Two men at a pond wash and bathe in the shadow of wind energy in West Bengal Country, India. Credit: Climate Visuals

By Umar Manzoor Shah
NAIROBI & SRINAGAR, India, Jan 22 2026 (IPS)

The world is pouring trillions of dollars each year into activities that destroy nature while investing only a fraction of that amount in protecting and restoring the ecosystems on which economies depend, according to a new United Nations report released on January 22.

The State of Finance for Nature 2026 report by the United Nations Environment Programme finds that finance flows directly harmful to nature reached USD 7.3 trillion in 2023. By contrast, investment in nature-based solutions amounted to just USD 220 billion in the same year. The imbalance means that for every dollar invested in protecting nature, more than USD 30 is spent degrading it.

“Globally, finance flows continue to be heavily skewed toward negative activities, which threaten ecosystems, economies and human well-being,” the report titled Nature in the red. Powering the trillion dollar nature transition economy says. Nearly half of global economic output depends moderately or highly on nature, yet current financial systems continue to erode what the authors describe as humanity’s collective nature bank account.

Nathalie Olsen of the Climate Finance Unit at UNEP  and the report’s lead author said that the barriers to reforming environmentally harmful subsidies are primarily political and structural, rather than economic.

“Our report identifies several key challenges in this regard. On the political front, entrenched interests pose a significant obstacle. Many harmful subsidies benefit powerful industries, such as fossil fuels and industrial agriculture, which actively resist change,” she said in an exclusive interview with IPS.

An ex-coal mine reworked as North Macedonia’s first large solar plant. Credit: WeBalkans EU/Climate Visuals

She added subsidy reform often leads to increased costs for consumers or producers in the short term, making such reforms politically unpopular, even when the long-term benefits are clear. Furthermore, many subsidies are deeply embedded within tax codes and budget structures, making them difficult to isolate and reform.

According to Olsen, structural challenges also play a crucial role. She says that the subsidies tend to create path dependency, establishing business models and infrastructure investments that lock in nature-negative practices.

“For instance, free or underpriced water can lead to the depletion of aquifers for irrigation, while fossil fuel subsidies artificially lower energy costs across the economy, including for products like fertilizers. Despite international commitments, such as the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) Target 18—which aims to reduce harmful incentives by at least USD 500 billion per year—implementation remains weak due to a lack of political will.”

Economically, however, the case for reform is strong, according to Olsen.  She says that reforming harmful subsidies would free up government resources for nature-positive investments and reduce economic risks.

“Currently, the USD 2.4 trillion in public environmentally harmful subsidies far exceeds the USD 220 billion invested in Nature-based Solutions.

Successful reform is feasible.

As highlighted in our Nature Transition X-Curve framework, it requires just transition strategies to support workers and businesses during the shift, clear communication about long-term economic benefits, concurrent investment in nature-positive alternatives, and gender-responsive approaches to ensure equitable outcomes,” She said.

Olsen  says that notable examples, such as Costa Rica’s fossil fuel levy financing reforestation and Denmark’s energy taxes supporting the transition to wind energy, demonstrate that reform is politically achievable when accompanied by visible investment in sustainable alternatives.

The report warns that business as usual will deepen ecosystem degradation and expose economies to rising risks. It argues that governments, businesses, consumers and investors still have the power to redirect capital flows and unlock resilience, equity and long-term growth if they act quickly.

In 2023, public and private finance that directly damaged nature totaled USD 7.3 trillion. About USD 2.4 trillion came from public sources, mostly in the form of subsidies that hurt the environment. These included USD 1.1 trillion for fossil fuels, about USD 400 billion each for agriculture and water use, and significant support for transport, construction and fisheries.

Private finance made up the larger share, at about USD 4.9 trillion. A small number of high-impact sectors received the majority of these flows. Utilities alone accounted for around USD 1.6 trillion, followed by industrials at USD 1.4 trillion, energy at about USD 700 billion and basic materials, including fertilizers and agricultural inputs, at a similar level.

The report notes that public subsidies and private investment often reinforce each other, locking capital into nature-negative sectors. Below-market prices for water, energy and other government-provided goods encourage overuse of natural resources and increase financial risks over time.

Against this backdrop, finance for nature-based solutions remains limited. Total global spending on nature-based solutions reached USD 220 billion in 2023, a modest five percent increase from the previous year. Public finance dominated, accounting for about USD 197 billion, or roughly 90 percent of the total.

Transition pathways to nature-positive outcomes. Credit: UNEP

“Our Nature Transition X-Curve framework shows these tools work best when deployed together—combining regulatory “push” (disclosure, subsidy phase-out) with financial “pull” (de-risking, incentives). Over 730 organizations representing $22.4 trillion in assets have adopted TNFD, showing willingness exists when clear frameworks are provided. The challenge isn’t lack of tools—it’s political will to deploy them at scale,” Olsen said.

Public domestic expenditure was the single largest source of funding, reaching USD 190 billion in 2023, as per the report. Spending on biodiversity and landscape protection grew by 11 percent, although support for agriculture, forestry and fisheries declined. Even so, public spending on nature-based solutions remains small compared to the more than USD 2 trillion governments spend each year on environmentally harmful subsidies.

Official Development Finance targeted at nature-based solutions reached USD 6.8 billion in 2023. This represented a 22 percent increase from 2022 and a 55 percent rise compared to 2015. The report describes development finance as a critical enabler for scaling nature-based solutions in developing countries, while warning that geopolitical pressures could constrain future budgets.

Private finance for nature-based solutions reached USD 23.4 billion in 2023. Although small in absolute terms, the report says these flows show positive momentum. Biodiversity offsets channelled more than USD 7 billion, certified commodity supply chains attracted over USD 4 billion, and biodiversity-related bonds and funds mobilized around USD 5 billion. Nature-based carbon markets accounted for about USD 1.3 billion.

“With the right enabling environment, standards and risk-sharing instruments, private capital could scale rapidly and become a game changer in closing the nature-based solutions finance gap,” the report says.

To meet global commitments under the three Rio Conventions on climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation, the report estimates that annual investment in nature-based solutions must rise to USD 571 billion by 2030. This would require a two-and-a-half-fold increase from current levels. The report projects that annual investment needs will reach approximately USD 771 billion by 2050.

The report frames investment in nature-based solutions as a form of essential maintenance for natural infrastructure. It highlights evidence that restoring degraded land can yield returns of between USD 7 and 30 for every dollar invested, if ecosystem services such as water regulation, soil fertility and disaster risk reduction are taken into account.

A review cited in the report found that in 65 percent of disaster risk reduction projects, nature-based solutions were more effective at reducing hazards than traditional engineering approaches. Floodable wetlands and permeable pavements in cities are two examples. They soak up stormwater and take some of the stress off drainage systems.

Despite these benefits, the authors contend that increasing investments in nature won’t suffice unless they eliminate harmful finance. Nature-negative finance, they say, remains the single biggest obstacle to a transition toward nature-positive outcomes.

The report introduces a new analytical framework called the Nature Transition X curve. The framework illustrates the dual challenge facing policymakers and investors. On one side, harmful activities and finance flows must be reduced and phased out. On the other hand, investment in nature-based solutions and other nature-positive activities must be scaled up rapidly.

Olsen said that the X-Curve is a diagnostic tool helping policymakers identify context-specific leverage points, sequence reforms to build political support, and ensure coherence between phasing out harmful finance and scaling up nature-positive alternatives.

“This is not just an environmental agenda but an economic transformation,” the report says. Redirecting harmful subsidies, integrating nature into fiscal frameworks and mobilizing private finance are described as central to building resilient and inclusive economies.

Olsen told IPS news that there is a need for a “Big Nature Turnaround” that repurposes trillions of dollars currently flowing into destructive activities. Key priorities include reforming environmentally harmful subsidies, aligning national budgets with biodiversity and climate targets, and mandating disclosure of nature-related risks and impacts.

More than 730 organizations have now adopted the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures framework, representing assets under management worth USD 22.4 trillion. According to the report, this growing awareness of nature-related financial risks is starting to influence corporate and investment decisions, although progress remains uneven.

The report also points to rising legal and regulatory pressures. In some jurisdictions, courts are increasingly questioning whether financial leaders are meeting their fiduciary duties if they ignore environmental risks. At the same time, the authors warn that regulatory rollbacks in other regions could create uncertainty and delay action.

While the scale of the challenge is daunting, the report strikes a cautiously optimistic tone. Better data, a clearer framework, and growing awareness are creating conditions for faster action. The transition to a nature-positive economy, the authors argue, could unlock a trillion-dollar nature transition economy across sectors ranging from food and agriculture to construction, energy and urban infrastructure.

“Turning the wheel towards nature-positive finance is essential,” the report concludes. Without a decisive shift in how money flows through the global economy, the gap between what nature needs and what it receives will continue to widen, with profound consequences for ecosystems, livelihoods and long-term economic stability.

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Amina Langa planting mangrove seedling on the Indian Ocean's coast. Credit: WWF

By Kizito Makoye
NICE, France, Jun 13 2025 (IPS)

Just before dawn, a flotilla of wooden canoes drifts silently  through mangrove-tangled channels where roots sprout from the black mud of the lagoon. Here, at the edge between sea and forest, lies a story of restoration.

The Northern Mozambique Channel (NMC) is a stretch of water and a rich biological hotspot. Stretching along the coasts of Mozambique, Comoros, Tanzania, Madagascar, and the Seychelles, the channel holds 35 percent of the Indian Ocean’s coral reefs, tracts of mangroves, seagrass meadows, and deep-sea habitats. It is home to over 10 million coastal people whose livelihoods rely on the ecosystems.

Yet, this marvel is under siege. Climate change, land-based runoff, overfishing, coastal development, offshore drilling, and shipping traffic have degraded its vital systems. In response, the UN designated 2021–2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, launching the World Restoration Flagships—large-scale restoration efforts that follow a shared global framework. In early June 2025, the NMC joined two other sites as a flagship region in this global initiative—a recognition of the deep, sustained conservation effort led by WWF, UNEP, FAO, governments, and local communities.

‘Such a Special Place’

On a recent call, Dr. Samantha Petersen, WWF’s leader for the Southwest Indian Ocean regional program, said, “It’s really such a special place. Highly, highly, highly connected… incredible biodiversity hotspot, with massive… human dependency from the coastal communities.”

Petersen said any restoration plan “needs to be balanced in an integrated way to deliver outcomes for people, nature, and climate.” In practice, that means blending scientific rigor with traditional knowledge—a partnership where nurseries, seedling cultivation, and local stewardship are as essential as policy frameworks and funding streams.

Mangroves at the Core

Among the most urgent work is bringing back the mangroves. These coastal forests are nursery grounds for fish that small-scale fishers depend on.

Petersen explained, “By restoring and securing those nursery grounds… we are securing food security… and livelihoods of small-scale fishers in the region.”

WWF is partnering with community organizations to actively restore approximately 15,000 hectares of mangroves, about 25–30 percent of the restorable area in the NMC—primarily through coastal community-led initiatives. Another 180,000 hectares fall under community-based stewardship, a proof of scale and ambition.

Communities dig planting holes, tend seedlings in nurseries, and monitor growth. WWF provides support: site selection guidance, technical training, materials, and help tracking success over long periods. With coherent management and investment, the project aims to restore 4.85 million hectares of paired land and seascapes by 2030 across participating nations, bringing environmental and social returns in equal measure.

Impressive Story

In ankle-deep water, where the Indian Ocean laps gently at the crumbling edge of Mozambique’s northern coast, 38-year-old Amina Langa bends low in the warm, silty water, pressing red mangrove saplings into the earth like offerings, her hands caked in mud, her expression calm but focused. The tide was creeping in, but she barely noticed. The sun was already sharp, casting long shadows on the salt-bleached sand, yet she moved with the quiet persistence of someone who has learned to listen to the rhythms of the sea.

Langa’s memories are vivid. She speaks of a childhood where the ocean sparkled with promise.

“Back then,” she says, “the nets came back heavy every time.” Her eyes drift out toward the horizon. “The water was alive.”

But that was before the years of cut mangroves, the rise of commercial shrimp farms, the oil stains, and the plastic waste that drifted in with the waves. The forest that once anchored this coastline had thinned to almost nothing, and with it, the fish.

She looked down at the rows of saplings poking from the tidal muck. “These,” she said, her voice soft but certain, “these are hope.” Last year, her nursery nursed 10,000 mangrove seedlings to life. This year, she’s on pace for triple that. What began as one woman’s stubborn vision has now spread—30 fishers from neighboring villages have joined her, their own hands learning the rituals of restoration. In just six months, they built four community nurseries that now supply reforestation efforts up and down the coast.

There’s pride in her every word, but no boast. “I tell them,” she said, “just sit by the water tomorrow morning. Watch. It’s already changing.” She describes schools of tiny fish flickering through the roots, crabs clicking back into burrows, and the way the mud, once dry and cracked, now rests beneath a canopy of green. “I am part of the change,” she says, almost to herself, like a quiet promise whispered to the sea.

A Regional Movement

Langa’s story is repeated across the NMC. In Comoros and Madagascar, similar efforts are under way. In Tanzania, coastal stewardship committees manage restoration areas. In the Seychelles, nurseries trained in grafting speculative coral strains grow fragile fragments for reef rehabilitation.

This  community‑led network stems from regional cooperation. Over two years, WWF and the Nairobi Convention helped frame a roadmap for the region: marine spatial planning, integrated ocean management, poverty alleviation, and capacity building for community entrepreneurs.

A recent Natural Capital Assessment estimated that the region’s natural assets—goods and services from fisheries, tourism, shoreline protection, and carbon sequestration—are valued at USD 160 billion, generating USD 5.5 billion annually, nearly half of GDP. A staggering figure: the informal sector—unmonitored coastal fisheries, wood collection—contributes around USD 5 billion uncounted in national accounts.

World Restoration Flagship Honour

On the announcement, delegates from five nations gathered online. The NMC’s inclusion as a World Restoration Flagship was proof that community-led initiatives can scale to regional impact. It locks in transparency through monitoring, aligns the region with global standards, and increases its appeal to investors.

Petersen reflected afterwards, “This honor can largely be accredited to the extraordinary collaborative work done… to safeguard marine biodiversity and support coastal communities.”

An Unexpected Return

Standing again among the mangroves, Langa watched the early morning mist lift. Fish darted in the submerged root zone. A small boat, headed out to the reef, cut through calm water. The mangroves absorbed the wake and stirred the sediment but firmed the mud, holding it in place.

A tiny crab, bright blue, scuttled across a root. It stopped. Then, like an outtake from a nature film, a juvenile fish fled into the maze of roots. Life was returning—subtle, tenacious, and profound.

Scaling Green Finance

The NMC roadmap estimates a need for USD 18 million per year to implement restoration and institutional strengthening—USD 5 million for in-country governance and USD 13 million to fund a Blue Economy Technical & Investment Hub for the region. The call goes out for public and private investors.

Already, several domestic banks and philanthropic funds are evaluating climate-smart financing. Impact investors are drawn by the anticipated 30 percent rise in household incomes, 2,000 new jobs, and 12 community-based enterprises forecasted by 2030. Carbon finance is another frontier—Madagascar’s mangroves already sequester more than 300 million tons of CO₂ equivalent, comparable to U.S. household electricity.

Under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, led by UNEP and FAO, countries worldwide aim to restore over a billion hectares, aligning with the commitments of the Paris Agreement, Bonn Challenge, and Kunming-Montreal framework.

The World Restoration Flagships are a cornerstone: scaled, monitored, integrated efforts that follow ten restoration principles—community inclusion, equity, sustainability, evidence, resilience, biodiversity, and more.

In the villages lining the Channel, the visible signs of this transformation—seedlings sprouting, fisheries rebounding—are met with pride. But as Petersen stresses, “The work in this region is only just beginning.” Over the next five years, the challenge will be to keep the momentum flowing, secure consistent funding, and build regional coordination so the restored mangroves don’t merely survive but thrive.

Why This Matters

The NMC story speaks directly to that mission: vibrant, coastal communities working in tandem with nature to heal the world. It embodies a simple but profound truth: restoration is not only about trees, fish, or reefs—it’s about people, too.

Several days later, Langa joined the community for a morning ritual on the beach: a small blessing ceremony for the restored trees. She stood barefoot, clutching a bundle of saplings. Villagers circled. A fisherman recited a soulful song; others placed handfuls of sand at the roots.

As the sun peeked over the horizon, a breeze carried the scent of salt and new life. Langa looked down at the young mangroves and whispered, “For my daughter—and for this Channel—we’re bringing back what we lost.”

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Li Junhua, head of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the Secretary-General, Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France to the UN and Costa Rican Ambassador Maritza Chan Valverde during a press conference ahead of the UN Ocean Conference in Nice: Credit: Twitter

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 2025 (IPS)

A greater understanding and appreciation of the world’s oceans is needed to protect them. As the global community prepares to convene for the ocean conference, they must also prepare to invest in scientific efforts and education that will bolster their joint efforts.

France and Costa Rica will co-host the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France, from June 9-13. Over the course of the week, governments, the private sector, intergovernmental groups, and non-governmental groups, among others, will convene over the urgent actions that need to be taken to promote the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans.

This year’s conference will be the first to take place during the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), which brings together stakeholders in which the UN and its partners will oversee the actions that need to be taken to protect the oceans’ unique ecosystems and biodiversity and how to promote greater awareness and research into ocean sciences and how to better protect them.

UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) oversees and tracks the progress of the UN Ocean Decade, which brings together the global ocean community on the principles of understanding, educating, and protecting the oceans.

There will be an emphasis on strengthening the data-collection capacities in the global system for observing the ocean. Data scarcity and limitations in collection methods have meant that organizations have challenges grasping the full scope of the ocean and the changes they face in the wake of climate change.

Julian Barbiere, UNESCO’s Head of Marine Policy, told reporters that science-based discussions will be at the core of UNOC. For UNESCO, there will be discussions over how to translate scientific facts into tangible climate actions. This includes scaling up the current efforts at ocean-floor mapping. At present, only 26.1 percent of the seafloor has been mapped out by modern standards, with the goal to have 100 percent of the seafloor mapped out by 2030.

Seaweed is grown or farmed in the shallow waters of the Indian Ocean, off Wasini Island, Kenya, with plants tied to ropes in the water. Credit: Anthony Onyango / Climate Visuals

Joanna Post, head of the IOC’s Ocean Observations and Services, remarked that there is a “real need for recognition” of the critical functions that the system performs, such as in monitoring weather conditions, mapping the ocean floor, maritime security, and disaster risk management. She announced a new initiative that would mobilize at least 10,000 commercial and research ships to collect data and measure the ocean. Commercial and research ship vessels play a key role in tracking and collecting data on the oceans, which Post emphasized must be shared across global channels.

UNESCO’s agenda for this forum also includes encouraging stakeholders to invest in and strengthen global education efforts on the ocean. “Education is key if we want to have a new generation that is aware of the importance of the ocean system,” said Francesca Santoro, a senior programme officer in UNESCO, leading the Ocean Literacy office.

Santoro stressed that education is not limited to students and young people; private investors should also be more aware of the importance of investing in the oceans.

UNESCO aims to continue expanding the networks of schools and educators that incorporate ocean literacy into their curricula, especially at the national level. Ocean literacy emphasizes the importance of the ocean for students, educators, and local communities within multiple contexts.

One such programme is the SEA BEYOND initiative, in partnership with the Prada Group, which provides training and lessons to over 20,000 students in over 50 countries. Under that initiative, a new multi-partner trust fund will be launched at UNOC3 on June 9, which will be used to support projects and programs that work toward ocean education and preserving ocean culture. As Santoro noted, “For many people and local communities, the main entry point to start interest in the oceans… is in [identifying] what UNESCO calls ‘intangible cultural heritage.’”

Human activity, including pollution, “directly threatens” the health of the ocean, according to Henrik Enevoldsen from UNESCO-IOC’s Centre of Ocean Science.

He announced the development of a new global assessment, led by UNESCO and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), on marine pollution, to be launched on June 12.  This would be a “major leap forward,” Enevoldsen remarked, adding that this assessment would be the first of its kind that provided a global overview of ocean pollution.

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Female workers sort out plastic bottles for recycling in a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Abir Abdullah/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Masum Billah
DHAKA, Nov 27 2024 (IPS)

After Bangladesh’s interim government banned polyethene bags, a new sense of hope has emerged for the Sonali bag—a jute-based, eco-friendly alternative developed in 2017 by Bangladeshi scientist Dr. Mubarak Ahmed Khan. Sonali bag, or the golden bag, is named after the golden fiber of jute from which it is made.

Despite its promises, the project has struggled to make significant progress due to a lack of funding. However, following the announcement of the polythene bag ban, Mubarak is now facing pressure to supply his Sonali bag to a market eager for sustainable alternatives.

“Since the government banned polythene bags, we have faced immense pressure of orders that we cannot meet—people are coming in with requests at an overwhelming rate,” Mubarak Ahmed Khan told the IPS.

The latest ban, which came into effect on October 1 for superstores and traditional markets on November 1, isn’t the first time Bangladesh has imposed a ban on polythene bags.

In 2002, the country became the first in the world to outlaw them, as plastic waste was severely clogging city drainage systems and exacerbating its waterlogging crisis, with Dhaka alone consuming an estimated 410 million polybags each month. But the ban gradually lost effectiveness over the years, largely due to a lack of affordable and practical alternatives and inadequate enforcement from regulatory authorities.

Dr. Mubarak Ahmed Khan in his office holding a Sonali Bag. Credit: Masum Billah/IPS

Polyethene bags, although cheaper, are harmful to the environment as they are non-biodegradable and their decomposition takes at least 400 years. Sonali Bag as an alternative, on the other hand, is regarded as a game-changer because it is biodegradable, capable of decomposing in three months.

The ban comes as the UN Plastics Treaty Negotiations are underway in Busan, South Korea. The UN Environment Programme estimates that around the world, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute.

