Renowned broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, has announced the United Nations’ launch of a new campaign enabling individuals the world over to unite in actions to battle climate change.
Sir David Attenborough
In an address on Monday, December 3, 2018 to the opening session of United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, Sir David Attenborough urged everyone to use the UN’s new ActNow.bot, designed to give people the power and knowledge to take personal action against climate change directly on the Facebook Messenger Platform.
Speaking for “The People’s Seat” initiative, Sir David called it the result of new activism shaped by people from around the world and collected through social media.
“In the last two weeks,” he said, “the world’s people have taken part in creating this address, answering polls, creating videos and voicing their opinions.”
“They want you – the decision makers – to act now,” the British broadcaster said, addressing the politicians and officials assembled for two weeks in this Polish mining town to negotiate next steps in monitoring and mitigating climate change.
“The people are behind you, supporting you in making tough decisions, but they are also willing to make sacrifices in their daily lives,” Attenborough said. “To make this even easier, the UN is launching the Act Now bot. Helping people to discover simple everyday actions that they can take, because they recognise that they too must play their part.”
The speech was preceded by a video produced with social media content that people had posted in advance of COP24 using the hashtag #TakeYourSeat.
The innovative UN campaign was created with the support of Facebook and advertising company Grey and harnesses advances in artificial intelligence (AI) to engage people in the growing movement to take climate action.
The ActNow.bot is a fully interactive and responsive chat bot, located on the UN’s Facebook page that suggests everyday actions – determined by the user’s interaction with the bot – that can be taken to preserve the environment and logged on the platform to be shared with social media followers to persuade them to take action too. The collective actions will be presented during the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in New York in September 2019.
UN Under-Secretary-General of Global Communications Alison Smale welcomed the launch.
“Rising global temperature, record levels of greenhouse emissions, and increasing impacts of climate change require urgent and measurable action on the part of everyone,’’ she said. “This new social media tool, a Facebook Messenger bot, will help people learn about activities to reduce their carbon footprint, and show – and share with friends – how they are making an impact. We all need to do things differently.”
The initiative comes as global decision makers are being asked to intensify efforts in the battle against climate change and to agree the implementation guidelines of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
With motions raised (and supported by participants) by Prof. Daniel Gwary of the University of Maiduguri and Mr. Sunday Gadzama, the Borno State Environment Commissioner, three reports aimed at addressing climate variability adaptive capacities of Nigerians were on Thursday, November 28, 2018 officially validated, albeit subject to observations and corrections.
A team of authors, reviewers, as well as government and World Bank officials on the high-table during the opening of the two-day workshop, on November 27, 2018 in Abuja
The World Bank, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment, commissioned a study on “Household Vulnerability to Climate Change”, developed a “Multi-Sector Investment Framework (MSIF)” as well as an “Assessment and Analysis of Economic Cost of Land Degradation and Hotspot Mapping” for a range of sectors in the arid and semi-arid areas of Nigeria.
Climate change, according to a broad scientific consensus, is a challenge that is likely to happen more quickly than what was expected some years ago. Human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests for agricultural and other purposes, are said to have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, thereby leading to global warming.
In arid and semi-arid (dryland) parts of Nigeria, extreme weather events such as drought, desertification and heat waves are said to be occurring in greater frequencies and intensities. This apparently influenced the initiative, in respect of which a two-day (November 27 to 28) validation workshop held in Abuja.
Dr Amos Abu of the World Bank Nigeria Country Office said: “It is a joint World Bank and Federal Government effort and we are into it because it is one of the priority areas that have been identified by the government and, as a good partner, we are working with them to having clarity as it pertains to the cost of environmental degradation in Nigeria. This will help inform policies, it will also help in better targeting and also prioritisation and sequencing.
“Because the primary focus of the World Bank is to eliminate extreme poverty while boosting shared prosperity, the need to know where the poor live and their vulnerabilities to changing environment and extreme weather events cannot be over-emphasised if we are actually to addressing their concerns and situation. Therefore, we are very happy to be partnering with the Federal Government in carrying out these three important studies, respectively dealing with mapping of housing vulnerabilities in arid and semi-arid parts of Nigeria, the multi-sector investment framework for addressing climate change issues and for building communal resilience and sector resilience, as well as costing and mapping of degraded hotspots in Nigeria.
