Climate-vulnerable economies comprising the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group on Sunday, April 23, 2017 in Washington, D.C. expanded its membership, and announced it would pioneer innovation in climate finance to help secure continued economic development among its members while tackling the costly economic impacts of climate change. The group said it is seeking ambitious climate action from G20 economies.
The V20 meeting in Washington, D.C.
V20 officially confirmed the membership of Colombia, Lebanon, The Gambia, Palestine and Samoa, while also announcing the future chairmanship of the Marshall Islands from October 2018. The group is currently chaired by Ethiopia.
“Today, the V20 achieved a number of important milestones with our strategic dialogue with the G20, as well as by initiating concrete initiatives to help V20 members finance climate action in their respective countries,” said Abraham Tekeste, Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation of Ethiopia.
The V20-G20 dialogue aims to deepen strategic partnership between the two groups to redesign the investment agenda of the world economy. Representatives realised they had much in common in terms of aims to establish financial instruments that boost climate-friendly investments and energy transition. In addition, the V20 urged G20 countries to deliver their long-term low-emissions development strategies before 2020, and to include ambitious climate action as part of the G20 outcomes in July.
The concrete steps pursued by climate-vulnerable countries include low-emission development, shift in financial flows towards achieving 100% renewable energy, and stronger risk financing and insurance for vulnerable economies.
In its recent Communique, the V20 warned the G20 that pulling resources from the Paris Agreement will create economic instability. The V20 said investing in climate action is necessary and critical for inclusive development and economic growth.
“For vulnerable countries, the 1.5C limit is a matter of survival. It requires immediate and swift action by the global community, and above all, the major industrial powers,” said H.E. Macaya Hayes, Ambassador of Costa Rica to the USA. “We set our sights towards 2018, the trigger year when all countries, especially the major industrial powers, need to commit to enhance their climate ambition before the end of the decade.
Developed economies have pledged $100 billion per year to finance steps enshrined in the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to no more than, if not well below, 1.5 degrees. The V20 welcomed the Roadmap presented by developed countries, outlining a pathway towards achieving their finance mobilisation target.
The Lagos State Government has placed an embargo on the approval for construction of filling stations in all parts of the state till further notice.
Wasiu Anifowose, Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development
Similarly, the authorities have said a definite action will soon be taken on indiscriminate construction of event centres across the state.
Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Wasiu Anifowose, disclosed this on Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at the ongoing Ministerial Press briefing in Alausa as part of activities marking the second-year anniversary of the Governor Akinwunmi Ambode administration.
Anifowoshe, a town planner, said government had already resolved not to grant construction permit for filling stations pending an inventory on existing ones.
Responding to issue of oil spillage in Alimosho, Anifowose said the decision of government was necessary in view of the need to take proper inventory of the existing filling stations to determine those that should be removed, all in a bid to ensure public safety.
He said: “What happened in Alimosho was because of pipeline vandalism. If people have not been greedy to vandalise pipeline, we will not be seeing what is happening.
“But be rest assured that no permit will be granted for filling stations in Lagos State till further notice.
“I have told the General Manager of the concerned agency, and the management team of the agency has taken a decision and we will not grant any approval until we take inventory and see what we have.”
Anifowose, who is also an architect, said government was also working with the Federal Government to relocate Tank Farms in residential areas in Apapa, adding that a definite pronouncement would be made in that in regard in due course.
The Commissioner also warned owners of structures under high tension cables to relocate in their best interest as government would spare no effort in removing such illegal structures, adding that event centres illegally located would also be demolished.
He said: “When this government came on board, what we did was that we set up a Committee and they are going round the state to take inventory of event centres.
“I like to state categorically that any development that does not comply with the Master Plan of the area of location will be removed.
“So, our agency is already working on it and they should be able to give us report in the next three to four weeks.”
Speaking on activities of the Ministry in the last one year, Anifowose said that, due to proactive steps and reforms initiated, government, in the period under review achieved considerable reduction in building collapse, and reiterated that it was still an offence in the state for any physical developments including renovation, fencing, demolition and so on to be embarked upon without approval.
He said: “I must urge all Lagosians to partner with the state government in reporting illegal developments and developers or owners of buildings who cut corners and use substandard materials in construction work.
“Furthermore, it is considered a necessity that prospective buyers or tenants should demand for the Planning Permit or Layout Approval of a building or estate respectively before down payments are made, to deter developers or owners from circumventing the law.”
