both the restaurant and the salon many times due to the power blackouts. I can’t afford to run my stand-by generators for long, because fuel is expensive and there have also been shortages of diesel and petrol for some time now,” said Chilika.

Yet plenty of power is available from a dam just across the border in Mozambique. The giant Cahora-Bassa dam was constructed in 1974 and supplies electricity not just to Mozambique, but to neighbouring South Africa.

A 2008 proposal – backed by a 200 million dollar package from the World Bank – to buy power from Cahora-Bassa has faced numerous delays. Last year the plan seemed stillborn, when Malawi’s government canned it over cost concerns.

But Malawi’s new government, led by Joyce Banda – who assumed power three days after President Bingu wa Mutharika’s death from illness in April– has moved quickly to revive the project. On May 12, Banda’s government signed a memorandum of understanding with Mozambique to again move ahead with the power link.

The interconnection plan is directly in line with the Southern African Development Community’s emphasis on cooperation along shared watercourses – exemplifying cooperation for sustainable development, and advancing the SADC agenda of regional integration and poverty alleviation.

Energy-pooling is among the strategies employed in implementing the 2003 Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses, which supports joint development, transmission, and storage of energy to achieve greater reliability, economy and equitable sharing of costs and benefits among riparian states.

“The overall objective of the protocol is to foster close and coordinated cooperation in the management, protection and utilisation of shared watercourses and to advance the SADC agenda,” Lopi told IPS.

Malawians are cautiously optimistic about news the deal is back on. “We hope we will have a more reliable power supply which will boost our industrial work and help improve Malawi’s economy and alleviate poverty in the country,” said John Kapito, executive director of the Consumer Association of Malawi, the country’s most influential consumer rights body.

Kapito said the power outages must end if the country is ever to get back on its feet economically.

“This agreement is our biggest hope,” Kapito told IPS.

But hopeful consumers and business owners will have to wait for details of the agreement to be finalised, according to Cassim Chilumpha, the country’s energy minister.

Chilumpha told Parliament this week that a technical team is yet to go to Mozambique to finalise the process. “We will try as much as possible to speed up the process so that we start benefiting from the new agreement as soon as possible,” he said.

(END)

The mighty Victoria Falls. The water sector is critical in helping build regional integration in Southern Africa. / Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

By Thabani Okwenjani
HARARE, Jun 5 2012 (IPS)

The Southern African Development Community’s protocol on shared watercourses is recognised as one of the world’s best. But sound agreements on the sustainable and equitable management of joint water resources require effective means to implement them.

Water officials from across Southern Africa are meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Jun 5-6 to develop a mechanism to monitor the implementation of the regional agreement.

SADC’s 2003 Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses stresses a basin-wide approach to managing transboundary waters, rather than an emphasis on territorial sovereignty. It spells out the objectives of sound management as including coordinated management, sustainable use, and environmental protection.

The river basin organisations that are holding their fifth meeting in Harare are charged with promoting equitable use, setting out strategies for the development of shared rivers and lakes, and developing a policy for monitoring shared watercourses.

Armed conflict over water has long been predicted; most recently the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence said such wars would break out within the next decade. But although many parts of the region are already facing water stress, SADC expects its numerous transboundary watercourses to be the basis of closer cooperation rather than conflict.

“They say the next wars will be fought over water,” Dr Kenneth Msibi told IPS in Harare, ” but with these agreements, we are making sure that water will instead be an instrument of peace.”

Msibi, a water policy and strategy expert at the SADC Secretariat, said the water sector is critical in helping build regional integration. “Cooperation will also lead to further integration and water is an engine for development and this means a tool for poverty reduction. This means protocols for shared water are critical for regional integration.”

Msibi believes managing shared river basins in line with integrated water resource management principles – recognising that water management encompasses both social and economic goals, and should involve policy-makers, managers and users – contributes to SADC’s three key objectives: regional integration, peace and stability, and poverty reduction.

Sipho Nkambule, the chief executive officer of the Komati Basin Authority, which coordinates management of a river system that extends across South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique, said he would use the Harare meeting as a chance to compare notes on how other river basin authorities were monitoring implementation.

He said the main challenge was explaining management of a shared river to people living along its banks.

“People are struggling to understand why they should share the resource with others,” Nkambule said. “Those upstream are not happy to be told to allow water to pass, when they want to trap it for their own needs.”

Sergio Sitoe, the Interim Executive Secretary of LIMCOM, the Limpopo Watercourse Commission, said he hoped the new monitoring tool would emphasise communication among member states sharing a river basin.

“Member states should notify each other on development projects along the basin, as notification is crucial and failure to do so may create problems downstream and might impact negatively on other members,” he said.

As an example, Sitoe mentioned a recent complaint in which the Botswana government felt their South African counterparts should have officially informed them before beginning a development in the river basin.

The LIMCOM head said that while regional agreements allowed for disputes to be taken to the SADC Tribunal, there were a number of conflicts in the region that were being discussed behind closed doors.

“It’s good that we are trying to prevent these conflicts,” Sitoe said, “and we are building trust so that everything runs smoothly.”

Officials from across the region are agreed that implementation of the 2003 Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses will promote peace and stability in the region.

Msibi said the river basin organisation meeting – which welcomed its latest full member, the Zambezi Watercourse Commission, whose founding agreement was ratified in September last year – was meant to provide guidelines and reach a consensus on what indicators would be used and how these could be applied in each of the region’s transboundary river systems.

“We are taking input from all the stakeholders, we will discuss the tool and indicators to monitor progress,” Msibi said.

“This agreement can unlock potential for member states, and it creates an opportunity for member states to work together to beat economies of scale,” he said.

As she sits down to watch the 8pm news on TV, Mercy Kamphoni from Chamtulo Village in Malawi’s Mangochi lake district looks elated. She still cannot believe that she is the new proud owner of a television set, refrigerator and radio.

Mercy Kamphoni is able to send all her children to school and provide for her family’s needs – thanks to paprika. / Claire Ngozo/IPS

These electronic goods are seen as luxury items in this southern African nation where 74 percent of the population lives on less than 1.25 dollars a day. And they are just a few of the many “exclusive” things that Kamphoni owns.

For a woman living in rural Malawi, Kamphoni is considered to be well-off. She also owns a bicycle, a treadle pump – a suction pump that is positioned on top of a well – for irrigating her crop, and a silo for storing the harvest.

Kamphoni, 44, has managed to amass all these things over the last three years since she started commercial farming and abandoned subsistence farming, which she began when she married at 16.

Now divorced for four years, and with five children between the ages of six and 14, Kamphoni is able to send all her children to school and provide for her family’s needs – thanks to paprika.

“I only grew maize because that was the norm. Almost everyone in this country grows maize and that’s what my ex-husband and I did until he left my children and me. Afterwards I had to search for ways to survive and take care of the children,” Kamphoni told IPS. “I was introduced to a women farmers’ club and that’s where I learnt that one could make money from growing paprika.”

In fact she earns roughly three times more than she did when she farmed maize. A kilogramme of maize sells for 35 cents while a kg of paprika earns Kamphoni one dollar.

“Paprika is the best option for Malawi. It provides me with a profit four times the amount I invest in growing it,” said Kamphoni.

The Farmers’ Union of Malawi (FUM) is encouraging smallholder farmers to diversify to commercial farming, which it says is more sustainable.

“We agree that growing maize is good for people’s daily livelihoods as they’re assured of an availability of it in their households. But cash crops such as paprika are even more viable and sustainable as they allow farmers to make money with which they can buy a diverse range of products,” FUM president Felix Jumbe told IPS.

In addition to promoting paprika, FUM is also urging farmers to start growing mushrooms and soy beans, which are also in demand. However, not many farmers are aware that paprika has the potential to be a significant foreign exchange earner here.

Tobacco is Malawi’s main revenue earner, accounting for up to 60 percent – or 950 million dollars – of foreign exchange. The country’s tobacco accounts for five percent of the world’s total exports, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

However, Jumbe said that tobacco sales have not been doing well, as a result of the successful efforts of international anti-smoking lobbies. In 2011 the tobacco exported by Malawi amounted to 210 million kgs, but sales for 2012 are only projected to be 151.5 million kgs.

“We have seen dwindling sales of tobacco year in, year out and we need to be looking at something else for sustainability. That something else is paprika,” he said.

According to a 2011 report by the Ministry of Agriculture on the potential earnings paprika could generate, there is a market for 10,000 metric tonnes. Sales could amount to 9.4 million dollars. Currently the country’s farmers only export 500 metric tonnes of the capsicum fruit, which brings in 470,000 dollars in foreign exchange.

Gladwell Kwapata, a 51-year-old farmer from the central district of Mchinji, is one of the few farmers who have chosen to abandon tobacco for paprika.

Prior to this Kwapata was a tobacco farmer for 21 years.

“But over the past five years, tobacco sales have been dwindling, with the average price dropping from 2.5 dollars to less than a dollar a kg. This was threatening my family’s livelihood, hence I switched to paprika,” he told IPS.

Malawi’s new President Joyce Banda seems to realise the important role that paprika could play in the country’s economy.

She told parliament on May 18 during her state of the nation address that she would like to see a sustainable paprika industry in the country.

“Agriculture plays a vital role in the socio-economic development of the country. Government is determined to eliminate hunger and to ensure that no child in Malawi goes to bed on an empty stomach, let alone dies of starvation,” Banda said. Nearly one in 10 children in this country die before their fifth birthday.

She said that her administration’s overall goal for the agricultural sector was to generate growth and wealth creation through commercialising farming, the promotion of regional markets, and crop diversification. Banda said this would require the introduction of new policies and institutional changes.

Meanwhile, Kwapata is reaping the benefits from switching crops.

“I have been growing paprika for the past two years and I am already enjoying the fruits of my labour. I was able to make a profit of over 1,500 dollars just in the last year,” he told IPS.

Gertrude Mkoloi earns a living harvesting maize on a small piece of land in rural Zimbabwe. Or at least she used to.

Female subsistence farmers, who form more than 70 percent of farmers on the continent, remain clueless about climate change issues. Credit:Busani Bafana

Deep in rural Binga, more than 400 km from the country’s second-largest city, Bulawayo, Mkoloi stared blankly at her maize crop, scorched brown by the sun during what was meant to be the rainy season.

“This is what I have for my labour,” she said, pointing to charred maize stalks that failed to grow tassels – a cluster of male maize flowers required for pollination.

“No one here tells us anything about planning for the cropping season, but what we know is that the rains have shifted,” she said. It is a common complaint among women farmers in this southern African nation, as the bulk of local agriculture remains rain-fed.

According to the Meteorological Service Department, rainfall across the country has declined, while temperatures have risen in the past few years. And this has meant that the traditional agricultural seasons have shifted.

Rural women, who according to the Ministry of Agriculture make up more than 70 percent of food growers here, have experienced failed harvests in recent years due to radically changing rainfall patterns.

In April, Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made announced that this year’s maize harvests had shrunk by 26 percent, due to poor rainfall. And the government has already warned that food insecurity could lead to fatalities.

In another southern African country, Angola, millions are facing critical food insecurity as a prolonged dry spell across large parts of the country destroyed harvests and killed off livestock in the first three months of this year. Up to 500,000 children are now thought to be suffering from severe malnutrition triggered by the collapse in food production.

And the situation is likely to worsen. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has predicted that challenges posed by climate change will result in reduced agricultural yields in sub- Saharan Africa by between 20 and 50 percent by 2050.

But female subsistence farmers like Mkoloi, who according to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa make up more than 70 percent of farmers on the continent, remain clueless about climate change issues. And there is little or no government intervention in Zimbabwe to aid them.

Hazel Gumpo, a smallholder farmer affiliated to the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union and a gender activist, said that more needed to be done to educate women about the changing climate.

“There is no doubt in my mind that women are feeding the nation through farming activities. But there is very little or no knowledge sharing for us to understand and deal with the impacts of climate change,” Gumpo said.

In April the Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made announced that this year’s maize harvests had reduced by 26 percent, due to poor rainfall. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

It is one of the reasons there are growing calls for southern African countries to urgently adopt a gender perspective as an aspect of climate change policy.

Gender Links, a southern African non-governmental organisation focusing on gender equality, plans to lobby for the approval of an addendum to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development. The protocol is a regional instrument that advances gender equality and women’s rights.

While the protocol does not mention climate change specifically, it has provisions that can be used to advance a climate justice agenda. For example, Articles 12 and 13 are about governance and providing for the equal representation of women in all spheres of decision-making.

The preamble of the protocol underlines the need for the elimination of gender inequality in the region and the promotion of the “full and equal enjoyment of rights” and Gender Links argues that the same set of demands can be fought for within the climate change debate.

“Women’s voices and interests need to be amplified in the policy-making around climate change, not least because they are the most vulnerable to climate change because of their different social roles and status,” Gender Links argued.

Many hope that the addendum will be ratified at the SADC Heads of States Summit in Mozambique in August.

The climate change addendum will seek knowledge empowerment for women, especially those in rural areas. And it is something sorely needed in the region, analysts say.

“There is still a lot to be done as far as empowering rural women in the region goes,” said Nonhlanhla Siziba, a gender policy researcher in Bulawayo.

“At least adopting climate change policy issues concerning mitigation measures at that level could mean that governments like Zimbabwe are compelled to work closely with subsistence farmers,” Siziba told IPS.

Mandla Mhlanga, a climate change researcher at the University of Zimbabwe, told IPS that many African countries have been slow to adopt policy issues concerning climate change even though “this phenomenon has been affecting the agriculture sector for decades now.”

“That SADC is being pushed to adopt it now as a policy issue aimed at addressing and improving women’s livelihoods is a step in the right direction. It is also important that this comes at a time when Zimbabwe is formulating its own climate change policy,” Mhlanga said.

But it could still be some time before subsistence farmers like Mkoloi reap the benefits.

Gumpo said: “People like using clichés about how the empowering of women translates into empowering the nation. But we have not seen such empowerment, as talk has been concentrated in political positions and not development where it really matters.”

Meanwhile, Mkoloi has no option but to go ahead and plant her crop for the next season. However, her burnt field of maize is a stark reminder of the uncertain future she faces.

“We are already planning to prepare the land for the next planting season. But we still do not know when the rainy season will start in light of what happened last time,” Mkoloi said.

*Additional reporting by Busani Bafana in Bulawayo.

(END)

By Travis Lupick
BLANTYRE, Dec 16 2011 (IPS)

On an elegant veranda adorned with a red carpet, Malawi’s Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend Chrissie Mtokoma was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. But now decades later Banda is a likely contender for the country’s presidency in 2014, while Mtokoma lives in poverty.

Malawi's Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. Credit: Katie C. Lin/IPS

“She went to school in the village and I went to school in the town,” begins the highest-ranking woman in Malawi politics. “I would get home Friday evening and Chrissie would be waiting for me by the roadside.”

Banda tells parallel narratives contrasting her own upbringing with that of Mtokoma’s. “In the village school, Chrissie was first in her class, all the way to standard six (grade eight),” she tells IPS. “I was always number two or three, always fighting to beat her. But I couldn’t.”

Later, both girls were accepted into prestigious secondary schools. But after just three months, Mtokoma was forced to drop out.

