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Eulogies as British architect, Zaha Hadid, dies at 65

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Eulogies as British architect, Zaha Hadid, dies at 65

British architect Zaha Hadid has died aged 65, following a sudden heart attack.

Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid

Ms. Hadid, the designer of buildings including the London Olympic Aquatic Centre and the MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, suffered a heart attack on Thursday morning while being treated for bronchitis at a Miami hospital.

A statement released by her office said: “It is with great sadness that Zaha Hadid Architects have confirmed that Dame Zaha Hadid, DBE died suddenly in Miami in the early hours of this morning.”

The Iraqi-born architect is one of the most successful female architects in history, and this year became the first woman to receive the Royal Gold Medal for architecture in her own right.

Hadid was born in Baghdad in 1950. After graduating from the Architectural Association in 1977, she joined her former professors, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, at OMA. She established Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979, which she ran with Patrik Schumacher.

Significant early projects included The Peak in Hong Kong (1983), the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (1986), and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994) – but she garned most attention for her Vitra Fire Station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany (1993).

In the last decade, she has completed the Guangzhou Opera House in China (2010), the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in South Korea (2014), and the Messner Mountain Museum Corones in Italy (2015).

Hadid’s many accolades include the Pritzker Prize, which she was awarded in 2004. She received the Republic of France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Japan’s Praemium Imperiale and in 2012 was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

She has also won the Stirling Prize, Britain’s most prestigious architecture award, on two occasions. Firstly in 2010 with the MAXXI Museum in Rome, and again in 2011, for the Evelyn Grace Academy in London.

Hadid taught architecture at schools around the world, including the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the University of Illinois, Columbia University, Yale University and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

Archigram founder Peter Cook, who nominated Hadid for the Royal Gold Medal, described her as “our heroine”.

“For three decades now, she has ventured where few would dare,” he said. “If Paul Klee took a line for a walk, then Zaha took the surfaces that were driven by that line out for a virtual dance.”

Architects Daniel Libeskind and Richard Rogers are among those paying tribute to Zaha Hadid, after news broke today of her death at the age of 65.

“Devastated by the loss of a great architect and colleague today,” said Libeskind. “Her spirit will live on in her work and studio. Our hearts go out.”

Richard Rogers told The Guardian newspaper that the news of Hadid’s death was “really, really terrible”.

“Among architects emerging in the last few decades, no one had any more impact than she did. She fought her way through as a woman,” he said. “She was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize. I got involved with her first in Cardiff when the government threw her off the project in the most disgraceful way. She has had to fight every inch of the way. It is a great loss.”

Other architects to pay their respects include Frank Gehry, who described Hadid as a “great architect and a great friend”, and Herzog & de Meuron, who said she will “leave an indelible mark on that extraordinary moment in the history of architecture”.

Amanda Levete called the architect as a “dear and loyal friend” and “one of the most extraordinary talents of our time”.

“Her global impact was profound and her legacy will be felt for many years to come because she shifted the culture of architecture and the way that we experience buildings,” said Levete.

“She was an extraordinary role model for women. She was fearless and a trailblazer – her work was brave and radical. Despite sometimes feeling misunderstood, she was widely celebrated and rightly so,” she added. “I will miss her deeply, as will the world of architecture.”

French architect Odile Decq, who was named as this year’s Jane Drew Prize winner for her role in promoting women in architecture – an award given to Hadid in 2012 – also paid tribute.

“[Hadid was] the first ‘Grande Dame de l’architecture’ and a great figure in many ways,” she told Dezeen. “She has opened so many doors for women in architecture. She has become free and without any fear after having been forced to fight against sexist attitudes. Her architecture reveals her own freedom.”

Royal Institute of British Architects president Jane Duncan told the BBC that Hadid had “made space fly” with “unbelievable” designs.

In a statement to Dezeen, Duncan said: “Dame Zaha Hadid was an inspirational woman, and the kind of architect one can only dream of being,” she said. “Visionary and highly experimental, her legacy despite her young age is formidable.”

