Over 250 US mayors have committed to procure 100% renewable energy for their cities by 2035, thereby providing a significant boost to climate action.
Mayors share a joke at the US Conference of Mayors (USCM) meeting in Florida
Interest in renewable energies is said to be running high in cities, and enacting clean energy policies at the local level is essential to achieve the central goal of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change by holding the global average temperature to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to experts, this can only happen if the bulk of existing fossil fuels is left in the ground and the world rapidly transitions to low carbon.
“By approving this historic measure, we are showing the world that cities and mayors can and will lead the transition away from fossil fuels to 100% clean, renewable energy,” said Columbia (South Carolina) Mayor, Steve Benjamin.
The city leaders made the commitment in a resolution at the 85th US Conference of Mayors (USCM), meeting in Fontainbleau, Florida, where they launched the “Ready for 100” campaign to support the utilisation of more clean power. The meeting held from Friday, June 23 to Monday, June 26.
According to an analysis by the environmental group Sierra Club, if the 100% energy targets were achieved by 2025, the total electric sector carbon pollution reductions would “fill anywhere from 87% to 110% of the remaining reductions the United States would need to achieve in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
The conference of more than 250 US mayors also resolved to support vehicle electrification, energy efficiency grants and city-driven plans to reverse climate change. The resolutions are statements of intent for city planning and work with federal and state governments.
In addition to cleaner air and water, the shift can also fuel jobs growth. San Diego Mayor, Kevin Faulconer, said his city is shifting to clean energy “not only because it supports clean air and water, but because it supports our 21st century economy.”
The resolution shows how governments at different levels are redoubling efforts on climate change.
No fewer than 825 communities in Katsina State have so far been certified as Open Defecation Free under the Sanitation, Hygiene and Water in Nigeria II.
Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, Governor of Katsina State
Alhaji Aminu Dayyabu, Executive Director, Katsina State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 in Katsina.
NAN reports that the project was supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Dayyabu said that the certified communities cut across the 11 participating local government areas of the state.
Dayyabu listed the local governments as Bakori, Ingawa, Dutsin-ma, Sandamu, Mai’adua, Musawa, Faskari, Kaita, Batagarawa, Matazu and Safana.
He said: “Experts on sanitation went round the communities that claimed to have stopped open defecation to ascertain their claims.
“After a thorough investigation and scrutiny, the experts discovered that households in those communities use improved pit latrine that has cover drops and hand washing materials.
“The experts also didn’t see shits in open environment like it was before.
“This shows that the communities have stopped Open Defecation.”
Dayyabu said that engaging in open defecation and living in unhygienic environment was responsible for most of the water and environment-related diseases, hence, the need for people to desist from such act.
He added that stopping defecation in open environment would further assist to prevent outbreak of diarrhoea and cholera, which account for high rate of child mortality in the state.
The executive director urged the certified communities to keep up the good efforts to maintain their status and enable the country to attain the Sustainable Development Goals Number 6 on water and sanitation.
Dayyabu explained that the SHAWN II project, which started in 2015, had recorded tremendous successes.
Dayyabu said that 1,056 boreholes were drilled in rural communities to provide the rural dwellers with potable water during the period under review.
He said that the certified communities would be considered first before others when it comes to the provision of water supply.
Dayyabu said that a validation exercise in the certified communities would follow to see if they could really maintain their ODF status.
A coalition of civil society groups on the platform of the Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) has written to Labour & Employment Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige, demanding his intervention in the alleged anti-labour practices reported in British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) factory in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Labour & Employment Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige
A handful of ex-BATN workers had in a press briefing in Lagos last year accused the company of deliberately exposing them to tobacco hazards that led to their poor state of health, after which their appointments were terminated. Most of them appear to live with ailments that seem to defy medication and thus constitute a strain on their finances. The company was also accused of covering up the workers’ injuries.
To understand the depth of the issues the ex-workers raised, the Labour Minister set up an investigative team comprising officials of the ministry and some concerned groups who met the aggrieved ex workers on February 14, 2017, and subsequently visited the factory to see things first-hand. Unfortunately, more than four months after that visit, no report of findings has been made public.
Reacting to the development, the NTCA on May 30, 2017 petitioned the minister to wade into the matter to ensure findings from the investigative team are made public.
NTCA Board Chair, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “While we appreciate the Labour Minister’s unrelenting efforts at speaking against and stemming anti-labour and inhuman practices in industries, we are worried about the strange silence on the BATN issue.”
Oluwafemi stressed that the minister owes the ex-workers, current workers and Nigerians as a people the duty to ensure that any unwholesome practice which has violated the rights of the workers is not allowed to go unsanctioned.