“Chrissie’s uncle couldn’t pay for a second semester,” Banda says. “That was it for Chrissie. She went back to the village and into a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, early marriage, and then early motherhood. By the time I finished school, she had maybe five children. And today, Chrissie is where I left her.”

Banda maintains she was only able to stay in school thanks to the middle-class income her father earned working as a policeman. “So I went on, finished, and now I am vice president of this land,” she tells IPS. “Chrissie, she is locked up in the village, in poverty. And that makes me angry. Why am I here and she is not?”

As Banda entered adulthood, these childhood memories drew her attention to the benefits of education, and especially economic empowerment, to which she has dedicated much of her life.

In recent years, Malawian women have made significant gains in their struggle for full gender equality. Women are increasingly represented in national politics, for example. Malawi’s May 2009 federal election saw the proportion of female Members of Parliament rise from 14 percent to 22. And though a minority, it is not difficult to find women’s names among the ranks of corporate board members.

Yet women in Malawi remain disproportionately affected by poverty. In 2004, the National Statistics Office found that while only 25 percent of the country’s households were headed by women, they accounted for 58.4 percent of the country’s poorest homes. Moreover, women in Malawi remain significantly under-represented in areas of economic decision-making.

Banda and other leading women argue that the key to addressing these problems is to put more of the country’s money in the hands of its mothers.

Seodi White, national coordinator for Women and Law in Southern Africa, recalls her involvement in the country’s first marches for women, which were held in the late 1990s. More than a decade later, she argues that there is still much work to be done.

Even small amounts of money can create life-changing opportunities for the country’s most disadvantaged women, White says. She describes the results of an experiment her organisation led in a village in Mangochi District. Women were given roughly 110 dollars and left to do with it as they wished.

“We found out that these are not idle hands,” White says.

One woman made sweets out of sugar and sold them to nearby schools. Another baked and sold small cakes. And a third invested in a tobacco operation. The women made enough to keep their small businesses going, and invested excess earnings in purchases that benefited their families; blankets for their children, iron sheets to improve a dwelling’s thatched roof, and household items such as salt and sugar that previously were only provided by their husbands.

“This kind of power can create a level of decision-making at the family and community level that can have cascading effects on the country,” White emphasises.

She points to studies by financial institutions such as Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, which, time and again, have shown that women are significantly more likely than men to invest in areas that alleviate poverty such as health, education, and business improvement.

“Women are trained to care for others,” she reasons. “Very few women would just use money for their own personal gain.”

At the side of the road in Blantyre, a group of women selling scraps of plastic discuss what they wish for their businesses. At the top of everyone’s list is an investment or small loan.

Cecelia Goba, 40, and Ellen Mawuwa, 35, say that they would use funds to import and resell goods from neighbouring countries such as Mozambique.

“I would buy clothes and shoes outside this country and sell them here,” Mawuwa says. “We have friends in such businesses and they are doing quite fine.”

A number of non-profit organisations are active in Malawi supplying the sort of micro-loans made famous by the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. And the vice president’s newly-formed People’s Party recently launched an initiative called Orange Achievers, which aims to maximise the economic potential of Malawian women.

But supply cannot meet demand. And as Mary Malunga, executive director for the National Association of Business Women, explains, there are a host of other challenges Malawian women must overcome if they are to excel in the professional world.

“Women need to work 10 times harder than men to prove that any job that a man can do, a woman can do too,” she explains. “Women, due to perceived social and cultural roles, are not respected when they are in leadership positions.”

Malunga, a successful businesswomen herself, offered a few words of advice.

“To get to where I am today, it took what I call the three Ps: patience, perseverance, and prayer,” she says. “You need to persevere through all kinds of challenges and obstacles which, at times, will make you feel like you will never reach your intended destination.”

White echoes Malunga’s remarks. “Determination, determination, determination,” she emphasises, warning that this may mean sacrificing other aspects of one’s life, including having a boyfriend. Falling pregnant may end a young girl’s dreams.

“You might get pregnant, and that would be the end of it,” White explains. “Most girls don’t realise the kinds of difficult decisions that some of us had to make to reach where we are.”

And at the vice president’s compound in Blantyre, Banda reiterates that economic empowerment is the path to education and prosperity. But she stresses that this does not mean anybody should wait for a handout.

“My advice to younger women is that we have a moral obligation to make it,” Banda maintains. “Regardless of what we face, we need to forge ahead, we need to keep going. For us, it is a responsibility that we have in order to push our fellow women forward.”

Excerpt:

South Africa's first eco-friendly and energy efficient low-income housing development in Atlantis. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

By Lee Middleton
ATLANTIS, South Africa, Dec 14 2011 (IPS)

Something unusual is happening in Atlantis. Created in the 1970s to fulfill the apartheid government’s agenda to evict “coloured” South Africans from Cape Town, Atlantis has always been best known as the city that apartheid built.

South Africa's first eco-friendly and energy efficient low-income housing development in Atlantis. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

But in this new era of climate change concern, the creation here of South Africa’s first eco-friendly and energy efficient low-income housing development may finally overwrite that dark legacy.

Initiated by the City of Cape Town, the project aims to build “eco houses” for 2,400 families in Witsands, Atlantis’s poorest neighborhood, and home to the majority of Atlantis’s Xhosa-speaking minority. The city hopes the project will set a national benchmark for sustainable living in low-cost housing developments.

A part of the national Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDB) that has promised housing for every South African, the project, a collaboration with the engineering firm PEER Africa, the Universities of Cape Town and Johannesburg, Eskom, and several NGOS, has handed over some 800 eco-houses since it began in 2005.

Laid out on a north-facing grid, the energy-efficient homes make use of the “Energy and Environmentally Cost Optimized (EECO™) Human Settlement Development Model™,” elaborated by PEER Africa.

According to this design, all units feature large north-facing windows (allowing winter’s lower sun to heat), a roof overhang that protects against summer’s higher sun, and insulation, especially in the ceilings, that retains the warmer or cooler temperatures inside.

Put back what you take away

“In the beginning it was very hard to get the people to understand,” recalled 34 year-old Fundiswa Makeleni, a member of the community hired by PEER Africa to educate her neighbours about the new concept. “But when I’d take them to the show houses to feel it… everyone loves it now.”

Community buy-in was vital to success, as plans went beyond north-south orientation and large windows. Additional “greening” like the provision of a tree, shrubs, and ground-cover would also be part of the package, but would require continued maintenance.

“We have to put back what we take away,” said Beth Basset of Green Communities, the NGO providing the landscaping for the houses, as well as food gardens and other green spaces like parks and playgrounds.

Like many Western Cape housing developments, Witsands is built on sand dunes. Strong winds and extreme temperatures — exacerbated in a denuded environment — are the norm.

“They’d take away a whole ecosystem, put the houses there, and go away. There was no compacting apron around the houses. The winds would come take all the sand and leave exposed foundations of up to a meter,” Basset observed of other RDP developments.

With a national backlog of over two million RDB houses, the impact of creating an energy-efficient model that promotes sustainable livelihoods could be tremendous.

“From the climate change perspective it’s about replacing the ecosystems. Soil stabilisation, water conservation, recycling. We needed to build a model to deliver greening immediately,” said Basset.

Councillor Ernest Sonnenberg from Cape Town’s Mayoral committee on Human Settlements, agreed. “In Cape Town we’re in a very windy area with loose sand, so structures become unstable. The greening around the houses was a mechanism to bind the ground and prevent erosion. It was also an opportunity to experiment and see how to create a more sustainable livelihood.”

Sustainable living, sustaining lives

“We are the poorest of the poor here. But we use the nature to cool and warm our house. We have solar panels and solar geysers, so we’re saving energy. Each household does not use more than 50 Rand (about six dollars) a month on electricity now,” said Makeleni.

The project’s second phase, which began in 2010 and will build 1,835 units (350 have already been handed over), has added solar geysers, photovoltaic modules for lighting and cell phone charging, and roofwater and stormwater recovery systems.

Makeleni belongs to a women’s group that arose from the savings they were seeing from energy and fuel. “Each month we come together and we all put our savings on the table and put it in the bank. Then after one year we divide that money and can buy things that we need.”

For her own part, Makeleni plans to invest her share in seeds for the food tunnel that Green Communities helped establish.

“Our forefathers used to plant food to eat, never go each and every day to the shop and buy food. My wish is to go back. We have food gardens, electricity from the sun. We can succeed in this way of life with or without money. Even if you have money you can live like this. Even if you’re a single mother you can afford to live.”

Building houses, building communities

Though the financial advantages are obvious, the perks that the eco-homes provide extend into other areas of life as well. Several mothers cited the greater safety of the homes. Obviating kerosene heaters, paraffin lamps, and open fires, the clean energy helps prevent accidental fires, electrocutions from shoddy illegal wiring, and health problems that come with burning other sources of heating and fuel.

“In the shacks they are using paraffin and heaters. It’s dangerous and makes the house dirty, and they can spend more than 200 Rand a month,” commented 31 year-old Vuyokazi Damane.

Finally, there is the sense of community that flowers in places with parks and green public spaces. “It’s not just building houses, it’s building community,” Beth Basset said. “We made a park and playground. It’s the first time some of those kids have walked on grass. This whole greening gives such an impetus to people’s health and well being. All the kids can be found at the park. Old people come and sit on the benches. It’s making neighborhoods.”

Councillor Sonnenberg explained that the pride that people take in their neighborhoods also translates into savings for the city.

“The fact that we were able to get communities to participate and take pride in their area alleviates a lot of cost for us. For example, if the area is sandy and sand is blowing in the street, we need additional cleaning to prevent stormwater rain blockage.”

So far the cost to the city has been minimal. A “normal” RDB house costs about 12,000 dollars to build. Making a unit into an eco-house including adding solar panels adds approximately 3,000 dollars to that bill — not an insignificant number with a housing backlog of 400,000 in the Western Cape alone. However, for now South Africa’s public utility Eskom, has been picking up the tab.

“We obviously want to move to a situation where as a city we can reduce our carbon footprint, and therefore we need to look at innovative ways of building more cost effective and energy efficient houses,” said Councillor Sonnenberg.

“We still have to learn lessons from phase two of Witsands, that will inform our future projects, but we are delighted with the results yielded, and therefore one can only say that the city must invest in future projects of this nature.”

Excerpt:

Rita Francke and another fisherwoman at the jetty, in front of the old crayfish factory at Witsands. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

By Lee Middleton
OCEAN VIEW, South Africa, Dec 12 2011 (IPS)

Having observed changes in the sea and the life cycles of the rock lobsters that their livelihoods depend on, a group of fisherwomen from the Western Cape, South Africa are calling on government to adjust fishing seasons to adapt to what they claim are climate change-related alterations.

About 40 kilometres south of Cape Town, the fishing community of Ocean View is mostly made up of “coloured” families forcibly removed from the Cape peninsula’s picturesque seaside villages under the apartheid regime in the late 1960s. Most continued to eke out a living through fishing, and until recently, almost all the fishers here were men.

Sahra Luyt is an exception. With her husband, she began fishing West Coast rock lobster (locally called “crayfish”) nearly 20 years ago for a company. Eventually Luyt went her own way.

“I felt women were being dictated to in fishing, so I started the association and ladies joined,” Luyt recalled of her 1999 decision to found the South African Fisherwomen’s Association (SAFWA).

SAFWA now counts some 70 members, most hailing from the peninsula’s poorest townships, and many of whom say they have encountered difficulties with men resentful of the women’s presence on the sea.

“Before it was very difficult, but now it’s not that bad – we’ve proven ourselves,” Luyt said.

With their own single outboard-motor boats and ring nets, the women participate in the near-shore commercial rock lobster fishery, bringing in around 600 to 800 kilogrammes of lobster each season, normally from November to June. A live rock lobster can fetch 14 to 20 dollars/kg. Though gender dynamics have improved, the women now face other troubles.

“Previously where we’d find a lot of fish, we don’t find many. Also I’ve been to sea these days when you go out on a nice normal sea day and all of a sudden the weather is standing up and you have to rush back home,” said Luyt of the changes she has observed.

Women have typically only been employed in the fishing industry in the processing work. Here a woman fillets fresh hake at a rate of 15 seconds per fish. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

The fisherwomen also cited changing water temperatures, more severe tides, and changes in the life cycle of the rock lobster.

“Over the last few years, the crayfish quality has shifted from November when it used to be good. Now we find they’re still molting, or softening their shells to grow, and they’re also in berry, which means the female is still carrying eggs,” Luyt explained. “I’d say those things are climate change.”

SAFWA has called on the South African Marine Resource Management (MRM) to adjust the fishing season to correspond with the changes they say they have observed, and possibly to lengthen it due to the unpredictable conditions they say are a result of climate change.

But fisheries scientists respond that seasons and policy are based on science-based evidence, and so far, the links between fish stocks and climate change are not sufficiently clear. SAFWA can appeal the decision but are yet to do so.

“There have clearly been ecological changes that have driven differences we’re seeing, and they may be linked to climate change, but we can’t prove it,” said Chief Director of MRM, Dr. Johann Augustyn.

Though reports like a 2009 international study led by Edward Allison have made significant progress in linking the impacts of climate change to fisheries around the world – and thus providing some guidance for predictive management changes in those places – data for Africa is sorely lacking.

Tabeth Chiuta, regional director at the World Fish Center, a non-profit research organisation, agreed the science simply is not there yet.

“In Africa, we don’t have enough science to make practical changes. Most of the reaction we are seeing in Africa is based on these global assessments, which have not zeroed in to the specific location like that of these small-scale fisherwomen. Is that change which they are seeing due to climate change? It could be due to overfishing. For Africa the science is not there, and it needs to be generated,” said Chiuta.

But the fisherwomen, like so many Africans who rely on fishing for their livelihoods, do not have time for the science to catch up. According to Chiuta, 10 million African families are involved in small-scale fisheries and fish for livelihoods, and 15 percent of the working population on the continent is employed in fisheries.

MRM head of research, Kim Prochazka, recognised the urgency of the situation. “Faced with this huge amount of uncertainty there’s no small-scale specific directed interventions you can do. But it’s going to take us far too long to get to that understanding. We’ve got to do something now. So you have to take a pragmatic approach that puts you in the best position to cope with whatever changes may come at you,” said Prochazka.

According to Prochazka, this means taking a pro-active approach to rebuilding fish stocks to more resilient levels, managing fisheries on an ecosystem wide level rather than for isolated fish stocks, and developing aquaculture technology in order to prevent a food security catastrophe.

Chiuta agreed that these interventions were the best options fisheries management had in the face of uncertainty. She added that building the knowledge base, improving monitoring, developing capacity to implement adaptation and mitigation strategies, and working on policy and institutional reforms were also all critical around the continent.

Meanwhile, West Coast rock lobster stocks are the lowest they have ever been, with no clear sign of improving. MRM estimates the population at only 3.5 percent of what it was before people started harvesting them on a large scale.

“The primary issue is the one of resource depletion. Unfortunately we can’t tie that to climate change and say that is why the resource is depleted. We have to take responsibility and say the resource is depleted because in the past we caught too much. That is the bottom line,” said Prochazka.

