Mariann Bassey Orovwuje of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) and member of the Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) delegation at the 13^th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP13) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cancun, Mexico, presented a statement on behalf of the Civil Society Working Group on Synthetic Biology during a plenary session, asking for more regulation on synthetic biology.

Mariann warned: “Gene drives have quickly emerged as an extremely high risk synthetic biology application since the last COP and should therefore be placed under a moratorium.”

This was part of a request from 168 organisations worldwide, including the FoEI, who signed a “Common call for a global moratorium on gene drives”. The signatories want the moratorium to be effective on any further technical development and experimental application of gene drives and on their environmental release.

Gene drives can detrimentally alter ecosystems and boost agrochemical sales

Gene drives are a form of experimental genetic engineering technology which is raising a lot of concern within civil society. It consists of passing on a specific bioengineered trait to all or most of the offspring of a species so the trait becomes dominant in wild populations of the target species over a few generations. This technology can be used to eradicate invasive animal species for conservative purposes, weed species for agricultural purposes or insects like the mosquitoes that transmit malaria for health security purposes.

The problem is that, given the current state of scientific knowledge, it is not possible to predict the ecological impacts of the environmental release of gene drives. Eradicating a single species or modify its behavior can alter ecosystems. Suppressing a weed species can lead, for example, to the loss of habitat for animal species and the establishment of invasive ones.

Gene drives are developed using a gene editing system called CRISPR-Cas9. In agriculture, its development can boost agrochemical sales because there have been proposals to render weed species susceptible to proprietary agrochemicals (just like Monsanto rendered its GMOs resistant to Roundup).

Synthetic Biology needs an operational definition

Mariann Bassey called on the Parties to “adopt an operational definition of synthetic biology”, as the absence of a definition has already begun to obstruct work on this topic under the CBD and its Protocols (the Protocol of Nagoya and the Protocol of Cartagena) and has been used as an argument against examining the risk assessment of synthetic biology.

According to the Civil Society Working Group on Synthetic Biology – in which are also participating EcoNexus, Ecoropa, ETC Group, Heinrich Böll Foundation, The Sustainability Council and Third World Network – synthetic biology is “the next generation of biotechnologies that attempt to engineer, redesign, re-edit and synthesise biological systems, including at the genetic level”. The definition that the CBD and the Protocols should adopt “should include techniques for genome editing and genome synthesis”, stated the Group in its document “Synthetic Biology and the CBD”.

Digital sequencing can lead to digital biopiracy if not regulated

The Nigerian activist pointed out the need to address the “urgent issue” of digital sequences and biopiracy at the CBD level and the Nagoya Protocol level. “Rapid advances in sequencing and synthesising DNA mean that digital biopiracy is now possible, circumventing the rules on access and benefit sharing (ABS)” set up by the Nagoya Protocol, warned the Civil Society Working Group on Synthetic Biology in its document titled: “Synthetic Biology and the CBD”.

By ABS, the Nagoya Protocol means the sharing of the benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources and states that it must be done in a fair and equitable way.

The risk with genetic resources (DNA sequencing, for example), is that they can be transferred digitally and synthesised into living matter without physical exchange of biological material, “which poses major challenges to the many ABS systems that assume and utilise material transfer agreements,” wrote the Group. “It is important for the CBD to take a leading role in determining how to ensure that digital sequence information and gene editing are not used to amplify biopiracy and undermine ABS regimes.”

A need to address the Socio-Economic and Ecological impacts of Synthetic Biology

“The Convention requires an ongoing process to address the impacts of synthetic biology on sustainable use of biodiversity – especially the socioeconomic and indirect impacts”, said Mariann Bassey during the plenary. For example, some natural products are being produced with synthetic biology techniques by the synthetic biology industry instead of by farmers, and more synthetic biology products are in development – there is a huge risk that farmers lose their livelihoods.

Mariann Bassey also called on the Parties to address the issue of synthetic biology under the focus of biosafety, at the level of the Cartagena Protocol, where she said they should establish a process for the development of guidance on the basis of the outline on “Risk Assessment under the Cartagena Protocol” developed by the AHTEG. It is urgent given that synthetic biology is likely to lead to the development of organisms that will differ fundamentally from naturally occurring ones.

