At a daylong forum in Abuja on Friday, January 3, 2017 titled: “Stakeholders workshop on the progress so far made on development of Nigeria’s First Biennial Update Report (BUR)”, the country took stock of the BUR report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The BUR isone of the key elements in the global mitigation action and also an obligation on all parties to the Convention to prepare and submit, every two years, information on its emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) by sources and removal by sinks, while reporting the actions undertaken and support received.
Participants – including representatives of the consultants (Triple “E” Systems, E & Y and Millcon & Millcon) – agreed, among other resolutions, that the consultants should work closer together in other to produce a quality report and meet the deadline for its submission.
Dr Jare Adejuwon, chief executive officer at the Abuja-based Digital Environmental Management System, delivering a paper titled: “Essentials of Biennial Update Reports (BURs)”Prof. Jide Alo of the University of Lagos, AkokaPrince Lekan Fadina of the Centre for Investment, Sustainable Development, Management and Environment (CISME), LagosParticipants at the meetingMore participants
Incoming COP23 President, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji, in a recent message, says he will be totally focused on achieving the best possible outcome at the next global climate change summit, scheduled to hold November this year in Bonn, Germany
COP23 President and Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama
Bula vinaka! Wherever you are the world, I convey my warmest greetings, along with the greetings of the Fijian people.
Fiji assumes the Presidency of COP23 determined to maintain the momentum of the 2015 Paris Agreement and the concerted effort to reduce carbon emissions and lower the global temperature, which was reinforced at COP22 in Marrakesh.
To use a sporting analogy so beloved in our islands, the global community cannot afford to drop the ball on the decisive response agreed to in Paris to address the crisis of global warming that we all face, wherever we live on the planet. That ball is being passed to Fiji and I intend, as the first incoming COP president from a Small Island Developing State, to run with it as hard as I can.
We must again approach this year’s deliberations in Bonn as a team – every nation playing its part to combat the rising sea levels, extreme weather events and changing weather patterns associated with climate change. And I will be doing everything possible to keep the team that was assembled in Paris together and totally focused on the best possible outcome.
I intend to act as COP President on behalf of all 7.5 billion people on the planet. But I bring a particular perspective to these negotiations on behalf of some of those who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change – Pacific Islanders and the residents of other SIDS (small island developing states) countries and low-lying areas of the world. Our concerns are the concerns of the entire world, given the scale of this crisis.
We must work together as a global community to increase the proportion of finance available for climate adaptation and resilience building. We need a greater effort to develop products and models to attract private sector participation in the area of adaptation finance. To this end, I will be engaging closely with governments, NGOs, charitable foundations, civil society and the business community.
I appeal to the entire world to support Fiji’s effort to continue building the global consensus to confront the greatest challenge of our age. We owe it not only to ourselves but to future generations to tackle this issue head on before it is too late. And I will be counting on that support all the way to Bonn and beyond.
In America, wind power has achieved its second strongest quarter ever for newly installed energy generating capacity, according to a new report released last Thursday (February 9, 2017) by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Wind surpassed hydropower dams to become the largest source of renewable electric capacity in the U.S., and the fourth largest overall.
Business leaders from General Motors and the U.S. wind energy industry met Thursday morning to mark this historic milestone and release AWEA’s Fourth Quarter 2016 U.S. Wind Industry Market Report at General Motor’s Arlington Assembly Plant, which will soon be 100 percent wind-powered.
“American wind power is now the number one source of renewable capacity, thanks to more than 100,000 wind workers across all 50 states,” said Tom Kiernan, AWEA CEO. “Growing this made-in-the-USA clean energy resource helps rural communities pay for new roads, bridges, and schools, while bringing back manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt. With our two-thirds cost reduction over the last seven years, household brands like General Motors, Walmart, and more are buying low-cost wind energy to cut costs and power their businesses. American wind power is on track to double our output over the next five years, and supply 10 percent of U.S. electricity by 2020.”
“With more wind energy production and more wind workers than any other state, if you want to know how wind works for America, just ask a Texan,” added Kiernan.
