An ecologist, Mr Richard Inyamkume, on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 urged relevant stakeholders in the environment sector to implement the nation’s strategic policies and plans of action on climate change.
Ibrahim Usman Jibril, Minister of State for Environment
Inyamkume, who is also the Senior Programme Officer, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Initiative, an NGO, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
“The future of our nation is in our hands. We cannot fold our arms and wait for government to do everything for us.
“We need to act so as to reverse the negative trend of global warming in Nigeria.
“At least, government has demonstrated that it is ready to take the lead; it is now our part to see that climate change policies are implemented by the different tiers of government as they ought to be.
“At the moment, there have been national strategic policies and plans of action on climate change, which if carefully followed, can foster the development of low carbon growth initiatives,’’ he said.
According to him, it will also promote clean development mechanisms and earn carbon credits for the country.
Inyamkume lauded the Federal Government for initiating the “Great Green Wall Project”, saying that the project had made positive contributions toward improving the country’s climate through schemes such as tree planting.
“So far, Nigeria has demonstrated a lot of commitments to tackling climate change issues.
“I am happy with several green initiatives that were launched by the government in relation to climate change.
“I am aware that several eco-friendly projects have been launched at different levels within the country to improve Nigeria’s climate and green environment,’’ he said.
The ecologist, however, said that Nigeria should remain faithful to the Paris Agreement, which President Muhammadu Buhari signed in New York on Sept. 22, 2016.
He recalled that the Paris Agreement came into force on Nov. 4, 2016, with 197 parties, including Nigeria, signing it.
“Besides, President Buhari ratified the Agreement on March 28, 2017, making Nigeria the 146th member of the UN to have ratified the treaty.
“This is a global demonstration by Nigeria that she is faithful to international agreements,’’ he added.
The President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, says Nigeria needs more investment in rural infrastructure to boost agricultural production in the country.
Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group
Adesina made this known on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Des Moines, USA.
He said that the country must continue to operate policies that would assist farmers in accessing seeds and fertilisers easily.
“We must continue to run public policies that get access to seeds and fertilizers for farmer at scale. When I mean scale, I mean at scale of millions and millions of farmers.
“And I think the use of the electronic wallet system, which we started when I was minister of agriculture, provides a very good platform to continue to do that because that same technology today is been used in other parts of the world.
“And I think it’s important to get access to technology to farmers at scale.
“Nigeria needs to invest a lot more in rural infrastructure; rural roads, storage facilities to help farmers. This is very important.
Adesina described the Nigerian Incentive-Base Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) as a game changer.
The CBN incorporated NIRSAL in 2013 as a dynamic, holistic 500 million dollars public-private initiative, to define measure, price and share agribusiness related credit risk with banks.
According to him, NIRSAL has made the banking industry to see the agricultural sector differently, adding that the amount of bank’s lending to farmers had increased since it advent.
“We also have to make sure that we are supporting a lot more of research and development of the sector.
“A lot more work needed to be done to support research institutions in Nigeria.
“But am delighted that Nigerian government is paying attention to agriculture as it should.’’
The Executive Secretary, Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Agency (SPHCDA), Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 said the state has not recorded any polio case since 2012.
Polio immunisation in Nigeria. Photo credit: comminit.com
The official said during a rally to mark World Polio Day in Kaduna that, in spite of the feat, the agency has sustained polio immunisation across all communities in the state.
The executive secretary, represented by a deputy director in the agency, Hamza Ikara, stressed that they would not relax in administering the oral polio vaccine to children under-five until the virus was totally eliminated in the country.
She enjoined parents to ensure that their children were not left out in the exercise.
“Tremendous achievements were recorded from December 2012 to date.
“Nigeria recorded only four reported cases of wild Polio Virus in Borno State in 2016 as against zero cases over the same period in 2015.
“Kaduna state in particular did not record any case of wild polio virus since November, 2012.”
The official said the celebration, which involves all development partners working in the state, was due to intensified efforts to ensure total eradication of polio in the state.