“These are really study diagnostics that will help inform policy in a very practical and poignant manner, and thus we also see that it will help in sequencing, and also give a sense of priority and then gross our attention to what will happen in a do-nothing scenario. So, this is a decision support tool that these new studies have thrown up and we are going to take it further.”
Prof. Olukayode Oladipo, who produced two of the reports, said: “The report is to help and guide the World Bank in identifying critical areas of intervention that can make the arid and semi-arid regions of northern Nigeria to be more climate resilient and sustainably developed by looking at how vulnerable the region is to climate change and climate variability, and which particular areas within the region is extremely vulnerable not only in terms of the climatic elements, but in terms of the socio-economic dimensions the people are living and surviving under increasingly threatening climatic conditions.
“The other aspect is how degraded is the area in terms of loss of biodiversity, erosion, deforestation, and what is it costing if we do nothing and allow the spate of degradation to continue. By having this particular information now, the World Bank will now look and identify immediate areas of need that can reduce the rate of degradation, increase the resilience of the people to changes in climatic conditions, and enable them to make a living in a more sustainable manner from the area, rather than continuously complaining that the area is arid or semi-arid and that it is not working, is not the best.
“So, in short, it is an information-gathering and data-generating system to enable the World Bank to look at the potential areas of investment that the World Bank can support and bring about positive development in the concerned areas or regions.”
The goal of the “Household Vulnerability to Climate Change in Arid and Semi-Arid Northern Nigeria” report, according to Prof. Oladipo, is to carry out vulnerability mapping to underpin development of a pragmatic framework for climate resilient development activities in the agriculture and forest sectors, taking into consideration activities in water resources, irrigation and energy to ensure an integrated approach to building landscape resilience.
The “Multi-Sector Investment Framework (MSIF) for Climate Resilience in Nigeria”, he added, stresses that massive investment is required to build the country’s resilience to climate risks and to safeguard its natural capital in the light of increasing climatic variability that is expected to affect the area.
Mamoud Bello Abubakar, who prepared “Assessment and Analysis of Economic Cost of Land Degradation and Hotspot Mapping in Arid and Semi-Arid Region in Nigeria”, disclosed that the study assessed and analysed the extent of land degradation hotspot, drives (causes) and its economic cost.
“It also analysed the determinants of land degradation and sustainable land management in the six states of northern Nigeria (Borno and Sokoto in the Semi-Arid Zone, Adamawa and Kano in the Sub-Humid Zone, and Niger and Kogi in the Humid Zone),” he added.
As the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opened on Sunday, December 2, 2018 in Katowice, Poland, nations have been told to deepen their ambition towards addressing challenges associated with global warming.
Johan Rockström, Designated Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Johan Rockström, Designated Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who gave the charge, stated that parties at COP24 should explore avenues related to how to cut global emissions by half by 2030.
He said: “It is no longer if but how to deliver results aligned with science – the scientific verdict is clear, global emissions must be cut by half by 2030 to stand a chance of staying well below 2 degrees Celsius. The UN climate summit in Katowice cannot and will not discuss if governments worldwide must achieve rapid greenhouse-gas emission reductions to limit climate risks, but how they can do this.
“First, governments must ramp up ambition. All nationally determined contributions, the NDC plans, must urgently be racheted up and align themselves with the latest science assessments. Current plans take us to a disastrous plus-three-degree world. They need deep, sector by sector, quantitative revisions.
“Secondly, fair and effective rules for accounting must be established with special responsibilities for the big emitters such as the US and Europe but also China and India; while defining a rule book sounds boring, it is in fact essential.
“Thirdly, change must be financed. The Green Climate Fund needs reliable and substantial contributions from industrialised countries, and in the same time it must define strict rules for payments to countries – for instance, establishing CO2 pricing could become a condition for receiving money that then can be used to boost regional renewable energy production.”
