The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) has expressed concern over the increasing menace of sand mining and dredging in parts of Lagos State, describing it as a “disastrous” venture.
Sand mining
The organisation has thus called on the relevant government agencies to urgently curb the menace before it gets out of hand.
Sand mining is the process of removal of sand and gravel from a particular location, essentially for the construction of buildings and roads. The Lagos-based environment watchdog believes that, as the demand for sand increases in the construction industry, the act is increasingly becoming an environmental issue.
In a statement made available to EnviroNews on Thursday, March 2, 2017, Director General of the NCF, Adeniyi Karunwi, was quoted as saying: “The construction industry is one sector that has created huge opportunities for both skilled and unskilled labour in Lagos. But this, no doubt, has led to an increase in sand mining activities in parts of the state, with its attendant environmental and economic consequences. Continued dredging in the state’s shorelines has been described as an illegal activity capable of causing major environmental challenges for Lagos in its bid for sustainability.”
Describing environmental impacts of sand mining and dredging as disastrous, he pointed out that soil erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of bio-diversity, soil contamination resulting from leakages of chemicals into the soil, deforestation, coastal erosion and loss of aquatic lives are possible effects of dredging and mining.
“For instance, dredging in some places has been largely responsible for the loss of breeding habitats for sea turtles, which depend on sandy beaches for their nesting and other biodiversity. The demand for sand for the construction of roads and buildings has increased sand mining and dredging leading to a high demand for low-cost sand.”
The conservationist noted that a recent biodiversity survey by a team of ornithologists along the lagoon in Lagos State (from Sangotedo to Badagry) showed an unprecedented proliferation of dredging activities, a situation he believes may be lacking in regulation and coordination.
He added: “Such un-coordinated activities by miners and dredgers are capable of causing great depths of almost six metres in the seabed, as reflected in the Banana Island to Third Mainland Bridge axis reported by the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR). The report further noted that depth was noticed in some of the areas where the Institute carried out the research.
“It is therefore in the light of the foregoing, that NCF is calling on the relevant government agencies responsible for stemming this increasing tide of sand mining and dredging, to put a halt to it before it becomes a monster that would eventually consume us.”
With a month to go this fiscal year, Japan’s installation of new wind power capacity in 2016-17 is set to come in almost double that of the previous 12 months, propelled by higher tariffs guaranteed by Tokyo and a rising number of offshore wind farms.
Wind energy: An offshore wind farm
Japan is set to add 300 megawatts of wind capacity – enough to power more than 100,000 average homes – in the 12 months through March, Japan’s Wind Power Association said in a study released late last month. Some 157 megawatts of wind power were installed in the previous year.
The agency didn’t estimate how much has been invested in the new turbines, but the figures underline the pace of wind power’s development in Japan since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 triggered a drive to develop new energy sources.
The country relied on nuclear power for 30 percent of its electricity supply before a massive earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima-Daiichi plant and brought the shutdown of reactors across Japan.
“The projects that started environmental assessments at the end of last year exceeded 10 gigawatts,” the association said in the study. “If these projects go smoothly, it is possible that achieving the 10 gigawatt capacity is quite possible in the early 2020s.”
A capacity of 10 gigawatts would be triple the nearly 3.4 gigawatts that the wind power association estimates will be installed in Japan by end-March.
While that 3.4 gigawatts represent just 1.5 percent of the country’s overall installed capacity – and solar power accounts for more than 90 percent of Japan’s renewable capacity – the wind industry is betting on strong growth to continue.
The association projects wind power capacity is set to rise more than tenfold to 36.2 gigawatts by 2030, depending on environmental assessments and acceptable grid capacity.
A major factor behind this year’s surge came last May, when the government relaxed rules for building turbines offshore in the country’s harbors and ports.
Wind operators also still benefit for comparatively higher prices for their power under a feed-in-tariff scheme introduced in 2012, where certain renewable suppliers get guaranteed rates based on source of input.