“She leaves behind a body of work from buildings to furniture, footwear and cars, that delight and astound people all around the world,” added Duncan. “It was only last month that I had the enviable task of awarding Zaha the 2016 Royal Gold Medal for architecture – she was delighted to receive the recognition and added the medal to an amazing collection of awards, not least winning the RIBA Stirling Prize two years running. The world of architecture has lost a star today.”

Serpentine directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist, who commissioned Hadid to build the Serpentine Sackler Gallery have also released a statement.

“Her contribution to architecture as a pioneer and visionary cannot be overstated, and barely a week goes by without a landmark building opening somewhere in the world,” they said.

“Zaha Hadid was not only a great architect but also a great artist and she leaves an extraordinary body of work not only as built form but also paintings and drawings where she often explored the ideas that would later be transformed into architecture,” they added. “We are honoured to have collaborated with her on numerous occasions and her loss will be deeply felt by us and the world over.”

Numerous architects, designers and industry figures have paid tribute to Hadid on social media.

Designers propose natural terrain amid New York’s skyscrapers

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Designers propose natural terrain amid New York’s skyscrapers

US designers Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu have proposed transforming Manhattan‘s Central Park into a sunken landscape encircled by a below-grade megastructure with office, housing, retail and cultural space.

New York Horizon envisions a sunken Central Park wrapped with a mixed-use megastructure
New York Horizon envisions a sunken Central Park wrapped with a mixed-use megastructure

Titled “New York Horizon,” the project won first place in the eVolo Skyscraper Competition, which invites architects and designers to conceive futuristic towers. The annual ideas contest began in 2006.

Sun and Wu have proposed converting Central Park – which encompasses 843 acres (341 hectares) in Upper Manhattan – into a sunken landscape with hills, lakes and meadows. The reimagined park could be used for hiking, climbing, swimming and other outdoor activities.

“We came up with the idea that returns the park to its natural state, when Manhattan once looked more like this — a rugged, bedrock-­strewn landscape,” said the designers, who both recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design.

The Hive scheme won second place in the competition
The Hive scheme won second place in the competition

“We want to bring back the ‘real nature’ and uncover opportunities for a future skyscraper by doing so.”

This natural terrain would be bordered by a megastructure, or “sidescraper,” with a reflective facade.

“With its highly reflective glass cover on all sides, the landscape inside the new park can reach beyond physical boundaries, creating an illusion of infinity,” said the designers.

As America’s most-densely populated city, New York — particularly Manhattan, one of its five boroughs — is well known for its towering buildings.

Central Park offers a break from the city’s density and verticality, but most residents aren’t able to enjoy the park on a daily basis because they don’t live nor work nearby, said the designers.

By building downward, rather than upward, the designers aim to offer more residential and office space around the park.

“The ambition is to reverse the traditional relationship between landscape and architecture, in a way that every occupiable space has a direct connection to the nature,” they stated.

Their proposed megastructure would completely wrap the sunken park and “create space along the new cliff”. The soil removed from the original park would be relocated to various neighbourhoods.

The megastructure would be 100 feet deep (30 metres), with walls that would rise 1,000 feet (304 metres). The building would contain apartments, stores, museums, libraries and other types of programming.

The floor area would total seven square miles (18 kilometres), which is about 80 times greater than the Empire State Building.

“This system breaks the traditional perception of large-scale skyscrapers without taking valuable ground area of Manhattan,” said the designers.

The third place winner is the Data Tower, a conceptual skyscraper in Iceland for web servers
The third place winner is the Data Tower, a conceptual skyscraper in Iceland for web servers

Constructed between 1858 and 1873, Central Park was designed by noted landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calver Vaux. Popular among both tourists and local residents, it is the most-visited urban park in America.

The second place winner in this year’s Evolo Skyscraper Competition is The Hive, designed by the US team of Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Yifeng Zhao and Chengda Zhu. Their scheme features a vertical control terminal for drones in New York.

The third place prize went to Data Tower by the Italian team of Valeria Mercuri and Marco Merletti. The proposal envisions a sustainable skyscraper in Iceland for web servers.

The jury also awarded an honourable mention to 21 projects, including an air-purifying skyscraper, buildings that create rain and towers that prevent a city from sinking.