She said the event was an opportunity for all stakeholders to rub mind on the successes, challenges and way forward in making the state totally polio free.
NAN reports that participants at the rally included Journalists Initiative on Immunisation Against Polio, Polio Survivors of Nigeria, traders, UNICEF officials and other stakeholders.
Executive Director, Women Environmental Programme (WEP), Dr Priscilla Achakpa, has said that tree planting will address desertification and mitigate the negative effect of climate change in the country.
Dr Priscilla Achakpa, Executive Director of the Women Environmental Programme (WEP). Photo credit: http://i.ytimg.com/
Achakpa said this on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
She said that trees served as erosion control tools and windbreaks, while reducing natural disasters and addressing desertification in the country.
“We need to plant trees because forests play an important role in our plans to alleviate the impact of climate change. The destruction and degradation of forests contribute to problems in our environment.
“Nigerians also need to be sensitised to the importance of planting trees in their neighbourhoods.
“The tree planting campaign will contribute to efforts to address the challenges posed by climate change, which mostly affect the people.
“Planting of trees can help mitigate the negative impact of climate change, while improving the health of the environment and well-being of the people.
“Tree planting is one of the key areas that we must promote in this country, if you cut down two trees, make sure you replace them with at least six trees.
“So, Nigerians should imbibe the culture of tree planting for healthy environment, ’’ she said.
Besides, Achakpa noted that incessant floods and storms across the world had been having devastating effects on the homes and livelihoods of families.
She said that the problems of developing countries like Nigeria were particularly compounded by the impact of climate change, adding that the challenge had also forced many people to remain in poverty/
Achakpa, therefore, urged government at all levels and other stakeholders to initiate pragmatic policies and programmes that would ensure the protection of the environment.
She advised Nigerians to imbibe the culture of tree planting, adding that trees contributed to the good of the environment by providing oxygen, improving air quality, conserving water, preserving soil and supporting wildlife.
Robert Mugabe would have rejected the role of World health Organisation (WHO) goodwill envoy had he been formally asked, his spokesman said on Tuesday, October 24, 2017, days after state media cheered the Zimbabwean president’s appointment.
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe
WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, named Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador on Wednesday at a conference in Uruguay that both men were attending.
The appointment was rescinded on Sunday, October 22 following a backlash from Western donors, rights groups and opposition parties.
On Friday, the state-owned Herald celebrated the largely ceremonial appointment as a “New feather in President’s cap”, adding that Mugabe, 93, had accepted the role.
His spokesman told the same newspaper on Tuesday that Zimbabwe’s sole leader since independence from Britain in 1980 had only heard about the appointment via the media.
“Had anything been put to the President … (he) would have found such a request to be an awkward one,” George Charamba was quoted as saying.
“The WHO cannot take back what it never gave in the first place and, as far as he is concerned, all this hullabaloo over a non-appointment is in fact a non-event.”
Charamba did not respond to calls seeking further comment.
Mugabe’s critics were outraged by Tedros’ announcement, saying he was rewarding a man whose government had presided over the collapse of Zimbabwe’s health system.
Charamba said the fact that Zimbabwe was a producer and exporter of tobacco, mostly to China, would have meant Mugabe campaigning against a crop that underpins the economy.
Tobacco is Zimbabwe’s single largest foreign currency earner, bringing in an average $800 million annually in the last four years, according to official data.
“To be seen to be playing goodwill ambassador in respect of an agency which has a well-defined stance on tobacco growing and tobacco selling, that would have been a contradiction,” Charamba said.
Some 264 million school-age children and young people worldwide were not in education in 2015, the United Nations culture and education agency, UNESCO, said on Tuesday, October 24, 2017.
Irina Bokova, Director-General of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)
The agency, in a progress report on the UN’s development goals for education, said that after a decline in the early 2000s, out-of-school rates have started to stagnate.