According to Rockström, the world faces a decisive decade, potentially the make-it-or-break-it for its chance of securing a manageable climate for future generations.
“Governments today might be remembered for generations to come if they fail to fulfill their climate stabilisation promises. Because generations to come would suffer from weather extremes, health impacts, crop yield risks. Science clearly shows that we have just one decade to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. Which is why we must start doing it now,” he added.
The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) and its joint partners have signed a gas supply and aggregation agreement that will support the 140 Megawatts Aba Integrated Power Project in Abia State. The agreement, signed on Friday, November 30, 2018 in Abuja, was between SPDC, Geometric Power Aba Limited (GPAL) and Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria (GACN).
L-R: Manager, Upstream and Commercial Negotiation, Nigeria Agip Oil Company Limited, Pius-Milverton Ogunjiofor; Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Geometric Power, Bart Nnaji; Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Gas Aggregation Company Nigeria Limited, Morgan Okwoche; General Manager, Gas Portfolio, The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Yemi Famori; and SPDC’s General Manager Business and Government Relations, Bashir Bello, at the signing of the Gas Supply and Aggregation Agreement for the Aba Integrated Power Project in Abuja… on Friday, November 30, 2018.
By the agreement, SPDC will supply gas from the SPDC joint venture gas plant in Imo River traversing Abia and Rivers states to the power producer, Geometric Power Aba Limited (GPAL), via a gas pipeline network which is already installed.
“This is a further demonstration of our commitment to supporting Nigeria’s industrialisation through gas,” said the Managing Director of SPDC and Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria, Osagie Okunbor.
Okunbor, who was represented by SPDC’s General Manager, Business and Government Relations, Bashir Bello, noted: “For more than 50 years, Shell has been in the forefront of the campaign to develop and monetise Nigeria’s huge gas resources and it is good to see more players joining the fray to grow the gas market and help improve lives and the earnings in Nigeria.”
Speaking at the agreement-signing ceremony, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, described the Aba Independent Power Project as a potential catalyst for opening the Aba market for economic growth.
Represented by his Special Adviser on Fiscal Strategy, Dr. Tim Okon, the minister said the government was determined to ensure commercial sustainability of any such project with the potential to grow the gas market.
Chief Executive Officer of GAPL, Prof. Bath Nnaji, said the project was structured to incentivise gas suppliers to invest in gas production for the domestic market, adding: “We are confident that the structure will serve as a model for other gas-to-power-projects in Nigeria.”
The Managing Director of GACN, Morgan Okwoche, who signed on behalf of the company, described the project as the foremost private off-grid gas supply and aggregation agreement that would enhance industrial growth and economic development.
Those who witnessed the signing ceremony included the General Manager Petroleum Engineering of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Muazu Awaisu, who represented the Group Managing Director of NNPC; and the General Manager Gas Portfolio of SPDC, Yemi Famori.
The SPDC JV owns the 650MW Afam VI power plant in Afam, River State, which in 2017 supplied 15% of Nigeria’s grid-connected electricity.
At the margins of the G20 summit that held over the weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina, international institutions, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) handed over a report titled “Financing Climate Futures – Rethinking Infrastructure” to the G20 trio of Germany (as past), Argentina (as current) and Japan (as incoming) G20 presidency.
German Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze
German Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze, said: “The next decade will be crucial if we want to limit global warming to well below two degree or even further to 1.5 degrees. Investments into climate friendly infrastructure can help boost sustainable green growth also by avoiding lock-in effects of carbon intense projects and assets. The report sends a strong signal by the institutions to the international community and the upcoming climate conference in Kattowice.”
During the German presidency, the climate and energy action plan for growth was adopted by the G20. It sets out concrete steps and measures how the group can implement the Paris climate agreement for the mitigation, adaptation and finance objectives.
The report was delivered in response to an invitation to the three international institutions to analyse previous steps of the G20 for steering financial flows into low-emission and climate resilient growth. The report focusses on the planning of infrastructure and its financing as key factors for climate compatible growth. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) has supported the joint initiative of the three organisations.
