Santiago’s metro system – which transports approximately 2.4 million passengers each day – will become one of the first subways in the world to source most of its power needs from renewable energy.
Chile’s Santiago metro system
Next year, Latin America’s second largest subway system, will source 60 per cent of its energy from solar and wind projects.
In a statement, Metro de Santiago said that it had signed two 15-year agreements, one with a solar energy provider, and another with a wind power company.
According to The Wall Street Journal, California-based SunPower’s will supply 42 per cent of the subway system’s power with a 100-megawatt (MW) solar plant using 254,000 panels covering an area the size of 370 football fields, located in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert.
The remaining 18 per cent will be provided by a recently developed wind farm located just north of the SunPower solar project, The Wall Street Journal said.
Metro de Santiago is one of the capital’s biggest energy consumers.
The transition of the majority of the Chilean capital’s metro system power demand to renewable energy therefore marks a significant step towards the country’s climate action targets.
By 2050, renewables are expected to provide 70 per cent of the Chile’s electricity needs, up from 15 per cent in March 2017.
Last year, a number of renewable energy developers won contracts in Chile’s largest-ever auction to supply power to the country’s northern and central electricity grids.
Chile’s President, Michelle Bachelet, applauded the initiative, stating that the transition to renewable energy sources would generate enough power for the equivalent of 100,000 homes and reduce Chile’s CO2 emissions by around 130,000 tonnes each year.
Furthermore, according to experts, the metro system has the capacity to further increase its use of renewable energy in the network’s power mix through the installation of solar panels on the roofs of its stations and alongside its 20 miles of overground track.
Jorge Amaya, a Researcher at the University of Chile’s Centre for Mathematical Modeling, reportedly said that this would further cut costs and reduce emissions by about 18 per cent.
The UK is investigating the feasibility of installing solar panels along tracks to power the nation’s electric trains.
According to plans laid out in India’s union budget, almost every railway station in the country will soon be powered by solar.
Melbourne’s tram network will become entirely powered by solar energy under a new proposal by the Andrews government to build large-scale solar farms in northern Victoria.
The news follows the announcement that the world’s first zero-emission hydrogen train has successfully completed its first trial in Germany.
The acceptance by President Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo of Ghana to chair the national High Level Inter-ministerial Committee on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been described as a move that has given the needed political backing to the implementation of the global goals in the country.
President Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo of Ghana
And, to further demonstrate his commitment to this move, the President has assigned an official to regularly update him on the SDGs.
“This is good news indicating that the SDGs have been accepted politically and so we’re looking forward to leveraging more support from government,” says Dr. Felix Addo-Yobo, Deputy Director in-charge of Environmental Policy at the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).
He was addressing the annual meeting on Tuesday June 20, 2017 in Accra, of the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) Platform on SDGs organised by CARE International, which is the SDG Focal Point for International NGOs in Ghana.
The CSOs Platform is of the view that Ghana has attained significant progress in including the SDGs in development planning and data collection. The Platform has noted that the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has made important first steps in ensuring a more open and inclusive data environment in Ghana, with focus on timely and reliable data. The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) is also integrating the goals into the future planned national development plans.
Briefing the meeting, on the Status of the Implementation of the SDGs in Ghana, Dr. Addo-Yobo said as the lead institution, the NDPC adopted an approach that utilised existing institutional arrangements to which were added a few new ones, to constitute the base for implementing the SDGs.
These include the High Level Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee chaired by the President to provide strategic guidance; the National Implementation Coordinating Committee made up of representatives of public institutions and key civil society organisations to provide strategic directions for implementing activities; and the National Technical Steering Committee with members drawn from other relevant institutions, to support the work of other committees.
The other aspect of the implementation arrangements involve working within the decentralised planning system of the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to incorporate the targets of the SDGs into their activities on one hand; and on the other collaborating with non-state actors, particularly the corporate and business sector as well as civil society organisations.
Monitoring and reporting is another key component of the institutional arrangement to keep track of the nation’s performance in implementing the SDGs.
