Chad has pledged to restore five million hectares by 2030 as part of the Bonn Challenge. The commitment was made at the recently held Southern Africa (SADC+) Bonn Challenge Ministerial Roundtable, organised by the Malawi Department of Forestry and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Chad commits to restore five million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030
Chad’s pledge brings the total hectares pledged to the Bonn Challenge to 156.05 million.
A global effort to bring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030, the Bonn Challenge has received unprecedented support from African nations with 80.4 million hectares pledged by 19 countries including Chad.
Since 2016, 16 countries have also endorsed the Kigali Declaration to foster regional collaboration on forest landscape restoration (FLR). The SADC+ Roundtable is one in a series of high-level dialogues initiated by countries with the support of IUCN to exchange solutions and experiences with FLR.
“It is clear that degradation and deforestation in Chad is impacting our most vulnerable communities. The Bonn Challenge presents an opportunity for us to restore 5 million hectares of degraded and deforested land and will support the achievement of our Vision 2030,” said Oumar Mahamat Hassane, National Coordinator, COMIFAC on behalf of Mahamat Brah, the Chadian Minister of Environment and Fisheries.
Several countries in the region have made considerable progress on their pledges. At the SADC+ roundtable, Malawi released the results of its national assessment of restoration opportunities and a roadmap for achieving its 4.5 million hectare pledge to the Bonn Challenge and the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100). In 2016 and early 2017, Rwanda and Uganda completed similar assessments and are working towards operationalising their pledges.
“As the Secretariat of the Bonn Challenge, IUCN welcomes Chad’s pledge. As we have seen in Africa and around the world, restoration brings direct benefits to local communities, enhancing their food and water security, generating livelihoods and building their resilience to climate change. We stand ready to provide the policy and technical support that Chad needs to achieve its commitment,” said Stewart Maginnis, Global Director, Nature-based Solutions, IUCN.
Chad’s pledge to the Bonn Challenge and AFR100 brings together several domestic programmes focused on restoration, including the Neutral Land Degradation Project, Great Green Wall Programme, Lake Chad Ecosystem Rehabilitation and Restoration Project and the Provincial Landscape Restoration Initiative.
A defining feature of the Bonn Challenge is that it allows countries to achieve multiple domestic and international priorities of poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and land degradation neutrality.
As emphasised by Bright Msaka SC, Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining, Malawi, who opened the SADC+ Roundtable, FLR and the Bonn Challenge have the potential to improve the quality of life and economic opportunity for millions across Africa. By pledging to the Bonn Challenge, Chad has joined a global community of governments and institutions committed to ensuring the benefits of restoration are realised on the ground.
Women and men in coastal communities are often closely connected to their coastal ecosystems and gender roles are often traditionally identified and clearly divided. Women and men differ in how they interact and depend upon mangroves – how they use the ecosystem, which mangrove products they choose, and the benefits they receive, write Juliet Blum and Dorothée Herr, as the world celebrates the World Mangrove Day on Wednesday, July 26
Women and men differ in how they interact and depend upon mangroves. Photo credit: Pixabay / IUCN
Mangrove forests are particularly rich in directly harvestable seafood, timber, firewood and other plant products such as tea and roofing materials. They also provide vital protection against floods and storms and buffer against sea level rise. Especially in developing countries, coastal communities are directly dependent on products and services gained from mangrove forest ecosystems.
Unfortunately, many years of unsustainable human use, largely driven by demand for resources and products on the international market, has led to large-scale overexploitation and destruction of mangrove forests. The consequences of disappearing mangroves have been particularly detrimental to the lives and livelihoods of the local people. Global conservation efforts are now engaging local communities in their actions to reverse this dangerous trend.
Acknowledging the different roles women and men have in the ecosystem and community is essential in any conservation initiative. It allows for their differentiated inputs and impacts and promotes specific responses women and men could, and should, undertake. Despite today’s widely applied concept of integrating local communities in conservation efforts, there is a great risk of overlooking the particular interests and potential contributions of marginalised community members such as women. This can happen all too easily because women often have less social, economic and political power. Due to entrenched inequitable structures and barriers, they have a reduced influence in the decision making process within their communities.
