Ghana’s gold mining city under siege

Gold mining at Obuasi in the Ashanti region is under siege as small scale miners demand part of Anglogold Ashanti’s concession for their operations.

The mining giant has shut the mines following a clash between illegal miners and staff of the company, leading to the death of a senior management member.

Industry watchers say Obuasi needs an industrialization plan to pacify the hungry and angry youth of the mining town.

The dwindling fortunes of Anglogold Ashanti Obuasi mine have been a worry to many residents.

The company in 2014 put its activities at Obuasi under a two-year break for a restructuring process to make the mines profitable.

This has left over 5,000 workers losing their jobs.

Hopes of the mine’s revival were dashed when Randgold Resources Limited decided to terminate an investment agreement entered into with AngloGold.

Following a recent clash between illegal miners and Anglogold staff, which led to the death of the company’s communications director, the company has had to redraw its essential services.

The Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS) has documented the socio-economic impact of AngloGold Ashanti’s operational downscaling at Obuasi.

Executive Director of the NGO, Richard Ellimah, says livelihoods are negatively impacted when there are no alternatives to mining.

“Once the fortunes of the mines begin to dwindle, it affects the broader economy of Obuasi,” he stated. “Government should, as a matter of urgency, create a system where Ghanaians who want to do mining – legal small-scale mining – have the opportunity to do so,” he re-iterated.

Anglogold Ashanti has agreed to release 60percent of its concession but interest groups say government need to act swift in ceding the land to legal small-scale miners.

“We are operating at the abandoned areas of Anglogold Ashanti. Right now, where are operating, we’ve gone as far to the Minerals Commission and in connection with the part of the concession ceded off, none of those areas are within Obuasi,” said Rufus Borry, General Secretary of the small scale miners association at Obuasi.

The group wants stakeholder’ dialogue and negotiation deepened in ceding off part of Anglogold’s concession to small scale miners.

The leadership is also streamlining registration of the small scale miners to clamp down on illegal operations and tax mobilization from members.

For over ten decades, mining has been the main stay of the Obuasi economy.

The industry has contributed immensely to the country’s development but local mining communities say the negative impact of mining outweighs the positive socio-economic impact on their livelihoods.

Residents are divided on whether the operations of Anglogold or small scale mining should thrive.

But there is consensus that the economy of Obuasi is presently under siege.

The Obuasi local assembly is worried of no investor interest if the conflict between Anglogold and small scale miners persists.

There are also fears of communities turning into ghost towns when the mine is shut.

But Richard Ellimah says this can be averted when the economy of Obuasi is diversified to reduce the dependence on mining.

The bigger responsibility, he says, rests with the municipal assembly to create an alternative industry, including tourism, entrepreneurship development and farming.

Anglogold says it will re-open the Obuasi mine when it is assured of the security of its staff.

Bringing the Paris Agreement into Force – Next Steps and National Climate Plans

On 12 December 2015, countries under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement.

The legal nature of this new, international agreement requires the following actions and steps to bring it into force. How the large number of national climate plans will be handled in relation to the agreement is also explained below.

In addition, the Legal Affairs programme of the UNFCCC secretariat has prepared a legal version (http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/paris_nov_2015/application/pdf/paris_agreement_next_steps_post_adoption.pdf) of these steps for readers who require the important, detailed formal wording and terminology that relates to this major international agreement.

Entry into Force

The Agreement shall enter into force on the 30th day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 % of total global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the Depositary. The Secretary-General of the United Nations will act as the Depositary of the Agreement.

To this end, the UNFCCC secretariat has made available information (http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/items/9354.php) on the most up-to-date total and per cent of greenhouse gas emissions communicated by Parties to the Convention on the website on the date of adoption of the Agreement.

Next Steps

The authentic text of the Paris Agreement in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, will be transmitted by the UNFCCC Executive Secretary to the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations in New York as soon as it becomes available.

Following this, certified true copies will be distributed to all Parties to the Convention and the Paris Agreement will open for signature at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 22 April, 2016 to 21 April, 2017.

The UN Secretary-General is convening a high-level signature ceremony for the Paris Agreement on 22 April, 2016 and is inviting all Parties to the Convention to sign the agreement at this ceremony, or at their earliest opportunity.

National Climate Plans

Meanwhile, the agreement also includes a change in status of the intended national climate action plans which almost all countries submitted to the UN ahead of Paris. These intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), which detail what each country intends to contribute towards reducing global emissions, are set to become nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Parties to the agreement should communicate their first NDC no later than when the respective instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession has been submitted.

If a country has already submitted its INDC before joining the agreement, then that INDC will be considered the country’s first NDC, unless it indicates otherwise.

Moreover, a country has the opportunity of submitting a more ambitious NDC, before it submits or when submitting its respective instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.

G20 and other countries should increase credibility of pledges on greenhouse gas emissions

Countries, including members of the G20, would have to strengthen the credibility of their pledges to limit or reduce annual emissions of greenhouse gases.
 

This is in order to build confidence in the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to a new report published by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The report provides the results of an analysis of “intended nationally determined contributions”, or INDCs, which were submitted by more than 180 countries ahead of the Paris climate change summit in December 2015, focusing on the credibility, rather than the ambition, of pledges about future emissions.

The report by Alina Averchenkova and Samuela Bassi concluded that “Governments have the opportunity to actively improve the credibility of their current and future commitments in their NDCs [nationally determined contributions], especially by strengthening: their policies and legislation; the transparency, effectiveness and inclusiveness of their decision-making process, and their climate change public bodies”.

It added: “This can be done, for example, by: adopting framework legislation and/or implementing carbon pricing mechanisms; assigning clear responsibility for climate change policy and establishing independent consultative bodies; creating inclusive processes for consulting and involving stakeholders; increasing the frequency of preparing greenhouse gas inventories; and improving public awareness about climate change.”

It identified key elements for the credibility against which each country’s pledges could be assessed. These were applied by the authors to the INDCs that were submitted by G20 members ahead of the Paris summit.

They concluded: “Almost all the emission reductions pledged by G20 countries appear to be underpinned by policy and legislation that is at least ‘moderately supportive’ in terms of credibility. However, G20 countries’ emissions targets were found to score lower on the transparency, inclusiveness and effectiveness of their decision-making processes and the level of political constraints to limit policy reversal, and on the existence of dedicated and independent public bodies on climate change.”

The report states: “No INDC from a G20 country is found to have ‘no credible basis’ across all the determinants explored in this analysis. However, there are significant differences in the level of and balance among the determinants of credibility for the individual G20 members.

“For many G20 members, most determinants appear to be ‘largely supportive’ in terms of credibility. These include the European Union and its individual G20 members (France, Germany, Italy and the UK), as well as South Korea.

“Several G20 members have determinants that are at least ‘moderately supportive’ in terms of credibility, but display a significant weakness in one determinant; this includes Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and the United States.

“A number of G20 countries have scope for significantly increasing credibility across most determinants. These are Argentina, Canada, China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.”