Countries must double pledges during Green Climate Fund replenishment

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) – the world’s largest multilateral fund for action on climate change – is holding its second consultation on the first replenishment in Ottawa, Canada.

In the midst of the talks, civil society has welcomed the announcements by countries including Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Norway to double their pledges in local currency in comparison to contributions made during the initial capitalisation of the Fund.

Whilst these developments are encouraging, the CSOs urge other countries to follow suit and announce their pledges imminently, starting at the upcoming UN Climate Action Summit during September in New York.

“It’s vital that wealthy countries with the highest emissions contribute to the Fund and work together with those most affected to adapt to the changing climate and mitigate its effects,” said Kiri Hanks, Climate Policy Advisor, Oxfam. “The UK, France and Germany have set the bar by doubling their pledge, sending a strong signal to others that backtracking is not ok. A meaningful replenishment would involve reaching at the very least $15 billion in pledges before the end of the year." 

In light of the urgency of the climate crisis that the international community is facing and as highlighted by new science such as contained in the recent Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Climate Change and Land, it is of utmost importance that all developed countries make ambitious pledges.

They must at least double the amounts they gave during the initial resource mobilization.

In particular, those countries who have contributed less generously on either per GDP or per capita basis should go well beyond doubling in this round to do their fair share.

This can positively contribute to enhancing climate ambition, especially as countries are expected to step-up their national commitments under the Paris Agreement next year.

The report is expected to add weight to the existing science and findings from the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C released last year and the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services from earlier this year.  

“We have only a small window of opportunity to act decisively to address the climate crisis. We need to do more, do it faster and do it at a scale that transforms key sectors like energy and transport, among others,” noted Mark Lutes, WWF Climate and Energy senior advisor, global climate policy. “To do that, there must also be sufficient finance available to support the efforts of developing countries to make this transition. We call on developed countries to provide at a minimum double the contributions (in US dollars) made in the first funding round. Without this minimum level of financial support, countries will be hamstrung in responding to the climate crisis. And in the face of urgent and growing climatic disruptions, we know we cannot afford any delay.”

Every penny counts in the fight against climate change. As countries have agreed that the Fund operates in United States Dollar, as a minimum, countries must announce that they intend to at least double their contributions in this currency.  

Major African climate and development conference kicks off with urgent calls for climate action

The eighth edition of the Climate Change and Development in Africa Conference – CCDA-8 has opened in Addis Ababa with strong calls to reverse the current lackluster approach to implementing the Paris Agreement and tackle climate change. 
 

Co-organised by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the PanAfrican Climate Justice Alliance, the three-day special meeting has as its theme: “Stepping Up Climate Action for a Resilient Africa: a Race We Can and Must Win”.

“Many African countries have submitted ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions to Climate Action – NDCs - showing that African leaders have made strong commitments to tackle climate change while striving to meet their national development agendas,” said Ethiopia’s Frehiwot Woldehanna, State Minister for Energy Sector, Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy in his opening remarks.

He said Ethiopia, whose electricity system is dominated by hydropower was one of the first countries to submit its NDC leading up to the Paris Agreement and was one of the first countries to ratify the agreement. Furthermore, the Climate Action Summit is being organized under nine action areas, one of which is the energy transition being led by Denmark and Ethiopia.

Yet, despite the efforts on the ground, climate-induced frequent and more intense droughts “are putting our energy security and reliability at risk, with significant economic and social impacts,” said the Minister, stressing that without urgent action to tackle climate change Africa will not meet the targets of the other sustainable development goals.

“As countries raise their climate ambition, we must remember the fundamental principle of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which calls for wide cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions,” he said.

ECA’s Chief of Staff, Aida Opoku-Mensah, noted that Africa contributes the least to global emissions but is already suffering the most adverse impacts from climate change.

“The Continent contributes under 6% of emissions, with per capita emissions of only 0.8 tons per year, well below the global mean of 5 tons, and far lower than for other regions such as Europe and Asia,” she said.

Ms. Opoku-Mensah indicated that this special CCDA is being held ahead of the forthcoming Climate Action Summit which is calling for urgent and concerted global action to fight climate change. “This is a last wake-up call to all countries to raise their game and step up climate action for multiple social, economic and environmental wins,” she stressed.

She also highlighted a number of Climate Actions undertaken by the ECA in collaboration with partners. These include: Climate Research for Development in Africa (CR4D), which strengthens the links between climate science research and climate information needs in support development planning in Africa; The Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI-RES) - a joint initiative of the ECA, the World Bank, the AUC and the African Development Bank; and the DFID-funded Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER).

Godfrey Bahigwa representing the African Union Commission stressed that while climate adaptation is a priority for Africa, “the current global climate financing flows for adaptation are limited with strong inclination towards financing mitigation related projects, as opposed to adaptation related ones.