Fortunately, integrating a gender-responsive approach into conservation efforts is currently gaining global momentum with significant results toward empowering women and enhancing gender equality. For women some of the potential consequences of a gender-responsive approach are increased food and water security, gained leadership and voice, improved health, security, education and skills development as well as improved livelihoods and income. IUCN’s Global Gender Office highlights and supports this approach to ‘ensure gender equality is central to sustainable global environmental solutions’ in a range of issues. Particularly around the conservation and restoration of mangrove forests, IUCN, its partners and other organisations are active in several projects working to integrate gender considerations and responses.
Mangroves for the Future (MFF), an initiative co-chaired by IUCN and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is running mangrove restoration and sustainable development projects with gender integration as a core strategy in several Asian countries. Participatory, community-based project approaches ensure that women’s and men’s voices are considered equally and aim to improve women’s social and economic empowerment. Some MFF projects have supported women through sustainable livelihoods and financial leadership training which provides them with alternative livelihoods and income opportunities. For example, where women have received training on the advantages of cultivating mangrove plants, the resulting increases in fish stocks have provided an additional income opportunity. Moreover, their newly acquired financial skills have ensured higher business success.
In Vietnam, gender integrated management in Xuan Thuy National Park allowed local impoverished fisherwomen to build sustainable livelihoods while actively contributing to the park’s conservation. Before, these women depended on increasingly scarce harvests of shells, molluscs and crabs, gathered illegally within the park’s mangrove forests. Although now the women continue to collect those products – through sensitisation, awareness raising and training for gender equitable management, women have become actively involved in the management and monitoring of the resources – contributing to sustainable harvests and securing a sustainable future for themselves as well as the park.
The Guyana Mangrove Restoration Project saw women take a central leadership role with their efforts to increase the resilience of Guyana’s coasts against flooding and coastal erosion – a threat which mostly affected women. Women were provided with resources for economic empowerment and capacity building trainings, which allowed them to set up various businesses including honey production, tourism activities and mangrove cultivation. The active participation of women even led to the establishment of a women-led volunteer organisation for mangrove awareness and restoration as well as the ‘Mangrove Cooperative Society’ to support other women with training and resources on beekeeping.
In Kenya, women engaged in “Mikoko Pamoja’”, a mangrove conservation and restoration project co-ordinated by ACES, maintain ‘The Gazi Women Boardwalk’ to promote conservation education within the mangrove forest. Through this initiative the women have proven their effectiveness in contributing to ecotourism while generating income for their community’s schools as well as contributing to better health care and reliable water supply.
These positive examples show that integrating gender equality into conservation initiatives is not only key to the success and sustainability of projects but can contribute additional value to its outcomes in supporting both women and men with various benefits for their homes, communities and nations. A gender integrative approach recognises women not as passive project beneficiaries, but as active drivers of change toward conservation, sustainable development and their own sustainable livelihoods.
Stakeholders are calling for a gradual shift of focus from timber exploitation to non-timber produce, in the light of widespread deforestation being perpetrated through human activities especially illegal felling of trees in forest reserves across the South-Western part of the country.
Ogun State Commissioner for Forestry, Chief Kolawole Lawal
Ogun State Commissioner for Forestry, Chief Kolawole Lawal, through his Media Aide, Mr. Damilare Olubayode, made this submission in Abeokuta while speaking at a meeting which comprised representatives of “Omo-Shasha-Oluwa” Conservation Project, National Conservation Foundation (NCF) and Directors of Forestry in the South-West region. Lawal described the gathering was apt in finding lasting solutions to the persistent menace in the forestry sub-sector in the region and the nation at large.
While acknowledging that though the campaign against deforestation required the concerted efforts of all stakeholders, he stressed the need for all member states in the South-West region to gradually disabuse their citizens and timber merchants of the notion of over-reliance on timber exploitation for wealth creation.
“It is also necessary to bring to limelight the challenges facing forest regeneration/plantation establishment in our states particularly at individual, corporate and government levels.
“Furthermore, a re-ignited emphasis on the policy of gradual shift in pressure from exploitation of timber and timber related produce to non-timber forest produce should be supported,” he said.
The Commissioner, who lamented that illegal tree felling, log conversion, hunting and farming in forest reserves owned by the state governments across the South-West had debilitating effects on the revenue generation of the concerned states, pointed out that decisions reached at the forum would impact positively on the overall development of forestry while resolving challenges confronting it.