Rita Francke is a single mother supporting three children. When Sahra Luyt appeared and taught her to fish, she had not had regular employment for years, and constantly worried about feeding her family. Asked what she would do if the rock lobster fishery moves or collapses, Francke joked, “I’d move!” Then, more sober, she reflected, “I don’t know what I’d do. I’d have to find a job, cleaning houses or something. I don’t know.”

The last hours of the 17th United Nations climate change summit in Durban have begun. Since the arrival of almost 150 ministers and heads of state on Tuesday, negotiations have moved to the political level. They are expected to debate the way forward until late Friday night, or even Saturday morning.

Almost nobody believes that a second, comprehensive commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is still possible. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Hopes for a breakthrough, or at least tangible results, are slim. Almost nobody believes that a second, comprehensive commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the only international legally binding instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which includes all major emitters, is still possible.

For this to happen, emerging economies like China, India, Korea, Mexico and South Africa would have to come on board, as well as the United States, a country which has not even ratified the first period of the protocol. Other major emitters, like Canada, Russia and Japan have already proclaimed their disinterest in a second commitment period.

The initial commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, under which 37 industrialised nations have committed to an average of five percent carbon emission reductions compared to emission levels in 1990, will expire at the end of 2012.

Earlier this week, negotiations briefly looked somewhat promising, when China’s head negotiator Xie Zhenhua announced his country was open to internationally, legally binding agreements. But his statement soon turned out to be part of a strategic game. But Zhenhua did not say that China was willing to “be part of” those binding agreements as well.

Many climate experts believe the U.S. has played a particularly strong role in slowing down the progress of the negotiations.

“The Obama administration has apparently come to Durban not to be constructive, but to hold other countries back. Their excuses for inaction ebb and flow like the tide. Once one excuse is removed, another emerges,” lamented World Wide Fund for Nature spokesperson Caroline Behringer.

Even U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon dampened expectations during the opening of the high-level segment of the summit on Tuesday. A comprehensive, legally binding agreement “could be out of reach”, he said.

While negotiators try to come to a decision, the atmosphere in the corridors of the Durban conference centre, where the summit is taking place, remains tense. Ministers and heads of delegations have retreated to conference rooms to further debate the contents of the 131-page document, the basis for all negotiations. Outside of the closed doors, delegates talk with lowered voices. Until the official announcement of the end-result, everyone is holding their cards close to their chests.

The possibility of concluding with a roadmap for an agreement to negotiate emission reductions from 2015 that will include major emitters and emerging economies, also stands on shaky ground. Under the agreement, all major carbon emitters would agree to internationally legally binding reductions by 2020 at the latest.

“What we are seeing is a lack of political will by some major emitters to reach an outcome in Durban that is fair and ambitious and that saves the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor and vulnerable people who are affected by climate change today,” says Tonya Rawe, senior policy advocate of global humanitarian organisation CARE.

“Some parties are already talking about delaying decisions on a legally binding agreement until 2020. This is a disaster as it can create an entire decade of zero progress,” he added.

Delegates fear that only a non-binding declaration will be reached, through which countries will vaguely declare their willingness to agree to binding reduction goals at some point in the future.

So far, only the European Union (EU) and some other European countries, like Switzerland, have vouched to continue pushing for commitments from major carbon emitters that are currently not part of the Kyoto agreement over the remaining hours of the summit.

“All major economies need to commit, of course respecting common but differentiated responsibilities. If they will not commit to an agreement in the foreseeable future, they take on an unbearable responsibility,” warned Connie Hedegaard, commissioner for climate action at the European Commission who spoke on behalf of the EU.

The negotiations do not only revolve around an extension of the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. Another important subject is the adoption of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through which financial support for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts will be channelled to developing countries. By 2020, 100 billion dollars should be mobilised annually from public and private funds.

But the discussions around the GCF, too, have been staggering, after several countries, including the U.S., Bolivia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela announced they were dissatisfied with the draft document and would like to re-open the text for amendments.

In addition, the global financial crisis has slowed down progress on the fund: rich countries, that are supposed to partially finance the GCF, are hesitant to make budgetary commitments. As it looks, the fund is likely to be signed off in Durban, if at all, but as an “empty shell”, without tangible plans on how it will be financed.

“We don’t have any more time to lose to safe those who are most threatened by climate change,” urged Mizanur Rahman Bijoy, a researcher with the Network on Climate Change in Bangladesh. “But instead of taking action, governments are mainly concerned about their national economies. That way, no important and necessary decisions will be made.”

Countries at the United Nations climate change negotiations have publicly acknowledged their current pledges to reduce carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius.

Reducing carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela

To bridge their shortfall, delegates at the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) climate talks proposed on Wednesday to address this so-called “emissions gap” at COP 18 in Qatar next year.

Documents under negotiation in Durban, South Africa acknowledge the science-based emissions reduction target of 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Those reductions and that timeline are what is needed to stay below two degrees Celsius. The draft text says this would be the target to be agreed on at COP 18.

“We need agreement on that science-based target next year at the latest,” said Karl Hood, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean island of Grenada and representing the Alliance of Small Island States.

“And we want those targets to legally come into force before 2017.”

Hood told IPS waiting to close the gap until after 2020 is “unacceptable” and a “disaster for small island states” who are already suffering the impacts of climate change.

The world has months to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels before two degrees Celsius of warming will be impossible to stay below. Delay a few years and the extraordinary emission cuts needed could bankrupt the world’s economy and reverse development gains in most countries, climate experts warned at the largely deadlocked United Nations climate change conference here.

“We’re here to warn policy makers that we are dangerously close to not being able to meet the less than two degrees Celsius target,” said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

The current pledges made by countries to cut emissions after the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 will result in global warming of 3.5 degrees Celsius, said Hare a climate scientist. Two years later, those pledges remain essentially unchanged and that means the world’s options to stay below two degrees Celsius are narrowing Hare said in press conference during the COP 17 negotiations that conclude Friday.

“To put it bluntly, the longer we wait, the less options we will have, the more it will cost …and the bigger threat to the world’s most vulnerable,” he said.

Global emissions of fossil fuels have increased 49 percent since 1990 and reached a record of about 48 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of CO2 in 2010 and likely 50 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 this year, he said. Thanks to the moderating affect of the oceans, the world has warmed only 0.8 degrees Celsius on average, however, many parts of the world are much warmer than that.

The science shows that global emissions need to fall to 44 Gt by 2020 and continue to decline by two percent per year, a rate that our fossil fuel-dependent world will find “extremely challenging” but still doable, he said.

If countries live up to their pledges made in Copenhagen global emissions are likely to rise nine to 11 Gt above the 44 Gt target creating an “emissions gap” that is quite considerable, said Niklas Höhne, Director Energy and Climate Policy of Ecofys, an energy consulting organisation.

“Our results are in agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Bridging the Emissions Gap Report released at the opening of the Durban climate talks,” he told IPS.

The new UNEP report calculates a similar emission gap and outlines the way reductions can be made between now and 2020 to bridge that gap. Shockingly many of the items under intense debate at here at the COP 17 – biofuels, agriculture, carbon credits for forest protection, carbon capture and storage – are not considered important pathways to reduce emissions by scientists.

“With biofuels you have to be very sure they won’t result in a net increase in emissions,” said Höhne.

A number of new studies of palm oil biodiesel and maize ethanol show their net emissions are higher than fossil fuels when their entire lifecycle is calculated.

Biofuels are unlikely to be a significant method for reducing emissions, agreed Höhne. Agriculture is in the same category. Farming practices could be altered to reduce emissions but based on analysis using various reduction scenarios they would only be a small part of the “bridge”.

The emissions gap can only be bridged with a combination of improving energy efficiency in all sectors, significant increase in renewable energy including biomass power and shifting from coal to natural gas. The cost of making this shift is relatively low at 38 dollars a ton of CO2 avoided.

Wait until after 2020 and costs skyrocket. Every every dollar not invested today to reduce emissions from the power sector will require an additional investment of 4.3 dollars after 2020 to compensate for all the additional emissions between now and then said the International Energy Agency in its “World Energy Outlook 2011” report.

Waiting till 2020 is “a risk we don’t want to take,” said Höhne. Delegates here do understand all this, he believes. “They don’t act as if they understand,” he said referring to the lack of progress on a deal to substantially reduce emissions despite 17 years of negotiations.

These scenarios do not include potential emissions from natural sources — feedbacks — like thawing permafrost as the Arctic region rapidly warms. Permafrost hold huge volumes of carbon and methane accumulated over the past 750,000 years.

The first estimate of the near-term volume of global warming gases from permafrost thaw may be 170 Gt of CO2 over the next three decades a team of 40 scientists reported last week. That means global warming could be “20 to 30 percent faster than from fossil fuel emissions alone,” said Edward Schuur of the University of Florida in a release.

“At the moment climate change is not high on the agenda of all heads of states,” said Höhne.

Carbon pricing will be the core mechanism to finance the Green Climate Fund and with it climate change adaptation projects in developing countries.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said there is a pool of possible financing options for the Green Climate Fund. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

“If you can establish broader and more comprehensive carbon financing, we will attract more private funding,” explained Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who co-chairs the United Nations high-level advisory group on climate change financing.

Carbon finance puts a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

According to Stoltenberg, putting a price on carbon emissions would have three key benefits: it will encourage industry to reduce harmful emissions (to avoid being charged for them); it will contribute to the development of clean technologies to reduce emissions; and it will generate revenue, which can be used for government purposes but also to take climate action.

There are already a number of countries that have shown that carbon trading systems or taxes can help reducing emissions while promoting economic growth, said Stoltenberg: “The European Union has a comprehensive carbon trading system through an emission scheme. Australia just introduced a carbon tax. China is introducing carbon pricing, and South Africa also wants to develop a carbon tax.”

It was therefore plausible that carbon pricing could assist in providing urgently needed finance for the GCF as well.

“The beauty of carbon pricing is that you will get less pollution but more finance,” Stoltenberg added.

During the past 10 days of the 17th Conference of Parties, which currently takes place in Durban, South Africa, the question on how to generate funding for the GCF has taken centre stage. The global economic crisis and national austerity measures have reduced the willingness of rich countries to commit to filling the coffers of the fund with public monies.

“The financial and debt crisis, especially in Europe and the United States, have developed further. We therefore have to look for both public funding but also private sources,” stressed Stoltenberg who, as co-chair of the advisory group on climate change financing, recently submitted to the U.N. an analysis of how long-term financing should be generated.

“Our main conclusion is that it is challenging but feasible to mobilise 100 billion dollars annually,” he said, referring to an agreement from last year’s climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, that fast-track financing of 10 million dollars per year between 2010 and 2013 should be scaled up to 100 billion dollars annually by 2020.

“There is no sense in having a fund, if you don’t have money for it,” Stoltenberg said.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon agreed that short-term and long-term financing goals could only be reached through combination of public and private resources. This would not mean governments lose political control over the financing mechanism of the GCF, a point some countries said they were concerned about during the climate negotiations.

“There is a pool of possible financing options, such as carbon taxes, transport taxes, and so forth. It will be up to each country to decide which regulations it wants to adopt and implement nationally,” said Ban.

However, this did not release governments of rich nations off the hook.

“Industrial countries must show leadership by injecting sufficient capital immediately,” said Ban. “It’s true that governments struggle with austerity crisis, but climate change is not an option, it’s an imperative. Need unambiguous political commitment and transparency.”

There will be no forward movement in the fight against climate change without movement on climate finance, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi agreed.

“We need to create a price structure that will attract the private sector to invest in climate financing. Carbon pricing will send the signal to the private sector, that green technology will be profitable,” said Zenawi. “The technology of the future is green. There is a race. Who comes too late will be left behind.”

But right now, days of staggering negotiations about the operationalisation and financing of the GCF, have raised doubts among economic experts that governments of industrialised countries are truly willing to make available parts of the finance necessary to fund climate change adaptation in the global South.

“We don’t need any more reports, we need the political will,” said economist and British government advisor Lord Nicholas Stern.

The faster politicians acted, the cheaper it will cost them, agreed Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, trying to push for the GCF to be operationalised before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. “Low carbon economy doesn’t come cheap. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depending on how fast we act. The sooner we act, the less it will cost us,” he said.

Caio Koch-Weser, the vice chair of Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest banking groups worldwide, expressed his concern about the slow progress of establishing the GCF. Industry was ready to invest in the green economy, he said.

“Give us a carbon price, give us a reliable policy, and the private sector will do most of the job. We have already seen great vibrancy from the side of the business community in interaction with governments,” he said. “Of course it’s not yet of the scale and the speed we need.”

Koch-Weser further noted that the current global economic crisis also presented an opportunity for governments and businesses to transform, to find new drivers of growth.

To be able to raise 100 billion dollars annually by 2020 to finance climate change adaptation, “we need new private-pubic partnerships that provide transparent, long-lived and certain frameworks. We hope that the GCF will have a strong private sector facility and will be professionally run,” Koch-Weser said.

The goal of a comprehensive and binding agreement may be beyond the reach of the 17th United Nations climate change negotiations, says the organisation’s secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres (l) and COP 17 President Maite Mkoana- Mashabane (r) spoke at the opening of the high-level talks. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Ban was speaking at the official opening of the high-level talks on climate change in Durban, South Africa, on Tuesday.

He cautioned delegates not to set their hopes too high. “We must be realistic about expectations for a break through in Durban,” Ban said. The reasons for more cautious expectations were well known, he added, such as the global financial crisis, which has led to fiscal austerity with countries prioritising national budgets before international needs.

“But none of these uncertainties should prevent us from making real progress here in Durban,” Ban urged, noting that serious proposals and persistence were needed to proceed. “It’s like riding a bicycle. As long as you move forward you keep your momentum,” he explained.

“The future of our planet is at stake,” Ban warned. “Time is not on our side. We are reaching the point of no return and must walk away from the abyss.”

South African President Jacob Zuma stressed that climate change was a global challenge that required worldwide solutions. He said it was critical to find common ground to reach an agreement.

“Different positions still prevail on different points,” he concluded after more than a week of often staggering negotiations, reminding delegates “we all agreed that the earth is in danger and that we must do something about it.”

“We need to show the world that parties are willing to solve problems in a practical manner and forego national interests, at times, for the interests of humanity, no matter how difficult this may be,” Zuma added. He demanded that delegations rebuild trust in each other.

The South African president said that the 17th Conference of Parties is still a decisive moment for the multilateral system, which has evolved over many years under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol.

“The first period of the Kyoto Protocol is about to come to an end. The question left unanswered is the second commitment period. It is clear that if this question is not resolved, the outcome on other matters will become extremely difficult,” Zuma said.

Industrialised nations needed to adopt a second period of the Kyoto Protocol, while developing countries needed to agree on voluntary pledges. “All parties will have to collectively do more, with common but differentiated responsibility,” explained Zuma.

With twelve heads of states and 130 ministers having arrived at the summit on Tuesday, the last three days of the climate change summit are expected to bring about important, far-reaching political decisions. “For the first week, negotiators have been hard at work, but the ministers will have to take leadership,” said Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and the summit’s chair.

