Prof. Haruna Ayuba of the Nasarawa State University, Keffi, has called on Nigerians to plant a minimum of four trees to replace one, in order to manage the impact of climate change.
Prof. Haruna Ayuba
Ayuba, a Professor of Environmental Science, made the call on the sidelines of the Planetary Security Conference at The Hague, Netherlands on Tuesday, February 19, 2019.
He said that issues of climate change were evident with Lake
Chad receding, in addition to environmental degradation and drought among
others, while urging the Nigerian government to begin to take local solutions
on climate change.
According to him, everyone has a huge role to play in ending
the environmental impact of climate change, saying people ought to learn to
plant trees whenever they have a reason to cut one.
“Environmental issues in Nigeria started when the country
started talking about the Lake Chad recession from 25,000 square kilometres to
less than 3,000 square kilometres.
“Anytime it comes to climate change, we are asked to think
globally but act locally so at the local level, it can start with the
individuals and when it comes to environmental problems, every person has a
part to play.
“If you cut a tree, why can’t you plant four for instance,
that is one way, because the trees and our forests serve as carbon sink, they
absolve the atmospheric carbon-dioxide, that is what they feed on and they give
us oxygen.’’
He said that Nigerian government could upscale that by
implementing afforestation programmes and commended efforts of the government
in its Great Green Wall initiative.
According to him, the initiative, if backed up with
commitment, will go a long way to promoting environmental sustainability.
He stressed that the need for investment in bio-fuels and
renewable energy, saying Nigeria could no longer depend on Kainji Dam for its
electricity, adding that the water level had reduced extensively.
“Countries of the world are moving into smart solutions into
technologies that are renewable, we have solar, wind, and all of these can be
harnessed to provide energy for our population in Nigeria.’’
Ayuba also called on the Federal Government to step up its
game by moving away from paying lip service through unending meetings and
workshops in translating them into development.
The professor said in the 70s, Nigeria introduced large scale dams which led to loss of water, saying countries like Israel which had very little water around the Maghreb, had only 20 millimetres of rainfalls and it is managed.
“The food they are producing in the Maghreb, we cannot produce them in the Lake Chad, even though we have 600 millimetres of rainfall, “it is a big challenge’’.
“The little one we have, we mismanaged them through large
scale dams, even small holder farmers have begun to buy generators to pump
these water and the result is that the lake has receded and the water level is
so low, now you have serious humanitarian crises, coupled with the terrorism
that we have experienced over the last decade.’’
The high-level conference is organised by the Planetary
Security Initiative, supported by Free Press Unlimited and the Clingendael
Institute.
The conference thematic focus includes contribution of land
and climate policies to peace, urban risks and instability, geopolitics of
energy transition.
The Lake Chad, Mali, Iraq, and the Caribbean Small Island
Developing States will be the spotlight during the conference to illustrate
possible ways forward in addressing the themes.
World leaders have converged on The Hague, Netherlands, to
call on countries to take urgent actions toward reducing the impact of climate
change to water, livelihoods, peace and security.
Ms Sigrid Kaag, Netherlands Minister for Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation, at opening of Planetary Security Conference, Hague
At the opening of the Planetary Security Conference on
Tuesday, February 19, 2019, they insisted that the impact of climate change on
water, peace and security on development had been devastating.
Ms. Monika Dhian-Ho, the Director, Clingendael Institute,
said that it could not be “business as usual’’ as climate change issue was at a
tipping point.
She said that, over the last years, some researchers had
found out that in 26 countries, climate change had now become the top global
threat, adding that this had already resonated in the statements of world
leaders.
She quoted the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, as saying
that the world was living in an age where climate change affects all parts of
the world.
“Against this background of increased public concern, I
intend to call upon the leaders to take actions to invest in managing and
preventing its effects.’’
She said that efforts were on to work through practical
action and beyond awareness and also form concrete recommendations by making it
doable.
She listed challenges such as regional migration,
insurgency, and loss of livelihoods, especially in the Caribbean, Iraq, Mali
and the Lake Chad region, calling for broader awareness on best ways to address
climate-security issues.
She said that the climate change had grave consequences for
global security, noting that the impact was also felt in climate security,
insurgency, terrorism, proliferation of mass weapons and livelihoods.
Ms. Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands Minister for Foreign
Affairs and Development Cooperation, said that the conference was borne out of
necessity, vision and determination to make climate action a global issue.
She said that the world in the last decade could be
described as successful economically but that was not the case as far as global
realities of inequality were concerned.
She said that the negative impact of climate change had united
the world, saying this was evident with global acceleration of desertification,
extreme weather events, and steady depletion of natural resources.
She stressed the need for sustainable solutions to improve
ways to enhance collaboration, adding that there was the need for knowledge
sharing for innovative ways to deal with climate adaption.