Besides, Anifowose said during the period under review, a total of 5,499 structures were served with Contravention and Stop Work Notices, while between May 2016 and February 2017, a total of 2,340 plans were submitted and out of which 1,078 were granted Planning Permits.
Also, 242 applications for Planning Information were received, 174 approved, while others were being processed.
In the last 23 months, the Commissioner said 30 provisional layout approvals were granted and 28 final layouts, while government embarked on preparation of development guide plans in Igborosun Excised Village in Badagry, Ikola-Odunsi in Alimosho and 13 Excised Villages were granted Approval-in-Principle within Ikorodu, Ibeju-Lekki and Eti-Osa.
He said aside the fact that government has paid compensation on properties demolished for right-of-way for major projects, efforts are also ongoing to relocate Computer Village in Ikeja to world class ICT Park, Katangowa in Agbado/Oke-Odo, while efforts are in top gear to relocate Mile 12 Market to Imota and Okobaba Sawmill to Agbowa.
A study has ascertained that, of all the factors driving deforestation in Ghana, agriculture is prime with cocoa cultivation being the leading cause of forest conversion in the high forest zone, while oil palm and rubber are becoming major threats. The study revealed that logging itself does not convert forests, but it opens up the forest for potential encroachment by farmers and illegal miners.
Harvesting cocoa in Ghana
The study, titled, “A Rapid Assessment of Forest Degradation in Ghana,” was carried out by a civil society organisation, Nature and Development Foundation, on behalf of Clientearth, a group of environmental lawyers.
The findings of the study are significant as it establishes the need for a strategic and well-coordinated approach to addressing this delicate driver of deforestation. Cocoa cultivation is lucrative for farmers and one of the leading avenue of revenue generation for the country. The industry is powerfully situated in the national economy and so over the years, due attention was not given to the problem of encroachment into forest reserves to expand cocoa farms.
From hindsight, the country has been pursuing an aggressive cocoa production policy that seeks to increase yields, better the lot of farmers and sustain foreign exchange revenues from cocoa. To this end, illegally cultivated farms have often not been touched. Thus, cocoa cultivation in forest reserves has become prevalent in the Western region in particular, where reserves have been virtually turned into cocoa farms.
While the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Ghana COCOABOD and other cocoa related public institutions appear to be succeeding in their efforts, the Forestry Commission (FC), which is the public institution mandated to manage the nation’s forests (especially forest reserves), is overwhelmed by all of these issues.
The FC’s initial attempts to reclaim such forest reserves were met with a huge public outcry particularly from civil society organisations. Representatives were of the view that once cocoa farmers have been allowed to cultivate cocoa to maturity level, it is morally unethical to destroy them. But the question is what does the FC do in the face of this irony of policies implementation?
Michael Akowuah, legal expert at the FC, says: “The problem is big, because the national support for such farmers in a way legitimises their illegal activities in forest reserves.”
He explained that while the FC has a mandate to protect forest reserves and plant degraded areas under the National Afforestation Programme, “it seems the public does not understand the issue about illegal farms and settlements in the reserves and when we destroy them, we are taken to court.”
To address the situation, Mr. Akowuah called for collaboration among all the concerned institutions whose activities are conflicting with the FC’s mandate.
The former Director of Legal Affairs at the FC, Urias Kwaku Armoo, noted that the conflicts affecting the forestry sector have become entrenched because “the real value of our forests has not yet been captured in terms of its environmental services including providing the right humidity for cocoa production to thrive.”
He added that the problem can only be resolved “if as a nation we set our priority right in terms of land use.” Such prioritisation is essential and has to do with the nation’s land tenure system. In times past, tenurial arrangements in a traditional community ensured that all members were catered for in terms of access to land.
But according to a study on Ghana’s land tenure system, “The traditional customary land tenure system in times past ensured that each member of the community was guaranteed the right to access land for farming, housing and the enjoyment of other tenurial benefits . . .”
The Report of the study said, “This egalitarian tenurial regime sustained the social security of most Ghanaians in the absence of any insurance benefits, as well as providing them with a sense of community.” The study, titled: “Land Tenure in Ghana: Making a Case for Incorporation of Customary Law in Land Administration and Areas of Intervention by The Growing Forest Partnership,” was conducted by a team of researchers contracted in December 2009 under the Partnership.
It notes, “The present tenure arrangement in a plural legal context puts pressure on land which leads to effects that adversely impact the livelihoods of local communities . . . as decline in agricultural production for domestic food and industrial needs; food insecurity and insecure tenure, which manifest in the unequal distribution of land, sub-optimal utilization of land and landlessness.”