She noted that it was important for political leaders to consider the memorandums written by thousands of concerned citizens, which were handed to the conference leadership throughout the summit: “They expect leadership from us. We have a responsibility not to disappoint them.”

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said “good progress” had been achieved on a number of issues, which included headway on financial support to developing countries, particularly regarding adaptation projects, the Green Climate Fund and deforestation. She was also confident that the Durban conference would fully operationalise the Cancun agreements before it ended on Dec 9.

However, Figueres stressed that a number of issues still needed progress and further guidance on a ministerial level. “The time has come to address the thorny political issues before us, such as long-term funding, a second Kyoto Protocol and the framework under the Convention,” she said.

From today on, it was up to the government ministers to develop solutions to the issues at hand. “They need to ensure there is clarity on contours of a second Kyoto Protocol and that gaps are ruled out. We also need clarity on how to avoid an ambition gap and on how funds will be scaled up from now until 2020.”

Connie Hedegaard, commissioner for climate action at the European Commission who represented the European Union (EU) spoke about the need for a new, comprehensive, legally binding international framework. “Only then can we bring the actions to the scale we need, with the speed we need,” she noted. “We would like the D in Durban to be a D for decisions and a D for delivery.”

Hedegaard acknowledged that not all developing countries were ready to commit to legally binding agreements immediately. The EU had therefore made the “significant offer” of a roadmap, which suggests emerging economies come on board by 2020 at the latest.

“All major economies need to commit, of course respecting common but differentiated responsibilities. If they will not commit to an agreement in the foreseeable future, they take on an unbearable responsibility,” she warned.

Speaking on behalf of the African Union, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi urged the EU not to abandon the Kyoto Protocol, no matter what commitments other countries were prepared to make: “The Kyoto Protocol is too important to be sacrificed for tactical advantages on negotiating table.”

Another “top priority” should be ensuring that the agreements reached at the previous climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, will be implemented, Zenawi added, because, for the African continent, funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes were of “utmost importance”. “We are deeply disappointed that fast-track funding promised to us in Copenhagen has largely failed to materialise,” he complained.

Argentina’s Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Alberto Pedro D’Alotto agreed with Zenawi, while speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 plus China, a bloc of 131 developing countries. He said he was seriously concerned about the “key lack of financial resources” made available to developing countries.

Nauru’s President Sprent Dabwido, who spoke on behalf of the small pacific island states, brought home the urgency of tangible decisions being made at this year’s summit. “For us, climate change is a matter of life and death,” he said. “Unless action is taken, a large part of my region could be rendered uninhabitable within the lifetime of my grandchildren. The time for small incremental steps ended long ago. Great strides must be made.”

The high-level talks will be concluded on Dec 9.

The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.

Immediate funding for adaptation and mitigation will help countries to confront climate change. Credit: Tinus de Jager/IPS

“The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius of warming, which will be devastating for the poor of the world,” said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam International.

“They are proposing a 10-year time out with no new targets to lower emissions until after 2020,” Charveriat said.

At COP 15 in Copenhagen the U.S. committed to reducing its emissions 17 percent from 2005 by 2020. This is far short of what is widely agreed as necessary: cuts in fossil fuel emissions 25 to 40 percent below those in 1990 by U.S. and all developed nations.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that global emissions must peak by mid-decade and then decline every year thereafter. But U.S. negotiator Jon Pershing said their Copenhagen emission reduction pledge is sufficient until 2020.

“There is a huge failure of ambition. Nothing here will keep us out of catastrophic climate change,” said Jim Leape, Director General of the World Wide Fund for Nature International. The U.S. has already suffered record- breaking losses due to severe weather this year with only 0.8 degrees Celsius of warming, Leape said.

“If they (U.S.) won’t moderate this stance they should step aside,” Leape.

That sentiment was echoed by Greenpeace’s Kumi Naidoo who also said: “Delegates must listen to the people not to certain corporate interests.”

The Obama White House is betraying the American people, as well as the municipalities and companies in the U.S. who are taking serious action to reduce their emissions, Naidoo said.

Pa Ousman Jaru of The Gambia, a delegate representing the Least Developed Countries block, also asked the U.S. to step aside and stop blocking progress for the rest of the final week.

Jaru reiterated the developing world’s commitment to a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol after the first one expires in 2012. Under the Kyoto Protocol all industrialised nations, with the exception of the U.S., are legally bound to reduce emissions five percent from 1990 levels.

Canada’s emissions are close to 30 percent higher than in 1990 and said they will not participate in a second phase. Japan and Russia will also not participate leaving the Kyoto Protocol to regulate only about quarter of current global emissions.

There had been expectations that the Kyoto Protocol would die here in Durban but United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change climate chief Christiana Figueres said it would live on.

Nadioo agreed that the Kyoto Protocol would live but it would be on “life support for the next two years” of additional negotiations.

Jaru said that the other “track” of negotiations to regulate and reduce the remaining 75 percent is vitally important and must result in ambitious reductions. That is the track the U.S. is reluctant to participate in beyond its Copenhagen commitments because China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, refused to agree to binding reductions for itself.

Now, for the first time China said it will agree, a move that Figueres called “very positive”. She said it was part of the progress being made in Durban, which she expected to escalate with the arrival of ministers for the high level negotiations beginning Tuesday.

Another major issue includes the establishment of a Green Climate Fund, which is to scale up to 100 billion dollars a year in funding to help developing countries adapt to climate change. That is bogged down in how to set up and structure the fund. The more difficult issue of where the money is going to come from is on the back burner.

There was progress on talks to reduce deforestation, a major source of emissions. The U.N. programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) negotiation focused on thorny details of how to verify reductions with progress expected by end of the week. Decisions on financing for REDD+ have been postponed until COP 18 in Qatar next year.

Counting on responsible travellers who increasingly seek environmentally friendly alternatives for their holidays, South Africa’s tourism sector wants to conserve its biggest asset – nature – while fighting climate change at the same time.

Solar geysers are just one requirement for "green" accommodation. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA) has developed a green rating system for the tourism industry that certifies tourist accommodation, activities and attractions in South Africa against standard environmental criteria. It also considers fair trade labour, socio-economic and management practices as part of the assessment.

Tourists can also book entire tour packages that have a minimised carbon travel footprint – a first such offering in the world. “We hope the model will be adopted internationally,” says FTTSA certification manager Lisa Scriven, who helped to develop the concept, which was launched in November.

The green rating system promotes responsible tourism, including environmental management, low energy and water use, waste avoidance, recycling and green procurement, building design and construction, the minimal use of chemicals as well as a focus on biodiversity and gardens.

To be certified as environmentally friendly, a tourism business will undergo an assessment by a FTTSA team as well as by an independent review panel made up of South Africa’s top tourism experts.

Scriven says that there are 14 sections of standards and criteria, each with several sub- sections, according to what type of business is assessed. The FTTSA team will measure on-site investments in the environment such as solar geysers and off- site projects such as involvement in local schools. They make an in-kind as well as a financial assessment and compare it to the company’s turnover; to see what percentage they invest in the environment.

FTTSA also cooperates with the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) and the Tourism Grading Council. Every two years, the business’ credentials will be re-assessed to make sure it still fulfils all requirements.

“It’s about tourism that respects the environment and positively affects the economic and social development of local communities,” explains Scriven. Sustainable tourism has become a trend, she says: “I don’t think many people see sustainability as an option anymore. It has become an expectation.”

One of the FTTSA certified tour operators is Ocean Blue Adventures in Plettenberg Bay in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. It offers conservation-oriented whale and dolphin marine eco-tours and has set up the Orca Foundation, which finances conservation in tourism, poor communities around Plettenberg Bay and schools. Visitors are also asked to plant trees to offset the carbon footprint of their travel.

“Nobody was protecting our bay, the reef, the whales and dolphins who come to breed here. We realised we had to do something ourselves to keep it sustainable,” says Ocean Blue assistant general manager Natasha Lilford.

According to Lilford, more and more travellers inquire about fair trade and environmental criteria before they book accommodation or a tour. “People want to give back. They want to spend their money at a place where it goes to a good cause and they can see a difference.”

Through the certification scheme, South Africa wants to boost its share of the global tourism market, which in 2008 stood at just 1.3 percent, according to DEAT statistics. For the state, the tourism sector is an important income earner. It contributed 354 billion dollars, or 7.9 percent, to South Africa’s GDP in 2010, up from 2.7 percent the year before.

“Green tourism is a growing market where people say ‘I’m willing to pay a little bit more because I want to travel in a more environmentally friendly way’,” believes South African Tourism Minister Martinus van Schalkwyk.

“Responsible tourism is about creating better places for people to live in, and better places to visit. South Africa’s natural environment is one of its greatest tourism resources, and therefore the tourism industry needs to be actively involved in conserving and protecting it,” he added.

The FTTSA certification scheme wants to do exactly that, says Scriven. It promotes a more mindful approach to tourism that aims to sustain and improve land, water and air by lessening travellers’ impact on the environment. “Tourists are beginning to show a more responsible attitude towards their travel plans,” she notes.

Almost 70 hotels, bed and breakfasts, activities and tour companies have been FTTSA certified so far. It is only a start, as there are more than 40,000 places to stay in the country. “It’s just a small drop in the bucket,” admits Scriven. “We still have a long way to go, but we are on the right track.”

Perhaps one reason for the slow uptake has been the global economic crisis, which has reduced tourism numbers and forced tourism businesses to tighten their belts since 2008. Because in order to achieve a level of environmental friendliness that will get them certified, travel establishments have to make an initial investment: they have to change light bulbs, install solar water heaters, plant indigenous gardens, insulate windows, buy less toxic paints and so on.

“It is an investment, but in the long term, they will save money due to reduced running costs. They will eventually also gain preferential market access,” believes Scriven. “The environment and the economy have become inseparable.”

This holds true for another FTTSA certified business, the Bartholomeus Klip Farmhouse, a small hotel on a working wheat and sheep farm with an adjoining nature reserve in Wellington, an hour’s drive north of Cape Town. Apart from funding and managing the nature reserve, a national heritage site, the hotel management has turned the guesthouses and cottages into “green” buildings.

“We only use water from mountain springs, have installed solar geysers and bio-toilet systems, recycle and buy all food locally,” says manager Lesley Gillett. “In the long-term, it’s worth your while. We’re starting to see a return on our initial investment.”

If more and more tourism businesses follow this example, South Africa might soon become a global frontrunner in “green” tourism.

Efforts to establish water as an agenda item in its own right in climate change negotiations are gaining momentum in Durban, South Africa. Water experts say doing this will lead to a greater focus on developing policy, and attract more resources into the water sector through adaptation programmes.

Access to water is an urgent issue here in the Southern Africa region. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

“For every one of us, the first thing you use when you wake up in the morning is water, and when we are going to bed, it is water. Yet, it’s taken for granted,” says Chris Moseki, research manager at the Water Research Commission (WRC) in South Africa. WRC is a member of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) – a global alliance of organisations working on water issues.

Access to water is an urgent issue here in the Southern Africa region, where nearly 100 million people lack adequate access to water. Modelling by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa shows the region will become hotter and drier over the next 50 to 100 years, putting farms, industry, domestic water supply and natural ecosystems at risk.

International water experts and policy makers are concerned that planning for changes to water availability is not getting the prominence it deserves. Bai-Mass Taal, the Executive Secretary of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), says they are working to raise the profile of water within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“We are saying to the parties, look: we appreciate what you are doing in other sectors, but without addressing water directly, all of that will be in vain,” says Taal.

At this point, water issues are being discussed by treaty negotiators as part of wider planning, prioritising and implementing of adaptation to a changing climate.

Dr. Ania Grobicki, GWP Executive Secretary, says that with growing numbers of countries expected to experience water scarcity, the current position of water in climate talks is inadequate.

“The GDP of many countries in the least developed countries is dependent on water. More than 50 percent of food for the world will come from Africa in the future, and this is dependent on availability of water,” she says. “That is why this discussion should go beyond where it’s now.”

More than 70 percent of the Southern African Development Community’s population depends directly on farming, overwhelmingly on rain-fed agriculture. The CSIR’s projections are among many drawing attention to how predicted changes to rainfall, limited resources for adaptation and a lack of institutions and capacity to regulate river and stream flow will leave people in Southern Africa and across the continent extremely vulnerable.

Similar challenges are predicted not only for Africa, but across the world as weather patterns change, but Africa’s lack of irrigation and other infrastructure is a factor that magnifies the need for urgent intervention.

Africa’s response

As rainfall patterns change, Africa is facing major crises. Millions faced famine in Niger and Mali in 2010 after drought hit farmers and herders. This year, the Horn of Africa has been facing its worst drought in 50 years and millions are suffering from hunger. According to the U.N. World Food Programme, some 12.3 million people in the Horn are in need of emergency assistance.

Rhoda Peace, the African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, points out that when African leaders talk about climate change; they invariably talk about droughts and floods’, showing that water is already a high priority.

In 2008, African heads of state agreed to make water and sanitation a priority.

“Leaders agreed to allocate at least 0.5 percent of their national budget to water,” says Peace. “Now whether that is actually the case is another story, but some countries are doing very well and may reach their targets.”

Providing adequate access to water across Africa will cost billions of dollars. And for the many African governments which are failing to honour earlier commitments will not be able to raise the required amounts without support.

Simon Thuo, the Eastern Africa coordinator for GWP, says he is surprised that despite the clear need, even the African negotiating group’s proposals mention water only in passing. Along with other experts, he believes that if climate negotiations address management of this essential commodity specifically, it will not receive the necessary attention and funding.

Emerging economies China, South Africa and Brazil have indicated their openness to legally-binding carbon emission reduction targets from 2020 during the United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa.

Emerging economies face developmental challenges but are also significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Climate experts say the three countries’ willingness to consider legally binding commitments, even if they will not take immediate effect, was potentially “a great step” to unlock one of the big political issues of this year’s climate change talks.

Only India continues to refuse to commit.

The European Union (EU) proposed a “roadmap” last week, which stipulates that all major economies, including emerging countries like South Africa, Brazil, India and China, generally called the BASIC group – and not only industrialised nations as currently under the Kyoto Protocol – will be subject to legally binding carbon emission targets.

BASIC countries all face developmental challenges but are at the same time significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Major emerging economies and other developing nations already emit more than half of current carbon emissions. Within the next 20 years, they are projected to account for two- thirds.

The 194-nation climate talks, which will wrap up on Dec. 9, are abuzz with speculation on the prospect of emerging economies agreeing on the proposed roadmap.

In a move that surprised many after a tough week of negotiations that brought to the fore deep rifts between different countries’ demands and expectations, China announced for the first time it would accept a legally-binding climate deal after 2020, when current voluntary pledges will run out. After first insisting the demands of the EU roadmap were “too much,” China now seems open to finding a middle ground, especially with Europe.

“But there are pre-conditions,” said China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua. “A second Kyoto commitment period is a must for rich nations. After (the second period has ended), we need to review what has been done. Based on this assessment can we start negotiating what we shall agree after 2020.”