“Financing Climate Futures – Rethinking Infrastructure” proposes a transformative agenda that will help to shift from an incremental progress of the financing of climate action to a systematic change. The report outlines six key areas for action and provides respective policy recommendations:
Plan low-emission and resilient infrastructure
Unleash innovation to accelerate the transition to low-emissions technologies, business models and services
Ensure fiscal sustainability for a low-emission, resilient future
Reset the financial system in line with long-term climate risks and opportunities
Rethink development finance for climate
Empower city governments to build low-emission and resilient urban societies
Schulze, it was gathered, will discuss the key findings with the heads of the involved international organisations at a high-level event during COP 24 in Poland, on December 12.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has charged African governments to improve funding support for HIV testing, care and treatment.
Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa. Photo credit: pbs.twimg.com
WHO said that the improved funding support would ensure all citizens get access to the services they need to live productive lives.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, said this on Saturday, December 1, 2018 in her message to mark the 2018 “World AIDS Day’’, commemorated every year on Dec. 1, with the theme “Know your Status’’.
Moeti said that leaders can achieve better results in reducing the spread of the virus by expanding community-based options and innovations to reach beyond health facilities.
She said that in some parts of the region, HIV testing and access to treatment was still lacking and urged leaders to have stronger political will, commitment and increase investment to achieve universal health coverage in all states.
“I call on countries to use the new HIV testing strategies and to choose a strategic mix of service delivery models to achieve universal and equitable access to HIV testing and counselling.
“We need to expand community-based options and innovations to reach beyond health facilities. We also have to build strong linkages to guarantee HIV prevention, care and treatment services after testing.
“In all this, we need the political will; we need the investment from governments, partners and private sectors, and most of all we need the communities to promote demand for HIV testing services.
“Significant progress has been made in AIDS response since 1988 and today four in five (20.8 million) people living with HIV in the African region know their status.
“In addition, more than three in five (15.3 million) people are accessing life-saving antiretroviral therapy. There is a more than 30 per cent reduction in AIDS related deaths since 2010 and people living with HIV are living longer, healthier lives thanks to the sustained access to antiretroviral therapy.
“This progress is however not uniform in our Region. For example, in West and Central Africa, only one in two (2.9 million) people living with HIV know their status.
“That is why WHO, partners and Member States in the sub-region are working together to accelerate the expansion of HIV testing programmes in order to reach people living with HIV who do not know their status and ensure that they are linked to quality and prevention services.’’
The regional director said that HIV testing remained essential in expanding treatment and ensuring that all people living with the disease could live healthy and productive lives.
She said that it was also crucial to ensure that 90 per cent of people living with HIV know their status; 90 per cent of people diagnosed with HIV receive antiretroviral therapy; and 90 per cent of people living with HIV, and who are on treatment, achieve viral load suppression.
According to Moeti, HIV testing empowers people to make choices about HIV prevention specifically how to protect themselves and their loved ones.
She noted that many young people and adult men were being left behind and others still only get tested after becoming ill.
She listed stigma and discrimination as factors still deterring people from taking an HIV test adding that access to confidential HIV testing was aslo an issue of concern.
“Many of those who are being left behind are those who are more affected by HIV including people who use drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men and prisoners.
Moeti said that as part of the new five-year strategy for WHO, the organisation was working with Member States in the African region to strengthen their health systems and help them make progress towards universal health coverage.
She said that this would enable all people have access to the services they need without facing financial hardship.
Following a year of devastating climate disasters around the globe, from California to Kerala, and Tonga to Japan, the annual UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) opened on Sunday, December 2, 2018y with the goal of finalising the implementation guidelines for the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The guidelines will provide clarity on how to implement the landmark agreement fairly and transparently for all.
The COP24 opening plenary meeting
Specifically, they will strengthen international cooperation by ensuring that national contributions to the global effort are transparent, responsibility is shared fairly and progress on reducing emissions and building resilience can be accurately measured.
Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s Climate Chief, said: “This year is likely to be one of the four hottest years on record. Greenhouses gas concentrations in the atmosphere are at record levels and emissions continue to rise. Climate change impacts have never been worse. This reality is telling us that we need to do much more – COP24 needs to make that happen.”
