Radioactive water overflowed into groundwater at the Indian Point nuclear facility in New York on Saturday, resulting in increased radioactivity at the site. The contamination did not go offsite and doesn’t pose a threat to the public. Indian Point is located about 35 miles north of New York City and has been under more scrutiny from Governor Andrew Cuomo for a string of incidents in the past
The Indian Point nuclear facility reported “alarming levels” of radioactivity in three water monitoring wells. Photo credit: Julie Jacobson/AP
Radioactive water overflowed into the groundwater at the upstate Indian Point nuclear power plant, officials said on Saturday.
Gov. Cuomo said the plant’s operator, Entergy, reported “alarming levels” of radioactivity at three monitoring wells, with one well’s radioactivity increasing nearly 65,000%.
The Buchanan plant reported that the contamination did not migrate offsite and does not pose a threat to public health.
Cuomo said he was informed of the tritium-contaminated water leak on Friday and asked the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Health to investigate the incident.
“Our first concern is for the health and safety of the residents close to the facility and ensuring the groundwater leak does not pose a threat,” Cuomo said.
The site, roughly 35 miles north of New York City, has been under increased scrutiny from Cuomo and other officials following several incidents. In December, Cuomo ordered an investigation into Indian Point after a series of unplanned shutdowns, citing potential risks to both the city and surrounding suburbs.
Cuomo said the “latest failure at Indian Point is unacceptable.”
According to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the leak occurred after a drain overflowed during a maintenance exercise while workers were transferring water containing high levels of radioactive contamination.
A sump pump that would normally filter the water into another treatment system was out of service, Sheehan said.
Other state officials also blasted the controversial nuclear facility’s most recent mishap.
Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee (D-Suffern) said she was concerned not only for the surrounding community but also for the “impact this radioactive water may have on public health and our environment,” Jaffee added.
Greanpeace has called on Spain, France and Gabon to urgently investigate circumstances surrounding a ship carrying timber believed to have been illegally logged in Africa and destined for the European market.
Kumi Naidoo, CEO of Greenpeace. Photo credit: Bas Beentjas/Greenpeace
Officials of the Amsterdam, Netherlands-based non-governmental environmental organisation with offices in over 40 countries believe that Modern Express, which is a car carrier, was recently towed away from the French coast, and has safely entered the port of Bilbao, Spain. It was on its way to Le Havre, France, presumably the cargo’s destination.
“The controversy surrounds its origin and legality,” says Hellen Dena, Greenpeace Africa’s spokesperson, adding that Gabonese authorities are reported to have investigated the case and have called upon Interpol to open an international investigation.
“All countries that could potentially be the origin of the timber are part of the Congo Basin, a region where illegal logging is a widespread problem. The forestry sector in the region is beset by rampant corruption, a lack of transparency and a lack of proper monitoring and law enforcement on the ground whilst significant amounts of illegal timber are still exported to international markets every year,” she adds.
The European Timber Regulation (EUTR) prohibits the placing of illegal timber on the European market and requires that operators exercise due diligence to prevent the contamination of their supply chain.
But Greenpeace insists that both France and Spain have been slow in the implementation of this law, and that authorities have so far failed to conduct sufficient and effective checks.
Dena submits: “Greenpeace urges both countries to take immediate steps, seize the timber and determine whether the operators involved acted in compliance with their obligations under the EUTR. In the case of non-compliance with the timber regulation, sanctions should be imposed.
“Greenpeace also urges the Gabonese government to start an immediate investigation and give the Spanish and French authorities full access to all the documents required to investigate this case.”
Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) are international legal instruments whose goals include environmental protection, which entails measures to remedy, mitigate or otherwise deal with global and/or regional environmental concerns. These agreements are entered into by a considerable number of states or international organisations as Parties, and embodied in a single instrument or more related instruments.
Director-General of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NABMA), Mr. Rufus Ebegba
On the other hand, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is an international agreement that aims to ensure the safe handling, transport and use of Living Modified Organisms (LMOs) resulting from modern biotechnology that may have adverse effects on biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health. It was adopted by the Conference of Parties to the CBD on 29th January 2000 and entered into force on 11th September 2003.
