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Fresh call to improve water, sanitation, hygiene in hospitals

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Fresh call to improve water, sanitation, hygiene in hospitals

WaterAid on Friday in Abuja launched a new campaign for health professionals, calling on them to take action to call for improvements to water, sanitation and hygiene in hospitals around the world.

According to the WHO, almost a third (29%) of hospitals and clinics in Nigeria do not have access to clean water
According to the WHO, almost a third (29%) of hospitals and clinics in Nigeria do not have access to clean water

Some 38% of clinics in low- and middle-income countries around the world do not have regular access to water; even more do not have basic, private toilets and a way to wash hands with soap. In sub-Saharan Africa, some 42% of healthcare facilities do not have access to water.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) report titled: “Water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities: status in low and middle income countries and way forward”, almost a third (29%) of hospitals and clinics in Nigeria do not have access to clean water and the same percentage do not have safe toilets. The report also shows that one in six (16%) do not have anywhere to wash hands with soap.

This puts patients and healthcare workers at unacceptable risk of infection, including some of the most vulnerable members of society – new mothers and their newborns. One in five deaths of newborn babies in the developing world are caused by infections with a strong link to dirty water, poor sanitation and unhygienic conditions and Nigeria has one of the largest numbers of neonatal deaths worldwide.

A lack of water and sanitation, combined with poor hygiene, also contributes to the overuse and misuse of antibiotics as they are used to stand in for soap and water in infection prevention, resulting in higher levels of anti-microbial resistance.

WaterAid Nigeria Country Director, Dr. Michael Ojo, said: “Clean, plentiful water, good sanitation and good hygiene including handwashing with soap are absolutely essential to effective healthcare. Yet almost a third of hospitals and clinics in Nigeria are without even rudimentary access to water. It is unacceptable that patients and medical workers are exposed to such risk of infection.

“The ability to keep a hospital or clinic clean is such a fundamental basic requirement of health care and within the Sustainable Development Goal 6 commitment to ensuring everyone has access to safewater, sanitation and hygiene by 2030, we want to see healthcare facilities prioritised – no new hospitals or clinics should be built without water and sanitation.

“There must be individual and collective responsibility for ensuring hygienic conditions in health centres. We need everyone involved in leading and shaping health services to work together to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society are protected.”

Hygiene, and in particular handwashing, are frequently overlooked, and yet they make a huge difference to the health and wellbeing of the global population. Out of all water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions, hygiene promotion has proven to be particularly effective in reducing mortality and morbidity from child diarrhoea, and has been identified as the most cost-effective disease control intervention.

Handwashing is also critical for maximising the health benefits of investments in water supply and sanitation infrastructure and combating many health risks. As the next World Health Assembly approaches in May 2017, WaterAid is calling for more political priority and more funding to be devoted to this critical building block for health to ensure no health centre is forced to make do without, and we are pleased to see health professionals from around the world joining our call.

The 2016 Global Handwashing Day is part of WaterAid’s “Healthy Start” campaign as well as its efforts to promote hygiene and integrate WASH and health. The group is carrying out stakeholders’ validation workshops in six focal states to present findings from its assessment of WASH facilities in primary health care centres in selected LGAs across these six states.

“We will share and verify findings from this recent research, review the recommendations with stakeholders, and jointly develop action plans for ways forward to address the issues raised. This forum presents us with an opportunity to highlight the WASH status of primary health centres and the vital role health workers play in improving maternal and child health outcomes. The full report from this assessment, which will be available in the very near future, will then inform how we go forward to practically address these issues,” the group stated.

Through the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development, world leaders have promised to ensure everyone everywhere has access to safe water and sanitation by 2030. To keep that promise, ensuring water, sanitation and hygiene at every level of health services must be a priority, adds WaterAid.

The WHO Action Plan aims to provide these essential services everywhere by 2030, but requires political prioritisation and financing to succeed.

Renewable energy campaign surpasses 100 partners

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Renewable energy campaign surpasses 100 partners

Power for All, a global campaign to radically accelerate the adoption of renewable, decentralised energy solutions and eradicate energy poverty, announced on Friday that it surpassed its pledge to recruit 100 civil society and private sector partners. The achievement, it added, signifies the increasingly important role that rooftop solar and renewable energy micro-grids will have in achieving universal energy access before 2030.

