Open burning of contraband goods in Ghana environmentally condemned

Hundreds of illegally imported mattresses confiscated by Ghana’s customs authority were recently burnt openly at a landfill site.

The destruction of the impounded goods is in line with laws prohibiting the entry of used mattresses into the country.

It is common place to see thousands of cartons of cigarette, canned food, drugs, wax prints and other restricted or unwholesome goods burnt openly.

Environmental concerns have however been raised about the practice of burning such materials, due to the gases emitted into the atmosphere.

Kwaku Abeeku, who manages Green Energy and Logistics Consults, says Ghana as a signatory to various international agreements on climate change, including the Paris Agreement, must reconsider alternatives to the burning of impounded goods as soon as possible.

“In the case of these open burns, aside the issue of Carbon Monoxide, these imported mattresses are mainly synthetic foams containing petroleum based chemicals and sometimes even fire retardants,” he observed. “Aside emissions, people living in the immediate environments of these burn sites and the country at large are put in a rather bad situation as we commit to global moves in combating climate change”.

Ghana, in its international obligations as a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is guided by its own commitments in the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to climate change mitigation.

As an obligation at the multilateral level, Ghana reaffirms its resolve to support global efforts to define a common future that seeks to safeguard the collective interest of all nations by supporting the 2015 Paris global agreement on climate change.

The implementation of climate actions is expected to help attain low carbon climate resilience through effective adaptation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction.

In 2017, Ghana at the UN Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, pledged the country’s commitment to help combat climate change and adapt to its effects.

The destruction of contraband mattresses, clothing, food and pharmaceutical products through open burning is therefore regarded as negating the country’s commitment to climate mitigation.

Kwaku Abeeku has challenged the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and other institutions responsible for best environmental practices to help halt the open burning of materials.

“I believe the time to make climate and environmental concern a culture and environmental responsiveness a mandatorily measured policy is now,” he said.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

Climate Action Network wants countries to step up their climate ambition

The Climate Action Network (CAN) has welcomed the declaration by 23 nations to step up climate ambition.

The declaration, issued on the sidelines of a week of ministerial meetings on climate change underscores the urgency for countries to enhance their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by 2020 in line with the Paris Agreement; put in place the necessary long-term strategies to reach net zero emissions; and secure the support and investment to ensure effective implementation.  

Countries now need to walk the talk. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5C due to be released in October is likely to confirm that limiting warming to 1.5C is feasible, but hard to achieve.

This makes it essential and urgent for all countries to join these front-runners and step up to enhance their NDCs by 2020. The process requires adequate finance to flow to countries that need it to establish the necessary infrastructure for a green and carbon-free economy.

“It is great to see these 23 governments joining the global call to step up climate action. The transition to 100% renewable energy is an economic opportunity for growth and job creation,” said Wael Hmaidan, CAN Executive Director. “Now, we need to see if the remaining countries are able to step up their climate ambition and enhance their targets as well by the next climate talks in Poland.”

Signatories to the declaration include Argentina, Britain, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Spain and Sweden.

Positive signals also came from the EU Commission, which announced it would be in a position to increase ambition.

However, around 200 nations collectively made a promise to their citizens in 2015 as part of the Paris Agreement to ratchet up their commitments and targets every five years.

This declaration signals a step in the right direction, but many more countries should now similarly indicate they will fully implement the Paris Agreement and enhance their NDCs by 2020.

These initiatives are important to drive both strong momentum for a positive conclusion of the Talanoa Dialogue and a strong outcome at the upcoming UN talks in Katowice, Poland. 2018 is a very important year to trigger the process of NDC revision by all countries.

The political phase of the Talanoa Dialogue needs to result in a strong and universal decision as the first stock-taking exercise of countries' efforts since Paris was agreed in 2015.

Indeed the 2019 United Nations Secretary-General Climate Summit is an important milestone but all countries need to commit as early as December 2018 at the UN talks to prepare the ground nationally for raised and updated NDCs by 2020.

The countdown has started and if countries start reviewing their NDCs right after COP24, that still only leaves one year to complete the process; that time is needed for multi-stakeholder engagement to build comprehensive and inclusive NDCs involving all actors of society. Governments will only succeed if people are on board.

“With the window of opportunity to keep global warming to 1.5°C fast closing, we also need others to act fast.  We need rapid and deep cuts to global gas emissions and, as state and non-state actors step up, we urge other countries to enhance and revise their NDCs by 2020,”said Fernanda Carvalho, Climate and Energy Policy Manager, WWF International.