Against the backdrop of the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and a new Republican Congress, a recent  national survey conducted shortly after the election by the Centre for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, finds that, across party lines, 69% of registered voters say the U.S. should participate in the international agreement to limit global warming, compared to only 13% who say the U.S. should not.

Likewise, 70% of registered voters support setting strict carbon dioxide emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants to reduce global warming and improve public health, even if the cost of electricity to consumers and companies increased – a core component of the EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency) Clean Power Plan. Democrats (85%), Independents (62%) and Republicans (52%) all support setting strict limits on these emissions.

Other key findings include:

• As strategies, 78% of registered voters support taxing global warming pollution, regulating it, or using both approaches. Only 10% oppose these approaches.
• If Congress passes a fossil fuel tax, the most popular uses of the revenue are developing clean energy (81% of registered voters support), improving America’s infrastructure (79%), assisting workers in the coal industry, who may lose their jobs as a result of the tax (73%), and paying down the national debt (67%).
• Half of registered voters (51%) think government policies intended to transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy will improve economic growth and provide new jobs. An additional 21% think it will have no impact on the economy or jobs. Only 27% think it will reduce economic growth and cost jobs.
• Across party lines, a large majority of registered voters (83%) support generating more renewable energy on public land in the U.S. Comparatively less support more drilling or mining of fossil fuels on public land (47%).
• Registered voters support a major investment in the nation’s infrastructure (69%) including majorities of Democrats (75%), Independents (58%), and Republicans (67%).
• If Congress were to invest in the nation’s infrastructure, registered voters’ highest priorities are modernising and improving the nation’s roads, bridges, and highways, followed by water supply systems, and the electricity grid.

During the campaign, Donald Trump promised a major investment in the nation’s infrastructure. Across party lines, registered voters strongly support this proposal. Interestingly, they are also willing to support a carbon tax to fund these investments.

The report includes several more insights about what kinds of climate change and energy policies American voters support and oppose, broken down by political party and ideology.

Antonio Guterres was on Monday, December 12 2016 sworn in as the ninth and next UN Secretary-General, but there are uncertainties concerning his deputy.

There have of recent been unconfirmed media reports that Amina Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, has been appointed as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.

In fact, social and traditional media outfits had reported widely that Mrs Mohammed is set to be appointed UN Deputy Secretary-General.

A tweet by Pamela Falk, CBS news reporter for the United Nations, obtained by NAN, said that the world body would soon release a statement confirming the appointment of the Nigerian Minister of Environment.

She is expected to be deputy to Antonio Guterres, who will assume office as UN Secretary-General on Jan. 1, 2017.

Mohammed was appointed Minister of Environment by President Muhammadu Buhari in Nov. 2015.

But, in a tweet on Sunday in Abuja, Malam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, assured that Nigerians would be fully informed on any development concerning the matter.

He said: “There is a lot of exuberance on the net concerning a UN job for Mrs Amina Mohammed. She remains our Minister of Environment.

“If there is anything on this that is released officially, we will let Nigerians know. I am pleased to know that she enjoys so much goodwill.”

Mohammed was recently appointed by President Buhari to serve in the African Union (AU) Reform Steering Committee as Nigeria’s Representative.

Mohammed, who hails from Gombe State in North-East, had formerly served as adviser to the outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

Guterres on Monday pledged to carry out a far-reaching reform of the global organisation to make it effective and efficient in its response to global challenges. Guterres, in his remarks after taking the oath of office, said he would reposition development at the centre of the UN’s work and ensure that the UN can change to effectively meet the myriad challenges facing the international community.

“The United Nations needs to be nimble, efficient and effective. It must focus more on delivery and less on process; more on people and less on bureaucracy.

“The United Nations was born from war. Today, we must be here for peace,” Guterres said after taking the oath of office at a ceremony before the 193-member UN General Assembly.