China laid out five conditions under which it would consider a legally-binding carbon reduction deal. Apart from a second commitment period of carbon-reduction pledges by industrialised nations under the Kyoto Protocol, they include hundreds of billions of dollars in short- and long-term climate financing for developing countries.

China also wants to see the Green Climate Fund signed off during the summit and demands the implementation of a range of agreements outlined at the 2009 Copenhagen summit, which were integrated into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at last year’s climate gathering in Cancun. These include initiatives for technology transfer, adaptation to climate change and new rules for verifying that carbon-cutting promises are kept.

South Africa and Brazil – two countries most vulnerable to the adverse effects of global warming, especially with regards to agriculture and biodiversity – have also shown interest in the roadmap.

South Africa’s Minister of Environment Edna Molewa said the EU roadmap was “seen favourably”, but noted that South Africa would, like China, want to place “conditionalities” on any binding agreements.

“We would like to work towards a legally binding outcome. As South Africa, we’re of the opinion that the seriousness with which we will deal with the level of contributions that South Africa can make in the global arena is understood in the context of articles 4.1 and 2 of the UNFCCC,” confirmed South Africa’s second negotiator Xolisa Ngwadla.

UNFCCC article 4.1 refers to “common and differentiated responsibilities” depending on the gross domestic product (GDP) of each country, while article 2 refers to the stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions at a level that allows ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner – a point important for countries that heavily feel the effects of climate change.

“Our future commitments will also depend on finance, technology transfers and capacity building,” Ngwadla added.

Contrary to South Africa, Brazil said it is not placing any conditions on committing itself to an internationally legally binding instrument to reduce carbon emissions as long as such a treaty helped the fight against climate change based on scientific studies.

“We could agree already today on an internationally legally binding instrument, but not on any. It has to be robust, respond to what science is telling us is needed and therefore something that will make a difference in the fight against climate change,” explained Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, head of Brazil’s delegation. “We would not adapt a legally binding instrument for the sake of it.”

Currently, Brazil has set voluntary carbon reduction targets, which have been passed into national law. Figueiredo said he is aware this commitment will have to increase over time: “We understand that this regime will have to evolve over time. We think voluntary actions alone usually don’t add up to the level of international response that science tells us is needed. We are willing to play our part in the future evolution of the international fight against climate change.”

As part of the Group of 77 and China negotiating bloc, a group of 132 developing countries, Brazil is pushing for the adoption for a second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. The country is also lobbying for a sign off of a fully functional Green Climate Fund, which will have short-term and long-term financing mechanisms so that developing nations can adapt to climate change.

Delegates from BASIC countries have repeatedly noted that South-South cooperation is important to them, not only economically but also with regards to decisions made during the climate change summit, and have indicated that they would support each other’s positions.

India, however, the fourth member of the BASIC group, does not seem to fall into line. It has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the EU roadmap, as it is not willing to consider signing a legally binding agreement to cut carbon emissions.

India said it felt implementing its voluntary target of reducing the emission intensity of its GDP growth by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020, compared to 2005, was sufficient. Having one of the smallest per-capita-carbon footprints in the world, tougher targets weren’t necessary, said India’s lead negotiator J.M. Mauskar: “We are not a major emitter.”

India was only willing to negotiate “mutual reassurances”, he said. “In terms of the Cancun pledges, developing countries’ voluntary pledges by 2020 amount to more mitigation in absolute terms than that of developed countries,” Mauskar further explained, insisting that rich nations, not developing countries and emerging economies must ramp up their commitments.

India has criticised industrialised nations, especially the United States, for not making firm commitments to cutting green house gas emissions. “We are deeply concerned that there has been hardly any progress in achieving a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,” said Mauskar.

Russia, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, which belongs with South Africa, China, Brazil and India to the BRICS economic bloc, has blankly refused to consider a second commitment period.

By Busani Bafana
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 2011 (IPS)

Negotiators at the 17th Conference of Parties owe it to the world’s more than seven billion people to deliver a deal with a work plan for agriculture, a sector that is expected to be the worst affected by climate change.

President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development Kanayo F. Nwanze said agriculture cannot be ignored when it comes to climate change. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

The combined effects of a ballooning world population, poor productivity and threatened water resources present fresh pressures on agriculture to deliver food, money and livelihoods in Africa.

A grouping of agriculture and advocacy organisations presented an open letter to South Africa’s Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat Patterson calling for the inclusion of agriculture as an adaptation approach in the text to be agreed on by climate change negotiators.

The group, which includes the World Bank, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and the World Farmers’ Organisation, has said that COP 17 should be the time for agriculture, which has been repeatedly taken off the agenda in two previous climate change negotiations.

“The most vulnerable regions of the world – developing countries – are disproportionately affected by climate change, despite contributing little to carbon emissions,” said the letter. “People in developing countries depend heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods, yet are increasingly challenged in their ability to produce sufficient food for their families and for markets.”

President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development Kanayo F. Nwanze told IPS that a new agriculture revolution needs to deliver smart solutions to the current challenges posed by climate change.[ Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q: Why a new revolution now? ? A: The whole discussion we are having right now is basically how to achieve climate smart agriculture, which essentially means getting the maximum out of smallholder farmers who make up the large population of farmers in Africa, and who are mostly women. They have to have access to basic inputs and financial services. It has to respond to all the current issues that have to do with the impact of climate change on agriculture.

We have to talk about sustainable agricultural systems. The Green Revolution was successful because it focused on very clear messages: increased fertiliser use, increased improved seeds and irrigation. But we found out in the long term that it is not sustainable. So now we need to look for sustainable approaches to production that do not destroy the environment and are available to a wide spectrum of farmers in Africa and in the world as a whole.

A new green revolution is needed to meet the challenge of feeding more than nine billion people in 2050. There is no magic bullet for eliminating hunger overnight because I do not believe that ideas can feed people. Ideas for a new green revolution are needed and climate smart agriculture can deliver those ideas.

Q: Agriculture is threatened by many factors, what is the first step to make it sustainable? ? A: The first step we need to take is on the policy agenda. We must have a commitment from the highest level of policy makers of government to say agriculture is a priority and they must put their money where their mouth is.

Q: You have expressed concern with the slow progress of negotiations. What are your expectations? ? A: We are dealing with an issue that transcends what we call simple equations. You are dealing with an issue that brings a lot of political arguments and then people lose the sense of priority. It becomes very slow.

We are negotiating a political issue and there are a lot of things at stake. We are negotiating simple issues that are founded on facts and are fact-based arguments. Some people today are still denying there is climate change. How do you negotiate with someone who does not believe? That is the problem we have. We need real leadership. South Africa is doing a fantastic job leading this whole argument of putting agriculture on the agenda.

It is impacted by climate change, but agriculture is also a solution to climate change because agriculture is at the cross roads of food security and climate change. So we cannot ignore it in climate smart business.

Q: What have we done well in agriculture development in Africa? ? A: Ten years ago you would not hear people talking about agriculture … but with the events of 2007/8 with the food price hikes and volatility, with riots, now people say agriculture equals food security, food security equals political stability and global peace. With that kind of linkage, you cannot ignore agriculture and that is something we have done well.

Excerpt:

Talata Nsor, a 54-year-old woman from Bolgatanga community in Northern Ghana, has been weaving the cultural Bolga baskets, which are named after her community, her entire life.

Nalifu Yussif holds a few Bolga baskets at the ongoing COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

It has been a successful enterprise for her, and she has even managed to put her children through school with proceeds from her sales.

However, she is concerned that soon her community may no longer be able to continue making the baskets, which are famous in the entire West African region, with a market in Europe and America.

This is because the raw material used to make the baskets, commonly known as elephant grass or Veta vera as it is known scientifically, is becoming extinct due to what Nsor refers to as changing climatic conditions.

“Just 10 years ago, I would walk to any nearby wetland area within Northern Ghana and harvest the grass free of charge. But today, I have to walk very far, or travel to Kumasi, about 400 kilometres away, in order to buy the raw material,” said Nsor.

The elephant grass can only grow in wetlands. But according to experts from the area, people are converting wetlands into agricultural land as a means of coping with the lack of rain and rising food insecurity.

“People prefer turning wetlands into horticultural zones because rain-fed agriculture is failing. Rain patterns are no-longer reliable, and people need to farm in places where they are assured of water for irrigation,” said Nafisatu Yussif, Programme Officer at ABANTU, an organisation that engages policies from a gender perspective in Africa.

She is one of the many women representing their communities from all over the world who have made their way to the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in order to have their voices heard.

“We are hosting different women from different walks of life,” said Samantha Hargreaves of ActionAid International, one of the conveners of the Rural Women’s Assembly running alongside the 17th Conference of Parties.

“More than 500 women in this forum are sharing experiences from different countries, suggesting the way forward, and showcasing their best practices. The outcome of the assembly will be presented to the African Group of Negotiators as a common position of women from the world’s poor countries,” said Hargreaves.

However, according to the assembly’s participants, women from poor countries have predicaments that are almost similar.

Rural women are feeling the effects of climate change in their agricultural yields. Credit Kristin Palitza/IPS

“In my country, women toil on the farms, but when it comes to harvesting, the men take the responsibility of collecting the money. I have just learnt that the situation is the same in Africa and other Asian countries,” said María Estela Jocón González, who is representing rural women from three rural regions in Guatemala.

The western, southern and northern regions of Guatemala are areas prone to floods, a situation which has worsened in the recent past, González said.

“When the floods come, the water wells get soaked up with dirty flooding water. Yet according to our culture, it is the sole responsibility of a woman to ensure that the family has enough safe water for drinking and other domestic uses,” she told IPS.

She is calling for the international community meeting in Durban to ensure systems are put in place to keep in check the increasing floods.

“I want to hear of commitments for countries to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global warming. It is good to think about development, but development without a sound environment is useless,” she said.

While there is flooding in Guatemala, southern Senegal is experiencing a lack of rainfall. Faty Khody from Kaulak, a rural community found in the southern part of Senegal, told IPS that rainfall in the area has dropped from an average of 900 millimetres in 2001, to between 300 and 400 millimetres currently.

“We used to grow vegetables and sell them in the local market. But currently, this is not possible unless it is done through irrigation,” said Khody, who works as a promotional officer for Interpench, a community-based organisation that brings together over 7,700 women from rural Senegal.

“The rain patterns have changed, droughts have become extreme, and when it rains, it results in floods, which often cause suffering to the rural people, especially women and children.”

With support from the non-governmental organisation Horizon 3000, Interpench has started a project called “One woman, one fruit tree” as a way of adapting to climate change.

“We say one tree because it is the first step. The seedling for the one tree is given out free of charge, and it is named after whoever plants it as a reminder. However, it is supposed to be a motivation for women to participate largely in not only the planting of trees, but planting fruit-producing trees,” Khody said.

“We are hoping that the deliberations at COP 17 will come up with ideas that will support such women- driven climate change adaptation initiatives,” said Hargreaves.

However, she insists that for such projects to succeed, they must be built on indigenous knowledge systems.

“The African Group of Negotiators must not succumb to the pressure from the developed countries at COP 17,” she said.

Similar views were shares by Elizabeth Kakukuru, the Programme Officer for the Gender Unit at the Southern African Development Community.

“Most negotiations have always been done in boardrooms without involving the person on the ground. Yet the recommendations made are supposed to be implemented by a woman who lives in a rural area. Time has come for the affected parties to be involved directly in such important negotiations,” she said.

With regards to the use of technology transfer for climate change adaptation, Kakukuru observed that all projects must be appropriate, and should be developed in consultation with indigenous communities.

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela

By Kristin Palitza and - -
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 4 2011 (IPS)

Chanting loudly, thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets to the venue of the 17th United Nations Climate Change Conference to demand that their voices be heard for “immediate and drastic” carbon emission reductions to save the planet.

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela

“We are asking for 100 percent change. Today will be the beginning of a strong movement that is going to challenge the rich nations of the world,” said Global Day of Action subcommittee convenor Desmond D’Sa. “World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet, but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change.”

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. They marched holding banners which said: “Never trust COP 17“, “Unite against Climate Change”, “Climate Justice Now” and “Ensure the survival of coming generations”.

There was a general feeling that ordinary people remained largely excluded from important debates on important issues that directly affected their lives.

“We want to ensure that the one percent on the inside of the conference will hear what the 99 percent on the outside have to say,” explained Bobby Peek, one of the organisers of the protest and director of Friends of the Earth South Africa. “We demand immediate, drastic emission cuts by rich countries that have caused climate change.”

Widespread anger could be felt about the slow progress made during the first week of the climate change negotiations, mixed with fear that the summit will end without tangible results.

Peek said he was gravely disappointed about the outcomes of the first week of negotiations. “It was generally a disastrous first week. There is no evidence of moving forward on emission reduction targets.”

Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo agreed, lashing out at the United States for never having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the only global, legally binding instrument to cut carbon emissions.

“This is not a dress rehearsal. A week of belligerence, bickering and backstabbing needs to now give way to real deals about the future of our planet. Those who are not interested in saving lives, economies and environments, like the U.S., must now stand aside and let those with the political will move forward,” Naidoo said.

Chanting slogans and signing protest songs, a large throng of demonstrators walked from Durban’s city centre to the entrance of the International Convention Centre where the climate change summit is being held, to hand over a list of their demands to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).


Civil society requested that governments meet various targets by the end of the conference on Dec. 9, including ensuring a peak in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, and that the Kyoto Protocol continues and provides a mandate for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument. 


Civil society also requested that governments deliver the necessary finance to tackle climate change; set up a framework for protecting forests in developing countries; ensure global cooperation on technology and energy finance.

They also wanted international transparency in assessing and monitoring country commitments and actions.


Activists criticised rich, industrialised nations for using the global financial crisis as an excuse to give national interests priority before international ones.

After a week of negotiations, it remained unclear how money to finance climate mitigation and adaptation projects – measures particularly important to developing nations – will be generated.

“So far we don’t even know where the money will come from. There is a real risk we walk away from Durban with empty pockets. And that failure will be measured in lives, economies and habitats,” warned Tove Ryding, Greenpeace co-ordinator for climate policy.

“If governments don’t move forward, the final agreement will be stripped of any possibility of protecting the climate.”

Demonstrators voiced strong concern about a lack of political commitment to put in place legally binding and comprehensive agreements. The protest march was therefore particularly meant as a message to the heads of state and ministers from around the globe, which are expected to arrive at the summit on Dec. 5.

“We demand urgent and strong action on climate change. We can’t just keep talking and keep wasting time,” said ActionAid international climate justice coordinator Harjeet Singh.

“We march today to show our outrage. We want to give the ministers, who will arrive next week, a clear message: You cannot continue to make excuses.”

Excerpt:

Civil society has warned of the danger of turning Africa’s food-producing lands into “carbon farms” so that rich countries can avoid making cuts in their carbon emissions.

Children in Durban, South Africa, support efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

On Friday, they called on host country South Africa to refrain from forcing so-called “climate smart” agriculture into the United Nations climate treaty negotiations known as the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17).

South African President Jacob Zuma has stated that agriculture should be part of a new climate treaty. South African officials have previously told IPS they want it included so there will be “specific funds and specific actions” for agriculture under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“Putting agriculture into a future climate treaty is supposedly a consolation prize to Africa for failure by rich countries to agree to legally binding targets,” said Teresa Anderson of the Gaia Foundation, an international non-governmental organisation based in London.