“How can we deal with effective integrated risk assessments
and really approach conflict analysis into our alert warning systems.’’
Dr Loiuse Van-Schaik, the Head, Sustainability Research,
Planetary Security Initiative (PSI), noted that climate change affects human
security and could increase conflict risks.
Van-Schaik said that the institute sets out best practice,
strategic entry points and new approaches to reduce climate-related risks to
conflict and stability, thus promoting sustainable peace in a changing climate.
She said that the conference targets what could be done to
successfully reduce security risks linked to climate change and other
environmental challenges on the ground through international diplomacy.
Van-Schaik said that the conference also aimed at exploring
the climate-security linkage in specific issues and regions to identify entry
points and actionable areas for policy and response.
she said that this would also involve the development of
ideas that would help shape policies and implementation strategies for the next
15 to 20 years.
She stressed that the conference would continue to provide
an opportunity for practitioners and high-level policymakers on climate change
and security to meet, exchange information and increase cooperation.
She said that journalists had a duty to develop innovative
story ideas on global ideas in a local way toward seeing that actions are taken
to reduce the impact of climate change on the environment.
The high-level conference is organised by the Planetary
Security Initiative, supported by Free Press Unlimted and the Clingendael
Institute.
The conference thematic focus includes contribution of land
and climate policies to peace, urban risks and instability, geopolitics of
energy transition.
To address inherent socio-economic and energy-related gaps, the International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development (ICEED), in partnership with Mercy Corps and funding from the European Commission, is implementing a project aimed at strengthening resilience and improve the livelihood of people in six of the local government areas (LGAs) affected by the insurgency in Borno State, northeast Nigeria.
Some of the solar technicians during the training
Some 140 young men and women are being trained
on solar installation and business under the initiative, even as the training
of the first 24 solar technicians out of the targeted 140 was recently
concluded.
The training, which combined intensive
classroom and practical activities, was conducted at the Borno State Vocational
Training Centre in Maiduguri, the state capital. Five young women were among
the graduated solar technicians.
Also under the project, some health and
educational facilities, as well as households in these locations will be
equipped with solar energy kits to reduce protection risks for women and children
and reduce gaps in services resulting from energy deficiencies. In providing
the installations, the trained solar technicians will be actively involved,
thus enhancing their skills and visibility.
The Principal of the Vocational Centre, Mr.
Shettima in his message to the trained technicians, said: “This is an
opportunity for you to excel in a trade that has few actors, especially in
Borno State. To the young women, I am glad that you have defied the odds and
came out of your shell to acquire this training, I implore you to take this as
a trade and run with it as there are visible opportunities to earn a living as
solar technicians.”
Ewah Eleri, the Executive Director of ICEED,
in his remarks said: “I am glad that women in Borno are beginning to get
involved in an area that has been the exclusive preserve of men. Solar energy
offers a win-win situation for anybody that wants to get in as an entrepreneur.
I am sure in a short while, you will start reaping the benefits of this
training.”
Access to electricity is vital to improved livelihood, according to experts. In Nigeria however, this is often highly constrained, and more exacerbated in conflict-affected areas. A research conducted by ICEED in 2018 on the level of satisfaction with the public power supply in six LGAs of Borno State shows that 62% of respondents were dissatisfied with the level of public power supply to homes.
Solar energy as an alternative energy solution, as well as solar technicians, is almost nonexistent in conflict affected communities of Borno State. Solar energy business has been, and continues to be, a male-dominated field, leaving women out of the livelihood track, according to ICEED.
When delegates adopted the 2015 Paris Agreement to
widespread cheers and excitement, it was clear that further details needed to
be negotiated on how the agreement would be implemented transparently
and fairly for all.
Delegates at the COP24 in Poland, where the Katowice Climate Package was agreed. Photo credit: UN Climate Change
Countries set a deadline for themselves to complete these
negotiations on the implementation guidelines in 2018 at COP24.
Against the backdrop of rising global emissions and
multiplying signs of climate change such as wild fires, droughts and storms,
countries began negotiating in 2016.
“Recognising the urgency, governments overcame difficult
political and complex technical issues to agree the Katowice Climate Package at
COP24,” said the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Patricia Espinosa.
“The Katowice outcome is a breakthrough that all governments
can be proud of! It strengthens the Paris Agreement and it opens the doors for
the implementation of climate action across the globe,” she underlined.
The Package sets out the essential procedures and mechanisms
that will make the Paris Agreement operational. The successful adoption of
well-crafted implementation guidelines promises to build greater trust and to
strengthen international cooperation on one of the greatest challenges of our
times: transitioning to a low-emissions, climate-resilient world.