Last year’s winner was a conceptual high-rise featuring 11 different landscapes — a scheme by Polish designers Ewa Odyjas, Agnieszka Morga, Konrad Basan and Jakub Pudo.

Ogoniland clean-up: Crusaders want government to match talk with action

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Ogoniland clean-up: Crusaders want government to match talk with action

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), member organisations of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) and community-based groups from the Niger Delta have called on the Nigerian government to match talk with action in the implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Assessment on Ogoniland.

Land degradation from oil spill in Ogoniland, Nigeria
Land degradation from oil spill in Ogoniland, Nigeria

At a recent meeting on the non-implementation of the UNEP assessment report on Ogoniland held in Abuja, the groups said the call became imperative in the light of the observed inactivity in relation to the clean-up of Ogoniland nearly one year after government released a $10 million grant for the commencement of the exercise.

The groups said that, on the contrary, the plight of the Ogoni have worsened following the politicisation of the exercise, a development that has spurred violence in the communities as the local people are denied the basics of life such as clean water, a clean environment and sustainable livelihood.

ERA/FoEN Executive Director, Godwin Ojo, said: “As we march towards the fifth year of the release of the UNEP assessment and its non-implementation, no one is in doubt that the Ogonis continue to bear the burden of the environmental degradation, livelihood losses and other fallouts that is blamed solely on Shell.”

Ojo expressed dissatisfaction that even after the announcement of the take-off grant for the clean-up by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, the administration is yet to put in place the relevant institutional structures and frameworks to actually instigate the commencement of the exercise.

He explained that while the present administration must be commended for taking the bold initiative of committing to take actions that the previous administration did not, the $10 million still remains the only action taken, “and this represents a mere 1% of the N1 billion that the UN agency recommended as take-off fund for the exercise.”

Geert Ritsema of Milieudefensie said: “We stand in solidarity with the Ogoni people in their legitimate demand for immediate actions to remediate their degraded environment. There should be no delay in making Shell take full responsibility for this mess.”

In a similar vein, Paul de Clerck of Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) said: “Justice delayed is justice denied. The more the delay in commencement of the clean-up recommended by the UNEP, the more the people suffer deprivation.”

The groups reiterated their position that Shell is liable and should be prosecuted for the crime of ecocide since it had “wantonly destroyed the environment of the people of the Niger Delta consistently and over a long period.”

They also demanded among others: Compensation for Ogoni people, the need for establishment of a clean-up fund of $100 billion for the entire Niger Delta and the baring of Shell from the clean-up process except financial contribution in line with ERA/FoEN recommended Polluter Pays Principle.

The highpoint of the engagement was the release of a report titled: “No progress: Will Shell evade justice?” which pinpoints specific issues the government has failed to address in getting the implementation of the UNEP report on auto pilot.

How deforestation intensifies harmattan – Ako Amadi

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How deforestation intensifies harmattan – Ako Amadi

Ako Amadi, Head of Community Conservation and Development Initiatives (CCDI), in a recent chat with Augustina Ogbonna-Armstrong, sheds some light on the relationship between deforestation and harmattan, a dry and dusty north-easterly trade wind which blows from the Sahara Desert over the West African subcontinent into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March. He is also of the opinion that the El Nino phenomenon is remotely impacting the country

Ako Amadi
Ako Amadi

Is the El Nino phenomenon ravaging some parts of the world affecting Nigeria or parts of Africa?

Yes, it is. If you don’t study, you will never know. It is having a global impact in the sense that, when you have what we call upwelling. If you look at the marine environment, usually all those continents, North, South, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. On the west side of the continents, there’s a phenomenon called upwelling; which means that seasonally cold waters below 200 metres well up to the surface. These cold waters are rich in nutrient, mainly phytoplankton, which are eaten by plankton.