The Power for All campaign aims to accelerate the adoption of renewable, decentralised energy solutions. Photo credit: greenchipstocks.com
The Power for All campaign aims to accelerate the adoption of renewable, decentralised energy solutions. Photo credit: greenchipstocks.com

Power for All now has 125 partners, including global leaders and local innovators from around the world, deploying a wide range of technologies, business models and market development initiatives. The Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA), one of six Power for All founding partners, was also part of the recruitment pledge made a year ago at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Partners come from 22 countries and work in many more. Together, their geographic footprint covers 62 percent of the 1.1 billion people worldwide currently lacking access to electricity. In aggregate, the partners are responsible for providing improved sources of electricity to tens of millions of households, with collectively more customers than many of the world’s largest power utilities. Coalition partners also employ thousands of people. Solutions represented by the coalition include solar, hydro, biomass, wind and power storage.

Power for All has three areas of focus: changing behavior by creating a more positive perception and raising awareness of the impact and potential of distributed renewable energy; advocating globally for better policies, assistance and access to capital in support of these solutions; and activating national markets by catalysing an environment for market-building and rapid deployment to accelerate clean energy access.

Successes to date include playing a major role in the country-wide implementation of Sierra Leone’s Energy Revolution, a trailblasing initiative to encourage the sale of 250,000 solar lights by the end of 2017 and to achieve universal energy access – Power for Al – by 2025.

In Nigeria, the campaign has been instrumental in creating a renewable energy association – a new, unified voice for the sector which is opening the door to a raft of possibilities for engagement with government through its strengthened policy influence.

Power for All has also worked to influence multilateral development banks, with a research paper and public campaign to promote the “energy access opportunity cost” – a new framework of accounting for the social and economic dividends lost to energy poverty due to business-as-usual approaches – leading to a new working group on the issue.

Ify Malo, Power for All Campaign Manager in Nigeria, said: “A campaign only works when those participating are engaged. The passion and growing influence of our partners, whether from civil society or the private sector, are the reasons for our success so far. Many barriers remain, but the momentum is building toward delivering on the promise of clean, affordable universal energy access.”

Esther Paidamoyo Mhiribidi, ZIMREC, Zimbabwe: “The Power for All Campaign has been a timely intervention for Zimbabwe; by helping us as a nation to refocus our strategies from large-scale nationalised energy systems that are not only highly expensive to construct but also take years to complete. Through Power for All, decision makers have now seen the vast potential of DRE in rapidly increasing energy access which ultimately helps lift people out of poverty.”

Ifeanyi B. Orajaka, GVE, Nigeria: “We can’t express our gratitude enough to you and the entire Power for All team for the catalytic role you are playing in the renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy access space.”

Mariama, Smiling Through Light, Sierra Leone: “The research, materials, and communications support from Power for All has helped my business reach a larger audience. I am particularly impressed by how highly regarded and internationally recognised the work that Power for All is doing has become within a short period of time.”

How to refocus nation’s renewable energy drive, by stakeholders

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How to refocus nation’s renewable energy drive, by stakeholders

The Nigerian government has been told to prioritise national and community energy needs over global economic models that promote inequalities.

A rural community lighted by Arnegy. Participants underlined the fact that clean and safe community alternative energy models should be vigorously pursued to deliver on off-grid community energy needs
A rural community lighted by Arnegy. Participants underlined the fact that clean and safe community alternative energy models should be vigorously pursued to deliver on off-grid community energy needs

This submission formed part of a set of demands made by a gathering of industry stakeholders on Wednesday in Abuja, the federal capital city.

Participants at a daylong Renewable Energy Conference organised by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) – and funded by Friends of the Earth Norway – declared that, besides undertaking a reform of the Renewable Energy Policy and proposing a Renewable Energy Policy Bill, government should promote decentralised alternative energy with a focus on renewables which must be affordable and environment-friendly.

The conference – the sixth in the series – also underlined the fact that clean and safe community alternative energy models should be vigorously pursued to deliver on community energy needs that are off-grid and mini-grids.

The participants, which comprised civil society, development groups, government officials and community-based groups, called on government to match words with action by allocating a reasonable per cent of its annual income to funding for research and development of alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass, among others.