The incoming UN secretary-general noted that addressing root causes, cutting across all three pillars of the UN – peace and security, sustainable development and human rights – must be a priority for the organisation.

Guterres, a former Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015, would replace Ban Ki-moon from Jan. 1, 2017.

Ban will step down on Dec. 31, 2016 after leading the global organisation for the past 10 years. The incoming scribe was formally appointed by the General Assembly on Oct. 13, 2016 in what was the culmination of a historic process, which member States set in motion late last year.

The selection of a new UN Secretary-General, traditionally decided behind closed-doors by a few powerful countries, for the first time in history, involved public discussions with each candidate vying for the leadership position.

Monday’s ceremony opened with the General Assembly paying tribute to the outgoing secretary-general for his contribution to the work of the UN since Jan. 1, 2006.

One year after the world adopted the Paris Climate Change Agreement in France, climate action across governments, business and societies continues to scale new heights, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It adds that the challenge now is to take this to an even higher scale with a speed and an urgency that reflects the scientific reality.

“2016 was an extraordinary year in many ways. In less than 12 months the Paris climate agreement entered into force and almost weekly, more countries ratify. Meanwhile nations, cities, regions, businesses and investors continue to signal their unwavering support through practical action, shifts in investments and ever more ambitious pledges,” says Patricia Espinosa, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC.

“This urgency and this action need not only to continue but to go to scale and gather ever more speed over 2017 and the years and decades to come – because current ambition still falls short of what is needed. In 2016 the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced world-wide average temperatures had risen 1-degree Celsius in 2015 and that concentrations of the key greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, reached past the significant milestone of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere over the entire year,” she adds.

Ms Espinosa said achieving the aims and ambitions of the Paris Agreement will also rest on the speed and urgency of realising the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in 2015.

“From eradicating poverty in all its forms and improving health and well-being to conserving and restoring the Earth’s forests, wetlands, drylands and mountains, the SDGs and the climate agenda are inextricably interwoven and provide the guiding star to a better, more prosperous and stable future for us all,” she says.

The Paris Agreement’s primary goal – to limit global warming to well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible to prevent dangerous tipping points in the climate system – means that global emissions must peak soon and be driven down thereafter to achieve climate neutrality in the second half of the century. A balance must be achieved in the second half of this century between global emissions and removals through natural absorption into healthy ecosystems or through other human-managed means.

Priority Paths to Achieve Paris Goals

There are three broad and interlinked avenues of effort which will ensure the Paris goals are secured: national climate action by all countries across public and private sectors, international climate cooperation and a comprehensive shift in public and private investment to support both.

Last month’s UN climate change conference in Marrakech demonstrated that progress across all three avenues remains promising. A few examples follow to illustrate this progress across the three avenues but the very large spread of all positive actions at Marrakech can be seen here in the UNFCCC secretariat’s final COP 22 press release.

National Climate Plans

First, the Agreement is itself founded upon a global set of national climate action plans (NDCs) which countries have agreed will only rise in ambition over time. In Marrakech, the broad commitment at national level to increase ambition was apparent.

For example, a club of subnational governments, the Under2 Coalition, who have committed to reduce their emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050, announced their membership has grown to 165, representing a third of the global economy and a population of around one billion people across North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

The Climate Vulnerable Forum of over 40 nations issued a Marrakech Vision committing themselves to ambitious aims, including 100% renewable energy between 2030 and 2050.

International Climate Rulebook

Several countries – Canada, Germany, Mexico and the United States – also announced ambitious climate strategies out to 2050, reflecting the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement to achieve climate neutrality in the second half of the century.

It is also important that the poorest countries can develop their own national plans, which were the reason for the launch of the NDC Partnership – a coalition of developing and developed countries and international institutions working to ensure countries receive the technical and financial support they need to speedily meet their climate and sustainable development goals.

Second, the intergovernmental UN climate change process retains a most important task to complete the international “rulebook”, the operational manual of the Agreement which will deliver a transparent global accounting of emissions reductions, provision of climate finance, technology development and transfer, and adaptation needs.