“In total, half of all plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes—used just once and then thrown away.”

Without an agreement, the OECD estimates that annual plastic production, use, and waste are predicted to increase by 70 percent in 2040 compared to 2020. This on a planet already choking on plastic waste.

The talks have in the past stalled over a disagreement over how to manage waste, with some countries favouring introducing a cap on plastic production and others supporting circularity with use, reuse, and recycling as the main objectives.

The plastics treaty talks will run from 25 November 2024 to 1 December 2024.

However, despite its environmental benefits and higher demands, in Bangladesh the Sonali Bag project still remains within the pilot phase.

A late start for funding crisis

After Mubarak’s invention made headlines, the country’s state-owned Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation launched a pilot project, setting up a jute-polymer unit at the Latif Bawani Jute Mill to produce Sonali Bag.

Mubarak said they have been asking for government funds, as the project has been operating under the Ministry of Textiles and Jute. However, the basic funding that kept the pilot project running expired last December, and the previous government—which was toppled in August in a mass uprising—had discontinued the project.

“There had been assurances that we might receive Tk100 crore (about USD 8 million) in funding from the government by July. But then came political unrest and a change in government,” Mubarak said.

After the new government took charge, they renewed the pledges to fund the Sonali Bag project.

“The interim government told us that we will get the money in January. If that happens, we will be able to produce five tons of bags per day,” Mubarak said. “Five tons may not be a lot, but it will give us the chance to demonstrate our work to private investors, boosting their confidence to engage with us.”

According to Mubarak, one kilogram of Sonali bags amounts to around 100 pieces of small bags. Based on this estimate, five tons could produce around 15 million bags per month.

Bangladesh’s current adviser to the Ministry of Textiles and Jute, Md. Sakhawat Hossain, told IPS that they are seriously considering funding the Sonali Bag project this January, although he acknowledged that his ministry is currently facing a funding crisis.

“The work will begin in full scale after the fund is provided,” Sakhawat Hossain said. When asked if Mubarak would receive the funds by January, he replied, “We hope so.”

A ban without adequate alternatives at hand

Mubarak Ahmed Khan regards the government’s decision to ban polythene bags as a “praiseworthy” initiative. However, he emphasized that sustainable and affordable alternatives to the polythene bags should come soon.

Mubarak is not alone in his concerns. Sharif Jamil, founder of Waterkeepers Bangladesh, an organization dedicated to protecting water bodies, shares skepticism about the effectiveness of the ban this time, citing the lack of sustainable alternatives in the market.

“The announcement of this ban is an important and timely step. However, it must also be noted that our previous ban was not enforced. Without addressing the underlying issues that led to nonenforcement of the previous ban, the new polythene ban will not resolve the existing problems. It is crucial to tackle the challenges that allowed polythene to remain in the market,” Sharif Jamil told IPS.

“If you don’t provide people with an alternative and simply remove polythene from the markets, the ban won’t be effective,” he added.

Sharif noted that the existing alternatives in the market are not affordable, with some selling alternative jute bags at Tk25 in supermarkets, while polythene bags are often offered at a price that is essentially free.

“Alternatives need to be more affordable and accessible to the public,” he said.

Mubarak stated that his Sonali bag currently costs Tk10 per piece, but he anticipates lowering the price with increased production and demand.

The pursuit of competition in sustainable alternatives

Sharif Jamil, however, wants competition in the sustainable alternatives market.

“It is not only about incentivizing Dr. Mubarak’s project,” Sharif said.

This technology has to be incentivized and recognized, but the government also has to ensure two other things, he said.

“If the government can make it accessible to people at a lower price, it will reach them. Secondly, if the alternative remains solely with Mubarak, it will create a monopoly again,” he said.

It must undergo competition, he recommended. Bangladesh has a competition commission to ensure that other existing sustainable green solutions on the market are also incentivized and recognized.

“Besides facilitating and upgrading Mubarak’s project, the government should ensure fair competition so that people can access it at a lower price,” he added.

For the sake of environment

Adviser Shakhawat Hossain said that they are optimistic about the success of Sonali Bag.

“Already the ambassadors of various countries are meeting me about this. Some buying houses too have been created for this. It seems it will be a sustainable development,” he said.

Mubarak said that if they get the funding soon, Sonali Bag will have a market not only in Bangladesh but all over the world.

He said the private investors should come forward not just because the government has banned polythene bags, but out of a moral obligation to address the negative impact these bags have on the environment.

“With this, I believe we can create a polythene-free environment,” Mubarak said, acknowledging, “It is not easy to introduce this to the market solely because it is a new product. We are up against an USD 3.5 trillion single-use plastic market.”

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A flooded village in Matiari, in the Sindh province of Pakistan. Credit: UNICEF/Asad Zaidi

By Umar Manzoor Shah
NAIROBI, Nov 7 2024 (IPS)

The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) 2024 Adaptation Gap Report has warned that adaptation actions are not keeping pace with the surging demands of a warming planet. Released ahead of the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, the report—titled Come Hell and High Water—projected a bleak future where vulnerable communities bear the brunt of climate-induced hardships. 

It stresses that robust, well-funded adaptation strategies are vital to safeguarding those most at risk and calls for immediate, substantial global action in adaptation planning, finance, and implementation. With the surging demands of a warming planet. Released ahead of the COP 29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, the report—titled Come Hell and High Water—projects a bleak future where vulnerable communities bear the brunt of climate-induced hardships. 

It stresses that robust, well-funded adaptation strategies are vital to safeguarding those most at risk and calls for immediate, substantial global action in adaptation planning, finance, and implementation.

Wildfires, floods, and rising temperatures continue to inflict devastating impacts on people worldwide, especially the poor. UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen has underlined the urgency of scaling up adaptation efforts: “The world is failing to adapt to current climate impacts, let alone those that will come if we do not cut greenhouse gas emissions decisively.

“It is time to treat adaptation as one of humanity’s top priorities, alongside emissions reduction. Those already facing the consequences deserve effective, fair adaptation actions that address their unique needs.”

Furthermore, the report stresses that the scale of climate impacts is moving faster than the world’s response.

“Adaptation is no longer a distant option; it is now a priority,” says UNEP’s Chief Scientific Editor Henry Neufeldt, summarizing the report’s call for urgent action. The report arrives at a time when nations are expected to boost their financial commitments for adaptation as part of the Glasgow Climate Pact.

This Pact urges developed countries to double adaptation finance to developing nations by 2025, a goal that aligns with the need for a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance, slated for negotiation at COP29.

Also, UNEP notes that adaptation finance reached only USD 28 billion in 2022, up from USD 22 billion the previous year. While this is a notable increase, it remains far below what is needed to address the vast scale of climate change impacts. According to UNEP, estimated global adaptation needs range between USD 215 billion and USD 387 billion per year through 2030, leaving a significant financing shortfall. Even doubling current financing flows would close only a small fraction of the adaptation finance gap.

“We can’t rely on one source alone. The financial burden is too great,” says Neufeldt. “We must pursue creative financing models and mobilize both public and private sectors to ensure resources reach those who need them most.”

According to the report, 87 percent of the world’s countries have at least one adaptation plan in place, though the quality and coverage vary significantly.

Out of the 197 UN member countries, 171 have established at least one national adaptation instrument, yet 10 nations—most grappling with internal conflict or political instability—are yet to initiate formal adaptation planning. Furthermore, many adaptation plans lack specific timeframes and budgets, undermining their effectiveness.

Anne Hammill from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, who co-authored a chapter on adaptation planning, writes in the report, “There’s a noticeable increase in awareness and preparation for adaptation planning globally. However, for some nations, fragility and limited capacity present obstacles to formulating and executing these plans.”

Moreover, UNEP finds that only 68 percent of countries with national adaptation plans align these strategies with their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the climate pledges under the Paris Agreement. This disconnect, as per the report, has resulted in overlapping efforts and inefficient resource use.

“When countries update their NDCs, they must ensure these are harmonized with adaptation plans,” Hammill notes. “This alignment is essential to avoid duplicated efforts and to streamline investments where they matter most.”

The uneven quality of adaptation plans means that even those countries with established strategies may struggle with execution. In many cases, adaptation projects—particularly those with international funding—don’t have long-lasting effects. For example, almost half of the projects evaluated were rated either unsatisfactory or unsustainable without continued external funding.

“Adaptation actions need long-term funding and local support to be effective. Temporary measures, while beneficial in the short run, often fail to address underlying vulnerabilities in the long term,” reads the report.

Slow Implementation Leaves Vulnerable Communities Exposed
The report reveals that implementation of adaptation measures lags significantly behind planning efforts, leaving at-risk communities dangerously exposed to climate impacts. An analysis of data shows that adaptation implementation has not kept pace with the accelerating rate of climate change. Floods, wildfires, and extreme weather events increasingly affect millions, yet financial and institutional barriers stymie progress in implementing effective adaptation measures.

The report elaborates, “The data on adaptation implementation is concerning. Many countries start strong with initial adaptation projects, but sustaining them has proven challenging. This gap between planning and action often leads to severe consequences for vulnerable communities.”

In addition to the need for more robust financing mechanisms, UNEP underlines the importance of inclusive adaptation measures that integrate the voices of marginalized communities. Many of the most impacted groups, including women, indigenous peoples, and economically disadvantaged populations, are frequently excluded from the planning process.

“Adaptation must be inclusive and equitable,” Hammill says. “Vulnerable groups often face the worst climate impacts, yet their voices remain underrepresented in the adaptation process.”

The Adaptation Finance Gap: A Call for New Approaches
A central focus of the report is the persistent adaptation finance gap. Although public adaptation finance flows to developing countries saw a record year-on-year increase, UNEP stresses that even substantial gains fall far short of what is required. “Current financing levels are simply inadequate. Doubling the finance might reduce the gap by about 5%, but we need much more ambitious targets to meet the needs.”

To bridge the finance gap, the report advocates a shift from reactive, project-based funding to a more proactive, transformative approach. This requires financing for anticipatory and systemic adaptation actions, such as building climate-resilient infrastructure and enhancing social protection. According to UNEP, innovative financing instruments, such as resilience bonds, risk insurance, and payments for ecosystem services, could mobilize new sources of adaptation funding.

The report points out that the private sector has a key role to play. “While public funds are essential, we need private investments to scale up adaptation,” it explains, adding that in sectors such as agriculture, water, and infrastructure, private finance can be instrumental if de-risking measures are implemented. However, private finance is often inaccessible to the most vulnerable; there is a need for public-private partnerships and targeted government support.

Capacity-Building and Technology Transfer for Effective Adaptation
Beyond finance, UNEP’s report also calls for stronger investments in capacity-building and technology transfer. These efforts are vital to empowering developing nations to manage climate impacts effectively. According to the report, developing countries require additional support for building local adaptation capacity in sectors like agriculture, water management, and public health.

The report also highlights the importance of a multifaceted approach. “Capacity-building must go beyond technical solutions. It requires investing in human resources, policy frameworks, and long-term community engagement. While we see capacity needs highlighted in many national plans, a strategic, coordinated approach is still missing.”

The report indicates that sectors such as food and agriculture receive the most technology-related development finance, yet other crucial areas like coastal protection and disaster preparedness need more support. For example, developing countries face obstacles in adopting technologies like solar-powered irrigation due to high installation and maintenance costs, making widespread use challenging. It suggests that bridging this technology gap will require both public investment and private sector involvement.

Path Forward at COP 29 and Beyond
As COP 29 approaches, the 2024 Adaptation Gap Report has pinned the need for decisive action in Baku to secure global adaptation commitments. At the heart of these discussions is the establishment of a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance, a successor to the USD 100 billion annual goal set in 2010. This new target, UNEP argues, must prioritize adaptation and recognize the unique challenges faced by developing nations.

Andersen, who will lead UNEP’s delegation to COP 29, expresses hope that the international community will rally around adaptation as a central theme.

In addition to setting an ambitious finance goal, COP 29 will discuss mechanisms for better tracking adaptation actions, establishing loss and damage funding, and addressing the debt burdens that restrict developing nations from prioritizing adaptation investments. UNEP advocates for debt relief and restructuring as a way to free up funds for climate adaptation, particularly in nations where high debt costs eclipse adaptation funding.

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Goitered gazelle: Credit CMS

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Feb 12 2024 (IPS)

A groundbreaking State of the World’s Migratory Species report is calling for accelerated global conservation measures to counter the threat of extinction faced by 1 in 5 of all migratory species.

The report was launched at the opening press conference of the 14th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS COP14) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Feb. 12. 

It is the first comprehensive assessment of migratory animals—species that travel to different parts of the world every year. They include ocean species like sharks and sea turtles, terrestrial animals such as elephants, as well as those undertaking airborne journeys like birds and butterflies. The report’s authors say migratory species’ remarkable journeys not only connect the world; they offer a unique angle to research and understand the magnitude of planetary changes.

The report has concluded that the conservation status of migratory species overall is deteriorating. Its results have been described as “startling” by the Executive Secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), Amy Fraenkel.

“Overexploitation emerges as the greatest threat for many migratory species, surpassing habitat loss and fragmentation,” she stated in the report. “This includes the taking of species from the wild through intentional removal, such as through hunting and fishing, as well as the incidental capture of non-target species. Bycatch of non-target species in fisheries is a leading cause of mortality of many CMS-listed marine species.”

State of the World’s Migratory Species, Credit: CMS

Some of the troubling findings include population declines for almost half of CMS migratory species, extinction threats for almost all (97%) of CMS-listed fish, and a growing extinction risk for migratory species globally, including those not listed under the CMS.

“Migratory species are of ecological, economic, and cultural importance. Within ecosystems, they perform a variety of crucial functions, ranging from the large-scale transfer of nutrients between environments to the positive impacts of grazing animals on grassland biodiversity,” the report states.

It adds that these species’ habitats and movements are at risk, with half experiencing unsustainable levels of human-induced pressure.

“The urgency for action to protect and conserve these species becomes even greater when we consider the integral but undervalued role they play in maintaining the complex ecosystems that support a healthy planet—by, for example, transferring nutrients between environments, performing migratory grazing that supports the maintenance of carbon-storing habitats, and pollination and seed dispersal services,” said Inger Andersen, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme.

The present reality for migratory species and the cost of inaction or inadequate action are concerning, but the report is heavy on both hope and concrete recommendations for global action.

It contains a section dedicated to proposed policy actions. Among the most crucial are the need to address the unsustainable and illegal harvesting of migratory species at the national level, measures to reduce bycatch and other incidental captures, and the identification and recognition of all significant sites for migratory species.

The recommendations are to “protect, connect, and restore” habitats, tackle overexploitation, reduce the damaging impacts of environmental pollution, address the root causes and cross-cutting impacts of climate change, and ensure the CMS Appendices protect all migratory species in need of further conservation action. They also call for ‘follow-through’ on global commitments to ecosystem restoration.

“This includes those linked to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and Target 2 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to ensure that at least 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration by 2030. To support these efforts, develop and implement national restoration plans focused on restoring and maintaining important habitats for migratory species,” it states.

UNEP’s Inger Andersen says the report is an important milestone in the establishment of a roadmap for the conservation of migratory species.

“Given the precarious situation of many of these animals and their critical role for healthy and well-functioning ecosystems, we must not miss this chance to act—starting now by urgently implementing the recommendations set out in this report,” she stated.

For the CMS’ Amy Fraenkel, conservation of migratory species is a shared responsibility among the world’s nations.

“Migratory species are a shared natural treasure. This landmark report will help underpin much-needed policy actions to ensure that they continue to traverse the world’s skies, lands, oceans, lakes, and rivers.”

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A dust story in El Fasher, North Darfur. This is a natural weather phenomenon in Darfur which occurs regularly between March and July every year. It affects all aspects of daily life in the region, including airline flights. Scientists say these storms have a range of affects that are not clearly understood. Courtesy: CC By 2.0/ Mohamad Almahady, UNAMID.

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 9 2020 (IPS)

When sand and dust storms (SDS) rage in the Sahara Desert, more than 10,000 km away in the Caribbean Sea the very same storms have a range of effects on the 1,360 species of shorefish that populate the waters there.

According to a report released last week by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), each year about half a billion tonnes of nutrients, minerals, and organic inorganic matter is transferred to the oceans through SDS.

But as Dr. Nick Middleton, a fellow in physical geography at St Anne’s College at the University of Oxford and author of the UNEP report titled “Impacts of Sand and Dust Storms on Oceans”, told IPS, “our understanding of how dust affects marine waters is far from complete”. 

Though he added that the upcoming U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development will be an exciting opportunity to help scientists gain a better understanding of issues such as how much dust from SDS reaches the oceans. In his interview, Middleton said that this decade is an important time to consider the ways in which SDS affect issues such as biodiversity, the climate, and food systems.

“The U.N. Decade offers exciting opportunities to improve our understanding of some of these basic issues. Nobody lives permanently in the open oceans, so historically we have had to rely on scientists on ships to take measurements when and where they are able.

“Hence, the data we have on dust in the atmosphere and deposited over the oceans is patchy and sporadic at best. The use of geostationary satellites is improving our capacity to monitor dust, but there is no substitute for taking real samples at sea,” Middleton told IPS.

And as Jian Lu, Director of the Science Division at UNEP, said in the report: “Desert dust is a principal driver of oceanic primary productivity, which forms the base of the marine food web and fuels the global carbon cycle.” 

“One of the clear messages from this report is the simple fact that many aspects of the impacts of SDS on the oceans are only partially understood,” Lu said. “Despite the limited knowledge, the impacts of SDS on oceans—their ecosystem functions, goods and services—are potentially numerous and wide-ranging, thus warranting continued careful monitoring and research.”

“Many scientists predict that as our climate warms dust storms will become more frequent in certain parts of the world where the climate becomes drier and soils will be protected by less vegetation,” Middleton added. “More dust in these places will inevitably have complex feedback effects on climate and what happens in the oceans.”

Excerpts of the interview below.

Inter Press Service (IPS): Jian Liu said in the report the impacts of sand and dust storms on the oceans are only partially understood. What are some under-reported issues about the impact of sand and dust storms on oceans?

Dr Nick Middleton (NM): One aspect that needs more accurate assessment is the amount of desert dust transported to the world’s oceans each year. When they occur, we can see great plumes of dust above the oceans on satellite imagery, but we only have a rough idea of how much dust is involved. We estimate that anything between one billion and five billion tonnes of desert dust are emitted into the atmosphere by SDS every year on average. Two billion tonnes is the current best estimate, and 25 percent of that reaches the oceans, with all sorts of effects on marine ecosystems. However, most of these estimates come from computer models which are imperfect at simulating all the numerous processes involved in lifting, transporting and depositing dust to the sea.

We know that desert dust delivers some vital nutrients to the oceans, but our understanding of how dust affects marine waters is far from complete. For instance, dust probably has an impact on the energy balance in several oceans, affecting the circulation of heat and salt. These circulation regimes have implications for marine life, but our understanding of the details is hazy at best.

IPS: The U.N.  Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) is scheduled to start in 2021. What are some issues that you believe should be addressed during this time?

NM: The U.N. Decade could initiate a great leap forward in our understanding if it presided over the establishment of a network of study sites across different oceans to take long-term measurements of dust in the atmosphere and as it is deposited on the ocean surface. Buoys can be used as platforms for autonomous sampling of dust and other weather variables, and their data transmitted to researchers.

Long-term datasets are vitally important, but they cannot replace experiments conducted from ships at sea. The U.N. Decade can also promote coordinated experiments involving both atmospheric and marine measurements to address some of the processes in which desert dust is important. One such role is how iron and phosphorus carried with desert dust helps to fertilise large areas of ocean surface, and may also impact local climate.

IPS: The report establishes a link between desert dust and coral reef systems; it also suggests a potential link between disease arising from microorganisms and a decline in coral reefs worldwide. What kind of impact do sand and dust storms have on biological diversity overall, and on human life?

NM: Dust raised in SDS and transported to the oceans helps to sustain the biodiversity of large marine areas. One of the most direct effects is the incorporation of tiny dust particles into coral skeletons as they grow. Nutrients carried on desert dust particles also fuel the growth of marine microorganisms such as phytoplankton, which form the base of the marine food web.

Human society relies on fish and other products from the sea, but the fertilising effect of desert dust is also thought to have an impact on algal blooms, some of which are detrimental to economic activity and human health. Certain harmful algal blooms contain species that produce strong toxins which become concentrated up the food chain, becoming harmful to people who eat contaminated seafood.

IPS: Dust has significant impacts on weather and climate in several ways. In what ways are sand and dust storms linked to issues such as climate change? 

NM: Dust in the atmosphere affects the energy balance of the Earth system because these fine particles scatter, absorb and re-emit radiation in the atmosphere. Dust particles also serve as nuclei on which water vapour condenses, helping to form clouds, and the chemical composition of dust affects the acidity of rainfall. Dust from the Sahara is regularly transported through the atmosphere over the tropical North Atlantic Ocean where it can have a cooling effect on sea surface temperatures. In turn, the cooler sea surface changes wind fields and the development of hurricanes. A year with more Saharan dust usually translates into fewer hurricanes over the North Atlantic.

Future trends in desert dust emissions are uncertain. They will depend on changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation – how much falls, when and where.

IPS: Are there ways in which sand and dust storms have an impact (direct or indirect) on the coronavirus pandemic? 

NM: Links between sand and dust storms and the coronavirus pandemic are quite possible, but inevitably work on such potential links at an early stage. We know that SDS are a risk factor for a range of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, so someone exposed to both COVID-19 and air pollution from dust storms may experience particularly harmful effects. For instance, one recent study in Northern Italy established an association between higher mortality rates due to COVID-19 and peaks of atmospheric concentrations of small particulate matter. Saharan dust frequently contributes to poor air quality in Italy, but a direct causal link between desert dust and suffering from COVID-19 has not been established to date. There are numerous other factors to take into account.