All participatory nations in these MEAs are expected to, having signed and ratified, domesticate them to suit various national goals with respect to the environment. In line with this, added to the growing need for the application of modern biotechnology by Nigerian farmers and pharmaceutical companies, 15 years after Nigeria signed and ratified the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the Protocol was domesticated in the National Biosafety Law on April 18, 2015. The law was also to address Nigeria’s needs aside from the domestication.
The law, in turn, established the National Biosafety Management Agency (NABMA), an agency that is charged with the responsibility of providing regulatory framework, institutional and administrative mechanism for safety measures in the application of modern biotechnology in Nigeria. The country also signed the Nagoya Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to Cartagena Protocol in 2012.
According to observers, Nigeria’s action portrayed its readiness to take charge of its environment by providing adequate protection to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the application of modern biotechnology as well as the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). To effectively achieve this, an inter-ministerial collaboration brought the Federal Ministries of Environment; Justice; Health; Agriculture and Rural Development; Science and Technology; Foreign Affairs; Industry, Trade and Investment; and Education. Agencies that also took part in the process included the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Veterinary Research Institute, National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Consumer Protection Council (CPC) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
Issues of the environmental are transnational and their impacts are global. These make countries to partner in order to check environmental challenges by collaborating to tackle them. In Africa, the African Union (AU) in collaboration with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) established the African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE) in order to help those countries that are signatories to the Cartagena Protocol in developing the right biosafety regulations.
Nigeria is the 111th of the 170 countries that have signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, one of the multilateral environment agreements. While Nigeria signed the Cartagena Protocol on May 24, 2000, the instrument of ratification (rtf)/acceptance (acs) was deposited on July 15, 2003 and the Protocol entered into force in Nigeria on October 13, 2003.
It is one of the 46 African countries including Algeria, Benin Republic, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe that are signatories to the Protocol.
While the law is aimed at ensuring the safety in the use of modern biotechnology as well as providing holistic regulation of GMOs, it is also meant to safeguard human health, biodiversity and the environment from any potential adverse effect of GMOs, including food safety. This is as provided for in the Protocol.
During the public hearing on the Biosafety Bill before its passage into law, former Senate President, David Mark, said, “The issue of Biotechnology is an international one and Nigeria is a signatory to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. But we must domesticate the issues involved so as to benefit from modern technology. The bill will provide guidance in the areas of agriculture, stable environment and wealth creation.”
Former Minister for Agriculture and now President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, said, “Nigeria has put in place a Biosafety law to regulate the practices of modern biotechnology. Consumer and environmental safety are Nigeria’s priority. Responsible use of technologies, while managing and preserving biodiversity and the environment and consumer safety is the role of government.”
Already, the Biosafety Law is in force and the Federal Government gave a six-month moratorium to companies involved in the importation and use of GMOs to comply with the law or be prosecuted.
“It is a good thing for any country to honour all MEAs and domesticate them as well. Nigeria is on course and any organisation or government agency that does not respect the Biosafety Law will be prosecuted. The offence attracts a five years’ imprisonment or a fine of N2.5 million or both,” the Director General of NABMA, Rufus Ebegba, said.
Director General of NABDA, Prof. Lucy Ogbadu, posits: “Nigeria’s Biosafety Law will provide derived benefit from modern biotechnology under a legal framework for economic growth, improved agriculture, job and wealth creation, industry growth and sustainable environment.” She observed that Nigerian scientists would now operate at their highest potentials like their counterparts in other parts of the world, “with the presence of a biosafety law.”
Last year in October, the Environmental Compliance Institute (ECI) in collaboration with the Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA) and UNEP organised a capacity building workshop for African Journalists on Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in Nairobi, Kenya. Participants were drawn from countries that are signatories to one multilateral environmental agreement or another.
The workshop dwelled extensively on “The Environmental Challenges in Africa and The Existing Response Platforms.” Edward Wabwolo, an environmental lawyer, made presentations on “Multilateral Environmental Agreements” as well as “Negotiation Processes and Implementation Mechanisms.”
An “Overview of the Handbook on Multilateral Environmental Agreements for African Journalists” developed by ECI, left participants at the workshop better informed than they were before the workshop. David Ongare of Kenya’s NEMA presented the Principles of Environmental Communication while Joe Ageyo shed light on the Approaches and Strategies for Effective Environmental Journalism.