These phytoplankton and plankton are the main source of food for anchiove, sardines, sardinella, fungi. What we have in Nigeria are fungi, sardinella. If you go towards southern Europe, you have sardines and if you go to northern Europe you have herrings. This is the food of these small fish. So when suddenly the upwelling fails, you don’t have it anymore and instead warm water comes up. It changes the climate, the weather and that’s when you start having either severe storms and that sort of thing. It’s something a hydrographer, climatologist or meteorologist can explain precisely. I am explaining from the point of view of a marine scientist. This is what causes El Nino. Most of them are in Southern America off Peru. And Peru has very large upwelling. It’s one of the wealth of that country. Their whole oil is anchiove, which comes in millions. So this is what is happening now. I haven’t now looked at the details of where and when it is happening but it has put marine science and meteorology in very grave difficulty. Well, good for them that everybody is studying it now.

 

Is it having any impact here in Nigeria?

Yes, it is. Remotely.

 

What are the impacts?

The impact is that it puts the weather into uncertainties. You may be having heavier rains and you don’t know that part of it relates to El Niño that is going on in all parts of the world. Where warmer waters are coming to the surface instead of colder waters and, with that, that sort of adds to global warming and all of that disrupts atmospheric circulation.

 

Looking at Lagos now, you’ll notice that, sometime ago, the harmattan went and came back again. And then it became quite heavy. What can you say is responsible for this? We’ve never had this type in Lagos for a long time.

One thing I know is, when you have deforestation, you will have severe harmattan, because the dust coming from Sahara Desert is what makes the harmattan. It’s an Arabic word, harmattan. Because of the dust from the Sahara coming to the south. That’s what makes this cloudiness that you see. And if you look at your furniture, all of it is covered with dust.

 

So you’re saying that if Lagos is well forested, we won’t have all these dust?

Not even Lagos (alone), the whole Sahel (and all the forest in Nigeria). Nigeria has the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). These are 2005 figures and they couldn’t have changed because we don’t have any re-afforestation.

 

But some sort of re-afforestation is going on through the Great Green Wall project in the north.

When did it start?

 

Two years ago.

When you see a governor watering a few seedlings, that’s not reforestation. I went to seven states in the north in 2013. It’s all seedlings, they haven’t grown to trees. Not much can happen right now. When you look at all those shrubs in the Sahel and savannah, it will take about 10 years for the seedlings to get to that height and start preventing dust from coming down to the south.

This is what we are saying. In ecology you can never be in a hurry because the turnover of life is not sudden. You know, if you want to have a vegetable garden you cannot plant today and harvest tomorrow. It will take some time. let alone talking of trees, which are actually either cultured trees or wild trees. Some of the trees that you see or most of it, like in the Cross River National forest where I am working now are about 80 years old. Sometimes when we tell people that: please don’t cut down very quickly. The cutting down lasts for about half an hour but the re-afforestation takes a lot of time.

 

The Calabar super highway project…

Aha, that’s another matter. It’s a very long story.

 

Has the project been re-directed? Has the master plan been changed?

No it has not been changed

 

So they are still going to cut through the forest.

Yes, after all your president went there to go and launch the project. And all the former governors of Cross River State were there. (Liyel) Imoke and Duke were there, and all those that call themselves conservationists.

Government agencies urged on measures against El Nino effects

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Government agencies urged on measures against El Nino effects

Relevant government agencies have been urged to adopt policies aimed at restoring the coastal marine ecosystem in order to check possible reduction in fishing yield caused by the effects of El Nino, a phenomenon that brings about changes in the atmospheric system.

Flooding in Lagos. El Niño can lead to heavy rain and drier-than-normal conditions
Flooding in Lagos. El Niño can lead to heavy rain and drier-than-normal conditions

Associate Professor of Environmental Planning and HOD, Department of Geography, Nasarawa State University in Keffi, Dr Nasiru Idris, who made the call during an interactive session, said such changes in atmospheric system usually occur at the transition period between dry season and rainy season.

Most of them cause an increase in water temperature, which drives fishes away, thus presenting a difficult period for fishermen, he added, pointing out that others cause extreme drought which either delays agricultural activities or dry up farm lands.

Similarly, a scientist, Ako Amadi, has said that El Nino is already remotely impacting the nation.