“Worldwide, there was a completion rate of 83 per cent for primary education, falling to 45 per cent for upper secondary schooling,’’ the agency said.
The agency meanwhile quoted household survey data from 128 countries for the 2010 to 2015 period.
There were 40 countries where fewer than one in four young people had completed secondary education, but only 14 where no less than 90 per cent had done so.
UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova, however, called for more government accountability.
The report noted that while 82 per cent of national constitutions mention a right to education, only 55 per cent of countries make that right enforceable in the courts.
“Governments are the primary duty bearers for the right to education, yet this right is not justifiable or capable of being the basis for a court case in almost half of countries, and the primary course of action for those with a complaint is lost,’’ Bokova wrote.
While calling for accountability at all levels, the report said accountability measures for schools needed to be flexible and carefully designed.
“Schools may adjust to performance-based accountability systems in negative ways, gaming the system and avoiding sanctions to the exclusion of longer-term reforms,’’ the agency warned.
The drought-torn city of Cape Town in South Africa has officially rolled out water rationing as a result of the critical nature of available water supply. This move is part of the city’s Critical Water Shortages Disaster Plan (CWSDP).
Water rationing
In a statement, the Cape Town government announced on Monday, October 23, 2017 that the rationing is the Phase 1 of its administration’s plan on the crisis.
The city also disclosed that dam levels are currently at 38.5% with useable water at 28.5% while current consumption is at 585 million litres of collective usage per day.
Water disruptions are likely to occur during peak water usage times in the mornings (between 5am and 9am) and in the evenings (between 5pm and 9pm) if usage is above the required levels.
However, the duration of the outages would depend on the water usage for the area and whether it is within the water restriction levels.
The city, thereafter, appealled to households in lower-lying areas to reduce usage to assist in terms of outages in the higher-lying areas.
Weighing in, Cape Town Mayoral Committee Member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services; and Energy, Councillor Xanthea Limberg, urged residents to coperate with the city as reduction in water consumption is non-negotiable.
“It must be noted that reducing consumption is non-negotiable, irrespective of augmentation projects coming online.
“We ask all water users to support us and to help us to get through this unprecedented drought which is affecting large parts of South Africa as well,” Limberg added.
Cape Town Water Rationing Guidelines: List of dos and don’ts
DO:
Keep 5 to 10 litres of water for drinking use only for the household during rationing (average of four persons per household) and keep additional water for pets.
Reconsider water use at peak water usage times.
Flatten out the peak by showering (for no more than a minute) later in the evening or before 6am or do washing after 9pm‚ for example. Rationing does not work like electricity load-shedding.
When you experience a loss of water supply‚ before you contact the City’s call centre‚ please check your neighbour’s supply first. Higher-lying properties will likely experience a higher risk of rationing.
If you reside in or operate from multi-storey buildings‚ ensure that the water supply system (booster pumps and roof-top storage) is in working order in compliance with the Water By-law.
Ensure that taps are closed when not in use to prevent flooding when the supply is restored. The City is not liable for damage to private infrastructure due to rationing.
When supply is restored‚ the water may appear to be cloudy. Store it and use it for flushing.
Wet wipes and sanitary pads must not be flushed down toilets as they cause blockages.
Do not use your toilet as a dustbin‚ switch to one-ply toilet paper to prevent blockages when choosing to “let it mellow”
Store essential water in a cool‚ dark place away from light and dust‚ bottles must be sealed to prevent contamination. Clearly label water storage containers as “drinking water”.
There may be a build-up of air within the water system when supply is restored‚ toilets that use flush-masters will be ineffective due to the low pressures
DON’T:
Store excessive municipal water or waste water.
Where non-drinking water is kept for flushing‚ this should not be stored for longer than a couple of days. Do not use borehole‚ spring or river water for drinking. Greywater can be used to flush toilets but not sea water.
Beware of thieves pretending to install water-efficient gadgets on behalf of the city in private homes in an effort to gain access to your premises.