In the petition, the NTCA said that, by exposing workers in its factory in Ibadan to inhumane work conditions and unceremoniously terminating their appointments, the company had breached Nigeria’s labour laws and urged the minister to rise to the occasion by using his good office to demonstrate that impunity by corporations in Nigeria is unacceptable.
The group is demanding that findings of the investigative visit to BATN Ibadan factory be released to the public and that the Federal Government institute a probe of BATN activities in Nigeria with respect to its engagement with workers and farmers. It also wants the hospitals that manipulated reports on the health of the workers identified and the perpetrators brought to book.
“If the report is confirmed, BATN should be appropriately sanctioned and asked to compensate affected ex-workers whose health have been severely impacted by unhealthy exposure to tobacco leaves and jobs abruptly terminated,” Oluwafemi insisted.
The NTCA is a network of Civil Society Groups (CSGs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Community-Based Organisations (CBOs), Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs), and several professionals. The Alliance, it was gathered, is concerned and interested in human rights, public health, cancer, and tobacco control with a view to ensuring qualitative health, sustainable human development and good governance for all Nigerians.
Mayors of the world’s largest cities, representing hundreds of millions of citizens, have launched a petition urging G20 heads of state and heads of government to deliver on their commitments to tackle climate change under the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
C40 Cities mayors
The petition highlights the urgent need of taking climate action at all levels, and reaffirms the commitment of cities to implement the Paris Agreement. Cities are central to climate action, as most greenhouse gas emissions are already generated in cities, and the populations of major cities are rapidly growing.
The statement reads: “To deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement requires unprecedented action: urgent reforms are needed in energy, transport, food and waste – driving investment in low carbon economies that will create jobs and improve public health. Research by C40 Cities demonstrates that major progress towards these goals needs to be underway by 2020, by which time global emissions need to have peaked.”
The mayors, representing cities from Rotterdam to Yokohama, say they are already implementing the policies and projects needed to deliver on the ambition of the Paris Agreement and that as mayors, they are committed to bold emission reductions plans, tackling air pollution and investing in sustainable infrastructure that makes cities resilient to the effects of climate change.
“We are taking these measures because creating smart cities offers unprecedented opportunities. Research by New Climate Economy revealed that creating compact and connected cities, built around mass public transport would save more than $3 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next 15 years. These cities will also be more economically dynamic, healthier, equitable and have lower emissions.”
Women leaders, under the aegis of the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society, have declared their backing for the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, saying that they are in support of global efforts to realise the landmark accord.
Dignitaries at the Women’s Forum in Rome, Italy
At the close of a gathering on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 in Rome, Italy, the women declared: “We want to express our support to innovators, young talents, mayors, governors, education leaders, businesses and investors who are joining forces for the first time to declare that they will engage to support climate action to meet the Paris Agreement.”
In December 2015 in Paris, world leaders signed the first global commitment to fight climate change. According to participants, the agreement succeeded because nations – inspired by the actions of local and regional governments, along with businesses – came to recognise that fighting climate change brings significant economic and public health benefits.
Clara Gaymard, President of the Women’s Forum, said: “We affirm that women are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, as women constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources.
“We also acknowledge that women are essential agents of change who possess crucial knowledge and expertise that can be used in mitigating the effects of climate change, in disaster prevention and reduction, and in developing strategies for adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change.”
Laurence Tubiana, France’s climate ambassador, added: “As women’s leaders, we want to claim our commitment to the global mobilisation for climate change, and the implementation of the Paris Agreement, accelerating action and supporting each other and every stakeholder wanting to keep the promise: maintaining temperature rise well below 2°C and trying to limit to 1.5 C.
“We are not yet, many more efforts must be deployed and courageous and rapid choices have to be made for clean energy, clean transport, sustainable cities, sustainable agriculture and forests and ocean preservation. We need to invest, innovate, and bring all citizens on board. Any action from anyone will matter. We want to recognise the vibrant reactions all over the world against US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. US government decision is not the world citizens’ choice, nor US citizens’ choice.
“A powerful movement has started; we will help it grow to make the transition to a trustful and sustainable society unstoppable. We women are committed to make our planet a great place to live!”
Founded in 2005, the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society is said to be the world’s leading forum looking at major social and economic issues from women’s perspectives. It promotes the empowerment of women world-wide, and the networks of collaboration that enable women’s voices to be heard with clarity and force.
To accelerate access to better antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, the Government of Kenya and Unitaid on Wednesday, June 28, 2017 announced the introduction of a new first-line drug for people living with HIV, making Kenya the first African country to introduce the generic version of this new drug for routine use.