“The impact is that it puts the weather into uncertainties. You may be having heavier rains and you don’t know that part of it relates to El-Niño that is going on in all parts of the world. Where warmer waters are coming to the surface instead of colder waters and, with that, that sort of adds to global warming and all of that disrupts atmospheric circulation,” said Mr Amadi, who is of the Community Conservation and Development Initiatives (CCDI).

According to UN bodies, international aid agencies and governments, severe droughts and floods triggered by one of the strongest El Niño weather events ever recorded since the beginning of this year, have left nearly 100 million people in southern Africa, Asia and Latin America facing food and water shortages and vulnerable to diseases including Zika.

Nasiru Idris
Dr Nasiru Idris

New figures from the UN’s World Food Programme say 40 million people in rural areas and nine million in urban centres who live in the drought-affected parts of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi and Swaziland will need food assistance in the next year.

In addition, 10 million people are said by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) to need food in Ethiopia, and 2.8 million need assistance in Guatemala and Honduras.

Idris said although El Nino is rampant along the Pacific Ocean, it can also take place on the Atlantic Ocean on which the country sits, once there is change in atmospheric pressure.

He advised therefore that restoring the ecosystem along the coastal areas in Southern Nigeria, through tree planting would go a long way in securing the region from the devastating impact of El Nino.

“At the Southern part of Nigeria, one of the measures that we need to take is identify the people’s means of livelihood and find ways of securing them. For farming, we need to plant trees that will help to stablise the soil. The trees will also assist in fighting drought,” he added, pointing out that measures should also be put in place to check possible flooding that could follow rise in sea level during El Nino.

Amadi said: “It is having a global impact in the sense that, when you have what we call upwelling. If you look at the marine environment, usually all those continents, North, South, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. On the west side of the continents, there’s a phenomenon called upwelling; which means that seasonally cold waters below 200 metres well up to the surface. These cold waters are rich in nutrient, mainly phytoplankton, which are eaten by plankton.

Ako Amadi
Ako Amadi

“These phytoplankton and plankton are the main source of food for anchiove, sardines, sardinella, fungi. What we have in Nigeria are fungi, sardinella. If you go towards southern Europe, you have sardines and if you go to northern Europe you have herrings. This is the food of these small fish. So when suddenly the upwelling fails, you don’t have it anymore and instead warm water comes up. It changes the climate, the weather and that’s when you start having either severe storms and that sort of thing. It’s something a hydrographer, climatologist or meteorologist can explain precisely.

“I am explaining from the point of view of a marine scientist. This is what causes El-Nino. Most of them are in Southern America off Peru. And Peru has very large upwelling. It’s one of the wealth of that country. Their whole oil is anchiove, which comes in millions. So this is what is happening now. I haven’t now looked at the details of where and when it is happening but it has put marine science and meteorology in very grave difficulty. Well, good for them that everybody is studying it now.”

By Innocent Onoh and Augustina Ogbonna-Armstrong

Why GM cotton will benefit sector, by textile makers

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Why GM cotton will benefit sector, by textile makers

The Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association (NTMA) has expressed its support for ‎the environmental release and commercialisation of genetically modified Bt Cotton for Nigerian farmers. The GM cotton is said to be resistant to pests’ invasion.

GM Cotton
GM Cotton

A position paper signed by the NTMA Acting Director-General, Hamma Kwajaffa, noted that while the Nigerian textile industry is a strategic non-oil sector and the largest after oil and agriculture, it is also the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.

The association attributed the nation’s cotton potential to abundant raw materials such as cotton and polyester chips (petrochemical), adding that the industry has a high potential for added value generation from raw material to finished goods, and is a major employer of urban and rural populations.

“It is estimated that about 30,000 Nigerians are employed in the textile industry and an additional one million small farmers and labourers are both in direct cotton production and within the value chain, probably supporting five million more people. This is a sharp contrast from over 400,000 people employed across over 250 textile mills in the country in the 80s,” the statement reads.

The group commended the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogonnaya Onu, who recently underlined government’s interest in utilising the potentials of Bt Cotton to revive the industry.