Nicaragua on Monday, October 23, 2017 deposited its instruments of accession to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, becoming the 169th Party to the global treaty.
Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s accession to the Agreement has been lodged formally with the UN headquarters in New York and will be effective as of November 22, 2017.
Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate (UNFCCC), Patricia Espinosa, in Bonn on Tuesday, October 24 welcomed Nicaragua’s accession to the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
“I very much welcome Nicaragua’s accession to the Paris Agreement,” she said in a statement. “All Parties to this historic agreement are important and all of them are necessary to fight climate change.”
This year’s German-based Global Climate Risk Index said Nicaragua is the fourth most-vulnerable country to climate change in the world yet has one of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas emissions.
“We must get on track as fast as possible to meet the Agreement’s goal of limiting the global average temperature rise to well below 2C degrees and as close as possible to 1.5C. It is most important now to ensure governments, business and multilateral organisations, including the UN, coordinate their response closely to work further, faster and together for more ambitious climate action,” said Ms Espinosa.
In a landmark ruling on Tuesday, October 24, 2017, the Indian Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta banned the use of dirty furnace oil and pet-coke in Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh from November 1, 2017. These fuels are already banned in Delhi.
The Supreme Court of India
In a swift reaction, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has lauded the directive as “a big win for Delhi-NCR as well as the rest of the country fighting a tough battle against toxic pollution”.
The bench has also directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) to notify the standards for nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulphur oxides (SOx) for industrial sectors; the standards have to be complied with by December 31, 2017. In addition, the MoEFCC has also been directed to pay a fine of Rs 2 lakh to the Supreme Court.
This order has come in response to the findings and recommendations of the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), which exposed widespread use of these fuels in industrial sectors of the NCR and found extremely high levels of toxic sulphur in these fuels.
Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE’s executive director-research and advocacy, elaborated: “EPCA investigations have exposed extremely high sulphur levels in these fuels, ranging from more than 20,000 parts per million (ppm) to 74,000 ppm in contrast to only 50 ppm sulphur in BS-IV transport fuels introduced nation-wide this year.”
Furnace oil and pet-coke are said to be the dirtiest by-products and residual fraction from the refinery process. Use of these fuels was banned in Delhi way back in 1996.
What has the court’s order done:
Eliminates the use of dirtiest industrial fuels in Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and mandates first ever stringent NOx and SOx standards for industry nation-wide: This momentous order eliminates in one stroke the use of dirtiest bottom-of-the-barrel fuels from the industrial units of the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, and makes all industrial units across the country liable for compliance with the new emissions standards by December 31, 2017.
Enormous pollution reduction potential from the industrial sector: Use of such dirty fuels contribute hugely to toxic gases like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in the air. Moreover, these gases, once out in the air form secondary particulates and add to the particulate load. A large number of industrial units operating in Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Bhiwadi, Noida and Greater Noida, Hapur, Bulandshahar, Alwar, Jhajjar, Gurugram, Rohtak, Mewat, Sonipat, Rewari, Palwal, Karnal, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar have been using these dirty fuels.
Says Roychowdhury: “This is a very important step forward as air pollution in industrial areas is very high. Till now, there were no air pollution monitors in industrial areas of NCR. But following the Supreme Court order, air quality monitors have been installed this year in Bhiwadi, Ghaziabad (Vasundhara), and Faridabad. A CSE analysis of the data shows higher pollution levels in these areas compared to other locations – with Bhiwadi indicating the highest levels.”
CSE researchers point out that the order is expected to have nation-wide impact, as industries across the country will have to comply with the new standards for SOx and NOx that are not regulated currently in India.
The intervention of the Supreme Court has been described as very opportune and timely as the recently enforced GST has created huge incentive for these dirty fuels to thrive. Both these fuels are included in GST and are in the 18 per cent tax bracket. But the industries that use these fuels for manufacture get a credit. The tax of 18 per cent is fully credited to industry. But the cleaner option, natural gas which is not included in GST pays VAT as high as 26 per cent (such as in Uttar Pradesh). This incentive is thus fanning and expanding the use of dirty fuels. Demand for pet-coke has increased to such an extent that last year India imported 14 million tonnes of pet-coke, which is more than the domestic production. If imports and domestic production are added, then India has used more pet-coke than China, when its pollution was at its peak.