Lelio Marmora, Executive Director, Unitaid
Dolutegravir (DTG) has been the drug of choice for the last two years for people living with HIV in high-income countries as it has very few side effects, is easier to take than currently used formulations (one small tablet taken daily), and patients are less likely to develop resistance. In 2015, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended DTG as an alternative first-line regimen for adults and adolescents. But until recently, people living with HIV in countries like Kenya were not able to access DTG.
“We are delighted to partner with Unitaid on this innovative project that will no doubt improve the lives of Kenyans living with HIV, build healthcare worker experience, and generate the evidence needed to introduce DTG on a larger scale by early 2018,” said Dr Jackson Kioko, Director of Medical Services at Kenya’s Ministry of Health.
Kenya’s Ministry of Health will initially provide DTG to 27,000 people living with HIV who are unable to tolerate the side effects of efavirenz, the first-line HIV drug currently in use in Kenya. The new drug will be introduced in select health facilities across the country, with the aim of making the drug widely available nationwide later in the year. Numerous phase 3 clinical trials have shown DTG to be superior than all other first line treatments, and in 2016 Kenya included the drug into its antiretroviral therapy (ART) treatment guidelines.
“New regimens including DTG offer great potential for better and less costly HIV treatment,” said Lelio Marmora, Unitaid Executive Director. “Through this catalytic work, we are significantly reducing the time it takes for people living with HIV in countries like Kenya to access the latest ARVs on the market. These are important developments as we move towards HIV treatment for all in need.”
More than 18 million people are on life-long HIV treatment worldwide, but an almost equal number do not have access to treatment yet. In Kenya, approximately 1.5 million people are living with HIV, and just over one million are currently on ARVs.
Unitaid is investing $67 million to address this pressing need in an effort to avoid delays of more than 10 years before new drugs can be introduced in low- and middle-income countries. This catalytic intervention also provides a key opportunity to test DTG’s use in routine treatment for the first time and prepare national distribution channels.
Nigeria and Uganda will also be introducing DTG later this year as part of the project, in all cases laying the groundwork for accelerating uptake of the three-in-one fixed dose combination that would be made available by 2018. The fixed dose combination, which would include tenofovir, lamivudine and DTG, is expected to significantly simplify treatment for people living with HIV.
“We would like to praise Kenya’s leadership in paving the way for adults and children living with HIV to access the most effective HIV treatments available on the global market today,” said Mr. Marmora. “Unitaid is pioneering the introduction of simpler, more affordable optimal HIV regimens and ensuring they are available sooner for those in need, so countries and partners like PEPFAR and the Global Fund can bring them to scale.”
By working with partners including WHO, the Global Fund, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Ministries of Health, civil society and others, Unitaid’s current partnership with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is expected to save $1.6 billion in treatment costs through 2024 – enough to provide access to medicines for an additional 3.2 million people for five years.
“This is the first step in ensuring access to better quality and more effective ARV therapy that will greatly improve the quality of life of people living with HIV,” said Kenly Sikwese, Coordinator of the African Community Advisory Board (AFROCAB) and Alternate Unitaid Board Member for the Communities.
The project also supports the market introduction and uptake of adapted pediatric HIV drugs for children.
Hosted by the WHO in Geneva, Unitaid was established by the governments of Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom. It invests in new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and malaria more quickly, affordably and effectively.
Nigeria’s Chargé d’Affaires to the U.S., Hakeem Balogun, and a former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, have lauded the emergence of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina as the 2017 World Food Prize Laureate.
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
Balogun and Okonjo-Iweala told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent in the U.S. that Adesina’s selection for the prestigious prize was a great honour for Nigeria.
Adesina, who is the current President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), was Minister of Agriculture under President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
He was named winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize, regarded as the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for Agriculture, at a ceremony on Monday at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C.
Balogun described Adesina’s emergence as a great honour to Nigeria.
He said: “It is a manifestation of government’s efforts, past and present, at eradicating poverty and placing food on the tables of all Nigerians.
“Dr Adesina is another show of the numerous Nigerians that are shining examples and who are excelling in their various professions all over the world.
“You will recall that Dr Adesina, while serving as Minister of Agriculture, was known as the ‘Farmer’s Minister’.”
The Nigerian envoy said Adesina’s policies while serving as Minister expanded Nigeria’s food production and attracted over $5 billion in private sector investments in agriculture.
Balogun said: “His (Adesina’s) food policies resulted in close to, if not more than, 20 million metric tonnes.
“For us in the Embassy of Nigeria, we are glad that this is a Nigerian to showcase. I congratulate Dr Akinwumi Adesina.”
On her part, Okonjo-Iweala, who served alongside Adesina, hailed the achievement of her former colleague.
She said: “A proud day for Nigeria; President Akin Adesina, President of the AfDB, is announced as the recipient of the 2017 World Food Prize.”