He added that, to achieve sustainable development, stakeholders in the states should fashion out means of putting an end to the wanton destruction of forest reserved areas and work towards recovering the depleted portions while wild life and eco-tourism potentials should be tapped maximally.
Appreciating the NCF for its untiring efforts at developing forestry reserves, Lawal tasked the body to assist Ministries of Forestry in the South-West states to secure aids-in-grants from government, affirming that the Ogun State Government on its parts would continue to do the needful towards addressing challenges facing the forestry sub-sector.
In his remarks, NCF Executive Chairman, Chief Ede Dafione, commended the Ogun State Government for its efforts so far at combating deforestation and working towards a sustainable reserve, assuring that the body would re-double its support for forest development in Ogun and other South West states.
The meeting, which also attracted participants from Lagos and Osun states, focused on bio-diversity conservation, deliberated on sustainable ways of enhancing eco-tourism, wild life, as well as reducing pressure on exploitation of timber-related produce.
Invenergy, North America’s largest independent, privately-held renewable energy company, along with GE Renewable Energy, has announced a 2,000megawatt wind farm that will be the largest in the U.S. and second-largest in the world, once operational. The Wind Catcher facility is currently under construction in the Oklahoma panhandle and will generate wind electricity from 800 state-of-the-art GE 2.5 megawatt turbines.
An offshore wind energy farm. Photo credit: offshorewind.biz
The wind facility is part of the $4.5 billion Wind Catcher Energy Connection that also includes an approximately 350-mile dedicated, extra-high voltage power line. American Electric Power (AEP) utility subsidiaries Public Service Co. of Oklahoma (PSO) and Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO) are asking utility regulators in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma to approve plans to purchase the wind farm from Invenergy upon completion of construction and to build the power line to serve PSO and SWEPCO’s more than 1.1 million customers.
“Wind Catcher shows American leadership in bringing low-cost clean energy to market at giga scale,” said Invenergy’s Founder and CEO, Michael Polsky. “This project reflects Invenergy’s innovative spirit and unparalleled execution ability, and we are proud to be working with forwardlooking utilities like PSO and SWEPCO whose customers and communities will benefit from this project for decades to come.”
Wind Catcher Energy Connection is expected to save SWEPCO and PSO customers more than $7 billion, net of cost, over 25 years. AEP estimates that the project will support approximately 4,000 direct and 4,400 indirect jobs annually during construction and 80 permanent jobs once operational. It also will contribute approximately $300 million in property taxes over the life of the project.
The 2.5 megawatt GE turbines that will power the project are GE’s latest model, designed to enhance siting efficiency, offer industry-leading reliability and allow for higher energy production. GE will also implement its Digital Wind Farm solutions, providing software to support wind operations including Asset Performance Management (APM) and Operations Optimisation (OO).
All machine heads and hubs will be manufactured in the U.S., and additional components will be manufactured in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. “GE is delighted to be a part of the groundbreaking Wind Catcher project with Invenergy and American Electric Power,” said Pete McCabe, President and CEO of GE’s Onshore Wind business. “We look forward to putting our teams to work in these communities as we continue to move toward our goal of ensuring that no one has to choose between sustainable, reliable and affordable energy.”
Construction of the Wind Catcher facility started in 2016, and it is expected to be fully operational in mid-2020. Invenergy is contracted to operate the facility for the first five years.
New World Health Organisation (WHO) data from 28 countries – representing approximately 70% of the global hepatitis burden – indicate that efforts to eliminate hepatitis are gaining momentum.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Photo credit: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images
Published to coincide with World Hepatitis Day, the data reveal that nearly all 28 countries have established high-level national hepatitis elimination committees (with plans and targets in place) and more than half have allocated dedicated funding for hepatitis responses.
On World Hepatitis Day, WHO called on countries to continue to translate their commitments into increased services to eliminate hepatitis. This week, WHO has also added a new generic treatment to its list of WHO-prequalified hepatitis C medicines to increase access to therapy, and is promoting prevention through injection safety: a key factor in reducing hepatitis B and C transmission.
From commitment to Action
“It is encouraging to see countries turning commitment into action to tackle hepatitis.” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Identifying interventions that have a high impact is a key step towards eliminating this devastating disease. Many countries have succeeded in scaling-up the hepatitis B vaccination. Now we need to push harder to increase access to diagnosis and treatment.”