But Tokyo’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will cut the feed-in-tariff for large wind power projects to 21 yen per 1 kWh from October 1 in the business year starting in April from 22 yen now, taking into account a decline in costs over time. The rate for offshore wind power was kept at 36 yen.
Wind operators in Japan have long complained about the country’s requirement for environmental impact studies that can take as long as five years to complete, as well as other impediments to investment.
To accelerate renewable schemes, METI and the Environment Ministry have now teamed up with the aim of halving the time it takes for environmental assessments for wind and geothermal projects.
Youth campaigner and digital specialist, Olumide Idowu, has emerged as Organising Committee Member for 7th Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Mexico. He will lead the Social Media team for the upcoming United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Global Platform on DRR in Mexico to represent the Youth and Children in Mexico.
Olumide Idowu
The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction is the world’s foremost gathering on reducing disaster risk and building the resilience of communities and nations, the Global Platform for Disaster Reduction was first held in 2007. It takes place every two years, with the 2015 edition rolled into the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. Its fifth session will be held in May 2017 in Mexico.
Mr Idowu, a Nigerian, will be coordination the social media strategies for the Youths and Children group under United Nations with some other youths around the world. He is also the only person selected from Africa.
Idowu has over 10 years of experience working on Social Media, Environment, Climate Change, Monitoring & Evaluation and Sustainable Development issues. He is a climate change policy expert and trainer with extensive experience in creating, facilitating and managing youth-led projects. He has represented Nigeria and Africa at over 10 high-level global governance meetings on sustainable development.
He is the co-founder of Climate Wednesday, a non-for-profit outfit which seeks to identify key climate-based issues affecting development especially in Nigeria and Africa in general. He is currently leading the Youth Advocacy efforts on Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Africa. He presently served as the Senior Communication Officer for African Youth Initiative on Climate Change and consultant to Save the Children Nigeria on Advocacy and Campaign.
It was all smiles at the Stamford Bridge stadium in London on Wednesday, March 1 2017 when Super Eagles striker, Victor Moses, extended his contact by two years with Premier League leader, Chelsea.
Victor Moses
The new extended contact is worth £75,000-a-week, which is a significant pay rise to his previous £45,000-a-week wages, after becoming a crucial member of Antonio Conge’s table-topping team. The contract ends 2021.
Moses has performed superbly at right-back, following Conte’s successful switch to a 3-4-3 formulation that transformed Chelsea’s season.
The 26-year-old was sent on loan for three successive seasons by former manager José Mourinho, to Liverpool, Stoke City and West Ham United, having joined Chelsea from Wigan in 2012.
An elated Moses said: “I’ve always wanted to play for this big club, it’s one of the best clubs in the world at the moment and I ‘m enjoying every single minute.”
Chelsea technical director, Michael Emenalo, said:” We are extremely pleased Victor has chosen to extend his contract with us. He is enjoying an excellent season and, under Antonio’s leadership, has proved to be an important member of the squad.”
Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, on Wednesday, March 1 2017 signed the Environmental Management and Protection Bill into law, expressing optimism that it would go a long way to secure the public health safety of residents, most especially children.
Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode (middle), signing the Environmental Management and Protection bill into Law, at the Banquet Hall, Lagos House, Ikeja, on Wednesday, March 1, 2017. (L-R) With him are Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare; Deputy Governor, Dr. (Mrs) Oluranti Adebule; Chairman, House Committee on Environment, Dayo Fafunmi and Special Adviser to the Governor on Civic Engagement, Mr. Kehinde Joseph.
Governor Ambode, who spoke shortly after signing the Environmental Management and Protection Bill into law at the Lagos House in Ikeja, said that his administration, on assumption of office, saw the need to address the gap in the sanitation of residents and the state.
He said it was disconcerting to see that dysentery and other pandemics were on the rise with serious implications for the state’s public health expenditure, adding that the government thought it wise to tackle the root cause of the problem rather than spend excessively on treating preventable hygiene based diseases.
