Data released by the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) on Monday shows that over 600 major international corporations with a combined market cap of $12 trillion are already starting to factor the Paris Agreement on climate change in their business plans before the major environmental legislation has become law.
CDP overview of who prices carbon around the world. Companies have already started factoring the Paris Climate Change Agreement in their business plans
This year’s CDP disclosures come against a backdrop of growing momentum to address global warming pollution by national and local governments, new drivers like China’s impending carbon market, and the recent ratification of the Paris Agreement by the US, China and Brazil. Last year, the number of companies pricing their carbon emissions tripled, continuing a rise from just a handful in 2013.
A second CDP report, also published on Monday, finds that 40 major multi-national companies with a combined market cap of $1.5 trillion have disclosed a tangible impact to their business as a result of internalising a cost on carbon.
The companies describe a variety of ways in which this tool has directly shifted investments toward energy efficiency measures, low-carbon initiatives, energy purchases, and the development of new low-carbon product offerings.
Examples include:
Anglo American uses an internal carbon price to stimulate research and development into low carbon technologies such as fuel cells.
Novartis and SUEZ are selecting major GHG reduction projects and measures based on the cost savings they generate, as determined by their internal carbon price.
Societe Generale has saved EUR 13 million on overheads with a EUR10/tCO2e over three years.
DSM and Saint-Gobain are now pricing carbon internally to underscore strategic shifts towards low-carbon operations and products
The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (the Education Commission), a group of world leaders composed of presidents, former prime ministers, business and education leaders, has set out an ambitious and credible programme of reform that will guarantee a basic education to every single child.
The programme aims at providing education for millions of children out of school
The Education Commission has set out the first-ever budget for global education, detailing from now to 2030 the costs and benefits of delivering a universal, high-quality primary and secondary education for all.
The report was presented in New York on Sunday 18 September, to the United Nations Secretary-General at the start of the 71st General Assembly.
The Shocking Facts
Even in 2030 – on current trends:
825 million children in low and middle income countries, half of the world’s 1.6 billion children, will not be able to secure basic secondary-level skills equipping them for the labor market
228 million children will not be in school
400 million will leave school without primary level qualifications
Instead of leaving behind half of today’s youth generation, the Commission sets out a plan under which the 1.3 billion children in low and middle-income countries can in the future attain at minimum the same level of basic skills achieved by children in high-income countries today.
The neglect of education is the biggest challenge countries will face over the next 15 years, the Commission reports. Lack of investment in education systems is crippling the chances of young people in the global workplace and hindering growth, making it impossible for low and middle-income countries to make the transition to high-income status. Failure to change course could result in a loss of $1.8 trillion for low-income countries alone by 2050 – losing 70% of GDP potential.
The Commission finds that the unequal distribution of opportunities fuels further discontent – eagerly exploited by extremists, especially in the Middle East and North Africa – and is a critical motivating factor for mass migration. Evidence shows that the failure to provide education for young children in conflict countries like Syria propels migration to Europe.
The first stage of the Commission’s plan is to have all countries adopting the reforms of the fastest improvers – the 25% of education performers around the world. Instead of only one in 10 schools being online, all schools would go digital.
Stage two of the plan is for every country to see education as an investment in the future and raise spending in low-income countries from 3% of national income today to 5% of national income.
Reform the Global Institutions to Mobilise $20 billion from New Multilateral Bank Consortium
The third stage of the plan is mobilising the combined resources of the international institutions. No country committed to reforming and investing should be denied the chance to deliver universal education for lack of funds.
The Commission proposes major reform of the global institutions and calls for a new consortium of multilateral development banks that will pool resources, in part by leveraging the flows to the World Bank from repayment of past debts.
By raising their commitment to education to 15 per cent of their combined budgets, they can generate an additional $20 billion annually by 2030 – increasing the number of qualified learners to a level ten times the number today in low-income countries.
New Compact: Multilateral Banks, Donors and Developing Countries Working Together The fourth stage of the plan calls for a Financing Compact between developing countries, donors and multilateral institutions under which overall aid will rise to $35 a year per child by 2030 – significantly less than $1 a week, hardly a wasteful use of the world’s resources.
The benefits are clear – the aid given by individual donor countries would be more focused, better coordinated, and more cost-effective; loans from multilateral banks would be more widely and cost-effectively used; and by blending grant and loan finance in a more coordinated way, developing countries would receive more funding at a lower cost. To add to the education budgets and to get more children into school as a result of philanthropy, the Commission proposes a specific ‘education giving pledge’.
