Incessant rains in the Southern Indian State of Kerala have left 22 people dead and thousands marooned, officials said on Thursday, August 9, 2018.

“At least 22 deaths were reported over the last 24 hours from Idukki, Malappuram, Kozhikode and Wayanad districts,’’ Shibu Rautel, an officer at the state’s disaster management control room, said.

The deaths were largely due to landslides and drowning.

Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the Indian Army were helping local administrations in the rescue operations.

More than 5,000 people have been rescued from villages in low-lying areas and housed in relief camps across the state.

Water had to be released from 22 dams due to rising water levels and this was causing flooding downstream, officials said.

This included the Cheruthoni dam on Periyar River, the gates of which were last opened in 1992.

Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, described the situation as “very grim’’ at a press briefing in the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram.

“We have sought help from the Army, Navy, Coastguard and NDRF,’’ Vijayan said.

The Nehru Trophy Boat Race, an annual event in Alappuzha, which draws large crowds including tourists and which was to have been held on Aug. 4, has been postponed.

Schools in several areas remained closed, trains were delayed and the airport at Kozhikode city briefly closed.

India’s monsoon season between June and September often sees heavy rains that are vital for agriculture but can cause immense destruction.

Authorities in Ghana have taken steps to phase out items and chemicals that contain mercury in line with the Minamata Convention on Mercury, an official has said.

Sam Adu-Kumi, Director for Chemicals Control and Management Centre and Registrar of Pesticides of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stressed the need for some level of urgency in public education and sensitisation of decision makers to achieve this goal.

This, he said, was important considering the harmful effects of mercury on the environment and human life.

“Mercury discharged into the atmosphere and in the environment contaminates the food chain for plants, animals and finally affects humans who consume them,” he told the media in Accra on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at a workshop themed: “Minamata Convention: Roles and responsibilities of Ghana’s health sector”.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury, was adopted by the Conference of Plenipotentiaries held in Minamata and Kumamoto, Japan, in 2013.

“We were given up to 2020 to complete the phasing out or phasing down process, but looking at the magnitude of work involved, we have requested for extension, so we are now expected to complete the process by 2025,” the official said.

The workshop was organised by the United Nations Development Programme – Global Environment Facility (UNDP-GEF) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service, and in partnership with Ecological Restorations. It was aimed at raising awareness among relevant stakeholders on the Minamata Convention.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) categorises mercury as a “global threat to human and environmental health” because of its harmful effects to human health and environmental ecosystems.

An environmentalist, Mr Sylvester Okonofua, has called on the Federal Government to provide legal instruments and review its policy on forest reserves in the country.

Okonofua, who made the call in a statement made available to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 in Abuja, stressed the need for the provision of policy on forest reserves.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) record indicates that the total land area of Nigeria is 923,786 km and 7.7 per cent of the total land area is classified as forest and 2.9 per cent of the total land areas are other wood land with a total growing stock of 936 million meters.

According to the record, Nigeria has a diverse and complex vegetation types with contiguous ecological zones, which includes Sahel Savannah, Sudan Savannah, Guinea Savannah, Deride Savannah, low land rain forest, freshwater swamp forest, mangrove swamp forest and coastal vegetation.

He said in the document titled: “Nigeria final draft country report on National forest investment programme,’’ that there are presently no updated legal instruments on forests as the last one in use was produced by the Federal Ministry of Environment in 2003.

Okonofua noted that most of the provisions of the bill are now obsolete and need to be revised and represented to the appropriate authorities of government.

“Each state has its own forestry law on administration, management and control of forest estates, it also regulates control of licenses and permits to primary forest industries like saw mills and timber markets.

“The law also empowers the state governors to de-reserve a constituted forest reserve on ground of public interest.

The environmentalist said the review has become imperative because such power has been used in all the states of the federation to convert some thousands of hectares of land in the forest reserves to other uses.

Okonofua said that the main strategic framework of the country is contained in the vision 20 20: 20, which recognised the need for sustainable management of forest for economic and social development benefits for the present and future generations.

He said that specifically the forestry objective is to ensure that 25 per cent of the total land area of Nigeria is brought under sustainably managed forest aimed at producing forest resources in fostering environmental sustainability.

“This is in line with the FAO’s recommendation for the minimum forest cover and environmental objectives of the MDGs goal 7 of ensuring environmental sustainability.

“The forestry of vision 20 20: 20 is also in consonance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly goal 15 which is regarded as the most relevant for the forest related issues,’’ he said.

He, however, noted that the National forest policy of 2006 is the main blueprint instrument for forestry development in Nigeria.

Okonofua said it guided the actions of the Federal Government in forest sector while the states were expected to use it as a model to enact state specific forest policies.

He lamented that to date no state has domesticated the policy 10 years after, while some of the provisions in the policy are now obsolete and need urgent revision.

Okonofua noted that there are so many challenges militating against the sustainable development of the forestry sectors in Nigeria.

He said they include deforestation and degradation, unsustainable management of the forests, pastorialism, mining, and oil exploration.

Others are bush burning, human settlement, infrastructural development and agricultural practices.

Okonofua added that the indirect causes include policy failure, obsolete forest laws, lack of implementation of existing laws and population pressure, poverty and insecure land tenure.

Okonofua also observed that the National Council on Environment (NCE) the highest policy making body in environment sector also lacks adequate funds to function maximally.