Dr. Addo-Yobo said the strategy utilised in localising the process has been to align and adopt SDG targets to the local context, then adapt and incorporate them into national and district development plans, and subsequently to report on the progress.
In reporting on where Ghana is in delivering the SDGs, he observed that that may be difficult to do, because activities have been focused on developing the structures and systems to facilitate implementation.
“Therefore, the impact in establishing the values in relation to actual attainment of SDGs, are difficult to quantify and report on at this stage,” Dr. Addo-Yobo added.
He said “70 percent of the SDGs are already aligned in the Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda (GSGDA) II 2014 – 2017, while, at the metropolitan, municipal and district levels, the targets are being aligned where gaps have been identified.”
Dr. Addo-Yobo announced that GSGDA II will expire at the end of this year and hinted that “a new draft GSGDA is ready for further discussions and consultations.” On the next steps, he hinted that “the current focus is to finish the new development agenda by the end of this month, which is just a few days from now.”
He mentioned other next steps as including training and raising awareness through the civil society platform; strengthening planning, data collection and reporting at all levels with the aim of improving the content of information being turned out; developing a National Data Base on SDGs to share knowledge; and mobilising resources through innovative ways to implement the SDGS.
With regards to monitoring the SDGs, Ghana is following procedures of the Inter-Agency Expert Group on the SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDG), established by the United Nations Statistical Commission in March last year, to develop indicator framework for monitoring the goals and targets of the SDGs.
Accordingly, the IAEG-SDG has classified the 230 targets of the goals into three tiers to ensure simple and practical monitoring. Tier 1 is made up of targets that are conceptually clear, have established methodology and standards available, with data regularly produced by countries. Tier 2 is made up of those indicators that have all the elements of Tier 1, but data is not regularly produced by countries and Tier 3 consists of the indicators for which an internationally agreed methodology has not yet been developed.
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) is the state institution mandated to develop the Data Ecosystem for SDGs Monitoring in the country. An official of the GSS, Omar Seidu, who was also at the CSOs meeting, said that, as at December 2016, 155 indicators have been highlighted in the framework for Tier 1, Tier 2 and the multiple indicators.
He said Ghana currently produces data on 62 indicators, many of which are inherited indicators from the MDGs, and that there also exists some data with limitations, which if strengthened could be used as data for additional 63 indicators. What this means is that the country is for now not producing data on 30 indicators.
Mr. Seidu explained that, of the indicators for which data is available, administrative sources provide the highest volume of data, followed by that from censuses and surveys and the least data provider is from the combination of census and survey, and administrative sources.
He said this indicates the need to invest in administrative data and highlights the key role censuses and surveys will continue to play in the nation’s data regime, while proving the need to explore new sources and types of data.
Mr. Omar mentioned several efforts that have been made towards building Ghana’s Data Ecosystem. These include concluded discussions with the Office of the USA Chief Statistician, for Ghana to clone and customise USA’s National Reporting Platform for SDG indicator tracking. There is also on-going discussions with the UN Global Pulse Kampala Lab to use satellite imagery in poverty estimation, a move in which Hewlett and World Bank have shown interest. Additionally, the GSS has begun discussions with the Office of the National Statistics (UK) on a DFID funded project to build capacity on data science in Ghana.
Members of the CSO Platform on SDGs welcomed the progress made on the data ecosystem and additional moves being made to strengthen it. But they were also concerned about the implications of the outcome of some of the moves and queried them.
For instance, they wondered who the eventual owner will be of Ghana’s National Reporting Platform that is to be cloned from that of the USA. They also questioned the credibility of data from administrative sources and inferably if there is need to invest in that area. The representative of the Disability Group was particularly concerned about how this group is captured in national data in terms of numbers and definition.
Some of the members wanted to know how detailed the data captured will be and questioned if the data could be disaggregated enough to, for example, provide absolute information on the exact hectares of land degraded by galamsey or illegal mining.
The formation of the CSO Platform on the SDGs in 2015 formed part of global and national processes towards the evolvement of the SDGs, which officially came into force in January 2016, replacing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which formerly ended in 2015. Since then, nations have been addressing the core elements of translating the goals into national development agendas.