In a related development, it was gathered that wind farm developers installed more power than any other form of energy last year in Europe, helping turbines to overtake coal in terms of capacity, industry figures show.
In Europe, wind power grew 8 percent, to 153.7 gigawatts, comprising 16.7 percent of installed capacity and overtaking coal as the continent’s second-biggest potential source of energy, according to figures published last Thursday by the WindEurope trade group. Gas-fired generation retained the largest share of installed capacity.
With countries seeking to curb greenhouse gas emissions that causes climate change by replacing fossil fuel plants with new forms of renewable energy, investment in wind grew to a record 27.5 billion euros ($29.3 billion) in 2016, WindEurope’s annual European Statistics report showed.
At the close of 2016, the American wind fleet totaled 82,183 MW, enough to power 24 million average American homes. And with the addition of North Carolina’s first utility-scale wind farm announced last week, there are now more than 52,000 individual wind turbines in 41 states plus Guam and Puerto Rico.
GM’s Arlington Assembly Plant produces over 1,000 SUVs a day and is 50 percent powered by wind energy today. Starting in 2018, Arlington Assembly will be GM’s first plant to have all of its electricity needs met with wind energy. The company purchases energy from two Texas wind farms, RES’s Cactus Flats in Concho County and EDPR’s Los Mirasoles Wind Farm in Edinburg. Non-utility purchasers, like GM, Microsoft, and the Department of Defence, represent 39 percent of wind purchased through long-term contracts in 2016, totaling 1,574 megawatts (MW). More than half of that capacity is located in Texas.
“At GM, we’re committed to efforts in our facilities that create business value and strengthen communities where we live and work,” said Rob Threlkeld, GM global manager of renewable energy. “Using wind power delivers on this by securing more stable energy costs while reducing our impact on the environment.” While buying low-cost wind energy helps make other industries more competitive, building wind turbines is also big business in the U.S. The wind industry employs 25,000 Americans at over 500 factories in 43 states. This includes 40 wind manufacturing facilities across Texas. In 2016, at least seven companies across the U.S. expanded existing manufacturing facilities to meet growing orders, and GRI Renewable Industries opened a new tower facility in Amarillo, Texas.
“Wind and coal are on two ends of the spectrum,” said Oliver Joy, a spokesman for WindEurope, in an e-mail. “Wind is steadily adding new capacity while coal is decommissioning far more than any technology in Europe.”
The group underscored that wind, which only produces power intermittently, hasn’t yet overtaken coal share in total power generation.
European wind investment increased 5 percent in 2016 from a year earlier driven by the offshore segment that attracted 18.2 billion euros, the report said. That offset a 29 percent investment decline in the onshore market.
Over 100,000 American workers now manufacture, construct, and maintain the U.S. wind turbine fleet according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In total, wind supports more American jobs than nuclear, natural gas, coal, or hydroelectric power plants.
New growth in the fourth quarter of 2016, announced for the first time today, includes 6,478 MW, the second strongest quarter for U.S. wind power installations on record. For the year, wind developers added 8,203 MW of wind power capacity representing more than $13.8 billion in new investment. With 99 percent of wind projects located in rural areas, much of this investment is flowing to communities that need it most.
Rural and Rust Belt America are among the greatest beneficiaries of wind power development. Wind projects in these areas often become the largest contributors to the property tax base, helping to improve schools, roads and other public services. Of the $13.8 billion invested by the U.S. wind industry last year, $10.5 billion was invested in low-income counties.
Wind is a new drought-resistant cash crop for farmers and ranchers who host wind turbines on their land. Nationwide, wind projects provide private landowners with more than $245 million in land lease payments annually. Texas landowners receive more than $60 million of that, in many cases helping to keep farms and ranches in their families.
Wind power is in high demand from utilities and other buyers because it often provides the least expensive energy available. Wind power can bring costs down further and create American jobs thanks to policy stability that passed in 2015 with bipartisan support in Congress.
“Wind power isn’t a red or blue industry, it’s red, white and blue,” said Kiernan. “Low-cost, homegrown wind energy is something we can all agree on. States like Texas and Iowa are leading the way in terms of wind turbines and wind jobs.”