World Hepatitis Day 2017 is being commemorated under the theme “Eliminate Hepatitis” to mobilise intensified action towards the health targets in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. In 2016, the World Health Assembly endorsed WHO’s first global health sectors strategy on viral hepatitis to help countries scale up their responses.
The new WHO data show that more than 86% of countries reviewed have set national hepatitis elimination targets and more than 70% have begun to develop national hepatitis plans to enable access to effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care services. Furthermore, nearly half of the countries surveyed are aiming for elimination through providing universal access to hepatitis treatment. But WHO is concerned that progress needs to speed up.
“The national response towards hepatitis elimination is gaining momentum. However, at best one in ten people who are living with hepatitis know they are infected and can access treatment. This is unacceptable,” said Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, WHO’s Director of the HIV Department and Global Hepatitis Programme.
“For hepatitis elimination to become a reality, countries need to accelerate their efforts and increase investments in life-saving care. There is simply no reason why many millions of people still have not been tested for hepatitis and cannot access the treatment for which they are in dire need.”
Viral hepatitis affected 325 million people worldwide in 2015, with 257 million people living with hepatitis B and 71 million people living with hepatitis C – the two main killers of the five types of hepatitis. Viral hepatitis caused 1.34 million deaths in 2015 – a figure close to the number of TB deaths and exceeding deaths linked to HIV.
Improving access to hepatitis C cure
Hepatitis C can be completely cured with direct acting antivirals (DAAs) within three months, according to the WHO. However, as of 2015, only 7% of the 71 million people with chronic hepatitis C had access to treatment.
WHO is working to ensure that DAAs are affordable and accessible to those who need them. Prices have dropped dramatically in some countries (primarily in some high-burden, low-and lower middle income countries), facilitated by the introduction of generic versions of these medicines. The list of DAAs available to countries for treating hepatitis C is growing.
WHO has just prequalified the first generic version of one of these drugs: sofosbuvir. The average price of the required three-month treatment course of this generic is between $260 and $280, a small fraction of the original cost of the medicine when it first went on the market in 2013. WHO prequalification guarantees a product’s quality, safety and efficacy and means it can now be procured by the United Nations and financing agencies such as UNITAID, which now includes medicines for people living with HIV who also have hepatitis C in the portfolio of conditions it covers.
Hepatitis B treatment
With high morbidity and mortality globally, there is great interest also in the development of new therapies for chronic hepatitis B virus infection. The most effective current hepatitis B treatment, tenofovir, (which is not curative and which in most cases needs to be taken for life), is available for as low as $48 per year in many low and middle income countries. There is also an urgent need to scale up access to hepatitis B testing.
Improving injection safety and infection prevention to reduce new cases of hepatitis B and C
Use of contaminated injection equipment in health-care settings accounts for a large number of new HCV and HBV infections worldwide, making injection safety an important strategy. Others include preventing transmission through invasive procedures, such as surgery and dental care; increasing hepatitis B vaccination rates and scaling up harm reduction programmes for people who inject drugs.
Today WHO is launching a range of new educational and communication tools to support a campaign entitled “Get the Point-Make smart injection choices” to improve injection safety in order to prevent hepatitis and other bloodborne infections in health-care settings.
The Government of Bolivia comes under international pressure to drop charges against Pablo Solón and Rafael Archondo, and stop the El Bala and Chepete dams
Pablo Solón (left) and Rafael Archondo
More than 70 organisations and 700 people from over 50 countries have called on the Bolivian government to drop what is widely believed to be false charges against its former UN representatives, Pablo Solón and Rafael Archondo, and to stop the proposed hydroelectric power projects, El Bala and Chepete.
The signatories include prominent public intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky, Walden Bello and Susan George; Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine; US environmental leader, Bill McKibben; Nigerian award-winning environmentalist, Nnimmo Bassey; renowned author, Amitav Ghosh; Hollywood actress and indigenous rights activist, Qorianka Kilcher; as well as a number of European parliamentary representatives, such as Philippe Lamberts, Helmut Scholz and Soren Sondergaard.
The statement has also been supported by leading international human rights, peace and justice organisations such as Focus on the Global South, Transnational Institute, Global Justice Now, ATTAC, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, International Peace Bureau, CETRI, Migrant Forum Asia and FIAN International.