We also know that many SDS source areas contribute many types of microorganisms (such as fungi, bacteria and viruses) to desert dust, and that these microorganisms are very resilient. SDS can also transport viruses over great distances (greater than 1,000 km), sometimes between continents. Long-range transport of desert dust has been linked to some historical dispersal/outbreak events of several diseases, including Avian influenza outbreaks in areas downwind of Asian dust storms.

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By Renee Juliene Karunungan
BONN, Sep 2 2015 (IPS)

After surviving the storm surge wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013, women in evacuation centres found themselves again fighting for survival … at times from rape. Many became victims of human trafficking while many more did anything they could to feed their families before themselves.

Climate change has become one of the biggest threats of this century for women. But these ‘secondary impacts’ of disaster events are rarely considered, nor are the amplifying impacts of economic dependence, and lack of everyday freedoms at home.

At the Road to Sendai conference held in Manila in March, women’s leaders shared their traumatic experience. For many affected by Typhoon Haiyan, simple decisions such as the freedom to decide when to evacuate could not be made without their husbands’ permission.

Renee Juliene Karunungan

When typhoons come, women’s concerns rest with their children, but they remain uncertain of what to do and where to go. These are some of the crushing realities poor women live with in the face of climate change.

“We must recognise that women are differentially impacted by climate change,” according to Verona Collantes, Intergovernmental Specialist for UN Women. “For example, women have physical limitations because of the clothes they wear or because in some cultures, girls are not taught how to swim.”

“We take these things for granted but it limits women and girls and affects their vulnerability in the face of climate change,” she noted, adding that these day-to-day threats of climate change are only set to increase “if we don’t recognise that there are these limits, our response becomes the same for everyone and we disadvantage a part of the population, which, in this case, is women.”

Women’s groups have been active in pushing for gender to be included in the negotiating text of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and according to Kate Cahoon of Gender CC, “we’ve seen a lot of progress in negotiations in the past decade when it comes to gender.”“Climate change has become one of the biggest threats of this century for women. But these ‘secondary impacts’ of disaster events are rarely considered, nor are the amplifying impacts of economic dependence, and lack of everyday freedoms at home”

However, this week in Bonn, where the UNFCCC is holding a series of meetings, there has also been growing concern that issues central to supporting vulnerable women have been side-tracked, and may be left out or weakened by the time the U.N. climate change conference takes place in Paris in December.

“We want to make sure that gender is not only included in the preamble,” said Cahoon, explaining that this would amount to a somewhat superficial treatment of gender sensitivity. “We want to ensure that countries will commit to having gender in Section C [general objectives].”

Ensuring that gender is included throughout the Paris agreement is essential to ensure that there will be a mandate for action on the ground, especially in the Philippines. This is the only way to ensure that Paris will make a change in women’s lives at the grassroots level.

“We want a strong agreement and it can only be strong if we account for half of the world’s population,” stressed Cahoon.

Meanwhile, Collantes noted that UN Women is working to ensure that women will not be seen as vulnerable but rather as leaders. She believes that we now need to highlight the skills and capabilities that women can use to support their communities in moments of disaster.

“Women are always portrayed as victims but women are not vulnerable,” said Collates. “If they are given resources or decision-making powers, women can show their skills and strengths.”

In fact, according to an assessment by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), “women play a key role in adaptation efforts, environmental sustainability and food security as the climate changes.”

The women most affected by Typhoon Haiyan could not agree more.

“We are always seen as a group of people to give charity to. But we are not only receivers of charity. We can be an active agent of making our communities more resilient to climate change impacts,” a woman leader from the Philippine women’s organisation KAKASA said during the Road to Sendai forum.

What does a good climate agreement for women look like?

According to Collantes, it must correct the lack of mention of women in the previous conventions, and it must also be coherent with the goal of gender equality, the Post-2015 Agenda, Rio+20, and the Sendai Disaster Risk Reduction Framework.

“Without gender equality, the Paris agreement would be behind its time and will not validate realities women are facing today,” says Collantes.

For the three billion women impacted by climate change, we can only hope negotiators here in Bonn won’t leave them behind.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Whether they like it or not, many Africans faced with the possibility of having to access water through prepaid meters have resorted to unprotected and often unclean sources of water because they cannot afford to pay. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, May 8 2015 (IPS)

While many countries appear to have met the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, rights activists say that African countries which have taken to installing prepaid water meters have rendered a blow to many poor people, making it hard for them to access water.

“The goal to ensure that everyone has access to clean water here in Africa faces a drawback as a number of African countries have resorted to using prepaid water meters, which certainly bar the poor from accessing the precious liquid,” Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development, a Zimbabwean democracy lobby group, told IPS.

Prepaid water meters work in such a way that if a person cannot pay in advance, he or she will be unable to access water.Despite U.N. recognition that water is a human right, international financial institutions such as the World Bank argue that water should be allocated through market mechanisms to allow for full cost recovery from users

As a result, African rights activists like award-winning Terry Mutsvanga from Zimbabwe and other civil society organisations are against the idea of prepaid water meters.

“If one has to pay upfront before accessing water, then it would mean those in most need would be denied access,” Mutsvanga told IPS, adding that water is a global human right.

Mutsvanga was echoing the United Nations General Assembly which, in July 2010, emerged with a binding resolution on the human right to water and sanitation – but for Africa, the human right to water may be far from reality.

Laden with a population of approximately 1.1 billion, Africa’s 300 million people have no access to safe drinking water, according to the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Many rights activists on the continent attribute Africa’s mounting water challenges partly to the advent of prepaid water meters.

“We already have hundreds of millions of people without access to clean water, and imagine the severity of the water challenge if water prepaid meters would reach everyone on the continent,” Mutsvanga said.

Over the years, prepaid water meters have been widely used in African countries like Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland and Tanzania, as well as South Africa, where the meters which were rolled out in 1999 are currently in low-income areas.

Zimbabwe is currently conducting a pilot project aimed at installing the prepaid water meters, in towns and cities to begin with. And the country’s impoverished urban dwellers like 51-year old Tinago Chikasha are in panic mode, fearing the worst may be coming their way.

“Local authorities are pressing ahead with the idea of prepaid water meters, but jobless people like me have no money to make prepayments for water while we already have unpaid water bills running into thousands of dollars, which local authorities say they will deduct through all future water prepayments, meaning we run into the danger of having dry water taps for as long as we owe local authorities,” Chikasha told IPS.

In non-African countries like the United Kingdom, prepaid water meters are no longer being used after they were declared illegal in 1998 for public health reasons.

They were also abandoned in South Africa at one stage following a massive cholera outbreak, but were reintroduced and have replaced previously free communal standpipes in rural townships.

Despite U.N. recognition that water is a human right, international financial institutions such as the World Bank argue that water should be allocated through market mechanisms to allow for full cost recovery from users, and civil society activists like Melusi Khumalo in South Africa blame capitalist tendencies for necessitating the advent of prepaid water meters.

“Prepaid water meters are a result of such negative policies by institutions like the World Bank and they [prepaid water meters] deny water access to those in most need,” Khumalo, who is affiliated to Parktown North Residents’ Association in Johannesburg, told IPS.

In Zimbabwe, Mfundo Mlilo, chief executive officer of Combined Harare Residents’ Association (CHRA), told IPS: “We are vehemently against the prepaid meter project because it will not solve the problems of water delivery, and these prepaid water meters will not lead to residents receiving adequate safe and clean water, while the same prepaid water meters will also not lead to increase in revenue flows as the City [of Harare] claims.”

Last month, Harare’s Town Clerk Tendai Mahachi was reported by Zimbabwe’s Weekend Post as saying: “With these meters we expect roughly to save about 20-30 percent of the current costs we are incurring.”

According to Mahachi, at least 300 000 households in the Zimbabwean capital are scheduled to have prepaid water meters installed, while all new housing projects will be obliged to install meters.

Meanwhile, with prepaid water meters set to rake in big money for some of Africa’s local authorities, there are those like Nathan Jamela, an urban dweller in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, who fear the health consequences.

“We experienced the worst cholera outbreak in 2008, and we fear that if prepaid water meters are installed in every household here we will slide back to the crisis, with many people unable to afford to pay for water,” Jamela told IPS.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Forest rangers putting out a fire at a charcoal burning kiln in Kenya’s Mau Forest. The future of the country’s indigenous forest cover is under threat but this has little to do with poverty and ignorance – experts say that it is greed which allows unsustainable practices, such as the lucrative production of charcoal and logging of wood. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
NAIROBI, Apr 25 2015 (IPS)

Armed with twigs and placards, enraged residents from a semi-pastoral community 360 km north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, protested this week against wanton destruction of indigenous forest – their alternative source of livelihood.

With climate change a new ordeal that has caused frequent droughts, leading to suffering and death in this part of Africa, the community from Lpartuk Ranch in Samburu County relies on livestock which is sometimes wiped out by severe drought leaving them with no other option other than the harvesting of wild products and honey.

“People here are ready to take up spears and machetes to guard the forest. They have been provoked by outsiders who are out to wipe out our indigenous forest to the last bit,” Mark Loloolki, Lpartuk Ranch chairman, who led the protesting community members told IPS.

They threatened to set alight any vehicle caught ferrying the timbers or logs suspected to be from their forests.Illegal harvesting of forest products is pervasive and often involves unsustainable forest practices which cause serious damage to forests, the people who depend on them and the economies of producer countries

Their protest came barely a week after counterparts from Seketet, a few kilometres away in Samburu Central, held a similar protest after over 12,000 red cedar posts were caught on transit to Maralal, Samburu’s main town.

Last year, students walked for four kilometres during International Ozone Day to protest against the wanton destruction of the same endangered forest tree species.

A report titled Green Carbon, Black Trade, released by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and Interpol in 2012,  which focuses on illegal logging and its impacts on the lives and livelihoods of often some of the poorest people in the world, underlines how criminals are combining old-fashioned methods such as bribes with high-tech methods such as computer hacking of government websites to obtain transportation and other permits.

Samburu County, in Kenya’s semi-arid northern region, hosts Lerroghi, a 92,000 hectare forest reserve that is home to different indigenous plants and animal species. Lerroghi, also called Kirisia locally, is among the largest forest ecosystem in dry northern Kenya and was initially filled with olive and red cedar trees.

It is alleged that unscrupulous merchants smuggle the endangered red cedar products to the coastal port of Mombasa for shipping to Saudi Arabia where they are sold at high prices.

“This is a business that involves a well-connected cartel of merchants operating in Nairobi and Mombasa,” said Loloolki.

In Kenya, the future of indigenous forest cover is under threat but has little to do with poverty and ignorance – experts say that it is greed which allows unsustainable practices, such as the lucrative production of charcoal and logging of wood.

“This forest is our main water catchment source and home to wild animals such as elephants,” Moses Lekolool, the area assistant chief, told IPS. “Elephants no longer have a place to mate and reproduce or even give birth, with most of them having migrated.”

According to Samburu County’s Kenya Forest Service (KFS) Ecosystem Controverter Eric Chemitei, “as a government parastatal, we [KFS] do not issue permits for transportation or movement of cedar posts. However, we do not know how they get to Nairobi, Mombasa and eventually to Saudi Arabia as alleged.”

At the same time, Chemitei told IPS that squatters currently residing inside the forest are mainly families affected by insecurity related to cattle rustling, adding that their presence was posing a threat to the main water towers of Lerroghi, Mathew Ranges, and Ndoto and Nyiro mountains.

He further noted that harvesting of cedar regardless of whether forest was privately or publicly owned was banned in 1999, and that over 30,000 hectares – one-third of the Lerroghi forest – has been destroyed.

Reports from INTERPOL and the World Bank in 2009 and from UNEP in 2011 indicate that the trade in illegally harvested timber is highly lucrative for criminal elements and has been estimated at 11 billion dollars – comparable with the production value of drugs which is estimated at around 13 billion dollars.

In a report on organised wildlife, gold and timber, released on Apr. 16, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “There is no room for doubt: wildlife and forest crime is serious and calls for an equally serious response. In addition to the breach of the international rule of law and the impact on peace and security, environmental crime robs countries of revenues that could have been spent on sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.”

According to the KFS Strategic Plan (2009/2010-2013/2014), of the 3.4 million hectares (5.9 percent) of forest cover out of the Kenya’s total land area, 1.4 million are made up of indigenous closed canopy forests, mangroves and plantations, on both public and private lands.

The plan also indicated that Kenya’s annual domestic demand for wood is 37 million cubic metres while sustainable wood supply is only around 30 million cubic metres, thus creating a deficit of seven million cubic metres which, according to analysts, means that any projected increase in forest cover can only be realised after this huge internal demand is met.

Last year, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Environment Judi Wakhungu said that KFS’ revised policy framework for forest conservation and sustainable management lists features including community participation, community forest associations and benefit sharing.

The policy acknowledges that indigenous trees or forests are ecosystems that provide important economic, environmental, recreational, scientific, social, cultural and spiritual benefits.

Nevertheless, illegal harvesting of forest products is pervasive and often involves unsustainable forest practices which cause serious damage to forests, the people who depend on them and the economies of producer countries.

Forests have been subjected to land use changes such as conversion to farmland or urban settlements, thus reducing their ability to supply forest products and serve as water catchments, biodiversity conservation reservoirs and wildlife habitats.

Meanwhile, the effect of forest depletion on women has been noted by Veronica Nkepeni , Director of Kenya’s Centre for Advocacy and Gender Equality, who told IPS that the “most affected are women in the pastoralist areas, trekking long distances in search of water as a result of the effects of forest depletion leading to water scarcity.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Driven by solar and wind, world investments in renewable energy leapt in 2014. Photo credit: Jürgen from Sandesneben, Germany/Licensed under CC BY 2.0

By Sean Buchanan
ROME, Mar 31 2015 (IPS)

Driven by solar and wind, world investments in renewable energy reversed a two-year dip last year, brushing aside the challenge from sharply lower oil prices and registering a 17 percent leap over the previous year to stand at 270 billion dollars.

These investments helped see an additional 103Gw of generating capacity – roughly that of all U.S. nuclear plants combined –around the world, making 2014 the best year ever for newly-installed capacity, according to the 9th annual “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investments” report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) released Mar. 31.

Prepared by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the report says that a continuing sharp decline in technology costs – particularly in solar but also in wind – means that every dollar invested in renewable energy bought significantly more generating capacity in 2014."Climate-friendly energy technologies are now an indispensable component of the global energy mix and their importance will only increase as markets mature, technology prices continue to fall and the need to rein in carbon emissions becomes ever more urgent" – Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP

In what was called “a year of eye-catching steps forward for renewable energy”, the report notes that wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-power, geothermal, small hydro and marine power contributed an estimated 9.1 percent of world electricity generation in 2014, up from 8.5 percent in 2013.

This, says the report, means that the world’s electricity systems emitted 1.3 gigatonnes of CO2 – roughly twice the emissions of the world’s airline industry – less than it would have if that 9.1 percent had been produced by the same fossil-dominated mix generating the other 90.9 percent of world power.

“Once again in 2014, renewables made up nearly half of the net power capacity added worldwide,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP. “These climate-friendly energy technologies are now an indispensable component of the global energy mix and their importance will only increase as markets mature, technology prices continue to fall and the need to rein in carbon emissions becomes ever more urgent.”

China saw by far the biggest renewable energy investments last year – a record 83.3 billion dollars, up 39 percent from 2013. The United States was second at 38.3 billion dollars, up seven percent on the year (although below its all-time high reached in 2011). Third came Japan at 35.7 billion dollars, 10 percent higher than in 2013 and its biggest total ever.

According to the report, a prominent feature of 2014 was the rapid expansion of renewables into new markets in developing countries, where investments jumped 36 percent to 131.3 billion dollars. China with 83.3 billion, Brazil (7.6 billion), India (7.4 billion) and South Africa (5.5 billion) were all in the top 10 investing countries, while more than one billion dollars was invested in Indonesia, Chile, Mexico, Kenya and Turkey.

Although 2014 was said to be a turnaround year for renewables after two years of shrinkage, multiple challenges remain in the form of policy uncertainty, structural issues in the electricity system and even the very nature of wind and solar generation which are dependent on breeze and sunlight.

Another challenge, says the report, is the impact of the more than 50 percent collapse in oil prices in the second half of last year.  However, according to Udo Steffens, President of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, the price of oil is only likely to dampen investor confidence in parts of the sector, such as solar in oil-exporting countries and biofuels in most parts of the world.

“Oil and renewables do not directly compete for power investment dollars,” said Steffens. “Wind and solar sectors should be able to carry on flourishing, particularly if they continue to cut costs per MWh. Their long-term story is just more convincing.”

Of greater concern is the erosion of investor confidence caused by increasing uncertainty surrounding government support policies for renewables.

“Europe was the first mover in clean energy, but it is still in a process of restructuring those early support mechanisms,” according to Michael Liebreich, Chairman of the Advisory Board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “In the United Kingdom and Germany we are seeing a move away from feed-in tariffs and green certificates, towards reverse auctions and subsidy caps, aimed at capping the cost of the transition to consumers.

“Southern Europe is still almost a no-go area for investors because of retroactive policy changes, most recently those affecting solar farms in Italy. In the United States there is uncertainty over the future of the Production Tax Credit for wind, but costs are now so low that the sector is more insulated than in the past. Meanwhile the rooftop solar sector is becoming unstoppable.”

A media release announcing publication of the UNEP report said that if the positive investment trends of 2014 are to continue, “it is increasingly clear that major electricity market reforms will be needed of the sort that Germany is now attempting with its Energiewende [energy transition].”

The structural challenges to be overcome are not simple,” it added, “but are of the sort that have only arisen because of the very success of renewables and their over two trillion dollars of investment mobilised since 2004.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

View of the Third World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendau, Japan. Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale told delegates he was attending because the Pacific island, hit by Cyclone Pam in early March, “wants to see a strong new framework on disaster risk reduction which will support us in tackling the drivers of disaster risk such as climate change". Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/IPS

By Jamshed Baruah
SENDAI, Japan , Mar 16 2015 (IPS)

Cyclone Pam has not only caused unprecedented damages to the Pacific island of Vanuatu but also lent urgency to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s plea that disaster risk reduction is in “everybody’s interest”.

“Sustainability starts in Sendai,” Ban declared at the opening of the Third World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), the largest-ever high-level meeting on the theme, which kicked off on Mar. 14 in Sendai, the centre of Japan’s Tohoku region, which bore the brunt of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that led to the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.

The conference is expected to conclude with the adoption on Mar. 18, when WCDRR is scheduled to close, of a new agreement on disaster risk reduction, which will provide guidance on how to reduce mortality and economic losses from disasters.“Disaster risk reduction advances progress on sustainable development and climate change [which] is intensifying the risks for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in small island developing states and coastal areas” – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

“This is the first stop on our journey to a new future to put our people of the world and this world onto a sustainable path,” Ban told government leaders and civil society representatives from around the world.

“Disaster risk reduction advances progress on sustainable development and climate change,” Ban said, adding that “climate change is intensifying the risks for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in small island developing states and coastal areas.”

Experts consider climate change as the cause for the increasingly unpredictable pattern of cyclonic activity affecting Vanuatu in recent years.

“I speak to you today with a heart that is so heavy,” said Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale addressing the opening session, visibly fighting back his tears. “I stand to ask you to give a lending hand in responding to this calamity that has struck us.”

This is indeed a major calamity for the Pacific island nation. Every year it loses six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to disasters. “This cyclone is a huge setback for the country’s development. It will have severe impacts for all sectors of economic activity including tourism, agriculture and manufacturing,” said Lonsdale.

“The country is already threatened by coastal erosion and rising sea levels, in addition to five active volcanos and earthquakes. This is why I am attending this conference and why Vanuatu wants to see a strong new framework on disaster risk reduction which will support us in tackling the drivers of disaster risk such as climate change.”

As Vanuata reeled under the impact of the cyclone, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of japan pledged four billion dollars in disaster prevention aid, mainly for developing countries.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched an initiative on Mar. 15 to scale up community and civic action on resilience, the so-called ‘One Billion Coalition for Resilience’.

The IFRC has committed itself to mobilising its network of 189 national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and 17 million volunteers around the world to increase different services that link disaster preparedness, emergency response and longer term recovery needs of local communities.

The Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, commended the IFRC’s efforts to galvanise actions toward making communities more resilient.

“We need to scale up our collective efforts to make sure that hazards don’t become disasters, and we will only be able to achieve this by building alliances at every level,” she said. ”Only in partnership can we contribute to transforming the lives of the most vulnerable people and support their efforts in building stronger communities.”

Apparently realising the need of the hour, top insurers from around the world have called on governments to step up global efforts to build resilience against natural disasters, highlighting that average economic losses from disasters in the last decade have amounted to around 190 billion dollars annually, while average insured losses were at about 60 billion dollars.

A ‘United for Disaster Resilience Statement’ was released Mar. 14 by top insurance companies, members of the UNEP Finance Initiatives’ Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI), the largest collaborative initiative between the United Nations and the insurance industry. PSI is backed by insurers representing about 15 percent of the world’s premium volume and nine trillion dollars in assets under its management.

The statement urges governments to adopt the U.N. Post-2015 Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, emphasising that the insurance industry is well placed to understand the economic and social impact of disasters given that its core business is to understand, manage and carry risk.

Lauding the initiative, Achim Steiner, U.N. Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said: “The vision and initiative demonstrated by the insurance industry – from the launch of the landmark Principles for Sustainable Insurance at the Rio+20 conference to the strong, united commitments made here in Sendai – provide inspiration and a way forward.”

Another PSI initiative launched in Sendai called on individual insurance organisations to help implement the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction by making voluntary, specific, measurable and time-bound commitments.

The voluntary commitments will follow the global framework afforded by the four Principles for Sustainable Insurance, and will show concrete actions that build disaster resilience, and promote economic, social and environmental sustainability.

These commitments will be aggregated and promoted en route to a major UNEP and insurance industry event in May this year, which will be hosted by the global reinsurer, Swiss Re.