According to him, the major motivating factor outside of the financial burden was the fact that children were the greatest casualties of the poor management of the environment, hence the need for the initiative.
Alluding to the fact that majority of the state’s environmental laws were outdated and could no longer apply to the present-day conditions, the governor said the government immediately swung into action and began efforts to develop a model in which sanitation is paramount.
“While charting a new direction, it became quickly apparent that government on its own would struggle to bear the cost of the wholesale changes while meeting its other obligations across other equally vital sectors.
“It was necessary to make investor friendly laws that attract the type of capital we need to further our development agenda and achieve our sustainability goals. We believe it is worth the risk involved in changing the legislative framework if the reward is a healthier and cleaner Lagos for our children – our future,” the governor said.
Governor Ambode said that, under the Cleaner Lagos Initiative, the commercial sector would be serviced by licensed waste management operators while an environmental consortium will provide waste collection, processing and disposal services for residential properties through a long term concession.
He said over the concession period, the consortium would be deploying a large multi-dimensional fleet of over 20 landfill and transfer loading station management vehicles, 590 new rear-end loader compactors, 140 Operational vehicles and close to 900,000 new bins to all be electronically tracked and monitored by our new unit PUMAU (Public Utilities Monitoring Assurance Unit) under the Ministry of Environment.
Governor Ambode also added that aside the fact that the initiative would create at least 27,500 jobs, the Community Sanitation Workers (CSW) who would be engaged will receive several incentives including tax reliefs and healthcare, life, injury and accident insurance benefits all aimed at tackling the issue of poverty and the chronic unemployment crisis.
“Everyone from the cart pushers to the existing PSPs and casual workers at the dumpsites have been considered in the plan and will be accommodated within the new environmental regime. In addition, we are extending opportunities to everyone along the value chain by working to create vocational training in the related areas through LASTVEB,” he said.
Giving details of the law, the Governor said that sanitation will now be a daily affair in the state while the CSWs would be deployed in every ward across the state.
He also said that an annual Public Utility Levy (PUL) would be introduced to replace all service fees previously paid to the Waste Management authorities, adding that the public was carried along in determining the rates, which according to him is relatively low.
“The PUL will be a major contribution to the state’s ongoing efforts to address severe challenges that are unique to Lagos because of rising urbanisation. The money will be held in the Environmental Trust Fund and managed meticulously by a Board of SEC regulated trustees.
“The trustees are under strict obligations to the people of Lagos and will be accountable to the people for every naira we spend in line with our overall environmental agenda. Compliance is the key. The burden of the cost of providing these services will remain low if everyone does their part and pays their PUL.
“With the newly positioned LASECORPS, we will work within the community to enforce the new laws. The state will have a zero-tolerance policy for offenders because simply put, disregarding payment of your PUL or flouting the new regulations ultimately promotes activities that lead to the loss of lives,” Governor Ambode said.
Earlier, the Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on the Environment, Saka Fafunmi, commended the governor for his passion to evolve the environmental laws in the State, saying that the Law would ensure a cleaner, safer and more prosperous Lagos.
In support of Federal Government’s efforts towards addressing youth unemployment, the Bank of Industry (BOI) is to provide financial support to one million Nigerian youths with innovative business ideas, to help them become entrepreneurs instead of job seekers.
At a news briefing in Lagos, the Acting Managing Director of BOI, Waheed Olagunji, said that under the initiative known as “Youths Ignite Project”, beneficiaries between 18 and 35 years of age would receive funding continuously for five years.
Correspondent Innocent Onoh was there and now reports.
Following an address to the 2017 ECOSOC Segment on Operational Activities for Development, UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, in New York on Tuesday, February 28 2017 encountered with the press, where she shed some light on what is expected of her as an assistant to António Guterres, the Secretary-General
Amina Mohammed delivering a speech
Amina Mohammed: I am delighted to be here. My first interaction is coming, of course, off the back of the ECOSOC segment and that is so important to us given the thrust of the reform and the development agenda. I look forward to my time here, working and interacting closely with you. Great privilege to return to New York, again, I have to say today, incredibly humbled by the weight and expectations of the Secretary-General (SG) and myself in support of him to actualise his vision.