A finalised set of implementation guidelines will unleash practical climate actions with respect to all the targets and goals of the Paris Agreement, including adapting to climate change impacts, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing financial and other support to developing countries.
Six months after the 2015 Paris Summit, the negotiations on the implementation guidelines were launched and COP24 was set as the deadline. While governments are committed to finalising the guidelines in order to unleash the full potential of the agreement, a great deal of work remains to be completed in Katowice.
“The 2015 Paris Agreement entered into force faster than any other agreement of its kind. I now call on all countries to come together, to build upon this success and to make the agreement fully functional,” said in-coming COP President, Mr. Michal Kurtyka.
“We are ready to work with all nations to ensure that we leave Katowice with a full set of implementation guidelines and with the knowledge that we have served the world and its people,” he added.
Ms. Espinosa noted that countries have strong backing for rapid climate action, given that public awareness and demand for solutions have increased due to clear evidence that our climate is changing.
“We simply cannot tell millions of people around the globe who are already suffering from the effects of climate change that we did not deliver,” she said.
Talanoa Dialogue
The conference is being held hot on the heels of the Global Warming of 1.5C report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as a cascade of UN and other reports on increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and emissions and on health and other serious impacts.
“All of these findings confirm the need to maintain the strongest commitment to the Paris Agreement’s aims of limiting global warming to well below 2ºC and pursuing efforts towards 1.5ºC,” Ms. Espinosa stressed.
“All our focus should be on reaching this aim and on building up ambition towards it,” she added.
COP24 will also conclude the year-long, Fiji-led Talanoa Dialogue, the first-ever international conversation of its kind to assess progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, including the goal of limiting global temperature increases.
One of the dialogue’s aims is to find practical and local solutions for how countries can increase their ambition in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which describe their individual efforts to reduce national emissions.
During the high-level event that will conclude the Talanoa Dialogue, Ministers will consider the IPCC’s 1.5ºC report and its relevance in the context of future actions.
“It is my hope that this will give Ministers the opportunity to provide a political signal for enhanced ambition,” Ms. Espinosa said.
COP highlights
Following a procedural opening on Sunday to enable work to begin quickly, Monday will be the grand opening ceremony graced by the presence of some 40 Heads of State and Heads of Government.
In a world-first and supported by the in-coming Polish COP presidency, the UN has launched the “People’s Seat” initiative. During Monday’s opening ceremony, the initiative will open a new window for people to express their views through social media and digital technology.
It will also aim to engage people from all walks of life around the globe in the growing momentum to take climate action in their personal lives.
Climate action before 2020
At the COP, Ministers will have the opportunity to engage in several high-level events, which all highlight the key elements of current climate change efforts.
These high-level events will address some critical aspects of climate action before the year 2020, including:
The Pre-2020 Stocktake will assess climate actions to be taken before 2020.
The High-level Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance will consider the state of global climate finance flows as captured by the third Biennial Assessment.
The High-level Global Climate Action Event will offer a unique vision of how the world is affected by climate change and how different sectors are tackling the issue.
Together, all events provide Ministers with a space to have frank and open discussions on progress made to date.
Capacity-building for climate action, a critically important element for developing countries now and in the future, will receive a significant boost at COP24.
At a specially created capacity-building hub, some 35 events will cover topics such as implementing NDCs, integrating gender into climate action and utilising the knowledge of indigenous peoples.
The Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action
The growing momentum for climate action by non-Party stakeholders such as cities, regions, businesses and investors will be showcased throughout the COP.
This momentum already represents $36 trillion in economic activity and is growing steadily.
Showcasing these events at the COP is leading to a new form of inclusive multilateralism that is vital to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Well over 100 events will highlight action in transport, water, land-use, energy, the fashion industry, to name a few, representing the spectrum of climate action. They will include CEOs, Mayors, Governors and other leaders from civil society at large.
President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived in Krakow, Poland, ahead of the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The conference is slated for between Dec. 2 and 14, 2018.