Likewise, they urged the authorities to establish appropriate institutional infrastructure and frameworks to support expanding energy supply and access and their sustainability. Sustainable energy policies must be harmonised and integrated in development at all levels, they suggested.

While stressing the need to develop a renewable energy development model backed by an Act of Parliament, as well as zero tariffs on renewable energy products to allow greater energy access, the gathering asked government to divest funding, loans and subsidies from fossil fuel development and oil prospecting and instead invest in renewable sources of energy.

The participants, who shared experiences and analysed critically issues concerning energy policy in the country, the environmental and social impacts of extractive processes, urged the media to deepen understanding of energy issues as well as the struggles against environmental and climate injustices.

The conference brought to the forefront, serious issues on the growing energy deficit and renewed aggressive extraction of natural resources including oil and gas from Nigeria and other parts of Africa to meet increasing demand in North America, Europe and other countries like Russia, Brazil, India and China.

Participants noted that since energy remains critical for development, individuals and civil society groups must amplify calls for a halt to the fossil fuel economy and a change to clean alternatives such as solar, wind and mini-hydro projects.

At the close of the sessions, participants had observed thus:

  • Due to ever-increasing energy needs of industries in the developed and emerging economies, Nigeria like many other African countries carry the burden of massive extraction of raw materials and its impact on the environment, health and livelihoods
  • The nation’s energy policies are deficient, lack community perspectives, and the political will to follow through implementation of some good policies are lacking. The result of this lacuna is the high tariffs that have largely unleashed poverty on local communities who can hardly afford the cost
  • Local communities are hardly visible in the media, and suffer daily untold hardship in the quest for extraction of resources for energy
  • There is a dearth of funding from the Nigerian government and donor agencies for research into alternative energy sources that are indigenous to Nigeria. Also, the World Bank and financial institutions continue to invest in energy projects that have adverse effects on energy development in Nigeria
  • Oil and solid mineral exploration and exploitation continue to degrade the environment in local communities and the genuine agitation of local communities have only been met with repressive actions by the state and transnational corporations. This, they say, is evident in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region where gas flaring has continued in spite of several deadlines imposed by the Federal Government and a subsisting court order outlawing gas flaring
  • Nigeria has largely paid lip service to upping power generation to meet the demand of the teeming population
  • Nigeria has become a dumping ground for fake and substandard alternative energy products from the developed world
  • Most private investors in energy systems in Nigeria are more interested in profits than actually bridging the nation’s energy deficit
  • Funding for research and development is lacking in Nigeria’s drive to energy sovereignty

There is a dearth of information on energy issues in the media thus deepening public ignorance and inhibiting contribution to solutions

Climate change: What does 1.5℃ mean for Nigeria?

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Climate change: What does 1.5℃ mean for Nigeria?

“As a child, I’ll go across Lake Chad on a hovercraft and think I’m going to England, today it’s a poodle.”

Those are the words of Minister of Environment, Amina J Mohammed. That was many years ago. But, today, the story is different. Climate change has exacerbated the shrinking of Lake Chad since the 1960s from a total area of 25,000 km2 in 1963 to about less than 3,501 km2, according to Scientific American 2001. As a result of this, sources of livelihood and income have been cut short, causing conflict and unrest in the surrounding area. There is even the possibility that this is one of the causes of Boko Haram.

People celebrating in Paris when the limit of temperature to 1.5℃ was accepted during COP21 in Le Bourget. Photo Credit: Chinma George
People celebrating in Paris when the limit of temperature to 1.5℃ was accepted during COP21 in Le Bourget. Photo Credit: Chinma George

Climate change is upon us all, it is no respecter of person, status, country and region. Africa, that did not contribute to historical and present emissions, is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. The continent has seen an increase in droughts, water stress, inequality, flooding and other negative effects of global warming and climate change.

What scares me the most are women, youth and the poorest people who are often marginalised. What will they do? How will they cope?

Islands are already disappearing; each successive month is declared hotter than the previous; July 2016 was the hottest month in the world’s record according to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

“It appears almost a certainty that 2016 also will be the warmest year on record,” according to GISS director, Gavin Schmidt.

This warming is affecting Nigeria gravely with increase in desertification in the Northern states, salt water intrusion as well as flooding in the south and destruction of coastal communities by storm surges. Action has to be taken urgently by developed countries to reduce their emissions.