Applauding government’s establishment of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) to address issues of human health as well as environmental safety concerns, the NTMA advised NBMA “to engage the farmers in high level education as the whole GMO farming emanates from educated farmers like in the US, India, Brazil, Greece and Argentina”.

It added that the recent application by Monsanto for the environmental release and commercialisation of GM Bt Cotton could play an immense role in making cotton farming attractive “as well as reviving and repositioning the textile sector.”

It further added that the science-based review process by regulatory agencies and independent experts that the application was currently undergoing would ascertain the safety to human and animal health as well as the environment, of the proposed product.

“Lack of confidence by participants across the value chain over the years is restricting much-needed investment and one of the root causes of this is tied to the most important input in the industry, the cotton crop,” the statement continued, adding, “Seed quality remains a problem affecting yield and by implication, farmers’ income and motivation to cultivate. The prevalence of pests which leads to increased expenses in pesticides (thereby unnecessarily hiking cost of inputs upwards) is also another contributing factor.”

By Abdallah el-Kurebe

China to triple solar capacity by 2020

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China to triple solar capacity by 2020

Under its 13th Five Year Plan, China will nearly triple solar capacity by 2020, adding 15 to 20 gigawatts of solar capacity each year for the next five years, according to Nur Bekri, director of the National Energy Administration. That will bring the country’s installed solar power to more than 140 gigawatts.

Solar energy
Solar energy

To put that in context, world solar capacity topped 200 gigawatts last year and is expected to reach 321 gigawatts by the end of 2016.

In 2015, the country added more than 15 gigawatts of new solar capacity, surpassing Germany as the world’s largest solar power market. China now has 43.2 gigawatts of solar capacity, compared with38.4 gigawatts in Germany and 27.8 in the United States.

China is also the world’s largest carbon emitter. It burns more coal than any other nation, and its solar capacity is only a small fraction of its total energy portfolio. The National Energy Administration estimates that nearly one-third of solar capacity in Gansu province, and more than one-quarter in Xinjiang, was idle last year.

China’s stated goal in adding such gargantuan amounts of solar is that it wants to meet its targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases under the Paris climate accord. Also, China’s leaders are desperate to reduce the coal-fired air pollution that renders the air in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing virtually unbreathable.

And China’s massive solar panel manufacturing sector needs new markets for its products. Patrick Jobin, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said that a solar panel glut could hit the sector this year as China’s top three producers, JA Solar, JinkoSolar and Trina Solar, continue to ramp up production despite flattening international demand.

“We believe solar manufactures face an exacerbated, oversupplied environment in 2016,” he wrote.

So the central government’s bold plans could be a strategy for soaking up the excess supply.

China opens national grid to renewable energy sources

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China opens national grid to renewable energy sources

China has ordered power transmission companies to provide grid connectivity for all renewable power generation sources and end a bottleneck that has left a large amount of clean power idle, the country’s energy regulator has said.

electricity
A power grid

The grid companies have been ordered to plug in all renewable power sources that comply with their technical standards, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said.

China’s power is primarily delivered by the State Grid Corp of China (STGRD.UL) and the China Southern Power Grid Co (CNPOW.UL), with the latter responsible for delivering electricity in five southern provinces and regions.

China has become the world’s biggest wind and solar power user, but a large amount of renewable power has not been able to reach the grid because transmission capabilities are lagging generating capacity by around three to five years.

The State Grid is banking on building new ultra-high voltage (UHV) long-distance transmission lines to fill the gap.

“The construction of UHV lines are to help with cross-regional power delivery,” said Wang Yanfang, a State Grid spokeswoman, referring to the need to deliver power from remoter regions to energy-hungry eastern China.

Northern and western provinces, where energy resources are plentiful, are far from the industrial hubs in the nation’s eastern coastal regions. To transport surplus power from the north and west, China currently has 17 UHV transmission lines in operation or under construction.

Suppliers generating power with wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and wave energy will benefit from the full integration plan, the NEA said.

Integration will also encourage wind and solar power suppliers to participate in the country’s pilot power trading program, although grid companies will also be forced to make guaranteed purchases of a portion of the power generated.

“The authorities and provincial grid companies should promote cross-regional trading of renewable power to scale up its acceptance,” the NEA said.