The Paris Agreement sets the ambitious goal of limiting
global warming to well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase
to 1.5°C. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if we are
to limit warming to 1.5°C we will need to lower our CO2 emissions by about
45% by 2030 (compared to 2010 levels). Even limiting global warming to 2°C will
require nothing less than transitioning to a carbon-neutral economy by the
middle of this century – only several decades from now.
The implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement
respect the different capabilities and socio-economic realities of each country
while providing the foundation for ever-increasing ambition with respect to
climate action.
They establish an effective international system for
promoting and tracking progress while empowering countries to build national
systems for implementing the Agreement. Functioning together, these systems
will enable countries to transparently contribute their share of action for
tackling the global challenge of climate change.
“The Katowice Climate Package
agreed at COP24 provides the details that are needed to make the Paris
Agreement operational. Preparing for its full implementation at the national
level now needs to be a priority,” said the UN Climate Chief, Ms. Espinosa.
“All evidence from the past 10 years points to clear and
overwhelming social and economic benefits of climate action. The full
implementation of the agreement at the national level means that countries and
non-state actors alike can fully capitalise on these benefits as they enter a
new era of accelerated climate action,” she added.
The Katowice outcome is a complex package, achieved through
in-depth technical discussions and political compromise and containing
operational guidance on:
the information about domestic mitigation and
other climate goals and activities that governments will provide in their
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs);
how to communicate about efforts to adapt to
climate impacts;
the rules for functioning of the Transparency
Framework, which will show to the world what countries are doing about climate
change;
establishment of a committee to facilitate implementation
of the Paris Agreement and promote compliance with the obligations undertaken
under the Agreement;
how to conduct the Global Stocktake of overall
progress towards the aims of the Paris Agreement;
how to assess progress on the development and
transfer of technology;
how to provide advance information on financial
support to developing countries and the process for establishing new targets on
finance from 2025 onwards.
The overview also takes a closer look at key elements of the
Katowice Climate Package, such as: “Limiting and reducing greenhouse gas emissions”,
“Adapting to climate impacts”, “Addressing loss and damage”, “Financing action
in developing countries”, “Developing and transferring technology”, “Building
capacity in developing countries”, “Building trust through transparency”, “Facilitating
implementation”, “Evaluating global progress”, and “2019 and beyond”.
The UNFCCC on Monday, February 18, 2019 published an overview of the Katowice Climate Package, adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference COP24 in Katowice, Poland last December. The package constitutes the guidelines for the implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
The guidelines establish an effective international system for
promoting and tracking progress while empowering countries to build national
systems for implementing the agreement.
The overview also explores key elements of the Katowice Climate Package,
which are discussed in this piece
A delegate stands in the main meeting hall of COP24 in Katowice, Poland
Limiting and reducing
greenhouse gas emissions
The Paris Agreement sets the long-term goal of limiting
global warming to well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase
to 1.5°C. Achieving this global aim will require each country to act.
Reflecting its “common but differentiated responsibilities
and respective capacities,” each government can update or submit its Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDC), which describe its climate goals and
activities, in particular those relating to mitigation.
Each NDC will be updated every five years and should
demonstrate increased ambition over the previous one. The Katowice package
provides detailed guidance on how NDCs are to be presented.
This guidance is to be applied to the second NDC to be
submitted by 2025. If a country voluntarily chooses to do so, it may also apply
these to its first NDC. Many first NDCs have already been submitted although
governments agreed to officially do so by 2020. The agreed guidance
describes the contents of and approach to the mitigation goals and activities, thus
ensuring comparability from NDC to NDC.
The guidelines also address mitigation co-benefits (for
example, resulting from economic diversification), the provision of
capacity-building support to developing countries for producing their NDCs, the
use by all Parties of a common timeframe for communicating NDCs as from 2025
and the negative impacts of response measures on certain countries and sectors.
Importantly, the guidance also includes the modalities for
the operation and use of a public NDC registry, for which the secretariat is
developing a prototype for the Parties’ consideration. The prototype will be
based on a current interim NDC registry. It will be made available together
with the new Adaptation Communications registry through one portal with two
parts.
These guidelines will be reviewed and if necessary updated during
the next decade.
Adapting to climate
impacts
In addition to mitigation, the implementation guidelines
provide clarity about how to track efforts to enhance national capacities for
adapting to climate change impacts.
This is essential because, even if all greenhouse gas
emissions were to completely stop tomorrow, the climate will continue to change
due to past emissions. The less the world succeeds in reducing future
emissions, the more work it will need to do to adapt to impacts and the more
critical the situation will be for the most vulnerable.
Addressing loss and
damage
A growing number of countries are already suffering
significant loss and damage from climate impacts, and this damage is expected
to worsen. Parties to the Paris Agreement will use the Warsaw International
Mechanism for Loss and Damage to assist the most vulnerable countries to cope
with these consequences.
