Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State will deliver the News Express 5th Anniversary Lecture on Thursday, September 28, 2017, the newspaper’s Management said on Thursday, August 30, 2017 in Lagos.
Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, Governor of Niger State
News Express Publisher, Isaac Umunna, said that Governor Bello would speak on “National Unity and the Demand for Restructuring – A Governor’s Perspective.”
“We are delighted to have His Excellency, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello, deliver the News Express 5th Anniversary Lecture. Perhaps no issue is engaging the attention of Nigerians at the moment more than national unity and restructuring.
“We have chosen the right man to speak on this crucial issue at this moment of heightening agitations across the country. His Excellency, Governor Sani Bello, is a distinguished newbreed Nigerian leader whose state, Niger, has over the decades played a very significant role in promoting national unity. We are sure that he will bring fresh and interesting perspectives to the issue on the lecture day,” Umunna said in a statement.
He added that the lecture would hold in Lagos at a venue soon to be made public, and would be graced by a galaxy of personalities whose identities would be unveiled in due course.
News Express, which debuted on August 29, 2012, is one of Nigeria’s most popular and influential online dailies. It is read by hundreds of thousands of people around the world and records annual traffic of upwards of 100 million.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) appears to be helping to level the playing field of climate action with the launch on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 of its first gender guide to climate finance.
Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Howard Bamsey, and Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate, Isabella Lövin, launch the Fund’s first gender guide to climate finance
GCF Executive Director Howard Bamsey and Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate Isabella Lövin (who is also the country’s Deputy Prime Minister) unveiled the gender manual during World Water Week, currently being held in Stockholm, Sweden.
“Mainstreaming Gender in Green Climate Fund Projects,” developed with UN Women, guides GCF partners on how to include women, girls, men and boys from socially excluded and vulnerable communities in all aspects of climate finance.
Minister Lövin said it is natural for Sweden, as home to the world’s first feminist government, to consider gender equality as a priority in all decision making and resource allocation.
“Gender equality is part of the solution to society’s challenges such as climate change,” she said. “It is thus of utmost importance that the GCF integrates a gender perspective into all its activities, something this manual will help to achieve.”
Mr Bamsey said the manual is a logical step stemming from the central place of gender consideration in GCF’s operations since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) set up the Fund in 2010.
“The release of the manual comes at a key juncture as GCF ramps up its implementation of climate finance projects,” said Mr Bamsey. “It will help ensure gender consideration lies at the heart of all GCF-supported initiatives.”
Climate change is one of a range of topics being addressed at World Water Week, where more than 3,000 participants from a variety of different fields are currently gathered.
There is a clear link between water and climate change-gender issues, Oyun Sanjaasuren, Chair of Global Water Partnership (GWP), said on the sidelines of the event.
“Water and climate-related disasters are intricately linked, especially floods and droughts,” said Ms Oyun, a former Mongolian Member of Parliament who is currently President of the United Nations Environment Assembly.
“For example, women often have less access to water supply for irrigation, which in the current context of increasing droughts, constitutes a real threat to their food security,” she said.
Ms Oyun stressed climate action needs to consider gender equality as women and girls are disadvantaged in a range of areas including water and sanitation issues, food security, health and migration.
“So when it comes to climate breakdown, what is an already bad situation becomes worse for those at most risk,” she added.
Encouraging global action to support clean water and sanitation, United Nations General Assembly President, Peter Thomson, on Monday, August 28, 2017 underscored that when it comes to the environment, everything is connected.
United Nations General Assembly President, Peter Thomson, addressing the 2017 World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden
“None should imagine that the state of sanitation and coral reefs are anything but directly connected,” Mr. Thomson said, delivering the keynote address at special event in Stockholm to start the World Water Week. “It makes no sense to consider terrestrial environmental issues, fresh water challenges or climate change in isolation.”
He urged the international community to take an “inclusive, integrated approach,” and put to use all skills, idea and energies.
Water and sanitation are among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were adopted by the 193 Members of the UN in September 2015, and which are guiding the work of the development efforts of the international community through 2030.
Combined with the Paris Agreement on lowering the impact of climate change, the SDGsrepresent “the best chance our species has to achieve a sustainable way of life on Planet Earth before it is too late,” Mr. Thomson said.
He commended World Water Week for bringing together more than 3,000 participants from nearly the entire world. The 2017 edition of the week will address the theme ‘Water and waste: reduce and reuse.”