Following the success of the Paris Agreement and its entry into force just before the 22nd Session of the Conference of Parties (COP22) in Marrakesh, Morocco from the 7th -18th of November 2016, more sanctions and actions have to be taken, as countries are still opening coal plants.

How are we going to curb emissions and limit temperature increase with such developments?

To put temperature increase to 1.5℃ might be a bit too late as research already shows a 1℃ increase from pre-industrial levels in 2015. The temperature of the first months in 2016 was said to be about 1.38℃ – 1.4℃, showing that the possibility of warming reaching and exceeding 2℃ is likely, sooner than we thought.

Carbon Brief in an analysis stated that we have fivve more years before we finish our 1.5℃ budget. What is worrisome is that the difference of .5℃ would bring about more calamities that are detrimental to ecosystems and the environment.

Throughout this year global awareness of climate change has been at its peak. A video on climate change was shown at the opening of the Olympics, the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly created a platform for countries to sign and ratify the Paris Agreement and, finally, Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio produced a movie on climate change.

Is this enough for developed countries and emerging economies like India, Brazil and China to reduce their emissions? Ecosystems are already at risk and species are disappearing – should we wait till it’s too late before drastic climate action is taken?

By Chinma George (Climate finance consultant, @Chimz_green)

Platform to support SDGs financing emerges

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Platform to support SDGs financing emerges

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched a new platform for scaling up innovative finance solutions to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to him, the initiative can help in identifying and piloting innovative finance instruments that can drive investment and support well thought-out SDG interventions.

At UN Headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the High-level meeting on Financial Solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He has launched a new platform for scaling up innovative finance solutions to support the achievement of the SDGs. Photo credit: UN /Amanda Voisard
At UN Headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the High-level meeting on Financial Solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He has launched a new platform for scaling up innovative finance solutions to support the achievement of the SDGs. Photo credit: UN /Amanda Voisard

“Financial actors and institutions are already beginning to develop solutions for attracting private capital in support of the 2030 Agenda (for Sustainable Development),” Mr. Ban told a meeting with high-level officials from Ministries of finance and foreign affairs, together with leaders from major global financial institutions at UN Headquarters on Monday.

Titled “Financial solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” the gathering showcased the initiatives and examples from around the world on how best business and the financial services sector can engage in the SDG process and transform markets.

Mr. Ban said that the proposed multi-stakeholder Financial Innovation Platform would support the identification and piloting of innovative finance instruments, and would engage key development actors, including governments, civil society, philanthropic organisations, entrepreneurs, institutional investors, banks, project developers and development finance institutions.

Mr. Ban, who will step down as the top UN official when his tenure ends on 31 December, expressed hope that the Platform will provide the best possible know-how to support the efforts by the incoming Secretary-General.

“Sustainability and stability of the financial system are mutually reinforcing,” he said, emphasising the importance of reorienting existing financial flows to sustainable objectives so that investors will reap the benefits in the form of secure markets and thriving consumers.

That is why governments, gathering in Addis Ababa in July 2015, adopted an an action agenda aimed at creating policy and regulatory environments that provide incentives for long-term and sustainable investments, he added.

According to Mr. Ban, the financial sector, spearheaded by companies such as Aviva, is promoting the creation of international benchmarks while the World Bank Treasury Office is issuing innovative financial instruments that are generating new investment opportunities.

Efforts are now needed to build on these initiatives, and the United Nations can play “a catalytic role” and intends to create a venue where leaders from all sectors, including government, can join forces, learn from each other and align their actions for greater collective effect, the Secretary-General said.

Many new ideas and solutions are already in play. International Housing Solutions, a global private equity investor, is using both catalytic and commercial capital investors to make green homes affordable to a wide population in Sub-Saharan Africa. CEO Michael Falcone said at the meeting that the creation of a UN platform will help to expand affordable green homes across the region.

“We are engaged in nothing less than the transformation of global capital markets,” said Mark Wilson, Group CEO of Aviva, an international insurance and investment company. “That demands major change. “If business isn’t sustainable then society is at risk and if society isn’t sustainable then business is at risk. So it’s just enlightened self-interest for business to support the SDGs,” he said.