Some legal specialists on land say that the pluralistic legal system of land tenure has come to stay and it would take a revolution to undo it. But to address the issue, the Report recommends a “holistic approach that takes into consideration the various political and economic relations that supports the country’s land tenure regime and addresses the various distortions in the land tenure including dichotomies of statutory, customary law and institutions.”
Some experts are also of the view that resolving the problem of conflicting land tenure systems in the country can help address deforestation and forest degradation, which have severely depleted Ghana’s forest cover in the last 20 years. Forest economists say that about 85% of the forest area has been lost in the last century.
The country once boasted of over 1.83 million hectares of pristine forests known as “Upper Guinea Forests” that stretched from Senegal to Cameroon. But now the resource has been reduced to fragmented blocks as a result of all kinds of human activities primarily agricultural expansion, wildfires, commercial logging, surface and illegal mining, fuelwood harvesting and charcoal production, and infrastructural and industrial development among other things. Forests in both on and off reserves have not been spared from these activities.
Consequently, these activities are undermining the effective functioning of forest reserves established purposely to supply raw materials to the timber industry, conserve unique plant and animal species, and provide environmental services including the protection of the sources of major water bodies.
A closer examination of the situation reveals that these activities are fanned by land use conflicts resulting mainly from customary land tenure systems and conflicts in policies regarding the management and exploitation of both renewable and non-renewable natural resources.
Kano Pillars FC has revealed that it will soon announce a substantive coach to replace Kadiri Ikhana, who recently parted ways with the club.
Coach Kadiri Ikhana
The Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) outfit, Pillars, on Monday, April 25, 2017 accepted the resignation of its former handler, who stepped down after an attack.
Ikhana suffered from his team’s fight in a previous league game, causing him injuries. The team’s Media Officer, Idris Malikawa, said the club has thanked Ikhana for his contributions while wishing him a speedy recovery.
Malikawa added that Pillars would maintain their usual cordial relationship with the veteran coach.
Meanwhile, former Plateau United coach, Zakare Baraje, has been touted to take over as new coach of Kano Pillars, but Malikawa said the report is false.
“Up till now, we have never contacted anybody, as we don’t have any coach on our minds. We are going to study the situation and sit down with our technical crew and analyse our situation and then take their advice and suggestions before making a statement,” he said.
Some re-scheduled matches in the NPFL will be decided on Wednesday.
Rangers International of Enugu, which is currently languishing at the bottom of the log, will try Wikki Tourists of Bauchi for size.
Tourists will be without Coach Babagana Roku, who was recently sacked for poor performance.
Rivers United, fresh from the CAF Confederation Cup victory against Rayos Sporting of Rwandan, will be playing away against Katsina United.
The NPFL is currently on mid-season break and will resume on Sunday, May 7, 2017.
Rivers United has forced Rayos Sporting of Uganda to a goalless draw to advance into the next stage of the CAF Confederations Cup.
Rivers United of Port Harcourt
A 2-0 Rivers United first-leg win in Port Harcourt a week ago meant Rayos needed to score three un-replied goals in the return fixture to progress to the next stage.
But the Port Harcourt side stopped its opponent in Kigali to progress on a 2-0 aggregate score. Coach of the Rwandan side, Maseli Juba, said his team lost to a more experienced side.
“We played well but the problem is that we played to a more experienced team and they have a lot of experience,” Juba lamented.
Rivers United thus becomes the 16th and final side to qualify for the group stages of the 2017 CAF Confederation Cup.
Rivers United coach, Stanley Eguma, is already looking forward to a credible performance at the group stages of the competition.
“We would have to map out and re-strategise to enable us to perform, since we have passed through the rigorous preliminaries,” he stated.
Rivers United is the only Nigerian club side left in any CAF Continental Club Football competition in the current season.
In his welcome remarks at the Lawyers Roundtable on Biosafety held at the Apo Apartments, Abuja on Tuesday, April 25 2017, Nnimmo Bassey, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), says that, in the light of the seeming defective NBMA Act, government cannot afford to gamble with the citizen’s biosafety and biosecurity
Dr Rufus Ebegba, Director-General and CEO of the the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA). Photo credit: climatereporters.com
Dead people cannot speak against judicial or other decisions. Likewise, dead people cannot be compensated if their demise was triggered by some poison they unknowingly ingested.
These and several other considerations are markers on the pathways of justice. They underscore why we cannot shut our eyes to the laws that leave yawning gaps for transgressions. They illustrate the reasons why we cannot and should not stomach permissive laws that endanger our food and agricultural systems.