Under the new implementation guidelines, the most vulnerable
countries can report about the climate-related damages and losses they have
suffered through the section on impacts and adaptation in the Transparency
Framework.
Actions to address these challenges, projections of future
losses and damages, and information on what kind of support is needed can also
be included.
All this information will be assessed every five years when
Parties conduct the Global Stocktake of progress towards implementing the Paris
Agreement
Financing action in
developing countries
The Paris Agreement recognises that developed countries should continue to take the lead in mobilising finance to support climate action by developing countries. The Katowice Climate Package provides some important details on climate finance going forward.
Confirmation of climate finance mobilisation
Developed countries have pledged to mobilise $100 billion
per year by 2020, and through to 2025, for both adaptation and mitigation
actions in developing countries. At COP24, a small handful of developed
countries stepped up with pledges towards this goal.
Many developing countries need support to contribute climate
actions towards the global effort. Moreover, reaching the $100 billion goal is
also essential for confidence-building among countries and a greater effort
towards it is essential.
Importance of the roles of the Green Climate
Fund and the Global Environment Facility in supporting developing countries.
Katowice stressed the urgency for pledges to replenish the
Green Climate Fund in 2019, as well the role of the Green Environment Facility.
This is particularly important in relation to the Capacity-building Initiative
for Transparency.
Climate finance that serves the Paris Agreement post-2020
Arrangements for providing predictability and
clarity on climate finance
To enhance predictability and clarity of climate finance,
developed countries will submit biennial communications on expected levels of
climate finance. These will contain both quantitative and qualitative
information.
The submission of these communications will begin in 2020.
Other Parties that wish to provide resources can communicate such information
biennially and on a voluntary basis.
The secretariat will post these communications on a
dedicated on-line portal.
Starting in 2021, the secretariat will prepare a compilation
and synthesis report on what has been communicated, which will inform the
Global Stocktake.
A high-level ministerial dialogue on climate finance will be
convened every two years.
Like the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Fund,
Adaptation Fund will support developing countries and serve the Paris
Agreement.
Financial goal beyond 2025
The setting of a new collective quantified goal from the
floor of USD 100 billion per year will be initiated at the COP in 2020.
Determining needs
The COP decided that the Standing Committee on Finance will
from 2020 report on the determination of support needs of developing countries
related to the implementation of the Convention and the Paris Agreement.
Making mainstream finance flows consistent with
the Paris Agreement.
To ensure that low-emissions and sustainable development
pathways become the new norm, financial flows must be consistent with low
emissions and climate resilient development.
As a result, the COP decided that the Standing Committee
include this important aspect as part of its biennial assessment and overview
of climate finance flows starting from 2020. This work will feed to Global
Stocktake.
Developing and
transferring technology
Many countries need greater access to green technologies for
reducing emissions and strengthening resilience. Clean-energy and other
climate-friendly technologies are essential for slowing, stopping and then
reversing climate change.
The Technology Mechanism established under the Climate
Change Convention will play an important role in promoting and facilitating
enhanced action on technology development and transfer. This is essential to
help countries to address the transformational changes towards climate resilience
and low greenhouse gas emissions development, as envisioned in the Paris
Agreement
In addition, the Technology Framework (established under the
Paris Agreement) will provide an overarching guidance to the Technology
Mechanism to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
The framework contains five focus areas including
innovation, implementation, enabling environments and support, with the active
engagement of relevant stakeholders and closer collaboration between the public
and private sectors.
The implementation guidelines also establish a process for
assessing progress on the development and transfer of technology.
The scope and modalities for the periodic assessment was
agreed to assess the effectiveness and adequacy of the support provided to the
Technology Mechanism as it serves the Paris Agreement. It will also inform the
Global Stocktake. The first assessment will be initiated in late 2021.
Building capacity in developing countries
Beyond finance and technology, there is also a strong need
to build the capacity of least developed and other countries to implement all
aspects of the Paris Agreement. A wide range of funds and institutions is
supporting capacity-building under the Agreement.
Katowice acted to strengthen the institutional support for
capacity building. It launched a review of the Paris Committee on Capacity
Building and invited Parties and observers to submit their views. A decision is
to be adopted at COP 25.
Building trust
through transparency
The Paris Agreement establishes an Enhanced Transparency
Framework designed to build trust and confidence that all countries are
contributing their share to the global effort.
The Katowice conference fleshed out this Framework that is
applicable to all countries by adopting a detailed set of procedures and
guidelines that make it operational.
These guidelines define the reporting information to be provided,
the technical expert review, transitional arrangements, and a “facilitative
multilateral consideration of progress.”
The conference requested the Global Environment Facility to
support developing country Parties in preparing their first and subsequent
biennial transparency reports.