The regulator said the volume of electricity the grid is forced to buy will be determined by technical criteria such as transmission capacity and end-user demand in regions where capacity has been idled.

The mandatory contracts mean that renewable power companies will still be compensated if they are squeezed out by other suppliers, said the NEA.

Other renewable sources, such as biomass, geothermal, wave and small-scale solar power, will be integrated with the grid without the need to trade on the market.

By Kathy Chen and David Stanway

‘World wastes $1 trillion on needless new coal plants’

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‘World wastes $1 trillion on needless new coal plants’

Nearly $1 trillion (£700 billion) is being invested in new coal-fired power plants worldwide despite the fact that the demand for electricity generated from coal has declined for two years in a row, shows a new report released this week.

The report, by Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and CoalSwarm, warns that this problem of overbuilding is creating an “increasingly severe capacity bubble”.

coal-power-station_1861404bLast year the global power sector added at least 84 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity. This is a 25 percent increase from 2014.

As the report explains, across the world a generating capacity equal to 1,500 coal plants is either in construction or in various stages of planning. The amount of capital potentially wasted on these plants comes to $981 billion.

Yet, the average coal plant is running fewer and fewer hours each year.

In China for example, the consumption of coal for electricity generation dropped 3.6 percent last year. Currently, the average Chinese coal plant runs less than half the time – the lowest level since 1969 – and the government recently announced plans to halt new coal plant approvals.

And in India, 11GW of thermal capacity is lying idle. Last year saw the first drop in India’s annual coal power installations since 2006 and the report expects this the drop “to be even more pronounced” in 2016.

“The era of Big Coal is clearly coming to an end,” said Nicole Ghio, senior campaigner for the Sierra Club’s International Climate and Energy campaign. “Coal use keeps falling off a cliff and plants are sitting idle, yet more money is being wasted on misguided attempts at locking in this dirty, dangerous fuel.”

Lauri Myllyvirta, senior global campaigner on Coal and Air Pollution at Greenpeace, described the situation as a “last-ditch push” by an industry which is becoming “rapidly uncompetitive”.

But while coal plant retirements may be growing globally, led by efforts in Europe and the US, this is not happening fast enough to balance out the overbuilding.

As the report warns, the danger of all this potential capacity sitting idle is that, in the end, it might be used but with significant impact on the world’s ability to meet its climate targets under the Paris Agreement.

“Even with no further building of coal plants, emissions from current coal plants will still be 150 percent higher than what is consistent with scenarios limiting warming to 2°C,” it explains, “meaning that most operating and new coal-fired plants will have to be phased out well before the end of their planned lifetime.”

Even building “high efficiency” coal plants is not a viable solution the report states, since this would lock in “large, long-lived carbon emitters, interfering with the need to fully decarbonise the power sector by 2040 in order to limit warming to 2°C”.

Instead, the report argues that the amount wasted on the coal capacity bubble should be direct towards alleviating energy poverty and investing in clean energy such as wind and solar power.

It notes that the nearly $1 trillion wasted is equivalent to the total level of investment needed to provide electricity to the 1.2 billion people currently lacking access to energy according to the International Energy Agency.

This would also be enough money to increase the amount of solar and wind power installed globally by 39 percent, the report finds.

“The hundreds of billions being thrown at coal could instead go toward the booming clean energy sector, helping more than a billion people get access to the clean, reliable electricity that fossil fuels have failed to deliver,” explained Ghio.

In addition to its significant climate impact, the report finds that the additional new proposed coal capacity would result in over 130,000 more premature deaths worldwide each year due to air pollution.

“The clock is ticking on the transition to clean energy,” said Ted Nace, director of CoalSwarm. “Although this research has revealed hundreds of billions being squandered on unneeded coal plants, there’s more at stake here than money.”

By Kyla Mandel (Desmog)

Ghana: Experts root for water, land, ecosystems researches

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Ghana: Experts root for water, land, ecosystems researches

Ghana’s savannah ecology zone is well endowed with a large expanse of land, which under normal circumstances should have better served the people. But the harsh environmental conditions including the dryness of some areas, threats of desertification, water scarcity, land degradation, soil erosion and climate change impacts, have hampered development in the area and entrenched poverty among majority of the people. The area covers Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.