The commitments will also be promoted by the PSI at the Global Insurance Forum of the International Insurance Society in New York in June. The forum will include a dedicated day at the U.N. headquarters for insurance industry leaders and U.N. officials to address sustainable development challenges and opportunities, from climate change and disaster risk, to financial inclusion and ageing populations.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Bamboo nursery in Africa. There is debate over whether commercially-grown bamboo could help reverse the effects of deforestation and land degradation that has spread harm across the African continent. Credit: EcoPlanet Bamboo

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Feb 28 2015 (IPS)

Deforestation is haunting the African continent as industrial growth paves over public commons and puts more hectares into private hands.

According to the Environmental News Network, a web-based resource, Africa loses forest cover equal to the size of Switzerland every year, or approximately 41 000 square kilometres.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is also on record as saying the African continent loses over four million hectares (9.9 million acres) of natural forest annually, which is twice the world’s average deforestation rate. And deforestation, according to UNEP, accounts for at least one-fifth of all carbon emissions globally.

The dangerous pace of deforestation has triggered a market-based solution using bamboo, a fast-growing woody grass that grows chiefly in the tropics.“If grown in the right way, and under the right sustainable management system, in certain areas, bamboo can play a role in reversing ecosystem degradation” – Troy Wiseman, CEO of EcoPlanet Bamboo

“The idea of bamboo plantations is a good one, but it triggers fear of widespread starvation as poor Africans may be lured into this venture for money and start ditching food crops” – Terry Mutsvanga, Zimbabwean human rights activist

EcoPlanet Bamboo, a multinational company, has been expanding its operations in Africa while it promotes the industrialisation of bamboo as an environmentally attractive alternative fibre for timber manufacturing industries that currently rely on the harvesting of natural forests for their raw resource. The company’s operations extend to South Africa, Ghana and Nicaragua.

For EcoPlanet and some African environmentalists, commercially-grown bamboo could help reverse the effects of deforestation and land degradation that has spread harm across the African continent.

“If grown in the right way on land that has little value for other uses, and if managed under the right sustainable management system, bamboo can play a role in restoring highly degraded ecosystems and connecting remnant forest patches, while reducing pressure on remaining natural forests,” Troy Wiseman, CEO of EcoPlanet Bamboo, told IPS.

Happison Chikova, a Zimbabwean independent environmentalist who holds a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the Midlands State University here, agreed.

“Bamboo plants help fight climate change because of their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and act as carbon sinks while the plants can also be used as a source for wood energy, thereby reducing the cutting down of indigenous trees, and also the fact that bamboo can be used to build shelter, reduces deforestation in the communal areas where there is high demand of indigenous trees for building purposes,” Chikova told IPS.

But land rights activists are sceptical about their claims.

“The idea of bamboo plantations is a good one, but it triggers fear of widespread starvation as poor Africans may be lured into this venture for money and start ditching food crops,” Terry Mutsvanga, an award-winning Zimbabwean human rights activist, told IPS.

Mutsvanga’s fears of small sustainable farms losing out to foreign-owned export-driven plantations were echoed by Nnimmo Bassey, a renowned African environmentalist and head of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an ecological think-tank and advocacy organisation.

“No one can seriously present a bamboo plantation as a cure for deforestation,” Bassey, who is based in Nigeria, told IPS, “and unfortunately the United Nations system sees plantations as forests and this fundamentally faulty premise gives plantation owners the latitude to see their forest-gobbling actions as something positive.”

“If we agree that forests are places with rich biodiversity, it is clear that a plantation cannot be the same as a forest,” added Bassey.

Currently, bamboo is widely grown in Africa by small farmers for multiple uses. The Mount Selinda Women’s Bamboo Association, an environmental lobby group in Chipinge, Zimbabwe’s eastern border town, for example, received funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through the Livelihood and Economic Development Programme in order to create sustainable rural livelihoods and enterprises by using bamboo resources.

Citing its many benefits, IFAD calls bamboo the “poor man’s timber.”

Further, notes IFAD, bamboo contributes to rural poverty reduction, empowers women and can be processed into boats, kitchen utensils, incense sticks, charcoal and footwear. It also provides food and nutrition security as food and animal feed.

Currently, EcoPlanet Bamboo’s footprint in Africa includes 5,000 acres in Ghana in a public-private partnership to develop commercial bamboo plantations. In South Africa’s Eastern Cape, certification is under way to convert out of production pineapple plantations to bamboo plantations for the production of activated carbon and bio-charcoal to be sold to local and export markets.

Environmentalist Bassey worries whether all these acres were unutilised, as the company claims. “Commercial bamboo, which will replace natural wood forests and may require hundreds of hectares of land space, may not be so good for peasant farmers in Africa,” Bassey said.

EcoPlanet Bamboo, however, insists it does not convert or plant on any land that could compete with food security.

“(We) convert degraded land into certified bamboo plantations into diverse, thriving ecosystems, that can provide fibre on an annual basis, and yet maintain their ecological integrity,” said Wiseman.

Wiseman’s claim, however, did not move long-time activist Bassey and one-time winner of the Right Livelihood Prize, an alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize, who questioned foreign ownership of Africa’s resources as not always to Africa’s benefit.

“Plantations are not owned by the weak in society,” said Bassey. “They are owned by corporations or rich individuals with strong economic and sometimes political connections. This could mean displacement of vulnerable farmers, loss of territories and means of livelihoods.”

Edited by Lisa Vives/ Phil Harris   

Uncontrolled woodcutting in remote areas of Zimbabwe like Mwenezi district has left many treeless fields. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Feb 6 2015 (IPS)

There’s a buzz in Zimbabwe’s lush forests, home to many animal species, but it’s not bees, bugs or other wildlife. It’s the sound of a high-speed saw, slicing through the heart of these ancient stands to clear land for tobacco growing, to log wood for commercial export and to supply local area charcoal sellers.

This, despite Zimbabwe being obliged under the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to ensure environmental sustainability by the end of this year.

“The rate at which deforestation is occurring here will convert Zimbabwe into an outright desert in just 35 years if pragmatic solutions are not proffered urgently and also if people keep razing down trees for firewood without regulation,” Marylin Smith, an independent conservationist based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, and former staffer in the government of President Robert Mugabe, told IPS.“The rate at which deforestation is occurring here will convert Zimbabwe into an outright desert in just 35 years if pragmatic solutions are not proffered urgently” – Marylin Smith, independent conservationist based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Zimbabwe lost an annual average of 327,000 hectares of forests between 1990 and 2010.

Smith blamed Zimbabwe’s deforestation on the growing numbers of tobacco farmers who were cutting “millions of tonnes of firewood each year to treat the cash crop.”

According to the country’s Tobacco Industry Marketing Board, Zimbabwe currently has 88,167 tobacco growers, whom environmental activists say are the catalysts of looming desertification here.

“Curing tobacco using huge quantities of firewood and even increased domestic use of firewood in both rural and urban areas will leave Zimbabwe without forests and one has to imagine how the country would look like after the demise of the forests,” Thabilise Mlotshwa, an ecologist from Save the Environment Association, an environmental lobby group here, told IPS.

“But really, it is difficult to object to firewood use when this is the only energy source most rural people have despite the environment being the worst casualty,” Mlotshwa added.

Zimbabwe’s deforestation crisis is linked to several factors.

“There are thousands of timber merchants who have no mercy with our trees as they see ready cash in almost every tree and therefore don’t spare the trees in order to earn money,” Raymond Siziba, an agricultural extension officer based in Mvurwi, a district approximately 100 kilometres north of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, told IPS.

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat), there were 66,250 timber merchants nationwide last year alone.

Deforestation is a complex issue. A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that during the decade from 1980 to 1990, the world’s tropical forests were reduced by an average of 15.4 million hectares per year (an 0.8 percent annual rate of deforestation).

The area of land cleared during the decade is equivalent to nearly three times the size of France.

Developing countries rely heavily on wood fuel, the major energy source for cooking and heating. In Africa, the statistics are striking: an estimated 90 percent of the entire continent’s population uses fuelwood for cooking, and in sub-Saharan Africa, firewood and brush supply approximately 52 percent of all energy sources.

Zimbabwe is not the only sub-Saharan country facing a crisis in its forests. A panel run by the United Nations and the African Union and led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki found that in Mozambique thousands more logs were exported to China than were legally reported.

Disappearing forest cover is a particular problem in Ghana, where non-timber forest products provide sustenance and income for 2.5 million people living in or near forest communities.

Between 1990 and 2005, Ghana lost over one-quarter of its total national forest cover. At the current rate of deforestation, the country’s forests could completely disappear in less than 25 years. Current attempts to address deforestation have stalled due to lack of collaboration between stakeholders and policy makers.

In west equatorial Africa, a study by Greenpeace has called logging the single biggest threat to the Congo Basin rainforest. At the moment, logging companies working mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are busy cutting down trees in over 50 million hectares of rainforest, or an area the size of France, according to its website.

An estimated 20 to 25 percent of annual deforestation is thought to be due to commercial logging. Another 15 to 20 percent is attributed to other activities such as cattle ranching, cash crop plantations and the construction of dams, roads, and mines.

However, deforestation is primarily caused by the activities of the general population. As the Zimbabwe economy plummets, indigenous timber merchants are on the rise, battling to eke a living, with environmentalists accusing them of fuelling deforestation.

For many rural dwellers, lack of electricity in most rural areas is creating unsustainable pressures on forests in Zimbabwe.

“Like several other remote parts of Zimbabwe, we have no electricity here and for years we have been depending on firewood, which is the main source of energy for rural dwellers even for the past generations, and you can just imagine the amount of deforestation remote areas continue to suffer,” 61-year-old Irene Chikono, a teacher from Mutoko, 143 kilometres east of Harare, told IPS.

Even Zimbabweans with access to electricity are at the mercy of erratic power supplies from the state-owned Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), which is failing to meet electricity demand owing to inadequate finances to import power.

“With increasing electricity outages here, I often resort to buying firewood from vendors at local market stalls, who get this from farms neighbouring the city,” 31-year-old Collina Hokonya, a single mother of three residing in Harare’s high density Mbare suburb, told IPS.

Government claims it is doing all it can to combat deforestation but, faced with this country’s faltering economy, indigenous timber merchants and villagers say it may be hard for them to refrain from tree-felling.

“We are into the timber business not by choice, but because of joblessness and we therefore want to make money in order to survive,” Mevion Javangwe, an indigenous timber merchant based in Harare, told IPS.

“A gradual return of people from cities to lead rural life as the economy worsens is adding pressure on rural forests as more and more people cut down trees for firewood,” Elson Moyo, a village head in Vesera village in Mwenezi, 144 kilometres south-west of Masvingo, told IPS.

“Politicians are plundering and looting the hardwood forest reserves since they own most sawmills, with their relatives fronting for them,” Owen Dliwayo, a civil society activist based in Chipinge, an eastern border town of Zimbabwe, told IPS.

“For all the forests that politicians plunder, they don’t pay a cent to council authorities and truly how do people get motivated to play a part in conserving hardwood forests?” Dliwayo asked.

“We will only manage to fight deforestation if government brings electricity to our doorsteps because without electricity we will keep cutting down trees for firewood,” said Chikono.

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris   

Africa must now go beyond household water access indices to embrace water as a key development issue, say experts at the Jan. 15-17 U.N. International Water Conference in Zaragoza. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
ZARAGOZA, Jan 15 2015 (IPS)

Although African countries have been lauded for their efforts towards ensuring that people have access to safe drinking water in keeping with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they have nonetheless come under scrutiny for failure to prioritise water in their development agendas.

Thomas Chiramba, Head of Freshwater Ecosystems Unit at the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) in Kenya, told IPS that in spite of progress on the third component of MDG7 – halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 – water scarcity still poses a significant threat to sustainable development in Africa.

Attending the United Nations’ International Water Conference being held in this Spanish city from Jan. 15-17,  he said that “there is too much focus on household water access indices and not enough on linkages between water and sustainable development.”While there are now more people in Africa with improved sources of water and sanitation, experts say that this is not enough. The continent is still facing water scarcity, with negative implications for growth and health.

While there are now more people in Africa with improved sources of water and sanitation, experts say that this is not enough. The continent is still facing water scarcity, with negative implications for growth and health.

In view of the rapid and unpredictable changes in environmental systems, Chiramba said that unless Africa broadens its national and international water goals the region will find it difficult to remain economically resilient.

“Water is key to the agricultural and energy sectors, both critical to accelerating growth and development in Africa,” he added.

The theme of the Zaragoza conference is ‘Water and Sustainable Development: From Vision to Action’ and is at the heart of adaptation to climate, also serving as a key link among climate systems, human society and environment.

One of the main aims of the conference is to develop implementing tools, with regard to financing, technology, capacity development and governance frameworks, for initiating the post-2015 agenda on water and sanitation.

More than 300 participants representing U.N. agencies and programmes, experts, the business community, and governmental and non-governmental organisations have converged with the main aim of addressing water as a sustainable development goal.

“Although water goals and targets were achieved under the MDGs, the main focus was on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), all geared towards poverty reduction,” said Chiramba. “But there was no explicit focus on addressing the sustainability aspect.”

As a result, say experts, water management issues were never comprehensively addressed at the national or international level, nor was the key role that water can play in growing the various sectors of the economy.

This year is also the last year of the International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’ which began in 2005, and will set the tone for World Water Day to be marked on March 22, which will also focus on ‘water and sustainable development’.

The primary goal of the ‘Water for Life’ Decade has been to promote efforts to fulfil international commitments made on water and water-related issues by 2015. The Water Decade has served to forge cooperation at all levels so that the water-related goals of the Millennium Declaration are achieved.

The end of the Decade also marks the beginning of new water campaigns, “this time, with great focus on the impact of water on development,” said Chiramba.

The Zaragoza water conference has brought to the fore the fact that the Decade has achieved the difficult task of isolating water issues as key to the development agenda and has provided a platform for governments and stakeholders to address the threats that water scarcity poses to development, experts say.

“It has also been a platform for stakeholders and government to discuss the opportunities that exist in exploiting water as a resource,” said Alice Shena, a civil society representative at the event.

As a result of the Water Decade, Shena noted, a broader international water agenda has been established that goes beyond universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene.

“The agenda now includes the sustainable use and development of water resources, increasing and sharing the available benefits which have significant implications for every sector of the economy,” she said.

According to environment expert Nataliya Nikiforova, as a new era of development goals begins under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is clear that water will play a critical role in development.

She said  that if managed efficiently and equitably, water can play a key enabling role in strengthening the resilience of social, economic and environmental systems in the light of rapid and unpredictable changes.

Edited by Phil Harris

Africa is experiencing a revolution towards cleaner energy through renewable energy but the story has hardly been told to the world, says Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Steiner, who had been advocating for renewable energy at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Lima, said Africa is on the right path toward a low carbon footprint by tapping into its plentiful renewable resources – hydro, geothermal, solar and wind.

Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

“There is a revolution going on in the continent of Africa and the world is not noticing it. You can go to Egypt, Ethiopia Kenya, Namibia, and Mozambique. I think we will see renewable energy being the answer to Africa’s energy problems in the next fifteen years,” Steiner said in an interview with IPS.

Sharing the example of the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, Steiner told IPS that the decision was taken that “if UNEP is going to be centred with its offices in the African continent on the Equator, there can be reason why we are not using renewable energy. So we installed photovoltaic panels on our roof which we share with UN Habitat, 1200 people, and we produce 750,000 kilowatt hours of electricity every year, that is enough for the entire building to operate.”

He noted that although it will take UNEP between eight and 10 years to pay off the installation, UNEP will have over 13 years of electricity without paying monthly or annual power bills. “It is the best business proposition that a U.N. body has ever made in terms of paying for electricity for a building,” he said.

According to Steiner, the “revolution” is already happening in East Africa, especially in Kenya and Ethiopia which are both targeting renewable energy, especially geothermal energy.

“Kenya plans to triple its electricity generation up to about 6000 megawatts in the next five years. More than 90 percent of the planned power is to come from geothermal, solar and wind power,” he said. “If you are in Africa and decide to exploit your wind, solar and geothermal resources, you will get yourself freedom from the global energy markets, and you will connect the majority of your people without waiting for thirty years until the power lines cross every corner of the country” – Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director

Kenya currently runs a geothermal power development corporation which invites tenders from private investors bid and is establishing a wind power firm likely to be the largest in Africa with a capacity of 350 megawatts of power under a public-private partnership.

In Ethiopia, expansion of the Aluto-Langano geothermal power plant will increase geothermal generation capacity from the current 7 MW to 70 MW. The expansion project is being financed by the Ethiopian government (10 million dollars), a 12 million dollar grant from the Government of Japan, and a 13 million dollar loan from the World Bank.

Renewable energy has costs but also benefits

Phillip Hauser, Vice President of GDF Suez Energy Latin America, told IPS that geothermal power is a good option for countries in Africa with that potential, but it comes with risks.

“It is very site-dependent. There can be geothermal projects that are relatively cost efficient and there are others that are relatively expensive. It is a bit like the oil and gas industry. You have to find the resource and you have to develop the resource. Sometimes you might drill and you don’t find anything – that is lost investment,” Hauser told IPS.

Steiner admitted that like any other investment, renewable energy has some limitations, including the need for upfront initial capital and the cost of technology, but he said that countries with good renewable energy policies would attract the necessary private investments.

“We are moving in a direction where Africa will not have to live in a global fuel market in which one day you have to pay 120 dollars for a barrel of crude oil, then the next day you get it at 80 dollars and before you know it, it is doubled,” he said.

“So if you are in Africa and decide to exploit your wind, solar and geothermal resources, you will get yourself freedom from the global energy markets, and you will connect the majority of your people without waiting for thirty years until the power lines cross every corner of the country,”Steiner added.

A recent assessment by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) of Africa’s renewable energy future found that solar and wind power potential existed in at least 21 countries, and biomass power potential in at least 14 countries.

The agency, which supports countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future, has yet to provide a list of countries with geothermal power potential but almost all the countries around the Great Rift Valley in south-eastern Africa – Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania among others – have already identified geothermal sites, with Kenya being the first to use a geothermal site to add power to its grid.

Adnan Amin, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin told IPS that the agency’s studies shows that not only can renewable energy meet the world’s rising demand, but it can do so more cheaply, while contributing to limiting global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius – the widely-cited tipping point in the climate change debate.

He said the good news in Africa is that apart from the resources that exist, there is a growing body of knowledge across African expert institutions that would help the continent to exploit its virgin renewable energy potential.

What is needed now, he explained, is for countries in Africa to develop the economic case for those resources supported by targeted government policies to help developers and financiers get projects off the ground.

The IRENA assessment found that in 2010, African countries imported 18 billion dollars’ worth of oil – more than the entire amount they received in foreign aid – while oil subsidies in Africa cost an estimated 50 billion dollars every year.

New financing models for renewable energy

According to Amin, renewable energy technologies are now the most economical solution for off-grid and mini-grid electrification in remote areas, as well as for grid extension in some cases of centralised grid supply.

He argued that rapid technological progress, combined with falling costs, a better understanding of financial risk and a growing appreciation of wider benefits mean that renewable energy would increasingly be the solution to Africa’s energy problem.

In this context, Africa could take on new financing models that “de-risk” investments in order to lower the cost of capital, which has historically been a major barrier to investment in renewable energy, and one such model would include encouragement for green bonds.

“Green bonds are the recent innovation for renewable energy investments,” said Amin. “Last year we reached about 14 billion dollars, this year there is an estimate of about 40 billion, and next year there is an estimate of about 100 billion dollars in green finance through green bonds. Why doesn’t Africa take advantage of those?” he asked.

During the conference in Lima, activist groups have been urging an end to dependence on fossil fuel- and nuclear-powered energy systems, calling for investment and policies geared toward building clean, sustainable, community-based energy solutions.

“We urgently need to decrease our energy consumption and push for a just transition to community-controlled renewable energy if we are to avoid devastating climate change,” said Susann Scherbarth, a climate justice and energy campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe.

Godwin Ojo, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth Nigeria, told IPS that “we urgently need a transition to clean energy in developing countries and one of the best incentives is globally funded feed-in tariffs for renewable energy.”

He said policies that support feed-in tariffs and decentralized power sources should be embraced by both the most- and the least-developed nations.

Backed by a new discussion paper on a ‘global renewable energy support programme’ from the What Next Forum, activists called for decentralised energy systems – including small-scale wind, solar, biomass mini-grids communities that are not necessarily connected to a national electricity transmission grid.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

“We need a transformative change in our food and agricultural policies to have sustainability” – Ren Wang, FAO’s Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
NAPLES, Italy, Oct 9 2014 (IPS)

In his parody of the Michael Jackson hit “Beat It”, the American satirist and singer Weird Al Yankovic has a parent urging his son to eat the food on his plate, warning that “other kids are starving in Japan”.

The parody has raised smiles since it was released 30 years ago, but today “Eat It” could be a battle cry for activists trying to reduce the widespread waste of enormous quantities of food, an urgent concern around the world and no laughing matter.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 1.3 billion tonnes of food go to waste globally every year. Meanwhile, 805 million of the world’s people are still experiencing chronic undernourishment or hunger, Ren Wang, Assistant Director General of FAO’s Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department, told the 11^th International Media Forum on the Protection of Nature.“Even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world” – SAVE FOOD Initiative

“We need a transformative change in our food and agricultural policies to have sustainability,” Wang said.

Organised by the Rome-based environmental group Greenaccord and hosted for the second time by the city of Naples from Oct. 8 to 11, this year’s forum – entitled ‘Feeding the World: Food, Agriculture and Environment’ – has brought together experts, journalists and policy makers.

It comes as the United Nations’ International Year of Family Farming draws to a close, and as rising food prices continue to pound the incomes of vulnerable groups.

Wang said that although global food production has tripled since 1946 and the world has reduced the prevalence of undernourishment over the past 20 years from 18.7 to 11.3 percent, food security is still a crucial issue.

The food that goes to waste is about one-third of current global food production, so expanding current agricultural output is not necessarily the answer. In fact, the world produces enough food for every individual to have about 2,800 calories each day, according to scientists. But while some people are able to waste food, others do not have enough.