The Dramatic Results
Reforms and investment will get every child on track to enter school by 2030 and increase the number of qualified high school graduates in low and middle-income countries from 400 million to 850 million by 2030 – and during the next decade, raise the numbers even further to 1.2 billion. The numbers in the lowest income countries will rise from just eight million to 80 million children. This is what we mean when we say the lost generation can become the learning generation.
Norwegian Prime Minister and Co-Convener of the Education Commission, Erna Solberg, says, “The imperative to get all children and young people learning is shared by all countries. All countries will gain from action and all will face the dangerous consequences of inaction. Evidence shows that, for example, when youth have equal access to education and employment opportunities the risk of engaging in extremist activities are lower. This is a time of opportunity, but that time is running out.”
Gordon Brown, the chair of the Education Commission and UN Special Envoy for Global Education, says, “Delivering high standards of education to millions who lose out is the civil rights struggle of our generation. The evidence before the Commission proves education is the best anti-poverty investment the world can make. I am confident that if we combine investment and reform, and mobilise domestic and international finance in a more coordinated way, we can be the first generation in history in which every single child is at school.”
The Nairobi, Kenya-based Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) has been elected as an observer organisation to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), on behalf of all African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for the next two years.
Mithika Mwenda, Secretary General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). He will represent the interests and concerns of CSOs in the African region with regard to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Photo credit: cloudfront.net
Through the Secretary General, Mithika Mwenda, PACJA will represent the interests and concerns of CSOs in the African region with regard to FCPF, which is a global partnership of governments, businesses, civil society, and Indigenous People who are focused on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, forest carbon stock conservation, the sustainable management of forests, and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (activities commonly referred to as REDD+).
The FCPF is also made up of two funds, the Readiness Fund and the Carbon Fund, and their governance bodies. The former supports national REDD+ readiness activities while the latter advances programming and payments for quantified emissions reductions from REDD+ countries.
The Carbon Fund Meetings of the Carbon Fund Participants are usually open to participation by observers.
As a result, Mithika will be expected to attend approximately one FPCF Participant Committee (PC) meeting in 2016, two PC meetings in 2017, and one PC meeting in 2018 representing PACJA, while tabling concerns and interests of African CSOs.
At the same time, the observer will be responsible for disseminating FCPF and REDD+ related documents of interest; circulating information regarding upcoming meetings of the FCPF beforehand, noting items of potential interest and gathering views of constituents on issues included in the agenda (especially views from civil society in countries with agenda items in the FCPF meetings); and providing a report back regarding what happened at FCPF meetings afterwards.
Following the selection process, PACJA received the highest number of votes that any other candidate, and as well attained satisfactory regional balance in accordance with process guidelines established by the advisory committee of FCPF.
PACJA identified Mithika as the Primary Observer and Augustine Njamnshi as the Alternate.
The organisation is a continental coalition of CSOs, which is a platform in climate change and sustainable development, with a membership of more than 1,000 organisations and networks in 45 African countries.
With the Paris Agreement signed and Parties’ Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted, countries have turned their attention this year to implementing the global climate change agreement. For individual countries, this means ratifying the agreement, moving from intended contributions to submitted Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and translating the climate change targets outlined in contributions into concrete actions to be implemented at the national or sectoral level.
The dialogue served as an opportunity to advance NDC implementation leading into COP 22 in Marrakech, Morocco in November
Over 120 participants representing more than 40 African countries, as well as international organisations and implementing agencies, recently met in Tunis, Tunisia to discuss next steps and challenges in moving toward NDC implementation. On 5-7 September, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, and the UNDP/UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) Global Support Programme for National Communications and Biennial Update Reports held a Regional Dialogue on (I)NDCs that served as one of the first regional opportunities to advance NDC implementation leading into COP 22 in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016. The dialogue was hosted by the Government of Tunisia and provided a forum to exchange national experiences and discuss technical and institutional issues related to NDC implementation.
Several key takeaways emerged from the discussions in Tunis. First, African countries are making considerable progress in preparing for NDC implementation. For instance, some have already begun developing NDC implementation plans that prioritise specific sectoral climate actions and designing institutional arrangements and coordination mechanisms to support NDC-related work. Others have begun assessing how to attract or reorient investments toward climate actions and designing monitoring systems to measure progress toward NDC goals. Countries underscored the need to build on existing efforts – as well as experiences in preparing INDCs – when undertaking these processes.
Second, political momentum must be kept alive at the national level coming out of Paris and moving toward NDC implementation. A key factor in doing so will be effectively engaging stakeholders, including the private sector, civil society, sub-national governments and ministries not traditionally associated with environmental issues. In preparing for the Tunisia dialogue, UNDP and co-organisers made a deliberate effort to encourage the participation of sectoral line ministries and ministries of finance and planning, in addition to environment officials. The variety of perspectives resulted in impressively high-quality discussions during the dialogue.