Community rescued from devastation in dying cocoa trees and ecology

Timeabu, a farming community in the Ashanti region of Ghana, has in the past experienced levels of devastation of cocoa trees as a result of bad weather and poor rainfall with adverse impact on production.

To protect dying cocoa trees and the local ecology, the Centre for Climate Change and Food Security (CCCFS), a Ghanaian-based non-governmental organization, has adopted the community to pilot a tree planting program.

Since December 2017, the Centre has planted 200 trees on cocoa farms and other areas of the community, in addition to sensitization on best farming practices.

A beneficiary, Nana Dasebere Boama Darko, says the farmers are excited the trees will relieve them of severe weather condition and help provide the needed shade to nourish their crops.

The Centre plans to extend the exercise to other communities across the country.

“Protecting the ecology is very important. We are likely to live a shameful life if trees continue to die everyday,” said Mahmud Mohammed-Nurudeen, Executive Director of CCCFS. “Planting of the trees is also to sequester carbon, and help remove carbon dioxide from the air, which cools the earth.”

Despite their importance to life, humans have cut down half of the world's trees.

“Every year we cut down over 50,000 square miles of forest worldwide for paper, agriculture, building materials and fuel,” observed Mohammed-Nurudeen. 

Several research have proven that carbon release from deforestation accounts for 25 to 30 percent of the four to five billion tons of carbon accumulating every year in the atmosphere from human activities.

Climate Change advocate, Kofi Adu Domfeh, who is among lead supporters of the tree planting exercise, emphasized the need to put the trees back “any way we can, as fast as we can”.

“What you may not know is that trees also build soil and offer energy-saving shade that reduces global warming,” he said. “We want to create habitat for thousands of different species and also help to reduce ozone levels.”

The initiative is also supported by the Economy for the Common Good and senior officers of the Ghana Cocoa Board, Fuad Mohammed and Asante Abednago, who have committed to the community outreach to help rural farmers contribute to the government's target of producing one million tonnes of cocoa.

The CCCFS aims to provide enabling environment for all species, make issues of food security relevant and tackle climate change head-on to make Ghana a better place to live.

By 3news.com

Consumers and Private Sector critical in fighting droughts and land degradation, says UN

More than 3.2 billion people, or 2 in every 5 people, are impacted by land degradation today and up to 143 million people could move within their countries by 2050 to escape water scarcity and falling crop productivity due to the slow onset impacts of climate change.

To avoid these threats, Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, has called on consumers and the private sector to join governments to save healthy land.

She added that lack of preparedness for future droughts in particular, could lead to massive social and political upheavals.

“Everything we produce and consume has a land footprint. A bicycle requires 3.4 square meters of land. Ten square meters of land are used to produce a laptop. Producing one kilogram of beef takes 22 square meters,“ but few people give thought to these daily processes “because the losses are not visible – or at least not accounted for - in the products we consume,” Barbut stated.

“We are all decision-makers because in our daily lives, our choices have consequences. Our small decisions transform the world,” she stressed, and called on consumers to make choices that reward land users whose practices protect the land from degradation.

Barbut, who heads the international agreement that deals with desertification, land degradation and drought effects, also warned that it is dangerous to reduce the true value of healthy land to its economic value alone.

She made the remarks in observance of the World Day to Combat Desertification on 17 June. The global observance event took place, in Quito, Ecuador.

Ecuador promotes a bio-economy among its agriculturalists in order to diffuse sustainable land management technologies, which maintain the land’s productivity.

The country is also pursuing the Sustainable Development Goal target of achieving land degradation neutrality, which means avoiding, reducing and reversing land degradation to ensure the amount of healthy land it had in 2015 is the same in 2030, and stays stable thereafter.

Barbut also underlined the need to “go beyond conscious consumerism” to engage the private sector and governments in better land uses because “the real value of the land is not just economic.”

“Land is worth so much more than the economic value we attach to it. It defines our way of life and our culture – whether we live in the city or the villages. It purifies the water we drink.  It feeds us.  It surrounds us with beauty. But, we cannot meet the needs and wants of a growing population if the amount of healthy and productive land continues to decline so dramatically,” Barbut said.