Experts, practitioners, decision-makers, business innovators and young professionals from a range of sectors and countries come to Stockholm to network, exchange ideas, foster new thinking and develop solutions to the most pressing water-related challenges of today.
In his address, Mr. Thomson noted that The Ocean Conference, which, held in New York in June, was meant to raise attention and start working on stopping marine pollution – mainly plastics – ocean acidification, ocean warming, overfishing, damage to biodiversity and ecosystems, and strengthen governance on these issues.
The Conference resulted in a political declaration, partnerships dialogues and nearly 1,400 voluntary commitments to help overcome these issues.
“North and south east and west, the ocean unites us and we have to bring humanity back into a relationship of balance and respect with the water: that great reservoir of H20 which is of course shared by clouds into the rivers and lakes that give us the fresh water that we drink,” Mr. Thomson said.
He said The Ocean Conference gave a boost to a global movement to deliver on SDG14, or the so called Ocean Goal, and similarly, it is time to push for world action on SDG 6, related to water and sanitation.
“SDG6, the water and sanitation Goal, is in need of a major push. The time is right, thus I encourage you all to join together to develop concerted global action to deliver on the targets of (that Goal),” Mr. Thomson said.
The Norwegian municipality of Arendal has pledged to become climate neutral, as the first municipality in the world to join the United Nations Climate Neutral Now initiative. This means that it will measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the greatest extent possible, and offset all emissions that cannot be avoided.
Arendal, Norway
Urban areas represent an estimated 70% of energy-related global greenhouse emissions, and their total population is projected to double by 2050; so municipal climate action is critical for the success of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
The municipality of Arendal is concerned about the effects of climate change, which range from threats to drinking water and agricultural supplies to sea level rise, and it is working hard to reduce its emissions in line with the central goal of the Paris Agreement.
Under the Paris Agreement, governments have agreed to shift the planet toward a pathway that keeps the maximum global average temperature rise to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius. A balance, known as “climate neutrality” must be achieved in the second half of this century between global emissions and removals in order to achieve this goal.
Arendal has been a pioneer when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions for some time. The municipality’s own operations have been climate neutral since 2008.
Robert Cornels Nordli, Mayor of Arendal, says: “We consider it a natural next step to work towards climate neutrality for the community as a whole. Some of our services are focused on climate, energy, and environment. In addition, Arendal is founded on the industries of shipping, forestry and mining, and tourism. Therefore, an additional contribution we want to make is to inspire other sectors.”
Examples of what the Arendal municipality has been doing to become climate neutral so far include the phasing out of all fuel oil consumption for heating purposes, acquiring efficient electric technology, and increasing use of online business meetings to avoid emissions from travel.
To step up work toward climate neutrality, Arendal will work on reducing fossil fuel consumption in transportation, along with increasing the use of biofuels and electric vehicles; and purchasing renewable power to cover emissions from purchased electricity while increasing energy efficiency.
UN Climate Change welcomed Arendal municipality’s announcement to go Climate Neutral Now. Niclas Svenningsen, who heads the agency’s Climate Neutral Now initiative, said: “It’s great that Arendal municipality is moving forward toward becoming climate neutral. Municipalities have an important role within society in promoting action to tackle climate change. We sincerely congratulate Arendal for its efforts and for the goals it has set for the coming years, and at the same time, we encourage other municipalities to follow this initiative.”
Financing climate change is a major concern for Nigeria in its quest for sustainable development and transitioning to a green economy. Delivering on the Paris Agreement requires countries to effectively implement their national climate plans as well as increase their ambition over time. Achieving both of these goals requires a key item – finance.
Ibrahim Usman Jibril, Minister of State for Environment
Historically, Nigeria has not been as successful as many other developing countries in accessing available international resources to help meet these needs. A lack of understanding of climate finance funding opportunities; difficulties in crafting concept notes and applications that reflect the requirements of providers; and challenges in coordinating activities across the government so as to present a coherent vision of Nigeria’s climate finance priorities have all held back climate finance flows.
However, in the last few years, important advances appear to have been made.
The Clean Technology Fund is supporting the development of transformative public transport schemes in Lagos, Kano and Abuja.
The Department of Climate Change has established a pioneering Climate Finance Unit that will enhance knowledge and information on climate finance opportunities and help develop robust project proposals.
The Bank of Industry is in the final stages of seeking accreditation as a National Implementing Entity to the Adaptation Fund. If successful, this will allow a national organisation to be responsible for implementing projects funded from this source, substantially enhancing country ownership.