Roychowdhury points out that, today, China has stopped imports of pet-coke. But India has become a dumping ground of pet-coke from the US, which has banned its internal use because of pollution.
Implementation will have to be the priority now
There has been a lot of delay already in the framing and implementation of the standards and the ban. All concerned agencies will now have to focus on implementation of the order. In fact, the EPCA had filed its first report on the matter in April 2017 asking for expansion of the ban on use of furnace oil and pet-coke which was already in force in Delhi, to the rest of NCR. In the due process of hearing the MoEF&CC made a plea saying instead of ban, industries should be allowed to adhere to emission standards.
Harish Salve, Amicus Curiae in the matter, brought to the notice of the Supreme Court that there are no emission standards for SOx and NOx for industries. In response, the Court on May 2, 2017 directed that the standards be issued by the MoEF&CC by June 2017. In July 2017, the ministry asked for more time, which was granted. But industries were put on notice that they would need to comply with standards by December 31, 2017.
Today, the MoEF&CC submitted to the Supreme Court the draft emission standards for SOx and NOx, issued on October 23, 2017. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) submitted an affidavit saying that it had sent the proposed standards to the ministry on June 27, 2017. For two industrial sectors – Nitric Acid and Fertilisers – the standards had been sent way back in 2014. Clearly, the process of standard-setting was caught in a time warp. The Judges of the apex court were not amused by this inexplicable delay.
Said Sunita Narain, director general of CSE and a member of the EPCA: “India has continued the use of these extremely polluting fuels without any regulation for too long. Any further delay in standards and implementation of the court order will make the air pollution and health risk worse. Implementation of the directive from the Supreme Court today has to be the top agenda for pollution control and we must take action urgently.”
The 7th Regional Conference on Human Rights and Agribusiness in South East Asia on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 issued a resolution calling for a range of measures aimed at securing real change in land tenure recognition and security.
Delegates at the conference
The resolution calls for accessible mechanisms to map and register customary lands, to provide clarity of ownership. The resolution also called for a rethinking of the underlying business model of plantations to stop pressures on communities to surrender their lands, both by promoting alternative production models and alternative financing models.
The conference, which is the seventh in a series of annual conferences organised by Forest Peoples Programme in collaboration with the South East Asia National Human Rights Institutions Forum, aimed to examine progress made since the first conference in 2011 hosted in Bali where the declaration called for urgent steps to reform or reinforce national laws and policies relating to land tenure, agrarian reform, land use planning and land acquisition so that they comply fully with human rights obligations as defined under international law.
Participants also discussed methods of legal reform in order to establish binding obligations on human rights for companies as well as worker’s rights in South East Asia, and noted called on regional governments to set up monitoring and reporting systems, and citizenship provision, for the many tens of thousands of stateless children born into plantation worker settlements.
The conference also reiterated the importance of binding legal solutions to the significant challenges facing the agribusiness sector in South East Asia, not only through national legal reforms and effective enforcement of existing laws, but also potentially through the strengthening of the standards overseen by the regional human rights body – the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights.
Before the conference, some participants had the chance to visit Olak-Olak village in the district of Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan. The fact-finding trip was organised by Link-AR and Pusaka, with the aim of investigating the challenges faced by the Olak-Olak community and surrounding villages due to the expansion of palm oil in their area. The results of the mission were shared at the conference by community spokespeople and discussed further at the event.
Appalled by the significant intimidation, violence and high level of criminalisation faced by the community the participants of the conference, who represented many international human rights institutions and civil society organisations, signed a letter to Wilmar (a purchaser of palm oil from the area) expressing their serious concern.