Today’s world challenges are much more complex and intertwined; we have seen anxiety that is increasingly mounting across the world. I’m grateful to the Secretary-General (António Guterres) for his trust and his leadership, ambitious vision for the Organisation, a vision that focuses on prevention, really looking at the root causes. It requires that we really do take integration much more seriously and work across all the pillars.
I will be focusing primarily on helping the SG to reposition sustainable development at the United Nations and, as he has stated, sustainable development is an end in itself but it is also the best way that we feel that we can achieve universal peace.
I’m attaching great importance to the promise of leaving no one behind, so starting with those that are furthest behind, really looking to see how we can address that in a robust manner that brings everyone into the sustainable development agenda, addressing gender barriers that we’ve seen constantly; that we have achieved some success in that, not enough. We need to go to scale at this point. We also need to empower youth, agents of peace and development. I can say that in the recent 15 months that I have been home, after helping to shape the 2030 Agenda, youth have been the greatest challenge that we have faced but also the greatest potential to finding solutions for peace and development.
I will be supporting the SG in the comprehensive review of the UN development system; this will be in close consultation with Member States.
We have the advantage that the three major agendas that we agreed in 2015, were really from an inclusive process where Member States owned it and lead on it. And so supporting them to get an ambitious response at the country level is one that I believe will have a much easier task than we would have had previously, so therefore, those consultations will be given utmost priority.
We shall become as the United Nations much more fit for purpose. I think this is across all constituencies, not just the UN but we have to lead in that. We provided an ambitious agenda, where most people are struggling with integration, struggling with universality, a different concept to sustainable development and so for that we need to ensure that our partners too, in the civil society and the private sector, are on board and we are all helping countries and not burdening them with a new agenda.
I think over the recent times, the 2030 agenda as I have spent the last 15 months trying to see that at country-level, not just in Nigeria but across the region in Africa, with other agendas like (African Union Agenda) 2063, there is an acute need for us to make sure that we are aligning these agendas and not layering them and burdening at the country level some of the issues that need to be addressed as much, as urgently as possible.
You can count on our utmost commitment to ensure the UN responds in a way that honours our level of ambition, it is an ambitious agenda and once again, just say I’m really happy to be back here in service of humanity.
Take a few questions?
Thank you very much, Deputy Secretary-General, welcome back to the United Nations and your new post. You outlined a very ambitious agenda, which requires, of course, a lot of government support, but also a lot of funding. How concerned are you about the new US administration’s announcement of major cuts, including to the State Department, which helps fund the UN budget? And what would the impact be, since the United States is the largest funder of the United Nations?
Amina Mohammed: Thank you for that. I mean, I think any cuts, wherever they come, are of great concern with an agenda that is so much more ambitious, and we have many more complex issues to deal with. I think the important thing that we need to do is to continue to engage with our partners and to show how important it is not to decrease but to increase, and find different ways of doing so. It may not be in the traditional ways forward. I think the UN agenda for transformation reform also speaks to much more accountability for results, and I think, you know, Member States would like to see that. So I am optimistic we can engage. I have to say, in the past few months we have not often seen when we bring together our global community a good response to some of the humanitarian crises. But just recently in Oslo what did we see? Once it had been laid out what pathway countries were looking at to address the challenges in some post-conflict areas, we saw an incredible comeback for support, including the United States, to those crises. So I am, of course, concerned, but I believe that we can find a way of leveraging other resources. Same Member States, different ways, different means.
My question is about the famine drive – the $4 billion famine drive. Can you speak to this, what you expect it to be a success, particularly in your native Nigeria?