Third and relatedly, funding for NDC implementation must be considered early and comprehensively, which will require conscious efforts to involve finance ministries, the private sector and international funders (e.g., bilateral donors, multilateral funds, investment banks) as needed. Strategies for mobilising resources from national budgets, private investors and international sources can be considered in the context of developing NDC implementation plans. One fundamental component of this process for many countries will be assessing which NDC components will be implemented “unconditionally” using domestic resources and which will be conditional upon external support.
Finally, the intrinsic link between climate change and development remains clear. Countries continue to recognise the importance of strategically embedding NDC implementation plans in national development strategies so that climate change is mainstreamed into political processes and development efforts. NDC implementation can also serve to advance the global Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. And while adaptation remains a priority for the region, African countries recognise that progress on the SDGs can lead to achievements in both adapting to and mitigating climate change.
UNDP has provided support to country governments in the (I)NDC process, as well as in areas related to NDCs, such as nationally appropriate mitigation actions, low-emission development strategies and national adaptation plans. The dialogue in Tunisia was one of a series of dialogues organised by UNDP and the UNFCCC Secretariat with support from a number of donors. These began in 2014 to support countries in preparing INDCs for Paris and will now continue into 2017 focusing on NDC implementation. Following on the Tunisia dialogue and a similar dialogue for Latin America & the Caribbean held in Costa Rica in July, a dialogue for Pacific Islands will take place the first week of December and an Asia/Eastern Europe/Middle East dialogue will be held in late February 2017.
By Michael Comstock, Climate Technical Specialist, UNDP
$8.15 million will go toward stemming the recent outbreak in Nigeria and countries in the Lake Chad Basin region
Polio immunisation in Nigeria. Photo credit: comminit.com
Rotary on Tuesday committed an additional $35 million in grants to support the global effort to end polio, bringing the humanitarian service organisation’s contribution to $105 million in 2016.
The announcement follows recent reports of three new cases of wild poliovirus in Nigeria: two cases in July, and one in August. The three cases are the first to be detected in Nigeria since July 2014.
With these cases, funding for polio eradication is particularly vital as rapid response plans are now in action in Nigeria and surrounding countries to stop the outbreak quickly and prevent its spread. Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) (http://www.PolioEradication.org) are acting to immunise children in Nigeria and countries in the Lake Chad Basin (Chad, northern Cameroon, southern Niger and the Central African Republic).
Nearly one-fourth of the funds Rotary announced on Tuesday ($8.15 million) will support the emergency response campaigns in this at-risk region, and last month Rotary provided $500,000 to immediately assist with the outbreak response.
While significant strides have been made against the paralysing disease, with just 26 cases reported in 2016, polio remains a threat in hard-to-reach and underserved areas and conflict zones.
“While we are disappointed with the recent news coming out of Nigeria, this situation underscores the extreme importance of widespread immunisation campaigns and strong disease surveillance in all countries of the world until polio is fully eradicated,” said Michael K. McGovern, chair of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee. “This funding will help ensure that Rotary and our GPEI partners are doing all that we can to redouble our efforts and protect the progress in polio-free parts of the world, as well as stop transmission in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and now Nigeria.”
To sustain this progress, and protect all children from polio, experts say $1.5 billion is urgently needed. Without full funding and political commitment, this paralysing disease could return to previously polio-free countries, putting children everywhere at risk. Rotary has contributed more than $1.6 billion and countless volunteer hours to fight polio. Through 2018, every dollar Rotary commits to polio eradication will be matched two-to-one by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation up to $35 million a year.
Rotary launched its polio immunisation programme PolioPlus in 1985, and in 1988 became a spearheading partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative with the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and was later joined by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Since the initiative launched, the incidence of polio has plummeted by more than 99.9 percent, from about 350,000 cases a year to 26 confirmed to date in 2016.
In addition to supporting the response in the Lake Chad Basin region, funding has been allocated to support polio eradication efforts in Afghanistan ($5.55 million), Pakistan ($12.36 million), India ($875,000), Somalia ($1.77 million), South Sudan ($2.04 million), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo ($2 million). A final grant in the amount of $2.25 million will support key WHO staff.
African governments need to act now and revamp the continent’s seed sector for increased agricultural productivity.
Richard Lesiyampe, Kenya’s Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. He said at the ISSD that Africa’s agricultural growth is highly dependent on a vibrant seed sector
Delegates to the Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD) Africa Synthesis Conference that ended on Tuesday in Nairobi, Kenya, who made the submission, said that a vibrant seed sector would help Africa improve food and nutrition security. The experts were drawn from academia, government and the private sector.