These core elements are identifying effective partnership schemes, mainstreaming SDGs at the national level through development strategies, and developing an accountability mechanism. To this end, governments, civil society and the private sector, have within this one and a half year period, been preparing the grounds and laying the needed sound foundation.
Nations started this process with the formation of coalitions and collaborative arrangements to identify and align their strategies, and measure and manage their contributions for the attainment of the SDGs.
This is to ensure that related activities are rolled out on schedule towards the realisation of the goals within the rest of the 13 and a half years left to the 2030 deadline set for the SDGs to end.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has welcomed Achim Steiner as he begins a four-year term as Administrator of the organisation.
UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner. Photo credit: David Fisher/Oxford Martin School
Mr. Steiner’s appointment as the new head of the UN’s lead development agency was confirmed by the UN General Assembly last April, following his nomination by Secretary-General, António Guterres.
The UNDP works in some 170 countries and territories across the world to help them eradicate extreme poverty, strengthen good governance, and prevent and respond to crises.
Steiner, former head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), will also chair the UN Development Group, which unites the 32 UN funds, programmes, specialised agencies and other bodies that work to support sustainable development.
Speaking after the confirmation of his nomination, Steiner said he was honoured by the Secretary-General’s decision to appoint him as the next Administrator of UNDP, and grateful for the trust and confidence that Member States had expressed in the General Assembly.
“I very much look forward to working with all UNDP staff and UN Member States to continue the fight to end poverty, protect the planet, and promote peace and justice around the world,” he said.
Steiner brings more than three decades of leadership experience in global development issues and international cooperation. He has been described as a passionate advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals and the need for unprecedented global cooperation to deliver on the ambitious agenda.
Parliamentarians, policymakers, public and private investors, and representatives of civil society have discussed investing in the industrialisation process of developing countries, particularly in Africa. The event, organised by the Brussels office of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), together with Global Africa and African Diaspora Network in Europe (ADNE), took place recently in St. Julian’s, Malta during the opening of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.
Dignitaries at the UNIDO forum in Malta
The event, which had as its theme, “Industrialisation and Investments in Africa”, was supported by the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union and was sponsored by the Federal Foreign Office of the German Government.
The discussion took place in the context of new policies and instruments that will impact relations between the European Union and its developing partners, namely the new European Consensus on Development, the review of the Cotonou Agreement and the new European External Investment Plan.
It is described as an opportunity to discuss the best ways to organise the efforts of different partners to accelerate African industrialisation by promoting sustainable investments, increasing local processing of natural resources, improving the skills of youth and women, and supporting the integration of African enterprises into global value chains.
At the opening of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the President of Malta, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, commended UNIDO for organising the side event, saying, “I believe there is a need to invest our efforts in developing innovative strategies, which touch the social, economic, political and environmental realities, experienced by each and every human being in the nations of Africa”.
At the opening of the side event, Christophe Yvetot, UNIDO Representative to the European Union and the ACP Secretariat, observed that “after the industrial miracle that helped East Asia decrease its poverty from one billion people in 1990 to less than 70 million today, a new consensus on Africa industrialisation is emerging after the adoption of Agenda 2030 and the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa 2016-2025”.
In his keynote speech, Louis Michel, Member of the European Parliament and Co-president of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, congratulated UNIDO for organising the discussion which he said was “in line with the UN resolution of 25 July 2016 on the Third Industrial Development decade for Africa”.
He reminded participants that “with its technical assistance to African countries, UNIDO contributed directly, through industrial development, to economic growth and diversification and to the creation of added value, participating then to Africa’s prosperity”. He concluded stating that “an inclusive and sustainable industrialisation supported by a circular economy will be an asset not only for LDCs and developing countries but for the planet as a whole”.
Other speakers included Teshome Tome Chanaka, Ambassador of Ethiopia to the European Union; Georg Schmidt, representing the Government of Germany; Pim van Ballekom, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank; Chantal Uwitonze from the African Diaspora Network Europe (ADNE); and Cecile Kashetu Kyenge, Member of the European Parliament and Vice-Chair of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.