Even if waste and hunger might not be directly related, there is unquestionable inequality in the world’s food system, said Gary Gardner, a senior fellow with the Worldwatch Institute, a research and outreach institute that focuses on sustainable policies.

“In wealthy countries, food waste often occurs at the level of the retailer or consumer, either at the grocery store or at home where a lot of food is thrown away,” he told IPS.

By contrast, food waste in developing countries mainly happens at the “farm or processing” levels, Gardner said. “Food is lost because usually there aren’t systems for getting it to processing facilities and then to the consumer efficiently.”

Food losses and waste amount to roughly 680 billion dollars in industrialised countries and 310 billion dollars in developing countries, according to the SAVE FOOD Initiative, a project involving the German trade fair group Messe Düsseldorf in collaboration with FAO and the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Saying that “consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes)”, the SAVE FOOD initiative found that “even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world.”

In Europe, the vast quantity of food thrown out by supermarkets has sometimes sparked public outrage, especially in countries where it is illegal for people to help themselves to the rejected items.

British supermarket chain Tesco has acknowledged discarding some 28,500 tonnes of food in the first six months of 2013, according to reports, and in Britain overall, an estimated 15 million tonnes of food is wasted annually.

In the United States, agencies estimate that roughly 40 percent of the food produced is discarded in landfills, with supermarkets accounting for much of this.

Yet, on both sides of the Atlantic, people can be prosecuted for taking food from dumpsters – a sore point with some activists who have organised public campaigns that offer meals cooked from thrown-away food.

At the Naples forum, where experts discussed the social and environmental consequences of food waste, among other issues, Gardner of the Worldwatch Institute described the experiences of activist Rob Greenfield, who has fed himself entirely from food from dumpsters while cycling across the United States.

“Many times the food was in packages that hadn’t been opened – whole boxes of cereal, sodas, that kind of thing – that for various reasons had been thrown out but which was perfectly good food to him,” Gardner told IPS in an interview.

“That’s not the optimal way for us to get rid of waste,” he added. “The better way would be not to generate that waste in the first place.”

Some solutions

Tesco and several other British supermarket chains have agreed to a programme of waste reduction, and restaurants in several countries are also taking steps not only to decrease the waste but to turn it into biogas to be used for energy.

Gardner told IPS that instead of throwing away food, supermarkets should be looking at donating produce to local organisations such as soup kitchens, although it would be better if they “weren’t generating the waste to begin with.”

On biogas, some speakers said that using food or household waste for energy at the local level could contribute to wider environmental solutions, but again the main aim should be to stem the creation of waste.

“Food security and climate change have certain challenges in common,” said Adriana Opromollo, international advocacy officer for food security and climate change at Caritas Internationalis, a federation of charity organisations.

“At the local level, we have seen where using food or household waste can be a successful strategy. But we have to focus on solutions that are tailored to the particular context,” she told IPS.

The ways to reduce waste can begin simply. Some U.S. food services companies found that by providing only plates (without accompanying trays), in school cafeterias, students were encouraged to take only the food they could consume, consequently throwing away 25 percent less waste.

Perhaps schools should record another version of “Eat It” for lunch hour.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

A technician from the State Environmental Institute of Rio de Janeiro monitors water quality in the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon in this Brazilian city. Credit: Agência Brasil/EBC

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 27 2014 (IPS)

Problems in access to quality drinking water, supply shortages and inadequate sanitation are challenges facing development and the fight against poverty in Latin America. A new regional centre based in Brazil will monitor water to improve its management.

One example of water management problems in the region is the biggest city in Latin America and the fourth biggest in the world: the southern Brazilian megalopolis of São Paulo, which is experiencing its worst water crisis in history due to a prolonged drought that has left it without its usual water supplies – a phenomenon that experts link to climate change.

To prevent such problems, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Brazil’s national water agency (ANA) signed a memorandum of understanding, making the institution the hub for water quality monitoring in Latin America and the Caribbean.“Access to good quality water is one of the key issues for eliminating poverty and is also one of the main problems faced by developing countries. This has serious consequences for the health of the population and the environment.“ -- Marcelo Pires

ANA will also promote regional cooperation to strengthen monitoring and oversight.

“Brazil will be a hub for the region and will act as a coordinator for training programmes carried out together with other countries,” Marcelo Pires, an expert on water resources in the strategic management of ANA, told Tierramérica.

“Monitoring, sample collection methods and data analysis are very useful for decision-makers” when it comes to water management, he said.

The regional hub will also play a strong role in the establishment of national centres in each country.

“We don’t yet have a precise assessment of the situation, but we know there are advanced monitoring centres in Argentina, Chile and Colombia,” Pires said.

ANA will also be the nexus with UNEP to disseminate information on the quality of water resources, according to the parameters set by the U.N. Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) Water Programme.

That programme has created a global network of more than 4,000 research stations with data collected in some 100 countries.

Since 2010, Brazil’s water agency has been implementing a national water quality programme in the country’s 26 states and federal district, inspired by GEMS.

Pires said access to clean water, as well as the provision of sanitation to the entire population, is a basic condition for the country’s development.

The northern Brazilian city of Santarém, on the banks of the Tapajós river, a tributary of the Amazon river, dumps a large part of its waste in the area around the port. The lack of sanitation means the river is highly polluted. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

“Access to good quality water is one of the key issues for eliminating poverty and is also one of the main problems faced by developing countries. This has serious consequences for the health of the population and the environment,” the expert said.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said the inefficient management of water resources and international cooperation among countries of the developing South were “fundamental steps” for the sustainable use of water.

“Guaranteeing infrastructure for water and sanitation is a basic condition for economic development. This challenge is made even more complex as a result of the impacts of climate change. All of this reinforces the need to adapt to the global reality,” Steiner said, announcing the agreement with ANA.

The memorandum of understanding between the two institutions was made known this month, although it was signed in July during a visit by Steiner to Brazil. It will initially be in effect until late 2018, when it could be extended.

A study carried out by ANA found that over 3,000 towns and cities are in danger of experiencing water shortages in Brazil starting next year. That is equivalent to 55 percent of the country’s municipalities.

Water shortages are a frequent aspect of life in Latin America, as is unequal distribution of water. In addition, the quality of both water and sanitation is precarious.

“Our outlook is not very different from that of our neighbours,” Pires said.

To illustrate, he noted that only 46 percent of the sewage from Brazilian households is collected, and of that portion only one-third is treated, according to the latest survey on basic sanitation.

“Brazil has a sanitation deficit. People coexist on a day-to-day level with polluted rivers. That is reflected in public health and even in the treatment of water to supply households,” Pires said.

Climate change, another variable

Climate change-related impacts also make greater integration in terms of water management necessary among the countries of Latin America, because it means episodes of drought are more frequent and more pronounced, which results in lower water levels in reservoirs.

In Latin America, 94 percent of the population has access to clean water – the highest proportion in the developing South – according to a May report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). But 20 percent of Latin Americans lack basic sanitation services.

There is also a high level of inequality in access to clean water and sanitation, between rural and urban areas.

The World Bank, for its part, notes that climate change generates a context of uncertainty and risks for water management, because it will increase water variability and lead to more intense floods and droughts.

The consequence will be situations like the one in greater São Paulo, where one-third of the population of 21 million now face water shortages, while incentives are provided to people who manage to cut water consumption by 20 percent.

Different São Paulo neighbourhoods have been rationing water supplies to residents since February.

Alceu Bittencourt, president of the Brazilian Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering in São Paulo, told Tierramérica that this is the worst water crisis in the history of the city and is evidence of climate variability.

He added that most cities and towns in Latin America have not put in place a response to these changes in the climate.

“It will take two or three years to get back to normal. This exceptional situation indicates that climate change is changing the rainfall patterns,” he commented, referring to the worst drought in southern Brazil in 50 years.

Since Jul. 12, the water that has reached the taps of at least nine million residents of São Paulo comes from the “dead volume” of the Cantareira system of dams, built in the 1970s, which collects the water from three rivers. The dead volume is a reserve located below the level of the sluices, and is only used in emergencies.

According to official projections, the reserve will be exhausted in October if the drought does not end, which would further aggravate the crisis that is already affecting every category of water consumer, Bittencourt explained.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN/ROME, Aug 26 2014 (IPS)

Inter Press Service News Agency has braved severe political assaults and financial tempests since 1964, when Roberto Savio and Pablo Piacentini laid its foundation as a unique and challenging information and communication system.

Fifty years on, IPS continues to provide in-depth news and analysis from journalists around the world – primarily from the countries of the South – which is distinct from what the mainstream media offer. Underreported and unreported news constitutes the core of IPS coverage. Opinion articles by experts from think tanks and independent institutions enhance the spectrum and quality offered by IPS.

IPS coverage of the United Nations and its social and economic agenda is widely recognised as outstanding in the global media landscape. Credit: cc by 2.0

As the social media transforms the communication environment, IPS is determined to consolidate its unique niche and is tailoring its offer to adapt to the changes under way, while remaining true to its original vocation: make a concerted effort to right the systematic imbalance in the flow of information between the South and the North, give a voice to the South and promote South-South understanding and communication. In short, nothing less than turning the world downside up.

The fiftieth anniversary coincides with IPS decision to strengthen coverage not only from the U.N. in New York, but also from Vienna – bridging the U.N. there with the headquarters – as well as from Geneva and Nairobi, the only country in Africa hosting a major U.N. agency, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Turning 50 is also associated with a new phase in IPS life, marked not only by challenges emerging from rapid advance of communication and information technologies, but also by globalisation and the world financial crisis.

The latter is causing deeper social inequalities, and greater imbalances in international relations. These developments have therefore become thematic priorities in IPS coverage.

The consequences of “turbo-capitalism”, which allows finance capital to prevail over every aspect of social and personal life, and has disenfranchised a large number of people in countries around the world constituting the global South, are an important point of focus.

IPS has proven experience in reporting on the issues affecting millions of marginalised human beings – giving a voice to the voiceless – and informing about the deep transitional process which most of the countries of the South and some in the North are undergoing.

This latter day form of capitalism has not only resulted in dismissal of workers and catapulted their families into the throes of misery, but also devastated the environment and aggravated the impact of climate change, which is also playing havoc with traditional communities.

IPS also informs about the critical importance of the culture of peace and points to the perils of all forms of militarism. A Memorandum of Understanding between IPS and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) provides an important framework for seminars aimed at raising the awareness of the media in covering cross-cultural conflicts.

Nuclear weapons that are known to have caused mass destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 69 years ago, represent one of the worst forms of militarism. IPS provides news and analysis as well as opinions on continuing efforts worldwide to ban the bomb. This thematic emphasis has educed positive reactions from individual readers, experts and institutions dealing with nuclear abolition and disarmament.

As globalisation permeates even the remotest corners of the planet, IPS informs about the need of education for global citizenship and sustainable development, highlighting international efforts such as the United Nations Global Education First Initiative. IPS reports on initiatives aimed at ensuring that education for global citizenship is reflected in intergovernmental policy-making processes such as the Sustainable Development Goals and Post-2015 Development Agenda.

IPS reports accentuate the importance of multilateralism within the oft-neglected framework of genuine global governance. It is not surprising therefore that IPS coverage of the United Nations and its social and economic agenda is widely recognised as outstanding in the global media landscape.

This is particularly important because the news agency has come to a fork in the road represented by the financial crunch, which is apparently one of the toughest IPS has ever faced. However, thanks to the unstinting commitment of ‘IPS-ians’, the organisation is showing the necessary resilience to brave the challenge and refute those who see it heading down a blind alley.

At the same time, IPS is positioning itself distinctly as a communication and information channel supporting global governance in all its aspects, privileging the voices and the concerns of the poorest and creating a climate of understanding, accountability and participation around development and promoting a new international information order between the South and the North.

IPS has the necessary infrastructure and human resources required for facilitating the organisational architecture of an information and communication platform focused on ‘global governance’ (GGICP). Whether it is the culture of peace, citizen empowerment, human rights, gender equality, education and learning, development or environment, all these contribute to societal development, which in turn leads towards global governance.

In order to harness the full potential of communication and information tools, adequate financial support is indispensable. Projects that conform to the mission of IPS – making the voiceless heard by the international community, from local to global level – are one way of securing funds.

But since projects alone do not ensure the sustainability of an organisation, IPS is exploring new sources of funding: encouraging sponsorships through individual readers and institutions, enlightened governments and intergovernmental bodies as well as civil society organisations and corporations observing the UN Global Compact’s 10 principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption, which enjoy universal consensus.

Ramesh Jaura is IPS Director General and Editorial Coordinator since April 2014.

Edited by Phil Harris

The writer can be contacted at headquarters@ips.org

Excerpt:

As natural disasters become more prevalent, squatter's homes, such as this one in Trinidad, are a cause for concern in Jamaica, where 20 percent of the population is said to inhabit such precarious structures. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Aug 5 2014 (IPS)

Buildings are among the largest consumers of earth’s natural resources. According to the Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative, they use about 40 percent of global energy and 25 percent of global water, while emitting about a third of greenhouse gas emissions.

Anthony Clayton, a professor of sustainable development at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, says those statistics make buildings vital to developing resilience to climate change and to reducing pockets of entrenched poverty in the Caribbean region."There is a disconnect between political agendas and climate change timelines." -- Dr. Kwame Emmanuel

“At the moment, most of the buildings in Jamaica are very energy inefficient with very expensive electricity that reduces the level of disposable incomes, which is one of the factors acting as a break on the economy.”

“If we build to a higher standard of energy efficiency,” the country will also be more resilient to climate change, he added.

Clayton and his colleague, Professor Tara Dasgupta, are currently working on the prototype of a smart building whose key features would be “optimal sustainability and efficiency” with particular attention given to water efficiency, renewable energies, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

The proposed “net zero energy” building, which is the first of its kind in the region, is now in the design phase. The University of the West Indies’ Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), where Clayton holds the Alcan chair, is working in collaboration with the Global Environment Facility and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the seven-million-dollar research and building project.

Clayton, who is also a member of several advisory groups serving the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, the UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told IPS that a major hazard of the current housing stock in Jamaica, in light of climate change, is its proliferation of informal settlements.

He was referring to unregularised settling of vacant lands by squatters who throw up substandard housing for shelter.

He said 20 percent of the population in Jamaica is said to be living in these settlements. “We have got buildings built on unsuitable terrain and unstable slopes. If you get the kind of torrential rain associated with climate change, there is liable to be flooding or landslips.”

Many of these houses built by squatters are not particularly sturdy. “A lot of the houses are just basically built of block, some concrete, tin, timber, just patched together. Some are just wood and a corrugated tin roof,” he said.

A lot of work still needs to be done in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean with regard to establishing and enforcing building codes that provide some protection against natural disasters.

Hence, the ISD at UWI, Mona, undertook an Inter-American Development Bank-funded project “to assess climate-change related risks and help increase resilience in the building stock of Jamaica.”

The first phase of that project was “a risk assessment of the housing stock and areas of urban development in Jamaica and… the draft[ing] of a parliamentary paper on environmental regulation.”

Among the findings of the risk assessment phase, said Dr. Kwame Emmanuel, technical consultant on the project, was that the government of Jamaica was partly to blame for Jamaica’s unsafe housing environment.

He told IPS, “The development control regime is encouraging illegal developments by enforcing a cumbersome and time-consuming process for formal developments.”

Further, “The government of Jamaica is currently pursuing a housing policy which seeks to increase the number of houses for low-income earners. One possible policy conflict is related to the location of these high-density housing developments.

“They may either be placed in vulnerable or environmentally sensitive areas because of the low cost of land; or the development may enhance the vulnerability of adjoining areas. In addition, climate resilience may not be considered in the design of the housing developments and units,” Emmanuel added.

Offering a possible explanation for the scenario, Emmanuel said, “There is a disconnect between political agendas and climate change timelines. Politicians are primarily concerned with current problems faced by the electorate such as poverty, cost of living, unemployment, water lock offs, poor road conditions and so on. Therefore, it is difficult for them to consider issues which have not fully manifested as yet, for example, sea level rise.”

He added that, in Jamaica, another major issue “is the autonomy of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the Ministry of Housing, facilitated by their respective Acts. These Acts have influenced the inconsistency of development standards and the exploitation of loopholes in the regulatory framework.”

Subsequent to the risk assessment, proposals were developed for modifying current building codes in the region to ensure energy efficient and climate resilient buildings. These proposals are currently being shared with professionals in the construction industry, said Clayton, and the response has generally been positive.

The multidisciplinary group MODE is leading the review of the building codes on behalf of the ISD.

Project manager of the MODE-led review, architect Brian Bernal, told IPS the project “examines how building codes can be used as an avenue to promote, encourage, and enforce climate change resilient buildings on a national and regional scale.”

In an e-mail interview, he told IPS, “Robust and enforced building codes are highly effective in ensuring a better quality of building and, when employed in conjunction with ‘green’ building standards and/or practices, will significantly increase the functional resilience of our buildings.”

The group made the following proposals for improving the current building codes:

• Jamaica’s current 2009 National Building Code be adopted, enforced and updated;
• the International Green Construction Code be adopted since it “would [be] the least difficult to implement in the local code environment”;
• a local green building rating system be implemented, which involves “voluntary tools for rating the environmental performance of buildings that are typically verified by a third party, in order to achieve recognition for exemplary design and levels of conservation”;
• and incentives for green building be given.

Bernal said, “The main objective of building codes is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the building’s occupants.”

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at jwl_42@yahoo.com

In conflict-prone regions such as Darfur, violence is sometimes blamed on climate change. Credit: UN Photo/Albert González Farran

By Joel Jaeger
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 4 2014 (IPS)

The headline of every article about the relationship between climate change and conflict should be “It’s complicated,” according to Clionadh Raleigh.

Director of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, Raleigh thinks that researchers and the media have put too simplistic a spin on the link between climate change and violence.“It’s just appalling that we’re at this stage 100 years after environmental determinism should have been rightly dismissed as any sort of framework for understanding the developing world,” -- Clionadh Raleigh

In recent years, scientists and the United Nations have been increasing their focus on climate conflict. The debate ranges from sensational reports that say the world will soon erupt into water wars to those who do not think the topic is worthy of discussion at all.

Much of the uncertainty over the connection between climate change and armed conflict exists because it is such a fledgling area of interest. According to David Jensen, head of the U.N. Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Environmental Cooperation for Peacebuilding programme, the relationship between climate change and conflict began receiving significant U.N. attention only in recent years.

“While the debate on this topic started in 2006-2007, there remains a large gulf between what is discussed at the global level and in the Security Council, and what is actually happening at the field level,” he told IPS.

A body of peer-reviewed literature on climate change and conflict has recently begun to emerge, but scientists have discovered that the link between climate change and conflict is more complex than they expected.

“A number of studies have found a statistical link between climate change and conflict, but they tend to focus on a specific area and cover a short time period,” Halvard Buhaug, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo’s Conditions of Violence and Peace department, told IPS. “The challenge is to determine whether these studies are indicative of an overarching, more general trend, which hasn’t been documented yet.”

Much of the nuance behind the climate conflict correlations is lost when technical scientific reports are spread to a wider audience.

Buhaug told IPS that “parts of the public debate on climate change and violence are accurate, but there is an unfortunate tendency, whether by researchers or the media, to exaggerate the strength behind the scientific research and under-communicate scientific uncertainty.”

“In some media reports, phrases like ‘may’ are turned into ‘will’ and the future is portrayed in… gloomy shades.”

A deeper understanding of the connection between climate change and conflict requires a careful examination of the drivers of violence and the role of the environment in individuals’ livelihoods.

Cullen Hendrix, assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, told IPS that the relationship between climate and conflict is mediated by levels of economic development.

Climate conflict is most likely to occur in rural, non-industrialised regions “where a large portion of the population is still dependent on the natural environment for their income and sustenance,” he said.

In most sub-Saharan African countries, more than two-thirds of the population is employed in agriculture. A change in climate conditions could have negative impacts on stability. However, researchers would emphasise that it is important not to jump to conclusions and assume that climate change will necessarily lead to conflict.

“Almost all of us would acknowledge that other factors such as political exclusion of persecuted minority groups or economic inequalities or weak central government institutions matter more [than climate]” Hendrix told IPS. “But that’s not the same as saying that climate doesn’t matter.”

When asked about the biggest lessons learned during his time with UNEP, Jensen had a similar take. “When you’re trying to rebuild communities and livelihoods, you can’t just focus on a single stress factor like climate change, you have to be looking at multiple factors and building resilience to all kinds of shocks and stresses…including climate change but not exclusively.”

Hendrix expects the next generation of scientific work to examine how drought, floods, desertification and other climate change phenomena could impact conflict “through indirect channels such as suppressing economic growth or causing large-scale migration from one country to another.”

In post-conflict situations and fragile states at risk of climate conflict, governance and land distribution have emerged as key considerations.

“Clarity on land and resource rights is one of the key prerequisites to reducing vulnerability and supporting livelihood recovery,” Jensen told IPS.

Clionadh Raleigh, who is also a professor of Human Geography at the University of Sussex, believes that government land distribution policies are often the real source of conflict, but their impact is obscured by the climate conflict debate.

“If you were to ask somebody in Africa ‘what are the conflicts about here?’ they might readily say something like land or water access,” she told IPS. “But land and water access are almost entirely determined by local and national government policy, so they don’t have almost anything to do with climate.”

Certain leaders have attempted to blame climate change for the consequences of their own disastrous policies, according to Raleigh. Robert Mugabe has blamed Zimbabwe’s famines on climate change, instead of his own corrupt land reallocation policies.

Omar al-Bashir blamed the Darfur conflict on drought instead of the government’s shocking political violence against a large chunk of its population.

While climate change itself is a topic of utmost importance, is it even worth it to talk about its connection to armed conflict? Raleigh doesn’t think so.

“It’s just a simplistic, nonsense narrative that the climate makes people violent,” Raleigh told IPS.