He said the AU Commission is working on mobilizing resources and partnerships to support AU Member States to domesticate and implement their NDCs. “We also want to establish a continental reporting mechanism that will show process that Africa is making in the implementation of the Paris agreement on climate change,” he added.

James Kinyangi from the African Development Bank told the gathering that the first urgent action is “to build Resilience and Adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change for the most vulnerable communities across Africa.” Having signed and ratified the Paris Agreement, nearly all African countries “are now committed to Climate Action in support of building resilience through early warning systems, comprehensive risk assessment and management and risk insurance,” he said.

“The time is NOW, to translate the agreement into concrete action, to safeguard development gains and address the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable,” he added.

Stepping Up Climate Action for a Resilient Africa

Nisreen Eslaim, a young woman from Sudan who actively participated in the Peoples’ Revolution which triumphed over a 30-year autocracy, shares a devastating story that is phenomenon turning more challenging than winning the democratic struggle.

People in her country are faced by another catastrophic ecological crisis of monumental proportion, which has already killed over 60 people and destroyed 37,000 homes.

Nisreen is now very worried that though the people had capacity to mobilize themselves to rise against tyranny, their capacity to defeat the weather-inspired floods, which have become frequent, is diminished.

She wonders why the “Loss and Damage” framework she has heard in UNFCCC Negotiations has not helped her people.

“These are just some of the voices from people, generally fatigued by endless negotiations, conferences and declarations which end up gathering dust on the shelves of our ministries as the inaction on climate change, from national to international level, lingers across the board,” said Mithika Mwenda, Executive Director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).

Such concerns are being raised at yet another Conference on Climate and Development in Africa (CCDA-VIII), holding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the theme: “Stepping Up Climate Action for a Resilient Africa: a Race We Can and Must Win”.

“Do we need to be meeting year after year, making declarations which we do not honour?” Mithika quizzed, while re-echoing the request of the UN Secretary General for leaders to talk less and limit themselves to concrete actions they can take to address climate change.

The action portfolios include the mobilization of public and private sources of finance to drive decarbonisation of all priority sectors and advance resilience; accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy; reducing emissions; advancing mitigation and resilience at urban and local levels; and advancing global efforts to address and manage the impacts and risks of climate change, particularly in those communities and nations most vulnerable.

The vulnerability of the African continent to the effects of climate change is no longer in doubt, with cyclones, floods, mudslides, massive erosions and drought all affecting masses within the continent.

Some of these effects of climate change can directly be linked to conflict, displacements, deaths, reduced agricultural activities and disease, all which have direct impact on economies of each nation.

According to Ahmed Shehu, Regional Coordinator of the Civil Society Network of Lake Chad Basin, over 30,000 people have lost their means of livelihood to climate change which affected the Lake Chad Basin.

He says the water at the Lake Chad had been shrinking daily and over 70 million people who relied on it for their livelihood were being affected and at the risk of also losing  their means of livelihood.

“And the insurgency contributed to it because people can no longer have access to the water because of trans-border issues, and it is causing drought, feminine and desertification,” he said.

With the recent climate impacts of Cyclone Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, droughts and floods in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape; it is obvious that many African countries are just a step away to a natural disaster of sinking into a circle of poverty and prolonged lack of social and economic opportunities caused by the effects of climate change.

“We challenge our leaders to walk the talk, and lead from the front,” said Mithika, in furtherance of the quest to step up climate action for a resilient Africa, and indeed globally, and to win the race.

PACJA has worked with the Pan African Parliament to advance cooperation, which has crystalized into the African Climate Legislation Initiative (ACLI), an innovative and unique arrangement for the African context. This will enable African civil society and governments to work jointly to pursue shared vision of responsiveness to the health of the planet and the concerns of future generations.

“We as the civil society reaffirm our commitment to work with all Actors, as long as this aligns with the aspirations and expectations of Africa’s people. In all successive negotiation outcomes,

Africa has lost due to our inability to stand firm, and due to our susceptibility to forces of manipulation, intimidation and carrot-dangling,” said Mithika.

The vulnerable people on the African continent can only keep hoping that the unity of purpose that brings climate actors to CCDA will contribute to a process which will shape the future of humanity and health of the planet.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

Peace, democratic governance and chequebook journalism

The National Peace Council is exploring avenues to partner Ghanaian media houses to roll out programmes to enhance professional reporting in conflict sensitivities.
 

As the media provide and facilitate the flow of information, the Council acknowledges that they constitute an important component of the political process in democracies.

Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante, however says the media must be encouraged to discourage political insults, lies and invectives and facilitate debates on issues bothering on national interest.

“Reporting on conflicts and elections in a way that promotes peace in the country is critical to Ghana’s democratic governance,” he said.

The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have initiated a consultative platform to promote dialogue and build consensus on national policy response to systematic governance issues.