“This consolation prize is a poisoned chalice. It will lead to land grabs and deliver African farmers into the hands of fickle carbon markets,” Anderson told IPS.

Agriculture is a major source of global warming gases like carbon and methane – directly accounting for 15 percent to 30 percent of global emissions. When the entire food production system is included, total agriculture emissions represent nearly half of all emissions. For those reasons there have been previous efforts to incorporate agriculture under a new climate treaty.

Changes in agricultural practices can greatly reduce emissions. However, the best way to do that is through regulations, not a climate treaty and carbon credits, said Anderson.

“Why are markets now seen as the only solution when less than 10 years ago they weren’t a focus at all?”

The World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and other organisations favour what they call “climate smart” agriculture that is defined as forms of farming that are sustainable, increases productivity and resilience to changing weather while reducing and/or removing greenhouse gases. It is the latter that civil society objects to.

“This is all about new carbon markets. The North still has not made the necessary emission cuts and want this so they can pretend to reduce their emissions,” said Helena Paul of EcoNexus, an environmental NGO.

“There is a profound danger to agriculture here, with real potential for more land grabbing and expansion of monocultures in order to harvest credits,” said Paul.

African governments see the 144 billion dollars in the European carbon market and think this would be a great source of funding, said Anderson. But in fact very little of this money, much less than one percent, ended up in actual projects, she said.

The very first project to sell soil carbon credits in Africa is underway in Kenya. Funded by the World Bank, some 15,000 farmers and 800 farmer groups are changing their practices to sequester carbon for a 20-year period. The costs to set up the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project along with the costs involved in measuring the carbon and marketing the credits are estimated at more than one million dollars, said Anne Maina of the African Biodiversity Network in Kenya.

At current carbon prices, farmers will get just a dollar a year for their efforts when they were promised much more, said Maina. Only owners of large tracts of land can be expected to benefit. Large landowners and the consultants and other experts will get most of the money, she told IPS.

“Africa is already suffering from a land grab epidemic – the race to control soils for carbon trading could only make this worse.”

The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project does promote sustainable farming practices such as agroforestry that are good for the land and have increased food production she acknowledged. However, it would be far better to fund these with the adaptation funding that has been promised by developed countries.

“Carbon markets are highly volatile,” said Dr. Steve Suppan of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a United States-based civil organisation focused on agriculture.

In November the carbon price was just six dollars a tonne, 50 percent of what it was in January largely as a result of the European financial crisis. Carbon prices are simply too unreliable for most investors to consider as long-term investments, said Suppan.

Moreover, measuring how much carbon has been sequestered is extremely technical and uncertain over the long term and so investors like the World Bank discount the value by 60 percent.

“Soil carbon credits will only generate tiny revenues for farmers and allows biggest polluters to continue to pollute,” Suppan said.

What African agriculture needs, is real emissions reductions along with substantial adaptation funding, he said.

“Soil carbon credits are a false solution,” to climate change, agreed Nnimmo Bassey, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International.

Bassey called on rich industrialised countries, which are responsible for the climate crisis, to reaffirm their commitments “to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.”

At a press conference at COP 17, Bassey and other members of African NGOs called on African delegates to stand together to make sure this meeting ends with radical action to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.

“South African President Jacob Zuma must stand with Africa and be uncompromising…. We need deep and drastic binding emissions cuts by the rich countries and real, public climate finance, not a mandate for a new wave of financial colonialism through a private sector “facility” in the new Green Climate Fund,” said Bobby Peek of Friends of the Earth South Africa said in a statement.

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana and - -
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 2011 (IPS)

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck but in pragmatism because of climate change.

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“Changes are there, no doubt, but it is also important for farmers to have the right farming practises for them to survive those changes. For example, some women are growing vegetables and, due to ignorance, dig the soil right up to edge of the river. Then, when it rains, the soil is all washed into the stream and after a few years the stream becomes shallow. And some say this is because of climate change.”

Jele said changes in the weather pattern have serious implications for farmers like her who depend on increasingly scarce water resources to keep a viable dairy herd. Crop farmers, she said, are worse off unless science and practical ideas come the rescue.

“I feel our scientists should go around talking to the farmers and making them understand the difference between climate change and self-inflicted problems through using the wrong ways of farming. That is important, because otherwise we will not find solutions that will ensure food security,” Jele said.

“Some of things we blame on climate change are failures by us farmers to do the right thing at the right time. Because there is a song of climate change, we are all singing ‘climate change, climate change’,” said Jele.

Fears of what climate change will do for African agriculture are real and in southern Africa farmers are taking action to ensure that negotiators at 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) in Durban get the message.

The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) – granted observer status at the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) session – wants the global negotiations to put agriculture firmly on the climate change agenda and establish a work programme that will outline and coordinate necessary responses such as a specific allocation to the sector under the Green Climate Fund.

Climate smart initiatives such as conservation farming, water harvesting will not only help farmers cope with extreme weather but also ensure they curb carbon emissions. According to scientists, agriculture is responsible for between 15 to 30 percent of global emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which affects the earth’s temperature.

Farmers are campaigning for a deal that specifically includes agriculture, which will be heavily affected by climate change in terms of reduced crop yields and low productivity. For them productive and sustainable and farms are the insurance against the risks of climate change.

Noting the close links between the challenges of addressing climate change and feeding a growing global population, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) President Kanayo Nwanze is to call on COP 17 to focus on helping half a billion smallholder farmers in developing countries to grow more food in environmentally sustainable ways.

According to research by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, climate change will shrink agriculture productivity with projections of a rise in temperatures and an increase in droughts and floods, which would alter agricultural seasons and decrease harvests

“Our expectations as farmers of Southern Africa is to have agriculture included in the text that will be agreed at the end of the Durban COP 17,” said Stephanie Aubin, SACAU Policy Development Officer.

“Agriculture must be included in the specific text so that there are specific funds and specific action that are implemented.”

A draft text was discussed and negotiated during the past COP meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun but was dropped because agriculture was lumped together with bunker fuels.

“It is important that agriculture has special treatment at the UNFCCC negotiations because its special in terms of livelihoods for millions of people in Africa and food security for the planet and it’s the most climate sensitive sector which at the same time can contribute adaptation and mitigation efforts,” said Aubin.

“We want a specific chapter on agriculture in the text and long term action as it will unlock funding needed by the agriculture sector in Africa to response efficiently to Climate change.”

Aubin was optimistic that with the COP 17 being held in Africa, African governments will put the required effort to push for agriculture in the final text.

A grouping of 15 global and regional organisations have endorsed a call to action for COP 17 climate change negotiators stating that whilst agriculture is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it has significant potential to be part of the solution to climate change.

“At the upcoming climate change negotiations in Durban, we call on negotiators to recognise the important role of agriculture in addressing climate change so that a new era of agricultural innovation and knowledge sharing can be achieved, said a grouping of global and regional, ” said the statement issued ahead of the Agriculture and Rural Development Day event to be held at COP 17.

“Specifically, we ask that they approve a work programme for agriculture under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice so that the sector can take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future challenges.”

Bruce Campbell, Director of the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), told IPS that agriculture has been neglected in the negotiations so far, despite the sector accounting for between 16 to 29 percent of total emissions. Additionally, he said farmers, especially poor farmers in the developing world, are going to be particularly hard-hit by climate change.

“The agricultural sector must be empowered to take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future food and energy challenges effectively,” Campbell said. “The Agriculture and Rural Development Day will not only reflect this call-to-action, but it will also showcase a series of success stories in agriculture, which specific actions could be further scaled up with further investment and a coordinated approach to implementation.”

Excerpt:

As climate talks get underway in Durban, South Africa this week, progress on a Green Climate Fund is one of the hottest, most contentious tickets in town. It is also one of the great prizes to be won.

Climate change wreaks damage on infrastructure, ecosystems, livelihoods and lives in developing countries. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

The fund would, in theory, provide a new, substantial source of funds to help developing countries adapt to the negative impacts of climate change and pursue low carbon development; it is meant to be a major vehicle for delivering 100 billion dollars a year in climate finance to developing countries by 2020.

Agreement on the structure of the fund and on sources of cash (at least for the medium term) must be secured in Durban, to keep this ambition on track. Developing country observers believe such an agreement on climate finance is vital. Why is it so urgent?

The Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period expires late next year, and international leaders have not yet agreed a framework to succeed it. With the clock ticking on this legal deal, there will be a gap until any new version is adopted.

As developing countries press for a new global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, caution dictates that they must prepare to adapt to a world in which climate change wreaks damage on infrastructure, ecosystems, livelihoods and lives.

In the words of Professor Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, developing country decision makers are calling for a “two degree world” – where the average global temperature is curbed at two degrees above pre-industrial levels – but must prepare to adapt to a “three or four degree world.”

For developing countries, this means bracing for rising sea levels that will make atolls and coastal settlements less habitable. Droughts will become more prolonged and frequent, and rainfall patterns far more erratic.

The current drought in the Horn of Africa, and the devastating floods in El Salvador last month and Durban, South Africa this week are indicative of the weather extremes that will become more frequent by mid-century as climate change takes hold. These impacts will be felt even in a “two degree world”, but in a “three or four degree world” they will become even more severe and unpredictable.

Climate finance is not just a story about preparing for the worst, though. Developing countries also recognise opportunities to attract investment in low carbon technologies, which will increase their global competitiveness.

What could be a more compelling prospect that to leapfrog past soon-to-be obsolete technologies that guzzle fossil fuels, and avoid some of the carbon lock-in experienced by industrialised nations?

The Government of Rwanda will launch its National Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy at the 17th Conference of the Parties in Durban next week.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said he sees low carbon development as a win-win situation for Rwanda. It could reduce Rwanda’s dependence on foreign imported oil and create an economic stimulus by redirecting payments toward clean energy production at home, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

However, financial support from foreign governments and the private sector will be needed in order to realise such ambitions.

Developing countries’ hopes for progress on climate finance in Durban are set against a background of frustrated ambition. They are approaching the end of the so-called “fast-start finance” commitment period that was agreed in Copenhagen in 2009.

The aspiration set out in the Copenhagen Accord was to raise 30 billion dollars of new and additional funding over the three years until 2012. Have industrialised countries even delivered on this deal?

The trouble is fast-start finance has no easily identifiable form, being typically delivered through existing channels of delivery and disbursement. Therefore, trying to track that funding has proved difficult and confusing.

Even seasoned observers cannot get an accurate handle on how much money has been allocated, and for what ends. While some “new and additional” funding has certainly been allocated, examples abound of projects being re-branded “fast-start” even when they pre-date Copenhagen and there is a large gap between pledges and good intention, and disbursement.

Chair of the African Group of Negotiators in the climate negotiations, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu has simply put it: “Fast start has not really delivered – only 10 percent of fast start is new and additional.”

A new online portal developed by the United Nations may start to address these issues but in the current circumstances, mistrust pervades.

The 2010 to 2012 fast start period was only ever just that: a start. Currently, we do not know where the money is going to come from to reach the loftier ambition to provide developing countries with 100 billion dollars a year by 2020.

Ideas for specific sources of revenue have been proposed, such as an air passenger levy, a tax on financial transactions and a carbon levy on polluting emissions from shipping.

Yet, mobilising such sources could take several years, which raises the prospect of a serious funding gap after the fast start period ends in 2013.

We know for sure that public sources will not fulfil that promise alone, and private sector money will be needed. In the meantime, developing countries expect public sources to lead the way.

The private sector role in the GCF is not a question of syphoning off scarce public funds. It is about using at least some of this public money to catalyse private investment at scale, to accelerate low carbon development. With public funds under pressure in many Annex 1 countries, the private sector role is going to be critical.

As well as hard cash, the institutional set up for financing climate compatible development is important. A good outcome from Durban would be if the GCF were formally established in line with the recommendations put to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by its Transitional Committee on Finance.

Having the fund’s operational structure agreed would enable commitments made in Copenhagen and Cancun to be taken forward while meeting aid effectiveness principles.

A variety of other climate finance mechanisms already in operation, such as the Adaptation Fund, will also need to be shored up, and this would need to be done in parallel with agreements on the capitalisation of the GCF.

The prevailing economic climate makes discussions of climate finance difficult, but the time to deliver this fund is now.

World leaders must leave Durban with a clearer picture on what climate finance can be delivered between 2013 and 2019, beyond the fast-start period.

The form of the GCF and its capitalisation could be the “crown jewels” of a South African climate conference. They would provide real impetus for developing countries to step up climate action themselves.

* Tim Ash Vie is Head of Negotiations at Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

Burial ground ... Protesters from the Sierra Club declare carbon dead outside the United Nations climate change conference. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

By Kristin Palitza and - -
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 2011 (IPS)

Just a few days into the United Nations climate change negotiations, deep divides on the conference’s key issues have arisen. Serious doubts about the adoption of the Green Climate Fund have cropped up, while a second period of the Kyoto- Protocol looks more and more unlikely.

Burial ground ... Protesters from the Sierra Club declare carbon dead outside the United Nations climate change conference. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

“It should be possible to agree on the draft instrument as it stands. It is a good compromise. In its current form it would attract significant funding,” said EU negotiator Tomasz Chruszczow. “It would be counterproductive to undertake further technical discussions on the instrument.”

Non-governmental organisations and climate activists agree that reopening the negotiating text would seriously undermine the chances of finalising the GCF before the end of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) summit.

“This would mean that there is no instrument into which money could flow. We understand there are concerns from some parties, but this negotiating text represented a finely balanced political compromise and took months to finalise,” lamented World Wide Fund for Nature international climate strategy chief Tasneem Essop.

More than 190 countries at the global climate talks in Durban were expected to sign off on the GCF, which is meant to help developing countries with 100 billion dollar a year by 2020 to adapt to the effects of climate change.

In an attempt to create consensus, COP 17 president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said she would reach out to various countries through “transparent and informal discussions” over the next few days. There is, however, no definitive process or timeline for those talks. Supporters of the GCF now wait with baited breath for her report-back.

Some experts suggest that instead of reopening negotiations, there should be an additional text to the draft document that resolved some of the most pressing concerns, while other issues could be taken up by the GCF board, once elected.

Economics of adaptation

Immediate funding for adaptation and mitigation will not only help countries to confront climate change but also make sound economic sense. The World Bank and the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that economic losses worldwide from natural disasters in the 1990s could have been reduced by 280 billion dollars, if only 40 billion dollars had been invested in disaster prevention.

But two years after committing to mobilising 100 billion dollar per year for climate adaptation and mitigation, at COP 15 in Copenhagen, developed countries have yet to indicate where any of the promised public funds will come from. Instead they have focused on ways to mobilise the private sector.

“If the fund comes with an empty vault it will be meaningless,” warned Ilana Solomon, policy advisor at ActionAid USA. “We know financial aid times are tough and budgets are tight,” she said in reference to the Eurozone crisis, “but the truth is that rich countries can bring up the money.”