Women in Ghana engaged in dry season rice farming through irrigation
Women in Ghana engaged in dry season rice farming through irrigation

Research institutions and development organisations working within the savannah zone, are seeking evidence-based solutions built on actual understanding of these issues to create awareness among local stakeholders and implement appropriate development projects in the zone. The Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Research Programme on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) is spearheading the process.

CGIAR WLE in collaboration with the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), as well as USAID’s sponsored projects in the zone, among other organisations, have begun discussing ways of tailoring research to meet the needs of the people. They want to ensure that agriculture and natural resources oriented research provide sustainable solutions to poverty and underdevelopment in the area.

Under the auspices of the SADA, the concerned bodies as well as others have held a two-day Knowledge Sharing Fair in Tamale, Ghana. The Fair provided a platform for discussing issues pertaining to how research can inform policy, planning and practice. It was also an occasion for exhibiting over 10 research for development projects on-going in the SADA zone.

It was the right timing for development organizations and donors to deliberate on research for development related issues. It enabled the WLE program to show case its research contributions to the SADA objective of ensuring accelerated, integrated and comprehensive development of the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.

The Fair facilitated the sharing of experiences and learning on current research and development projects across locations and subjects; and set the pace for better coordination and networking of actors across projects.

The main discussions focused on the means of promoting the expansion of improved land and water management technologies and practices in the SADA zone; positioning SADA to effectively monitor all development efforts to ensure synergy and desired impacts; and how to strengthen the alignment between research, policy and practice within the SADA zone.

The Chief Executive Officer of SADA, Charles Abugre, said the research on water, land and ecosystems was very timely and paramount to the aspirations of SADA. He acknowledged that unique opportunities exist in harnessing the water in the Volta basin, its values and ecological goods and services to provide livelihoods and transform the economy of the SADA zone.

The Upper East Region Commissioner of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Ambassador Donald Adabre called for the pooling of efforts to narrow the poverty gap between the SADA zone and the rest of the country. He said, “This can be done by translating research and incorporating it into policy, planning and implementation of activities within the zone.”

The representative of the Vice-Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS) and board member of the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP), Professor George Nyarko, told the participants that UDS has the potential to assist in accelerating the development of the SADA zone with quality research. He therefore urged SADA to support the university’s research activities.

The Chief of Party for the USAID/ATT project, Dr. Micheal Dockery said in the SADA zone, his organisation was implementing projects such as “Secure Water” aimed at ensuring water availability for dry season farming and increase yields. He said most of the USAID related projects were geared towards nutritional outcomes, improved seed development and water for irrigation.

The Head of Office of IWMI West Africa, Dr. Olufunke Cofie said in order to deliver its core mandate of providing a Water Secure World, IWMI works with several partners from academia, research institutions, NGOs and Development Partners. She noted that Research by the CGIAR centres such as IWMI, “aims to achieve the four strategic outcomes of reducing rural poverty, increasing food security, improving nutrition and health, and ensuring enhanced sustainable management of natural resources.”

In a presentation on “Informing the Development of Innovative Agricultural and Water Management Solutions,” Dr. Cofie highlighted the priority WLE projects in the SADA zone. “These projects,” she said “are focused on intensifying sustainable agricultural production through: improving smallholder irrigation, flood recession farming and enhancing rain fed production systems and related ecosystems services.”

Additionally, there is another set of projects focused on “managing water variability &climate change at catchment scale through enhancing adaptation to climate variability; enhancing public and private investment in agricultural water infrastructure.” A third category of projects are aimed at recovering useful resources from waste materials; while the last group of projects are centred on integrating ecosystems solutions into policy processes.

All of these projects as well as the others are geared to improving agricultural production through integrated water and land management. The ultimate goal is to make farming in the SADA zone attractive, viable and sustainable. According to Dr. Cofie, within the sub-region, IWMI is working as a think tank that drives innovative research and solutions.

By Ama Kudom-Agyemang

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