African Champion, Cameroon, has crashed out of the current FIFA Confederation Cup in Russia, with a 1-3 loss to World Champion, Germany in the last Group A match.
Chile’s midfielder Arturo Vidal (in white) scores a header against Cameroon
Timo Werner got a brace and Kerem Denirbay got the first, while Vincent Aboubakar got the consolation goal for the Cameroonians.
In the last match played simultaneously, Chile and Australia played out a 1-1 draw, but then the Chileans progressed to the next stage. Australia is out of the cup competition.
In Group B, host country Russia lost 1-2 to Mexico. The home team took the lead through Alexander Samedov in the 25th minute, but could not stop the fire power of the Mexicans.
Nestor Araujo and Hirving Lozeno got the two goals that gave Mexico the maximum points. The Russians were later reduced to 10 men in the game.
So, with that victory, Mexico is through to the last four. Mexico is also joined by Portugal, who thrashed New Zealand 4-0.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Bernardo Silva, Andre Silva and Nani all got the goals.
For the Semi-final billed for Wednesday, June 28 2017, it will be Portugal against Chile, while Germany and Mexico will clash on Thursday, June 29.
In another boxing, Welterweight World Champion, Manny Pacquiao (38), has arrived in Brisbane, Australia ahead of a title defence against challenger, Jeff Horn (29).
The 11-time world champion and his American trainer Freddie Roach with a contingent totalling 160 were greeted by eager fans at the Brisbane International Airport, ahead of the “Battle of Brisbane”, a clash billed to be the highest profile boxing match ever held on Australian soil.
The bout will take place at the Suncorp Stadium on Sunday, July 2 with an expected 50,000 crowd.
Horn competed at the 2012 Olympic Games and has a record of 16-0-1, with 11 knockouts.
Pacquiao has a career record of 59-6-2, with 33 knockouts. The fight against Horn will be his first defense of the title he won last November with a unanimous decision over Jessie Vargas.
The deadly cholera outbreak in Yemen is the direct consequence of two years of heavy conflict, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have said.
Cholera victims in Yemen
In a joint statement issued on Saturday, June 24, 2017, Anthony Lake, Executive Director of UNICEF and Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO stated that, due to the conflict, collapsing health, water and sanitation systems have cut off 14.5 million people from regular access to clean water and sanitation, increasing the ability of the disease to spread.
According to them, rising rates of malnutrition have weakened children’s health and made them more vulnerable to disease, adding that an estimated 30,000 dedicated local health workers who play the largest role in ending this outbreak have not been paid their salaries for nearly 10 months.
“We urge all authorities inside the country to pay these salaries and, above all, we call on all parties to end this devastating conflict,” pleaded Lake and Chan.
They disclosed that the rapidly spreading cholera outbreak in Yemen has exceeded 200,000 suspected cases, increasing at an average of 5,000 a day.
“We are now facing the worst cholera outbreak in the world,” Lake and Chan warned.
They added: “In just two months, cholera has spread to almost every governorate of this war-torn country. Already, more than 1,300 people have died – one quarter of them children – and the death toll is expected to rise.
“UNICEF, WHO and our partners are racing to stop the acceleration of this deadly outbreak. We are working around the clock to detect and track the spread of disease and to reach people with clean water, adequate sanitation and medical treatment. Rapid response teams are going house-to-house to reach families with information about how to protect themselves by cleaning and storing drinking water.
“UNICEF and WHO are taking all measures to scale up prevention and treatment interventions. We call on authorities in Yemen to strengthen their internal efforts to stop the outbreak from spreading further.”
Nigeria is stepping out as the first country in Africa to roll-out a novel National Policy for Controlled Medicines (NPCM).
Country Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Nigeria, Ms. Cristina Albertin
Experts from diverse fields comprising pharmacists, anesthetists and surgeons, amongst others, gathered at a recent town hall meeting in Abuja to finalise a comprehensive policy framework to ensure availability of essential medicines, narcotics and painkillers for tertiary hospitals, primary health care centres, district and general hospitals; thereby keeping hope alive for patients with terminal cancer, those suffering from injuries caused by accident and violence, chronic illnesses and those recovering from surgery who undergo untold suffering due to lack of opioid analgesics which can easily control pain.