An official of the Ministry of Environment told NAN on condition of anonymity that the forest sector has been hindered by lack of funds and frequent policy changes.

He noted that delays are often experienced in the overall budgeting process and the funds released are often short of budgetary allocations, thereby distorting implementation schedules.

“For example, capital releases were not made for all the national budget items in 2015 and the late releases was witnessed in 2016.

“This is a great concern in time bound activities, such as afforestation and reforestation development projects and programmes,’’ he said

The source told NAN that some projects and programmes were inserted into the annual budget outside the forestry projects resulting in redistribution of funds.

On Saturday, September 8, 2018, people around the world will take part in hundreds of actions under the banner of “Rise for Climate” to highlight increasing climate impacts and the need for real climate leadership.

Persons across five continents will be showcasing community-led solutions to the climate crisis and demanding that political leaders and decision makers step up their climate action ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit taking place on September 12 in San Francisco, California.

The communities most impacted by the fossil fuel industry and climate change will be participating thus:

• In Africa there will be climate summits where local leaders will call for an acceleration of the just transition to fair and equitable energy systems;
• Pacific Island nations will petition their local institutions to commit to 100% renewable energy;
• Affected communities in Thailand will be marching outside the UN climate change conference in Bangkok to ensure negotiators hear the message of the people joining Rise for Climate around the world;
• In Latin America groups will rise to challenge dangerous fossil fuel extraction methods like fracking; and
• In Europe, communities will challenge their local municipalities to ditch dangerous fossil fuels and transition to 100% renewable energy.

So far in 2018, the world has witnessed a range of severe impacts related to climate change including: numerous floods in Kenya, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan and in sub-Saharan Africa, Cape Town became the first major city in the world to suffer and come back from the brink of Day Zero brought on by extreme droughts.

With 19 countries on the African continent going to the polls in a few months, including South Africa, Senegal, Ghana and Benin, Rise for Climate will presumably set the tone for a series of upcoming political moments and challenge decision-makers to act. The reality of the climate crisis should be the pressure that necessitates actions to tackle it.

The launch of the IPCC’s special report on the consequences of global warming surpassing 1.5C degrees should galvanise governments in their efforts to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, while the Climate Vulnerable Forum being held by the governments in-line to suffer the worst consequences of unchecked global warming is a chance to learn from the leadership of those on the frontlines. The Global Climate Action Summit convening non-state actors, and the UN Climate Negotiations bringing governments to the table, are opportunities for decision-makers at all levels to provide deeper commitments and accelerate their responses.

Lerato Ngakane of 350Africa.org said in a statement: “The actions of the Rise for Climate mobilisation will be highly visual, creative and unique with renowned artists located in Brazil, Canada, Samoa, New Zealand, Ukraine, Portugal, Netherlands, Uganda, and Indonesia as well as community groups across the planet taking part to help bridge language, culture and geographic gaps and find the common core to build a groundswell of support for real climate leadership, increase the pressure on national leaders that are falling short of their commitments, and create the right momentum to secure a fast and just transition to an equitable world.”

“Climate impacts are hitting communities right now with heat waves, wildfires, droughts, and flooding making headlines in the last few weeks alone. This September thousands of people around the world are going to draw a line in the sand and say no more to the root cause of these tragedies, no more to fossil fuels. We have all the solutions we need at hand; the time is now to accelerate a just and swift transition to 100% renewable energy for all. Communities all around the world will expressively and artistically demonstrate why it is time for governments to take example from local leaders,” May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org, stated.

“For people of faith and spirit, the choice couldn’t be clearer: mass climate-induced humanitarian and ecological devastation, or an all-we’ve-got commitment to life in the form of 100% renewable energy for all and a just transition for affected workers and communities. We choose life. And, we want our leaders to show us by their commitments that they are making the same choice,” Rev. Fletcher Harper, Executive Director, GreenFaith, stressed.

“In exactly one month, people around the world will rise to challenge leaders participating in the Global Climate Action Summit in California and in other key meetings beyond to say 100% renewable energy is what we want, and we want it now because it is good for our health, pockets, securing jobs and robust economies. The age of fossil fuels is closing. It is a dying industry. If renewable energy technology and cost continue on their current path of exponential improvement, a fossil fuel smoke stack will become a relic of the past in no time,” Wael Hmaidan, Executive Director, Climate Action Network, noted.

“This October hundreds of scientists from top institutes will report to our governments, describing exactly how much devastation will be wrought on our communities if they do not take urgent, transformative action to limit global warming to 1.5°C degrees. In the Pacific region, we don’t need scientists to tell us this, in my home country the Philippines we are already managing the horrendous consequences of massive storms like Typhoon Yolanda. It is the imminent threat to our nations and cultures combined with the tenacity of communities in the region that drives us to lead the way in mobilisations like Rise for Climate and show the rest of the world what true climate action looks like,” said Lidy Nacpil, Coordinator of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development.

“The decisions we make now will define our ability to secure a more prosperous future and keep warming to levels that will avoid catastrophic climate change impacts. It will take everyone doing everything to change climate change. That’s why we are joining local leaders, frontline communities, and individuals and calling on our political leaders to step up and lead the momentum for strong climate action. The voice of ordinary people matters and can make a difference,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, WWF’s global climate and energy programme leader.