Africa’s transformation lies in the continent’s rich soil. If we protect the ecosystems that sustain us we can lift Africans out of poverty, achieve food security, build climate resilience, create wealth and end hunger, says Amina J. Mohammed, Minister of Environment for Nigeria

There is an old Nigerian proverb that says “Fine words do not produce food”. So I will keep my words as simple and clear as possible.

Africa is facing a harsh reality. One in every two people on the continent lives in extreme poverty. In 15 years, most of the world’s poor will reside here in Africa. Sadly, as I write, about 240 million people go to bed hungry every night while malnutrition kills more than 50% of the African children who die before they reach the age of five.

These stark statistics are hard to grapple with. But imagine for a moment the pain of a mother who cannot feed her new-born daughter with the proper food she needs to live beyond the age of five. Imagine the mother who toils all day in the field but still goes to bed with a stomach aching from hunger because she cannot afford enough food to feed her family.

And now picture this: millions of perfectly good, nutritious tomatoes rotting in the hot Nigerian sun. For this is the reality: that, while 13 million Nigerians suffer from hunger and more than one million children suffer from malnutrition, the country wastes 75% of the 1.5 million tonnes of tomatoes it grows every year.

And yet, despite the waste of this nutritious fruit, Nigeria spends $1 billion every year on importing tomato paste.

There is another West African proverb: “It is a fool whose tomatoes are sold to him”. But I believe I can improve upon this proverb: for the true fool is the man who grows enough tomatoes to feed himself only to throw them away and buy someone else’s tomatoes. Yet this is exactly what happens here in Nigeria.

This is not just a Nigerian problem. It is an African problem. Sub-Saharan Africa spends $35 billion on importing food every year and the region loses a further $48 billion from food that is wasted post-harvest because of poor roads, inadequate storage and poor access to markets.

These are enormous sums of money that, when added to the $68 billion the continent loses every year because of depleted soils and degraded land, could be ploughed back into African economies to drive the transformation that the continent so badly needs.

The money saved could be used to empower more women, end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, combat climate change, create jobs and promote sustainable agriculture -all of which are key goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

What makes the situation even more frustrating is that 65 per cent of the world’s arable land and 10 per cent of its inland water resources are found right here in Africa.

But if these numbers are alarming then they should also give us cause for hope for they tell us that the roots of Africa’s transformation lie in the continent’s rich soil. These are not just fine words: simply raising crop yields by 10 per cent reduces poverty by about seven per cent. Neither the manufacturing nor service sectors can boast to have such a profound impact on poverty.

The challenge will be in harnessing the fertile soil of Africa at a time when climate change will make it increasingly difficult to grow enough food to feed the continent’s booming population, which is expected to double in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.

Today, we already have the knowledge to do this. Simply raising agricultural productivity is not enough. If we want to achieve food security, we must ensure that we look after the vital ecosystems that allow us to produce our food.

This means looking after the bees and insect pollinators that are necessary for the growth of 75 per cent of all our crops. It means looking after our soils and our water sources. It means protecting the rich biodiversity in our forests. It means building climate resilience. And it means sharing the knowledge and the technology that allows us to do all of these things.

If we can do this – if we can optimise food production by embracing an ecosystem-based adaptation approach to agriculture – we can boost yields by up to 128 per cent.

What is even better about this approach is that it does not have to require enormous resources. There is an ancient farming technique in West Africa called zai. This simple technology – a demi-circle dug into dry soil and used to grow seedlings – can turn crusted land into nurseries by improving water retention, protecting seeds from being washed away, concentrating nutrients and improving soil structure.

If properly executed, zai can increase yields by up to 500 per cent in some of the trickiest terrains on earth. It is already having a major impact on the dry Sahel region where it has reclaimed severely degraded farmlands and raised farm yields from virtually nothing to 300 to 400kg of crops per hectare in a year of low rainfall. Simple technology like must be shared across the continent.

We must also focus our efforts on improving every part of the food chain. We will have to improve our transport links and storage facilities so that we don’t waste so much food after it is harvested. We need to link farmers to markets and we need to build local, regional and national partnerships to deliver these improvements.

The benefits of an ecosystem-based adaptation approach to agriculture are clear. Not only will this approach help the continent achieve food security – one of the key sustainable development goals – but, in doing so, the continent can begin to hit a series of other targets set by the 2030 Agenda.

Investing in ecosystem-based adaptation-driven-agriculture and its linkages to sustainable commercial value chains could boost farmers’ incomes and create up to 17 million jobs while catalysing an agricultural sector that is expected to be worth $1 trillion by 2030.

By prioritising healthy ecosystems with this type of agriculture, we can also help to combat climate change, reverse environmental degradation, which is costing the continent up to $68 billion annually, fight desertification and stop biodiversity loss.

And, on top of all this, we can also produce more nutritious food that has greater immune boosting compounds than conventionally produced food, boosting human health and well-being.

This is why the creation of the Africa Ecosystems Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (EBAFOSA), which serves as the continental policy platform to foster and nurture partnerships through branch formation in each African country, is necessary.