In anticipation of a successful accreditation, efforts to develop a cross-cutting project concept to support the climate resilience of poor and vulnerable Nigerians have begun.
Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, has been classified as a developing nation (lower-middle incomes) according to World Bank 2016 Report. The country has a robust population growth with the attendant need for massive infrastructural development in the key sectors.
However, Nigeria is experiencing huge infrastructural loss in areas such as energy, healthcare, transport, housing, roads, and other social amenities that make life comfortable, and these have contributed in slowing the growth and development of the economy.
It is a well-known fact that climate change presents a lot of challenges which affect the entire world in no small measure. The consequences of this ugly monster with its far-reaching effects have been felt by both the developed and developing nations. Nigeria is battling with the difficult task of achieving stable economic development in the face of a massive infrastructural deficit, alarmingly growing population, and inadequate financial resources to tackle her immediate needs.
Mobilising climate finance from different climate finance sources at the international levels will depend on the country’s ability to satisfying the conditions precedents in assessing such funds and the countries developmental priorities with respect to climate change. At times it could be that the readiness process needs to be robust and implementing entities are well established. Also, bankable projects and proposals for accessing such finds are well prepared.
At the national level the situation is quite different, as national budgeting process needs to be engaged to ensure that priorities set forth in the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) are taken account of by the budgets. Climate vulnerable sectors identified and climate issues are mainstreamed and translated into budgetary allocations of such sectors. Issuing climate bonds is another way of mobilising climate finance from the private sector either at national or international level.
Climate finance refers to the arrays of financial flows in terms of activities and projects which aim at achieving progress towards climate objectives. In fact, climate finance has been seen as a measure to respond to the threats posed by climate change to developing countries.
Developed countries have made a commitment with the aim of raising jointly $100 billion a year by 2020 to tackle climate needs of developing nations.
Adaptation funding is among the most promising outputs of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), but it’s also one of the ways climate assistance could fall flat. While wealthy nations have pledged nearly $10 billion to the Global Climate Fund (GCF) to help vulnerable populations, ensuring funding meets the adaptation needs of communities remains a challenge.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can help governments and communities make better use of adaptation funding by monitoring and strengthening adaptation finance accountability to ensure local community needs are being met.
To conclude, if the government takes action, then Nigeria can prepare a credible, robust pipeline of funding opportunities and pursue the necessary steps to join the 2-degree pathway. If we do not take action now, we might end up losing quite a lot to global warming.
By Olumide Idowu (Team Lead, Climate Wednesday; @OlumideIDOWU)
As part of activities lined up to improve vehicular movement and to mitigate against crashes during the Eid-El-Kabir celebration, the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi, has approved the deployment of 33,000 personnel, both regular and special marshals, to address wrong road usage by motorists which results in high number of Road Traffic Crashes (RTCs) during festivities and ensure a downward trend in the number of RTCs.
Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) marshall, Boboye Oyeyemi. Photo credit: premiumtimesng.com
The Corps Public Education Officer, Bisi Kazeem, emphasised that the operation would focus on traffic control, excessive speeding, dangerous driving/overtaking, clearance of road obstructions, seatbelt use violation, zero tolerance for use of phone while driving, lane indiscipline and route violation as, according to him, these have been identified as reoccurring factors of RTCs.
In a press statement made available to EnviroNews on Tuesday, August 29, 2017, Kazeem stated that the 2017 Eid-El-Kabir Sallah Special patrol operation is scheduled to commence from August 31 to September 6, 2017 and that personnel have been briefed appropriately to perform their duties which include public enlightenment, traffic calming, traffic control, enforcement and rescue services. For ease of operation and prompt rescue services, 859 patrol vans, 106 ambulances, 267 motorbikes and 22 towtrucks have been deployed to cover critical routes and crash-prone areas.
According to him, the holiday is for celebration with family members and loved ones especially for the Muslim faithfuls. He advised motorists to bear in mind the need to adhere to stipulated traffic rules and regulations to and fro their travel destinations as over 200 mobile courts will be set up to prosecute erring offenders.
Kazeem further urged the motoring public to practice safe road use culture and give their maximum cooperation to FRSC personnel for the desired success. He also called on the general public to notify FRSC in the event of an emergency through its emergency line 0700-CALL-FRSC (0700-22553772) or toll free number 122 for prompt response as road safety is a shared responsibility.