Such drugs which are usually recognised to have a number of medical uses, including as analgesics for the treatment of mild, moderate and/or severe pain includes, but not limited to buprenorphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone and morphine, to induce or supplement anaesthesia (fentanyl and fentanyl analogues such as alfentanil and remifentanil), as cough suppressants (codeine and some other substances), and for the treatment of opioid dependence syndrome (buprenorphine and methadone).
The comprehensive NPCM developed by Nigeria is the result of the cooperation between United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) under the framework of the Joint Global Programme on “Access to Controlled Drugs for Medical Purposes While Preventing Diversion and Abuse”. UNODC and WHO have complementary mandates, experience, competencies and networks.
Funding support was provided through collaboration and partnership with the European Union (EU) which had earlier supported the development of quantification guidelines for narcotic and psychotropic substance and the conduct of a survey on problematic drugs in Nigeria under the auspice of the “Response to Drugs and Related Organised Crime in Nigeria” project.
The ambitious policy shift is a response to the Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative (2012) which reported that Nigeria consumed only 0.1% of narcotic medicines required to manage pain in patients who died of HIV/AIDS and cancer in 2009.
The “Draft National Policy for Controlled Medicines and its Implementation Strategies” elaborates practical approaches to ensure availability of, and accessibility to controlled medicines and articulates a comprehensive policy framework that clearly describes the supply chain with quality assurance mechanisms. It also makes funding recommendations to ensure sustainability of the interventions to address medical needs of all patients in Nigeria as well as strategic plan of actions to implement the Policy.
The meeting brought together 74 stakeholders to review the draft policy developed by a 22-member group of experts from the government agencies, private sector and civil society who provided their expertise in developing the policy. The phase was essential in order to have a broader consultation of a broad range of stakeholders to provide them the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and expertise and to make sure the policy is representative.
UNODC Country Representative, Ms. Cristina Albertin, expressed delight in Nigeria’s effort to lead the world in the development of a national policy, saying that the policy fully aligns to what has been internationally recognised by the International Drug Control Machinery.
The Right to Health is among one of the Fundamental Human Rights as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 25) and it is also one of the points expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 3.8) focusing on increasing access to essential medicines. The development and implementation of this policy is therefore fully in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Governments of Palau, Thailand, Slovenia and Viet Nam have deposited their instruments of ratification, thereby becoming the 66th to 69th future Parties to the Minamata Convention.
Tommy Remengesau, President of Palau. Photo credit: EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
The depositions were made on Wednesday, June 21; Thursday, June 22; and Friday, June 23, 2017. While Palau deposited on Wednesday and Thailand on Thursday, both Slovenia and Viet Nam did likewise on Friday.
Previously, Iran and Estonia had ratified the Convention, which has already entered into force, thanks to the landmark rash of ratifications on Thursday, May 18, 2017 that triggered the entry into force of the mercury accord, having garnered the required 50 ratifications.
On that day, the EU and seven of its member States – Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden – deposited their instruments of ratification at the UN Headquarters in New York, bringing to 51 that day the number of future Parties.
As a result, on August 16 2017, the Convention, which aims at protecting human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds, will become legally binding for all its Parties.
To commemorate the historic development, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Kumamoto Prefecture and Minamata City will on Saturday, July 1, 2017 hold “Celebrating Event for the Minamata Convention on Mercury – Voice from Minamata towards the Entry into Force ” in Minamata City, Kumamoto, Japan.
The event includes the first part with the video letters from overseas and the declaration by the Junior High School students in Minamata City calling for the global attention. In the second part, H.E. Mr. Fernando Lugris, the Chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Mercury, will deliver a commemorative speech followed by the “Minamata Talk” lead by Mr. Hiroshi Nishida, Mayor of Minamata City, and other speakers.