According to Okonjo-Iweala, Adesina’s feat as the new Laureate is an example and a testimony that about 99 per cent of our citizens are law-abiding and good natured.
Adesina is the 46th person and the sixth African to win the World Food Prize.
NAN reports that he midwifed the Agricultural Transformation Agenda under which the E-Wallet system of distribution of agricultural inputs, the first of its kind, was introduced.
For the first time in the history of agriculture in Nigeria, farmers received alerts on their phones to collect their allocation of inputs.
He will be presented with the prize money and Laureate sculpture at a ceremony at the Iowa State Capitol on October 19, 2017.
The event in Washington, D.C. was presided over by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, and attended by some U.S. Congressmen, Ambassadors and members of the diplomatic corps.
The State of Qatar on Friday, June 23, 2017 deposited its instrument of ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar
The peninsular Arab nation has thus become the 150th country to endorse the global treaty, after Moldova, which ratified the climate accord on Tuesday, June 20, 2017.
According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Qatar’s ratification of the pact will enter into force in a month’s time on Sunday, July 23, 2017.
The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention (UNFCCC) and – for the first time – brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort.
The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework will be put in place, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives. The Agreement also provides for enhanced transparency of action and support through a more robust transparency framework.
An international group of weather presenters on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 formally launched an organisation called “Climate Without Borders” in Brussels, Belgium. The new body is designed to connect, equip and empower other weather presenters around the world to accurately report and inform audiences about climate science and climate action.
Weather presenters with officials of the UNFCCC, WMO and IPCC at the launch in Brussels
The new group is supported by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“Weather forecasters can deliver information, complex data, evidence and facts about climate change in an accessible way. And they are amongst the most trusted communicators on climate change. They therefore have significant potential to influence the public opinion about climate action,” said Climate Without Borders founder Jill Peeters, who works as weather presenter for the Belgian TV channel VTM.
No fewer than 25 weather presenters who collectively reach around 375 million people on traditional news and social media gathered for the launch of the new group in Brussels, which was also attended by the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Patricia Espinosa. She called on the weather presenters to be strong voices in the critical era of the implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
She said: “I applaud the launch of this exciting new initiative. People need to understand how climate change affects them – they need to know the difference between limiting the global average temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius, which is the central goal agreed in Paris in 2015, and runaway warming of four, five or six degrees Celsius.
“And they have to understand how they can be part of keeping warming to the safer level outlined in the Paris Agreement. Weather presenters have a major potential to reach people and help build up this understanding.”
Ms. Espinosa also encouraged the weather presenters to report on how countries are fulfilling their national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement, the so-called “Nationally Determined Contributions” or “NDCs”.
The new group intends to encourage weather presenters around the world to not only talk about the growing number of extreme weather events as impacts of climate change, but also about the many economic opportunities that arise from rapidly implementing the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
This includes increased research, innovation and clean energy entrepreneurship. For example, notes Espinosa, weather presenters can set out the solar and wind energy generation potential for their respective countries and regions on any given day as part of their forecasts.
“This is already happening in countries such a Belgium and Portugal.”
The idea for Climate Without Borders was born after the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, at which the Paris Agreement was clinched. Over the last two years, more than 130 weather presenters from 110 countries, from all five continents of the world have been exchanging information in a closed online group.
The new network intends to create a public-facing weather and climate digital platform to exchange information on weather, extreme events, climate change, policy and action. It also aims to set up a wide variety of local and national educational, cultural and art projects in cooperation with schools, institutions, governments and the private sector.
Over the next years, Climate Without Borders will organise regional “boot camps” to help more weather presenters to raise climate awareness and promote the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon society. Leading weather presenters plan to attend the UN Climate Change Conferences in Bonn, Germany in November of this year (COP23) and the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland in 2018 (COP24).
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has disbursed $296,000 to Vanuatu to increase this vulnerable island country’s capacity to access climate finance.
Charlot Salwai, Prime Minister of Vanuatu
The transfer of these funds is part of GCF’s readiness support, which assists developing countries ensure the climate finance they receive matches their own development needs.
GCF is working with its delivery partner the Global Green Growth Institute, a Korean-based international organisation, to assist Vanuatu set up procedures to more easily access GCF finance.
The Small Island Developing State is one of the most vulnerable countries to disasters which can be exacerbated by climate change, including cyclones, storm surges, landslides, floods and droughts.
The Government of Vanuatu has stated it is moving to integrate climate change and disaster risk reduction more closely in its efforts to progress national development.
At the end of last year, GCF approved a $23 million funding proposal to expand the use of Climate Information Services (CIS) in Vanuatu to help achieve this aim.