The Nigerian Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act came into force on 18th April 2015 after the then President Goodluck Jonathan put his signature on it. On Thursday 28th April 2016, NABMA wrote a letter to HOMEF and ERA/FoEN (Ref: NBMA/ODG/050/1/68), acknowledging receipt of our copious objections to the applications from Monsanto and the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) to conduct confined field trials of two maize events and of another application from Monsanto for commercial release and placement in the environment of GMO cotton. In the letter of acknowledgement of receipt of our objections NBMA said they have “noted” our objections and pledged to “review the application holistically and take the best decision in the interest of Nigeria, to avoid risks to human health, biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The socio-economic impacts would also be well considered before taking final decision on the application.” The agency then thanked us for our views.
Two days later, on Sunday, 1st May 2016, NBMA issued permits to the two applications made by Monsanto and its government agency partner. It is clear to us that our objections were not considered.
Two things. We have an agency that approved applications for introduction of GMOs into Nigeria in less than a year of its being constituted. The speed with which the new agency approved Monsanto’s application breaks all records of similar processes anywhere in the world.
The speed of approval raises questions over the readiness of the agency to tackle the delicate and serious issue of modern agricultural biotechnology – a contentious technology that has foisted tales of woes on citizens as well as farmers in other climes, a technology that opposes the basic tenets of our agricultural and food systems.
Secondly, the speed shows a disdain for public consultation and participation in the serious approval processes. These are some of the issues that we have invited you, legal luminaries to examine in this roundtable.
As we discuss the issues surrounding biosafety, we hope you will focus particularly on the NBMA Act 2015 and see if the Agency as constituted is wired to serve the best biosafety interests of Nigeria or if it should be dramatically reviewed or even repealed. In particular, we hope that you, as legal experts, consider if there are issues of conflict of interest in a setting such as that of NBMA where board members are promoters of the risky technology and are also applicants that have benefited from the very first application to have come before the Agency.
We wish to be advised if such a construct does not obstruct avenues for justice, fairness, probity and equity in our collective struggle for a food regime that ensures that we are not turned into guinea pigs by those pushing to colonise our food systems and expose us to avoidable risks.
As we engage in our dialogue, let us all keep in mind that this matter has implications that is intergenerational and lapses have consequences for Nigerians yet unborn. Laws are not cast in concrete. The right to safe and nutritious food is a universal right. GMOs challenge that right with its creation of novel organisms, dependence on toxic chemicals and abridgement of the rights of farmers to preserve and share seeds and to stay free from contamination by genetically engineered seeds.
A defective law cannot provide justice. It cannot protect our biodiversity, ensure biosecurity or secure our very life. We cannot gamble with our biosafety and biosecurity.
The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has lodged an appeal to the High Court of South Africa to overturn decisions of the GMO authority, the GMO Appeal Board and the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, to commercialise Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) drought tolerant (DT) maize seed. More than 25 000 concerned citizens have signed petitions and submitted objections in support yet the South African government ignores the pleas of its people.
The ACB is resisting the commercialisation of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) drought tolerant (DT) maize seed
The appeal raises a number of irregularities with the decision-making processes, which ACB argues flout South Africa’s Constitution and laws prescribing administrative justice and procedural fairness. ACB is alleging mere rubbing stamping of Monsanto’s claims that its patented GM DT trait (MON 87460) confers drought tolerance. Monsanto’s claims of drought tolerance are disputed “based on sound science”; that a single gene (cspB) does not confer efficacious drought tolerance and is yet another risky and novel gene introduced into the staple food of millions of people in South Africa in the name of corporate profits.
The ACB and various organisations and members of the public have, since 2008, resisted Monsanto’s allegedly unproven claimed benefits of drought tolerance.
The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project has specifically come under close scrutiny. The ACB describes WEMA is a “charitable” Monsanto/Gates Foundation project, geared towards coaxing governments and smallholder farmers in South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Kenya into accepting Monsanto’s GM DT maize seed as a “climate smart” solution. WEMA and its proponents are said to be disingenuously propagating the myth that this will assist smallholder farmers in Africa cope with water stressed conditions.
The ACB said in a statement on Tuesday, April 25, 2017: “This GM maize push will be hugely strengthened if South Africa’s Competition Commission approves the proposed merger between Bayer and Monsanto. Such a marriage will give control of 30% of the world’s commercial seed market and 25% of the world’s commercial pesticide and herbicide (agrochemical) markets to the merged entity. Such a behemoth will wield enormous power and control in the region where good governance and biosafety safeguards will be sacrificed at the altar of profits, power and myth making.