Texas is the undisputed leader in wind energy, with approximately three times more wind generating capacity than any other state and nearly a quarter of American wind jobs. The state continues to expand wind power, becoming the first state to pass 20,000 MW of wind capacity last year, which is roughly one-fourth of national capacity. More wind is on the way in Texas. Even with the 1,790 MW installed in the fourth quarter of 2016, there is still 5,401 MW under construction and another 1,288 MW in advanced development.
The Texas model for energy development stems from genuine commitment to an “all of the above” energy mix. Free markets allowed wind to prosper in Texas, creating a low-cost, balanced energy portfolio for the state. Texas has captured $38 billion in investment to date and supports up to 25,000 jobs today The state has also benefited from investment by corporate energy buyers who want to site data centres and factories close to the wind farms that power their facilities.
A key part of the success story in Texas has been a strong backbone of transmission infrastructure – the power lines that deliver all forms of energy to homes and businesses. Texas’s CREZ (Competitive Renewable Energy Zone) transmission lines and the state’s long-standing recognition that a strong grid is essential for a free market in electricity have become the national model for transmission investments that more than pay for themselves. Looking ahead, transmission projects like Pattern Development’s proposed Southern Cross Transmission Project will allow Texas to benefit by exporting its abundant wind energy to customers in the Southeast.
Wind power growth is now spreading up from Texas into the Plains states and across the Midwest. In fact, 89 percent of newly completed capacity in 2016 is found in these states. The U.S. offshore wind industry also launched in the fourth quarter of 2016 with the commissioning of the 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island. Gulf Island Fabrication in Louisiana manufactured the foundations for the Block Island project, reflecting a broader opportunity for oil and gas suppliers to earn additional business in offshore wind.
As a result of the generating capacity of wind turbines in the U.S. standing at over 82,000 MW, greater than the 80,000 MW of hydropower generating capacity, wind power is now the fourth largest source of generating capacity, behind gas, coal, and nuclear.
A new report looking at the needs of energy poor communities in West Africa reveals misunderstandings of poor people’s needs amongst development banks, aid donors and governments.
Off-grid lighting in Africa. The report looks at the needs of energy poor communities in West Africa. Photo credit: unep.org
Written by energy experts at Practical Action, the Poor People’s Energy Outlook for 2016 found key targets agreed by world leaders to reduce poverty, and bring access to modern energy, will be missed because current planning processes are not fit for purpose.
The report was written using evidence gathered in energy poor communities in Togo, East Africa and Bangladesh and urges politicians and development experts to revisit why and how they take the approach to energy planning and funding that they do.
It also highlights serious inadequacies in most energy poor countries when it comes to confronting the health and environmental impacts of cooking over open fires, which kills more than four million people a year – more than AIDS, TB and malaria combined.
Report author, Dr Lucy Stevens, said: “We have been working with governments in Africa for many years. Some are making progress in bringing reliable energy to all and are to be commended.
“However, in many developing countries, that is not the case. Billions of poor people want and need reliable energy so they can light their house, cook safely, and power fans to keep their homes cool and it is simply unacceptable that many energy ministries and development banks continue to prioritise expensive grids for industries providing little benefit to the wider populace.
“This is often in favour of similarly priced or cheaper distributed energy technologies that can meet the real energy needs of the nation – bringing energy to those still living in the dark, and who are unable to work or learn or live up to their potential because of it.
“While current predictions on continued energy poverty in 2030 make for grim reading, there is still time to do something about it by re-balancing national plans in favour of decentralised solutions. But this must be done now.”
Co-author Aaron Leopold said: “We now need to educate national leaders about how this technological progress must be integrated into national planning and policymaking processes, and for the need to build up the capacities of national workforces to install, maintain, operate and repair these primarily renewable energy systems.
“The most important recommendation in this report is that we should focus on the needs of the end-user instead of perceived priorities determined in capital cities. And the exciting thing that our work has shown is the outcomes of such inverted planning exercises are better in terms of quality at essentially no extra cost.”