The details of the task are complex but the principle is simple: transparency builds trust that countries are delivering on their pledges which, in turn, generate the confidence for all countries to increase their own ambition to the best of their abilities.

Countries have already built the foundation for this by peer assessing each other’s actions to cut emissions through a transparent process that began in 2014.

Governments pressed forward on the rulebook in Marrakech and indicated a fast track date of 2018 for completion.

Investment Shift

Third, a faster shift in investment in both developed and developing countries is under way, although even greater speed is necessary. Governments, multilateral and private sector institutions need to be able and willing to raise and allocate tens of billions of dollars at a time towards climate and sustainable investments. Meanwhile, smaller scale funding must be available to allow the individual investor, smaller companies and poorer countries without easy access to big money to take a full and willing part in this economic transformation.

Data from the UN and independent studies show that an annual flow of one trillion dollars per year into climate action should be achievable in the near term. The availability of 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 to assist directly the poorest and most vulnerable also remains a priority.

In Marrakech, countries promised over $81 million to the Adaptation Fund, surpassing its target for the year, pledged over $23 million to the Climate Technology Centre and Network, which supports developing countries with climate technology development and transfer.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) also announced the approval of the first two proposals for the formulation of National Adaptation Plans in Liberia and Nepal and said it was on track to approve a total of $2.5 billion worth of projects.

The next annual UN climate conference will be held in Bonn, Germany in November 2017 with the small island developing state of Fiji named as President.

Nearly two dozen of the world’s most successful business leaders, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists will invest up to $1 billion in a fund led by Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to almost zero by financing emerging clean energy technology.

The Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) Fund includes John Doerr, chairman of venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Alibaba founder Jack Ma; Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla; Laura and John Arnold Foundation co-chair and former energy hedge fund manager John Arnold; Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos; and SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner.

“I am honoured to work along with these investors to build on the powerful foundation of public investment in basic research,” BEV chairman Bill Gates said in a statement on Sunday night (December 11, 2016). “Our goal is to build companies that will help deliver the next generation of reliable, affordable, and emissions-free energy to the world.”

The new fund is part of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which Gates launched in December 2015 in an effort to bring together a global group of investors who were committed to developing the nest-generation of energy technologies. The BEC was launched alongside Mission Innovation, a multi-billion-dollar clean energy research and development initiative on the opening day of the U.N. climate change summit in Paris. The countries participating in the initiative committed to doubling their clean energy technology research and development budgets by 2020 and private investors will boost their own investments in the sector.

BEV will help build companies based on the promising technologies that come out of these countries’ scaled-up public research pipelines, according to participants in the fund.

The new fund, which will have a 20-year lifespan, is designed to be both broad and scientific – two seemingly contradictory focuses – in its investment approach. The fund will not be confined to a specific segment of the investment pipeline, which means it will put money into startups at the earliest of stages all the way to companies that have reached commercialisation. The fund will consider investments across a broad number of energy sectors, including electricity generation and storage, transportation, industrial system use, agriculture, and energy system efficiency.

At the same time, BEV will collaborate with other investors, governments, research institutions, and corporate partners to develop a fund with internal scientific expertise. The goal here isn’t for a quick flip, in terms of return on investment. Instead it’s meant to look towards startups and companies with the best energy technology – with the understanding that these might be long-term and involve the kind of risks required to transform energy markets, according to the coalition.

The coalition also shared its “Landscape of Innovation,” a guide of sorts for public and private investors interested in putting their money towards technology that could lead to a zero-carbon emissions world.

Cleantech was a rising venture star a decade ago with funds, including those started by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Khosla Ventures investing in startups such as Bloom Energy and geothermal company AltaRock Energy. But cleantech lost it’s luster for some firms even as the global population and the planet’s temperature continue to rise. Some of these investments have helped fund breakthrough in clean energy that have led to commercial adoption. While others, have fallen flat.

Solar panel installations have boomed in the U.S., China, and parts of Europe thanks to a combination incentives, venture funding, and regulations. While commercialising low-cost biofuels, energy storage, as well as carbon capture and storage have hit a myriad of headwinds.

By Kirsten Korosec (Fortune)