The “Multi-stakeholder Consultative Platform for Peace and Democratic Governance” seeks to build consensus towards developing pragmatic and workable interventions to deal with critical issues of peace and governance in Ghana.

One of the outcomes to be achieved on this platform is to conduct advocacy campaigns to empower citizens with information and knowledge to promote peaceful coexistence and social cohesion.

Among activities is engagement with media editors and reporters to negotiate their partnership for supporting the peace campaign using their various media channels. They will also be educated on conflict sensitive reporting and peacebuilding,

UNDP’s Peace and Governance Analyst, Melody Azinim, says the UNDP will continue to support the different peace actors to ensure that Ghana continues to advance its enviable record as an oasis of peace in Africa.

Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante said “the media’s positive contribution should not blind us to the dangers inherent in mass communication, especially where effective control may be in the hands of a very few, usually powerful individuals who are motivated by pecuniary and political interests”.

He observed media personnel may face moral problems over conflict of interest that might affect their objectivity, neutrality and ability to report accurately and justly.

“Chequebook journalism and gutter press and media can visit chaos upon our democratic good,” he said. “For the sake of national cohesion, we must encourage the media to be fair, responsible and objective in their coverage and reportage of issues”.

‘Chequebook’ journalism is the practice where the journalist buys stories and is in danger of creating much ado about nothing, while pandering to the greed, vulnerability and undiscerning gullibility of people.

These acts undermine the sanctity of the media, said the Chairman of the National Peace Council.

Opinion: Approaching the Climate Red line: Impacts Overtaking Actions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Landthat was released on the heels of its Special Report on 1.5 degree left no one (except climate denials) in doubt of the bleeding planet and the pending planetary crisis or what others may call climate breakdown ahead of us. The Report also came with some information what happened and what need to be done, why we find ourselves in this situation and why we need to act, when it all started and when we need change, and then how we can address the crisis.

While I acknowledge that in the Report’s to-do-list of possible interventions, most of which were not entirely new practices but what has been the norms over the years and are well collated and synthesized in the Report,it goes to say that after all, we are not short of solutions to address the problem. The challenge remains inadequate and in most cases lack of the ‘will power’ be it political and/or moral to do so and in other cases the passing of bulk and finger pointing.

It was good that the Report demonstrates how we can go about acting on the proposed solutions and acknowledges that this has to be done “at scale”. Could this then be the ‘game changer’ at least in the meantime? I would in my view think maybe, but the question that readily follows is what then needs to happen to take the actions to ‘a scale’ and where would the resources comes from to undertake the needed actions ‘at scale’?

All these brings to mind Article 9,10 and 11 of the Paris Agreement, the over two decades of goal-post shifting climate negotiations, the avoidance and shying away from the emotive topics such as the Common But differentiated Responsibility/Respective Capacity (CBDR) and Transparency (of actions) Framework in climate negotiations.

Acknowledging that everyone and every country has a role to play to a certain degree of responsibility and respective capacity through each countries’ Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) and also as enshrined in Article 4 of the Paris agreement, it’s now time to draw a clear line between climate rhetoric, pledges, commitments and concrete actions. The best time to match words with actions was yesterday, a better time is today.

As the world approaches the red-line where impacts of climate change (not only on land and agriculture but in all other sectors)are already outpacing the needed actions and making adaptation to climate change much harder and costlier, there is a continent that is already at the edge of the Red-line and taking more than its fair share -the Africa continent.

In Africa, about 97 % of the crop land is rain-fed (climate sensitive) and the agriculture sector employs a labour force of between 60 %and 65 % contributing over 20 % to the the continent’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Agriculture featured prominently about 80 % in the NDCs submitted by African countries as priority areas.

The Special Report on Climate change and Land already showed that climate change will continue to exacerbates land degradation, threaten food security while the tropics and sub-tropical region (Africa inclusive) will experience decrease agricultural productivity and also been the most vulnerable region to the impacts of climate change. This scenario pose dire consequences for the future of food production especially for a continent that holds about 60 % of the world‘s uncultivated arable land. It should not be seen as only a threat to agriculture in Africa but a global challenge if the continent and the world must feed itself this century.

How agriculture is handled in Africa will determine in the short and long term how the world stands in feeding it over 7 billion population and also the projected impacts of agriculture, forestry and other land use on our global climate.

The Report(Climate change and land) therefore should serve as further wake-up call to action for enhance and increase mitigation ambition in the global north and support for concrete adaption and mitigation actions in the global south at all level most especially by state actors while other non-state actors also have a big role to play…….Oh, that we may not cross the Red-line.

Written by

Dr. Samson Samuel Ogallah

(Solidaridad Senior Climate Specialist for Africa)

Climate Scientist and Policy Analyst.