“While there are many pathways forward to achieve the SDGs, one thing is clear: business as usual is not an option to close the $2.5 trillion annual funding gap in developing countries alone,” said Judith Rodin, President, The Rockefeller Foundation. “To realize the SDGs we need to foster a new era of collaboration and coordination, and the UN Secretary-General has unprecedented convening power to do this by bringing together leaders from different sectors,” she stressed.

The concept of a new multi-stakeholder forum to help finance progress on the Goals emerged following the 2015 Financing for Development Conference that took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At that Conference, world leaders called for creative and innovative solutions by the private sector to scale-up investments in activities that contribute to the sustainable development.

It is now clear to many in the finance sector, that there are new demands of the marketplace as well as shareholders seeking sustainable investments. This is why a new framework for sustainable investing is needed. The know-how that is being made available within the finance sector will be shared and made accessible: the platform will accelerate solutions and encourage scale up.

More investment required for urban resilience

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More investment required for urban resilience

Natural disasters – such as Hurricane Matthew – and climate change are having devastating effects on cities and the four billion people who live in them today.  By 2030, without significant investment into making cities more resilient, natural disasters may cost cities worldwide $314 billion each year, up from around $250 billion today, and climate change may push up to 77 million more urban residents into poverty, according to a new report by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).

Natural disasters such as Hurricane Matthew are having devastating effects on cities
Natural disasters such as Hurricane Matthew are having devastating effects on cities

Released in advance of the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development – or Habitat III – taking place in Quito, Ecuador, October 17 – 20, the Investing in Urban Resilience report cautions that rising numbers of natural disasters, as well as a growing number of economic, social, and environmental shocks and stresses, pose the greatest risk to rapidly-growing cities.

Home to 55 percent of the world’s population, urban areas are the engines of global growth, contributing to 80 percent of global GDP.  However, the high density of people, jobs, and assets which make cities so successful, also makes them – and global industry – extremely vulnerable to the wide range of natural and manmade shocks and stresses increasingly affecting them today.

“Rapid growth, without efforts to boost resilience, is exposing cities around the world to huge risk,” said Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, Senior Director for the World Bank’s Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice. “Population growth and human migration are on the rise, and climate change is poised to have dramatic effects, which means we’re approaching a tipping point for the safety of cities all over the world. We need to invest today in resilience measures that will help secure a safe and prosperous future for our cities and the people who live in them.”

The World Bank / GFDRR report cautions that failing to invest in making cities more resilient to natural disasters, shocks, and stresses will result in significant human and economic damages – with the urban poor bearing the brunt of losses. If high climate impact coincides with inequitable access to basic infrastructure and services, natural disasters will force tens of millions of urban dwellers into extreme poverty and may cost cities worldwide $314 billion each year by 2030, up from around $250 billion today.

However, with global capital seeking ever-elusive returns in the current interest rate climate, institutional investors and sovereign funds have increasingly signaled willingness to consider financing investments in the developing world. This context creates a window of opportunity to marry investors with opportunities.

The report notes that 60 percent of the areas expected to be urban by 2030 have yet to be built, while one billion new housing units will be needed to house the world’s growing population by 2060. The report emphasises that the money to ensure this development is safe and resilient does exist. In fact, $106 trillion in institutional capital, in the form of pension and sovereign wealth-funds alone, are available worldwide for potential investment. Yet only 1.6 percent of it is invested in infrastructure at all, let alone in making that infrastructure resilient.  And unlocking these flows face certain challenges.

“Investors are struggling with a range of obstacles when it comes to investing in resilience,” said Francis Ghesquiere, Head of GFDRR. “More often than not, the capacity of municipalities to integrate risk reduction components in their programs, and to access funding, is limited. We need to find innovative ways to overcome these challenges if we are to avoid the disaster of tomorrow.”

The report points to a number of major obstacles limiting resilience investments in many developing cities:

  • lack of local government capacity to plan, finance, and implement resilience projects

challenges in project preparation, including high up-front costs; and

  • lack of private-sector confidence.

While governments cannot always address all these obstacles on their own, the report indicates that there are a few things they can do to increase investment in resilience:

  • Municipal governments can create a local policy environment that encourages resilience, for instance, by implementing modernized and well-enforced building codes; and
  • By creating a pipeline of well-prepared, investor-ready projects, local governments can make it easier and more attractive for investors to fund resilience projects in their cities.