Many of the signatories have supported the Bolivian government since the election of Evo Morales in 2005, backing the country for its leadership on international issues, such as the Right to Water, the Rights of Mother Earth and Buen Vivir.
The statement expresses their “profound disappointment” that the government is now persecuting its prominent former statesmen for daring to speak out against the presumably environmentally-destructive hydroelectric power project and the El Bala and Chepete dams. The statement also expresses concern at alleged attempts to silence dissent to extractive projects.
The statement concludes: “Bolivia will have no credibility on climate change and the rights of Mother Earth if it invests in mega-dams and persecutes its principal environmental defenders.”
Shalmali Guttal of Focus on the Global South and one of the initiators of the sign-on statement said: “This is a clear case of criminalisation of resistance to extractivist, destructive development. We are shocked to see this happening in Bolivia to advocates of climate justice and indigenous peoples’ rights by a government we had so much hope in.”
Walden Bello said: “Pablo Solón should be given an award for fighting for Bolivia’s environment instead of being persecuted. The Bolivian government should drop all charges against him and Rafael Archondo immediately.”
Brid Brennan of Transnational Institute said: “We hope the Bolivian government can live up to its rhetoric of ‘Buen Vivir’, by protecting its environmental defenders and advancing a new energy future-based not on mega-dams and fossil fuels – but on democratically – controlled public wind and solar energy.”
Dorothy Guerrero of Global Justice Now said: “We applauded Bolivia for enshrining the Law of Mother Earth in your constitution, making it the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. We also supported Bolivia’s strong Southern voice in demanding for big countries like the US and Britain to do steep carbon emission cuts in the UNFCCC. Pablo Solon and Rafael Orchondo are speaking for all of us and for nature with their opposition against El Bala and Chepete mega dams.
“It has just come to light that the criminal complaints against Solon and Archondo have expired and the charges against them hold no legal validity, so any pursuance of this case would be an even clearer case of political persecution.”
Pablo Solon, said: “Even if they put me in jail, the mega dams of El Bala and Chepete will be a disaster for nature, indigenous peoples and Bolivia’s economy.”
The Dominican Republic aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the coffee cultivation through implementation of Low Carbon Coffee NAMA.
A farmer harvests coffee beans in a plantation in the Dominican Republic
A NAMA, or Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action, refers to any action that reduces emissions in developing countries. These can be policies directed at transformational change within an economic sector, or actions across sectors for a broader national focus.
The Coffee NAMA aims to reduce emissions in the Dominican Republic’s agriculture sector, which is said to be the second highest source of GHG emissions, at 31.6% of total emissions. The NAMA specifically focuses on reducing emissions contributed by coffee farms and mills, which are large emission sources within the agriculture sector.
The Low Carbon Coffee NAMA of the Dominican Republic aligns with the Dominican Republic National Policy of Climate Change (PNCC), as well in the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector of the Dominican Republic (NASAP). The NAMA will facilitate more intensive cooperation between the leading institutions like, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, National Council for Climate Change and Clean Development Mechanism and Dominican Coffee Council (CODOCAFE), as well with the private sector to make coffee production more climate-friendly.
In a participatory process between 2017 and 2028, emission reduction will be achieved through a number of actions. Plans include providing technical advice to coffee farmers, transforming coffee production practices, creating partnerships with the international coffee and fertiliser industry, and leveraging financial support instruments like grants, concessional loans or guarantees for coffee farmers and mills.
The Coffee NAMA includes four measures for reducing GHG emissions:
Reduction in the use of nitrogenised fertilisers and N2O emissions
Avoidance of methane through improved treatment and reuse of wastewater in mills
Improved use and management of biomass as and energy source
Carbon capture through the development of agro-forestry system
The NAMA offers the potential to scale up and roll-out to other sectors of agricultural production, and relies on the engagement and innovation of farmers and millers. Successful implementation will require intensive cooperation with the private sector, technology providers, and with global coffee distributors.
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Patricia Espinosa, on Thursday, July 27, 2017 briefed embassies in Berlin, Germany regarding the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) holding in Bonn, Germany from November 6 to 17, 2017. The UNFCCC secretariat is hosting COP23, in close collaboration with the Government of Fiji, who will serve as the President of the meeting and will provide the political leadership to move forward international cooperation on climate change.