The difficulties to secure funding for the GCF are alarming, because even if countries eventually bring up the entire budget, it will not be enough. Recent estimates by the European Commission and World Bank show that at least double the amount that will be raised for the fund is needed for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. Other experts note the world will need 5.7 trillion dollars by 2035 to deal with the effects of climate change.

Climate change experts also stress that action is needed now, because it will cost seven times more to reverse negative impacts of climate change, than to invest in prevention.

“It sounds like we’re talking about a lot of money, but the cost of inaction is far higher than the cost of action,” said Oxfam International – Australia climate change policy adviser Kelly Dent. “We need money to fill the fund. And we need it up and running quickly.”

Up until now, countries have not been able to agree on a single mechanism to draw public funds.

Kyoto – a cop out?

Amidst heated discussions about the climate fund, the chances of countries agreeing to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire at the end of 2012, have become slim as well.

Aside from the EU, no other industrial nation currently stands behind an extension. The U.S., Russia and Japan have clearly stated their disinterest, while Canada caused a public outcry this week when it became known it wants to abandon the protocol, probably to avoid fines for not reaching its emission reduction targets.

“We cannot let the distraction of Canada’s move take our focus away from very real progress that can be made with the EU and others, as a crucial pathway forward for a legally binding regime and emission reductions,” urged Dent.

Even the EU has been slightly changing tack. It now wants the world’s largest emitters to agree by 2015 to a binding pact to be enacted in 2020 at the latest and offers in exchange an extension to its carbon- reduction goals under the Kyoto Protocol. The EU said it hopes to break the deadlock in the talks and find “common ground” with China and other emerging economies.

But climate change experts believe waiting until 2020 to set firm emissions reduction targets is leaving it too late. “We need ambition to increase emission reduction targets from after 2012. 2020 is too late,” said Dent.

Developing countries, especially Africa where climate change will be felt most severely, keep their hopes pinned strongly on the EU being able to convince other industrialised nations to commit to Kyoto from 2013 onwards.

“For us, a lot is at stake,” said Raymond Lumbuenamo, central Africa regional coordinator of the World Wide Fund for Nature. “We already experience real impacts of climate change. We are the victims of a climate change that we didn’t cause. Africa does not want to be the burial ground of this treaty.”

Excerpt:

Volunteers for the Sonke Gender Justice Network door-to-door medical male circumcision campaign. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

By IPS Correspondents
CAPE TOWN, Dec 1 2011 (IPS)

Although at first glance male circumcision may not be the most obvious entrée to get people talking about gender equality, activists in the Western Cape in South Africa are attempting to do just that.

Volunteers for the Sonke Gender Justice Network door-to-door medical male circumcision campaign. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

As part of a national strategy to reduce the number of new HIV infections in South Africa, where some 10 percent of the population is HIV positive, the Western Cape province began offering free medical male circumcision (MMC) in selected public clinics across the province this October.

Studies have shown that men who have undergone MMC, which results in the complete removal of the foreskin, are 60 percent less likely to contract HIV when engaging in heterosexual intercourse with an HIV-positive partner.

As such, the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS both advocate MMC as an important strategy in the prevention of HIV infection in areas where HIV is transmitted primarily via heterosexual intercourse and where there is a high prevalence of HIV along with a low prevalence of MMC.

Activists at the Sonke Gender Justice Network, a non-profit organisation focusing on men’s responsibilities in creating a just and democratic society, see MMC as carrying benefits in addition to its significant HIV-prevention potential. They see it as nothingless than an opportunity to promote gender equality.

“MMC is an opportunity to engage men on sexual reproductive health. That means an opportunity to engage to say they must reduce their sexual partners, they must use condoms correctly and consistently, and they must seek consent before sex,” said Leo Mbobi, Cape Town Coordinator for Sonke’s flagship One Man Can programme.

The first phase of the effort to use MMC as a platform to promote gender equality has come in the form of raising awareness. Through posters, brochures, and a door-to-door campaign, Sonke is focusing on educating people not only about the health benefits of MMC, but also on the importance of women’s participation in conversations around MMC and sexual decision-making in general.

Two weeks ago about 30 Sonke volunteers visited some 200 households in Gugulethu, a township 15 kilometres outside of Cape Town. The door-to-door campaign was carried out in the week preceding the Saturday that the local clinic was offering free MMC (so far MMC is only available in a few clinics on specific dates).

“I was very, very nervous,” volunteer Bongani Nhlapho said about his part in the campaign.

“We grew up in the community and we’ve been circumcised – not with MMC but through traditional circumcision in the bush. So when we came with this new thing, I worried they would say, ‘How can you go to the bush and now come telling us this? What about our children? Are you saying we must stop sending them to the bush?'”

South Africa’s diverse population includes several groups that practice circumcision as a rite of passage, in the case of the Western Cape, that primarily means the Muslim and Xhosa communities. However, traditional circumcision does not always remove the entire foreskin, and so does not necessarily carry the same medical benefits as MMC in terms of HIV and other STD prevention.

According to Sonke, many of the South African men who self report that they are circumcised say that the foreskin is only partially removed.

Himself a Xhosa man who was traditionally circumcised, Nhlapho found that raising the topic of MMC to the largely Xhosa population in Gugulethu was not as controversial as he had feared in terms of the issue of traditional versus medical circumcision. As it turned out, speaking about circumcision with women was the greater cultural challenge.

“Women were asking me, ‘Why are you telling us this? We’re not supposed to know these things,'” Nhlapho said, explaining that according to Xhosa tradition, women should have nothing to do with matters of circumcision.

Nhlapho was not alone. Volunteer Yusuf Williams said that though he faced a similar reaction from some of the Xhosa women he spoke with, he went on to explain to them that they should listen for the sake of their own and their partner’s health.

“I told them you have to have understanding of MMC because if your partner does it, you must stand by his side. For example, if he does this, you can’t have intercourse for six weeks,” Williams said.

Sonke volunteers stress that issues like intercourse before the six-week healing period following MMC (which can actually increase the likelihood of HIV-infection), and the necessity of continuing to use condoms after MMC are better tackled when both partners are educated.

Though reactions to the campaign were mixed, Leo Mbobi was not discouraged, saying that well over half of those contacted responded positively, and emphasising the importance of getting the conversations started.

“There are issues of inequality in South Africa, especially on who decides when to have sex, whom to have sex with, and how to have sex. These health-related decisions are still mostly on men’s authority and men’s power. To bring a gender dimension to the issue of MMC means encouraging men to do couples testing before MMC, making sure that they come to the procedure with their partners so their partners can support them during the healing period, and opening up discussion around these matters,” said Mbobi. The provincial Department of Health says it hopes to have conducted over 19,000 MMCs by the end of March 2012. Meanwhile, Sonke’s awareness campaign is set to grow with the introduction in the coming months of comic strips, murals, and taxis painted with messages about the benefits and facts around MMC.

Nhlapho thinks that the campaign will bring change.

“First people didn’t want to listen when we talked about HIV/AIDS. But now around the communities every day we lose someone from HIV, so now people are listening. At the end of the day I’m leaving you with the right information, so if you know that you are in danger of that thing, you can do something about it.”

Excerpt:

David Lessole (left) with Phera Ramoeli, Head of Water Programmes, Infrastructure and Services at the SADC Secretariat. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana and - -
DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 2011 (IPS)

The Southern Africa Development Community wants water to be tabled as a standalone item on climate change negotiations – describing it as too important to leave on the periphery.

David Lessole (left) with Phera Ramoeli, Head of Water Programmes, Infrastructure and Services at the SADC Secretariat. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“Adaptation is the main priority,” South Africa’s Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa told delegates at the launch of the SADC Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) Strategy for Water during the United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa.

“We know that discussions around mitigation are important but we believe we need to do much more work in relation to adaptation so that as a continent and as SADC we can adapt to the impacts of climate change whose daily impacts we are beginning to see,” said Molewa.

Molewa called for comprehensive and integrated actions to tackle the impact of climate change on the precious water resource. Some of the actions include flood management and water use.

The SADC strategy on water is meant to improve climate resilience in the region and will guide member states with negotiations at COP 17 where pressure is on for global leaders to put the brakes on global warming by cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

“We cannot sit back and say we are seeing the impact of climate change but we cannot do something,” said Molewa, adding that, “something has to be done in the talks, COP 18, and COP 19 and … we hope we will not reach COP 28 without a solution. But, in the meantime, we need to adapt.”

The U.N. Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is responsible for the overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge of climate change. It recognises that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. After 17 years of discussions, carbon emissions are still growing.

Professor Mark New, director of the Africa Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, said while water was important and should be highlighted, it must be integrated with other issues.

“I think that the desire to make it water stand alone stems from an important perspective that water is one of the important factors around climate change adaptation. Making it stand alone means that water is separated from many other issues it is linked with,” New told IPS.

“Water is important for energy and agriculture. In Africa, specifically in terms of coping with the changing demographics as we move from a rural society to a more urban society, we have to be thinking in a integrated manner about the way climate change will impact and how decisions we make in one area, around water, will interact with other sectors we are interested in.”

New said the underlying principle of the climate convention is to avoid dangerous climate change and water was therefore implicitly included because the impacts of climate change will affect water along with all other sectors.

During September 2011, SADC ministers responsible for water instructed the SADC Secretariat to push for the inclusion of water as a standalone agenda item under the UNFCCC negotiation. There is debate on the challenges and opportunities of having water as standalone agenda in the negotiations.

Phera Ramoeli, Head of Water Programmes, Infrastructure and Services at the SADC Secretariat told a panel discussion after the launch of the CCA strategy that having water as standalone agenda item for UNFCCC negotiators would raise its profile to attract funding for adaptation.

“We feel it is important that water is a specific agenda item on climate change debate because water is an engine and catalyst for socioeconomic development and is linked to the GDP in most of our countries where GDP is increasing by three percent where there is more water and less than one percent where there is less,” Ramoeli said.

However, David Lessole, a negotiator for Botswana, differed. He said there is need to see water as a broad issue before putting up as a major agenda items for UNFCC.

“For something to become major agenda it has to benefit me as well,” said Lessole. “As a negotiating partner I must see something in it, for example, in the case of agriculture I can sell you technology, you get more food and become climate resilient and therefore it’s a win-win but for water no, why should I do the job that your government should be doing.”

Lessole argued that there was plenty of water but it was being wasted and was not included in development planning. Hence until such a time that water was seen as broad issue and people were ready to talk about water technologies, they should not be pushing it on the UNFCCC agenda.

Excerpt:

Deaths from natural disasters occur much more in developing countries. Credit: Andrew Green/IPS

By - - and Joshua Kyalimpa
DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 2011 (IPS)

Managing the impact of increased disasters due to climate change will only be possible if such efforts are led by local communities, say non-governmental organisations working in climate change.

Deaths from natural disasters occur much more in developing countries. Credit: Andrew Green/IPS

A deal on climate change at Durban might still be a far-fetched dream, but climate change-related disasters are already taking a toll around the globe.

According to a report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), increases in some extreme weather and climate events have already been observed and further increases are projected over the 21st century.

The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, evaluates the role of climate change in altering characteristics of extreme events. It assesses experience with a wide range of options used by institutions, organizations, and communities to reduce exposure and vulnerability, and improve resilience, to climate extremes.

Speaking at a press conference at United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa, IPCC executive director Dr. Kristie Ebi highlighted that while total economic losses from natural disasters could be high in developed countries; economic losses expressed as a proportion of GDP could be higher in developing countries.

Ebi says the IPCC will soon start meeting policy makers and politicians around the world to urge them take up measures for disaster reduction: “We are committed to outreach events over the coming months with a hope that politicians and policy makers will be encouraged to advance climate change adaptation.”

According to the IPCC report, deaths from natural disasters occur much more in developing countries. Information obtained from 1970 to 2008 by the experts’ shows that more than 95 percent of deaths from natural disasters were in developing countries.

Most governments have, however, not put in place policies for disaster risk reduction. Hopkins says governments, especially those in Africa, have to take to protect people and their property.

“People have to be given the right information because information on disaster reduction remains at the top and often the affected people don’t even get it,” says Hopkins

Professor Richard Klein, of the Stockholm Environment Institute and a member of the international panel of experts, says people actually don’t have to rely on international agreements.

“Local actions by the people need to be supported because they are the most vulnerable and are more likely to put effort into adaptation measures,” says Klein.

Klein says risk management works best when tailored to local circumstances.

But Nurudeen Adebola Olanrewaju of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, a Nigeria- based policy centre, says that while the report talks about what people are already experiencing, more was needed to drive action.

“Risk management requires actions, ranging from improving infrastructure to building individual and institutional capacity, in order to reduce risk and respond to disasters but these require money which politician must make available,” says Olanrewaju.

A separate report released by the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), the technical arm of the Climate for Development in Africa programme, based at the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa shows that of the 29.2 billion dollars pledged since 2009, only between 2.8 and 7.0 billion dollars is “new” (i.e. not previously pledged).

The total amount of funds that are both “new and additional” (i.e. on top of aid budgets) would be less than 2 billion dollars. While 97 percent of the promised 30 billion dollars has been pledged, only 45 percent has been “committed”, 33 percent has been “allocated” and only about 7 percent has been “disbursed”.

The report released today on the sidelines of the climate talks here in Durban finds that there are many lessons to be learnt from the current “fast start finance” system. This system, agreed at the Copenhagen climate conference, was supposed to deliver 30 billion dollars in “new and additional” funding to developing countries.

Launching the report, Yacob Mulugetta, senior energy and climate specialist at the ACPC said: “The experience with the ‘fast-start’ pledges and discussions of the 100 billion dollars promise suggests that the adequacy and predictability of climate finance may remain very low if the future climate finance architecture reflects current practice.”

Excerpt:

Rainforest cleared by burning in the state of Acre, Brazil. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Kristin Palitza
DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 2011 (IPS)

Global climate change can now be observed from space. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a new technology that can survey the world’s forests via satellites and provide a more accurate, global picture of common threats to the environment, such as deforestation, degradation or illegal logging.

Using a remote sensing surveying technology, FAO has taken and analysed more than 13,500 high-resolution satellite images in 102 countries. These images will help nations to accurately assess the state of their forests. Monitoring change in forests has important implications for biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and human livelihoods.

The losses in forests all around the world can now be quantified for the first time, FAO announced at the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties climate change summit, which is taking place from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 in Durban, South Africa.

The rate of forest loss has increased from four million hectares in 1990s to six million hectares between 2000 and 2005 - We are losing vital carbon storage, biodiversity and other values forests provide
Adam Gerrand, FAO forest monitoring scientist

“It’s a very comprehensive study of the world’s forests. For the first time we have consistent and comparable global and regional long-term data on forest loss land use. Up until now, most available data has come in numbers, not maps (based on satellite images),” explained FAO forest monitoring scientist Adam Gerrand.

As a result, very few countries have been able to monitor the impact of climate change and human intervention on their forests consistently over time.

“We have been lacking good data on deforestation and urgently needed more details about the dynamics of forest loss. We didn’t get the whole story until now,” Gerrand added.

The initial findings from the high-resolution satellite data show that the world’s total forest area shrank by an average of 14.5 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2005. It largely occurred in the tropics, likely attributable to the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land.