The World Bank is well-positioned to help city governments take action to promote urban resilience investment through:

  • pre-development grant financing and project preparation technical assistance;
  • advisory services to conceptualise, structure, and finance investor-ready projects;
  • analysis to include hazard and risk considerations in project design and delivery; and
  • technical assistance to improve cities’ investment climate, regulatory environment, and city creditworthiness.

The global need for urban infrastructure investment amounts to over $4.5 trillion per year, of which an estimated premium of 9-27% is required to make this infrastructure low-emissions and climate resilient, according to the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA). A significant proportion of this demand is from cities in the developing world.

The World Bank aims to meet some of this challenge through a planned expansion of its Resilient Cities Programme, by leveraging $25 billion a year in additional capital to benefit one billion people in 500 cities and lift 50 million people out of poverty. This would represent a significant increase from the roughly $2 billion it currently invests annually in urban resilience. Over the past five years, the World Bank has financed $9.7 billion in urban resilience investments in 79 projects in 41 countries.

WHO report indicates rising TB deaths

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WHO report indicates rising TB deaths

The newly released global tuberculosis (TB) report from World Health Organisation (WHO) is reporting the grim reality that more people are dying of TB than previously thought.

A TB patient
A TB patient

According to the report, there was a 50 percent increase in deaths of children from TB, with 210,000 reported to have died of the disease in 2015. This increase, from 140,000 in 2014, reflects the result of improved disease estimates, shedding new light on a disease whose impact on children had been underestimated and ignored. The higher child mortality numbers come after improved data collection doubled the estimated incidence of childhood TB, to one million annually in 2014.

In the past, children with TB had been the neglected of the neglected. However, improved TB medicines for children are now available. With country-level estimates of childhood TB available for the first time, countries should be even better prepared to act and rapidly accelerate the introduction of and ensure access to child-friendly TB medicines, and that no child dies of TB.

The report also notes that, in 2015, the number of people who died from TB grew to 1.8 million, from 1.5 million in 2014. Worryingly, 50 percent of all multi-drug resistant TB patients are either not completing or not being helped by the current two-year treatment regimen. These sobering statistics remind us of our urgency to continue the fight to develop the better, faster and affordable treatments that will finally bring this pandemic under control.

TB Alliance is working to advance several promising regimens to tackle TB in all its forms. However, there is a commensurate need for funding. Only in providing the funding needed can we hope to transform the promise in the pipeline to millions of lives saved.

TB Alliance is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to finding faster-acting and affordable drug regimens to fight TB.

Gore, Clinton link Hurricane Matthew to climate change

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Gore, Clinton link Hurricane Matthew to climate change

Campaigning with former vice president and climate champion Al Gore in Miami on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton didn’t hold back about drawing a connection between a changing climate and Hurricane Matthew, which has killed more than 20 Americans and more than 1,000 people in Haiti thus far.

Rivers swollen by Hurricane Matthew have caused widespread flooding in North Carolina, USA
Rivers swollen by Hurricane Matthew have caused widespread flooding in North Carolina, USA

“Hurricane Matthew was likely more destructive because of climate change,” Clinton said. “Right now the ocean is at or near record high temperatures, and that contributed to the torrential rainfall and the flash flooding that we saw in the Carolinas. Sea levels have already risen about a foot, one foot, in much of the southeast, which means that Matthew’s storm surge was higher, and the flooding was more severe.”

Gore went into even more scientific detail when he took the stage to emphasise what he said were two messages – climate change is a core issue at stake in the election, and every vote counts (he should know).

“It spun up from a tropical storm into a category 5 hurricane in just 36 hours. That’s extremely unusual,” Gore said of Matthew. He later added: “Just since Hurricane Andrew, the sea level, and the waters around Florida, have gone up three inches.” Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992 as a Category 5 storm (but a small sized one).

The back-to-back assertions suggest that it has become less politically treacherous to talk about extreme weather events in a climate change context than it was during, say, the time of Hurricane Katrina 11 years ago. And at the same time, Gore’s appearance reinforces that the Clinton campaign views the climate as a winning campaign issue.