This Poor People’s Energy Outlook is the fifth of a series of reports looking at the impact of energy access, and the lack of it, on the lives of poor people throughout the world.
The 2016 report uses data and testimony from a dozen communities across Togo, Kenya and Bangladesh. It will be followed by two more reports, scheduled between now and 2018, on financing for energy access (2017) and scaling up (2018).
Key findings include:
A head in the sand approach to confronting the impact of cooking over open fires and yet an enthusiasm for clean cooking among the energy-poor
A ‘grid or nothing’ mentality in much national planning
A lack of understanding amongst many decision makers of the best technologies and approaches suited to achieving total energy access
A lack of meaningful efforts to involve the energy poor in discussing what solutions they would like to the problems that affect them
The report makes the following recommendations:
Cooking and the differing energy needs of men and women must be included in national planning to address household demand for energy and the number of deaths from cooking over open fires.
Energy access should be addressed via a range of solutions, including the grid, mini grids and stand-alone home systems
In order to do this we need more investment in capacity – training, provision of tools and equipment for new approaches
Better education of national government civil servants and decision makers is needed, in terms of the array of energy access solutions available
Measurement of energy access should not be done simply via number of connections and kilowatt hours, but by looking at levels of energy access needed and achieved and long term social benefits.
Climate change, environmental degradation, population growth and urbanisation are putting pressure on water supplies in many parts of the Asian region, and exposure to extreme weather and other hazards is increasing.
Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). He says 2016 was the hottest year on record because of a combination of long-term climate change and the strong El Niño
The World Meteorological Organisation’s Regional Association for Asia, which holds its four-yearly conference from 12-16 February 2017, will consider how to meet these challenges. The meeting, hosted by the Government of the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi, will focus on how to strengthen weather, climate, water and environmental services to keep pace with rapidly evolving needs.
WMO’s Regional Association for Asia groups 35 Member States and territories across a variety of geographic and climatic zones. The Region extends from the Arctic to the Equator, spanning the world’s highest mountains and low-lying coastal plains and islands. It is home to densely populated nations and crowded cities as well as vast desert expanses and remote rural areas.
Glacier-melt increases hazards like flooding and landslides
The Region is impacted by a wide range of natural hazards: tropical cyclones and storm surges; heat and cold waves; drought and wildfires; intense precipitation, flooding and landslides; and sand and dust storms. Air pollution is an additional major concern.
“2016 was the hottest year on record, beating even the exceptionally high temperatures of 2015, because of a combination of long-term climate change and the strong El Niño,” said WMO Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas.
“There is increasing evidence that warming Arctic air masses and declining sea ice are affecting ocean circulation and the jet stream, disrupting weather patterns in lower latitudes in Asia. Glacier melt is linked, in the short term, to hazards like flooding and landslides and, in the long term, to water stress for millions of people,” said Mr Taalas.
Extreme Weather
“In the last decades, the countries in the Asian region have been exposed to weather and climate events of increased intensity and frequency,” said Mr Taalas. “The year 2016 was no exception.”
India, Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kuwait all saw peak temperatures of more than 50°C last summer. Many other parts of Asia also saw heatwaves.
China’s Yangtze basin had its most significant summer floods since 1999, causing many casualties and an estimated $14 billion in damage. Flooding and landslides in Sri Lanka displaced several hundred thousand people. Conversely, parts of India and South East Asia suffered from drought.
Typhoon Lionrock hit the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, with catastrophic flooding. China, Japan and the Republic of Korea also suffered disruption and economic losses from a number of tropical cyclones.
The most significant cold wave of 2016 occurred in late January in Asia, with extreme low temperatures extending southwards from eastern China as far south as Thailand. Autumn snow cover was above average in European Russia and Kazakhstan.
Impact and risk-based forecasts and warnings
The meeting will consider how best to support implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change and associated moves towards a low-carbon economy, including through targeted climate services for the energy, water, transport, industry, agriculture and land use sectors.
Improvements in the global weather and climate observing and information systems will be considered, including in the Himalayan region known as the “Third Pole.”