Daniel Aghan’s “Beyond the Workshop Sustaining the Environment Agenda through Journalism” challenged participants to, while back in their home countries, understudy individual country’s implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.
Indeed, respect for and implementation of multilateral environmental agreements by member countries, especially at this time when climate change is a major challenge, is vital.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has announced the New York State Public Service Commission’s approval of a 10-year, $5 billion Clean Energy Fund to accelerate the growth of New York’s clean energy economy, address climate change, strengthen resiliency in the face of extreme weather and lower energy bills for New Yorkers starting this year.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo of New York
Additionally, the fund will attract and leverage third-party capital to support the Governor’s aggressive Clean Energy Standard, one of the nation’s most ambitious goals to meet 50 percent of our electricity needs with renewable resources by 2030.
“New York is a national leader in combating climate change and growing the clean energy economy – and today we are taking the next big step forward,” Governor Cuomo said.”This unparalleled $5 billion investment will leverage more than $29 billion in private sector funding and open the door to new clean energy opportunities for years to come. We are raising the bar when it comes to increasing the use of renewable energy and reducing harmful carbon emissions, and I am proud that the Empire State is continuing to set the example for the future.”
The $5 billion Clean Energy Fund, to be administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, builds on the progress the state is already making in developing a robust clean tech sector. The fund is projected to result in more than $39 billion in customer bill savings over the next 10 years through innovative projects and private-public partnerships focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, making energy more affordable through energy efficiency and renewable energy, and mobilising private-sector capital. In addition to the $39 billion in overall customer savings, as a result of this Public Service Commission action, consumers and businesses are expected to see lower costs of $1.5 billion over the next 10 years, including an immediate reduction of $91 million from 2016 electric and gas costs compared to 2015.
Consumers and businesses can expect to see lower utility costs this year.
The fund will operate four major portfolios:
Market Development ($2.7 billion): NYSERDA will undertake a variety of activities to stimulate consumer demand for clean energy alternatives, energy efficiency while helping to build clean energy supply chains to meet that growing customer demand. At least $234.5 million must be invested in initiatives that benefit low-to-moderate income New Yorkers during the first three years of the fund;
NY-Sun ($961 million): The fund finalises the funding and confirms the long-term commitment for NY-Sun and for the growing solar electric market and industry in New York State, by supporting rapid and continued cost reduction. This will continue to make solar energy more affordable and accessible for residential and commercial solar customers, and will drive the growth of the solar industry in New York, which currently employs more than 7,000 people across 538 solar companies in the state;
NY Green Bank ($782 million): To leverage private sector investment, expand the availability of capital and increase confidence in lending for clean energy projects, the fund will complete the capitalisation of the innovative NY Green Bank. The fund will increase NY Green Bank’s total investment to $1 billion and will leverage an estimated $8 billion in private investment;
Innovation and Research ($717 million): As New York State moves to a cleaner, more efficient, and more widely distributed energy system, the Clean Energy Fund will help spur innovations through research and technology development that will drive clean-tech business growth and job creation while providing more energy choices to residential and business customers.
New York State Chairman of Energy and Finance Richard Kauffman said, “The Clean Energy Fund will achieve greater customer savings and stimulate more demand for — and private investment in — renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, furthering the Governor’s Reforming the Energy Vision strategy. By acting today and not tomorrow, we ensure our grid will be modernised and strengthened as we also lower New Yorker’s electricity rates by implementing the most cost-effective solutions to meet our challenges.”
At a recent State of the State address, Governor Cuomo officially proposed the creation of a Clean Energy Standard and directed the Public Service Commission to establish enforceable mandates for renewable power by June. The Commission approved a public process to adopt a Clean Energy Standard that will also include a separate support mechanism for upstate nuclear power plants. Since nuclear facilities do not produce greenhouse gas emissions, they will help the State transition to a future under the Clean Energy Standard without losing ground on emission reductions statewide, it was gathered.
The Commission also took other steps to advance Governor Cuomo’s Reforming the Energy Vision Strategy, or REV, by directing major electric and gas utilities to develop new, cutting-edge energy efficiency programmes, on both a regional and statewide basis. It also established a benefit-cost analysis framework for evaluating new energy proposals, such as smaller, cleaner power plants, to determine whether they meet the energy- and cost-saving goals of REV.