Buhari’s aide on New Media, Alhaji Bashir Ahmad, confirmed this development on his Twitter handle in Abuja.
President Muhammadu Buhari arrives Poland for COP24
However, a report reaching the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) indicated that President Buhari and members of his entourage, who arrived at a Military Base Balice International Airport, Krakow, on Saturday evening, were “welcomed” by snow as temperature dropped further to -3 degrees Centigrade.
COP24 Summit is being held at the International Conference Centre (MCK), Katowice, an industrial hub, about 100 kilometers from Krakow.
President Buhari’s first official engagement will be a town hall meeting in Krakow on Sunday evening, where he would meet and interact with Nigerians living in Poland.
The President will, during the Leaders’ Summit at COP24 on Monday morning, deliver a national statement, highlighting Nigeria’s commitment to addressing climate change by implementing the goals set out in its National Determined Contributions (NDC).
According to the organisers, the conference is expected to finalise the rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change under the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) – the Rulebook for implementation.
President Buhari’s spokesman, Mr Femi Adesina, had on Friday in a statement, disclosed that, during the Summit at COP24, Buhari would use the occasion to accentuate Nigeria’s willingness to work with international partners to reverse the negative effects of climate change in Africa and the world over.
Adesina said the president would also highlight the need for developed nations to scale up their emission reduction activities, to limit the increase in average global temperatures to well below 2 degrees centigrade between now and 2020.
The Leaders’ Summit is expected to adopt a ‘‘Declaration on Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia,’’ – named after the region of Poland where this year’s climate conference is taking place.
He observed that Nigeria, as a member of the Committee of the African Heads of State on Climate Change, would continue to address the challenges occasioned by climate change.
The committee is a group of 10 African countries that meets and takes positions concerning issues of climate change on behalf of the continent.
“Nigeria has been at the forefront of advancing policies and initiatives aimed at addressing significant challenges occasioned by climate change such as reviving the Lake Chad, halting and reversing desertification, flooding, ocean surge and oil spillage,” he said.
Adesina, who is the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, said that President Buhari would continue to champion these pressing issues at COP24 in Katowice, among others.
He also said the president would reiterate Nigeria’s position on the need for African countries to access financial resources, especially the Green Climate Fund to draw up climate change adaptation policies and actions for implementation.
“The Nigerian delegation will also showcase the policy measures and actions of the Federal Government at ensuring environmental sustainability and effectively combating climate change through several side events within the Nigerian pavilion.
“While in Poland, President Buhari will hold an interactive session with the Nigerian community in that country.
“The Nigerian leader is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with the President of Poland Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki,’’ the statement added.
Innovation and investments worth trillions of dollars in landscape restoration, climate adaptation and science-based policy advice will be needed if the global community is to meet the escalating threats posed by climate change.
Claire O’Connor, Chair of the ICRAF Board of Trustees
To meet these demands, the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), also known as World Agroforestry, the two leading organisations focused on forestry and agroforestry research, policy and development, have agreed to merge to strengthen capacity, provide the evidence needed to scale up investment in sustainable development, and accelerate impact.
The merger, it was gathered, becomes effective on January 1, 2019 through a common Board with subsequent implementation of a single leadership team and unified policies, processes and systems.
“This progressive decision to merge will allow us to respond more effectively to the increasing demands to integrate landscapes and land management for a more equitable, climate resilient and productive world,” said Claire O’Connor, Chair of the ICRAF Board of Trustees.
In agreeing to the merger, ICRAF and CIFOR confirmed that all existing commitments and contracts will continue to be honoured to ensure delivery of the public goods the organisations’ donors and stakeholders, including host countries, expect.
Combined, the two organisations employ over 700 staff in more than 20 countries throughout the global south, with an annual budget of over $100 million.
“Working as one will allow us to leverage our combined $1.8 billion legacy investment in research, policy and development to seize emerging opportunities with greater agility and further our contributions to the realization of ecosystem services needed to create the jobs and resilient green economy of the future,” said Jose Campos, Chair of the CIFOR Board of Trustees.