Through the detailed guidance on the
reporting/review/consideration processes for the information to be submitted
and by making these reports publicly available, the Enhanced Transparency
Framework will make it possible to track the progress made by each country.
Tracking progress will be done by using the most recent
methodologies as contained in guidelines by the IPCC. In this way, it will be
possible to compare a country’s actions against its plans and ambitions as described
in its NDC.
To ensure that this exercise is as robust and accurate as
possible, the Parties will now develop common reporting tables for national GHG
inventories, common tabular format tables for tracking progress towards NDCs
and climate finance, outlines of the biennial transparency reports, and other
essential components.
Facilitating
implementation
To facilitate the implementation of the Paris Agreement, as
well as compliance with its provisions, countries established a committee for
this purpose.
The committee is non-punitive and will initiate a so-called
‘consideration’ in cases where a country has not provided mandatory reports on
its actions or forwarded or maintained its NDC.
The committee will consult and constructively engage Parties
and aim to facilitate greater compliance through recommendations and
assistance. It will consist of six members and six alternative members serving for
a term of three years.
Evaluating global
progress
To measure the world’s collective progress towards achieving
the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement, governments will conduct a Global
Stocktake in 2023 and every five years thereafter.
Using the best-available science, the Stocktake will
consider all aspects of the Agreement. Thematic areas will include mitigation,
adaptation, financial flows, equity and means of implementation and support.
The implementation guidelines define the process of
organizing and conducting the Global Stocktake more rigorously. While no one
Party may be singled out, the Global Stocktake will consider information
towards the agreement’s goals at a collective level. This information will
include reporting under the Enhanced Transparency Framework, as well as other
sources.
As remarked above, countries can also include information on
loss and damage and related response measures. Inputs to the Stocktake will
come not only from countries but from stakeholders, organizations and other
sources.
Parties will employ a facilitated technical dialogue, a
series of high-level events and other measures to advance the process and
strengthen its usefulness over time.
2019 and beyond
While Katowice succeeded in finalising the great bulk of the
implementation guidelines, there are still a few outstanding issues.
Guidance on voluntary cooperation and market-based
mechanisms still needs to be finalized, and there will be follow-up on a few
technical details, such as the development of various reporting tables and
specific technical work by various constituted bodies.
These remaining items will need proper attention throughout
the year, with a few specific outcomes expected to be ready by COP25 in
Santiago de Chile.
With the Paris Agreement and its implementation guidelines
in place, there is an urgent need for more action on the ground, now, today.
Then, with countries submitting their new or updated first
NDCs in 2020, governments should be mindful to ensure that these NDCs will
reflect the highest ambition. 2019 must not go to waste: there is no
reason to delay action while the world – informed by science – is transitioning
into the full implementation of the Paris Agreement.
Joyce Ebebeinwe of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in this opinion article on the planned commercial release of Bt Cowpea in Nigeria, attempts to elaborate on facts about cowpea variety and why she believes that the move for its commercialisation is erroneous
Cowpea
Currently, Nigeria and indeed Africa suffers pressure to
accept modern biotechnology as the solution to agricultural problems and the
technology is portrayed as the silver bullet to the challenge of food security.
Recently, Nigeria’s National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) issued permit to Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR),
Zaria for commercial release of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cowpea
which is said to be resistant to the Maruca insect pest.
Cowpea (popularly known as beans) is an indigenous African
crop and a major source of protein for the Nigerian populace where it is
prepared and eaten in various forms either as ewa agoin, akara or moi moi. It is a staple food crop and an
important source of income. The crop is also very essential for animal feed.
Nigeria has had a yearly average production of about 2.7
million metric tons over the last 10 years and is known as the prime producer
of cowpea in the world. Ironically, Nigeria is also the largest importer of cowpea in Africa. Clearly, the
economic challenges for farmers or the unavailability of food is not solely a
problem of production.
This article serves as a call on the Nigerian populace to
pay attention to the issues with agricultural biotechnology; to speak out
against it and on the government to be circumspect about profit-driven technologies
that aim to contaminate our natural varieties, destroy our agricultural systems; our
socio-economic fabric and assert unbridled control over our food system. Here
are a few reasons why the commercial release of genetically modified beans is
an erroneous move.
Bt cowpea is linked to severe health implications
Bt cowpea
contains a Cry1Ab gene developed by Monsanto (now Bayer) and it is the same as
in Bt maize event, MON810
manufactured by the company. Bt Cowpea
has not yet been commercialised anywhere in the world but current in-vitro
experiments on the maize event have revealed that protein produced by the
Cry1Ab gene has toxic effects on human liver cells. Researchers in
Italy in November 2008 resolved that the consumption of the Bt maize induced alterations in
intestinal and peripheral immune response in mice.
Additional long-term (up to two years) animal feeding
studies were recommended when another study with
a different investigative process showed that effects (seen in blood cells,
adrenal glands, kidney weights etc.) linked with the Bt maize are generally detected after about four months of
consumption.