Climate breakdown: governments must unite behind the science to transform land use

The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land released on Thursday is a stark reminder that we are in an ecological and climate emergency.

This report-- coming after the IPCC Special Report on 1.5C and the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity report -- ties together the best available science on how use of land is exacerbating the climate crisis.

It offers clear direction to governments on how to avert climate breakdown by rapidly transforming land use and food systems, halting deforestation and pursuing domestic policies that empower small-holder farmers, eliminate poverty and hunger and protect the most vulnerable from increasingly frequent extreme weather calamities.

“How we produce food will become an ever more important task for people needing to survive and thrive in a world facing a triple crisis of climate change, poverty and biodiversity loss? It’s crucial we use land in the most efficient way possible to bring down our emissions, conserve the natural systems on which we rely and boost food security for the most vulnerable,” said Katherine Kramer, Global Climate Lead, Christian Aid.

Drastically cutting food waste and switching to more plant-based diets, particularly in high-emitting societies, while promoting agroecological farming will also go a long way towards curbing emissions and strengthening adaptation.

Governments must unite behind the science. They must now substantially increase their national climate targets by 2020 in line with the 1.5°C pathway and cut global emissions by half within the next decade. Nature-based solutions must go together with abandoning fossil fuel use and investing in renewables. This report must form the basis for a renewed political conviction to respond to the climate crisis.

Adapting African Agriculture to Climate Change

Oped by Laura Tuck, Vice President Sustainable Development and Hafez Ghanem, Vice President Africa Region, World Bank

Climate change is already putting huge stress on Africa’s food production systems. And, according to projections, worse is coming. As Ministers for Agriculture from across the continent gather in Kigali for the Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue, ensuring a secure and sustainable food supply must be at the center of their minds.

Over the past 20 years, Sub-Saharan Africa’s farming sector has grown faster than anywhere else in the world, with an average 4.6 percent agricultural GDP growth rate from 2000 to 2018 – that’s 1.4 percentage points higher than any other region. Thanks to infrastructure advances, such as roads and telecommunications and an increase in farm sizes, farmers are becoming better connected to markets to sell their crops and livestock at better prices and to obtain inputs and services such as seeds and insurance. 

But these gains in agricultural growth are being eroded by climate change-induced production shocks that push countries backward. Since 2007, Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced four major reductions in annual per capita food production. All of these declines coincided with severe droughts and floods. The frequency of large weather-related production losses has increased from once every 12.5 years (the average for 1982-2006) to once every 2.5 years (the average for 2007-2016). The large drop in food production during 2015-16 coincided with severe drought in East and Southern Africa and contributed to a rise in the prevalence of hunger across all of Africa - from 18.2 percent in 2014 to 19.9 percent in 2018. 

What can government leaders, regional institutions, the private sector and development partners do to ramp up climate adaptation for Africa’s food systems? We see two major courses of action: unleashing the power of science and technology; and improving financing. More research and development in climate-smart crops, livestock and farming practices are urgently needed to increase and sustain yields. Without this, areas of farm production will keep expanding, further degrading the soils, forested watersheds and landscapes on which food production depends.

We also need to facilitate greater adoption of existing and proven climate-smart technologies. In places where climate-smart agriculture is practiced today, farmers are seeing increased food security and resilience. In Rwanda, for example, the Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation project has helped control erosion, intensify yields on existing land and provide greater protection from droughts. Maize yields increased 2.6 times between 2009 and 2018, with even larger increases for beans, wheat and potatoes. In Senegal, the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program has developed new high-yielding, early-maturing, drought resistant varieties of cereals such as sorghum, millet, groundnuts, and cowpeas. These varieties are being widely diffused to farmers and have raised yields by an average of 30 percent, even with less and more erratic rainfall. In 2014, despite the late onset of rains and with only half the average total rainfall, yields for farmers of improved sorghum and millet varieties increased.

The second course of action is financing. We’re excited by the steps many countries are taking to optimize their expenditures and generate more public goods for each public dollar. In several countries, governments have switched from subsidizing fertilizer inputs for all farmers, to targeting smallholder farmers with electronic vouchers delivered by mobile phones. This allows governments to focus on priority groups and save millions of dollars. In Nigeria, introduction of the e-wallet program for subsidized fertilizer lowered the cost of subsidies from US$180 million to US$96 million between 2011 and 2013 and increased the number of farmers benefiting. A similar approach could be applied to promoting the adoption of improved seeds, or incentivizing a shift to higher-value, more water-efficient and more nutritious crops.  

Investing in climate-smart, well-connected agriculture can help accelerate poverty reduction across the continent. We want to invite all policy makers, entrepreneurs, scientists and financiers to embrace the challenge of climate-adaptation of Africa’s food systems and contribute to this win-win agenda. By pooling ideas, technology and resources, we can tackle this most fundamental of development challenges.