She believes the climate conflict debate falls into a trap called environmental determinism, a school of thought that asserts that climatic factors define human behaviour and culture. For example, it assumes that a society will act in a certain way depending on whether it is located in a tropical or temperate region.  Environmental determinism gained prominence in the late 19^th century but soon declined in popularity amidst accusations of racism and imperialism.

“It’s just appalling that we’re at this stage 100 years after environmental determinism should have been rightly dismissed as any sort of framework for understanding the developing world,” Raleigh told IPS.

Buhaug believes the climate change and armed conflict debate does have merit, since most scientists are careful to not ascribe too much causal weight to one particular factor.

However, he does worry that “there is a tendency in research, but especially in the communication of research, to ignore the importance of political and socio-economic conditions and the motive and agency of actors.”

Raleigh, for her part, wishes the whole debate would just go away.

“People have an often mistaken interpretation of what’s going on at the sub-national level, on the local level within African states and developing countries,” she told IPS. “And they just assume that violence is one of the first reactions to societal change, when it is far more likely to be cooperation.”

Environmental cooperation occurs at both the inter-state and local levels, according to Jensen. At the local level, “in Darfur, we see different groups coming together to co-manage water resources.” At the trans-national level, “there’s a lot of talk about water wars between countries, but we often see the opposite in terms of much more cooperation between states over shared water resources.”

Following this line of thinking, the U.N. has tried to expand the climate conflict discussion from focusing on problems to exploring new solutions.

In November 2013, it launched a new website for experts and field practitioners to share best practices in addressing environmental conflicts and using natural resources to support peacebuilding, Jensen told IPS.

Climate change will most likely wreak havoc on the natural world and it may create the conditions for increased violence, but environmental scientists and practitioners agree: the future is not determined.

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at joelmjaeger@gmail.com

Children in Georgetown, Guyana learn about solar energy during an exhibition. Credit: CREDP

By Richard Schiffman
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jul 14 2014 (IPS)

Lefties Food Stall, a pint-sized eatery serving Barbados’ signature flying-fish sandwiches, recently became the first snack shack on the Caribbean island to be fitted with a solar panel.

The nearby public shower facility sports a panel as well. So does the bus shelter across the street, the local police station, and scores of gaily coloured houses on the coastal road leading into the capital, Bridgetown.It is time to have a Marshall Plan for clean energy— not to rebuild war-torn nations, but to help protect our abused climate system from further damage.

Like many other small island nations, Barbados has to ship in all of the oil that it uses to produce electricity—making power over four times more costly than it is in the fuel-rich United States.

That high price has proven to be a boon for Barbados’ fledgling solar industry. Nearly half of all homes boast solar water heaters on their roofs, which pay for themselves in lower electric bills in less than two years. Increasingly, industries like the island’s small desalination plant are installing solar arrays to meet a portion of their power needs.

This move to solar is being driven by tax incentives for green businesses and consumers. In an address marking the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) “World Environment Day” in Bridgetown’s Independence Square, Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart recently pledged that the island nation would produce 29 percent of its energy from renewables by the end of the next decade.

That rather conservative goal is still over twice what the United States currently produces with renewables. It won’t be hard to reach. Not only is the island blessed with abundant sunshine, it also has year-round trade winds to run wind turbines, and sugar cane waste—or bagasse—that can be used as a biofuel.

The Barbados government is furthermore looking into harnessing the energy of the tides, as well as introducing ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), a technology that employs the temperature difference between cooler deep and warmer shallow sea waters to generate electricity.

Clean energy technologies are slowly making headway throughout the Caribbean. And the nearby United States, the world’s number-one historical emitter of carbon emissions, should pay attention.

A frontline region

Barbados is not alone in the Caribbean in its enthusiasm for green technology.

Aruba is planning a 3.5-MW solar airport, perhaps the largest such project in the world. The Dutch-speaking island has combined wind and solar power with energy efficiency measures to cut its imports of heavy fuel oil in half, saving some 50 million dollars a year.

The volcanic islands of Nevis, Montserrat, and St. Vincent have contracted with Icelandic geothermal companies to conduct exploratory projects to determine how to tap their vast geothermal potential. Meanwhile, mountainous Dominica already meets about half of its energy demand with hydropower.

Caribbean islands don’t just have abundant resources for developing clean energy. They also have compelling reasons to do so. The region is burdened by some of the highest energy costs in the world, which have stunted its industrial development and drained its reserves of foreign exchange.

The islands also have fragile ecosystems like mangrove forests and coral reefs, which are highly vulnerable to oil spills and pollution. And many countries like Barbados depend on tourists, who will flock there only so long as the places remain attractively clean and green.

But the best reason to cut carbon emissions is the danger that these island nations face if climate change proceeds unchecked. And indeed, climate change is already having a big impact. In recent years, lower rainfall in the Eastern Caribbean has posed a threat to agriculture and scarce groundwater supplies.

Sea level rise as well as ocean acidification and warming have killed many protective coral reefs, leading to severe beach erosion. And the hurricane-prone region is being battered by increasingly frequent and powerful storms.

At the World Environment Day event in Bridgetown, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, called climate change “the most serious existential threat in the world today.”

That is certainly true for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Successive storms ripped through the islands in 2010, 2011, and 2012, leading to a yearly loss of up to 17 percent of the developing country’s GDP, as well as destroying hundreds of homes and killing dozens of islanders.

“If my people don’t get flooded out on the coast,” the prime minister observed ruefully, “they will be washed away in landslides.”

Barbados’ prime minister, Freundel Stuart, echoed his counterpart’s sense of urgency. “Since the issue involves our very survival,” Stuart told the crowd, “capitulation is not an option.” Stuart said he believes that the Caribbean should set “a shining example” for the world to follow.

His government recently commissioned a Green Economy Scoping Study, prepared in partnership with UNEP and released in Bridgetown in June, which includes recommendations on how to make the island’s agriculture, fisheries, transportation, and energy systems more sustainable.

It makes sense: these islands are on the front line for climate change’s destructive forces, so they should also be on the front line in cutting their own carbon emissions. They need to demonstrate how seriously they take the threat, as an example to the rest of us.

A Marshall Plan for the Caribbean

Right now, energy production in the Caribbean is anything but sustainable. Venezuela’s late socialist president Hugo Chavez offered many islands long-term loans and concessionary rates for cheaper oil. His successor has done his best to maintain the modest subsidies.

But nobody can say how long this largesse will last, given Venezuela’s current financial crisis, and still less what will happen to already stressed island economies when they are forced to pay full price for crude.

The Caribbean needs to become energy-independent in order to thrive. But overhauling energy infrastructure does not come cheaply. There are knotty technical challenges related to the stability of the grid that few small nations are currently equipped to meet. And the small scale of the demand for electricity on many of the islands makes it hard to attract international investors.

Moreover, countries like Jamaica, St. Kitts-Nevis, Grenada, Barbados, and Antigua and Barbuda are saddled with public debts that often exceed their annual GDP. So unlike an industrial powerhouse like Germany, for example, few Caribbean nations are in a position to fully exploit their renewable energy potential.

The big industrial powers that are responsible for the problems of island nations should be lending a helping hand to the folks suffering the most from climate change. Loans from international development banks, as well as technology transfers and training from wealthier countries, would go a long way.

International development banks also need to prime the pump with programmes to encourage prudent investment.

This isn’t charity. By helping islands that are geographically close to the United States go green, Washington won’t just be cutting harmful greenhouse gases for everyone.

It will also create opportunities to learn valuable lessons in overcoming technical challenges—about how, for example, to successfully integrate intermittent inputs from wind and solar into the power grid, a problem that has limited the United States’ own adoption of renewables.

The vulnerable islands of the Caribbean are a perfect laboratory to test solutions on a small scale that can eventually be applied to the far more complex U.S. energy infrastructure.

After World War II, America lent its economic muscle to help rebuild Europe’s shattered economies through the Marshall Plan. It is time to have a Marshall Plan for clean energy— not to rebuild war-torn nations, but to help protect our abused climate system from further damage. The Caribbean, blessed with a wealth of sun, wind, and geothermal energy, is a great place to start.

Richard Schiffman is an environmental writer. He recently traveled to Barbados to attend the World Environment Day celebrations. This story was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.

Protection from overfishing and excessive coastal pollution could help reefs recover and make them more resilient to future climate change impacts. Credit: Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Jul 9 2014 (IPS)

Marine environmentalist Eli Fuller, who for the past two decades has been exploring the coastline of Antigua and Barbuda, warns that while there has been “dramatic changes” to coral reefs since he was a little boy, “it’s getting worse and worse.”

So he is not surprised by the largely pessimistic findings of a three-year study by 90 international experts in a report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).“Those reefs are the frontline barriers against storm waves." -- marine biologist John Mussington

But there was a spot of surprisingly good news. According to the authors, restoring parrotfish populations and improving other management strategies, such as protection from overfishing and excessive coastal pollution, can help reefs recover and even make them more resilient to future climate change impacts.

“We have seen definitely the last two summers, and here we are in summer again, we are seeing ever so slightly raised sea levels, but in conjunction with that we are seeing eroded coral barriers, especially on the north coast and east coast of Barbuda and quite a few areas in Antigua,” Fuller told IPS.

“Between Prickly Pear and Long Island, those reefs out there – they almost used to get to the surface. Now I am seeing sailboats sail over areas where they would have run aground and had to be salvaged before.

“We are seeing more surge come ashore and more erosion. You are having areas that were never affected by erosion getting eroded terribly. I look at the north coast of Barbuda and I can’t believe some of the erosion they are facing, and when you go offshore to those reefs only the bases of the big, huge coral structures are there. All the tops have died and eroded away so we are seeing more water coming to our shoreline,” he added.

Fuller is worried about the future of tourism in a region where it is the number one industry and foreign exchange earner for most countries.

Marine environmentalist Eli Fuller says Caribbean reefs are in “big trouble”. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

“We are in big trouble right now, let alone in the future when the reefs erode more and more and sea levels come up and up,” he said.

Like Fuller, for marine biologist John Mussington, the drastic decline of Caribbean coral is “not surprising.”

“We have actually seen the decline. The causes that they have listed include tourism, pollution, climate change in terms of global warming being a factor as well as overfishing,” he told IPS.

Mussington said the reefs are critical and serve several very important roles.

“The beach is a beautiful place. We have nice white sand beaches and we have crystal clear water. The reefs are responsible for that. If you lose your reefs you are no longer going to have sand and you will no longer have clear water,” he said.

“Those reefs are the frontline barriers against storm waves. If you have any rough weather, groundswells, tropical storms or hurricanes, those reefs are responsible for breaking the impact of those waves. So if you lose the reefs you are going to be further exposed to erosion and the destruction from storms.

“Another function that is very critical to us is that the reefs provide us with food. The marine resources in terms of fish, lobster and conch are associated with the reef system and when you lose that you are going to lose those things,” he said.

Mussington said the report should serve as a wake-up call for the Caribbean.

“All those things that I’ve mentioned, you realise that that is the sum total of the main attraction for our tourism industry which is number one – so if you lose all of that, it’s obvious that you lose everything,” Mussington explained.

But Mussington said it is not all doom and gloom for the Caribbean, noting there is a technique for re-growing and restoring reefs which is touted as one of the major solutions that small islands like those in the Caribbean should focus on.

“All you need to have is a wire frame and a very low voltage electrical source that will encourage deposition of calcium on the framework. Once you have that deposition of calcium on the framework then coral will grow,” he explained.

The study also shows that some of the healthiest Caribbean coral reefs are those that harbour vigorous populations of grazing parrotfish.

These include the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the northern Gulf of Mexico, Bermuda and Bonaire, “all of which have restricted or banned fishing practices that harm parrotfish, such as fish traps and spearfishing”.

The study is urging other countries to follow suit.

“Barbuda is about to ban all catches of parrotfish and grazing sea urchins, and set aside one-third of its coastal waters as marine reserves,” said Ayana Johnson of the Waitt Institute’s Blue Halo Initiative, which is collaborating with Barbuda in the development of its new management plan.

“This is the kind of aggressive management that needs to be replicated regionally if we are going to increase the resilience of Caribbean reefs,” she added.

The IUCN said that reefs where parrotfish are not protected have suffered tragic declines, including Jamaica, the entire Florida Reef Tract from Miami to Key West, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

President and founder of the Coral Restoration Foundation, Ken Nedimyer, concurs that “there are some simple things which can be done like changing fishing habits and reducing inputs from the hotels, resorts, golf courses. Those are things that can be done and should be done and places that take these steps will reap the rewards.”

Chair at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, Dr. Nancy Knowlton, believes the surprising part of the report is that it’s not actually happening everywhere and that there are places like Bonaire and Bermuda and the flower garden reef off the Gulf of Mexico where coral reefs are thriving.

“That’s because of careful management of the reef and to me that’s actually despite a sort of overwhelmingly bad news of reefs disappearing in the next 20 years,” she told IPS.

“On the positive side, there are examples where when people manage reefs properly they actually don’t decline. I think that is the most important message from the report and the one that’s most surprising because I think that everyone had thought that Caribbean reefs were just doomed.

“Coral reefs are ecosystems which are routinely battered by hurricanes over thousands and thousands of years and yet they have in the past always bounced back, and the reason they bounce back is because the local conditions are favourable for coral growth. So creating those favourable conditions for corals to rebound is really the most important thing to do,” Knowlton added.

Around 280 million tonnes of plastic are manufactured globally each year, yet just 10 percent of this is thought to be recycled. Credit: Lucyin/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jun 23 2014 (IPS)

The environmental cost of the plastics used by corporations producing consumer goods likely mounts to more than 75 billion dollars a year, according to a first-time valuation released Monday by the United Nations and others.

This estimate is based on the cost of everything from greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of plastics to the eventual impact on wildlife and ecosystems – particularly in the oceans – of the resulting trash. The environmental ramifications are also influenced by the cost of lost resources when plastic products are thrown away rather than recycled.“Innovation can come from individual entrepreneurs, but also from the companies themselves – if they come under pressure to do so." -- Daniella Russo

Researchers say these estimates, broken down among 16 sectors, stand as a warning to corporate executives and their shareholders. Several industries are shown to be particularly vulnerable to potential new regulation, consumer demand or resource crunches regarding the future use or availability of plastic.

In order to insulate themselves from such shocks, companies are being urged to engage in a new era of disclosure around their use of plastics. In order to do so, corporate executives will first need to have an accurate understanding of the amount of plastics their companies are using in the first place – for some, a potentially new set of considerations.

“The research unveils the need for companies to consider their plastic footprint just as they do for carbon, water and forestry,” Andrew Russell, director of the Plastic Disclosure Project, an advocacy group that co-sponsored a new study on the issue, said Monday.

“By measuring, managing and reporting plastic use and disposal … companies can mitigate the risks, maximise the opportunities, and become more successful and sustainable businesses.”

The release of the findings coincided with the inaugural session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, in Nairobi. The assembly, comprising some 1300 government and industry leaders, constitutes the highest-level body the U.N. has ever brought together to discuss green issues.

“Plastics have come to play a crucial role in modern life, but the environmental impacts of the way we use them cannot be ignored,” Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said in a statement.

“[R]educing, recycling and redesigning products that use plastics can bring multiple green economy benefits – from reducing economic damage to marine ecosystems and the tourism and fisheries industries, vital for many developing countries, to bringing savings and opportunities for innovation to companies while reducing reputational risks.”

Efficiency competition

For the study, UNEP and the Plastic Disclosure Project collaborated with Trucost, a British consultancy that works to price natural resource use and did the related number-crunching. They say that transparency around plastics use – and, subsequently, greater efficiency in its use – could become a point of competition between corporations.

“As the impacts of plastic gain more prominence, companies may be expected by their stakeholders to improve rates of disclosure,” the report, released Monday, states.

“For example, this information is useful to inform institutional investors interested in protecting the value of their investments. Asset managers could engage with these companies to find out how they plan to manage the risks and opportunities of plastic.”

The food and soft drinks industries have the largest “natural capital” costs in terms of their plastics use, the research finds, constituting more than a third of the total. As such, these companies could be most vulnerable to risks to their reputation or sourcing.

On the other hand, toy companies, followed by manufacturers of athletic goods and footwear, have the highest proportion of their business based around plastic. Thus, they stand to experience the greatest potential economic impact from plastics-related problems.

Yet public disclosure on corporate plastics use remains poor, with only half of the 100 companies studied reporting on even a single related metric. Further, there is little pattern in terms of which corporations have made the decision to go public with this information.

“Currently, there is no correlation between a sector’s disclosure rate and its plastic intensity or absolute natural capital cost due to plastic,” the report notes.

“This means that sectors which face the most significant risks to their revenues … need to consider being more transparent about how they are managing the potentially material issue. It also suggests that disclosure may be more driven by external factors, such as legislation and reputation, rather than an internal understanding of risks and opportunities.”

Innovation opportunities

Around 280 million tonnes of plastic are manufactured globally each year, yet just 10 percent of this is thought to be recycled.

A huge amount of the resulting trash is ending up in the oceans, causing some 13 billion dollars’ worth of damage, according to new estimates from the United Nations. Just last week, President Barack Obama’s administration hosted a first-ever summit on ocean sustainability, with a key focus on plastics pollution.

For its part, the new report does not attempt to weigh out the use of plastics versus other materials, in terms of transport weight or ancillary impact on important goods such as food. Nor does it propose any great trend away from the use of plastic, urging rather that the material be used simply in the most efficient and sustainable manner possible.

Such a view is being applauded by the plastics industry. The American Chemistry Council, a leading lobby group here, “endorsed” the conclusion Monday, noting that the report overall “provides one data point that companies that manufacture and deliver a range of valuable consumer goods can use when assessing their products and processes.”

Yet some worry that the plastics industry is too fixed and insular to lead any process of innovation.

“The industry is represented by a very small set of companies that are heavily entrenched. They make most of the packaging we use, and they’re not very open to innovation and entrepreneurship,” Daniella Russo, the head of Think Beyond Plastic, a forum that pushes researchers and start-up companies to come up with new ways to address plastic pollution, told IPS.

Russo says it’s important to remember that some plastics present significant environmental challenges while others do not.

For instance, she notes, single-use packaging represents some 50 percent of plastics production and yet is destined purely for the landfill. Indeed, the UNEP report identifies such disposable packaging, along with Styrofoam, as the most significant problem plastics.

Yet Russo says that these also offer the most important innovation opportunities.

“This is a huge market, ripe for the taking,” she says. “Innovation can come from individual entrepreneurs, but also from the companies themselves – if they come under pressure to do so.”

Waves and high tides are eating away at the beaches in Costa Rica’s Cahuita National Park, where the vegetation is uprooted and washed into the sea. Credit: Diego Arguedas/IPS

By Bradnee Chambers
BONN, Jun 3 2014 (IPS)

It’s beginning to sink in that our climate is changing more rapidly than at any time in recorded history and it will have profound and irreversible effects on the planet. On World Environment Day on Jun. 5, let’s stop for a moment to consider in particular the devastating impact that climate change is having on small island states and their wildlife. 

Forty years ago Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring”, helped launch the environmental movement. The image of a Silent Spring shocked readers because it evoked the idea that if we did not care for the environment then one spring very soon the birds would stop singing because they would have vanished.

Today in order to gain support for critical environmental issues such as climate change, many complex integrated models and economic analyses have to be prepared to convince people that our climate really is changing. Let’s hope that it will not require small islands states to have submerged beneath the waves before the skeptics are convinced.

Thinking back to a simpler age not so long ago – to the time when Carson wrote her seminal work – appreciation of the sheer wonder of nature was sufficient to move us to act. With what do we associate small islands?

Groynes installed at Folkestone Beach in Barbados to prevent beach erosion. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Blue lagoons, palm-lined golden beaches, coral reefs and majestic atolls. These tropical idylls are the epitome of beauty and part of their attraction as holiday destinations is their rich wildlife, much of which is migratory. But the islands are vulnerable to sea level rises and other effects of climate change. And so too are the features contributing to their appeal and that includes the species that live on and around them.

Migratory animals, which can be among the most vulnerable of all species because of their dependence on particular habitats at specific stages of their life cycles as they undertaken their epic journeys spanning continents and oceans, are subject to unprecedented changes.

We are observing threats to migratory species caused by increased temperatures that will lead to the loss of vital habitat while at the same time oceanic food webs linked to changing zooplankton abundance are starting to collapse.

Sharks are moving into warmer waters outside their normal boundaries of their migrations, increasing the frequency of attacks on people. Warmer beaches are affecting hatching patterns of marine turtles: cool beaches produce predominantly male hatchlings while warm beaches produce mostly females.

Hawksbill turtle, Komodo, Indo-Pacific. Credit: Courtesy of Image Broker/Robert Harding

So scientists are seeing the feminisation of marine turtle populations which will have an impact on the ability of turtles to reproduce. Large baleen whales such as the Blue Whale, the largest creature on earth, must make longer journeys between their feeding grounds in warmer waters to their breeding grounds in cooler parts of the sea. The whales’ main food source of krill is declining because of changes in temperature and acidification of the oceans due to climate change.

Islands are critical stopover, nesting and breeding sites for migratory birds. Albatrosses that wander the oceans for much of the time seek out tiny dots of land to build their nests and raise their young.

Islands provide much needed opportunities for rest and refuelling with food for birds flying between Eurasia and Africa – especially when the birds have completed their crossing of the Sahara.

The evidence is heaping up telling us that climate change is happening and the reality is that the temperatures will rise. What we must avoid is rapid changes or temperature increases so severe that we cross a point of no return.

This is a vitally important factor for species’ survival. Like humans, some animals can adapt and migratory animals are more likely to be able to adapt because they are mobile in nature and therefore potentially able to disperse other areas to mitigate environmental changes.

This is why getting a deal in Paris for the post Kyoto Protocol is so critical. A global deal now would mean we can keep the planetary temperature rise within a manageable limit and then concentrate international efforts on assisting people and their ecosystems, including migratory species and other threatened species by climate change, to adapt if possible.