CIFOR and ICRAF are guided by the broad development challenges pursued by CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, which include poverty reduction, increasing food and nutritional security, and improved natural resource systems and environmental services.
Each organisation’s work also addresses many of the issues being tackled by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Climate Agreement, specifically those that aim to eradicate hunger, reduce poverty, provide affordable and clean energy, protect life on land, and combat climate change.
Combined, the two organisations, say officials, will be well-positioned to develop key innovations in finance and blended development, thereby accelerating the impact of their extensive science and development initiatives.
Tense negotiations on guidelines to implement the Paris Agreement are likely to chart a path forward in terms of process but roadblocks remain in the way of the transformation required to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C and avert climate chaos
The Polish city of Katowice is hosting the UNFCCC COP24 in December 2018
Apart from the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN climate change conference holding from December 2 to 14, 2018 in Katowice, Poland, also features the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP14), as well as the 3rd session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA1.3).
The COP, CMP and CMA are the supreme decision-making bodies in relation to the implementation of the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement, respectively.
On Sunday, December 2 in Plenary Mazowsze, Mr. Frank Bainimarama, COP 23/CMP 13/CMA 1.2 President, declared COP24 open. Mr Bainimarama handed over the COP Presidency to the COP 24/CMP 14/CMA 1.3 President, Mr. Michal Kurtyka, who is Secretary of State in the Polish Ministry of Environment.
The ceremonial opening of COP24 however holds on Monday, December 3, also in Plenary Mazowsze. It will feature dignitaries like Mr. Andrzej Duda (President of Poland), Mr. Frank Bainimarama (COP 23 President and Prime Minister of Fiji), Mr. António Guterres (Secretary-General of the United Nations), Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (President of the United Nations General Assembly), Mr. Henryk Kowalczyk (Minister of Environment of Poland), Mr. Michal Kurtyka (President of COP 24), Mr. Marcin Krupa (Mayor of Katowice), Ms. Patricia Espinosa (Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Secretariat) and Mr. Ovais Sarmad (Deputy Executive Secretary).
Speakers at Ceremonial Opening are: Kurtyka, Duda, Guterres, Kowalczyk and Krupa.
What’s at stake?
With time running out to stave off worst-case scenarios of climate change, governments meet in Katowice for COP24 negotiations with plenty of impetus to ramp up their climate targets and agree a set of implementation guidelines for the landmark Paris Agreement – but do the rich and powerful among them have the necessary will?
The Paris Agreement was celebrated for calling on the world to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C. However, the Agreement was only the first step on a long and arduous journey to transform societies and economies. In the years since, emissions have continued to rise, and in October this year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produced a Special Report on 1.5°C global warming which worryingly stated that temperatures, already 1°C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures, are rising at a rate of 0.2°C per decade. This, combined with historic pollution already in the atmosphere, leaves governments with a small and shrinking window in which to enact sweeping changes to their economies in order to fully decarbonise.
The report left the door open to the possibility of keeping warming to 1.5°C, thereby avoiding even worse impacts associated with 2°C warming, provided that all countries increase their climate targets so that global emissions are halved by 2030 and reach near zero by 2050.
However, the climate pledges currently tabled by countries – Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – would, if they materialise, still see temperatures rise by a shocking 2.7°C – 3.5°C. The estimated cost associated with delivering the developing countries’ pledges alone is over $4 trillion. The Katowice round of talks must therefore secure a process to ramp up climate targets, including the transfer of finance and technology for developing countries to take ambitious steps.
Guidelines for success
The Parties agreed in 2016 to finalise by 2018 a set of comprehensive guidelines to put all aspects of the Paris Agreement into practice and establish how each government will implement its national and international actions and commitments.
Such guidelines would be essential for maintaining trust between countries and encouraging them to take on further commitments and improve their existing ones – necessary in order to meet the Paris 1.5°C temperature goal.
However, progress in negotiating the guidelines has been slow and painful in particular on the critical issues of how to account for differentiation between countries and, perhaps most difficult of all, finance. Now Parties find themselves up against the clock and under pressure to produce a rulebook from several hundred pages of negotiating text. With so much at stake they may decide that it is better to take the time to get the rulebook right than to rush it for the sake of an outcome.