That is especially the case in Florida and especially Miami, surrounded by the rising ocean. Neither Clinton nor Gore mentioned Jill Stein, the Green party candidate who threatens to siphon votes away from Clinton in Florida. Yet a subtext of the event was to signal to Bernie Sanders supporters, who might be thinking of voting for Stein, that Clinton takes climate change very seriously – and that such a vote could help elect her opponent, who does not.

But what about these claims about a linkage between some aspects of Hurricane Matthew and climate change?

One climate scientist whom I quickly reached, Michael Mann of Penn State University, called Clinton’s quotation above “absolutely” accurate. Mann added that it “mirrors” remarks he gave in a recent interview with Democracy Now on the subject (link here).

Gore and Clinton are probably on the safest ground when talking about sea level. There’s a broad scientific consensus that the seas are rising, and that a warming climate is responsible. And while there are regional variations in how the oceans are distributed across the Earth, the fact remains that on average, this means a hurricane that strikes Florida or the U.S. East Coast today will be doing so atop higher seas, with more potential to hurl the water inland.

As for Matthew’s rapid intensification, Gore is right to note that it is “unusual,” although he may have pushed it a bit far. As Atlantic hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach noted for Capital Weather Gang, “Hurricane Matthew underwent a remarkable rapid intensification of 80 mph in 24 hours, intensifying from a Category 1 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane. This was the third-strongest rapid intensification in a 24-hour period for any Atlantic hurricane on record, trailing only Hurricane Wilma (2005) and Hurricane Felix (2007).”

In other words, Matthew’s rapid intensification is certainly noteworthy, but not unprecedented. It’s the kind of feature that is worrisome, but it is hard to say it is definitive proof of anything at this point.

If there’s anything wrong with Clinton’s and Gore’s remarks, it’s what they didn’t say – there are many caveats and nuances to this issue. They didn’t note, for example:

That no storm is “caused” by climate change – a common misconception that scientists don’t consider supportable. Neither Clinton or Gore claimed this – but they didn’t debunk the misconception, either.

That while scientists expect hurricanes to become more intense, on average, as the world warms, overall storm numbers may actually decrease.

That scientists don’t fully understand what’s driving hurricane activity in the Atlantic, and whether the signal of a global warming influence is yet detectable in hurricane trends.

Overall, on a scientific level, you can discuss Matthew in conjunction with climate change if you do it the right way. The question, really, is about getting the details right.

Most of all, the event demonstrated that Clinton, clearly, thinks the climate issue helps her win. “We cannot risk putting a climate denier in the White House,” Clinton said.

By Chris Mooney, The Washington Post

$90 trillion needed by 2030 for sustainable infrastructure

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A new report from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate has called on governments and finance institutions to scale up and shift investment for sustainable infrastructure as a fundamental strategy to spur growth.

Felipe Calderón, former President of Mexico and Chair of the Global Commission. He underlines the need to invest in sustainable infrastructure. Photo credit: mpiweb.org
Felipe Calderón, former President of Mexico and Chair of the Global Commission. He underlines the need to invest in sustainable infrastructure. Photo credit: mpiweb.org

“Investing in sustainable infrastructure is essential to solve all the world’s most pressing problems,” said Felipe Calderón, former President of Mexico and Chair of the Global Commission. “It’s key to reigniting global growth. It’s key to reducing poverty. And it’s key to meeting the Paris Agreement. Infrastructure can be the pillar on which we build a sustainable economy, or it can crumble beneath us. It all depends on whether we get financing right, only then will capital fully shift in the low-carbon direction.”

The Sustainable Infrastructure Imperative: Financing for Better Growth and Development identifies the main barriers to financing sustainable infrastructure and lays out an action agenda for unlocking the capital required. The report was launched by President Felipe Calderón and Lord Nicholas Stern as well as other Global Commissioners at an event hosted by President Luis Alberto Moreno at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC.

“The next couple of decades, and particularly the next two or three years, will be critical to the future of sustainable development,” said Lord Nicholas Stern, leading economist and co-Chair the Commission. “We can and should invest in and build cities where we can move and breathe and be productive, while protecting the natural world that underpins our livelihoods. We cannot continue with ‘business as usual’ which will lock in high-carbon infrastructure and create further congestion and pollution, while choking off development opportunities, particularly for poor people. This will require not only better policies but also a sea change in the financial system itself to make it fit for purpose for the scale and quality of investment we now need. The development banks, both national and international, should be at the center of this: the growth story of the future.”