Bt cowpea will contaminate natural varieties of the crop
Cultivation of a GM variety of cowpea will bring about an
irrevocable contamination of the natural and indigenous varieties which have
been nurtured over the years by farmers. Study of pollinator characteristics of the natural
West African wild cowpea populations shows that the Bt-gene can pass from the genetically modified lines to
non-modified lines resulting to natural cowpea and indeed other plants taking
up the resistance trait and causing ecological imbalance.
Bt cowpea/genetically modified crops will not ensure economic
stability for farmers
Genetically modified crops favor industrial agriculture
which encourages land grabs for monocultures. Small-scale farmers usually
intercrop cowpea with other cereals, mostly staple crops such as maize, millet
and sorghum. Also, the high cost of GM seeds and the inability of farmers to
reuse GM seeds present serious threat to farmers. Again, Nigeria’s cowpea is
presently under a ban from the EU because of quality and residual chemicals
issues and majority of the EU locals reject GMOs. Where will the export market
for this Bt cowpea be?
Bt cowpea is not the solution to agricultural problems
The pro-GMO gangs present the technology as a means to
increase production and cater to the increasing populations. How about the fact
that the world currently produces double the amount of food we consume but most
of it is wasted due to poor storage and processing facilities or access to
markets? This Bt solution
responds only to one of the challenges of production that is the pod borer pest
and apart from the pod borer (Maruca
vitrata), other pests disturb cowpea which are not controlled by the Bt toxin. Biological methods (e.g. plant or fungal based
bio-pesticides) exists which are effective against the Maruca insect as well as
other pests.
Use of this Cry1Ab Bt gene
was discontinued in South Africa because cultivation of the maize modified with
it led to enormous pest infestation. This is very instructive as Nigerians are
made to believe that this Bt cowpea
will bring about the reduction in pesticide use and increase yield by a paltry
projected 20 percent.
In place of the Bt solution
which presents risks to health, ecosystems and which may lead to more intense
pest invasions, Nigeria can focus on biological control and augment with
governmental action towards provision of needed infrastructure and other
necessities such as credit schemes, access to land and extension services to
farmers for enhanced productivity and food security/food sovereignty.
We shouldn’t be used
for experiments
Nigeria will be the first country to commercialise
cultivation of this genetically modified crop. Field trials have been ongoing
in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Malawi and there has been strong opposition to its
release. This resistance across African countries buttresses the enormity of
the threat genetic modification of food crops poses to our lives and
agricultural systems.
The risks with Bt cowpea/genetically
modified food crops are numerous. Scientists generally observe unexpected
impacts in and from genetically modified crops and we are faced with
intergenerational consequences. This move by the Nigerian government goes
against the precautionary principle (a major principle of the Cartagena
Protocol to which Nigeria is signatory) which advises governments to take
precaution in the face of uncertainty of safety of GMOs in terms of human and
environmental health.
Minister of health, Dr. Jane Aceng, has
said some of the deaths that happen in Uganda are as a result of health workers
who steal drugs from government facilities.
L-R: NMS board chair, Dr Jotham Musunguzi; health minister, Dr Ruth Acheng; American ambassador to Uganda, Deborah Malac; and NMS general manager, Moses Kamabare, on arrival for the launch of the NSM plus enterprise resource planning system at the stores headquarters in Entebbe
The minister made the remarks on Friday,
February 15, 2019 during the launch of a $10.3 million Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) system at the National Medical Stores (NMS) headquarters,
Entebbe in Wakiso district.
The United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) funded the five-year ERP system software that will be used
by NMS to manage procurement, warehouse management and drug distribution.
The system will also help health facilities
to manage daily businesses including accounting, procuring and ordering drugs
from NMS and project management.
The disappointed minister said it was so
sad and painful to see people die as a result of drug shortage, yet government
procures them to save the lives of Ugandans only to be stolen at the health
facilities.
“Government buys the drugs to treat
Ugandans for free, but a lot have been getting lost at the health facilities by
the custodians,” she said.
Dr. Aceng said her ministry would do what
it takes to prosecute health workers who steal drugs and hold them accountable.
She said the ERP system is one of the
measures they will get to know who has been robbing government drugs and
causing unnecessary deaths of Ugandans.
“When a health worker steals drugs that are
meant to save someone’s live, it causes drug stock outs in health facilities.
The health worker directly sentences the patient to death. Now we have the
system in place, and we need to know who is stealing the medicines and we shall
deal with them accordingly,” she said.
She also advised the health workers to go
back to their core code of ethics and standards of practice of saving people’s
lives.
The US Ambassador to Uganda, Deborah Malac,
reaffirmed the US government’s commitment to improving the supply chain system
in Uganda.