The Corps Marshal wishes Nigerians happy Eid-El-Kabir celebration and assured them that personnel will be on ground 24 hours, while Road Side Clinics and Ambulance points across the country will be open to emergencies. He also thanked all military and paramilitary agencies for their sustained support as they have equally been placed on standby for effective collaboration.
The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has received $1,790,411 as financial support from Global Environment Facility (GEF) Trust Fund in order to develop a robust, transparent and functional nationally appropriate mitigation action (NAMA) framework targeting energy generation and end use sectors. The support has been provided under the GEF Cycle 5.
Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka
The GEF supported NAMA aims to reduce Sri Lanka’s heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels and ever increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy generation sector. The NAMA will support appropriate climate change mitigation actions in the energy generation and end-use sectors as part of the initiatives to achieve the voluntary GHG mitigation targets of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka is highly dependent on imported fossil fuels to meet its energy needs with 49% of the primary energy supply coming from imported fuel. This is leading to a heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels, expense of hardly earned national income and increased GHG emissions. As per the latest estimate, around 12% of national budget is consumed for importing fossil fuel to generate electricity. As a result of this, the National Energy Policy of Sri Lanka seeks to diversify supply mix with renewable energy resources whilst seeking to reduce energy demand through demand side management.
The Renewable Energy Resources Development Plan seeks to achieve 20% from renewable energy resources by 2020 and 30% by 2030 as part of the national strategy to reduce GHG emissions through appropriate mitigation actions (NAMA). Energy Management Plan (EnMAP) seeks to achieve energy savings from the promotion of energy efficiency measures.
The implementation of the NAMA will result in a robust, transparent and functional NAMA framework comprised of clear measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system, and supporting institutional entities (NAMA Secretariat, NAMA Coordinating Entity, NAMA Implementing Entity, MRV Committee, NAMA Institutional mechanism, NAMA Approval procedure and NAMA Registry).
The framework will systematically quantify GHG savings and benefits of the mitigation interventions using a bottom up approach to aggregate from the provincial and sub-sector levels to the national and sectors level. Furthermore, such a transparent framework will open up opportunity to access regional and international climate funding.
To test and verify the framework, the NAMA will pilot some mitigation actions including the dissemination of 1,000 bio-digesters, 1,300 high efficiency motors in tea factories, and 205 solar PV net metering systems with battery storage. These pilot actions aim to gain experience and lessons on overcoming the regulatory, institutional, technical, financial and social barriers for the scaling up of the renewable energy and energy efficiency NAMA.
The NAMA has four key aims:
To develop a robust provincial inventory system that could be updated periodically and aggregated at the national level using web-based EnerGIS database management system,
To develop a decision making tools such as Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACC) tools for analysing and prioritising a pipeline of bankable NAMA that could be implemented,
To leverage public, private and civil society organisations (CSOs) resources through the NAMA Implementing Entity for the implementation of bankable renewable energy and energy efficiency NAMAs. The viable and cost effective business models will be developed to incentivise value chain actors to reduce supply risks and create demand, and
To develop a robust and transparent MRV system that is accurate, reliable and credible and avoids double accounting.
The Meloy Fund, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership, has been launched with a first close of $10 million.
Naoko Ishii, CEO and Chairperson of the GEF. GEF had previously announced new investments in various ocean conservation issues
With the necessary threshold of money now raised, the Fund, which attracts private investments in community small-scale commercial fisheries in Indonesia and the Philippines in the form of debt and equity, can begin making investments and closing deals. It will help fill a critical gap in financing the transition of threatened coastal fisheries to sustainability while creating jobs for coastal communities.
The GEF has been harnessing the potential of innovative public-private partnerships to improve the global environment for over two decades. As an anchor investor in the Meloy Fund, the GEF is providing finance alongside impact investors. These include a diverse range of family offices, investment managers, and foundations, such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, JPMorgan Chase, and the Lukas Walton Fund of the Walton Family Foundation, founders of Walmart. Rare, a global conservation organisation, is the Managing Member of the General Partner.
On Friday, August 4 2017, the Meloy Fund announced its launch with a first close of $10 million. This first close was accelerated to respond to strong interest from investors and a pressing pipeline of investment opportunities. A second and final close is projected for this fall with a target of $20 million of debt and equity investment, including $6 million anticipated from the GEF. Conservation International is the GEF implementing agency.