The Government of Germany, as the host country of the secretariat, along with the City of Bonn and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, are providing valuable political and budgetary support to the organisation of this major international event, which is expected to attract more than 20,000 people.
In her address, Espinosa says that such cooperation makes COP23 possible, while raising awareness of the vulnerability of islands and all nations. She called for the countries’ support for Germany, support for cooperation with Fiji, and support for the commitment to make Bonn a UN-led hub of sustainable development and climate action
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Patricia Espinosa, briefing the diplomats in Berlin
The arrangements for this year’s climate conference are not unprecedented – the COP has been held in Bonn before – but they are unusual. The country where the conference will be held will not preside over the meeting. This unusual arrangement is extremely important.
This year, the Government of Fiji will assume the COP presidency.
The cooperation, mainly from the German government, that enables the small island state to step up and lead is important because it embodies exactly what is needed at a global level. The world must work together to meet the challenges of climate change and sustainable development.
The developed world must support all nations – regardless of size, or location, or contribution to greenhouse gas emissions – in the effort to fulfill national climate plans and chart their own low-emission, highly resilient development path.
For Fiji, this path is critical. Pacific islands – and all low-lying islands – are some of the most vulnerable nations. For many, the threat of climate change is existential. We are already losing islands to rising seas and many struggle to adapt to costly extreme weather events, eroding coastlines and saltwater intrusion into water supplies and agricultural lands.
Cooperation makes COP 23 possible. It also raises awareness of the vulnerability of islands and all nations. And it opens the door to even more collaboration and support – for resilient communities and for the transition to growth powered by clean energy.
Fiji and Germany are laying the groundwork for success in Bonn in November. But it is not just cooperative planning and preparation that will signal success for COP23. We must also see steps forward in the process and in global climate action.
With 155 nations that have ratified the agreement – and if your nation is among those I thank you – please allow me to share what we must get done at this year’s conference. And let me share how you can contribute to its success.
The step forward by governments this year must be significant. In this new and dynamic era of implementation of the Paris Agreement, work must progress quickly to make the agreement fully operational.
Right now, focus is on the operating manual – the technical guidelines and procedures – of the agreement.
This work has a 2018 deadline, so our step forward at COP 23 needs to be a full stride towards a strong implementation system that is effective in achieving the goals outlined in the agreement and goal 13 of the Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In 2018, there will be an initial opportunity to take stock of progress towards those goals. COP23 must also be a full stride forward towards an effective and equitable plan to assess progress at the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue.
Taking these significant steps forward will be a challenge, especially considering recent shifts in the global political landscape. But movement forward by the community of nations takes us closer to transforming our on-the-ground reality.
For this reason, COP23 must advance several crucial issues:
Building greater resilience for vulnerable nations through strong support.
Improving access to adaptation finance and affordable climate risk and disaster insurance.
Strengthening the link between climate change solutions and the health of the world’s ecosystems – oceans, forests, coastlines and polar regions.
And harnessing innovation, enterprise and investment to fast track development of these solutions.
Moving the needle on these issues is not easy. But it is imperative.
We must now turn the national contributions by all nations – backbone of the Paris Agreement – into blueprints for a new model of investment, trade, energy, transportation, urban growth and meeting human need.
So COP23 must advance global climate action, action by key groups that hold great potential to truly transform reality – businesses and investors, regions and cities.
These groups – non-Party stakeholders in our process – were instrumental to a strong agreement in Paris and further strengthened their support in the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action.
They have also been vocal advocates for climate action in recent months.
Businesses and asset owners worth trillions of dollars have reiterated their support for the Paris Agreement. Clean energy, efficient operations, green bonds and sustainable supply chains are already delivering bottom line gains to businesses and investors.
Cooperative city initiatives like Bonn-based ICLEI, C40 and the Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy are growing and helping countries achieve their emission reduction goals. I was recently at the Austrian World Summit, where I heard many examples of regional governments taking action.
COP23 must build on this foundation and make global climate action ‘the way business is done now.’ And not just in respect to Goal 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals but across the 2030 agenda.
This action must inspire country-level policies and practices that incentivise transformation. It can take each and every nation one step closer to fulfilling their national Paris Agreement contribution – and a blueprint to build on.
This is where the COP23 leadership opportunity – for Fiji and for Germany – is also your leadership opportunity. It is your opportunity to contribute to COP23 success.