The Clean Energy Fund supports the environmental goals of both REV and the Clean Energy Standard by reducing an estimated 133 million tons of carbon emissions (the equivalent of removing 1.8 million cars from the road). Energy efficiency and other priority initiatives of the fund are also expected to save 10.6 million MWh of electricity and 13.4 million MMBtu of fuel consumption overall.
New York State Public Service Commission Chair Audrey Zibelman said, “Under the Clean Energy Fund, every dollar of clean energy spending will achieve greater savings and enhance private investment, spurring innovation and new technologies that will bring more choices and value to New York consumers. We will build on the success of previous energy-development programmes in a way that meets evolving customer and market needs and transition away from approaches that rely almost exclusively on ratepayer subsidies, which is unsustainable if we are to meet our ambitious goals in the long-run.”
NYSERDA President and CEO John B. Rhodes said, “The Clean Energy Fund allows the State to make faster and greater progress towards Governor Cuomo’s State Energy Plan and Clean Energy Standard goals, while reducing ratepayer collections. It also creates the demand for clean energy and the certainty we need to accelerate the growth of a dynamic clean tech economy that stimulates private investment and job creation.”
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Acting Commissioner Basil Seggos said, “Through Governor Cuomo’s leadership, New York State is a national model in investing in renewable energy and addressing climate change. The Clean Energy Fund will allow New York to build a clean tech industry while furthering its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide utility savings for New Yorkers.”
In the Clean Energy Fund order, the Commission also allocated $150 million for the development of new Large Scale Renewables power projects in 2016. As the Commission develops a Clean Energy Standard, it will create new incentives for large scale renewables and a new mechanism to prevent the premature retirement of safe, upstate nuclear power plants during this transition.
In addition, the Commission ruled that the Clean Energy Standard should include non-emitting generation resources, like the nuclear power facilities in upstate New York. Without these plants, the state would lose some of the emission reductions already achieved by the state and possibly lead to an increase of more than 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
To complement further programmes supported by the Clean Energy Fund, the Commission is directing that each investor-owned utility seeks to improve their own energy-efficiency programmes to better engage customers and meet the overall goals of the Clean Energy Standard and the State Energy Plan. Energy-efficiency programmes offered by major utilities are poised to offer greater value and new, cost-saving services to consumers under streamlined rules approved. Along with NYSERDA’s 10-year, $5 billion Clean Energy Fund, utilities will now develop energy-efficiency programmes that will achieve greater market-wide efficiency savings, target specific needs in the state and depend less on direct ratepayer support.
NYSERDA will continue to offer energy-efficiency programmes designed for low-income customers. However, the utilities and NYSERDA are directed to actively evaluate and develop innovative programmes that reach deeper into low-income communities.
Reforming the Energy Vision is New York Governor Cuomo’s strategy to build a cleaner, more resilient and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers. REV places clean, locally produced power at the core of New York’s energy system which protects the environment and supports the State’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent while generating 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030. Successful initiatives already launched as part of REV include NY-Sun, NY Green Bank, NY Prize, K-Solar, and includes a commitment to improve energy affordability for low-income communities.
The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal on Thursday submitted its new climate action plan to the Bonn, Germany-based UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Including Nepal, 189 parties to the UNFCCC have formally submitted their INDCs.
The Paris Agreement will enter into force on the 30th day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55% of total global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession
It will empower all countries to act to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, and to reap the many opportunities that arise from a necessary global transformation to clean and sustainable development.
New INDCs submitted by Parties signal that countries are honoring the Paris Agreement.
All information such as documentation on designing and preparing INDCs as well as on sources of support for INDC preparation, is available here.
The COP invited Parties to communicate their first nationally determined contribution (NDC) no later than when the Party submits its respective instrument of ratification, accession or approval of the Paris Agreement. The UN Secretary-General is convening a high-level signature ceremony for the Paris Agreement on 22 April, 2016 and is inviting all Parties to the Convention to sign the agreement at this ceremony, or at their earliest opportunity.
Secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), Ban Ki-moon, has told the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) it has an important role to play in translating landmark agreements such as the Paris climate agreement into tangible improvements in people’s lives.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, right, meets IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim during his visit to IMO headquarters in London
The UN secretary-general on Wednesday met with the newly appointed IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim, as well as other IMO secretariat staff, at the IMO’s headquarters in London.
The Paris Agreement was the culmination of recent work by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is an agreement by UN member states on the efforts they intend to make to keep the global temperature rise to below two degrees centigrade.
The Paris Agreement has been criticised by both shipowners’ groups and lobby groups for not including any mention of the roles that the IMO or shipping should play in helping reach the targets implied in the agreement.
While he pointed out the role the IMO should play in the future, Mr Ban also commended the work the IMO has already achieved in creating mandatory energy efficiency measures.
The two regulations currently in force are those for the energy efficiency design index and the ship energy efficiency management plan.
A third measure, one based on either a fuel levy or emissions trading scheme, has proven to be too controversial, with IMO member states possibly agreeing this year on a global CO2 reporting scheme as a less controversial first step.
While at the IMO, Mr Ban also praised the shipping industry for the efforts being made in saving hundreds of thousands of lives in the Mediterranean Sea, in what he referred to as the biggest crisis of forced displacement since the Second World War.
The biggest source of climate pollution dropped to 34% of US electricity generation and co-author of a new report says: ‘These are permanent changes’
Republicans in Congress and the mining industry have blamed Obama for the fossil fuel’s decline, accusing him of waging a “war on coal”
America’s use of coal for electricity dropped to its lowest point in the historical record in 2015, delivering a new blow to an industry already in painful decline.
The dirtiest of fossil fuels and America’s biggest single source of climate pollution, coal accounted for just 34% of US electricity generation last year, according to the Sustainable Energy in America handbook on Thursday.
It was the smallest share for coal in the electricity mix since 1949, the first year in which Energy Information Administration records were kept.
“It was a really big year,” said Colleen Regan, a power analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, who was co-author of the report for the Business Council on Sustainable Energy. “It was a landmark year with a long-term trajectory that we saw as the US decarbonising its power fleet.”
Coal made up 39% of electricity supply in 2014, the annual report said.
The changes in the US electricity system last year also produced milestone benefits for the climate, the report found.
Greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector – the largest single source of climate pollution and the target of Barack Obama’s clean power plan – fell 18% below 2005 levels last year, the report found.
That was halfway to Obama’s goal of a 32% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2030, and on a relatively short time frame.
The drop in coal use for electricity appeared set to seal the fuel’s long and slow decline in the US, with crashing prices, thousands of miners laid off work, and big coal mining companies forced into bankruptcy.
Last month, Arch Coal, the second biggest coal mining company in the US, filed for bankruptcy to help shed some $4.5 billion in debt. Two smaller firms. Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Call, filed for bankruptcy in 2015.
Republicans in Congress and the mining industry have blamed Obama for the fossil fuel’s decline, accusing him of waging a “war on coal”.
But the report found the biggest threat to coal last year remained cheap natural gas. There was also a spike in new wind and solar power. By the end of last year, wind and solar accounted for 5.4% of the energy mix, up slightly on 2014, the report found.
Some power companies opted to shut down old, coal-fired power plants, in advance of the clean power plant rules.
Those shutdowns, representing about 5% of the entire fleet, meant that there was no coming back for coal, said Colleen Regan, co-author of the report and a power analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
“The retirement of these plants means that a lot of the numbers that we saw in 2015 are permanent. They are structural changes,” she said. “These are not things that happened just because it was a mild year, which was what happened in 2012, or because natural gas prices were artificially low. These are permanent changes.”
Regan went on: “Those coal plants that are lost are not going to be turning back on ever again.”
She expected more coal-fired plants to go off-line in 2016 – although probably not at the rate of last year – but it would be premature to declare the death of coal in the US, she said.
Coal was expected to remain a significant part of the US power mix for some years.
West Virginia and Kentucky, which have been hit hardest by the decline in coal prices, are projected to continue burning coal. Other states close to the vast reserves of cheap coal in the Powder river basin are expected to remain on coal as well.
According to BNEF forecasts, coal would still account for about 24% of electricity use in 2030.
“I don’t want to say that it’s the death of coal or even a slow death but we are definitely tapering,” Regan said.