The Fund has already made its first deal announcing a $1 million-dollar investment in the seafood company Meliomar Inc in the Philippines. The Manilla-based fishing, processing and exporting company will promote sustainably caught tuna from local, small-scale fisheries. With the help of the Meloy Fund, the firm is looking to triple its output of traceable yellowfin tuna by 2020.
The investment in the Meloy Fund is part of the GEF’s commitment to promote sustainable fisheries worldwide, protect marine ecosystems and foster partnerships with the private sector.
The Meloy Fund, which is the first impact investment fund in small-scale fisheries, is a recipient of the GEF non-grant pilot programme. The $110 million programme is the GEF’s flagship vehicle to support private sector investment in combatting global environmental degradation by stimulating markets and reducing risk.
The private capital that the GEF-supported fund will provide to local fishery enterprises will help protect Indonesia and the Philippines’s vast marine resources, which are the foundation for the livelihoods of millions of people, and home to some of the most diverse marine life on the planet.
For years, experts had been warning that Houston was a hurricane disaster waiting to happen. The city is built on a massive flood plain next to the Gulf of Mexico, which routinely sends big rainstorms its way. As the city has grown into the nation’s fourth largest, developments have gone up in areas that more strictly regulated states wouldn’t allow. And with the long-term risks to Houston rising, there’s no easy or cheap fix, writes Ralph Vartabedian in the Los Angeles Times
Catastrophe: Flooded airport in Houston with submerged terminals and airplanes
Houston is built on what amounts to a massive flood plain, pitted against the tempestuous Gulf of Mexico and routinely hammered by the biggest rainstorms in the nation.
It is a combination of malicious climate and unforgiving geology, along with a deficit of zoning and land-use controls, that scientists and engineers say leaves the nation’s fourth most populous city vulnerable to devastating floods like the one caused this week by Hurricane Harvey.
“Houston is very flat,” said Robert Gilbert, a University of Texas at Austin civil engineer who helped investigate the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. “There is no way for the water to drain out.”
Indeed, the city has fewer slopes than a shower floor.
Harvey poured as much as 374 billion gallons of water within the city limits, exceeding the capacity of rivers, bayous, lakes and reservoirs. Experts said the result was predictable.
The storm was unprecedented, but the city has been deceiving itself for decades about its vulnerability to flooding, said Robert Bea, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and UC Berkeley emeritus civil engineering professor who has studied hurricane risks along the Gulf Coast.
The city’s flood system is supposed to protect the public from a 100-year storm, but Bea calls that “a 100-year lie” because it is based on a rainfall total of 13 inches in 24 hours.
“That has happened more than eight times in the last 27 years,” Bea said. “It is wrong on two counts. It isn’t accurate about the past risk and it doesn’t reflect what will happen in the next 100 years.”
In an average year, Houston gets 50 inches of rain — as much as Harvey will deliver to some parts of the city.
The muddy rivers — notably the San Jacinto and the Buffalo Bayou — that meander through Houston struggle to carry much water.
Dams along the rivers were built mainly for water storage, not flood control. Because Texas is so flat, the dams can’t hold much water, unlike western dams that are built in deep gorges.
Lake Conroe, a reservoir 43 miles north of the city, is one example. Completed in 1973, it has a capacity of 430,000 acre-feet, about 12% of Oroville Dam in California.
The San Jacinto River Authority, which manages water supplies, knew that Harvey was probably headed its way. But a spokeswoman, Rhonda Trow, said the authority chose not to release water from Lake Conroe in advance because the amount it held wouldn’t have made a difference and could have caused flooding even before the storm hit.
But by Monday, the authority had no choice but to open the flood gates to send 79,141 cubic feet of water to flooded Houston every second.
The situation was similar on two dams on the Buffalo Bayou controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers up river from the Houston Ship Channel.
The long-term risks facing Houston are growing, owing to warming water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, which will fuel more powerful hurricanes by increasing the moisture they carry.
Harvey caused a surge in the Gulf of Mexico that raised its level by as much as 15 feet along the Texas coast, Bea estimated. That meant that for some period of time, rivers were not flowing normally, leaving inland areas less than 15 feet above sea level with little drainage.
In Katrina, the level of the gulf surged by 28 feet, the largest ever recorded along the Gulf Coast, sending water pouring over levees and canal walls. But far less rain fell in that storm than in Harvey.
Beyond the climate change, Houston faces other growing risks for flooding.