Tarsicio Granizo, Minister of Environment, Ecuador, said “desertification is a matter that not only has to do with the environment, but also with food sovereignty and with protection of the agricultural soil.”

The Global Land Outlook  (The GLO) of 2017 states that 45% of the food consumed globally comes from the world’s dryland areas, and that falling productivity, food shortages and water scarcity in these regions is creating insecurity. The GLO warns that about 20% more productive land was degraded from 1983-2013, and that Africa and Asia face the greatest threats, going forward.

“We must do far more to recognize the immense value of healthy and productive land in strengthening the resilience of the world’s poorest communities, which are facing more drought and other slow-onset climate disasters,” said António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, in marking the Day.

Five of the 8 slow onset events identified by the Climate Change Convention as potential future sources of huge losses and damage are manifestations of declining land productivity. These are desertification, salinization, land and forest degradation, biodiversity loss and rising temperatures. Globally, about 2 billion hectares of land are degraded. Most of it can be restored back to health.

“Science has given us the knowledge and tools we need for managing land to build resilience to drought and the impacts of climate change. Governments and the communities whose lives and livelihoods depend on the land can take steps now to prepare for future drought,” Guterres said.

The sustainable land management technologies needed to minimize and reverse many of these effects exist, but the policy instruments and investments to promote their spread are non-existent. As a result, some of the most land-dependent communities are exposed to the growing powerful and adverse weather effects, such as recurrent droughts, unpredictable rainfall and disappearing ground water sources.

Barbut highlighted three critical actions that consumers and the private sector can take to encourage land users and governments to save healthy land from further degradation and to recover nearly barren lands.

First, changing consumer behavior and unsustainable production patterns. Second, adopting more efficient land use planning. Third, creating mechanisms like the LDN Fund that will motivate the private sector to invest in land restoration.

“The public needs to be empowered.  If they know that the choices they make every day can make a difference in terms of how the land is used – whether it is abused or nurtured – I am sure they will choose and consume more wisely,” she said.

“Governments must create incentives that can encourage the private sector to see that sustainable management of the land and the restoration of degraded land is the socially responsible thing to do. The UNCCD is ready to help initiatives that can restore degraded land at scale,” she said.

She called on countries to formulate the targets to be achieved by 2030, which signals that “a country has a systematic plan to ensure sufficient high quality land is available in the long-term to meet the demand for essentials like food and water.”

Minister Granizo said “the Government of Ecuador is proud to host, for the first time in Latin America, the celebration of this international day, which was attended by prominent authorities of the Convention to Combat Desertification.”

World Day to Combat Desertification is observed every year on 17 June to raise awareness about the status of the land resources, especially at country level, and to mobilize required actions.

World Environment Day – new Online Campaign Platform to strengthen Environmental activism in Africa

Today, World Environment Day, Greenpeace Africahas launched VUMA.EARTH (www.VUMA.earth) – an online campaign platform for ordinary citizens to run environmental petitions. 
 

The platform seeks to grow an environmental movement and give a voice to millions of Africans across the continent. The tool provides a space for Africans to start campaigns that address environmental issues affecting their local communities.

“It is important for African people to stand up against the abuse of the environment because it is our heritage at stake. VUMA.EARTH is a tool to help facilitate this,” said Angelo C Louw, Greenpeace Africa Digital Mobilisation Officer.

VUMA.EARTH is a full-on campaign management tool that allows users to set up petitions, easily communicate with supporters and set up offline events. A particularly useful function of the platform, within the rural African context, is the ability to capture signatures offline for later use.

To garner momentum for this platform, Greenpeace Africa is calling on supporters to get friends and networks to support any of the environmental causes on the platform which they believe in.

“By choosing a cause you care about, signing and sharing on social media and tagging friends, you will  demonstrate how simple it is to take action during this World Environment Day. Using the platform will also demonstrate  the potential of ordinary citizens’ networks to affect change”. 

“Many people think it is hard to get involved in protecting the environment because they feel that they can only do that by showing up at protests and clean-ups.  While it would be amazing for people to commit to environmentalism at that level, taking a stand for the environment is as simple as signing and sharing an online petition,” added Louw.

The call-to-action is simple:

1. CHOOSE a cause you care about

2. SIGN and SHARE it on social media

3. TAG your friends  

Social media has made it very difficult for decision-makers to sweep urgent environmental matters under the carpet. VUMA.EARTH offers a platform to mobilise African people to stand up for the environment.