Amina Mohammed: Well again, you know a huge crisis. We need to be ahead of the curve and not behind it, and so we do press for the support we need in those four countries. This famine is not just going to be limited to them if we don’t address it in a very urgent way. I think that the results that we saw in Oslo recently are warming and I think that this is showing that there is a way forward on some of this. We need to listen to some of the issues that were raised there. Again, bringing agencies and partnerships together in a much more coordinated and coherent manner, will help us get further, leveraging resources from different constituencies now, different partnerships in a global agenda, this is becoming more complex, but it is bringing in more returns and so again, we are not taking our foot off the urgency pedal, it is really urgent that we get much more, much more quickly, but so far the (outings?) have proved to be positive.
Do you expect problems in terms of delivering that kind of aid in parts of Nigeria?
Amina Mohammed: No, I mean my experience has been that, of recent, where one has seen some of these challenges of coordination, they have been addressed pretty quickly, both at the national level, and at the UN system. It’s a very difficult environment to be in, but at the same time, Nigeria doesn’t just consist of the northeast. It is a much wider arena of processes and support and platforms to do these things. I think they will need additional support, institutional capacity. If you look at what has happened in the northeast there, yes, institutions have been broken down, human resources capacity has been reduced, but there is a lot of willingness to come on board and help, a lot of goodwill. It does have to be better coordinated, and I think that is what we are pushing on right now.
Thank you very much for this opportunity, and welcome back. What importance do you give to the prevention agenda and the reform launched by Mr. Guterres?
Amina Mohammed: Well, it is right up front there. The results that we want to see are actioned on the 2030 agenda. Looking at the root causes, if you look at the integration of the 2030 agenda, you will see a lot of prevention work in there, a lot of addressing the jobless, inequalities, improving peoples’ economies beyond GDP. Looking at partners like the private sector, not just CSR but seeing how their business models themselves can change and also take care of the bottom line which of course is what private sectors and business can do. So I think the prevention agenda gives us an opportunity to look at the three dimensions. We always say there cannot be peace without development, and no development without peace, and human rights at the centre of that. So bringing it closer together is work that we will have to do, and keeping a conscious effort that that is the result that we want to see, that we don’t see these conflicts again which in many, many cases, investments of scale would have prevented.
Reform?
Amina Mohammed: Oh the reform, well the reform has already started. As you can see, the resolution we got on (QCPR?) was a pretty ambitious one. It is our job now to facilitate Member States to put teeth into it, so that we have a robust response to actually delivering on these agendas that have got many, many different issues, not just the transparency, accountability and the efficiency of the system, but we have also got to see how we deal with resources as well, human and financial.
I saw that you worked on the Green Bond in Nigeria, and I wondered whether you think that that is a model that other emerging markets can use to secure projects, and also do you view it as part of your mandate to work on the issue of Security Council reform, in the sense of making it more representative, and having more countries represented on it?
Amina Mohammed: Well, on the Green Bond, I have to say it was an exciting initiative to use, to leverage, the implementation of the NDC. The first thought was: how do you do that, beyond the budget, and to bring this whole integration at country level. So, the sovereign Green Bond which will be the first ones issued at the end of March in emerging countries is very exciting, and I think that the model that should be taken there is that countries themselves need to go through a process that strengthens integration and that they institutionally can then rise to the opportunities of other financing coming into the international Green Bond market. And that is huge. It has also brought in a lot of the private sector into this, in a way, I think, that is constructive and gets government providing the enabling environment but the private sector really taking things to scale. It has to be about jobs and our economies improving in Africa, so yes, I do think that that is important.
On the second question on security reform, that is something that I will work to support the Secretary-General. I think he has given me a huge amount to deliver on. I think that Security Council reform is a critical part of what we do in the next few years and somehow we have to balance that if we to address the prevention agenda.
Water and sanitation program and Importance of clean water. The Rivers State Government, in conjunction with the Port Harcourt Water Corporation (PHWC), has embarked on the implementation a project aimed at providing potable water and sanitation services to residents of Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor Local Government Authorities (LGAs).
Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Governor of Rivers State. The water project is part of a sector-wide institutional reform embarked on by the state government
The project is part of a sector-wide institutional reform embarked on by the state government, and is planned to be implemented with parallel financing support by the African Development Bank (AfDB) under the Urban Water Reform and Port-Harcourt Water Supply and Sanitation Project, and by the International Development Association (IDA) (hereafter also referred to as World Bank), under the Third National Urban Water Sector Reform Project (NUWSRP3). The planned allocations to Rivers State include $200 million in AfDB funds and $80 million in IDA funds. The Rivers State Government co-financing amounts to $48 million.
The current population in the two LGAs is about 1.3 million, but it is expected to reach 4 million by 2040.
Currently, its citizens do not benefit from any water services of acceptable quantity, quality or reliability standards, as the water system is considered to be largely non-functional. As a result, the population obtains water from a combination of private boreholes/shallow wells (directly in their household or bought through intermediate vendors) and water sachets, with varying quality, costs and availability.
For sanitation, most households in Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor are served by toilets with on-site septic tanks or household pit latrines, while most public centres such as markets and lorry parks lack adequate facilities.
The project aims to improve access to safe water supply and public sanitation services in Port Harcourt and Obio/Apkor and also to establish sound performance and long-term viability of the Port Harcourt Water Corporation to ensure sustainability of services provided.
To this effect, the project is structured around four components, which are listed to include:
Rehabilitation and expansion of the existing water infrastructure and construction of public sanitation facilities;
Institutional Support covering capacity building of the recently established Port Harcourt Water Corporation, consumer outreach, environmental protection, and longer-term planning for comprehensive sanitation services;
Establishment of Public Private Partnerships for sustainable service operations; and
Project Management. The population in the project area is primarily low income households, which requires special considerations in delivery mechanisms and tariff setting for affordability and sustainability.
The objective of the project is to increase access to potable water to 100% in the state.
EU environment ministers on Tuesday, February 28 2017 reached an agreement in support of the revision of the ETS Directive for the period after 2020.
EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner, Miguel Arias Canete. Photo credit: Reuters/Francois Lenoir
Tuesday’s agreement comes after almost two years of discussions in the Council, led since the start of this year by the Maltese presidency, and serves as the basis for negotiations with the European Parliament.
Welcoming the agreement, Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, said: “Less than two weeks after the vote by Parliament, today’s agreement demonstrates once more the European Union’s strong commitment to show leadership on climate action and help drive the global transition to clean energy. I count on everybody’s best efforts to swiftly initiate the negotiations between the Council and Parliament.”
The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the EU’s flagship policy to combat climate change by reducing the emissions from more than 11,000 installations in the power sector and energy intensive industry through a market-based cap and trade system.
Building on the Commission’s proposal from July 2015, Council agreed on a set of rules to ensure continued adequate protection against carbon leakage beyond 2020. It also backed measures to strengthen the Market Stability Reserve to more quickly reduce the current oversupply of allowances on the carbon market.
Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are in the process of establishing the Luapula River Authority (LRA) in order to manage shared water resources between the two countries.
The Luapula River
Zambia’s Minister of Energy, David Mabumba, said the riparian states are discussing the establishment of an authority to manage the Luapula River joint resource.
“The Luapula River, which is shared with the DRC, has immense hydro potential which both countries want to tap into but coming up with an authority will enable us utilise the water resource effectively.
“So we are in discussions with that country and, very soon, we will travel to Kinshasa (DRC capital) to finalise documents to come up with a special purpose vehicle to look after the water resource,” said Mr Mabumba.
He said Zambia wanted to realise 1,000 megawatts (MW) from the Luapula River Hydro-Power Project estimated to cost $4 billion.
Zambia and Zimbabwe have established the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) to manage water resources in the Zambezi River which is shared by the two countries.