Shuhab Khan, a geologist at the University of Houston, has documented that some areas of Houston are sinking at up to 2.2 inches per year, a rapid rate in geological terms.
While some of the subsidence is caused by natural movements of salt deposits, Khan said that most is the result of pumping oil and water from under the city.
So far, it appears some of the hardest-hit flooded areas, such as the Jersey Village nieghborhood, are also the ones affected by subsidence, he said.
In the 1930s, a new residential subdivision was built in the Brownwood neighborhood, which at the time was 10 feet above sea level. Forty years later, it was less than 2 feet above sea level, a subsidence blamed on ground water pumping along the Houston Ship Channel. The neighborhood was destroyed in Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and is now the Baytown Nature Center.
Another long-term problem is the city’s rampant growth and urbanization. The city has 2.2 million residents and the metropolitan area has 6.5 million, all living in a state that eschews much of the zoning and land-use controls that help keep construction away from flood zones in states with more regulations.
“It is naturally prone to flooding,” said Don Riley, the former chief of the Army Corps of Engineers civil works division. “People have built in this massive flood plain. They have to understand that.”
The Corps and local officials have discussed ways to avert even greater risks by improving zoning, reducing the amount pavement to allow better drainage into the soil, building retention ponds in new housing developments and constructing new storm barriers. But when the Corps has tried to encourage land-use controls, the local reaction by politicians and developers has often been swift and furious, Riley said.
“The problem is not decreasing, whatever the future of the weather is,” he said. “It will worsen in the sense that there will be more population. You have to be smart about where you put development.”
The future defense of Houston is likely to be expensive, experts said. The Corps spent $14.2 billion to improve flood control in New Orleans after Katrina, which was aimed at building up levees and flood walls. But just this month, the city was again flooded when its decrepit pumping system was overwhelmed by rainfall.
In the aftermath of Katrina, the American Society of Civil Engineers said that New Orleans’ flood control was a system in name only.
Bea said that reflects the reality of Houston as well.
He estimated that it could cost hundreds of billions of dollars to build a system that would prevent future flooding, involving land-use restrictions, new flood barriers and other measures similar to those in the Netherlands. The Dutch system attempts to defend Amsterdam and Rotterdam from a 10,000-year storm event.
Exactly what Houston could do is far from certain. Gilbert, the University of Texas expert, said any big measures would take a lot of study. Chicago, for example, has massive tunnels hundreds of feet underground that can store 21 billions of gallons storm water and prevent sewage contamination of Lake Michigan, he noted.
“Houston is excessively developed,” he said. “It has 6 million people with lots of concrete and lots of people in harm’s way.”
The 10th meeting of the Advisory Board of the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) commenced on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with the coming 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) high on the agenda. The global climate summit will hold from November 6 to 17, 2017 in Bonn, Germany.
Erstwhile Director, Department of Climate, Federal Ministry of Environment in Nigeria, Dr Samuel Adejuwon, stressing a point during the meeting
The CTCN is accountable to the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC through the CTCN Advisory Board. The Advisory Board meets twice per year and provides direction on the CTCN’s fulfillment of the COP’s guidance.
Consequently, the meeting, scheduled to end on Thursday, August 31, is addressing the Bonn climate change conference (SB 46), and preparations for COP23.
Board members are also reviewing communications and outreach plans for COP23.
On the UNFCCC’s Technology Mechanism, board members are addressing issues bordering RD&D activities, Technology Framework submission to SBSTA (Subsidiary Body of Scientific and Technological Advice) 47, Submission to the Paris Committee on Capacity Building, and Independent Review of the CTCN by the UNFCCC secretariat.
The SBSTA is one of two permanent subsidiary bodies to the Convention established by the COP/CMP. It supports the work of the COP, the CMP (Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol) and the CMA (Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement) through the provision of timely information and advice on scientific and technological matters as they relate to the Convention, its Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
On the CTCN operations moving forward, participants will be discussing: Technical assistance requests and process; Capacity building, Network and stakeholder/private sector engagement; Knowledge Management System and technology content; M&E – Framework for measuring and evaluating CTCN-wide impact; Gender; and Plans for COP23.
An information session, themed “CTCN Experiences: Perspectives of NDEs and Technical Assistance Providers”, holds on August 29 and August 30.
The meeting is holding at the UN City, Marmorvej, in Copenhagen.
Erstwhile Director, Department of Climate, Federal Ministry of Environment in Nigeria, Dr Samuel Adejuwon, is a member of the CTCN Advisory Board.