Malac said that, over the years, the U.S.
government has provided significant support to Uganda to improve health for
thousands of people.
She
said that, last year, the U.S gave more than $500 million, making it the
largest single donor to Uganda’s health system.
She disclosed that the fund has assisted
more than 10 million Ugandans get tested for HIV, contributed to the
largest-ever distribution of insecticide treated bed nets in the world and more
than 700,000 women have safe deliveries in health facilities.
The ambassador said the launch of the ERP
was the latest milestone demonstrating the strong partnership between Uganda,
US and other stakeholders to accelerate Uganda’s progress towards an effective
and sustainable supply chain system.
“An efficient and effective supply chain is
a component for providing Ugandans access to quality health care in order to
lead a healthy and productive life,” Malac said.
Malac said her government was impressed
with the way NMS has managed $27 million commodities that they provided over
two years to fill the important gap in antiretroviral (ARVS) drugs.
She however noted that getting drugs to
over one million Ugandans living with HIV/AIDS in many health facilities across
the country is a formidable challenge that calls for better health systems.
“These drugs are a matter of life and death
for the people who need them and no matter how different the logistics, we must
succeed in delivering them,” she added.
Malac said the ERP system would provide a
viable solution for improving the public sector’s over all transparency,
accountability, forecasting and management of health supplies.
She tasked
the NMS staff to manage the system well in order to benefit Ugandans and do its
intended purpose.
“Managing this new system is not a matter
of simply installing new software on some computers, it is an entirely new way
of doing business which requires changing organisational processes and managing
the change throughout the supply chain,” she said.
She commended the ministry of finance for
its commitment in financing the health sector and the local government which
she said plays a critical role in the supply chain cycle and puts the drugs and
commodities into the patient’s hands.
She
however asked the Ugandan government to increase its funding for health sector.
The NMS general Manager, Moses Kamabare,
said the system would eliminate the use of paper work and saving health
facilities huge amount of money they have been spending in delivering hard
copies of their drugs and other medical supplies orders.
Kamabare said the ERP system will also help
health actors including the health in-charges to monitors drugs right from the
manufactures, to the NMS stores and delivery of drugs to their respective
health centers.
“Because the health in-charges will be able
to see the supply chain from the manufacturers, to our stores, to the time when
the drugs are loaded to truck to their areas, it will wipe out the negative
mentality that NMS were supplying empty boxes to health centers and drugs that
the health centers did not ask for,” he said.
Dr. Diana Atwine, the ministry of health’s
permanent secretary, said the system would silence politicians who always claim
that government is doing nothing towards improving the health of Ugandans.
“Health is one of the of leading agendas
politicians use to discredit government. The ERP system launch is timely as we
near election campaigns, politicians will have nothing to say about the poor
health service delivery as this system will help us to tract, monitor, account
to the people and increase transparency,” she said.
The launch was attended by the NMS Chairman of the Board, Dr. Jotham Musinguzi; the Kabarole district health officer, Dr. Richard Mugahi; and former Mbarara municipality MP, Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo, among others.
The UN secretary-general has picked the Danish economist and
environmentalist, Inger Andersen, as its new environment chief, according to a
letter seen by Agence France-Presse,
turning the page on a scandal over expenses that rocked the UN agency.
Inger Andersen of the IUCN. Photo credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Andersen, who heads the International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN), a union of governmental and non-governmental bodies around
the world, is set to succeed Erik Solheim of Norway, who resigned
in November amid an outcry over his huge travel expenses.
The UN deputy secretary general, Amina Mohammed, told a
meeting of ambassadors on Thursday, February 14, 2019 that her boss, António
Guterres, had chosen Andersen.
Her nomination as head of the Nairobi-based UN environment
programme (UNEP) will be submitted to the general assembly for approval.
Andersen, 60, has also served as the World Bank
vice-president for the Middle East and north Africa and worked at the UN for 15
years on water and environment issues.
If confirmed as expected, Andersen will take the helm at
UNEP after Solheim’s scandal-racked tenure.
A UN audit last year found Solheim had spent nearly $500,000
(£390,000) on travel over 22 months at a time when the world body is struggling
with shrinking budgets.
His globetrotting raised accusations that he showed little regard
for the environment and efforts to reduce carbon emissions generated by air
travel.
The audit found that UNEP had a “culture of scant regard for
internal controls and existing rules”, with Solheim taking too many trips to
Paris and Oslo and spending little time at the Nairobi headquarters.
The findings prompted some donors to withhold funding to
UNEP.
Andersen’s nomination comes amid a push by Guterres to appoint more women to senior UN posts. The UN chief is also preparing a major climate summit in September to push for international action to confront global warming.
A looming trade agreement on tropical timber involving the European
Union and Vietnam is being resisted by a civil society group, which insists
that the Southeast Asian country must first clean up its act.