Promoting non-fossil energy such as wind power, China appears to be in the middle of an energy revolution to power its economy in a sustainable manner
China’s newly installed wind power capacity reached a record high in 2015 amid increasing efforts from the government to boost clean energy.
The Dabancheng wind farm in China’s Xinjiang province
The new wind power capacity jumped to 32.97 gigawatts last year, more than 60 percent higher than 2014, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Tuesday.
Wind power generated 186.3 terawatt hour of electricity in 2015, or 3.3 percent of the country’s total electric energy production, data showed.
Promoting non-fossil energy including wind power, China is in the middle of an energy revolution to power its economy in a cleaner and sustainable manner. The government aims to lift the proportion of non-fossil fuels in energy consumption to 20 percent by 2030 from present around 11 percent.
China’s energy mix is currently dominated by coal.
However, the NEA warned of the suspension of wind farms in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Jilin. The phenomenon occurs in the early stage of wind power capacity construction due to the mismatching of new installation and local power grid.
King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Thursday in the south-central town of Ouarzazate officially launched the first phase of the solar plant “Noor I”, believed to be the largest Concentrated Solar Power(CSP) plant in the world.
King Mohammed VI of Morocco
This phase will be the first of three for the plant, which began construction in 2013, and by 2018 is predicted to supply 1.1 million Moroccans with 500 megawatts of energy. The plant will also reduce carbon emissions by 760,000 tons per year.
Noor I is regarded by many as a huge leap towards a more energy-independent and sustainable Morocco. By 2030, the country aims to utilise renewable resource for over half of its energy use. It is also possible that Morocco will have the capacity to “export energy to European countries,” according to the World Bank.
Speaking about the plant in December, Minister Delegate in Charge of Environment, Hakima El Haiti, discussed the use of highly advanced CSP plants and how they work by using “mirrors to focus the sun’s light and heat up a liquid, which is mixed with water and reaches a temperature close to 400 degrees Celsius.” She explained that “this produces steam, which in turn drives a turbine to generate electrical power.”
She added that the system allows for “the storage of energy for nights and cloudy days.”
Climate Investment Funds (CIF) have funded the $435 million plant via the African Development Bank and the World Bank. CIF has operated in 72 developing nations worldwide and is the largest multinational climate finance vehicle in the world, with an overall value of $8.1 billion. The stated aim of CIF is to transform countries like Morocco into world leaders in renewable energy, climate resilience and forest protection.
“Massive plunder” of the world’s fisheries is “destroying entire fishing communities”, Kofi Annan said on Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland at the launch of a new global initiative aimed at stemming illegal fishing.
Kofi Annan, chair of the Africa Progress Panel
In a video message to the first International Conference of the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI), Mr Annan, the chair of the Africa Progress Panel, welcomed the initiative and underlined the importance of “global collective action” to halt shadowy practices in ocean fishing across the globe.
The Fisheries Transparency Initiative is a high-level response to calls by the Africa Progress Panel and other influential voices for greater impetus to be given to tackle illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, which Mr. Annan says has reached “epidemic proportions” in Africa. The initiative aims to increase political will and international cooperation to improve the governance, transparency and accountability of the fisheries sector.
This activity by trawlers from all over the world operating in African waters, is according to Mr. Annan, “organised theft disguised as commerce” that “demands a strong, long-term international effort” to combat it.
Fisheries are among the most vital resources on the planet. The ocean off West Africa is one of the world’s richest fishing grounds, providing as much as a quarter of West Africans with their livelihoods.
The Africa Progress Panel calls for a multilateral fisheries regime that applies sanctions to fishing vessels that do not register and report their catches.
It also calls on governments around to world to ratify the Port State Measures Agreement, a treaty that seeks to thwart the poachers in port from unloading their ill-gotten gains.
The Panel also recommends regulatory reforms including processes to make fishing permits more transparent.
Above all, Mr Annan says, international coordination is essential: “This challenge is far greater than any single country can handle effectively on its own. It is also much more than just a problem for Africa. Global collective action is especially needed to nurture transparency and accountability. Better fisheries management could increase the global catch by 20 percent, bringing more jobs, better food and nutrition security, and more social and political stability too”.