Some of the key aspects of the guidelines include:
The time frame and “scope” of countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions. The implementation period for NDCs would either be on five- or 10-year cycles. The scope of the NDCs has become a major sticking point with developed countries’ refusal to acknowledge other key components such as adaptation and finance as being a part of the NDCs, leading to a breakdown in trust as developing countries sense a “renegotiation” of the Paris Agreement is underway.
The mitigation elements of the Nationally Determined Contributions. Parties are still struggling to agree what information they will communicate regarding their NDCs. In order to adhere to the Paris Agreement, this information must facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding and should therefore include quantifiable information on time frames, scope, coverage, information about the assumptions and methodological approaches used, as well as information on how the NDC is equitable and ambitious.
Ex-ante communication on finance. To help the full implementation of the Paris Agreement, developed countries with obligations to provide finance must be given guidance on how they should communicate indicative information quantitative and qualitative information on the financial resources they shall provide. However, developed countries have refused to include such guidance in the rulebook, creating a tension with developing countries who need predictability in order to make policy decisions.
The global stocktake. The 2023 assessment of progress toward the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement is intended to be conducted in light of science and equity and result in a ratcheting up of ambition on a 5 year cycle. In order to ensure this happens, Parties will have to craft guidelines that outline a general design of the global stocktake, including a range of equity factors such as historical responsibility, and a cooperative process that scales up national contributions and international cooperation. Developing countries will be determined that the ongoing impacts from climate change and their associated losses and damages are considered in the stocktake and will fight to retain references from the draft text.
Obstacles to success
There is a real risk in Katowice that traditional obstacles to a successful COP outcome will once again present themselves. United States President Donald Trump has already announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, yet the U.S. negotiating team continues to participate in the negotiations and is seen by many developing countries and civil society as pushing for the elimination of important provisions protecting equity and ambition.
European countries will need to decide whether to stand strong against the Trump team’s attempts to weaken the rulebook of the Paris Agreement or to lower the bar in the hope that it allows for an about-turn and U.S. reentry. With the world’s largest historical emissions – and a foreign policy team of former fossil fuel industry executives – the growing intransigence of U.S. delegates explains why Katowice may create stronger support among other countries’ delegations for the UNFCCC to finally formalize conflict of interest policies to prohibit governments from deploying professional polluters as climate policymakers.
Climate finance
Beyond being a key component of the Paris implementation guidelines, finance is a key component in the package of decisions to be agreed in Katowice. With developed countries having failed to deliver on their promise of $100 billion per year by 2020 trust has evaporated and the ability of developing countries to deliver on their climate policies is greatly reduced.
The Katowice meeting therefore must address the question of finance both in the next few years before 2025, and in the long-term beyond that. Determining a process to agree a new and improved post-2025 goal is central to building trust and assuaging developing country fears. Similarly, new commitments in excess of the previous commitment from developed country finance ministers towards the Green Climate Fund’s replenishment are a must for progress in Katowice.
The forgotten dialogue
To respond to the impacts of current 1°C warming – which is devastating lives and livelihoods around the world through intensifying heatwaves, fires, droughts, floods, and storms – governments had promised to revisit their actions in the immediate-term, prior to 2020 when the NDCs start.
Parties decided on a special dialogue, since dubbed the “Talanoa Dialogue” by COP23 President, Fiji, to rapidly ramp up emissions cuts and financial support for poor countries. But the process has failed to address the ambition gap between the 1.5°C goal and the national pledges, and the gap between the need for increased financial resources for developing nations and the current financial flows. It’s omission of the question “how did we get here” was seen by developing countries as a tactical forgetting of historical responsibility and the failure of developing countries to enact radical policies prior to 2020.
However, Parties and observers concerned with the lack of concrete actions in a time of great urgency will hope that the Talanoa Dialogue compels countries to come forward with pledges to ambitiously increase their current mitigation and finance targets, communicating such improvements by 2020, thus sending a signal to other nations to accelerate climate action.