If there is no deal, we will go beyond the manageable limits and we can foresee devastating impacts on humans and wildlife. On World Environment Day, let’s not forget the beauty that nature holds and just how very vulnerable it is, and know that the fight against climate change has many dimensions, including conserving the magnificent beautiful small island states and their wildlife.

Excerpt:

The fisheries sector in the CARICOM Region is an important source of food and income. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
CODRINGTON, Barbuda, Apr 26 2014 (IPS)

A marine biologist has cautioned that the mass deaths of starfish along the United States west coast in recent months could also occur in the Caribbean region because of climate change, threatening the vital fishing sector.

Since June 2013, scientists began noticing that starfish, which they say function as keystone species in the marine ecosystem, have been mysteriously dying by the millions."It’s a fight that the world has to win if it is to survive because if the small states don’t win, it means that the globe as a whole does not win." -- John Mussington

“The cause of the starfish die-off which is taking place in the Pacific Ocean is not known at this time but it could turn out to be from a number of factors including climate change,” John Mussington told IPS.

“If it turns out that climate change factors such as ocean warming are indeed implicated in the starfish die-off, then there is the possibility that the same thing could happen in the Atlantic and affect Caribbean species.

“We are living in an era when the predicted consequences of climate change are now reality. Large scale die-off of can therefore happen to us in the Caribbean,” Mussington added.

Starfish play a key role in marine ecosystems. They eat mussels, barnacles, snails, mollusks and other smaller sea life so their health is considered a measure of marine life on the whole in a given area. Starfish are in turn eaten by shorebirds, gulls, and sometimes sea otters.

Mussington explained that something similar to what’s happening in California has happened in the region before.

He told IPS that in 1983 there was a Caribbean-wide die-off of the black sea urchin, spreading from as far north as The Bahamas right down the chain of islands to the south.

“The long-spined sea urchin was a kestone species in the Caribbean marine ecosystem, similar to the affected starfish in the Pacific-California ecosystem. The designation as ‘keystone’ is due to the fact that if there is anything affecting their large populations, then this can be interpreted as a reliable indication of problems in the entire ecosystem that will likely affect other species,” Mussington said.

“Something went very wrong with our Caribbean marine ecosystem in 1983 and the black sea urchin was wiped out – the species is considered today to be functionally extinct. With the decline of this keystone species, the Caribbean has seen significant decline in its coral reefs and the marine communities they support, including economically important commercial species.”

Mussington said the spiny urchin grazes on algae and it is important to control the number of algae on coral reefs.

Habitat degradation, specifically of coral reefs, has been cited by numerous studies as the primary cause of ongoing fish declines of Caribbean fish populations.

An Arapaima, the world’s largest freshwater fish, being kept in a man-made pond in Guyana. The Arapaima can weigh over 800 pounds and reach lengths of up to 10 feet. Unfortunately, they’ve been overfished commercially and are currently a threatened species. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Caribbean coral reefs have experienced drastic losses in the past several decades. Fish use the structure of corals for shelter and they also contribute to coastal protection.

Established research has predicted that the communities located in coastal areas, as well as national economies in the general Caribbean region, are likely to sustain substantial economic losses should the current trends in coral reef degradation and destruction continue.

It has been estimated that fisheries associated with coral reef in the Caribbean region are responsible for generating net annual revenues, which have been valued at or above approximately 837 million Eastern Caribbean dollars, or about 310 million U.S. dollars.

Continued degradation of the region’s few remaining coral reefs would diminish these net annual revenues by an estimated 95-140 million U.S. dollars annually by 2015. The subsequent decrease in dive tourism could also profoundly affect annual net tourism revenues

“There has to be some balance and once you have a major species dying off, it’s going to have repercussions for the entire system. We must not forget that man is a integral part of this system and the repercussions for us will be serious,” Mussington told IPS.

The fisheries sector in the CARICOM Region is an important source of livelihoods and sustenance. The local population is highly dependent on this resource for economic and social development. This resource also contributes significantly to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.

The subsector provides direct employment for more than 120,000 fishers and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services.

But the coordinator for the United Nations Environmental Programme’s Caribbean Regional Coordinating Unit-Caribbean Environment Programme, Nelson Andrade Colmenares, told IPS the vital sector is being threatened by climate change.

“The Caribbean Sea, home to a vibrant ecosystem benefitting fisherfolk, the tourism industry and the region’s people alike is currently threatened,” he said, adding that “over harvesting of fisheries, climate change and pollution from sewage, agricultural runoff and industrial effluent has led to 75 percent of coral reefs in the region being labeled as at risk.”

Acting permanent secretary in Dominica’s fisheries ministry, Harold Guiste agrees, explaining that the future of the Caribbean’s conch and lobster fisheries remains under threat despite regional efforts to protect it.

Guiste blames the problem of overfishing squarely on nations outside the Caribbean that trawl the region’s seas illegally.

“Globally we have noticed a rush to fish accompanied by a lack of responsible behaviour in the fishing sector,” he told IPS. “This type of hooligan behaviour has resulted in severe decline in some major fisheries of the world and collapse in some others.”

The Dominican official called for a collaborative approach to safeguard against the depletion of the region’s already challenged resources.

The spiny lobster trade brings in about 456 million US dollars to CARICOM nations but demand has led to overfishing of a once healthy stocks.

While admitting that “some factors are out of our control as it relates to mitigating against global warming”, Mussington said both developing and developed countries need to do more.

“We need to do things which will discontinue the rise in global temperatures and those things that need to happen have to do with less use of fossil fuels and modification of certain things that countries do,” he told IPS.

In fact, the persons who are going to be suffering most – the people living in these Small Island Developing States – we are not the ones ultimately responsible in large measure for the problems we are having now, the developed countries are.”

“So far the developed countries have been very resistant to implementing those policies and changes that need to happen,” Mussington added.

In the end, he said the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) negotiations should not be simply about the smaller countries winning.

“It’s a fight that the world has to win if it is to survive because if the small states don’t win, it means that the globe as a whole does not win, which means that Planet Earth will lose out and the human race on planet earth might very well face total extinction,” warned Mussington.

“That’s what’s facing us. The globe will become unlivable,” he added.

Hawksbill turtle, Komodo, Indo-Pacific. Credit: Courtesy of Image Broker/Robert Harding

By Bradnee Chambers
SAN JOSÉ, Apr 9 2014 (IPS)

There are few experiences more frustrating than a delay in travel plans caused by bad weather. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this may be something we will have to get used to in the future.

In March 2014, the IPCC released the 5th assessment of the impacts, adaptation strategies, and vulnerabilities related to global climate change. The report makes it clear that travelling in the future will become more of an ordeal.

Extreme weather events related to climate change, such as heat waves, storms and coastal flooding, are predicted to increase in frequency with only a 1°C increase in average global temperature – and current trends indicate even higher rises in average temperature. Besides the more serious effects, this is a recipe for more travel delays, larger numbers of travellers stranded and a greater overall risk associated with travelling.

And the news gets worse if your destination involves beaches or coral reefs.

As more ice melts from the polar regions, the world’s oceans creep higher. Coastal regions and low-lying areas could suffer from submergence, flooding, erosion of coastlines and beaches, and saltwater pollution of the drinking water supply.

At sea, normally colourful corals are experiencing “bleaching” or turning white as a stress response to changes in the water itself. Carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, is dissolving into the world’s oceans, making them more acidic.

These changes are problematic for human communities. But people aren’t the only global travellers affected by climate change.

Nobody knows this better than the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), which is dedicated, as its name indicates, to conserving international migratory species.

Migratory animals face many of the same challenges that humans do: having to choose when to travel, what route to take, where to eat and rest, and how long to stay before returning home. Unfortunately, these choices that are seemingly so trivial for humans are life-or-death decisions for migratory animals.

Migratory animals are potent symbols of our shared natural heritage, with their migrations often spanning continents. With warmer, wetter winters, migratory birds in Europe will be forced to migrate to breeding grounds earlier or face population declines, shrinking ranges, and the worst possible outcome: extinction.

The Monarch Butterfly undertakes an impressive migration spanning multiple generations, traversing vast distances across the North American continent. Climate change is transforming the current wintering habitats of this butterfly in Central America, making it more prone to wet freezes resulting in catastrophic mortality events.

Severe droughts, meanwhile, threaten one of the greatest migrations in the world, involving hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and other animals travelling across the Serengeti Plains of Africa.

In the world’s oceans, the planet’s largest fish species, the Whale Shark, is also threatened by climate change. Changes in global ocean temperatures and chemistry may cause declines in the numbers of this species in the future.

In marine turtles gender is determined by sand temperature on the nesting beaches, with cool beaches producing more males and warm beaches more females. Increasing sand temperatures mean that more females than males are born, thus affecting the optimal gender ratios. 

In light of these concerns, the Convention on Migratory Species is holding a workshop with national representatives and scientists in Limón, Costa Rica Apr. 9-11, 2014.

The goal of the meeting is to develop a Programme of Work on climate change and migratory species, addressing the need for monitoring, conservation, and adaptation strategies that accommodate the unique needs of migratory animals in the face of climate change.

The results of the workshop will be presented to the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CMS which will take place in Quito, Ecuador, Nov. 4-9.

Professor Colin Galbraith, the CMS Scientific Councillor for Climate Change, said: “The workshop has confirmed that climate change is one of the most important threats to migratory species and the ecosystems on which they depend. Participants have stressed the need for urgent international actions to address the complex threats from climate change. It is encouraging to see delegates from around the world working together to outline a Programme of Work for countries in the CMS to combat the effects of climate change on migratory animals.”

The prospect of having to sit even longer in airport terminals is doubtless frustrating for poor weary human travellers, but it pales into insignificance when compared to the ever worsening odds that migratory species are facing in their struggle for survival.

Climate change is a complex and daunting problem. The plans to reduce our impact on climate are important and so are the plans to mitigate the damage we’ve already done. Hopefully, through cooperation and active effort, we can conserve the beauty of travel and our travelling animals for future generations to come.

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Informal gold mining is the main source of mercury emissions in Latin America. An artisanal gold miner in El Corpus, Choluteca along the Pacific ocean in Honduras. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Apr 7 2014 (IPS)

Latin America is not taking the new global agreement to limit mercury emissions seriously: the hazardous metal is still widely used and smuggled in artisanal gold mining and is released by the fossil fuel industry.

After the European Union banned exports of mercury in 2011 and the United States did so in 2013, trade in the metal shot up in the region.

“Mexico’s exports have tripled in the last few years,” Ibrahima Sow, an environmental specialist in the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Climate Change and Chemicals Team, told Tierramérica. “And activities like the extraction of gold from recycled electronic goods are on the rise.”

The global treaty on mercury was adopted in October 2013. It includes a ban on new mercury mines, the phase-out of existing mines, control measures for air emissions, and the international regulation of the informal sector for artisanal and small-scale gold mining.

But of the 97 countries around the world that have signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury – including 18 from Latin America and the Caribbean – only one, the United States, has ratified it, and 49 more must do so in order for it to go into effect.

Minamata is the Japanese city that gave its name to the illness caused by severe mercury poisoning. The disease, a neurological syndrome, was first identified there in the 1950s.

It was eventually discovered that it was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from a chemical plant run by the Chisso Corporation. The local populace suffered from mercury poisoning after eating fish and shellfish containing a build-up of this neurotoxic, carcinogenic chemical.

The contamination occurred between 1932 and 1968. As of 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognised; at least 100 of them died as a result of the disease.

In Latin America, mercury is used in artisanal gold mining and hospital equipment. And emissions are produced by the extraction, refining, transport and combustion of hydrocarbons; thermoelectric plants; and steelworks.

It is also smuggled in a number of countries.

“It is hard to quantify the illegal imports,” Colombia’s deputy minister of the environment and sustainable development, Pablo Vieira, told Tierramérica. “Everyone knows that artisanal and small-scale mining uses smuggled mercury, mainly coming in from Peru and Ecuador, although hard data is not available.”

According to Colombia’s authorities, the mercury is smuggled through the jungle in the country’s remote border zones.

Mercury Watch, an international alliance which keeps a global database, estimated Latin America’s mercury emissions at 526 tonnes in 2010, with Colombia in the lead, accounting for 180 tonnes.

In an assessment published in 2013, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated that mercury emissions caused by human activities reached 1,960 tonnes in 2010, with artisanal mining as the main source (727 tonnes), followed by the burning of coal, principally from power generation and industrial use.

Artisanal gold mining is practised in at least a dozen Latin American countries, largely in the Andean region and the Amazon rainforest, but in Central America as well, UNEP reports.

Some 500,000 small-scale gold miners drive the legal or illegal demand for mercury.

Mexico and Peru have mercury deposits, but there is no formal primary mercury mining in the region. The extraction is secondary, because the mercury tends to be mixed with other minerals, or comes from the recycling of mercury already extracted and used for other purposes.

The biggest producers are Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, while the main consumers and legal importers are Peru, Colombia and Panama.

In 2012 Mexico, Argentina and Colombia headed the regional list of exporters of mercury and products containing the metal, according to Mercury Watch.

Mercury is naturally present in certain rocks, and can be found in the air, soil and water as a result of industrial emissions.

Bacteria and other microorganisms convert mercury to methylmercury, which can accumulate in different animal species, especially fish.

Mining industry laws in Bolivia, Costa Rica and Honduras ban the use of mercury.

And last year Colombia passed a law that would phase out mercury in mining over the next five years and in industry over the next 10 years.

Since November 2013, the Peruvian Congress has also been debating a draft law to eliminate mercury in mining and replace it in industrial activities.

According to UNEP, there were a total of 11 chlor-alkali plants operating with mercury technology in seven countries in the region in 2012. But several of the factories plan to adopt mercury-free technologies by 2020.

“The mercury content in products, the replacement of mercury, and the temporary storage and final disposal of mercury waste are significant aspects of mercury management,” Raquel Lejtreger, undersecretary in Uruguay’s ministry of housing, territorial planning and environment, told Tierramérica.

Uruguay imports products that contain mercury. But a mercury cell chlor-alkali plant operating in the South American country plans to convert to mercury-free technology, although financing to do so is needed.

GEF has provided funds to Uruguay and other countries in the region for the negotiation of the global treaty on mercury and for the adoption of alternative, mercury-free technologies. But there is still a long way to go.

This story was originally published Apr. 5 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

A wind farm outside Tianjin. China is the world's leading manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels. Credit: Mitch Moxley/IPS

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 7 2014 (IPS)

Policy uncertainty and plummeting solar prices led to a 14-percent decrease in investment in renewable energy in 2013, according to a report released Monday.

Investment fell across the globe, even in high growth regions like China, India and Brazil. But it was severe cuts in Europe – until recently a pace-setter for the rest of the world – that marked the retrenchment.“In the longer run, the market frameworks will have to change in order to integrate a large fraction of renewables into the grid.” -- Ulf Moslener

In 2013, the continent spent 48 billion dollars less than the year before.

The report, jointly released by the U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP), the Frankfurt School and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, painted a hopeful picture of an industry recuperating after a period of consolidation, but could only highlight a “trickle of significant” projects of the kind that possibly could supplant – not supplement – traditional power generation on a wide scale and curb carbon emissions.

“Lower costs, a return to profitability on the part of some leading manufacturers, the phenomenon of unsubsidized market uptake in a number of countries, and a warmer attitude to renewables among public market investors, were hopeful signs after several years of painful shake-out in the renewable energy sector,” said Michael Liebrich, chair of the Advisory Board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in a statement.

Renewables constituted 43 percent of new power capacity and increased their share of global power generation from 7.8 to 8.5 percent. Still, they have not been able to displace rising coal consumption in the developing world and continue to staunch carbon growth rather than reduce it overall.

Though last year renewables prevented an estimated 1.2 gigatonnes of carbon from being released into the atmosphere, global emissions still grew by 2.1 percent.

“On their own, renewables investment will certainly not grow fast enough to put the world on a two-degree compatibility path,” said Ulf Moslener, head of research at the Frankfurt-School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance, referring to the temperature threshold widely used by scientists.

A rise of more than two degrees centigrade over the year 1900 temperatures would have catastrophic consequences in much of the world.

Moslener says the post-crisis investment climate and the Basel III global regulatory framework makes investing in alternative energy less attractive to large funds and institutional investors who seek higher leverage to cover the higher up-front costs associated with renewable projects.

A study commissioned last year by the Norwegian government predicted “the capital and liquidity requirements of Basel III are likely to limit the amount of capital available for renewable energy financing from banks in the future.”

The Frankfurt report found that venture capitalists and private equity companies cut back considerably in 2013, reducing investments in specialist renewable energy companies to only two billion – their lowest levels since 2005.

But convincing global regulators to make room for the type of leveraged investments and bundled-and-chopped assets that caused the financial crisis will be a tough sell.

“It’s always faster for a government to say ‘we will put in a set price for energy’ than it is to change their financial regulations – which are essentially their entire financial system,” said Eric Usher, chief of the finance unit in UNEP’s Division of Technology, Industry and Economics.

Despite uncertainty, Usher says larger investors are slowly – very slowly – starting to take notice as renewables increasingly become interchangeable with rent-paying assets like real estate.

“There’s been an uptick in green bonds and pension funds are starting to engage,” Usher told IPS. “In the U.S. and Canada you have tax-driven structures that group power plants together and sell them to investors. It provides very low cost financing.

“The investors with longer time horizons get interested in mature technologies,” he added.

Those companies that survived an extended period of consolidation and a recovery from over-capacity – primarily in the solar industry – saw their equity prices increase by 54 percent last year, roughly doubling gains in the market at large. But despite frothy returns for portfolio managers and a rash of IPOs, the main tracking index – The WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index (NEX) – is still 60 percent below its 2007 peak.

“In the longer run, the market frameworks will have to change in order to integrate a large fraction of renewables into the grid,” Moslener told IPS. “That will also need government attention – I would expect renewables to be only part of the solution.”

Unless significant cuts are achieved in existing emissions, the goal of renewables risks changing from serving as an avant-garde solution to just another corollary low-cost fuel for increased growth. Though most models predict global energy use tapering off by mid-century, without cuts or a rethinking of axiomatic growth, it will be too late by then to head off climate change’s most cataclysmic impacts.

“The financial system we have today is based on a construct that is not helpful to sustainable development,” says Usher. “The reality is a huge challenge – it will take some time to solve. Renewables are not the solution on their own.”

The mega hydropower dams under construction in Brazil, like the Santo Antônio dam, are just one aspect of the energy revolution that the country will undergo in the next few decades. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
WARSAW, Nov 15 2013 (IPS)

Energy consumption and production are undergoing fundamental shifts but the world is still on course to a 3.6 degree C hotter climate according a report released during the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw.

Brazil will play a major role in quenching the developing world’s growing thirst for oil, says the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2013 edition of the World Energy Outlook. This edition of the report looks to the year 2035 and projects that the biggest future consumers of oil and gas will be India and countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

While low-carbon energy sources – renewables and nuclear – will meet around 40 percent of the growth in global energy demand, carbon emissions will still be 20 percent higher in 2035 from the energy sector. And that’s assuming countries achieve all of their current 2020 reduction targets. Countries like Canada will not.

Emissions need to peak and decline by 2020 to have a good chance of keeping global temperature rise to less than 2.0 degrees C according to the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report 2013, released Nov 5.

“If we stay on the current path, we will not come close to the internationally agreed goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to two degrees C,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in a statement published Nov. 12 at the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 19) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will run through Nov. 22 in Warsaw.

Fossil fuel subsidies, which amounted to 544 billion dollars globally in 2012 alone, are the biggest barrier to staying below two degrees. These government subsidies keep the cost of fossil fuels artificially low, undermining the benefits of improving efficiency and installing renewable energy sources, the IEA report notes.

“In Bolivia diesel, gasoline and natural gas are heavily subsidised, so it is almost impossible to work with renewable energy sources,” said Dirk Hoffmann, director of the Instituto Boliviano de la Montaña in La Paz, Bolivia.

“Transportation is also heavily oriented towards conventional cars, and numbers are rapidly rising,” Hoffman told Tierramérica*.

The IEA report has a special section devoted to Brazil saying it will become a global energy superpower. Offshore oil deposits will lead to a tripling of oil production by 2035, making Brazil the world’s sixth largest producer. Natural gas production will increase five-fold by 2030, more than enough to meet Brazil’s needs, it says.

Energy consumption in Brazil will skyrocket 80 percent with the average electricity consumption doubling with a vastly larger middle class. Investments of 90 billion dollars a year and improved energy efficiency will be needed to achieve all this, the report concludes.

Remarkably Brazil will still be a low-carbon country. It is currently the world leader, with 42 percent of its energy from renewable sources – mainly hydropower, biomass and biofuels. In future, due to environmental considerations Brazil will be less reliant on big hydro projects and will shift to onshore wind and electricity from biofuels, the report says.

Brazil’s Ten-Year Energy Expansion Plan that ends in 2020 prioritises hydropower, wind power and biomass. These measures are expected to reduce projected emissions by 234 million tons of CO2 by 2020, a spokesperson for the Brazilian government told Tierramérica.

“Wind, thermal biomass and small hydroelectric plants together will double from eight percent to 16 percent,” she said.

Latin America could be powered by 100 percent renewable energy, a number of studies have shown, including the 2012 Global Energy Assessment, the most exhaustive integrated energy assessment ever done. By 2050 at least 60 percent, and up to 100 percent, of Latin America’s energy needs could be met by renewables, it found.

However, if large hydro is excluded, less than 10 percent of energy in South America is from renewables.

While nearly every country has said it wants to have more clean sources, subsidies for fossil fuels distort the market, according to the report Renewable Electricity Generation in South America. Written by experts in Germany, Chile, Brazil and Bolivia, it says these subsidies are far larger than existing incentives or tax benefits designed to encourage renewables.

Another barrier is getting investments in renewables, especially from outside the country. Better regulations and incentives to respond to changing market conditions are needed, the report says.