“The appeal is but only one small example of the pushback by social movements against corporate power and abuse. These movements have long since been contesting the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agri-business, which has deepened structural inequalities, caused environmental damage and eroded farmers’ sovereignty. Farmers and small producers on the continent are resisting Monsanto-like constructed seed systems that oblige them to use patented seed and criminalise their historical rights to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed. These small producers are building alternative food systems that are diverse, resilient, autonomous and socially just. However, these efforts are not being supported by the state but undermined by the stranglehold of the dominant technological platforms based on patented innovations, seed traits and agrochemicals.
“Africans are demanding the end of corporate controlled systems that seek profits from nature and undervalue human effort. They want the destruction of the environment and social and community structures in the name of corporate profit to end now! Africans are demanding the space to work out solutions built on people power through smallholder farmers, unions, farm workers, consumers and mass-based organisations.”
In his welcome remarks at a Media Training on Biosafety held in Abuja on Monday, April 24 2017, Nnimmo Bassey, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), insists that food sovereignty is the right of peoples to safe and culturally appropriate food produced through methods that are ecologically sound and sustainable
L-R: Jackie Ikeotuoye-Offiah (Country Representative, Bio-integrity and Natural Food Awareness Initiative), Nnimmo Bassey (director, HOMEF), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (Public Policy Expert and the Convener of Nigerians against GMO), and Dr Ify Aniebo (molecular geneticist from Oxford University and award wining scientist), during the Media Training on Biosafety in Abuja
Should science not be in the public interest and in service of society? The answer to that is obvious and it is a YES. Science has to be in the interest of society. Is all science in the interest of society? Again, this question attracts an easy answer and that answer is NO.
Must a people utilise a technology based on unproven or mythic promises? Indeed, must we use a technology simply because it exists or because we can acquire it? Does domesticating a technology, such as modern agricultural biotechnology, make its utility inevitable? Do nations shy away from utilising the technology that produces atomic bombs merely for lack of access to the technology or for reasons of safety and survival of humankind? Where does public participation begin and where does it end with regard to decisions that are matters of life and death?
If we are malnourished, what must be done? Can food aid solve the challenge of food shortages in the North East when the root causes fester and lurk under every shrub or clump? Why are fisher folks in our Niger Delta creeks depending on imported frozen fish?
These questions are raised to remind us that there are many issues surrounding the matter of our food and the challenge of agricultural modern biotechnology that require clarifications and in-depth interrogations.
On 13th November 1996, the World Food Summit hosted by the United Nations, the world affirmed that all humans have a right to access to safe and nutritious food in a manner consistent with the right to adequate food and freedom from hunger. The provisions for the right to life in our constitution and other global covenants speak of the right to food that is safe and nutritious.
As we begin our conversations on the state of biosafety in Nigeria, let us state that the fundamental way to ensure safe, nutritious food is through the promotion and support of food sovereignty. This is the way to ensure sustainable food production. Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to safe and culturally appropriate food produced through methods that are ecologically sound and sustainable. It is critically the right of our peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems. It allows communities to control the way food is produced, traded and eaten. We understand that the best food security can be attained through food sovereignty. Any other understanding of food security leaves open the gates for dumping of inappropriate foods and products with the singular end of filling hungry mouths and stomachs. It essentially erodes a people’s sovereignty and promotes food colonialism.
The media has an enormous responsibility to inform the public about issues that fundamentally affect their safety – especially with regard to the sort of food or things that we eat. It is a sacred duty to lay open basic information and to encourage public participation in policy issues surrounding our food systems. We have a biosafety law, the National Biosafety Management Agency Act 2015, that is not only permissive in favour of the biotech industry, but is adversarial or against the public interest. This is illustrated by the fact that the Act only requires NBMA to hold public consultations at its discretion as in its Section 26 (1). We believe that holding public consultations on plans to release genetically modified organisms should be a legal and binding requirement and not left to the whims of the Agency. Section 25(2) of the Act also allows NBMA to decide whether to advertise applications to introduce GMOs in national or local newspapers.
The ‘public enlightenment’ events held by promoters and regulators of biosafety in Nigeria merely suggest that our people are misinformed about the risks that GMOs pose. What our people need is accurate information from all sides of the issues so that they can make informed decisions and demand for or reject risky technologies. Assurances that NBMA will not allow dangerous GMOs into Nigeria are nothing but mere platitudes if the claims are not backed by open, neutral and unstilted adjudications.