“The growth of agriculture in Africa is highly dependent on a vibrant seed sector,” says Richard Lesiyampe, Kenya’s Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. He urged African agricultural experts to take action in implementing the laid policies and research findings that will help promote the seed sector.
The experts said that building market oriented and dynamic seed sector that promotes access to high quality seeds would also help the continent implement the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods.
They noted that a focus on entrepreneurship and market-orientation would capture smallholder farmers as important users and drivers of the seed value chain.
The Piloting Phase of ISSD Africa has worked on the establishment of an African-embedded structure and network of experts, seed programmes, and associated organisations in the public and private sectors. The aim is to work on complex challenges that are of strategic importance to the development of a market oriented, pluralistic, vibrant, and dynamic seed sector in Africa.
The seed sector in Africa, the experts note, is experiencing myriad of challenges such as access to quality seeds and inadequate funding and budgetary allocations. Since its launch in 2014, the ISSD Africa project has tackled four key challenges: how to promote seed entrepreneurship; how to increase access to varieties in the public domain; how to match global commitments with national realities; and how to support seed sector development under CAADP.
“The overall goal is to contribute to increased food and nutrition security and to poverty alleviation in Africa through the establishment of effective and efficient seed systems,” said Kouame Mieza, the executive director of Africa Seeds. He lauded the project for its design with a focus on diverse farmer needs across the African continent.
The experts shared the outcomes of the two-year Piloting Phase by the Kenya-headquartered Integrated Seed Sector Development in Africa (ISSD Africa).
At the forum a series of learning topics, where lessons learned were shared, as well as frameworks developed for follow up in a potential subsequent phase of the programme.
ISSD Africa is coordinated by the Centre of Development Innovation (CDI) of Wageningen University and Research Centre (Wageningen UR), the Royal Tropical Institute Kit, and the Future Agricultures Consortium and is hosted in Nairobi by Egerton University’s Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development.
In recognition of the critical role of monitoring and reporting in evidence-based decision-making in the water and sanitation sector at national, basin and regional levels, the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) has called on African member-states to adopt and strengthen the web-based Pan-Africa water sector monitoring and reporting system recently launched in Stockholm, Sweden during the World Water Week.
Dr. Canisius Kanangire, AMCOW Executive Secretary
Dr. Canisius Kanangire, the AMCOW Executive Secretary, made the call on Monday at the African Union Commission headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, venue of the training workshop on water and sanitation sector monitoring for member-states and stakeholders.
According to Dr. Kanangire, the web-based Pan Africa Monitoring and Reporting System “represents AMCOW’s innovative response to addressing the data challenge in Africa where Member-states use different data management methodologies and standards which do not permit effective comparison of countries’ efforts in achieving regional commitments.”
The newly launched M&E framework aspires to assist Member-states, working in collaboration with the AMCOW Secretariat and the AUC, in adopting and perfecting a common reporting format that will facilitate annual reports to the AU on the basis of data and information collected at national and sub-regional levels.
“This will, in the long run, result in a continent-wide credible monitoring and reporting system that will regularly provide critical and strategic information on the status of water development and its use (usage) for various purposes to facilitate informed decision making by African Governments,” says the AMCOW Executive Secretary.
Commending the workshop initiative as being of timely essence, the African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, in her welcome remarks, expressed optimism that the web-based monitoring and reporting system would “significantly reduce the reporting requirements on our already overburdened statistical departments across Africa.”
The AUC Commissioner restated the need for Africa to stay on course towards realising the target of the Africa Water Vision 2025 which envisages “an Africa where there is an equitable and sustainable use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation, socio-economic development, regional cooperation, and the environment.”
“Translating that vision of the Africa we want into reality makes it incumbent upon us to consolidate the gains of our achievements to-date by utilising the opportunity presented by this web-based Monitoring and Reporting System to revitalise our on-going efforts at developing, managing and utilising our water resources in a way that unleashes Africa’s development potential,” Tumusiime added.
An appreciable number of the workshop participants from South Sudan, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana described the training as very crucial and timely as it kick-starts the process of developing the 2016 Africa Water and Sanitation Report for submission to the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Governments in Africa.
Organised by the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) in collaboration with the African Union Commission, the series of workshops which began on Monday comprises Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Persons from Water Resources Ministries in Anglophone countries in East, North and West Africa will end on Tuesday while that of English speaking countries in Southern Africa will follow immediately at the same venue.
Francophone countries from Central, East, North and West Africa will converge on Abidjan from the 26th to the 27th of September 2016 for the French version of the training.