Initiatives to improve hydrological data collection to improve water resource management, as well as drought and flood management and flash flood forecasting will also be discussed.
The agenda includes how to develop traditional weather predictions into impact and risk-based forecasts and warnings, how to expand these to cope with multiple hazards, and how to incorporate these into a common planning framework to maximize the benefits.
“The primary responsibility of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services is to provide timely and accurate forecasts and warnings. But in order for governments, economic sectors and the public to take appropriate action, they need to know the impact of these meteorological hazards on lives, property and the economy,” said Mr Taalas.
“Multi-hazard, impact-based forecasts and warnings are complex and require planning and forging of partnerships at many levels and with many government agencies and stakeholders – disaster managers, urban planners, education authorities, and health authorities,” said Mr Taalas.
“The capabilities of WMO Members need to be upgraded and strengthened on a continuous basis to cope with the optimum delivery of new services to inform decision-makers, ranging from day-to-day operations to much longer timescales,” he said.
The Regional Association for Asia meeting is preceded by a two-day conference on management of meteorological and hydrological services, which will share national experiences and regional priorities. Both events are hosted by the Government of the United Arab Emirates.
Apparently keeping with its mandate and vision of ensuring environmental protection, natural resources conservation and sustainable development, the Department of Climate Change in the Federal Ministry of Environment, in collaboration with the World Bank, will hold a series of workshops for legislators; state government officials; ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs); and private sector players next week on climate change resilience.
Nigeria’s Environment Minister, Mrs Amina Mohammed. Nigeria is collaborating with the World Bank to hold a series of workshops on climate change resilience. Photo credit: i.vimeocdn.com
Themed “Accelerating Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Development,” the forums are scheduled to hold in Abeokuta (Ogun State), Kaduna (Kaduna State) and Abuja (FCT) between February 13 – 17 2017, and centre on knowledge delivery, experience sharing and call to action.
It was gathered that the workshops will enable knowledge dissemination and stakeholders’ role in implementing sectoral and multi-sectoral climate actions towards accelerating climate-resilient and low-carbon development across the country.
Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, who is expected to declare the workshops open, says that the Federal Government remains committed to empowering people, taking climate action and protecting the environment.
According to her, the Federal Government’s commitment to taking climate action remains top of the administration’s agenda as demonstrated in the signing of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and participation at the UN Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco last year.
“This commitment is also reflected in the sector-wide implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) using a participatory approach to accelerate resilience and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” she stated.
Director General, National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), Dr. Rufus Ebegba, has said that the responsibility of the Agency is to safeguard the health of Nigerians in the practice of modern biotechnology and the use of genetically modified organisms.
Dr Rufus Ebegba, Director-General and CEO of the the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA). Photo credit: climatereporters.com
Dr. Ebegba made the submission in Abuja on Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at a colloquium organised by the Catholic Secretariat in conjunction with the Open Forum of Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB).
He said, “The responsibility of NBMA is not to stop genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Nigeria but to ensure it is safe and it does not pose any adverse effect to humans and the environment in accordance with the National Biosafety Management Act 2015.”
According to him, the world is being driven by science and technology and Nigeria cannot shy away from the deployment of safe science and technology to solve problems affecting the nation. He pointed out Nigeria as a country has taken the necessary legal precautionary measures to ensure that the health of the citizens and environment is not jeopardised by the introduction of GMOs.
His words: “The Federal Government has taken necessary measures after due legislative processes to establish the NBMA. The Agency is manned by competent and qualified scientists who are rated as some of the best when compared to their counter parts across the continent; we therefore have the requisite knowledge and experience to effectively regulate the technology in the country.
“The Agency has established a modern GMO Detection and Analysis laboratory as part of efforts to ensure safety in the country.”
He enjoined Nigeria-based scientists, federal-based organisations and the general public to continue to trust on government to protect and safeguard their health.
The proposed 2017 Federal Ministry of Health budget of 4.17 percent has been said to be a poor improvement from the 2016 budget , which was 4.13 percent.
Correspondent Ruth king brings details in this report and the the endless complaints about the poor funding of the health sector.