Greening South America’s energy mix would accelerate with the expected 2015 climate treaty requiring developing nations to reduce emissions. However domestic considerations, including the rising costs and impacts of fossil fuels, ought to increase interest in expanding the green energy sector, the report concludes.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

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Climate change effects, such as extreme weather events, drive up environmental remediation costs. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 7 2013 (IPS)

If global carbon emissions continue to rise at their current rate, humanity will eventually be left with no other option than a costly, world war-like mobilisation, scientists warned this week.

“It’s blindingly obvious that our economic system is failing us,” said economist Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey in the UK."Prosperity isn’t just about having more stuff. Prosperity is the art of living well on a finite planet." -- economist Tim Jackson

Climate change, pollution, damaged ecosystems, record species extinctions, and unsustainable resource use are all clear symptoms of a dysfunctional economic system, Jackson, author of the report and book “Prosperity Without Growth”, told IPS.

“It is a travesty of what economy should be. It has absolutely failed to create social well being and has hurt people and communities around the world,” he said.

Emissions need to peak and decline by 2020 to have a chance at keeping global temperature rise to less than 2.0 degrees C, according to the Emissions Gap Report 2013, involving 44 scientific groups in 17 countries and coordinated by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels has raised the global average temperature only 0.85C so far, but even that has produced a wide range of impacts.

Despite years of negotiations, countries’ commitments to reducing emissions remain far short of what’s needed, said Merlyn van Voore, UNEP climate change coordinator.

Even if nations meet their current climate pledges under the Copenhagen Accord, CO2 emissions in 2020 are likely to be eight to 12 billion tonnes higher than what is needed to stay below 2C at a reasonable cost, the report concluded. Failure to close this “emissions gap” by 2020 will require an unprecedented global effort to crash carbon emissions.

“Waiting brings huge additional costs,” van Voore said in a press conference.

No country has offered to do anything beyond their 2009 Copenhagen commitments. Nor is anyone expecting new offers at next week’s UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 19) in Warsaw. Very few country leaders will attend COP 19, making this a technical negotiation on the shape of new climate treaty that will only come into force in 2020.

In the six years remaining before 2020, not only do countries need to increase their reduction commitments, some countries have to actually put policies in place to meet their Copenhagen commitments. China, India, Russia and the European Union are on track, but the U.S. and Canada are not, the report found.

In recent months, however, the U.S. has introduced some new policies and plans, including emissions caps on power plants. Canada is going in the opposite direction.

A government report recently acknowledged its emissions will be at least 20 percent higher than its Copenhagen reduction target. This was considered “good progress” given the skyrocketing emissions from its rapidly expanding tar sands oil operations, the Canadian government report said.

“Canada is a wealthy country. It could easily meet its target,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of the Climate & Energy Programme at the World Resources Institute.

“It’s very important for Canada to meet its target. That sends a very important message to the world,” Morgan, lead author of the UNEP report, told IPS.

However, economics is getting in the way of action. Canada has become very rich as the biggest supplier of foreign oil to the U.S. In less than 20 years, Canada’s GDP has tripled to 1.8 trillion dollars, with ambitious plans to grow even more. Politicians in Canada, and all over the world, reject anything they believe would hurt their countries’ economic growth.

Jackson and number of ecological economists say the current self-destructive economy must be transformed into one that delivers a shared and lasting prosperity. This kind of Green Economy is far beyond business as usual with some clean technology thrown in. It is what Jackson calls a “fit-for-purpose economy” that is stable, based on equity and provides decent, satisfying livelihoods while treading lightly on the earth.

The current growth-worshiping consumption economy is “perverse” and at odds with human nature and our real needs, he said.

“Prosperity isn’t just about having more stuff,” he said. “Prosperity is the art of living well on a finite planet.”

With powerful vested interests in the current economy, making this transformation will be difficult but it is already starting to happen at the community level. Jackson and co-author Peter Victor of Canada’s York University lay all this out in a new report “Green Economy at Community Scale“.

They see the roots of a transformational Green Economy in community banks, credit unions and cooperative investment schemes that enhance local communities. The Transition Town movement, creating local currencies, community-owned energy projects, global Ecocity movement are all part a response to an economy that does not work for most people and has created an environmental crisis, said Victor in a press release.

“Using GDP as measure of success is like riding a bike while only paying attention to how fast you are pedaling,” Jackson said.  “It is wrong in so many ways.”

Reducing pollution in transport is key to sustainability. A street in Mérida, a city in southeast Mexico. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jul 3 2013 (IPS)

A year after endorsing the principles of the green economy at the Río +20 summit, Latin America is making little progress towards sustainable development models, according to experts.

The region “is generally in a precarious situation; although there have been efforts in public policy-making to integrate natural capital as an element in economic sustainability, there have been few cases,” Isabel Studer, director of the Global Institute for Sustainability (IGS) at the private Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, told IPS. “There is no comprehensive, cross-cutting approach.

“Countries have based their economic growth on the exploitation of natural resources, and this has aggravated a situation that was not particularly promising. Environmental sustainability has not been integrated in economic policy,” she said.

The IGS is taking part in a study led by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on successful experiences in the green economy in developed and developing nations, set to be completed by the end of the year.
But what does “green economy” refer to?

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the green economy is “one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. In its simplest expression, a green economy can be thought of as one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive.”

UNEP says green investment can contribute to reducing demand for energy and water while reducing the carbon footprint of production of goods and services, besides contributing to the fight against poverty and social inequality.

¨We have to understand the conditions in the economy, and later which measures can be applied,” said UNEP representative in Mexico Dolores Barrientos. “First there has to be an analysis of the methods and priority sectors for moving towards a green economy.

“The main step forward is the recognition of failures in the economic system, which can eventually be overcome by means of better public policies, and that can include the main issues of the green economy,” she said.

“The future we want”, the outcome document adopted in June 2012 by Río +20 (the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development) in Rio de Janeiro, considers the green economy one of the most important instruments for achieving sustainability, which can offer alternatives when it comes to policy-making.

At the same time, it recognises different approaches, visions and models, based on the specific circumstances and national priorities.
Governments, universities, NGOs and companies registered 741 voluntary initiatives in sectors like energy, transport, agriculture and health with the secretariat of the conference. Brazil registered 72, Mexico 47 and Peru 25.

By 2030, Mexico will require 64 billion dollars in investment in electricity, oil and gas, agriculture and forestry, energy consumption and transport to generate fewer polluting emissions, according to World Bank estimates.

The World Bank prefers to talk about “inclusive green growth” and puts the accent on experiences that are already being applied in many countries in the region.

But some governments, academics, and civil society organisations, especially in the developing world, argue that the green economy is turning nature into merchandise, without addressing deeper problems like poverty and inequality.

In the study “Development strategies of selected Latin American and Caribbean countries and the green economy approach: A comparative analysis”, UNEP studies the cases of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, whose governments “have expressed major concerns about the concept of green economy.”

The report says that “Although most of the countries analysed have integrated into their development strategies certain elements that govern the relationship of humans and communities with the environment and the pathways for achieving sustainability, there is a gap between the position of the countries, often very innovative, which is expressed in the international arena, and their current development policies.”

“The challenge is to bring about substantial changes in the national economy, in an integral manner,” Studer said. “Public policies involve macroeconomic, financial, fiscal and innovation policies. The green economy can be a motor for redressing inequalities.”

The academic said “the green economy is not optional, because today´s problems are only getting worse. It offers opportunities for development of new industries, renewable energy, recycling of materials; but it requires a gigantic effort to include externalities in prices and evaluate opportunity costs.”

Experts agree on the urgent need to adopt measures for more efficient use of energy and water, more efficient transportation, and more efficient handling of waste.

Mexico is completing a study on agriculture, natural capital, transport, water and green jobs, which could serve as input for policy-makers.
Other countries in the region are also beginning to study and analyse different sectors, from the point of view of the green economy.

“The key is for countries to accept the recommendations on the green economy and then carry out an important analysis on where the opportunities are for applying them, and do so,” Barrientos said.

The UNEP study says “it is necessary to establish international mechanisms that guarantee that a green economy will: contribute to poverty eradication, respect the sovereignty of nations, facilitate the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, and allow an equitable distribution of wealth”.

A vegetable vendor in Bangalore using a solar lamp to light her stall. Credit: SELCO/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 13 2013 (IPS)

Emerging economies such as Mexico and India are shifting energy investments into renewable resources while industrialised countries hesitate, noted two new United Nations reports released Wednesday in Nairobi, Kenya.

“There is a structural change in the global energy sector underway,” said Ulf Moslener, head of research of the Frankfurt School in Germany.

“Costs are dropping radically. Renewables represented 6.5 percent of all electricity generated and reduced carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes in 2012,” said Moslener, co-author of Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2013, a report sponsored by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Developing countries are finding installing green energy to be far less expensive than relying on fossil fuels, Moslener told IPS. Poorer countries want to reap the benefits of stable energy costs, new jobs, improved air quality and reduced health and climate damage.

While political debates about the future of green energy preoccupy countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, developing countries have embraced cleaner energy. The move is reflected by a narrowing investment gap. In 2012, developing countries invested 112 billion dollars in clean energy, compared to developed economies’ 132 billion dollars."Around the world, there is a shift to clean energy."
-- Michael Liebreich

In 2007, developed economies’ investments were two-and-a-half times greater (excluding large hydro) than those of developing economies.

Globally, despite a 12 percent decline in investment, more renewable energy went online in 2012 than in any previous year, the main reason being a 30 to 40 percent drop in the cost of solar energy.

“Around the world, there is a shift to clean energy,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Political complications

Investors understand that clean energy no longer costs more than fossil energy. As such, there is a lot of excitement about the potential of large-scale projects in wide range of countries.

Nevertheless, investments in clean energy in 2013 would have been higher had governments in Europe and North America not abruptly pulled back from green energy policies.

“No industry has been treated as badly as the clean energy sector, particularly in Europe,” Liebreich said in an interview.

Frequent and sometimes wholesale changes in renewable energy policies create market uncertainty, he said, so investors hold back, waiting for clarity and stability.

Such changes are being driven by polarised politics and a fact-free debate about future energy choices, particularly in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Canada. These countries are going to be five years behind the shift to low-cost, clean energy, he said.

Liebreich highlighted Canada’s obsession with its tar sands as good example of a government’s failure to comprehend that future economic success will be based on clean energy sources. “They are not serving the public interest,” he said.

New energy records

In 2012, China, the United States, Germany, Japan and Italy were the top five investors in renewables. Globally, solar photovoltaic installations reached a record 30.5 gigawatts (GW), while installed wind installations topped off at 48.4 GW – both new records, according the REN21 Renewables 2013 Global Status Report.

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan is shifting from a nuclear-dependent energy policy and investing significantly in solar, geothermal and wind power.

In the Indian state of Gujarat, a 605 MW photovoltaic solar park, completed in April 2012, is expected to save about 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. An amount of nearly 1 billion dollars was announced to go towards a 396MW wind project in Oaxaca State, Mexico.

“More and more countries are set to take the renewable energy stage,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director. “Only last week the global host of World Environment Day, Mongolia, invited me to tour its first 50-megawatt wind farm.”

Mongolia has ambitious plans to harness wind and sun to power its future and supply clean energy to China and the region, Steiner said in a press conference in Nairobi.

“Like many other nations, it has seen the logic and the rationale of embracing a green development path,” he added.

A growing industry

An estimated 5.7 million people worldwide worked directly or indirectly in the renewable energy sector in 2012. The bulk of these jobs were in Brazil, China, India, members of the European Union, and the United States, with employment rising in other countries.

Selling, installing and maintaining small solar panels in rural Bangladesh, for example, employs 150,000 people directly and indirectly.

The transition from brown to green energy is gaining momentum as more countries, regions and cities realise that the shift is in their best economic interests, offering energy security, among other benefits.

Even the currently stalled U.N. climate talks won’t slow this shift, said Steiner, and a strong global climate treaty in 2015 could spur an increase in investment.

“The financial sector has factored in the glacial pace of the U.N. climate talks. Nothing that happens in that forum will reduce investment now,” said Liebreich.

An estimated half of fresh produce in Papua New Guinea is lost between harvesting and marketing. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jun 6 2013 (IPS)

A quarter of all food calories grown for human consumption is being lost or wasted, either purposefully or otherwise, according to new estimates.

With high food prices now widely seen as a new normal even as food demand across the globe continues to rapidly expand, advocates and development experts here are calling for concerted national and international action in a way that has not yet been seen.“To a great extent, the scope of this food waste is a technology failure." -- WRI's Craig Hanson

“The world faced an analogous failure of efficiency in the 1970s with energy,” states a new working paper produced jointly by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), an environment and development advocacy group based here.

“In the face of record oil prices and growing demand, the world waged war on energy efficiency. Yet a ‘war on waste’ has yet to be waged when it comes to food.”

The study estimates that the amount of land used to grow this wasted food would equal the size of Mexico and use some 28 million tonnes of fertiliser. The reasons behind this squandering of resources, however, are multifarious – running from inefficiencies in storage on farms and during transportation to market, to consumer confusion over how to deal with “old” food.

The new findings coincide with the release of surprising new statistics on the extent of hunger across the globe. According to a series of studies published Thursday, malnutrition is responsible for some 45 percent of all deaths of children under five years old – far higher than the roughly one-third that was previously believed.

“To a great extent, the scope of this food waste is a technology failure, with, for instance, farmers in Africa still not having the electricity that they need for cold storage,” Craig Hanson, a WRI co-author of the new working paper, told IPS.

“On the one hand, we can say that there are many low-cost ways that donors could help out in this situation. But we also need to recognise that agricultural research into post-harvest issues has been tiny – just five percent of overall investment. That’s a huge imbalance.”

Hanson says that even if donors and philanthropists could double that figure, to just 10 percent of overall agricultural research, “you’d get a huge gain in the available calories for people.”

10 billion more

On the face of it, the levels of food wastage appear to be broadly similar between developed and developing countries. Around 56 percent of total wastage is taking place in industrialised countries, versus around 44 percent in the developing world.

Indeed, South and Southeast Asia are responsible for nearly a quarter of all food waste globally, while the countries of industrialised Asia are accountable for another 28 percent.

Yet those figures mask far greater per capita discrepancies, particularly with regards to North America. The U.S. government estimates, for instance, that the country alone wastes around 40 percent of its food supply.

Most of the world’s regions are wasting between 400,000 (South and Southeast Asia) and 750,000 (Europe) calories per person every day, the new report states. Yet in North America, that figure jumps more than 1.5 million, based on 2011 statistics.

According to current international standards, an active adult requires between 2,200 and 3,000 calories per day.

Yet “Big efficiencies suggest big savings opportunities,” the paper notes. “Reducing food loss and waste could be one of the leading global strategies for achieving a sustainable food future.”

Of course, the looming spectre in this issue is the roughly 10 billion more people that may live on the planet by 2050 – and the estimated 60 percent more calories required to feed them, over 2006 levels.

Simply cutting today’s rate of food waste in half, to around 12 percent, by 2050 would save around 22 percent of that projected shortfall, the new investigation suggests.

Still, the onus appears to be on producers, transporters – and consumers, found to be responsible for around 35 percent of all food waste. Yet experts say these characteristics open up important opportunities for targeting women, who around the world are primarily responsible for both agriculture- and home-related decision-making.

“Women produce, process, cook and distribute food, and so helping them find ways to reduce food waste and loss in the field, in storage, at the consumer level and at home is key,” Danielle Nierenberg, a co-founder of Food Tank, a Washington think tank, told IPS.

“The more that they can have access to resources, education and infrastructure, the more they’ll be able to prevent loss and waste – benefiting not only their families, but their incomes and the environment.”

50 percent reduction

Here in the United States, food wastage has reportedly grown by 50 percent over the past four decades. On Tuesday, the country’s central environmental and agricultural agencies announced a major new initiative aimed at educating consumers and companies about the scale of the country’s food waste problem.

The European Union has gone still farther, setting a goal of reducing its food wastage by half by 2020. That’s tremendously optimistic (it’s still up to individual E.U. countries to figure out how to implement the goal), but according to WRI’s Hanson, European companies are expressing significant enthusiasm over the target.

“Targets do amazing things,” he says. “The current awareness-raising is the first step – I think we still have to get to the wave of people realising that we have a real issue here. But setting a target will need to be the next step, and even voluntary is a good start.”

With the recent publication of a report by a United Nations-appointed panel, discussions on the next phase of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework is now taking concrete shape. One of the draft goals proposed in that report would include reducing “postharvest loss and waste” by a certain percent, which is yet to be agreed upon.

Hanson suggests 50 percent for that goal.

He and his fellow researchers are also calling for an international protocol that would offer a standard methodology for countries and companies around the world to ascertain how much food is getting wasted and where.

“I’m a big believer in the idea that what gets measured gets dealt with,” he says. “Just like we saw with regards to climate change and emissions a decade ago, the same thing now needs to take place with food loss and waste. We’re not going to start getting a handle on this unless we know how much we’re losing and where it’s being lost.”

Pristimantis orcesi, a species of frog found only in the páramos of Ecuador. Credit: Courtesy of the Private Technical University of Loja

By Leisa Sánchez
QUITO, Jun 4 2013 (IPS)

The “páramos” or high plateaus of Ecuador, a crucial source of water, are showing signs of extreme fragility and a troubling loss of capacity to conserve this vital resource and sustain the survival of numerous species found nowhere else on earth.

The páramo is a high mountain ecosystem situated between 3,200 and 4,200 metres above sea level, and one of the most vulnerable in Ecuador. The threats that it faces are the result of climate change, deforestation and changes in land use.

The jambato toad (Atelopus ignescens) has already disappeared from the páramos, and there are fears for the survival of various species of mammals.

These high plains grasslands function like a sponge, absorbing and storing large volumes of freshwater which are then released continuously and gradually, feeding river systems and preventing abrupt variations in their flow.

But the páramo ecosystem has a limited capacity for recovering its original structure and biodiversity once these are altered, warned the founder of the non-profit scientific organisation EcoCiencia, Patricio Mena.

“It is intrinsically very fragile, which means that any disturbance, and even rains and winds, cause significant effects in the short, medium and long term. This is why it must be treated with great care,” Mena told Tierramérica.

The páramos are disappearing and vital water resources are being absorbed by the highly permeable volcanic soils beneath them: this was the warning sounded at the 7th Ibero-American Seminar on Science Journalism, held May 16-17 in the southern Ecuadorian city of Loja.

One particularly delicate issue is that of oil exploration and drilling in the páramos, observed Spanish seminar participant Seber Urgarte, a professor from the communications department at Abat Oliba CEU University and currently a guest researcher at the Private Technical University of Loja (UTPL).

This is why it is crucial to “preserve these ecosystems in light of their water and energy resources and biodiversity, above and beyond economic and political interests,” he told Tierramérica.

Mena stressed that the páramos supply water to indigenous communities and large cities alike. “Quito depends almost 100 percent on the water produced and stored in the surrounding páramos,” he said.

A study conducted as part of the Andean Páramo Project (PPA) found that these high plateau ecosystems are found in 18 of Ecuador’s 24 provinces. The most important are those of Napo, in north-central Ecuador, and Azuay and Morona-Santiago, in the south.

The PPA, which concluded in 2012, was a joint initiative of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Environment Programme. It was implemented in Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, with project activities emphasising research and local community participation. EcoCiencia was the Ecuadorian counterpart.

The study, “Distribución espacial, sistemas ecológicos y caracterización florística de los páramos en el Ecuador” (Spatial distribution, ecological systems and plant species of the páramos of Ecuador), found that these ecosystems cover 1.33 million hectares in the country, roughly five percent of its total area.

Close to 40 percent of Ecuador’s páramos are protected. The largest protected area is in Sangay National Park, which straddles the provinces of Morona-Santiago, Tungurahua, Chimborazo and Cañar, and accounts for 261,062 hectares. Of the remaining 60 percent, 30 percent have been altered by human intervention, and 30 percent are degraded, the study says.

But Mena, who formed part of the PPA team, stressed that “it is difficult to specify a percentage” or calculate an exact number of hectares that are degraded. Instead, it should be recognised that “all of the páramo is affected, because climate change affects the entire ecosystem.”

In general terms, the páramos of the eastern mountain range, which are moister and whose original biodiversity has remained intact, have a greater capacity to respond to environmental alterations, while the western páramos have suffered more serious impacts.

This is why Mena prefers to speak in terms of “a mosaic that ranges from perfectly well-preserved páramos to ecosystems in a state of profound degeneration that has practically transformed them into highly fragile deserts, like the dry páramos of (the central province of) Chimborazo.”

The páramos of Ecuador are characterised by a high degree of endemic flora and fauna. They are home to five species of reptiles, 24 of amphibians, and 88 of birds, of which 24 are found nowhere else.

According to the National Statistics and Census Institute, there are 565,858 hectares of arable land in Ecuador’s páramos, representing 4.85 percent of the country’s 11.6 million hectares of farmland.

In the meantime, “the area of land in the páramos under concession for mining activities decreased ostensibly, from 40.46 percent in 2008 to 12.53 percent in 2009,” engineer Fausto López from the department of natural sciences at UTPL told Tierramérica.

Mining concessions are concentrated in the south, in the provinces of Azuay, Loja and Zamora Chinchipe.

López believes that “the environmental cost is high, due to the threat to the habitat of numerous species of flora and fauna.” The most vulnerable are the mountain tapir, spectacled bear and culpeo or Andean fox, as well as the various species of amphibians.

“Given that these species need large areas for their survival, the establishment of corridors or networks of protected areas is one of the best strategies for their conservation,” he added.

But biologist Carlos Iván Espinosa explained that “one of the problems in the tropics is the lack of historical information on species and even on climate behaviour.”

“There are many species that have still not been described and that could be disappearing due to the effects of climate change,” argued Espinosa, also a researcher at UTPL.

The biggest challenge, stressed Mena, is to raise awareness of the fact that “the páramos are a part of our daily lives in an indirect by fundamental way: through the supply of water.”

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

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