The forum targets policy, demonstrates how EBA-driven agriculture works, enhances access to renewable energy that can power agro-processing and boosts access to markets. The launch of EBOFOSA branches across the continent, including one in Nigeria last month, is a step in the right direction.

Next month, 193 countries will meet at the UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi for the United Nations Environment Assembly – the world’s Parliament on the Environment. It is vital that the international community uses this opportunity to recognise that healthy ecosystems underpin human health, wellbeing, livelihoods, jobs and sustainable growth.

Ultimately, an ecosystems-based adaptation approach to agriculture means working with nature so that we can grow the food we need without damaging the vital ecosystems that sustain all of us.

As the continent continues to battle with climate change, we can no longer afford to play the proverbial fool for we already know that the continent’s transformation lies in the richness of the African soil. And we already know how to harness this vast potential. So the time has come for us to put aside our fine words, pick up our tools and start to sow the seeds of the future we so desperately want.

The Clean Energy Partnership is presenting its fleet of vehicles at the UN Climate Change Conference holding next week in Bonn, Germany. The partnership will also provide information on present status of hydrogen mobility and its potential as a key component in an energy and transport revolution – because hydrogen-powered electric vehicles support the UN goals for the decarbonisation of transport.

The shared goal of the 197 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to stabilise the climate system by stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at a level which would avoid the worst climate impacts. The resulting necessity to successfully transition to green energy is particularly relevant for the transport sector: one of the largest emitters, transport is responsible for 23% of global CO2 emissions. At the same time, the volume of traffic is steadily increasing worldwide. There is an urgent need to continuously reduce the use of fossil fuels in transport. Governments and business have great hopes in the potential of new technologies, which in combination with renewable fuels will enable efficient, environmentally friendly mobility.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said: “Emissions from transportation are one of the key challenges facing governments as they work towards national and international action in support of the new UN Paris climate agreement. Showcasing the next generation of alternatively-powered vehicles underlines how fast technology and solutions are moving, delivering ever more opportunities for fast-forwarding the ambition needed to keep a global temperature rise well under 2 degrees Celsius.”

The Clean Energy Partnership is dedicated to developing hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles, the requisite infrastructure, and ‘green’ production of hydrogen, in an integrative approach that includes linking the energy and transport sectors as a basis for the sensible use of renewable fuels. Hydrogen, used as an energy source and storage medium, provides a sustainable solution to the challenges of the energy revolution. Under the   auspices of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport, the CEP currently unites 20 industrial partners, who are all working to meet German and EU climate protection targets. This makes the Clean Energy Partnership Europe’s largest demonstration project in the field of hydrogen mobility – and it has already achieved some major successes. For example, the suitability of hydrogen as a fuel for daily use is now considered proven. Now the partners are demonstrating how hydrogen-powered electric vehicles can be used in individual and public transport to support a sustainable transport strategy.

The Climate Change Conference in Bonn from May 16th to 26th will be attended by an estimated 1,500 delegates and representatives of numerous NGOs. It is tasked with preparing resolutions for the subsequent conference in Marrakesh in November. During the conference, the Clean Energy Partnership will present the state of hydrogen and fuel-cell technology, and demonstrate their potential for the decarbonisation of transport.

On May 16th and 17th, CEP staff at a stand in the conference building will provide information about the technology, and the national strategy for establishing a hydrogen-powered transport and energy revolution. Also on May 16 and 17, fuel cell vehicles will be available for test drives outside the conference centre. During the ‘Ride & Drive’, delegates and visitors can experience hydrogen mobility and get to know the drive of the future at first hand, accompanied by an expert.

On 23 May 2016, the Chairman of the Clean Energy Partnership Thomas Bystry and Dr. Stephan Herbst, from Toyota Motor Europe will participate in the Technical Expert Meeting on Mitigation and take a position on the potential of hydrogen-based mobility for a low-carbon transport and energy policy.

The Clean Energy Partnership – an alliance of 20 leading companies – has set itself the goal of establishing hydrogen as the ‘fuel of the future’. With Air Liquide, BMW, Bohlen & Doyen, Daimler, EnBW, Ford, GM/Opel, H2 Mobility, Hamburger Hochbahn, Honda, Hyundai, Linde, OMV, Shell, Siemens, Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen SSB, Total, Toyota, Volkswagen and Westfalen as its partners, the ground-breaking future project includes technology, oil and utility companies as well as most German car manufacturers and two leading public transport companies. Germany’s National Innovation Programme for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NIP) has sponsored the CEP since 2008. It is coordinated by the National Organisation for Hydrogen and Fuelcell Technology (NOW).