The report finds that investments totalling about $90 trillion will be needed in infrastructure over the next 15 years, more than is in place in our entire current stock, even if we continue under business-as-usual development. The good news is that it does not need to cost much more to ensure that this infrastructure delivers a low-carbon economy consistent with the climate goals agreed in Paris, and fuel and other operational savings can fully offset any additional up-front investments.

Meeting these investment needs will require a combination of public and private investment, with public investment used strategically to help crowd-in or leverage further private investment. The report also breaks down future infrastructure needs by sector and country groupings. It finds that the global South will account for roughly two-thirds of investment, with energy and transport sectors dominating.

“Our action agenda in this report knits together sustainable growth with development gains,” said Commissioner Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former finance minister of Nigeria. “It makes clear that the role of governments, the private sector, and development banks varies depending on a country’s stage of development. And it’s an especially exciting opportunity for the developing world, where we are just starting to build fundamental infrastructure, to show real leadership thanks to the opportunities to skip over the inefficient, polluting systems of the past.”

The report notes that a single infrastructure project can require dozens of financial institutions, all with their own demands, and take more than a decade to build. The cost of project preparation is substantial, typically 2.5–5% of total investment. And the risk-return ratio for sustainable infrastructure is often too high to attract private capital.

“Green finance and climate risk are two sides of the same coin. The finance sector is increasingly grasping the opportunity side of the low-carbon transition. But any prudent investor looks not only at the opportunities in the portfolio, but also the risks, especially of legacy investments,” said Commissioner Caio Koch-Weser, former Vice Chairman of Deutsche Bank. “Clear definitions of what counts as green on the one hand, and transparency requirements concerning carbon risk on the other hand would allow informed investment decisions and help ensure an efficient and smooth low-carbon transition.”

The Global Commission identifies four action areas to finance sustainable infrastructure at the scale required:

  • Tackle fundamental price distortions through fossil fuel subsidy reform and carbon pricing. Fossil fuel subsidies amounted to around $550 billion in 2014, skewing investment away from sustainable options.
  • Strengthen policy frameworks and institutional capacities. Better planning and governance can ensure the right projects are selected in the first place, and the right financing is used at the right time.
  • Transform the financial system through new tools like green bonds and green investment banking, and by greening the existing financial system, including through corporate climate risk disclosure.
  • Ramp up investments in innovation and deployment of clean technologies to reduce the upfront costs of sustainable infrastructure.

At the report launch on 6 October 2016, the IDB also launched NDC Invest, a one-stop shop for countries to transform their national commitments into investment plans.

Bamsey, Australian diplomat, emerges new GCF chief

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Bamsey, Australian diplomat, emerges new GCF chief

The Board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has selected Howard Bamsey, an experienced Australian climate diplomat, as the Executive Director of the Fund’s Secretariat. The decision was taken by consensus during the Board’s 14th meeting, following an extensive global recruitment process to select a new head of the Secretariat.

Howard Bamsey, Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund (GCF)
Howard Bamsey, Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund (GCF)

Bamsey succeeds Hela Cheikhrouhou, a Tunisian, who was the Fund’s first Executive Director. She is credited with setting in motion GCF’s first resource mobilisation process and overseeing the establishment of the body’s headquarters in the Republic of Korea.

In between Cheikhrouhou’s stepping down and Bamsey’s selection, Javier Manzanares, GCF’s chief financial officer, was the Executive Director ad interim.

Bamsey, former Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute, has a career spanning decades in international climate change, environment and sustainable development, both in the diplomatic service and academia.

He co-chaired the United Nations “Dialogue on Long-term Cooperative Action on Climate Change” from 2006 to 2007 and served as Australia’s Special Envoy on Climate Change and Deputy Secretary at the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency from 2008 to 2010. He has also served in a variety of senior government and executive positions.

The GCF was established to support low-emissions and climate-resilient development in developing countries in the context of sustainable development and poverty reduction. The Executive Director will lead the Secretariat of the Fund, headquartered in Songdo, Incheon City, Republic of Korea.

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