Just as no one government alone and no one sector of the economy alone can meet the climate change challenge – no one ministry or government department can rise to the challenge. We must have action by all.
Embassies are central to this effort. In supporting the ministers and leaders who come to Bonn, you can also support those that cannot be there and support action.
So, let me be specific in terms of what you may wish to communicate from our meeting here today back to your capitals.
We need outcomes in Bonn in November 2017 that reflect the extraordinary action happening across the globe nationally, internationally and among many, many partners.
We need governments – and also wider society – to have no doubt that the vision forged in Paris 2015 is being realised and implementation is well underway.
We already know of many new and inspirational initiatives that are set to be announced between the opening of the UN General Assembly and Climate Week in New York in September and at COP23 – but we need many more.
At the various events planned, including the high-level events, I would ask your governments to outline in clear and powerful terms the achievements that have been made in the past two years and deliver inspiring announcements about the new ones to come.
Governments should also encourage high-level private sector and subnational leaders to do the same across key sectors like energy, transport cities, investment and agriculture. And across the sustainable management of natural systems like forests and oceans and enabling measures like gender and education.
There is so much happening and so many positive things to tell and to showcase, and COP23 is the platform.
The UN will – working with you and with others – provide the amplification and the public awareness so these example of positive, far reaching action are communicated and understood worldwide.
Indeed, what you say about what you are doing – and what you are poised to do – should leave the world with no doubt that national and cooperative engagement is speeding ahead in what were once unimaginable ways.
In turn, this wealth of current action and the future ambition planned must also find expression in the Paris Agreement’s operational guidelines when finalised in 2018.
Indeed, these guidelines need to be rich in purpose, clear and readable in intent and able to give the Agreement the longevity it requires for taking the world to a future that is well below a 2-degree C temperature rise.
We have 100 days until COP23 opens in Bonn. I ask that, over the next 100 days, you actively seek to support Germany, support cooperation with Fiji and support the commitment to make Bonn a UN-led hub of sustainable development and climate action.
In doing so, you support the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement and your country’s contribution to the agreement. But perhaps more importantly, you join the growing momentum towards development that does not come at the expense of other people or the planet we all share.
Together, we can get the world on course to a stable and secure future, where peace and prosperity flourish and opportunity is open to all. COP23 takes us one big step closer to this vision.
Cholera continues to spread in Yemen, causing more than 390,000 suspected cases of the disease and more than 1,800 deaths since April 27, 2017.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners are responding to the cholera outbreak in Yemen, working closely with UNICEF, local health authorities and others to treat the sick and stop the spread of the disease.
Each of these cholera cases is a person with a family, a story, hopes and dreams. In the centres, where patients are treated, local health workers work long hours, often without pay, to fight off death and help their patients make a full recovery.
Here are their stories, courtesy of the WHO.
Fatima Shooie sits between her 85-year-old mother and 22-year-old daughter who are both receiving treatment for cholera at the crowded 22 May Hospital in Sana’a. “We have no money even for transportation to the hospital. My husband works as a street cleaner but he hasn’t received a salary for eight months and he is our only breadwinner,” Fatima said. “I’m afraid that the disease will transmit to other family members.”Dr Adel Al-Almani is the head of the diarrhoea treatment centre in Al-Sabeen Hospital in Sana’a. He and his team often work 18 hours a day to deal with the influx of patients. More than 30 000 Yemeni health workers have not been paid in more than 10 months. Yet many, like Dr Al-Almani, continue to treat patients and save livesA health worker tends to Khadeeja Abdul-Kareem, 20. Khadeeja was forced to flee the conflict in Al-Waziya District, Taiz. Displaced from her home, she struggles to make ends meet – a situation compounded by her illnessIt was a long and painful journey in search of treatment for Abdu Al-Nehmi, 53. The road from his village in Bani Matar District to Sana’a City was bumpy and the car broke down along the way. The whole time he was suffering from kidney pain in addition to severe diarrhoea and vomiting. “There is no health centre in our area. We have to spend two to three hours to arrive at a proper health facility in Sana’a,” he said. To date, WHO, UNICEF, and partners have supported the establishment of 3,000 beds in 187 diarrhoea treatment centres and 834 fully operational oral rehydration therapy cornersNabila, Fatima, Amal, Hayat and Hend are working as nurses in Azal Health Centre in Sana’a and have dedicated themselves to treating patients arriving with severe dehydration. “Every day, we receive severe cases that come with complicated conditions, but we manage to save the lives of most of them. Sometimes, a new severe case arrives while we’re so busy treating another case,” said Nabila Al-Olofi, one of nurses working in the centre. “Yes, we have no regular salaries as nurses, but saving lives is our biggest gain.”