A truck ferrying timber product
Though Vietnam has banned logging in its own forests, Vietnamese
loggers are allegedly crossing the border and plundering national parks in
Cambodia.
Amid reported growing opposition to the deal among members
of the European Parliament, the EU International Trade Committee will on
Tuesday, February 19, 2019 debate the agreement, and the European Parliament
will be voting on it in March.
The campaigners insist that the EU must not conclude a trade
agreement with Vietnam if Vietnamese traffickers are laundering illegal timber
from Cambodia.
“The EU is working on a trade deal that would effectively
let Vietnam launder the timber it has been stealing from Cambodia and export it
to Europe unhindered,” says Reinhard Behrend of the Rainforest Rescue, a
not-for-profit outfit.
“We want EU policymakers to know that countless Europeans
don’t want timber from Vietnam and Cambodia,” he adds.
The EU is one of the largest markets for tropical timber and
wood products. It has been estimated that more than half of that timber has
been felled illegally.
In 2003, the EU drew up the Forest Law Enforcement,
Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. A part of FLEGT is the EU Timber
Regulation. Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA), which are concluded
between individual countries and the EU, are a central pillar of FLEGT.
VPAs essentially stipulate that source countries guarantee
that the timber they export has been legally sourced. The EU, in turn,
eliminates import inspections.
This requires source countries to revise their forest laws,
put monitoring in place, strengthen forest management and fight corruption. The
VPA negotiations include representatives of NGOs and local communities.
The EU is currently negotiating with numerous countries.
Negotiations with nine countries are still in early stages, while talks with
Ghana, Liberia, Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of
Congo have progressed rather far. At present, Indonesia is the only country to
issue FLEGT licenses.
But, according to environmentalists, the FLEGT Action Plan
and VPAs have serious flaws.
“’Legal’ timber is not necessarily legitimate. Legal logging
is often devastating for rainforests and violates the rights of indigenous
people. Many experts do not consider logging in the tropics to be sustainable
in any form, and therefore advocate a ban on tropical timber imports.
“The exporting nations see the trade agreements as a means
to sell more timber and wood products to the EU, thus increasing pressure on
their forests. A thriving market can also create incentives for criminals.
“FLEGT and VPAs govern trade only with the EU, not with
third countries. While many countries, including the US, Canada, Australia and
China, are taking action against illegal logging and timber trafficking,
criminals are still finding plenty of wiggle room,” states Behrend.
The Rainforest Rescue has meanwhile taken up a
campaign against an EU seal for timber trade with Vietnam.
The Gates Foundation is said to be funding a campaign to
“end world hunger” by promoting genetically modified organism (GMO) technology.
The organisation has reportedly hired 400 “science ambassadors” to influence
agricultural policy in 35 countries.
Bill Gates of the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
According to an article published by the Organic Consumers
Association (OCA), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has in the last four
years donated a total of $15 million to two global campaigns aimed at “ending
world hunger” by expanding the use of GMO technology.
The first, called the “Alliance for
Science,” was created in 2014 with the intention of “depolarising” the GMO
debate, the OCA disclosed in the publication, adding that the second, called “Ceres2030,” was created in
2018 to help the United Nations achieve its goal of “zero hunger by 2030.”
Both campaigns are headquartered at Cornell University.
The Alliance for Science has reportedly received $12 million
from the Gates Foundation so far, while Ceres2030 was founded with a $3 million
grant in October 2018.
The funds for the Alliance for Science will be used “to
ensure broad access to agricultural innovation, especially among small farmers
in developing nations,” says a Cornell University press release.
The Alliance for Science is said to have hired nearly 400
“science advocates” to “champion evidence-based agricultural policies” (aka
share the gospel of GMOs) in 35 countries.
“The situation is increasingly urgent, with many countries
at critical junctures in determining whether plant science can help deliver
food security and reduce the environmental damage caused by agriculture,” said
Alliance for Science director Sarah Evanega.
“We must be sure that science-based solutions don’t bypass
the poor.”
The Alliance has reportedly built a network of more than
9,000 “science allies” representing more than half the world’s countries and
every U.S. state, the release says.
Last fall, the Gates Foundation helped start another
campaign at Cornell called “Ceres2030”, named after the Roman goddess of
agriculture.
The “non-profit” campaign will advise the United Nations on
which policies and investments to make in order to achieve its goal of “zero
hunger by 2030.”
Several of Ceres2030’s board
members are said to have links to Big Ag, points out Jonathan Latham, cofounder of the
Bioscience Resource Project. Chief among them are:
Prabhu Pingali, a cornell professor who conspired with Monsanto executive Eric Sachs and PR
executive Beth Anne Mumford to place into scientific literature “subjects
chosen for their influence on public policy.”