“The rate of forest loss has increased from four million hectares in 1990s to six million hectares between 2000 and 2005,” said Gerrand. “We are losing vital carbon storage, biodiversity and other values forests provide.”

There is some good news, too, however. The survey shows that deforestation does not happen quite as fast as countries have been reporting. The new data showed a net loss of 73 million hectares between 1990 and 2005 compared to previous net loss estimate of 107 million hectares for the same time period.

During that time, the loss of forests was highest in the tropics, where just under half of the world’s forests are located, followed by Africa. Asia was the only region to show net gains in forest land-use area in both periods. Deforestation occurred here as well, but the extensive planting that has been reported by several countries in Asia, mainly China, exceeded the forest areas that were lost.

All satellite images are taken a hundred kilometres apart and comprise 10 square kilometres. They are classified, labelled and then passed on to the countries where they have been taken, so that governments can review and confirm the data.

“It’s a framework countries can use to improve forest resources,” explained Gerrand.

Some countries have already benefited from the new satellite technology. In Papua New Guinea, a small country in Oceania, for example, which is to 65 percent covered with forests, 41 satellite images were taken to establish the impact climate change had on its forest cover.

“Our country didn’t have the technology to assess forest degradation. The new satellite imagery improves the credibility of data,” said Dr. Joe Pokana, head of Papua New Guinea’s national climate change office. “We now plan to establish a robust national monitoring system that will help us to understand the level of degradation and inform policy.”

Similarly, Angola has started to survey the threat of deforestation via the photographic maps provided by the satellites. Forests currently make up 43.4 percent of the southern African country.

“We how have important information about how our forest resources are utilised, carbon stocks, environmental problems, causes of degradation and deforestation,” said Mateus Andre, the head of Angola’s forestry department. “For the first time, we have quality information on which we can base decisions.”

The new data are particularly important for developing regions like Africa, where existing information is often out-dated or of low quality due to lack of capacity. They differ from previous FAO findings in the Global Forest Resources Assessment of 2010, which were based on a compilation of country reports that used a wide variety of sources.

“Deforestation is depriving millions of people of forest goods and services that are crucial to rural livelihoods, economic well-being and environmental health,” said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, FAO assistant director-general for forestry. “The new, satellite-based figures give us a more consistent global picture. Together with the broad range of information supplied by the country reports, they offer decision- makers at every level more accurate information.”

Further remote sensing studies are expected to reveal changes occurring since 2005. “Eventually we will be able to assign biomass to each site for the estimation of forest carbon emissions,” explained Frederic Achard, a scientist from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission who helped to develop the new imaging system.

Until then lies a long way ahead. Currently, the satellite technology can provide some important data, but not all. Admitted Gerrand: “We still have several decades worth of development ahead.” (ENDS/AF/WD/DV/EN/SC/AB/DS/IJ/SU/KP/KP/PF/2011)

In pastoralist communities, mobile phones are crucial for alerting communities to droughts and reducing food insecurity. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu and - -
DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 2011 (IPS)

Francis Mburu used to keep indigenous cattle in Entasopia village in the semi- arid Kajiado region, 160 kilometres southwest of Nairobi. However, increasing temperatures and frequent droughts in Kenya have made this difficult in recent years.

In pastoralist communities, mobile phones are crucial for alerting communities to droughts and reducing food insecurity. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

The Nguruman community, largely composed of the Maasai ethnic group, now has access to an ICT facility locally known as Maarifa (“knowledge” in Swahili) Centre. Here they are able to access climate adaptation information via the internet, videos and books. The Arid Land Information Network (ALIN), in collaboration with the Kenyan government, founded the project.

According to Samuel Nzioka, the field officer for ALIN, most of the videos shown at the centre are practical lessons in local languages aimed at boosting the understanding of the concepts of climate change and adaptation, and basic dry-land farming knowledge.

“From reading agricultural books, listening to advice from field officers manning the centre, and watching video clips that show what other farmers are doing to adapt to the changing climatic conditions in other arid areas, I have learnt more resilient methods of animal husbandry,” said Mburu, a 56-year-old father of three.

Climate change in East Africa has resulted in higher temperatures and prolonged droughts and has meant that farmers have had to adapt along with these changes.

“We have seen our pastoralists move to higher grounds in Ethiopia in search of greener pastures. We have seen animal species, that we thought could tolerate drought, die as a result of the prolonged drought. It means that it is not business as usual,” said Dr. Miano Mwangi, assistant director for Animal Production at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, and the national coordinator at the Kenya Arid and Semi-Arid Land programme.

It is successes like the one in Entasopia that has experts at the ongoing United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17)in Durban, South Africa urging the international community to consider technology transfer as one of the main methods of adapting to climate change.

“In Ghana, we call it climate education, where information communication technology is used to educate people of how to adapt to the new phenomenon,” Atsu Titiati, the Tree Programme director at the Ghana branch of Rainforest Alliance, an international non-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation of tropical forests, told IPS.

He said that in northern Ghana, communities rely on community-based radio to know what types of seed to plant during a particular season, and for the market value of their crops upon harvest.

“The government also uses community radio to warn people in advance whenever the weather forecast detects floods,” Titiati told IPS in Durban.

In Kenya, pastoralist communities use mobile phones to determine the market value of their animals.

“We have rolled out a project in Isiolo district with an aim of reducing food insecurity among the communities,” Rahab Mburunga, the data officer at ActionAid International – Kenya, told IPS.

Through the project, information about the market value of various crops and livestock is sent as short messages to subscribers’ mobile phones.

The project has also given mobile phones to community members so that they can distribute the information to other villagers who might not have phones.

“We have tried it and it is working,” Mburunga said.

In February, the Kenyan government developed a National Climate Change Technology Action Plan. One of the main objectives of this was to explore technology transfer opportunities and to establish national technology innovation centres.

In Mozambique, the government and non-governmental organisations use mobile phones to warn residents in flood-prone areas about the possibility of floods to ensure the timely evacuation of people.

“We usually send short messages to particular community representatives so that it is broadcasted to the rest of the community regarding floods, delayed rainfall or any other necessary agricultural information,” said Josh Ogada, the communication expert at Oneworld, a regional environmental organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to a statement released by the International Telecommunication Union at COP 17, these technologies hold the key to adaptation, but they remain underutilised in most African countries.

“Today’s advanced technologies can transform social, industrial and business processes to effect the changes needed to achieve sustainability. But while the potential of ICTs to make a real difference is widely recognised by the technology community and government ICT ministries, it is still far from being understood and embraced by environmental lobby groups and policymakers,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Africa is calling for more funding to implement climate change adaptation programmes.

“We have enough resources for adaptation in Africa, and all we need is the technology transfer backed with scientific evidence. However, our people cannot fully exploit them if we do not have access to proper channels of financing such technology transfers for adaptation,” Mithika Mwenda, the coordinator for the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance told IPS.

Excerpt:

Rainforest cleared by burning in the state of Acre, Brazil. Credit: Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Kristin Palitza and - -
DURBAN, South Africa , Nov 29 2011 (IPS)

Organisations working with indigenous peoples living in forests say the United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) is just another way for big corporates to reap huge profits.

Rainforest cleared by burning in the state of Acre, Brazil. Credit: Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

“It is a system where you pour a lot of money into forests that will attract powerful international investors who will make big profits,” warned Simone Lovera, managing director of the Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide network of more than 50 non-governmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She spoke during the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17), which is taking place in Durban, South Africa, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9.

Lovera does not contest that deforestation and forest degradation are key climate change culprits. Caused by agricultural expansion, conversion to pastureland, infrastructure development or destructive logging, they account for nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N., more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.

REDD+ is supposed to turn this around. Since it was started in 2005, the programme enables industrialised countries in the North to reward reductions of carbon emissions to nations in the South. It is basically a system of performance-based payments that are financed through global carbon markets. The U.N. predicts that finance for greenhouse gas emission reductions from REDD+ could reach up to 30 billion dollars per year. The money is supposed to go towards pro-poor development, help conserve biodiversity and secure vital ecosystem services.

But indigenous communities say this is not so. It was big, international forestry businesses that ultimately benefited from the carbon deals, not the locals who have lived in and off the forests for many generations. Instead, locals are kicked off their land to make space for large monoculture plantations aimed at offsetting carbon emissions in the north.

Lovera said there are many risks inherent to REDD+ that indigenous communities are unable to address because they lack access to information and education, such as forced, non-transparent contracts and land grabbing. What forest-dependent communities need instead, she argued, are national public policies that support sustainable forest management.

Lovera said the U.N. promise of the scheme generating billions of dollars annually was “a big fairytale”, a way of green washing. “There won’t be big carbon financing for REDD+. Carbon markets are collapsing. It’s a very risky scheme that is creating havoc all over the world,” she cautioned.

Her prediction is likely to be correct. A World Bank draft report, written for a G20 meeting in November and leaked to the Britsh Guardian newspaper in September, confirmed the trouble global carbon markets are in. “The value of transactions in the primary CDM market declined sharply in 2009 and further in 2010 … amid chronic uncertainties about future mitigation targets and market mechanisms after 2012,” the World Bank stated.

In the meantime, the U.N. continues to pump large amounts of finance into REDD+. Last month, for example, Nigeria’s national REDD+ programme received four million dollars in funding, which the U.N. says brought total funding in 14 countries worldwide to nearly 60 million dollars. The funds are aimed at increasing the capacity of national governments to implement carbon-saving strategies together with local groups, such as indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities.

“The U.N.-REDD programme’s support is invaluable because climate change is a global problem and the issues of REDD+, sustainable forest management and sustainable livelihoods cannot be handled by the country alone,” said Salisu Dahiru, national coordinator for REDD+ in Nigeria.

But organisations working with forest-dependent communities say the benefits for local people are minimal.

“We say very clearly ‘no’ to REDD+. Under it, people are being expelled from nature so that big industries can profit from carbon storage,” argued Winnie Overbeek, the international coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement, a non-governmental organisation based in Montevideo, Uruguay.

In Uganda, for example, a case was documented where 22,000 people were violently evicted from the Mubende and Kiboga districts earlier this year to make way for the United Kingdom-based New Forests Company to plant trees, to earn carbon credits and ultimately to sell timber. Similar incidents happened to indigenous peoples all over the world, said Overbeek.

“REDD+ is about making more profit, continuing pollution and disrespecting the rights of forest people all over the world. It’s about land grabbing,” he warned. “It’s time to stop thinking about REDD+ and start protecting local populations and their land rights.”

Marlon Santi, a member of the Quichua indigenous community that lives in the Amazon Region of Ecuador, said he has experienced first-hand how REDD+ took away people’s livelihoods. The scheme has led to mega forestry projects that exist to the detriment of local people.

“Forests have become a negotiating space to make money. They are used as business opportunities. That’s unacceptable to us,” said Santi. “REDD+ projects are hypocritical. We need real political solutions that benefit everyone.”

He hoped the negotiators at this year’s COP 17 will grant an open ear to his people’s needs.

Excerpt:

The European Union plan to save the Kyoto Protocol may meet its greatest obstacle in the developing world.

Durban represents a crucial decision-making point for the world’s fight against climate change. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

Abias Huongo, one of Angola’s negotiators, says developing country blocs of which it is part – including the Africa and Least Developed Countries groups – are not able yet to express support for a global legally binding deal.

“Our partners need to fulfill their responsibilities, and they are running away from their commitments,” he told IPS on the first day of the United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) – the annual international gathering convened to try to make progress on dealing with climate change in Durban, South Africa.

In a curtain-raiser press conference, the EU delegation – viewed as the most enthusiastic about a second commitment period – emphasised it was unwilling to commit unless the rest of the world agreed to a global climate deal.

“The problem is that Kyoto alone cannot tackle the climate challenges we all face,” the delegation’s Tomasz Chruszczow said, “We need 100 percent of global emissions covered by the framework, and 100 percent of those who are emitting.”

The EU wants to see an agreement finalised by 2015, and operational at the latest by 2020.

Durban represents a crucial decision-making point for the world’s fight against climate change – one which many civil society organisations and developing nations regard as a matter of life or death.

“It always seems impossible until it is done.” The words of Nelson Mandela were echoed by U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres at the opening plenary of COP 17.

In previous years, COPs have been plagued by frustration, mistrust and despair. But last year’s talks in Cancun managed to relieve some of the burden of post-Copenhagen disappointment.

This year, the more than 15,000 delegates have arrived on South Africa’s coast somewhat more hopeful about possibilities. But along with hope comes responsibility.

The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in December 2012, and in the absence of new commitments from developed countries, the globe will be left bereft of any legally-binding emissions framework.

Developing countries want Kyoto to succeed, Huongo said.

“We’re in Africa, and we don’t want it to die on our continent,” he added.

He said there would be discussions around a new legally-binding agreement, but outcomes remain opaque.

Huongo told IPS that the developed world must also be more flexible with its funding requirements to improve access to climate financing for the countries that need it the most. He said Angola also needs assistance with capacity building to combat its vulnerabilities.

Already, several countries – including Japan, Russia and Canada – have expressed their reticence at signing on a second time. National media reports that Canada is preparing to announce its retirement from the agreement after the COP 17 talks have been met with consternation.

Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists says this would be “the third slap in the face Canada’s given the international community”, after reneging on attempts to meet its commitments, and putting forward weak emissions targets at Copenhagen.

Meyer says Canada is attempting to avoid the scrutiny and criticism it would face if it left the Kyoto Protocol at COP 17, and is acting in bad faith by continuing to participate in the negotiations.

The developed-developing country divide is very much alive and kicking.

South African President Jacob Zuma referred to the plight of developing countries in his address at the opening ceremony, urging negotiators to strive to find solutions. But civil society groups including Greenpeace and Oxfam International said they were unhappy about the lack of ambition he expressed.

Faith groups of different religions gathered on the eve of the talks at a nearby stadium, to pray for concrete, fair and balanced outcomes from the negotiations. They were joined by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who called for the world to prepare itself for the battle against global warming.

Tutu criticised those countries refusing to sign the Kyoto. “God wants us to live in a garden, not a desert,” he told the crowd.

Figueres joined Tutu in addressing the rally, promising progress. “No matter what happens in Durban, it is going to be a step forward,” she said, “But let’s remember, it’s only a step… There will be another COP, and another one. This is a long process.”

The U.N. climate chief has emphasised the importance of looking beyond the Kyoto Protocol at the talks, highlighting the need to operationalise parts of the Cancun Agreements.

Amongst the concrete outcomes possible from Durban is the finalisation of the structure of a Green Climate Fund – a mechanism that will manage and account for climate funds, including the 100 billion dollars annually by 2020, promised by developed countries for adaptation and mitigation measures in developing nations.

Also achievable, Figueres believes, is making progress with the Adaptation Framework, also agreed in Cancun, and the improvement of technology transfer mechanisms, which will allow poorer countries to become more resilient with the onslaught of unpredictable and extreme weather events.

On the eve of the negotiations, unseasonably heavy rain left parts of Durban flooded, and resulted in the deaths of at least six people – a tragic, but possibly apt prelude to two weeks of discussions about climate change.

It is a message that developing countries want to make sure their richer counterparts hear: “We’re the ones who suffer.”