The 1st Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention (COP1) will gather governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations from around the world in Geneva from September 24 to 29, 2017.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury (“Minamata Convention”) is a new international environmental convention for global community to work collaboratively against mercury pollution. The Minamata Convention aims at achieving environmentally sound mercury management throughout its life cycle. The Convention was adopted at the diplomatic conferences held in Minamata City and Kumamoto City in October 2013.
A newly released peer-reviewed paper appears to have drawn attention to environmental challenges associated with genetically-modified (GM) crops, as well as the gaps in scientific knowledge of their effects.
GM banana. Photo credit: radioaustralia.net.au
GM crops are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering methods. In most cases, the aim is to introduce a new trait to the plant which does not occur naturally in the species.
Tagged “Environmental impacts of genetically modified plants: A review,” the scientific review made some vivid remarks on the environmental impacts and regulatory assessment of GM plants.
Reviewed by scientists Aristidis M. Tsatsakis, Muhammad Amjad Nawaz, Demetrios Kouretas, Georgios Balias, Kai Savolainen, Victor A. Tutelyan, Kirill S. Golokhvast, Jeong Dong Lee, Seung Hwan Yang and Gyuhwa Chung, the publication emphasises that GM crops negatively impact the environment such as modification in crop pervasiveness or invasiveness, the emergence of herbicide and insecticide tolerance, transgene stacking and disturbed biodiversity.
According to them, recent claims of consensus over the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) seem to be an artificial and misguided perpetuated construct – regardless of contradictory evidences published during the last three decades which lead scientific community to reconsider that the debate on the topic isn’t over yet.
“Current regulatory pathological and toxicological tests are confined on only one mammal and for 90 days which is insufficient and could not be generalised. So, toxicology studies should be prolonged to full life span of the test organism and other experimental mammals should also be considered for such tests,” say the authors, adding:
“Safety studies involving GM plants produced as a result of ds-RNA mediated gene silencing should be conducted and after effects of administering GM foods having artificial siRNAs must be examined on a laboratory scale especially for their unintended effects on humans.
“Sub-lethal effects on nontarget species should be assessed for several successive generations rather than single or two generations.”
The reviewers stress that the current state of knowledge notwithstanding, impacts of GMO crops on the environment require a more in-depth view and critical research so as to unveil further facts.
They point out that most of the reviewed scientific resources provide similar conclusions and there currently seems to be an insufficient amount of data available and, up until today, the impression is that the consumption of GM plant products are safe for consumption to a greater extent with few exceptions.
The paper updated what the reviewers tag “the undesirable impacts of GM crops and their products” on target and non-target species, while attempting to shed light on the emerging challenges and threats associated with it.
While discussing future prospects, the underpinning research also realises the influence of GM crops on a disturbance in biodiversity, development of resistance and evolution slightly resembles with the effects of non-GM cultivation.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has announced that its executive secretary, Patricia Espinosa, will grace the 9th Africa Carbon Forum (ACF), which is scheduled to hold from Wednesday, June 28 to Friday, June 30, 2017 in Cotonou, Benin Republic.
The Palais Des Congrès, along the Boulevard de la Marina, Cotonou, is venue of the event
The UN body, which made the disclosure in a tweet on Sunday, June 25, 2017, is one of the several organisers of the much publicised event. Others include: the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), African Development Bank (AfDB), World Bank Group, UNEP DTU Partnership (formerly UNEP Risø Centre), International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), and Africa LEDS Partnership (AfLP).
According to the organisers, the 2017 ACF will focus on how engagement between State and non‐State actors can be further strengthened in the key sectors for Africa (energy, agriculture and human settlements), including the role of future carbon markets to achieve enhanced climate action, towards the goals of sustainable development.
Themed: “Collaborative climate action for sustainable development in Africa”, the event will cover:
Practical examples of policies, initiatives and actions in Africa;
Barriers and enabling measures for engaging climate action in key sectors;
Financial instruments and regulatory frameworks;
Advancing the implementation of climate action.
The forum will provide an opportunity and platform for African policymakers and practitioners to:
discuss the latest developments related to climate change policy, carbon markets and finance;
share knowledge on innovative solutions in the context of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and other strategies; and,
explore possibilities for collaboration on regional and global climate change initiatives.