Yemen is experiencing one of the world’s worst cholera outbreaks in the midst of a large scale conflict that has crippled vital health facilities. In the last three months almost 400,000 cases of suspected cholera and nearly 1,900 associated deaths have been recorded. The country is also on the brink of famine, with nearly two million Yemeni children acutely malnourished.
More than 30,000 health workers haven’t been paid their salaries in more than 10 months, but many still report for duty.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have also reported for duty, as the heads of the three UN agencies traveled together to Yemen to see the scale of this humanitarian crisis and to step up combined efforts to help the people of Yemen.
UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake; WFP Executive Director, David Beasley; and WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, following their joint visit to Yemen, conclude in this statement that the Yemeni crisis requires an unprecedented response
Eight-year-old Mohannad has overcome cholera following 3 days of treatment in the diarrhoea treatment centre at Al-Sabeen Hospital in Sana’a. Mohannad lost his mother and sister when a bomb went off near their home in Hajjah. He and his father have since fled to Sana’a. Photo credit: WHO/S. Hasan
As the heads of three United Nations agencies – UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and WHO – we have travelled together to Yemen to see for ourselves the scale of this humanitarian crisis and to step up our combined efforts to help the people of Yemen.
This is the world’s worst cholera outbreak in the midst of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. In the last three months alone, 400,000 cases of suspected cholera and nearly 1,900 associated deaths have been recorded. Vital health, water and sanitation facilities have been crippled by more than two years of hostilities, and created the ideal conditions for diseases to spread.
The country is on the brink of famine, with over 60 per cent of the population not knowing where their next meal will come from. Nearly two milllion Yemeni children are acutely malnourished. Malnutrition makes them more susceptible to cholera; diseases create more malnutrition. A vicious combination.
At one hospital, we visited children who can barely gather the strength to breathe. We spoke with families overcome with sorrow for their ill loved ones and struggling to feed their families.
And, as we drove through the city, we saw how vital infrastructure, such as health and water facilities, have been damaged or destroyed.
Amid this chaos, some 16,000 community volunteers go house to house, providing families with information on how to protect themselves from diarrhea and cholera. Doctors, nurses and other essential health staff are working around the clock to save lives.
More than 30,000 health workers haven’t been paid their salaries in more than 10 months, but many still report for duty. We have asked the Yemeni authorities to pay these health workers urgently because, without them, we fear that people who would otherwise have survived may die. As for our agencies, we will do our best to support these extremely dedicated health workers with incentives and stipends.
We also saw the vital work being done by local authorities and NGOs, supported by international humanitarian agencies, including our own. We have set up more than 1,000 diarrhoea treatment centres and oral rehydration corners. The delivery of food supplements, intravenous fluids and other medical supplies, including ambulances, is ongoing, as is the rebuilding of critical infrastructure – the rehabilitation of hospitals, district health centres and the water and sanitation network. We are working with the World Bank in an innovative partnership that responds to needs on the ground and helps maintain the local health institutions.
But there is hope. More than 99 per cent of people who are sick with suspected cholera and who can access health services are now surviving. And the total number of children who will be afflicted with severe acute malnutrition this year is estimated at 385,000.
However, the situation remains dire. Thousands are falling sick every day. Sustained efforts are required to stop the spread of disease. Nearly 80 percent of Yemen’s children need immediate humanitarian assistance.
When we met with Yemeni leaders – in Aden and in Sana’a – we called on them to give humanitarian workers access to areas affected by fighting. And we urged them – more than anything – to find a peaceful political solution to the conflict.
The Yemeni crisis requires an unprecedented response. Our three agencies have teamed up with the Yemeni authorities and other partners to coordinate our activities in new ways of working to save lives and to prepare for future emergencies.
We now call on the international community to redouble its support for the people of Yemen. If we fail to do so, the catastrophe we have seen unfolding before our eyes will not only continue to claim lives but will scar future generations and the country for years to come.