How much do we know of the GMO beans that will soon be unleashed on Nigerians? And what does the public know of GMO cassava experimentations/release in Nigeria? What about the approval of GMO cotton that failed in Burkina Faso for commercial release in Nigeria? Burkina Faso’s cotton production is regaining its former productivity since the government decided to jettison the GMO variety and return to planting natural cotton. Why is Nigeria being pushed blindly into a failed venture? We cannot be fooled when we are told that a permit for commercial release and placement in the market is the same as a permit for trials to be conducted.
As the conversations begin, let us all keep in mind that this is a matter of security, cultural heritage, freedom from neo-colonialism and a human right to life. We are talking about food. And food is a human right.
The world’s 49 most climate vulnerable countries have called on the G20 group of nations to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2020 and to ensure that adequate climate finance is provided so that they can green their economies and adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change.
Fossil fuel pollution from a coal power station
Under the Paris Climate Change Agreement, governments have agreed to limit the global average temperature rise to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius – a goal which can only be achieved if the world is weaned off fossil fuels and if finance for clean technology is stepped up.
In a communiqué issued at a meeting in Washington DC, Ministers of the “V20” Group of Vulnerable Nations say: “Our and other countries’ very existence is threatened by climate change. All financial flows, including those of multilateral development banks, should be aligned with the Paris Agreement, the 1.5C temperature limit, and our member economies’ 100% renewable energy vision in support of sustainable development.”
Specifically, the Ministers call for market distorting fossil fuel production subsidies to be removed immediately and no later than 2020, and urge the G20 to set a clear timeframe for the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies.
“Fossil fuel consumption subsidies need to be checked rigorously whether they provide an actual benefit to the poor, and subsequently should be replaced worldwide without harm to those relying on them for their basic energy needs.”
In the closing statement of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, last year the G20 countries reaffirmed their commitment to “rationalize and phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption over the medium term, recognizing the need to support the poor.”
According to a 2015 study by the Overseas Development Institute in London, G20 fossil fuel subsidies total $444 billion a year.
The V20 Ministers also called on the G20 counties to lead with them a drive towards ensuring all emissions are subjected to carbon pricing and pledge to continue to pursue ambitious climate action themselves.
This includes pioneering innovation in climate change financing with leading global examples in renewable energy access, ecosystem services and micro-insurance solutions.
In addition, the Ministers urged the G20 countries to deliver their long-term low-emissions development strategies before 2020.
“(We) call on them to deliver ambitious climate change action as part of the G20 outcome in July. Pulling resources from climate protection will create economic instability. Investing in climate action is necessary and critical to inclusive development and economic growth,” the Ministers said.
The significance of Africa’s access to, and utilisation of Earth Observation (EO) data and information to policy and decision making has been stressed.
Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission (AUC), Mrs. Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko
Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission (AUC), Mrs. Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, who made the submission at the opening of the Second Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) on Monday, April 24, 2017 in Dakar, Senegal added that the utilisation of EO data to development planning, sustainable management of environmental and natural resources, and social economic development cannot be overemphasised. The forum has “From Earth Observation to Policy Development and Implementation” as its theme.
She further said, “To reach our African destiny of a prosperous, peaceful, and integrated Africa by 2063, Africa needs concerted effort and determination.”
Also speaking, Abdoulaye Balde, Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development of Senegal, stated: “Initiatives such as the MESA Programme have strengthened the capacities of many Senegalese institutions, including the Ecological Monitoring Centre (CSE), facilitating the development of specialised expertise in the exploitation and use of spatial information to: decision-making in the field of environmental monitoring and management of natural resources; understanding and mitigation of the effects of climate variability on ecosystems and populations; the provision of relevant and localised information to policy makers, scientists, the private sector and general public.”
The 2nd MESA Forum is organised by the AUC in collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Government of the Republic of Senegal. Over 200 international delegates composed of decision and policy makers, planners, earth observation data users and experts from 49 beneficiary countries of MESA Project, other stakeholders and partner institutions are participating in the Forum. The European Union is providing financial support to the MESA Project.
The event runs from 24 to 28 April 2017. Delegates are expected to share their experiences on how Earth Observation through the MESA Project supported African Governments, institutions, Regional Economic Communities, and communities in policy development, policy decisions and policy implementations at national, regional and continental scales in Africa. Testimonies and stories of success of users of MESA data and information will be shared both through plenary and exhibitions. The youth are also taking part in the Forum.