Rallying call by Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), at Break Free from Fossil Fuels event at Bori, Ogoni, Rivers State, Nigeria on 12th May 2016

The MOSOP Peace Centre, Bori, Ogoni is a very significant location in the history of the struggle for a safe Niger Delta in which our peoples live in peace and in dignity and struggle for their rights non-violently. It is thus an important place for our second action to demand that Nigeria breaks free from fossil fuels in order to see a clear path to the future. Two days ago we were at Oloibiri, at the very first oil well in Nigeria. That well was drilled in 1956, but commercial export commenced from 1958. By that time, oil exploration and exploitation had been firmly established in Ogoni. Ogoni is a logical next stop.

I salute you, proud Ogoni people. I salute you, leaders of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), I salute you, comrades.

I request that we observe a minute silence in honour of the memories of great Ogoni sons and daughters who have laid down their lives in various circumstances in the course of struggles to halt the dastard pollution of Ogoni land. May the labour of these our heroes never be in vain.

In 1993 Ogoni people, like the Biblical David, pulled down Goliath, when you expelled Shell oil company from your Kingdom. Never have we seen a people more united in the struggle for emancipation from social, economic and ecological slavery. Today your heads are held high and we salute you, proud Ogoni people.

We stand with you today to declare that your action of halting the exploitation of crude oil from your territory has caught the imagination of the whole world. It first inspired Oilwatch International to begin the call to Leave the Oil in the Soil. Today, Keep It in the Ground has inspired a global call. That is why we are here today to declare with you that the whole world must break free from fossil fuels.

A refusal to break away from fossil fuels is a call for the continued bastardisation of our air, land and creeks. A refusal to break away from fossil fuels is an unacceptable call for unchecked climate change. A refusal to break away from fossil fuels sentences Nigeria to a corrupt political arrangement that breeds corruption, violence and conflicts, more than anything else.

In one of the poems that our hero, Ken Saro-Wiwa, wrote, he declared that silence is treason. We agree and demand that we all speak up and join the global call for all nations to break free from fossil fuels. You showed this in practical terms. Others must take up the call.

How can our environment be clean if we continue to depend on a re-source that is polluting from exploration, exploitation and consumption stages? Indeed, fossil fuels remain polluting even in their post consumption stage. How can our environment be clean if as we clean-up we keep adding new pollution? Breaking free from fossil fuels requires a decommissioning and carting away of abandoned oil facilities from Ogoniland. This is what the proposed clean-up of Ogoniland must include.

You have inspired the entire world by keeping it under the ground for 23 years. We applaud you for this heroic achievement and join you today to raise our voices for this to be taken up by the whole world and for the United Nations to draw up an instrument for the compensation of communities, kingdoms, nations and territories that have successfully kept fossil fuels in the ground and thus established verifiable carbon sinks by not allowing the carbon to be excavated in the first instance.

Our lands are fantastically polluted. And now that the price of petrol has been increased fantastically in Nigeria, it is a strong message that fossil fuel will continue to impoverish our peoples and the way out is truly to leave this menace in the ground.

That is real climate action. Breaking free from fossil fuels is the sensible way today and it is the way of the future. A clean Ogoni land, a clean Niger Delta, a clean world – that is the way to fight global warming and to give humans and other species a fighting chance of survival. Break free from fossil fuels is a breaking free form the hypocrisy of climate negotiations that refuse to mention fossil fuels. It is a breaking free from corporate capture. The Ogoni did it. We can all do it! Together we can do it!

If the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group were to have its way, the Paris Agreement will come into force sooner than later so that all can benefit from its implementation.

Chair of the LDCs, Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, who made the submission, declared that the group is working towards that dream.

“Building off current political momentum, the LDCs will continue to push for early entry into force of the Paris Agreement, so that the world can benefit as soon as possible from its implementation,” Mpanu-Mpanu, who will be in Bonn, Germany for the next international climate meeting from 16-26 May, stated.

The Bonn meeting follows the adoption of a new global agreement on climate change in Paris in December, 2015. Parties will now begin negotiating how they will reach the goals set down in Paris.

In the lead up to the meeting, Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu added: “Reaching global agreement in Paris does not mean we can become complacent. We have drawn the blueprint and we must now begin construction of the rules and procedures that will bring the next phase of our global climate regime to life. A record-breaking 175 Parties united in New York on April 22 to sign the Paris Agreement, demonstrating that we have the political momentum to achieve this.

“Even if current pledges are fulfilled, the world is on a path to over 3 degrees C of warming, well above the global goal of 1.5 degrees set in Paris; and that is without considering that developing countries need support to the tune of $4 trillion to meet these pledges.”

On the issue of climate finance, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu said: “The least developed countries are the least responsible for climate change, with developed countries bearing both the historic responsibility and the capacity to respond. Public finance to support developing countries needs to rise to meet the challenge that lies before us.”

On the importance of adaption, Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu stated: “The earth’s oceans are rising, disease is spreading, our land is no longer producing the food we need to survive. The world must adapt to meet the unavoidable impacts of climate change head on, or face the consequences.”

Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu also emphasised the necessity of pre-2020 action: “We cannot sit idly waiting for the Paris Agreement to commence, the window of opportunity to act on climate change is closing. We must harness the power of fresh global cooperation to strengthen pre-2020 action.”